Healey: a tale

Preface

. The work, of which the present volume is a re issue, was first published in 1875, under the title of ' Healey : a Romance.' Though I am fully aware of its many defects, and of certain radical deficiencies of construction which no revision can alter or improve away, yet I venture to think that it presents a picture of certain phases of Lan cashire life, operative and other, painted at a time when I lived amidst them and knew them inti mately, which picture is rendered with a certain fidelity that may make it interesting to those who, like myself, belong to this race, and love it, as being part and parcel of it, and knowing its virtues as well as its defects. Such will recognise the kind of men and women they have known, and

PREFACE.

. perhaps know now, when they encounter them again in these pages, and will pardon the imper fect handling of materials and situations, the mean ings and bearings of which, when this tale was written, I could better feel than express. To those who know neither the land nor the people of which I write, I would say : If you are interested, read on — if not, lay the blame of your disappointment on the writer rather than on the puppets which she has not known how to work smoothly enough for your gratification. Jessie Fothergill. Darlington, September 15, 1883. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE Prologue ------ i I. MR. CRIER'S PETITION 9 II. BROTHER AND SISTER - - - - 21 III. LOUIS AND KATHARINE - - - 27 IV. AT STANLAW - - - - 38 V. MR. CRIER'S SUCCESSOR - - - 56 VI. THE HOLDENS - - - - 63 VII. FIRST IMPRESSIONS- - - - 71 VIII.

THE OUTCAST - - - - 8 1 IX. THE HATRED IN ACTION - - - - 95 X. 'WILL YOU BE MY FRIEND?" - - - 114 XI. MRS. KAY'S DINNER-PARTY - - - 1 29 XII. THE STRIKE- ----- 134 XIII. LOUIS SINGS- - - - - - 144 XIV. THE DEPARTURE - - - - - 1 54 XV. REFLECTIONS - - - - - 1 65 XVI. THE SHADY SIDE OF THE FRIENDSHIP - - 1 73 XVII. BY ACCIDENT - - - - - 1 82 XVIII. A FAULT CONFESSED - - - - 191 XIX. AT PENFYNLAS - - - - - 194 XX. 'MY HEART IS SAIR ' - - - - 198 XXI. THE LETTER - - - - - 205 XXII. LOUIS'S CONQUEST - - - - - 215 XXIII. LOUIS FEELS THAT ' IT ' MUST BE STOPPED - VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XXIV. AN EVENING WALK - 230 XXV. THE RETURN ----- 238 XXVI. BUSINESS AND SENTIMENT - - - 247 XXVII. THE LIKENESSES- - - - - 26 1 XXVIII. FARING ILL ----- 268 XXIX. HOW THE STORM BURST - - - 286 XXX. MOTHER AND CHILD - - - - 305 XXXI.

MADNESS - - - - - - 3 1 2 XXXII. THE SEPARATION - - - - 32 1 XXXIII. AFTERWARDS ----- 334 XXXIV. LETTERS ------ 347 XXXV. A GLEAM OF LIGHT - 358 XXXVI. WITH THE DYING YEAR- ... 368 XXXVII. THE RECONCILIATION - - - . 373 XXXVIII. FAREWELL ----- 380 XXXIX. WILFRED ASKS FOR ADVICE - - - 3S8 XL. BENTFOOT CHURCHYARD - - - 398 XLI. RIVAL COUNSEL ----- 406 XLII. DOUBTS AND FEARS - - - - 4,4 XLIII. WILFRED PAYS HIS ACCOUNT - - - 430 XLIV. THE LAST DISPUTE - - - . ai,i XLV. GOOD-BYE - 44g XLVI. BY THE TEES - .ry XLVII. EARNSHAW'S RETURN - 4g, XLVIII. TEES-SIDE AGAIN - 470 XLIX. HAND IN HAND - - - - - I HEALEY : A TALE.

