The Lasses of Leverhouse. A story

Front matter

I ■ ■ ■ ■ NEW AND POPULAR NOVELS AT ALL THE LIBRAEIES ALL ELSE OF NO AVAIL. By Ben Hatwaed. 3 vola. THE WEB OF FATE : A Dramatic Storv. By W. J. Wilding. 2 vols. IN WHITE AND GOLD. A Story. By Mrs. F. H. Williamson. 3 vols. JOY COMETH IN THE MORNING: A Country Tale. By Algernon Gissejg. 2 vols. BERNARD AND MARCIA : A Storv of Middle Age. By Elizabeth Glaistek. 3 vols. HURST & BLACKETT, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. A STORY BY JESSIE FOTHERGILL AUTHOR OF " KITH AND KIN," " THE FIRST VIOLIN," " PROBATION," ETC, ETC. IN ONE VOLUME LONDON HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET 1 888 All Rights Reserved PRINTED BV TILLOsSON AND SON MAWDSLEY STREET BOLTON NOTE. This little story was originally published in 1878-9 in the Bolton Journal. It has been revised and corrected throughout, but remains substantially the same as at its first appearance. JESSIE FOTHERGILL. Manchester, May, 1888.

Chapter I

Four miles from the town of Bolton, in Lancashire, lay, amongst the roughest moors, and separated from all other places as if it had been a little world in itself, the village of Hamerton. In this village, in the house called Leverhouse, I, Betty Howarth, was born ; in the old church of St. Chad's, in the valley below, I was christened by that unvarnished, unmendable, unalterable name, which used to cause me so much trouble; for "Betty" cannot be called an elegant or even a pretty name. How am I to introduce myself and my family? Ought I to begin — "The Howarths were a'n ancient race, residing in their old family mansion of Leverhouse, in the village of Hamerton, in Lancashire?" B Perhaps that might be the best way, and I might then go on to relate, decently and in order, my father's name, and the name of my mother, with the names and ages of all my brothers and sisters, in due rotation.

At least, we, the Howarths of Leverhouse, did live at Hamerton, in Lancashire; our family had lived for generations there, and was as ancient as any in the county — so our father used to tell us, till we began to think it was too old to be of much use, for we were shabby and poverty-stricken, and there were many of us. First came Alizon and Deborah, the two eldest, both of the family and of those " lasses " whose story I am about to tell. Then came Saxon, then myself, Betty, then Robin, then Johnny, and after him, Bobby ; the list being closed with the two youngest girls, Fanny and Clara. Leverhouse, where we lived, was an old, grey stone house, which stood on a height, removed by some fields and a lane from the public road over Blackrigg Moor ; a house which had once stood alone and unapproached, dignified and secluded, until mills in the valley below, and houses not very far away, had congregated and shorn it of much of its ancient prestige.

Our mother always told us that it had been the residence of the Howarth family for hundreds of years, and I, looking ruefully round upon the old furniture, the faded hangings, the tarnished gilding and dingy decorations, felt that her words bore the sound of truth in them. Hamerton itself — " the village," as we always called it, from habit and association — was not really much of a village. It had been a real village once, until that great monarch, King Cotton, came to reign there, and brought in with him his court and train of attendants, in the shape of factories, long chimneys, much thick smoke and crowds of busy factory hands, whose clogged feet clattered periodically along the street, and whose gay handkerchiefs in summer and grey woollen shawls in winter, were associated in my mind with my very earliest memories, as were also the roar of looms and the rush of spindles, the distant cloud of smoke which we could see from our front windows, and which, when a child, I used to think was an actual cloud, but which, my sister Alizon one day told me, was Bolton.

