The Clevelands of the Peak. A Derbyshire romance

Front matter

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Chapter I

Love's Young Dream. In that pleasant district of the county of Derby wliich is watered by the sparkling Dei-went there lived and flourished about a generation ago the Clevelands of Blackstones. Their residence was one of the oldest in that part of the country, their family was so ancient as to be the envy and admiration of the mushroom aristocracy that had sprung up on the ruins of the Stuart dynasty. Sir William Cleveland, the lord of Blackstones, had half Derbyshire at his feet. The Peakrels, a brave, stubborn race, worshipped and revered him, although he was, partly on account of his early military training, partly on account of a gouty ten dency, inherited from a Cleveland who thought more of strong port than of the bodily comfort of his des cendants, testy at times to an unbearable point.

At the time this story opens the heir of Black stones had just attained his majority. His father, a widower, whose increasing infirmities caused him already to direct anxious glances to the future, was anxious that Hubert should marry his ward, Agnes Derecourt, a young lady possessed of brilliant attrac tions, but very little heart. Her accomplishments were many and varied. She was an excellent linguist, a horsewoman of more than ordinary daring, and on more than one occasion had brought down a grouse on the wing. She had fixed her attentions on Hubert, a comely young fellow, with the form of an athlete, and the mental capacity of a philosopher. Old Sir William had one day, in a fit of unusual confidence, assured her that this was the marriage of his heart, and the fair Agnes set about negotiations at once.

The Clevelands had only one relative in the world, in the person of a dark, foreign-looking man named Robert Morian, a Hallam manufacturer. Morian, who commenced his commercial career at an early age, had by dint of several bold speculations suc ceeded in gaining a moderately good position. He was not, however, accounted rich. Had she been capable of loving any man for himself alone Morian would have been that man. So thought Agnes Derecourt on the few occa sions on which Morian called at Blackstones. But the ward of Sir William Cleveland was too shrewd and calculating to allow her preference to be noted in the society of others. There were occasions when she was embarrassed in his company, when an avowal of passionate love was almost wrung from her — when she was tempted to throw deceit to the winds and to declare her attach ment to the manufacturer.

A glance at the fair demesne of Blackstones, its emerald turf brightening in the rays of the sun, the Derwent flashing like a broad ribbon of silver, and the desolate mountainous moors rising and shutting out the horizon, saved the girl from making an honest declaration of her passion on one of the most critical of the occasions when Morian was pressing his suit. That his chances of success were most excellent he had not the least doubt. Were his rival's prospects darker, Robert Morian would have staked his life on his triumph. As it was, he cursed the fate that had placed Hubert Cleveland so inopportunely in his path. And Hubert ! Had Sir William Cleveland left his son free to form his own alliances, or had Agnes Derecourt taken less pains to show a bastard preference for him which was as much unlike love as the moonbeam is to the sunshaft at noonday, Hubert might have decided to humour the whim of his father.

That matters were not going so pleasantly as the lord of Blackstones fondly imagined will be seen from a little love rohiance that took place one day on the bank of the river a couple of miles down the stream. Derbyshire did not hold a sweeter or more lovable being than Dorothy Hasland, the daughter of the solicitor to the Clevelands. With her sunny hair held in restraint by a large straw bonnet, her bright, pleasing countenance gleaming out at the beholder, and a comely figure several removes from petite, Miss Hasland was that masterpiece of Nature, a per fect country-bred maid. Her eyes, large, lustrous, and blue, flashed at times like forget-me-nots from the border of a hill tarn. There was no art in their use, for Dorothy's pure soul was miles above flirta tion of a serious kind. Hers was not the innocence born of ignorance, but that purity from choice which makes good English women prized the whole world over.

She was not alone. Standing by her side, fishing-rod in hand, was Hubert Cleveland. Below, a speckled trout now and again lazily rose and then as indolently retreated under one or another of the big boulders that were scattered along the river bed. " Hubert, will you let me try?" the young girl was pleading. "You are so very unsuccessful." " This is the way, Dorothy," Jie answered, as he smiled ready assent. " Let the fly skim the surface of the stream as lightly as you can, and you cannot help hooking a bonny fish." " But you have not succeeded, Hubert," she res ponded, in a bantering tone. " Were I a trout, Dorothy, and I saw your eyes above me, I could not resist springing to shore." The heir of Blackstones gazed at the young lady by his side as though he meant what he said. " And I suppose as you are not a speckled and rather handsome fresh-water fish, such a silly mark of devotion is out of the question."

