Out of due season; a mezzotint

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I. “ Little, unremembered acts ”

It- was a Saturday afternoon. In the sleepy little town of Casterby there was not much done on a Saturday afternoon in June. Many of the shops in the High Street and the Market Place closed at two. There was no business down at the yards and the wharves on the river-side. The great arms of the windmills had sunk into their Sabbath quietude. The streets were deserted ; but from the open doors of every public-house came a buzz of tongues, a clang of pewter-pots, a whiff of strong tobacco, which showed that a fairly large number of the male inhabitants of Casterby had betaken themselves to their favourite haunts and their favourite occupation.

The younger men were out on the river, or play-

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ing cricket in a flat green meadow outside the town, or loafing in groups at comers of the streets, with short pipes in their mouths. In one way or another they were amusing themselves. Their sisters and sweethearts were for the most part at home, lying on their beds in luxurious idleness, or putting the last touches to some bit of finery for the evening’s wear. For after tea, by immemorial custom, the young men and maidens of Casterby went for a walk, generally in couples, to breathe the soft airs of hayfield, meadow, or river-bank, and to watch the moon rise and the stars come out over the level pasture-lands and the low-lying woods of Casterby Park.

Here and there, a youth sulked over his hard fate in having to keep watch and ward at his father’s counter until six o’clock ; or a conscientious girl submitted to the hand of destiny which had given her the charge of children or of a sick relation who could not be neglected ; but for the most part, it was the tradition of Casterby that young people should have no sense of duty or obligation on a Saturday afternoon — that being the time appointed from all eternity for the relaxation of the body and the initiation of sexual relationships.

The little red town seemed to bask in the sun, lying in picturesque stillness on the banks of a placidly-flowing river, with wide flat meadows on either side, where rows of pollarded willows showed the dykes that divided the fields, and windmills stood up as the only landmarks in that waste of green against the cloudless sky. The fields melted into a blue haze of distance on the horizon, for there was not a hill within sight. The white road which entered one side of the town, crossed the bridge and ran through the Market Place — losing itself for a time in a stretch of cobble-stones, and emerging on the other side between green hedges on its way into the vast unknown — this white and dusty road had no fatiguing ups and downs for many a long mile, but meandered flatly onward in uniform monotony. It might have been taken as a figure of many a life in the little town of Casterby — a life where there was no obstacle and much uniformity, but where the objects of interest were few and far between, and the outlook on either side the road very much restricted.

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But there were also by-ways of a more alluring kind.

It was in the families of middle-class tradesfolk and small professional men that this monotony was mostly to he found. The rich lawyer and the popular doctor, liying outside the town, had resources and diversions which the shop-people did not dream of. The parson had his church and his charities. The Squire — represented by Mr. Lisle of the Court — was often in London or in “ foreign parts,” and, being a Homan Catholic, held himself a little apart from the other magnates of the county and the institutions of the town. In these men’s houses, dimly represented to the Casterby people by a stack of chimneys seen between clumps of stately trees, or a gar den- wall, draped with Virginian creeper, from behind which came sounds of laughter and song and the echo of strange outlandish games, it seemed almost to the homely folk outside as if an alien people dwelt. Doubtless, to the Lisle girls and their neighbours, the young Collingwoods of Arcke, shut in by the great park gates, and scarcely conscious of anything unbeautiful in the world, the lives of people who lived behind

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shops and counting-houses were just as inconceivable.

And thero was also another class in Casterby where life was anything but monotonous. Small as the town was, it had its low-lying tangled slums, where a crowd of labourers, mostly Irish and Homan Catholics, herded with their wives and children in squalid little red-brick houses, and passed their time in an alternation of toil at the brickfields and drunken revelry at the public-house.

The fact that Mr. Lisle was a Roman Catholic, and that there was a neat little Romanist chapel in Casterby, helped to attract this class of labourers to the place ; and apart from them there was also a contingent of ordinary drunken Englishmen, who were even more difficult to manage than the Irish labourers. Far removed from the stolid respectability of the trading folk, further still from the careful refinements of the Court, there flourished in the back-streets of Casterby as much vice and misery, disease and dirt, as could well be found in a town that did not number quite three thousand inhabitants upon the census-roll.

