Half a Life-time Ago

made change for herself, but she did not care to do it. It was, indeed, more than “not caring,” which merely implies a certain degree of vis inertiae to be subdued before an object can b

not in all the country round. Yorkshire itself might have attempted to jockey her, and would have failed. Her corn was sound and clean; her potatoes well preserved to the latest spring. People began to talk of the hoards of money Susan Dixon must have laid up somewhere; and one young ne’er-do-weel of a farmer’s son undertook to make love to the woman of forty, who looked fifty-five, if a day. He made up to her by opening a gate on the road-path home, as she was riding on a bare-backed horse, her purchase not an hour ago. She was off before him, refusing his civility; but the remounting was not so easy, and rather than

woman old enough to be thy mother. If thou com’st a step nearer the house, there’s a good horse-

s, never looking round to see wheth

e on a winter’s evening, trying to recall the scenes of her youth; trying to bring up living pictures of the faces she had then known — Michael’s most especially. She thought it was possible, so long had been the lap

ill at the same time; then one died, while the others recovered, but were poor sickly things. No one dared to give Susan any direct intelligence of her former lover; many avoided all mention of his name in her presenc

ed the cattle and gone home hours before. There were crickets chirping all round the warm hearth-stones; there was the clock ticking with the peculiar beat Susan had known from her

d her cry was seized on by the tyrannous wind, and borne farther away in the opposite direction to that from which the call of agony had proceeded. Again she listened; no sound: then again it rang through space; and this time she was sure it was human. She turned into the house, and heaped turf and wood on the fire, which, careless of her own sensations, she had allowed to fade and almost die out. She put a new candle in her lantern; she changed her shawl for a maud, and leaving the door on latch, she sallied out. Just at the moment when her ear first encountered the weird noises of the storm, on issuing forth into the open air, she thought she heard the words, “O God! O help!” They were a guide to her, if words they were, for they came straight from a rock not a quarter of a mile from Yew Nook, but only to be reached, on account of its precipitous character, by a round-about path. Thither she steered, defying wind and snow; guided by here a thorn-tree, there an old, doddered oak, which had not quite lest their identity under the whelming mask of snow. Now and then she stopped to listen; but never a word or sound heard she, till right from where the copse-wood grew thick and tangled at the base of the rock, round which she was winding, she heard a moan. Into the brake — all snow in appearance — almost a plain of snow looked on from the little eminence where she stood — she plunged, breaking down the bush, stumbling, bruising herself, fighting her way; her lantern held between her teeth, and she herself using head as well as hands to butt away a passage, at whatever cost of bodily injury. As she climbed or staggered, owing to the unevenness of the snow-covered ground, where the briars and weeds of years were tangled and matted together, her foot felt something strangely soft and yielding. She lowered her lantern; ther

e slight convulsive motion. But the dim, staring eyes struck chill to her heart. At last she ceased her delicate, busy cares: but she still held the head softly, as if caressing it. She thought over all the possibilities and chances in the mingled yarn of their lives that might, by so slight a turn, have ended far otherwise. If her mother’s cold had been early tended, so that the responsibility as to her brother’s weal or woe had not fallen upon her; if the fever had not taken such rough, cruel hold on Will; nay, if Mrs. Gale, that hard, worldly sister, had not accompanied him on his last visit to Yew Nook — his very last befo

through the low kitchen-window. They knocked, and hearing a moaning answer, they entered,

d, and fell down the Raven’s Crag.

re, with some sore internal bruise sapping away his minuted life. They could not have believed the su

side, and the road was clear and bare, she rode, and rode fast; where the soft, deceitful heaps were massed up, she dismounte

r suffered from any long-enduring feeling. If anything, its expression was that of plaintive sorrow; but the soft, light hair had scarcely a tinge of gray; the wood-rose tint of complexion yet remained, if not so brilliant as in youth; the straight nose, the small mouth were untouched by time. Susan felt the contrast even at that moment. She knew that her ow

el Hurst?” aske

ght, but he was off, seeing after a public-house to be let at U

ry, and half-affirming, half-questioning, by way of letting in a ray

to help me tend the beasts. Things have not gone well with us, and we don’t keep a servant now. But you’re trembling all

ite, and got some clap-bread, which she mashed up in a pailful of lukewarm water. Every moment was a respite, and yet every moment made her dread the more the task that lay before her. It would be longer than she thought at first

ly bear all these little attentions: they choked her, and yet she was so wet, so weak with fatigue and excitement, that she could neither resist by voice

him speaking of me? I’

and avoided meet

k speak of you. He ne

balm not felt or heeded at the time it was applie

ermined not to stop or quaver in the oper

came he there?”— half jealously. “Did he take shelter from th

elter. Would t

Her cries thrilled through the house; the children’s piping wailings and passionate cries on “Daddy! Daddy!” p

he said,— not exactly questioni

ved him

at lie dead in Grasmere churchyard. I wish you’d go, Susan Dixon, and let

d have laid down my own to save his. My life has been so v

a dog out to do it harm; but the night is clear, and Tommy shall guide you to the Red Cow. But, oh, I want to be alone! If you’ll come back tomorrow, I’ll

heavily an

d, she nursed Susan like a sister. She did not know what her guest’s worldly position might be; and she might never be repaid. But she sold many a little trifle to purchase such small comforts as Susan needed. Susan, lying still and motionless, learnt much. It was not a severe stroke; it might be the forerunner of others yet t

tter days of Susan Dixon’s lif

The End<