This with a heightened colour, a flush that mantled to her forehead, and a half-determination to drop the rod and flee away far from hearing dis tance of the avowal that she guessed was on the point of being made. " Dorothy, why do you treat me so lightly when ever I talk seriously?" asked the young fellow, half petulantly. " It is not a light matter for the heir to a large estate like Blackstones to talk love to the daughter of his father's solicitor," confidently resumed the girl. " Do you not know, sir, that you would bring inevitable ruin upon yourself by anything approaching a mesalliance 1" " Ruin, but not disgrace. And then again," he proceeded, hotly, "where is the mesalliance? The Haslands of South Derbyshire are as old and honourable a race as the Clevelands of the west." Dorothy smiled, as she lightly cast the fly, but turned pale as a large trout triumphantly seized the tan-dry imitation and buried the hook in his gills.

" Oh, poor thing, how it struggles," she said, with a sob in her voice, dropping the rod as she spoke. Hubert came to her assistance speedily, and the first trout of the afternoon was deposited snugly in the basket. " Do not let us kill any more fish," he artfully interrupted, as the fair Dorothy was about to take up her post of observation. " It is a cruel sport." He did not mention that trout fishing was a sport which he eminently favoured, and that since he first declared his love to his fair companion he had haunted the bank of the Derwent, which was their favoured trysting-place. Dorothy, with the shrewdness of her sex, was thoroughly aware of the strong hold she had, without effort on her part, obtained on the affections of the young man, and did not answer. " Will you deign to sit by my side?" asked Hubert, after an embarrassing pause, pointing to the bole of a tree as he spoke.

The two sat and conversed together on an old, old topic, as they had done many times before during the beautiful summer just about to close. The seat was large enough for one, but scarcely sufficient for two. Perhaps this was the reason why the young man's hand clasped his companion's shoulder firmly, but yet lovingly. There was love in the very atmosphere. Tw-o ring-doves cooed to each other amid the leafy branches of the oak tree beneath which the young maid was shyly listening to the tale which will be repeated by man to maid while this grey old world lasts. There was no resisting Hubert's passionate plead ing. Heaven, earth melted away from her ken as the heir of the ancient house of Cleveland claimed and obtained the kiss that sealed their loving com pact to be true to each other in weal or woe.

A twig, rudely snapped within a short distance of the lovers, recalled them to the difficulties and dis advantages under wliich all human beings labour, even those who are desperately in love. Looking up in alarm, the lovers saw the erect form of the lord of Blackstones. The old man's lips were compressed, his eyes flashed fire, but he spoke not a word. Turning on his heel with a military swing, he marched off, erect and dignified, in the direction of the hall.

Chapter II

Disinherited. Sir William Cleveland, the baronet of Blackstones, had war, bitter war, in his heart as he marched towards his lordly residence, whose gables could be seen distinctly from the bank of the Derwent. Not once did he glance behind him, but stalked majesti cally onward, as stiff with pride as the owner of a kingdom. At the door he was met by Agnes Derecourt, his ward. She was a quick-witted woman, and noticed at a glance that something had taken place that was gall and wormwood to her protector. " Whatever can be the matter," asked the girl. " Has Hubert run away and joined the Hussars V " The Hussars !" sneered Sir William. " Judging from his behaviour just now he appears to be bent upon other conquests than those of war. The Amazon — the minx," he resumed, storming at the empty air with as much vehemence as in his army days he had shouted the hearts of his raw recruits into their boots.

" You are speaking in riddles, sir. Pray tell me what has happened?" inquired Agnes, with eagerness in every word. She was becoming painfully interested. " The little love romance I had pictured between you and my son is destroyed. That's all !" said the old man abruptly. " The fellow has actually had the audacity to choose a wife for himself." Agnes looked and felt miserable. The unexpected had happened, and she was thoroughly unprepared for a counter-move, a most unusual circumstance. " To think," he grumbled, " that after what I have done for the lad he should fall in love with and create a scene over a doll-faced girl, who is not a patch on the lady I had chosen for him." Agnes wiped her eyes, controlled her voice as well as she could, and asked : " Who is this — this girl ?" " Well, in the first place she is a member of an old family — the Haslands of South Derbyshire.