The beams of the warm June sun, shining

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through the dusty panes of a carpenter’s workshop, struck full on the face and figure of Gideon Blake, as, with heavily frowning brow, he handled plane and saw as though his life depended on the amount of labour he could accomplish, that sleepy Saturday afternoon. Not that he worked with any appearance of ardour. It was simply that he did not raise his eyes or take his attention from his occupation for a moment ; he toiled with a certain grimness and pertinacity of purpose not often seen in a lad of his age. For he was not more than twenty years old, although at first sight he seemed older. His height and his breadth of chest and shoulders were remarkable; his muscles and sinews were of iron; one would have' said (but it would not have been true) that his nerves were of steel. His forehead was broad, and well developed above the deep-set dark eyes ; his jaw a little too massive for the line of beauty. His mouth possessed some curiously sensitive curves, which struck one as out of place in that strong face ; but it was not a good mouth for all that. It was sullen in repose, with a droop at the corners which betokened discontent. For the rest, his face was well featured, and when he raised

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himself from his stooping posture it could be seen that his somewhat gaunt frame had in it the makings of a giant. In stooping, the thing most noticeable about him was the great arch of his head, where a phrenologist would have said that the qualities of veneration and benevolence predominated. Those who knew Gideon Blake would, however, have laughed this verdict to scorn. He did not bear an amiable character in Casterby.

At last a shadow fell between him and the sun. He took no notice of it for some time; then he raised himself, shook the mass of heavy black hair out of his eyes, and looked threateningly at the intruder, who was a spare, middle-sized man with scant gray hair and whiskers, a face mottled by long exposure to wind and weather, a clear, shrewd, gray-blue eye, and a peculiarly long upper-lip. His waistcoat was generally remarked on by strangers, as it was of a stout serviceable silk, with a pattern of red and blue, now much confused in colouring by the lapse of time and the stains of beer and tobacco ; but it was an article of attire that Obed Pilcher was proud of.

“ A bit owd-fashioned,” he had been heard to

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say, as he looked down at it complacently, “but noan the wuss for that. It’s alius better to get a good stooff at beginning, an’ stick to ’t. Owd Squoire gi’e me this, a’ did, an’ it’ll last ma toime.”

It had, in fact, once been a handsome garment of flowered silk, worn by the old Squire himself, in days when stifl flowered waistcoats were fashionable, and to Obed’s eyes it was as good as ever. His trousers were of ordinary gray, usually turned up at the ankles (on week-days) to show an inch of blue stocking, but his coat was always of a rusty black. On Sundays he blossomed forth in a complete suit of sables, these being usually the Yicar’s gift ; for Obed Pilcher was parish clerk and verger, or “pew-opener,” as he called it, at the parish church. He magnified his office ; on the whole, he considered himself more important in Casterby church than any other functionary. Yicars might change and curates come and go, but the parish clerk remained in his glory until the day of death.

Mr. Pilcher was the brother of Gideon Blake’s mother, who had died at his birth. It was perhaps on account of her early death that he had an especial, although somewhat sneaking, affection for his

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nephew. Not that he showed it in words, scarcely in deeds ; hut it was noticed that whenever Gideon was in trouble or disgrace, Obed Pilcher made a point of seeking him out and giving him his society, often for two or three hours at a stretch, without offering a reason and without trying to converse. Gideon betrayed no pleasure at these visits, hut also little or no impatience. It might have been conjectured that he was not aware of their significance ; but Gideon Blake often saw more than he chose to show, and he by no means wore his heart upon his sleeve.

On this occasion he eyed his visitor angrily, and said :

“ Well?”

Obed nodded in reply.

“ Good-day t’ ye, Gideon. Main hot weather, bain’t it ? ”

Gideon seemed to think it not worth while to respond. He crossed his brown arms over his broad breast, and leaned back against the wall, turning his handsome, sullen face a little to one side. Obed moved restlessly from one foot to another, then felt in his pocket for his snuff-box, and

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deliberately took a pinch of snuff between his finger and thumb.

“Emmy’s at hoame,” he said, looking at the snufi-box. “At hoame, doin’ nowt. Ah saw Emmy as ah coom by.”

No answer. But a dull red colour crept slowly into Gideon’s face, and a mute anger showed itself in his dark eyes.