Prologue

. ' Some people live who know misery only by com parison with their own happiness ; so entirely have they lived in light, that they cannot compre hend shade, pure and simple. They have never found their path suddenly swerve aside from the pleasant south, to go on under bleak, grey, easterly rocks, or along a sunless northern shore. They have walked in warmth and light all their lives ; and if, here and there, few and far between, transient clouds have thinly veiled their sun, they have no doubt made much ado — have called out loudly that they were in great and unheard-of trouble, and their companions along their radiant, flower-set path have no doubt agreed with them, pitied them, fostered their conviction that they were martyrs. Why not? They knew no better.' A long pause followed these reflections, and the thinker's lips curled with bitterness as well as with amusement — a somewhat needless thing, since their expression, at its best, was never too sweet. ' But there are others — those at the opposite end of the scale ; they conceive no more truly of happiness than the very happy conceive of misery.

They know — at least they have heard that there is a thing called happiness, which must be felt, they suppose, by people whom they have seen smiling, and walking with light, untired steps, and speaking in clear, un subdued voices, which have vibrations of delight coming from causes which they do not understand, and have never felt. Sometimes they may pass years, and be no happier ; their sorrow is positive and perpetual ; their joy, if ever they have any, is negative ; it is just a slight lifting of the cloud above them — so many pounds off the load that oppresses them. Sunshine, warm, rich, full, they know not : if it came, would they understand it ? A long enough apprenticeship to sadness may make people incap able of being glad — may destroy their faculties for joy. ' What was it I once read about an old man who

PROLOGUE.

. 3 had been long, long years in a French prison ? He would have died there, but there was a revolution, when the prison was thrown open, and his sons came to him, burst open the doors of his cell, and called upon him to come out and be free once more. He sat and looked at them vacantly. He did not know who they were ; for him the meaning of " freedom," " life," " light," had fled for ever ; his senses were dead ; he was a blank, hopeless idiot. What a fate ! But one may be better off than that. There are people who may be quiet and sober to the end of their lives, and yet they may know happiness ; though it comes slowly, and they receive it distrust fully. It is so very hard to believe in faith and honour, and to rest one's self upon them, when one has suffered cruelly and long from falsehood and unfaith.

One is slow about trusting to love that asks nothing but love in return — to what seems like an angel's gentleness, and the most exquisite tenderness and forbearance — slow, because for years one's love has been used for the gain of another, and one's devotion has been made into a convenient tool to shape one's own sorrow. It is so strange to find one's weaknesses and small faults given way to and indulged, when one is accustomed to have them mocked at and treated unmercifully ; so strange that at first one is timid, and thinks that something lurks 1—2 behind (as usual) made on purpose to give one pain. Is it love for me, delight in pleasing me, that has wrought this change in my life ? If it be, let me give my whole mind and soul to the holding it fast ; but if it be not, oh, may I never know the truth !' Such was the sum of the reflections of a certain woman, arrived at one broiling December afternoon at the Antipodes ; not deliberately put into such words, not logically thought out and accepted ; but present, all-pervading, and all-influencing ; acknow ledged with a mingled sense of the bitter past and the half-mistrusted present sweetness, which was more vivid and convincing than any reasoning, how ever clear, could produce.

The busy brain of the thinker had seen (while the bodily eyes were closed) something of this kind. A land full of busy, swarming life — full of workers, full of strugglers. There are in that land no stupendous mountains, no vast rolling prairies, no endless solitude of bush. The mountains are rugged and homely ; the fields are small, neat, and enclosed ; the forests are the reverse of boundless. It is all brown, sober, homely ; and the plumage of the birds, the tints of the flowers, are of a kind to match the hues of wood, hill, and plain. There are no great convulsions of nature in that land ; steady rain and moderate sunshine are the main features of its climate. Its farms

PROLOGUE.