In the next she is the daughter of my solicitor, a poor, purse proud, and avaricious man, whom I have befriended more out of charity than from any other feeling." " It is Dorothy Hasland, the handsome blonde with whom half the gentlemen in the High Peak are madly in love?" Artlessly and guilelessly though Miss Derecourt meant to ask the question, there was a false ring about her words, which was discerned by the angry baronet, for he said : "I do not blame the girl so much as I do Hubert. From what I heard her say just now, she was averse to any engagement being made without my know ledge. He alone deserves censure, and I will find a means to punish him." " Surely you will not speak to him in my presence of what has occurred?" said the girl. " No," answered Sir William Cleveland, more calmly.

" But my mind is made up. He shall choose between his lady-love and Blackstones, be tween an easy existence and black ruin." The fair woman at his side was thinking deeply. Robert Morian was next-of-kin to Sir William Cleve land. The estates were not entailed, and the title — ■ that might go, it had no money value. Her heart leapt in the bosom as she recognised that there might commence, from this her deep humiliation, a new and brighter existence for her. Her reverie was disturbed by the entrance of Hubert, who darted an uneasy glance at the baronet as the heavy door swung open. Miss Derecourt sprang lightly to her feet, and made her way into the large hall. The interview, she knew, concerned her deeply, so she ended her flight at the door, and listened eagerly to what was transpiring within.

There could be no doubt as to the serious nature of the quarrel between the baronet and his son. Each spoke with bitterness. Taunts were followed by unfilial sentences. The life's devotion of a son, the tenderness of a loving father that had lived twenty one years, bade fair to be snapped in that short inter view. " I tell you that unless you cast off the designing girl who has ensnared you, not a rood of the Black stones estate shall descend to you. By my soul. I swear it." These words came clearly and distinctly to the ears of Agnes Derecourt, who stood by the door, every nerve and fibre quivering with excitement. " And I plainly repeat that I would rather lose title, fame, estates, than basely desert the woman to whom I have given my honourable love." "Is not my honour involved?" asked Sir William Cleveland, hotly.

" Can I see my only son inveigled into a marriage without pain? Am I not concerned in the transaction?" " Not in the least," replied Hubert, nonchalantly. " I claim the right of selection — that right which the basest quadruped exercises when it chooses its con sort. I am a human being, whose reason outweighs the instinct of the 'lower animal, and the right is, therefore, doubly mine." The young fellow spoke with feeling. There was determination in every word, resolve in the very deliberation with which he spoke. " You are little more than a silly boy," retorted the older man. " The success of your little essay in gallantryhas turned your brain." "That may be, sir," responded Hubert. " At least I have proved at Cambridge that I have a brain to be turned." The baronet, who> loved smartness in repartee, was almost tempted to abandon the quarrel.

He loved his son dearly, and nothing but his design to see him w-edded to his ward would have tempted him thus far. His good intention came to grief, however, almost at its inception. " Miss Agnes Derecourt is worth a dozen of such women as Dorothy Hasland," he said. " Pray, father, do not introduce the name of a third party into a transaction that concerns Miss Hasland and myself alone." The young man's coolness was exasperating. " But I will," roared the baronet. " My desire is to see you married to my ward." Howpainfully intent w-as the listener at the door! Her breath was coming in gasps. " The ignominy of it all," she angrily said, and her black eyes flashed forth a fire that boded ill for the handsome Hubert. " I care not for your ward," said the young man. " She is beautiful and accomplished, but my heart could not beat strict time with hers were we associated ten thousand times more closely.

My affections are fixed, father. I love Dorothy Hasland. I regard Miss Agnes Derecourt only as a sister." The dark eyes behind the door again darted forth an angry jealous fire. The girl cared not for Hubert Cleveland, but she was inordinately fond of conquest, and detested the man who was unconquerable by her charms. " How I hate him !" she muttered, clenching her fists until her finger-nails tortured the tender flesh. " The self-satisfied dolt," she proceeded, " but for Blackstones I would not deign to bestow a glance upon him." " If your affections are detennined, then I have no more to say," argued the baronet. " My decision is irrevocable. You have only to choose now between your Dorothy Hasland, the poor daughter of a country solicitor, and a life of luxurious ease — in other words between poverty and affluence.

I have lived for years in the hope that you would marry Miss Dere court. Gad ! I will not be baulked. She shall be mistress of Blackstones, boy, if I marry her my self." Could the two men have glanced through the inch of solid oak that separated them from the beautiful girl they would have seen a face as pale as that of a corpse lighted up by eyes that blazed with a look of revenge. This expression was as momentary as a lightning flash. It gave way to a bright glance of hope and resolve, as if the words of Sir William Cleveland had set the girl's thoughts wandering on a new and attractive course. A ray of light came with the quick, manly answer from Hubert : " " Then, sir, I accept poverty and happiness, and throw all my ambition to the winds." " Ingrate, you have disinherited yourself," shouted Sir William.

