Inheritance

by Phyllis Bentley

  Mellor nodded, and sang very softly and precisely:

  “And night by night when all is still

  And the moon is hid behind the hill

  We forward march to do our will

  With hatchet, pike and gun!”

  “Now as loud as you can, George!” shouted Thorpe. Mellor, his eyes sparkling, responded at the top of his voice.

  “Great Enoch still shall lead the van

  Stop him who dare! Stop him who can!

  Press forward every gallant man

  With hatchet, pike and gun!”

  The men roared the chorus; the room was full of heat and noise. Joe, his pulses racing with the excitement of it all—he liked especially to hear them sing the line about the moon, for it was his own—thought how glad he was that it was not his night on duty down by the foundry, and then (characteristically) began to feel sorry for the five or six men whose turn it was. When the song was over he brought this before the meeting; it was agreed that the foundry watchers could be withdrawn, and must be warned of Saturday’s arrangements, and Thorpe, who had to go through Marthwaite on his way home, promised to seek them out then and thus save them several hours of their vigil. With this Joe was for a while content, but presently the recollection of his own wet journey to the Moorcock began to worry him, and the entrance of one or two men very much rained upon worried him still more. To sit in the Moorcock, warm and cosy and singing, while half a dozen of his friends stood unnecessarily in a steady downpour outside, was not in Joe’s line at all. His unease increased until at last he could bear it no longer; he murmured the reason for his departure in Thorpe’s ear and stood up.

  “What?” exclaimed Thorpe, amazed. “Go down to Marthwaite? What’s the sense o’ that? I’ll be down myself in a couple of hours.”

  Joe, colouring and fidgeting, murmured something about its being very wet. Thorpe had spoken loudly, and the attention of all the Luddites was drawn to the two men; several joking comments made it clear that in the general opinion Joe, though a good lad, was daft. Joe, however, though embarrassed, persisted, and was soon swinging across the moor through the warm heavy rain. He found the patrol and told them of the change in the Luddites’ plans, had a glass of ale with two of them in the Red Lion—it amused the Luddites to hobnob with the soldiers quartered there, who were unconscious of their identity—and climbed up to Scape Scar again. By this time he was tired to death with the miles and the rain, yet he could not sleep, but lay tossing and turning, seeing the fight for the frames by the dark corner of Syke Mill Lane over and over again in his weary mind. He must play his part like a man, he urged himself; but there would be no difficulty about that if he thought of Tom Thorpe’s pinched face, his bright colour now so faded and patchy, his eyes protruding, the dull skin so tightly stretched over his cheekbones that he looked like a skull, a death’s head—it was said that there hadn’t been a scrap of food in the Thorpes’ cottage for a week except what the neighbours could spare them. Joe wished with all his heart that he was a cropper too and could share the croppers’ sufferings, and then his conscience would be at rest; for now he felt ashamed of eating a good meal of porridge and having a drink down in the Red Lion. On the other hand he wished he were a master cloth-dresser, so that he could nobly drop his frames into the Ire to rust away to bits. He wished he could do something, something…. But Saturday night would come! His limbs jerked restlessly as he imagined himself wielding a blow with Enoch. At long last he fell asleep, and awoke late but not refreshed; as he hurried down through a warm heavy mist to the mill, feeling jaded and feverish, he wondered how he was going to last out the long days till Saturday.

  The soldiers guarding Syke Mill, who at this hour of the morning were usually sitting about the yard in a state of jovial undress, pipeclaying their straps, spitting all over the place (to Mr. Oldroyd’s annoyance), throwing things at the ducks on the dam, or stirring their morning stew in a cauldron, were all, Joe dully saw, on duty to-day, looking very spruce and neat. Some paced the yard; a group with an officer were perched up by the wall behind the cannon; two stood beside the mill door, and one of them made a playful jab at Joe with his bayonet as he approached. Joe, who was in no mood for jokes of any sort, and certainly not one of that sort, this morning, said wearily: “Oh, leave me be,” and made to go in. He was surprised to find that the man, who knew him well enough, seemed genuinely uncertain whether to let him in or not; but just then Will, looking cross and tired, appeared on the threshold, and briefly bade the soldier let Joe pass. He then observed:

  “You’re very late.”

  “I know,” replied Joe gloomily. “I slept too long.”

  “Well,” said Will in a tone as gloomy as his own: “They’re in, Joe.”