“ Emmy’s well enough. She bain’t a bad lass, Emmy. She doan’t mean nowt. But she’s stunt. All the Enderbys is stunt. Dunnot think the wuss of her for that.”

“ I don’t,” said Gideon sharply.

His uncle took the long-suspended pinch of snuff, and sneezed two or three times with portentous solemnity, as if he wished to give his nephew time to consider his words. But Gideon said no more.

“Eh, well. It’s a rare noight for t’ watter. Thee be goin’ along o’ Mortlock’s party, ah reckon ? ”

“What business is it o’ yours?” said Gideon, moving from the wall and looking round for his coat. “ I’m going nowhere to-night.”

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“ She's not goin’ in Mortlock’s boat ? ”

“Not sbe. No party for her. She’s got a chap of her own, and a boat too, all to themselves.”

And Gideon flung himself angrily into his jacket.

“Ay, ay,” said Obed slowly. “Ah thowt as mooch. Young Chiltern, I lay, from Hull. The lasses is all agate after him.”

Gideon muttered a savage curse on young Chiltern, which Mr. Pilcher, as the parish clerk, affected not to hear.

“Dinna fash thasen’, Gideon. Th’ lass is all right. She’ll not tak’ oop wi’ trash like Chiltern, for all his goold chaains an’ rings. She knaws a mon when she sees un, Emmy does.”

Gideon was resolved against being comforted, but, in spite of himself,. his face cleared a little.

“ She may take Chiltern, for all I care,” he said obstinately; “but if she takes him, she don’t get me too — that’s all.”

i

To nobody else in Casterby would he have said as much.

Obed Pilcher shook his head.

“ Emmy’s a foine strapping lass,” he said saga-

OUT OF DUE SEAS^W ciously. “An’ a fine strapping lass mnn tak’ her bit o’ foon. It’s foon, lad, foon — nowt else.”

“She’ll have to choose between her fun — and me,” said Gideon.

Then he stepped out of the shed, and stood for a moment in the blaze of the afternoon sun, his hands in his pockets, his angry eyes fixed on the ground.

“ Come for a turn wi’ me,” said Obed persuasively.

“Well, maybe I will.” But he looked irresolute, and did not walk very quickly towards the gate.

The Blakes’ house, a square red-brick block two stories high, with stiff white windows and prim painted doors, stood just outside the wood-yard. It fronted the road, with a small garden before it, and a flagged walk from the front-door to the gate ; and the long narrow back-garden ran past the yard, divided from it only by a low privet hedge. A white gate, of considerable width and height, opened on the road from the wood-yard ; but when Gideon Blake’s father and his family came to and from the house to the yard, they

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generally walked through a gap in the privet hedge, without troubling themselves about gates. Gideon was, however, making for the highroad, when a girl about twelve ran out at the back-door and stood on the garden side of the hedge, shaking her short skirts and calling to him :

“ Gid ! Gid ! Tea’s ready. You’re to bring Uncle Obed in to tea.”

Gideon looked at his uncle, and turned passively towards the house. Uncle Obed nodded and spoke to the child who was dancing on the gravelled path as if she did not know how to keep her feet still.

“ I’m going on Mortlock’s boat,” she screamed out, as they approached. “ Dad says I may. We shan’t get home till midnight. All the Shipton girls are going, too.”

“ Mortlock’s boat ” was a pleasure-barge, often hired on a Saturday evening by some dozen or twenty young people of Casterby for an excursion down the river. Staid and sober-going folk had their objections to these Saturday parties, for they were not without a rowdy element, although supposed to be conducted on respectable lines. There

was usually a good deal of chorus-singing, and a 2

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great supply of beer ; the young men sat with their arms round the waists of the girls of their choice, and there was more kissing than would have been deemed decorous in conventional circles.

Gideon took no notice of his stepsister’s announcement, at which Uncle Obed wagged his head solemnly.

“ A lile lass like you,” he said, “ mout be better in her bed, ready for Sunday.”

Carry Blake laughed scornfully, and pirouetted on one foot towards the house.

“ I’m going to enjoy myself. I’m not always in the sulks, like Gideon,” she called over her shoulder in reply.

She looked as if she might some day develop into a pretty girl, for she had long fair hair, eyes of speedwell blue, and a red-and-white complexion ; but her features were curiously thin and sharp, and the meagre-lipped, wide mouth showed two rows of large white teeth which seemed out of proportion to her size. She was the elder child of Joseph Blake's second wife.