For a long time I always thought of Bolton as a city somehow built in the air, and with a murky cloud floating round it, until hard reality showed it me as a very dirty town, into which we could penetrate either on foot or by means of trains or carriages. I think I must have been about six years old when I was thus disillusioned, and I remember it still — the feeling of wonder and disappoint ment. We were advancing in Hamerton. There were co-operative stores and a co-operative factory there, the latter known generally as " th' co-op." Hamerton was, in fact, a prosperous little town, such as may often be met with throughout the manufacturing districts of Lancashire. It was not small enough to be utterly insignificant, nor too large for a great deal of gossip, curiosity and scandal to be cir culated amongst its inhabitants, and for people in general to know a great deal, or think they know a great deal, about their neigh bour's affairs, which supposed information occasionally led to unpleasantness.

In fact, there were people unkind enough to say that Hamerton was a "gossiping hole." There may have been truth in the assertion ; looking back with the light of my present experiences, I am inclined to think there was ; but then, when I was a girl of sixteen, and my eldest sister Alizon was only twenty, we knew very little of the gossip of Hamerton. Our only intimates were Sydney Bamford and her brother. Alizon and Deb were the only ones of us who ever went to "parties" — such parties as Hamerton boasted ; we were too poor to entertain visitors ourselves. Certain dim rumours I had heard, certain vague conjectures I had made, concerning different individuals whom I knew by sight or name, but up to now all had been rumour and con jecture. Not until I was sixteen did I have a glimpse, even, into the affairs of " grown up" persons, and when I took that glimpse I hardly knew what I was doing ; certainly I knew not what I should see and hear in the future.

Chapter II

One June afternoon, we were in the schoolroom at our lessons, Alizon being, as usual, our instructress, for to her charge was committed our intellectual progress, while Deb, who was supposed to be less clever, did the house keeping. At the particular moment I speak of, Alizon was darning stockings ; a goodly pile of them lay upon a little round table before her, and another goodly pile, neatly folded and finished, showed how much her industry had already accomplished. For some quarterof- an - hour past I had observed, whenever I looked up, that Alizon's face wore anything but a cheerful expression. Perhaps I noticed this the more, as it was usually so bright a face, and handsome always. Before me, on the table, lay that exciting work, " Picciola," from which I should be reading to myself, with a view to rendering the same in English in the space of five minutes, when Alizon shall call upon me.

But instead of attending to my lesson my eyes kept roving to my sister's face; my surmises and meditations related more to the "Expressions of the Emo tions in Men and Animals " than to the brilliant botanical and philosophic remarks in "Picciola." My thoughts ran somewhat after this fashion — " What can make Alizon frown in that way ? I'm sure we have been very quiet this after noon. Johnny is as good as gold — though I don't quite like his look ; no good generally comes of his being so quiet. Have Alizon and Deb had a quarrel ? Deb does say rather nasty things sometimes. Still — really she is biting her lips and going quite red ! What can she be thinking of? And what makes her shake her head in that ridiculous way ?" Then, as a deeper shade came over my sister's visage, "Is Alizon unhappy about something ?"

Thought seemed almost to stand still for the contemplation of this possibility, but soon I resumed my intent, though stealthy, watch over Alizon's countenance. I racked my brains to find some more likely cause for her gloom than that she could be really unhappy, for we rather prided ourselves upon being a very happy family. At last a bright, comforting idea revealed itself. I thought, joyfully — " Ah, she has had bad news this morning ! That fourteenpence that she lent Robin on Monday — he said in his letter that he wouldn't be able to pay it back for a long time, if ever, unless she would take a halfpenny a fortnight till he had paid it off in that way. That accounts for it." Much relieved, I flourished over the leaves of my French dictionary, in search of the verb falloir. At that juncture, Johnny, in search of mis chief, volunteered to assist Clara by reading out from her arithmetic the next sum that she had to grapple with.