  “In?” said Joe dully. “In? What’s in?”

  “The frames,” said Will.

  “What?” screamed Joe in anguish. “What? The frames? In? But how? When? Mester Oldroyd said Saturday. Mester Oldroyd said Saturday,” he repeated in a wail, stepping back and fixing his eyes in horror on Will’s face. “I thought it was to be o’ Saturday!” he cried again desperately, fighting against belief.

  “That’s what you were meant to think,” said Will, a note of triumph piercing through his gloom. “Father said that on purpose, so’s all the Ire Valley would get to know and think it was to be Saturday. Meanwhile we brought the frames in early this morning. We’ve diddled the Luddites nicely,” he finished with a laugh.

  Joe, glaring into his fresh young face—he and Will were an age, but Will always seemed to him much younger, for from their childhood Joe had always been put in charge of him—felt as though he could have struck him. Yes! He would like to have struck that assured tone, that conceited laugh, off the fair healthy face which he had loved so well, so that they should be heard no more. The blood dinned in his ears, he could have thrown himself down on the ground and beaten his fists against the earth in the agony of his disappointment. What would the croppers do now? What would Tom Thorpe do? Ah, God! What a deception!

  “Will!” roared Mr. Oldroyd from within.

  “You don’t seem pleased, Joe,” observed Will grimly.

  “You don’t seem too pleased yourself,” retorted Joe, in a high thin voice.

  Will coloured, turned away, then turned back again. “I’ll have something to say about that later,” he began—“I’m coming, Father!” he shouted in exasperation as Mr. Oldroyd’s voice boomed out again. He turned on his heel and went into the mill; Joe, hardly able to stand, staggered after him. There stood the frames beside the cropping benches, with two soldiers apiece to guard them; three of the machines were still wrapped in cloth, but the fourth was naked and gleaming, Enoch Smith and his brother were kneeling beside it and tinkering—rather anxiously, Joe thought—with its works; Mr. Oldroyd was shouting directions to another man from the foundry who was busy by the wall with the driving shaft; several of the Syke Mill men stood about in the room with their hands in their pockets, trying to get out of Mr. Oldroyd’s way as he stamped about but not succeeding very well, and looking exceedingly downhearted. One or two of them who were croppers and likely to lose their work fixed on Joe a wild despairing glance which made him almost cry aloud in agony. Should he snatch down a pair of hand-shears from the walls, and rush upon the frames with the heavy implements? But what would be the use? The soldiers would seize him before he had struck one blow, and if others of the men who had Luddite sympathies joined him, it would but mean three prisoners instead of one to be marched sullenly down the valley to Annotsfield and thrown into some stinking gaol. No; the best thing to do was to tell Mellor of the catastrophe and make some plan for concerted action. Joe, his head sunk on his breast, stood with the other men and watched the fixing of the frames, stupid with misery.

  Fortunately for him nobody seemed in a very hilarious mood—except possibly the captain of the soldiers, who had felt the ridicule of his position before, and was glad to have something to guard at last. Enoch Smith, who looked hot
and dirty—the day, though dull, was very warm and still—threw off caustic sayings every minute, much irritated by Mr. Oldroyd’s constant queries as to whether the frame was ready to start now. His brother, who was a poor foolish creature in ordinary life, though clever at drawing plans and such-like, rumour said, seemed intimidated by their mutual snappishness; while Mr. Oldroyd, whose vehement temper was always at one extreme or the other, seemed suddenly to decide (and of course expressed his decision) that the whole venture was a complete failure; the frames would never work, and if they did wouldn’t crop evenly, he couldn’t imagine why he had ever thought them worth all that money, nor how he was going to pay for them; and so on and so on. To add to this, some sort of a quarrel seemed to be going on between him and Will; Mr. Oldroyd snapped instructions at his son without looking at him, and Will obeyed with a sulky face; one of the men who had reached Syke Mill earlier than Joe told him in a whisper that when he arrived they were having a regular set-to about something.