. 5 and its homesteads are all near together ; there one does not go wandering the day through without meeting another fellow-man, woman, or child. And if even its rural and country districts seem populous, how much more so its towns ! There, indeed, humanity is crowded and closely packed — so closely, that sometimes human specimens get stifled in the crush, and die without succeeding in making their voices heard. There men jostle each other in the crowded streets, and women and the weaker sort go to the wall with a regularity and an absence of sur prise or complaint which has something terrible to a thinking or sensitive mind in its very monotony. From Land's End to Berwick-upon-Tweed the busy land swarms, prospers, and lives on from day to day. The cries of pain, the struggles of resist ance, the roar of competition, are all loud, blatant, perpetual ; they drown the songs of happiness and the laughter of delight.

But they, in their turn, are extinguished by the buzz of manufactories, the whirr of machinery, the myriad stentor voices of trade, commerce, and money-making. So far the vision has been general ; now it grows particular. The roar and hum of the towns becomes the homely bustle of a town ; the great united voice dies away, and gets broken up into a dozen or so of voices, more or less familiar. From out the great aggregate mass of places slowly evolves itself a townvillage, in England's blackest, busiest, most crowded northern county — Lancashire. The place is ugly ; it is dirty; it has tall chimneys, which vomit forth smoke that clothes the land in a garment of smuts ; it has mills and factories swarming with dingy-looking ' hands,' whose garments, as they pass by, distribute odours of oil, fustian, and cotton-fluff.

It has a long, black canal, the banks of which are fringed thickly with factories, stone-yards, and foundries. There are constantly moving along dirty-looking canal-boats, whose slow career is guided by creatures, sometimes looking little more than semihuman, belonging to the human section called bargemen — violent of language, and accustomed to kick and punch both horses and wives, and to swear at both with absolute impartiality. Generally keen winds blow, and often smutty rain comes sweeping athwart the smoke from dawn till dark. But the canal at last finds its sluggish way into green fields. The cattle come to its edge and drink from it ; sedges and rushes and grey-green bents droop down to its side ; and near by are hedges, perhaps, which late in the summer have been known guilty of — not bursting, for vegetation here never bursts — but of slowly, tardily, and reluctantly unfolding into a semblance of the hawthorn bloom.

PROLOGUE.

. 7 Such trees as there are, are stunted and scrubby. They grow upon the sides of hills, and run up small gorges, down which little noisy waterfalls come brawling and tumbling. The hills are long, bleak moors, naked and gaunt for three-fourths of the year, and for the other dressed in a bright garment of purple heather, yellow bracken, and scarlet bil berry leaves. This is not a lovable land. Its very aspect sug gests hardness, chills, bleak winds, howling and whistling over those desolate moors. Its stone walls carry with them ideas of poverty and coldness ; its sparse crops of oats here and there ; its dingy looking sheep cropping a scanty sustenance from the short, sweet mountain-grass — all these mark it as a country to which Nature has been niggard in her gifts, whether of beauty or of wealth. ' Golden summer suns,' thinks the dreamer, ' and pale moontides may come and go ; nay, they will come and go ; they will shine upon all those things that I know so well — upon what was for me the dreariness and the sweetness of that place ; but I shall never see it any more, not if I live to be a hundred.

I have looked upon it for the last time.' With this comes the vivid idea of well-known persons, once seen and spoken with every day. Perhaps some of them may be even now pacing the familiar street, or they may be pausing, their eyes resting upon those never-forgotten hill outlines. It is too much ; the pain is too keen. The thinker moves with restless trouble, clasping trembling hands, and murmurs : ' Oh, it is madness to dwell upon all that ! I never will again.' It is a firmly meant resolve, kept as faithfully as most others of its kind — that is, not at all.

Chapter I. Mr

CRIER'S PETITION. ' If you please, ma'am, Mr. Crier's respects, and would you favour him with a few words ?' ' Crier ? Yes ; you can bring him in here.' The servant retired, and Katharine Healey was left to await her return with Mr. Crier. It is said that there are women who are handsome in repose, others who are handsome when animated or excited. Peace be with them ! Katharine Healey belonged to neither order ; one glance was sufficient to assure anyone that she was handsome at no time and in no mood. She never, to the end of her life, had many admirers, and even those she had never praised her beauty. At that moment not even the grace of an amiable expression was present to redeem her plainness of feature. Upon her face was stamped, in characters which he might read who ran, the look of an unhappy woman.