She yielded up the book to him, and I, my errant attention diverted from Alizon, found leisure to listen. " Number eighty-three," he observed. " Now, then, simple proportion. ' If four quarts of milk cost eightpence, how many men would it take to do the same piece of work in three days ?' " Clara proceeded to unravel this problem on her slate, and ere long arrived at the conclusion that Dr. Colenso, when he devised it, must have been inspired from below. The little disturbance had aroused Alizon ; she looked up, and her eye fell upon me. Glancing at the large old silver watch which, standing on the mantelshelf, did duty as a timepiece, she said — " Now, Betty, the time is up. Bring your translation." Reluctantly lingering, I went, and Alizon, to make up for her previous inattention, became all at once very strict and very exacting.

My translation was a failure ; I was sent back to my seat with the curt remark, " Never heard anything worse." The " timepiece " fingers pointed to half-past four ; so Alizon remarked, pausing, with a stocking on one hand ancl a needle newly-threaded in the other — " Johnny, remember to do your lessons for to morrow. Clara, don't forget the exercise I gave you. Fanny, do me three sums for to-morrow morning, and all of you have sharp points to your pencils. Twenty lines to anyone whose pencil squeaks on the slate. Now you may go, except Betty ; she must " Further information followed, but, although I m O guessed it, I heard nothing in the tumult made by my fellow-scholars in the joy of their re lease. In two minutes the hurricane was over ; rattle rattle, bang bang, pell-mell, they scurried away upstairs, and then a few distant whoops informed me that the " brave and free " had taken themselves ancl their liberty into the garden.

Alizon looked at me, and from her expression I knew she thought me idleness personified. She proceeded to carry the small table to the window recess ; thither she took her chair, and there she subsided and darned diligently. I likewise moved ; I took her vacated place, whence I could see her frank, fair face, and through the window the landscape beyond. Soon she had completely forgotten me, as com pletely as I had forgotten " Picciola," which is saying a good deal, and I was free to watch her again. From her position she could see nearly the whole of Hamerton and its outskirts, for Leverhouse was built on a hill, and overlooked the vale facing the opposite heights. It was not a beautiful nor a fertile land that she saw ; chiefly barren moors and fields, sparsely furnished with herbage. Opposite, indeed, was a hill clothed with trees — we at Hamerton considered them very fine trees — and on the side of that hill, peeping from among the trees, was a white, picturesque looking house.

It was Fosshouse, where our two friends, Ralph and Sydney Bamford, lived. Upon that house Alizon's eyes paused, and there they remained steadily. Her face grew cold and set, and her lips pressed down one upon the other ; to my mind I had never seen her look so ill-tempered and unpleasant. I was deeply wondering what could be the reason of her gravity, and my happy fourteenpence theory was shaken to its foundations, when suddenly Alizon's face flushed, and she drew back a little from the window. All my curiosity and deter mination — and I was well supplied with both — rose to my assistance. I heard approaching footsteps in the lane that ran just under the open schoolroom window, and I would, yes, I would see who it was, what it was, and why Alizon was blushing. Noiselessly I poised myself on tiptoe, and placing my hands on the table, I leaned forward as far as ever my length and elasticity would allow.

Ah ! reward of merit ! As the owner of the footsteps passed the window, and as Alizon shrank a little further back, so that the passer-by could not see her if he looked in, I was compensated by the vision of a man's head and shoulders. I saw no more ; he passed rapidly and did not look in. His face was turned towards the sloping field at the foot of the hill on which our house stood, but I knew who he was, and letting myself down as stealthily as I had risen up, I remarked to myself, " I thought so." My curiosity being satisfied, my mind turned again to the neglected " Picciola." I heard a distant clock strike five, and I contemplated the fact that in an hour tea would certainly be ready, whether I were or not. " Come, Betty, bring the book, and I'll help you," said Alizon, suddenly, throwing down the half-darned stocking as if it burnt her.