" I am sorry — deeply sorry — but I cannot alter my decision," was the sad reply, as Hubert walked to the door. Here the thought that he would no more see the home of his happy childhood tore at his heart. With a great sob at his throat, he turned and held out his hand. He could not have uttered the farewell he held in his mind had his future depended upon the arti culation of the words. But there was no necessity. Sir William Cleveland looked him squarely in the eyes, and then deliberately wheeled round and turned his back upon him. Half-an-hour afterwards Hubert took a last glance at Blackstones Hall as he entered a tangled mass of woodland that fringed the park of the estate. That night two persons at the hall slept the troubled sleep of the unjust and the schemer. Agnes Derecourt's dreams were foul and troubled. Like a knell came to her words, shouted from demonia cal lips : " She shall be mistress of Blackstones, boy, even if I marry her myself."

Chapter III

The Attack on the Postmaster. The March sun, flushed as though drunken with wine, had six hours ago sunk sullenly behind a bed of angry billowy clouds that had been forced over the rim of the horizon by a wild tempestuous westerly gale. Midnight had arrived, not the etherealised hour of the poet, made up of soft, silvery moonlight and star sheen, but a time of dead, dull, groping blindness — an hour when bold men stopped short in their tracks and communed with their own hearts as to the mean ing of the unwonted obscurity in which town and country, fertile field and desolate moorland, were alike enshrouded. Now and again the wind dropped as if stricken with dismay at the terrible Egyptian darkness. Then it howled and shrieked in lamentation, as though it mourned for a lost soul. At rare intervals silence reigned supreme — a silence broken rudely by the cry of a stray curlew, the noise made by the wing-beatings of a belated night-bird as it bent its flight towards the land of morass and desolation to the westward, or when a grouse chal lenged an intrusive weasel with hoarse reiterated cry "Go back!"

Black as was the night, unfavourable as were the elements, there was mischief abroad in the fair Derbyshire village of Dore. Dark forms flitted about the tall hedgerows, heavy hob-nailed boots crunched the wet limestone with which the roads had been recently mended, and oaths were muttered freely by reckless crime-stained men. What spirit of evil had called forth this unholy crew, and on what desperate mission had they set out? High on the brown heather-clad hills that shut out fertile from desolate Derbyshire, the little twink ling lights in the cottages marked the preparations for the Whitsuntide feast. Like sentinel stars they shone, pointing the wayfarer to abodes of comfort. Whew ! How the storm-wind roared around the village — the scene of the truce between the sturdy men of Wessex and their foes of Northumbria which came with the death of the Heptarchy.

A lull. Was it fancy, or had a hailstorm burst upon a devoted cottage, the residence of the village post master? A rattling upon the slated roof like a fusillade from Heaven's artillery could be heard plainly. From the roadway opposite, a number of ill-looking men were hurling stones upon the house in which resided Elisha Parker, an honest saw-grinder, who had carried on his trade in Hallam for a generation. The noise of the unchaining of the door of the cottage was followed by sounds that told the des peradoes that a dog had been let loose. The quad ruped, barking furiously, led its master to the centre of the road, immediately opposite a small plantation, whither some of the marauders had retreated. "Cowards!" roared the courageous cottager. His challenge w-as responded to by a blinding flash, follow-ed by a sharp report.

Immediately from the opposite direction there came a similar sound, and the postmaster, for the man who was attacked carried on this business in addition to his trade, was sorely wounded in the arm. Most men would have declined to venture further after such a reception, but the postmaster knew no fear. Advancing to the other side of the road he raised the gun which he carried, with the intention of shooting another man wliose head appeared over a low wall. The miscreant was only just in time. He swung round the heavy butt of his gun, which caught the uninjured arm of the postmaster and felled him to the ground, where he lay motionless, his gun falling and discharging its leaden contents into his shoulder. Then the murderous crew, surfeited with horrors, dashed away along the road in the direction of Hallam, leaving their victim bleeding on the wet pathway.