From whatever cause the HEALEY : A TALE. 10 unhappiness might arise, it was there, and it was palpable. It was visible alike in the down-drawn, rather bitter-looking mouth, in the somewhat con tracted eyebrows, and in the two slight but visible lines on her forehead, between the eyes. Those were the outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual cause — unhappiness, discontent. In a very short time Mr. Crier made his appearance, with a profound, awkward bow, and an obse quious smile ; and Katharine felt much as a nervous person feels in proximity to some rat or darting lizard. He remained standing until the lady, after her first cold ' Good-afternoon,' said with, if possible, increased frigidity : ' Be seated, Crier. What is your business with me ?' ' You're very good, Miss Healey ' — he said ' 'Ealey,' and spoke with a strong Lancashire accent, an en tirely different thing from the dialect — ' very good to condescend to see me at all.

I shouldn't ever have aspired to such a thing if I didn't know what a clever lady you are, and a just one, too. You know all the hins and houts of the business, both the factory and colliery, so well — as well as the master himself — ■ and ' ' What is that to the purpose ?' she asked, moving impatiently. ' A great deal, ma'am, if you'd only allow me to say so. For being so clever as you are, you have naturally much influence with the master — with Mr. Healey ' There was a pause, during which Mr. Crier looked appealingly at her with his small, lurking eyes. Miss Healey sat in silent attention, as if waiting for him to explain his errand, although he knew that she knew what that errand was as well as he did himself. Mr. Crier, whatever his carnal calling, was by nature a preacher, which fact was on this occasion particularly visible ; for he had thought it necessary, in order to visit Miss Healey with due respect, to doff his working clothes and put on his Sunday ones.

Had he appeared in his everyday raiment, there would have been nothing remarkable in his appearance ; he would have been simply a Lancashire operative of the superior class, small, somewhat stunted in appearance, with a face expressing a certain degree of intelligence, but with eyes which in his case were not perfectly frank, nor perfectly ready to meet those of his interlocutor. As it was, he had put on his Sunday clothes, and with them his Sunday manner — the manner with which he was wont to kneel down and utter a carefully prepared extempore prayer ; the manner with which he opened his Bible, preparatory to giving out a text. For he was a preacher by profession as well as by nature, and was held in much esteem in that capacity amongst the Primitive Methodists of the vicinity. His piety had always been of a self-asserting kind — of the kind that does not fear to rebuke the defective gift of a brother-professor, and in the hour of reckoning that fact had heavily weighed the balance in his disfavour.

Perhaps the consciousness of this kept him silent, until his hearer asked, with an appearance of very little interest : ' What has my influence with him — supposing I have that influence — to do with your errand ?' ' Oh, Miss Healey, it is a sore thing for me to be brought so low ! You can do anything with Mr. Healey, and if ' ' Confine yourself to facts, if you please,' said Katharine curtly. Perhaps she was not aware that Crier's great hope lay in his silver tongue, which he had anxiously schooled to say the things he thought most likely to sound sweet in her ears. He was not wanting in penetration. She liked nothing better than for people to say they thought she could ' do anything with Mr. Healey;' only they must say it in a par ticular way — not Mr. Crier's way. She continued with asperity : ' If you have only come to tell me that I have influence with my brother, you had much better have stayed at home.