Armed with book and dictionary, I repaired to her side. " Picciola femme, et Picciola fleurf I began, and soon the task was done. "Would you like to come for a walk after tea, Betty?" Oh, yes ; where ?" On the Blackrigg Road. "Very much," I assented, but added, after a pause, " Didn't someone say that Ralph was coming ?" "What if he is? There will be quite enough people to entertain him without us. Anyhow, whether he comes or not, I'm going for a walk, and you may go with me if you like." "Of course I like," I replied, as I bundled away "Picciola" and the dictionary, and, with a sense of freedom, made for the door. " Then it's agreed ?" came after me in the distance. "Yes; 'no backswaps,' as Johnny says," I shouted back again, and we did not meet until tea time.

Chapter III

Six o'clock was the hour at which we all assembled for tea. The board was spread with numerous plates of thick bread and butter, but at the upper end were two plates of thin, with a dish of preserve, for those favoured' beings, our father, mother, Alizon, Deb, and Saxon, when at home. This evening Deb, as usual, presided over the army of cups and saucers and mugs ; over the weak tea and strong milk. My sister Deborah was not usually con sidered handsome — few even accorded her the faint praise of " good-looking." She was tall, and largely formed ; her hands were large, her feet, too, were a good size ; her shoulders broad and her hair red. She had strong, firm features, and was a silent, taciturn person. None of us thought her clever ; but we were all agreed that Alizon had the neatest hand, the lightest foot, the brightest eyes and the quickest head in Hamerton.

I carefully avoided the topic of the walk, from an instinct that Alizon did not wish anything to be said about it. I therefore devoured my thick bread and butter with the indiscriminating greed of healthy sixteen, and furtively glanced at the open book on my knee. It was "The Heir of Redclyffe," and, finding that I was coming to one of the pathetic parts, I abstained from reading more at present, lest tears — my tears were proverbially ready — should overflow my eyes and make me appear unto men a fool, or lead to the discovery of my forbidden indulgence. Not much conversation ever took place at our tea-table ; our mother's cold face and majestic silence were not conducive to sociability, and our father seldom or never spoke. He was mild and gentle, short-sighted, mentally and physically. We were fond of him, but did not think much of his wisdom or discern ment.

As soon as tea was over, Alizon made a sign to me, and we went upstairs to array ourselves for our excursion; not that we needed much adornment for our quiet moorland roads, where if we met anyone we knew, the thing was talked of for a week afterwards. We possessed ourselves each of a substantial straw hat, broad of brim and scant of trimming ; we likewise armed ourselves with a sunshade apiece. " Not that we shall need them," .said Alizon, "but because we might meet cows, you know." " Now," she observed, when we were ready, "let us go down bv the back stairs, or mother will see us and stop us." I knew her unspoken reason for this sneaking behaviour perfectly well, and I complied. We rattled down the carpetless back stairs, en countered Deb, informed her where we were going, and finally effected our escape.

A very few minutes, and we had left our narrow lane and were out upon the moorland road. The air was the air of a perfect June evening ; need anything more be said ? From the moors, however, it came keenly ; it braced in the midst of its balm. According to Alizon's programme, we had a long walk before us. I suggested that it would take fully an hour to attain the summit of the long ridge we were climbing, and then we should require a little rest, and then we should have to walk home again. But Alizon said tranquilly that we had "day's long light before us," and so quenched me. The sunshades were needless ; we met no horned cattle, but on the dark moors we dis cerned many sheep, black, like the grass they browsed on, and both blacknesses resulted from smoke. The earth might be sooty, but the sky was serenely cloudless, and on this calm height we breathed a fresher and purer air than that in the valley below.

" How lovely it is !" we brilliantly exclaimed at intervals. It was so still, so lone, so peace ful. Everything was softened behind the delicious haze wherewith the universe was veiled. Before us rose the wall of Blackrigg. My opinion — a prejudiced one, I know — is that no contrast of colour can be more beautiful than that caused by the rich, mellow brown of a moor, against the pure, cold blue of a clear evening sky. The ascent was long, and somewhat steep, but the road was good, and we also came upon a. friendly trough, into which limpid water flowed from a little stone pipe ; we caught some in our hands, drank it, and went on our way refreshed. "Alizon," said I, after a long silence, "do you mean to give us any holiday this summer ?" " Oh, I suppose so, sometime." " Because you might be very fond of teaching; you never seem to want to leave off."

