Before morning Eliza Marner had passed away, and Polly became the head of her uncle’s house. Two years had passed, and so far Mary Powlett showed no signs of leaving the house, which, even the many women in the village, who envied her for her prettiness and neatness and disliked her for what they called her airs, acknowledged that she managed well. But it was not from lack of suitors. There were at least half a dozen stalwart young croppers who would gladly have paid court to her had there been the smallest sign on her part of willingness to accept their attentions; but Polly, though bright and cheerful and pleasant to all, afforded to none of them an opportunity for anything approaching intimacy.
On Sundays, the times alone when their occupations enabled the youth of Varley to devote themselves to attentions to the maidens they favored, Mary Powlett was not to be found at home after breakfast, for, having set everything in readiness for dinner, she always started for Marsden, taking little Susan with her, and there spent the day with the woman who had even more than Eliza Marner been her mother. She had, a month after his wife’s death, fought a battle with Luke and conquered. The latter had, in pursuance of the plans he had originally drawn up for her, proposed that she should go into service at Marsden.
“Oi shall miss thee sorely, Polly,” he said; “and oi doan’t disguise it from thee, vor the last year, lass, thou hast been the light o’ this house, and oi couldna have spared ye. But oi ha’ always fixed that thou shouldst go into service at Marsden—Varley is not fit vor the likes o’ ye. We be a rough lot here, and a drunken; and though oi shall miss thee sorely for awhile, oi must larn to do wi’out thee.”
Polly heard him in silence, and then positively refused to go.
“You have been all to me, feyther, since I was a child, and I am not going to leave you now. I don’t say that Varley is altogether nice, but I shall be very happy here with you and the boys and dear little Susan, and I am not going to leave, and so—there!”
Luke knew well how great would be the void which her absence would make, but he still struggled to carry out his plans.
“But, Polly, oi should na loike to see thee marry here, and thy mother would never ha’ loiked it, and thou wilt no chance of seeing other men here.”
“Why, I am only sixteen, feyther, and we need not talk of my marriage for years and years yet, and I promise you I shan’t think of marrying in Varley when the time comes; but there is one thing I should like, and that is to spend Sundays, say once a fortnight, down with Mrs. Mason; they were so quiet and still there, and I did like so much going to the church; and I hate that Little Bethel, especially since that horrible man came there; he is a disgrace, feyther, and you will see that mischief will come out of his talk.”
“Oi don’t like him myself, Polly, and maybe me and the boys will sometoimes come down to the church thou art so fond of. However, if thou wilt agree to go down every Sunday to Mrs. Mason, thou shalt stay here for a bit till oi see what can best be done.”
And so it was settled, and Polly went off every Sunday morning, and Luke went down of an evening to fetch her back.
“Well, what is’t, lass?” he asked as he joined her outside the “Brown Cow.”
“George has scalded his leg badly, feyther. I was just putting Susan to bed, and he took the kettle off the fire to pour some water in the teapot, when Dick pushed him, or something, and the boiling water went over his leg.”
“Oi’ll give that Dick a hiding,” Luke said wrathfully as he hastened along by her side. “Why didn’t ye send him here to tell me instead of cooming thyself?”
“It was only an accident, feyther, and Dick was so frightened when he saw what had happened and heard George cry out that he ran out at once. I have put some flour on George’s leg; but I think the doctor ought to see him, that’s why I came for you.”
“It’s no use moi goaing voor him now, lass, he be expected along here every minute. Jack Wilson, he be on the lookout by the roadside vor to stop him to ask him to see Nance, who be taken main bad. I will see him and ask him to send doctor to oor house when he comes, and tell Jarge I will be oop in a minute.”
Upon the doctor’s arrival he pronounced the scald to be a serious one, and Dick, who had been found sobbing outside the cottage, and had been cuffed by his father, was sent down with the doctor into the town to bring up some lint to envelop the leg. The doctor had already paid his visit to Nance Wilson, and had rated her father soundly for not procuring better food for her.
“It’s all nonsense your saying the times are bad,” he said in reply to the man’s excuses. “I know the times are bad; but you know as well as I do that half your wages go to the public house; your family are starving while you are squandering money in drink. That child is sinking from pure want of food, and I doubt if she would not be gone now if it hadn’t have been for that soup your wife tells me Bill Swinton sent in to her. I tell you, if she dies you will be as much her murderer as if you had chopped her down with a hatchet.”
The plain speaking of the doctor was the terror of his parish patients, who nevertheless respected him for the honest truths he told them. He himself used to say that his plain speaking saved him a world of trouble, for that his patients took good care never to send for him except when he was really wanted.
The next day Mary Powlett was unable to go off as usual to Marsden as George was in great pain from his scald. She went down to church, however, in the evening with her father, Bill Swinton taking her place by the bedside of the boy.
“Thou hast been a-sitting by moi bedside hours every day, Polly,” he said, “and it’s moi turn now to take thy place here. Jack ha’ brought over all moi books, for oi couldn’t make shift to carry them and use moi crutches, and oi’ll explain all the pictures to Jarge jest as Maister Ned explained ‘em to oi.”
The sight of the pictures reconciled George to Polly’s departure, and seeing the lad was amused and comfortable, she started with Luke, Dick taking his place near the bed, where he could also enjoy a look at the pictures.
“Did you notice that pretty girl with the sweet voice in the aisle in a line with us, father,” Ned asked that evening, “with a great, strong, quiet looking man by the side of her?”
“Yes, lad, the sweetness of her singing attracted my attention, and I thought what a bright, pretty face it was!”
“That’s Mary Powlett and her uncle. You have heard me speak of her as the girl who was so kind in nursing Bill.”
“Indeed, Ned! I should scarcely have expected to find so quiet and tidy looking a girl at Varley, still less to meet her with a male relation in church.”
“She lives at Varley, but she can hardly be called a Varley girl,” Ned said. “Bill was telling me about her. Her uncle had her brought up down here. She used to go back to sleep at night, but otherwise all her time was spent here. It seems her mother never liked the place, and married away from it, and when she and her husband died and the child came back to live with her uncle he seemed to think he would be best carrying out his dead sister’s wishes by having her brought up in a different way to the girls at Varley. He has lost his wife now, and she keeps house for him, and Bill says all the young men in Varley are mad about her, but she won’t have anything to say to them.”
“She is right enough there,” Captain Sankey said smilingly. “They are mostly croppers, and rightly or wrongly—rightly, I am afraid—they have the reputation of being the most drunken and quarrelsome lot in Yorkshire. Do you know the story that is current among the country people here about them?”
“No, father, what is it?”
“Well, they say that no cropper is in the place of punishment. It was crowded with them at one time, but they were so noisy and troublesome that his infernal majesty was driven to his wits’ end by their disputes. He offered to let them all go. They refused. So one day he struck upon a plan