Gideon and Obed followed her through the back-door and into the little sitting-room where

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the tea-table was laid. For Mrs. Blake held herself high above the vulgarity of sitting in the kitchen, as Joe Blake had always done before she married him.

“ Good enough to smoke in — good enough for you and your Pilchers ! ” she had often exclaimed, with an acidulated emphasis upon the maiden name of Gideon’s mother ; “ but my father had one of the first drapery establishments in Gainsborough, and we had never anything to do with common labourers ”

Which was an unkind skit at Gideon’s mother, whose father had been a small tenant-farmer who had come down in the world through inability to pay his rent.

Mrs. Blake prided herself on her “ genteel ” appearance, as well as her distinguished parentage. She was a tall, spare woman, in whom one saw her daughter’s face grown old. There were the same sharp features, accentuated by age ; the same bine eyes, grown paler and with reddened lids ; the same almost lipless mouth, and big teeth which were no longer white, but yellow, tusk-like, and ferocious. Not that Mrs. Blake gave one the impression of

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ferocity ; but that she was possessed of some genuine spitefulness there could be but little doubt. She was always civil to Obed Pilcher in his presence, but she had as little love for him as for Gideon, or for the dead woman in whose place she sat.

She was dressed rather smartly, in a green gown, with a wide and very unbecoming fichu of real lace round her neck. She always wore smarter and more expensive things than were quite suitable to her position, because she got them at wholesale prices from her father’s shop. Carry also was overdressed, and many people wondered how “ poor Joe Blake ” could afford such extravagance, and why he did not put a stop to it. As if poor Joe Blake could ever have put a stop to anything that his wife desired !

He was sitting at the tea-table when his brother-in-law came in, and turned to greet him with hearty kindliness.

“Well, Obed, how goes the world with you? Come in, come in ; draw up a chair, and take a cup o’ tea. Mother’s all in her throngs to-day, but she’s as glad to see you as I am.”

“Certainly, Mr. Pilcher,” said Mrs. Blake.

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“ Pray sit down ; and Gideon, too, if lie’s going to stay.”

“Why shouldn’t he stay?” said Joe Blake mildly, as if he noted something peculiar in his wife’s tone. He was large and dark, as Gideon was ; but there was none of Gideon’s strenuous gloom in his placid countenance. Only an easy-going man could have kept the peace as he did, between a faultfinding second wife and an irascible grown-up son, who were generally at daggers drawn.

Gideon frowned, and Carry burst out laughing.

“ Why, dad,” she said, “ he’s generally out with Emmy Enderby on a Saturday afternoon. Don’t you know that ? ”

“ Emily Enderby is wiser than I took her for,” said Mrs. Blake’s exasperating voice. “ She knows the value of two strings to her bow.”

“ Ah saw Emmy Enderby as ah come by,” said Obed Pilcher, his broad accent causing Mrs. Blake to shiver with affected horror at the sound. “ She was just sitting along of her mother, sewing of a gownd.”

If he had expected to throw oil on the troubled waters, he was disappointed. Carry’s

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shrill laughter and shriller tones rang unmusically through the room.

“ Her frock — her new frock for to-night ! ” she cried. “Uncle Obed, that’s just the fun. She’s going out with Mr. Fred Chiltem, from Hull : he’s to row her up to Farmby, and have supper at the inn with the Mortlock party — that’s what Emmy Enderby’s going to do. I shall see her. Gideon, why don’t you come, too ? ”

There was a curious change in Gideon’s face ; it had turned pale, not red, and his lips were stern. He was still standing near the door; the others were seated, and Carry turned laughing eyes upon him from over the back of her chair.

“ The fam’ly’s back at f Park,” said Obed, by way of changing the conversation; and Joe Blake grunted a sociable interest in the news. But the women of the family could not let Emmy Enderby’s doings pass without further criticism.

“ If she gets Fred Chiltem, she’ll do very well,” said Mrs. Blake. “ He has a very good position, I hear. He’s foreman already, and they say he’ll be a partner by and by. He has real nice man-

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ners, too — so amiable and obliging — which is more than can be said of all young men.”