I suppose the fact of the matter is, you want me to use my influence in some way. Pray be brief.' Goaded at last into the use of the indicative mood, Mr. Crier took up his parable : ' I know I have not acted just as honourable as I ought, miss. The devil tempted me, and I did sin, being over-confident in my own filthy rags of self righteousness. I look upon my fall as a discipline from above — — ' * Indeed. I look upon it as a theft, Mr. Crier,' interrupted Katharine, a dry smile parting her lips, and a certain pleasure in Mr. Crier's ingenuousness giving her a look of rather more interest. ' I did fall, miss, but not so far as Mr. Healey — for whom I have a true Christian regard, in spite of his hardness to me — chooses to suppose. I've been overlooker ten years now at the pits, and it's not far as I've gone wrong this time ; but, miss, if I was to go near Mr. Wilfred, he'd make no more of knocking me down, 'specially in one of his ' (' drunken tan trums ' was on the tip of Mr. Crier's tongue, but a certain expression in Miss Healey's face caused him to alter his form of speech) ' severer moments, no more than if I was But,' he went on rapidly, 'I'm sure such a gentleman as he is, if he knew how I'd been tempted, and how I have repented — and, with the Lord's help, I have repented truly — if he only knew, he'd be the last to cast me upon the world without a character.

I believe,' continued he, trying to call up an expression of profound conviction, ' that if my case was to be properly explained to him, he'd take me on again up at the works. I've laid it before the Lord every day three times, as Daniel did ; and it's borne in upon my mind, so as I can't withstand it, as how such would be the result of a fair explanation.' ' Well ?' ' Oh, Miss Healey ! Surely your heart tells you what I mean. It's a mediator I need ; one as will intercede for me. If you would be so good, you will earn the blessing of a . . . repentant offender. In short, will you speak for me with the master, and ask him to take me on again?' ' On what grounds ?' asked Miss Healey, and Mr. Crier found himself unconsciously prepared to sup port the views of those who hold that woman is spoiled by having eyes too clear, or a doubting, sceptical tendency of the mind. 'Repentance — sincere, hearty repentance — and reformation, and a steady attention to all his interests, as far as can be reconciled with a life ordered by grace.' ' You have known him for ten years ; is he a man likely to listen to that kind of talk ?' ' You would know how to make him listen to it, Miss Healey.

Your hinfluence— — ' ' That means that you want to start afresh on the strength of a parcel of lies ; for all that you wish me to say would be untruthful. I know very little good of you, whereas I do know a great deal of evil. I don't think that plan will answer.' Mr. Crier was impolitic enough to allow a deep shade of anger to merge into and overcome the trust ing, prayerful look with which his face had been hitherto adorned. ' Then you won't say anything for me ? You refuse to put in a good word, even to save me from ruin ?' ' I consider that my brother did right to dismiss you, and I shall not try to get him to take you on again. What had your conduct been for years ? A long series of petty thefts and deceptions ; a con tinuous course of ingratitude to a master who never did a stingy thing to his servants in his life.

I have a very strong impression, I may almost say a certainty, that your conversion has only been caused by the exposure of your conduct. Had you been able to conceal that any longer, your repentance would have kept for an indefinite time. You ought to be very grateful to Mr. Healey that he does not prose cute you. I hate a hypocrite, and shall not attempt to influence my brother's decision. And now I think we understand one another. I wish you good-after noon ; less assurance and more honesty.' She had rung the bell some few moments before finishing this speech, and the servant stood waiting. Miss Healey had not spared her visitor. Her gloomy discontented expression was now merged into one of severe and haughty disapproval ; her deep eyes were fixed full upon the ex-overlooker's face, and she turned to the maid, and said curtly : ' Let Mr. Crier out.' But Mr. Crier was not yet gone.

His instinct had not been fine enough to lead him to say the right thing to win Miss Healey's indulgence, but his parts were quite bright enough for him to know accurately what would gall and wound her. He rose, and, grasping his hat in both hands, said, in accents of pious forgiveness : ' The Lord send you a softer 'eart, Miss Healey ! I shall wrestle in prayer for you every day, and I trust that my humble petitions may be in some degree instrumental in working a change both in your own and your unfortunate brother's unre generate 'earts. I forgive you, miss. Good-after noon ! God bless you !' With this last shot he followed the servant out of the room, and took in, with a side-glance, the ex pression on Miss Healey's face. At the words 'your unfortunate brother,' a frown, black as night, had descended upon her brow.