A neighbour, alarmed by the noise of the shots, made his appearance, and carried the wounded man into his house, where it was found that although his hurt was not mortal he would lose the use of his good right arm. The sole offence this man had committed was that of working for a firm that employed two non-unionist workmen and refusing to obey the dictates of the Saw Grinders' Union. Might was right in 1854, and bold was the man who dared to act as did the stalwart postmaster of Dore. Such tragedies as this were common under the old regime. Murder was connived at, winked at, and paid for as men now pay the butcher for the killing of an ox or a sheep. Out rage was rife, and few dared to raise a finger to des troy the wrong or establish the right. * * * # * Four miles to the eastward, while these events were transpiring at Dore, a hundred thousand men, women, and children were lying asleep, forgetful of the past, and for a few brief hours careless as to the present and the future.

The innocent and the guilty, the bold and the timid, the pure and the lascivious, assumed the same horizontal position, nodded with the same weariness, and, save where bodily or men tal anguish intervened, were alike benefited by the respite from toil. In the great manufactories that even then had sprung up in Hallam, the giant machinery slumbered in sympathy with its puny masters. Only in a few instances were heard the whir of the revolving w-heel, the snorting and chortling of steam, the metallic clash and clang of bar or sheet iron, or the tiny tinklings of hammer upon anvil. Here and there a bright glow illuminated a passing cloud, fringing its billowy, restless edges with an almost heavenly glare. Only for a moment, for the storm king vindictively puffed the floating vapour into outer blackness, as though aggrieved at the unwarrantable intrusion of the light.

Hallam was then, as now, famed for her smoke. Her incense offered to the grimy god of Manufacture polluted the atmosphere, filling the valleys with soot and blurring one of the fairest landscapes of Merrie England. Her streets and by-ways, neglected through many decades, were forty years back a reproach to the leaders of the municipality. From the western heights of the town to the unpicturesque riverside plains, the highway, after a heavy down pour of rain, was one long, sinuous and shallow river of mud, across which the wayfarers disconsolately plashed their way to the banks formed by the red brick dwellings of the people. There were compensatory advantages that were lost sight of by visitors of the short-sighted variety. Her ebon skies and waters of ink were only tiny smudges in a wide, beautiful expanse of country which rises in revolt against the desecrating hand of the manufacturer between the cities of Manchester and Hallam, and will hurl him back through the ages.

From every street of any note, then, as now, glimpses of a land tinkling with myriads of heather. bells, or painted emerald in Nature's own inimitable studio, could be discerned, calling the grime-stricken, the dust-laden, and the ground-trodden from the Wilderness of Soot to the enticing Land of Goshen beyond. There was, however, an aw-ful contrast between the lot of the hillmen in Derbyshire and the existence of the cutler, the grinder, and their fellows in the city of steel. Little wonder that, while all was quiet and reposeful a few miles distant, in Hallam the hand of the law-breaker was heavy and hard. * * The clocks were just chiming the hour of two when from a narrow alley in one of the purlieus of the city two men emerged, like inquisitive rats from their holes. The first, who was respectably dressed, was of a superior type to his companion.

He was broad, well-knit, and had an appearance of great mental and physical power. With shoulders well set back, he was often mistaken for a farmer of the conven tional stamp. His companion had a ferret-like expression of ferocity. There was a look of cunning in his eyes. which were uncomfortably close together, that pre vented good judges of character, if they were honest, from claiming acquaintance with the owner. In the important matters of education, knowledge of the world, tact, and capability the first was eminently superior to the other. A stranger would have observed this at the first glance. " How strange that I should have stumbled upon you, Mr. Broadbrim," said the workman. " At this hour, too, w-hen most decent people are asleep." " I'm restless, Brooks, that's all," remarked his companion.

" I can't sleep the sleep of the just to-night." " It's the same wi' me," repeated Brooks. " But you'd better be within doors, I'm thinkin', lookin' after the affairs o' t' Union." " I'm ever thinking of the Union, Ben," said Broad brim ; " its hand is heavy upon me day and night. I live for its welfare, and I w-ould martyr myself with pleasure could I see it take its right place among the organisations of the country." Broadbrim, the secretary of the Hallam Saw- Grinders' Union, was a man of unusual ability. His arrival at the head of its affairs had been signalised by outbursts of activity which had not always been confined within the bounds of the law. The finger of suspicion had been pointed at him again and again, but to no' purpose, for the man kept on the path he had marked out for himself, swerving neither to the right nor the left, caring naught for the warnings and admonitions of friends, the veiled or open hostility of foes, or the sneers and covert threats of those who were unconnected with his Union.