“I expect they’ll come back engaged,” said Carry, giggling in Gideon’s face. “ Shall you be sorry, Gid ? ”

“ You’ll be sorry soon that you can’t hold your tongue,” replied her stepbrother grimly.

“ I’ll tell Emmy you said so ! I’ll tell her how cross you were ! I’ll tell her — oh ! oh ! Ma, make him leave off ! ” For Gideon had seized her by the shoulders with no gentle hands.

“ How dare you touch my child? You brute! Why don’t you speak to him, Joseph ? Carry, you shouldn’t tease ! Gideon, for goodness’ sake ! don’t sit down with us if you can’t keep your temper.”

“I don’t mean to,” said Gideon, upon whom Mrs. Blake’s tempest of scolding words fell with very little effect. “ I only wish I had never to sit down with that little vixen any more.”

“ Gid ! Gid ! ” muttered the mild-natured father.

But Gideon did not hear. He strode out of the room and banged the door behind him, like the ill-conditioned, unmannerly boy that he was.

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And Mrs. Blake scolded her husband in place of him for the rest of the meal.

Obed Pilcher and his brother-in-law retired to a garden bench shortly afterwards, to smoke their long clay pipes in peace. Joe Blake was not much disturbed in his mind, but Obed was uneasy.

“ That boy o’ yourn ” he said at last, with

difficulty.

“ Eh ? ” said Joe.

“ He be maain soft on Emmy Enderby.”

“He be main cranky -tempered,” said Gideon’s father with serenity. “ I often thinks to myself, if I’d ha’ laid the strap on him a bit oftener when he was small, he’d ha’ been easier to deal with now. My missis often told me so, but I allers said I didn’t hold wi’ too much flogging.”

“ He wouldn’t lia’ stood it,” said Obed ; “ he’d ha’ run away to sea, or summat. The lad’s got mettle. 4 Faythers, provoke not your children to wrath,’ is Scripter words.”

“Ay, but there’s another text of a different bearin’,” said Joe doubtfully : “ ‘ Spare the rod an’ spile the child,’ eh ? It’s what Lavinia’s been quoting to me ever since Gideon was that high.”

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“Wimmin doan’t understand men-folk, nor yet boys,” said Obed. “Least of all Gideon. She’d ha’ drove him out o’ Casterby years ago, if she’d had the fettlin’ of him. Ah doan’t know where he gets his sperit from. It bain’t you , Joe, nor was it poor Euth ; an’ ah’m blessed,” he added reflectively, “ if a’ gets it from meP

“ Ay, you was alters a quiet sort o’ chap, Obed,” said Joe. “But though Gid mayn’t get his sperit from me, yet ’tis from my side o’ t’ house it springs from. There was an uncle o’ mine as was the same sperity, high-stummicked sort o’ chap. He ran away from hoame, an’ were lost at sea. They did say as he took after his grandf’er, who was just such another ; an’ that’s, mebbe, where Gideon gets his temper from, for they say it runs in fam’lies sometimes — like rheumatics.”

“ Ah’ve heard that the Blakes was a terrible wild lot,” said Obed. “ It ’ud never do to be too hard on Gid, Joe.”

' “Well, I beain’t hard on ’im ; it’s the missus, not me. An’ at Gid’s age, she can’t hurt him much.”

“ Ah’ve bin thinkin’,” said Obed, with natural

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hesitation — “ah’ve bin thinkin’ he’ll want to be married afore long.”

“ Ay, Emmy Enderby — if she’ll have him. But they’re ower-young yet.”

“ He’s close on one-an’ -twenty. Ah’ve bin thinkin’ ”

“Well, Obed?”

“Ah’ve gotten more rooms i’ ma hoose than ah’ve any use for, Joe. If Gideon an’ Emmy was to coom, it ’ud be main an’ cheerful for me.”

“ What — live with you ? ” said Blake, laying down his pipe and looking at Obed with perplexed interest. “ Gid and Emmy ? ”

Mr. Pilcher nodded a solemn assent.

“ Gid’s not — well, easy to live with, Obed.”

“Ah knows Gid very well,” said the parish clerk, nodding his head.

“ Have you asked him what he thinks of the plan ? ”

“ Hay.”

“ Emmy mayn’t like it, ye see. I don’t know, nayther, if she means to take him or not.”

“She’ll take un,” said Obed with decision.