" No, I hate it," said she, composedly. " How can you go on doing it, then ?" " I shall only go on doing it until Johnny has gone to school, and you can take the others, Betty. Then I shall go out and seek my fortune." "Oh, will you, Alizon? How?" " I really don't know. Not as a governess if I can help. I shall do as Mr. Micawber did — trust that something will turn up." "In about how long do you think I can teach the others ?" I asked, bashfully. "You are sixteen; in a year or so, I daresay." "In a year or so you will be twenty-one, and I shall be seventeen," I remarked, with my usual originality. " That is obvious." "Twenty-one! Perhaps, Alizon, you will not need to seek your fortune, then. People some times get married. Mother was only eighteen when she was married." " Fiddlesticks ! I shall not be married.

Talk about what you understand." I was snubbed, but not crushed. " I don't see why you should be so very certain about it," I replied, grumblingly. " I should like to see the world a little, first," said Alizon, modestly. We always considered her a venturesome ancl ambitious person. "Oh, and you think that by seeking your fortune you will see the world ?" I reflected. By that time we were on the top of the ridge. and were ready to rest. " Before we go down again," said Alizon, " we will go and have a look at the reservoir ; it is only a few steps further." I assented, and stretched myself out upon the heather, asking presently, " Alizon, why didn't we come here by that short cut that we know of? It would have taken us little more than half the time." " I know that, but I did not want to be a short time ; my object was to stay out as long as possible."

"Ah! I see," said I, giving utterance to my uppermost thought; "so that Ralph would be tired out, and go away before we got back." " Such was my intention. "Come!" said I, rising, "the sun is quite low. If we are going to see the lodge we must go now ; it will be nearly dark by we get home." Alizon answered by rising, and we plunged into the heather at the left side of the road and took our way to where the flat line of an embankment rose from the moor. In a few moments we were resting our elbows on the top of the wall, and looking at the reservoir. It was perhaps a mile long, and half-a-mile broad. Nothing could well be more bleak, wild and desolate than the scene we looked upon now. The moors here were flat ; they stretched, almost without an undulation, all c round the dreary piece of water, till in the distance they dipped and sloped downwards.

Afar off we saw other moors as high as this we stood upon — they stood out softly clear in the crystal air, and their summits seemed to me to be like voices in the silence. I said some thing to that effect to Alizon, and she replied — "My dear Betty, your ideas are sometimes too fantastic. Let us go home." She turned, but I could not forbear lingering a few minutes to take a last loving look at the dark water, and to watch the whispering, lapping, stealthy way in which it crept up to the embankment, kissed the cold stone, and retired again, and I thought of Sir Bedivere, in the Morte d'Arthur. " I see nothing," said Sir Bedivere, " but the waves wap, and the waters wan." I could have stayed dreaming for an hour over that very scene. I began to think that soon I should see the flash of the jewels in Excalibur's hilt, and the arm "clothed all in white samite " that rose from the lake, and grasped the blade, shaking it mightily three times.

Was it up such a lake as this that the barge came sailing with the weeping queens within ? I suddenly came to myself, and ran down the slope to the road. Alizon was before me. Was it Alizon ? Yes, and there was some one with her. He appeared to have just joined her. I looked at him earnestly, and laughed to myself when I recognised Ralph Bamford. He must have come by that short cut about which Alizon and I were even now speaking. " How Alizon is fuming, and thinking how stupid she was to tell Deb where we were going !" thought I. I then composed my engaging features to a decent gravity, and marched after my sister and her companion. When I overtook them, I found, as I expected, that Alizon's expression was anything but complacent. I gave a furtive glance at her, when I had shaken hands with Ralph, and I met her eye.