She did not speak. He was at last gone, and when the door had closed after him Katharine again sat down upon the sofa, on which she had been reposing when he arrived. There was no sewing, fancy-work, novel, or femi nine trifle of any kind near her. Some newspapers, writing-materials, and a heap of letters were her sur roundings. The slight flush that had risen to her cheeks as she lectured Abraham Crier — or, to give him the title by which he was best known, ' Ab' o' Ben's '■ — died away. Her lips closed one upon the other as closely and as unresignedly as before ; the slight frown resumed its possession of her brow. She leaned her chin upon her hand, and returned to the reverie, or whatever it was, in which she had been lost before Mr. Crier's advent. Clearly his visit did not strike her as being an event of the slightest im portance.

She was not thinking of him, but of other things— of the troubles which made her life bitter to her, and poisoned what should have been her heyday of youth and happiness, turning it into a very night of dulness, sorrow, and despondency. These troubles she carried about with her wherever she went ; they were her companions always, by day and by night, and yet they were neither money-troubles nor love-troubles. So she sat still, brooding over the familiar woes ; guests in her mind as constant as they were un welcome, and unconscious that she had just made an enemy of one who had hitherto been, if not actually attached to her, at least well enough disposed towards her. Presently she raised her eyes, and saw the file of letters on the table. She roused herself, took her pen in her hand, and once again the accustomed fingers toiled patiently over the paper.

She had more correspondence, of a purely business nature, than usual ; for Crier, the overlooker at the Healey coal-pits, had been discharged at a moment's notice on the discovery of his malpractices by his hot tempered master, Wilfred Healey. A new overlooker had not yet been engaged or even heard of, and Katharine in consequence had almost the whole burden of the correspondence. While she was still busy, the afternoon post came in. Katharine opened the bag, and a number of letters fell out. Wilfred had advertised in the Manchester papers for an overlooker, and this was the first batch of answers. Some of them Katharine tore up without hesitation, after glancing at them, and threw them into the waste-paper basket. Others she laid aside — Wilfred must see them ; for she, though she had a great deal of the trouble and much of the responsibility of a large business and property, had no final authority in matters of moment.

At last she had written all that there needed to be done ; she summoned a servant once more, and, after locking the bag, bade her give it to the groom when he came for it. Returned to the kitchen, the parlour-maid felt it incumbent upon her to say to Emma the cook : ' For goodness' sake, Emma, look here ! Miss Healey's been writing the 'ole of this blessed after noon. She does look so tired, and master that inconsiderate, a-turning off Mr. Crier. He doesn't seem to care a bit that it gives his sister double work to do.' ' Men always is like that — so thoughtless for everything except the moment,' replied cook, in the tone of one who appreciates that thoughtless ness as the infallible sign of the superior creature, and would not have it altered on any account. The arrival of the groom, who always took the letter-bag to and from the post, here created a diversion.

He presently went away with his freight, 2 — HE ALE Y: A TALE. 20 and the kitchen tea was soon in full swing, when the characters, doings, likes and dislikes of the parlour inhabitants were freely discussed, together with their position in the parish of Hamerton in particular, and upon the social ladder in general.

Chapter II. Brother And Sister

When* the gong sounded for dinner, Katharine went into the dining-room, and found there her brother Wilfred standing on the hearthrug, having come in from Manchester some ten minutes before. She saluted him with a quiet ' Good-evening," which was returned with a half nod and a murmur, and then they began dinner. For a little time there was silence between them, and, as they sat opposite to one another, the differ ences between them made themselves very evident to any eye that might see them. They were, so far as any near kith or kin went, alone in the world — which loneliness might, or might not, draw them nearer to each other. Wilfred was seven years older than Katharine. There had been others between them, who were now all dead. All the physical beauty the pair could boast of lay with Wilfred ; no mean share, so anyone must have said.