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“ An’ — sithee, she’ll take un all the sooner if he’s got an house to put her in.”

“A — ay,” said Joe Blake, with lengthened intonation. “ But Emmy’s high in her notions. The Enderbys was allers high.”

“ Ah’m ’igh, too,” said Obed stolidly.

And Joe heat his pipe meditatively against his hand, and wondered whether Obed had saved money.

“ Then,” he said presently, “ there’s church.”

“ Ay,” said Obed, “ there’s church, plaain eno’ ; what o’ that ? Gideon bean’t chapel ; nor Enderbys nayther.”

“No,” said Joe, with meaning, “ an’ I ain’t chapel, nayther ; but Gideon’s nowt. I don’t hold wi’ folk allers runnin’ off to meetin’, as chapel folks does ; but I likes ’em to go Christmas an’ Easter, an’ now an’ then of a Sunday. But Gideon’s turned against it ever since he was twelve year old, and not all the larrupin’ in the world ever served to get him back since the day when parson boxed him after service because he’d made a noise during psalms.”

“ Ay, owd parson loikes to gie the boys a knock

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now an’ then,” said Obed, with perfect equanimity. “ They mostly desarves it. But he he too owd an’ blind to ha’ done much i’ that way lately.”

“ But that won’t make Gid go to church any the more. An’ to my thinking, Obed, it be a trifle unbecoming that you, being parish clerk, should take to live wi’ you a young man as never passes the threshold. Parson ’ll take it as a reflection on hisself, and be put out ; and, for my part,” said Joe Blake slowly and wisely, “ I don’t hold wi’ offending folk, in particular the quality.”

u Thee can leave such matters to me, Joseph Blake,” said Obed, with a grand wave of his hand. “ Ah know what ah’m doin’, as well as most foalk. Wheer t’ wife goes, husband goes, an’ no question asked. Emmy ain’t one as ’ll be satisfied wi’out showin’ her new ribbons in church, nor her new husband, and Gid ’ll be like wax in them pretty fingers of hern. Doan’t thee think thasen so wise, Joe.”

“Well, mebbe you’re right,” said Joe. Then he stood up and looked into the distance, with a softer light in his deep-set dark eyes. “ Ah’m not one to trouble the church much,” he said, “ but I

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sometimes tliink Ruth ’ud be vexed to see the lad so set against it — an’ you the parish clerk an’ all. So do as you like, Obed Pilcher — do as you like.”

“ Ah mun be gooin,’ ” said Obed. “ Ah’ll mebbe see the lad to-night, an’ cheer un up wi’ the news. He’s a bit downcast now, but it’ll be all right when young Chiltern’s gone back to Hull.”

He took his leave, and marched off in search of his nephew.

But Gideon was nowhere to be found.

II. “ The God of Love — ah, benedicite ! ”

Obed did not find his nephew, because Gideon had haunts of his own where no other foot ever penetrated. Over the workshop there was a low, dark garret, a mere hole beneath the eaves, which the lad had made into a den for himself. It showed his unlikeness to his compeers in Casterby that he should ever have conceived the desire of a hiding-place. The average youth dislikes to be alone. But a certain amount of loneliness was to Gideon as the breath of life.

His chamber had a sloping roof for a wall, and was barely six feet in breadth, although of considerable length, as it extended the whole length of the workshop. It had once been open to wind and rain, but Gideon had stealthily filled in the side

with boards, and had then contrived to fasten a 26

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pane of glass into them for the sake of light. At first this had been enough for him ; but after a time he put in a latticed window with hinges, so that he could get air as well as light. For, as it happened, there was an excellent view of the meadows and the river from Gideon’s glory-hole, and he had grown, without knowing why, to love it. Sometimes, when no one knew what had become of him, and even his father suspected that he was engaged in mere mischief-making, he was lying at full length under the eaves, with chin pillowed by his hands, gazing out at the sunlit fields, at the clear shimmering line of the river, at the thousand and one changes produced by light and shade in the landscape, which he seemed to know by heart, yet never knew well enough. He could barely stand upright in his garret, but he could lie down and gaze out of the window, or he could sit and read. He was not much of a reader, however; he liked better to watch the sky, or to use his hands in the carving of wood to shapes which had more artistic value than he knew. Few persons knew of his skill in this respect. He carved things for the pleasure it gave him, not for