We were both gifted with a keen sense of the ludicrous, and when Alizon saw the hypocritical gravity of my countenance she laughed aloud, and I did the same. "What is the matter?" demanded Mr. Bam ford, in an unappreciative tone. " Oh ! nothing. Betty and I have been having a joke, that was all." "You see, I called at Leverhouse," he went on, in an elaborately explanatory manner, "and I found that Deborah was very busy, and Mr. Howarth was asleep, and Mrs. Howarth en gaged " Here Alizon pinched me, which action I interpreted to .mean, "What a trans parent piece of nonsense !" "So I asked which way you had gone, and Mrs. Howarth was good enough to say that she would be much less uneasy if I would go and meet you, as you had been out so very long." "Mother is very timid about such things," said Alizon ; and there is no need for it.

We are not like Miss Woodhouse, in ' Emma,' who had once walked half-a-mile alone, but thought it so dangerous that she never attempted it again." Mr. Bamford only laughed an easy kind of laugh, looked aside at Alizon, and said, "Ah, but it is getting dark, and this is a lonely road." " If it is lonely we are the less likely to be molested, or to meet unpleasant persons." I felt this to be ungracious, and I saw- Ralph's face flush a little. For my own part. I liked Ralph well enough. He was a trifle commonplace, perhaps, and inclined to be always saying, "Ah — yes," with much em phasis, even where no emphasis was required. I had sometimes said to Alizon that a voun<>- * O man who had travelled so much as Ralph Bamford might talk about other than purely local topics, and that I wished he had some thing more to say about his journeys, when asked, than "Yes" and "No." Alizon was. wont to agree with me, adding, " Ralph's conversation is orthodox, though — ' yea, yea, and nay, nay,' being generally the extent of his remarks."

He was good-natured ; of that I had no man ner of doubt, though, in my happy young im pudence, I had despised his intellect thoroughly ever since, on my asking him one day in a voice of rapture, if he did not think ' The Ex cursion,' exquisite, he demanded which excursion I meant? Was it a Bolton affair? He had not heard of any picnics lately. His genial good humour was checked by Alizon's snubs. I stole a look at him, and saw how much longer his kind, brown face had grown. Alizon maintained a majestic silence, but I, being sixteen, and having no dignity to keep up, asked — " How is Sydney ? Has she come from town yet ?" " She came yesterday. You will have her up to see you soon. She wants to see Alizon and Deborah. She " " Please don't talk about ' Deborah.' It is too wonderful to hear you.

You might as well say ' Deborah ' at once ; I believe it is more correct Hebrew." Again cut short in his endeavours at politeness, Ralph became silent, and at that moment we turned a bend in the road, and found ourselves face to face with a couple strolling leisurely up the hill. A tall man, and a very handsome girl, who looked about Alizon's age but was, as I saw at a glance, far more regularly beautiful than my sister. The pair were apparently engaged in a very amicable conversation, for as we met them I saw a smile hovering on the girl's face, and as her companion raised his dark eyes to view our group, I heard the echo of a low, amused laugh. He looked at us all, beginning with Alizon and ending with me. His eyes then returned to Alizon, and he lifted his hat bowing, as I could not help thinking, with more grace than is usual to the provincial Englishman.

Ralph and he exchanged a good-evening, and then each group passed on. " Fine fellow, Entwistle !" said Ralph " Do you think so ?" retorted Alizon, w-ith a slight shrug. " Yes. He is about the only man in the parish worth knowing ; but then, to be sure, he is so superior that one can forgive the others for being so stupid." This I felt to be a long and profound speech for Ralph. It made a deep impression upon me, and I was too extremely anxious, for reasons of my own, to gain any information respecting Mr. Entwistle. " He is only a cotton-spinner," said Alizon at length, sneering, but not heartily. "'Only a cotton-spinner!' What else need he be ? He is a gentleman. You cannot know him, Alizon, or you would not depreciate him so." " I know very little of him, and wish for no further acquaintance."