  By noon one of the frames was at last in working order, and Enoch Smith explained it to the men, and especially to Joe. There was so much hurrying to and fro, so much bother about getting the shears clamped to the frames at the right angle—a subject on which Mr. Oldroyd, Will and Joe all had ideas of their own which clashed, Joe finding it impossible not to be interested in the way cloth was handled, even when it was by the detested frames—that none of the three had anything to eat at midday, a circumstance which probably added to the irritation of the afternoon. Joe understood the working of the frames easily enough, and was presently put in charge of one. He was perplexed almost to madness when Mr. Oldroyd bade him set to work; surely he ought not to do so, surely he ought to declare that he would not handle the frame? But what use would that be, one against so many? He simply did not know what to do; it was all very well reading about rebellions in history books, he thought, but when things happened in real life they were so different, so much more confused. Slowly, reluctantly, feeling like a traitor but at the same time at the bottom of his heart taking an interest in the diabolical cleverness of the machine, he pulled on the cloth and set the frame in motion. It cropped beautifully.… By two o’clock all four machines were in working order, and the Smiths went home to have some food. Some of the Syke Mill men were not so successful with the frames as Joe, however, and in the course of the next hour one man cut a finger nearly off, while another made a horrible slit in the second breadth of a fine piece of black broadcloth, part of an order from a Mr. Butterworth, a new customer. Joe thought Mr. Oldroyd would really go mad when this occurred; he sent Will galloping up to Marthwaite to fetch Enoch, and raved at him when he arrived. Enoch, however, had now had something to eat and was provokingly calm, almost jolly; he detached a small part of the offending frame, and took it home with him, swinging it cheerfully in one hand, to be slightly altered; and as he left the mill threw out some wittily insulting remark about the connection between Mr. Oldroyd’s temper and the emptiness of his belly. Mr. Oldroyd stamped and raved, then as was his wont suddenly fell into a good temper. He gave a hearty laugh, said: “Well, he’s right,” and looking round him with a sunny face and a smile, bade all the men be off to their drinking. “Tell the lads upstairs, Will,” he went on. “And as for you here with the frames, if you’re a bit longer nor usual, it won’t matter.”

  Thus released, the men flew from the sultry room. Most of them went home for this interval in the day’s work, but Joe, who of course could not go so far as Scape Scar, usually sat about the mill, or went up to the Red Lion. But to-day he felt a desperate need to talk with some sworn Luddite, and determined to go to see Thorpe, who lived not far away—though if he had set out on his arranged errand of summoning the Luddites for Saturday night, mused Joe, disheartened, he would not be at home. Well, he would risk it; he set off briskly up Syke Mill Lane.

  He need not have worried about finding Thorpe, for where the lane joined the road—where the frames were to have been attacked on Saturday—Thorpe hailed him. His appearance was so sudden that Joe thought he must have been hiding in the Syke Wood, and wearily supposed that on such a nightmare day as this that too was possible. Joe went towards him gladly.

  “I were coming to look for thee, Tom,” he said in a tone of relief.

  “Were tha?” said Thorpe drily. He went on at once: “Mellor wants to see thee.”

  “Aye! And I want to see him,” said Joe. “This is a bad job, Tom, about the frames. Tha’s heard?” Thorpe nodded. “Who’d a thought they’d played such a trick on us?”

  “Who indeed?” said Thorpe. “Well, come along,” he added roughly, turning down the valley: “Mellor’s waiting for thee.”

  “What, now?” queried Joe in surprise, thinking of the three miles that lay between Syke Mill and the Ire Bridge.

  “Aye, now!” said Thorpe emphatically, “Unless tha’s fleyd o’ what Mester Oldroyd’ll say if tha’s back late.” There was a note of sarcasm, almost of contempt, in his voice, and Joe’s usually mild temper, strained beyond endurance by his overwhelming disappointment, the heat of the day and the tension of the cropping room, suddenly snapped

  “That’s enough from thee, Tom Thorpe,” he said irritably. “I’ve had enough to-day, without thou starting on me. If we’ve to go to the Ire Bridge, let’s start.”

  Thorpe seemed to look at him in surprise; but he said nothing, and the two men swung down the road at a good pace. It was this indeed which made Joe repent of his bad temper; himself a very graceful, swinging walker, he was always conscious of other people’s gait, and Thorpe’s little shambling bow-legged figure, on which his shabby green coat hung of late so voluminously, struck him with an effect of pathos. He wondered what Thorpe had had to eat that day, and slackened his pace by slow degrees, so that his companion would not notice it.

  “It’s warm,” he said, wriggling his shoulders—standing watching that frame had given him the fidgets, he thought.

  “Aye, warm, and heavy,” replied Thorpe. His tone was gloomy, but friendlier than before, and Joe, encouraged, said sympathetically:

  “How’s the little lad to-day, Tom?”

  “Dead,” replied Thorpe briefly.

  “What?” cried Joe.

  “Aye, he’s dead. Died this morning,” said Thorpe. “Don’t let’s say owt about it.” Joe could not repress an exclamation, and Thorpe went on drily: “Tha’ll get used to it, I reckon, wi’ Mellor living next door. He’s four, hasn’t he?”

  “Three and one coming,” corrected Joe.

  “Four,” repeated Thorpe. His tone said: “You’ll have four to watch die,” and Joe, who was fond of children and especially of Charley Mellor, felt stinging tears in his eyes. He averted his head and gazed steadily at the Ire as they walked on. The valley looked dark and dreary this afternoon; the clouds were grey and low, the river wan and sullen, the hills sombre; the very grass of the fields wore a darker green. Joe felt his grief and exasperation mount with every step he took.

  3

  Will Oldroyd too was feeling intensely exasperated. He had expected this day to be the happiest in his life, and look at it! Yes, look at it, he repeated angrily to himself. How he had enjoyed the moving of the frames! The only men in the Ire Valley who knew that his father’s plan was to move the frames that night were Mr. Oldroyd and Enoch Smith. In the strange dark hours of the early morning Will had felt his father’s hand on his shoulder; he started awake, and Mr. Oldroyd, in tones of schoolboyish glee, explained to him that it was to be now; the waggon-horses had been left in Marthwaite the night before on the pretext of shoeing—he had seen to that—and Enoch and his brother would be harnessing them that minute. Will tumbled into his clothes and saddled the mare, and off they went with a brace of pistols between them; when they reached Marthwaite everything seemed so quiet and dark that his heart sank, for he thought Enoch must have forgotten; but no, round the back of the smithy the darkness seemed to thicken, a horse stamped its foot, there was a quick challenge from a soldier. The door of
the new foundry shed opened, and Enoch Smith appeared carrying a lamp; the light showed his face to be contorted in an expression of glee like Mr. Oldroyd’s, and revealed also glossy flanks and wheel-spokes—there were undoubtedly waggons standing there. Enoch drew the Oldroyds in and whispered eagerly. The sergeant in charge of the soldiers there, to whom he had just explained the plan, not only grumbled because he had not been warned before, but declined to move an inch away from the foundry without an order from his superior officer. By an immense effort Mr. Oldroyd refrained from bursting into one of his rages, and sent Will off to look for the captain, who was supposed to be on duty at Syke Mill. Will, however, had his own views about that, and went straight to the Red Lion instead. He threw a pebble at the man’s window, and had him back at the smithy, dressed though without his horse, in ten minutes, a piece of skill and judgment on Will’s part of which he was legitimately proud. One frame already rested on the waggon, Mr. Oldroyd, in his shirt-sleeves, dripping with sweat, was helping Enoch Smith and a couple of soldiers to load the others. Will lent a hand; Enoch and his brother James took each a waggon’s reins, the soldiers (making the most abominable jingle, thought Will angrily) formed up, and the waggons turned the corner and rolled slowly off down the valley towards Syke Mill—and towards Mary, thought Will, his young blood tingling in his veins. Oh, this was glorious, glorious! Such an adventure! And Mary’s soft dark eyes, her cheeks of milk and rose, her lovely voice, at the end of it. Will shuddered with ecstasy when he thought of Mary’s voice. One officer rode ahead, another at the side, Mr. Oldroyd was between the waggons, Will, who to save time had lent his mare to the captain, walked in the rear. In his ears the waggons seemed to make a noise like thunder; it was surely impossible but that every man in the Ire Valley must be wakened by it. The distance, too, seemed miles, and Will, tensely alert, suspected Luddites in every stone. At the turning into Syke Mill Lane he really thought he saw something moving in the wood, and cocked his pistol; but it was perhaps some animal which ran to earth, for he saw it no more. And now they were actually at the mill; after some agitation and muddle between the captain and the Syke Mill detachment, who naturally took them for rioters, the door was thrown open and the frames carried in. Enoch had thoughtfully put a basket of provisions on his waggon, and they all shared a jolly meal, and drank confusion to the Luddites. So far, so good. But soon Will began to wish urgently that the Smiths and the officers would go, so that he could speak to his father about Mary, and when it began to grow light and they still showed no signs of budging, he drew Mr. Oldroyd out to the dam and, his hand on his father’s sleeve, blurted out that he supposed now it would be all right about Mary.