More Tales of the Ridings Part 3

the house, but it took a vast o' care off my mind to think that he could get about and go down to 'The Craven Heifer' for his forenoon drinkings, same as he'd allus done sin first I came into Wharfedale as Mike's bride. And when back-end set in and we'd salved the sheep wi' b.u.t.ter and tar to keep the winter rain out on 'em, still Owd Jerry kept wick and cobby, and there were days, aye, and weeks too, when I forgot what I'd done on Ash-Riddling Day. And when I thought about it, it didn't flay me like it used to do; for I said to misen, 'I'll keep Owd Jerry alive ovver next St Mark's Day, choose how.' So I knitted him a m.u.f.fler for his throat and lined his weskit wi' flannen; I brewed him hot drinks made out o' herbs I'd gethered i' the hedgerows i' summertime, and rubbed his chest wi' a mixture o' saim frae the pig-killing, and honey frae the bee-skeps. Eh! mon, but it were gey hard to get the owd man to sup the herb tea and to let me rub him. He reckoned I wanted to puzzum him same as if he were a ratton, and when I'd putten the saim and honey on his chest he said I'd lapped him up i' fly-papers. But I set no count on his nattering so long as I could keep him alive.

"Chrissamas came at last, and New Year set in wi' frost and snow. The grouse came down frae the moors and the rabbits fair played Hamlet about the farms: they were that pined wi' hunger, they began to eat the bark off the ashes and thorn bushes i' the hedges. I did all I could to keep Owd Jerry frae the public-house while the storm lasted, but he would toddle down ivery morning for his gla.s.s o' yal, and, of course, he got his hoast back agean i' his thropple. All the same, I wouldn't give in.

I counted the days while St Mark's Day, and tewed and rived and better rived to keep him out o' his coffin. But it was weary wark, and I got no thanks frae Jerry for all I was doing for him.

"At lang length St Mark's Eve came round, and a wild day it was, and no mistake. There had been deep snow on the moors two days afore, and after the snow had come rain. It was a bad lambing time, and Mike and Amos were about the farm all day and most o' the neet, looking after the lambs that had lossen their yowes. Owd Jerry had threaped shameful the day afore; the weather had been that bad he'd not been able to go down to 'The Craven Heifer.'

"When I'd gotten out o' bed, and looked out o' the windey it were still las.h.i.+ng wi' rain, and I said to misen, I'll keep Jerry i' bed to-day. If I can keep him alive to-day I sal have won, and Jerry can do what he likes wi' hissen to-morrow. So I hugged up his breakfast to his chamer and told him I'd leet a fire for him there, and I'd get Harry Spink to come and sit wi' him and keep him company. But Jerry wouldn't bide i'

bed, not for n.o.body; he'd set his mind on going down to the public, and a wilful man mun have his way, choose what fowks say. So off he set, wi'

the rain teeming down all the time, and the beck getting higher and higher wi' the spate.

"Eh, deary me! What I had to thole that day! I was flaid that if he had a drop too mich he'd happen lose his footing on the plank-bridge at the town-end, and then the spate would tak him off his feet and drown him. I offered to walk wi' him down to the public and bide wi' him while he wanted to come back; but he said he reckoned he were owd enough to do wi'out a nuss-maid and told me to mind my own business. Well, twelve o'clock came, and when I saw Owd Jerry coming back to his dinner I were that fain I could have kissed him, though he'd a five-days' beard on his face.

"When dinner were ower Mike told our Amos that he mun fetch in the stirks that were out on the moors on the far side o' Wharfe. The weather were that bad he doubted they'd come to no good if they were out all neet. So Amos set off about half-past two, and, efter I'd weshed up and sided away I sat misen down i' the ingle-nook and mended the stockings.

And there was Owd Jerry set on the lang-settle anent me. There was no sign on his face of a deeing man, but ivery minute the load on my mind grew heavier. Eh, man, but it were a queer game the deevil played wi' me that day, a queer, mocking game that I'll niver forget so lang as there's breath left i' my body. Leastways that's what I thought at the time, but I've learnt by now that it weren't the deevil; it was the Almighty punis.h.i.+n' me for eatin' o' the Tree o' Knowledge.

"Fower o'clock came, and I got tea ready. The childer came back frae school, and then Mike came, and the first thing he axed was if Amos had gotten back wi' the stirks. So I said: 'No, he's noan gotten back yet awhile.' My mind were so taen up wi' Owd Jerry and the ash-riddling that I'd forgotten that Amos was away on the other side o' Wharfe. So Mike for all he was weet to the skin, set off to look for Amos. I gave Owd Jerry and the childer their tea, but I wouldn't sit down wi' 'em misen, but kept going to the windey to see if Mike and Amos were coming wi' the stirks. I looked out, happen six or seven times, and there was n.o.body on the road; but at last I set een on Mike and other lads frae the farms round about. They were carrying somebody on a hurdle."

For a moment Grannie interrupted her story to wipe away the tears that were now rolling down her cheeks. In a flash I realised what was to be the tragic close of her tale, and I tried to spare her the details. But she refused to be spared, and, forcing back the tears, went on to the bitter end.

"Aye, aye, thou'll happen have guessed who was on the hurdle. It was Amos; he'd lossen his footing on the stepping-stones going across Wharfe, and the spate had carried him downstream and drowned him. It wasn't Jerry's clog-print on the ashes, it was Amos's; and the Lord had taen away my eldest barn frae me because I'd etten o' the Tree o'

Knowledge."

II. Janet's Cove

Grannie's reputation as a story-teller was readily acknowledged by the children of our village. When they had trudged back from school which was held in a village two miles away, tea was always ready for them. But tea in their own kitchens was accounted a dull repast. If the weather was fine they carried their "s.h.i.+ves" of bread and dripping, or bread and treacle, into the road in front of their houses and ate them in the intervals between "Here come three dukes a-riding," "Wallflowers, wallflowers, growing up so high," and "Poor Roger is dead and laid in his grave." But in winter, or when the weather was bad, they made it their custom to take their teas to Grannie's fireside and demand a story as accompaniment to their frugal meal. The young voices of the children brightened Grannie's life, and the hour of story-telling round the fire was for her like a golden sunset following upon a day of gloom.

The stories which she told to the children were usually concerned with her own childhood. She had always been of an imaginative turn of mind and the doings of her early life, seen through the long-drawn vistas of the years, had become suffused with iridescent colours. They had gathered to themselves romance as a wall overhung by trees gathers to itself moss and fern and lichen.

"Tell you a tale," she would say. "Ay, but, honey-barns, I reckon you'll have heerd all my tales lang sin. No? Well then, did I iver tell you t'

tale o' Janet's Cove?"

"Ay, thou's telled us yon last week," Kester Layc.o.c.k, the spokesman of the party of listeners, would reply; "but thou mun tell it agean."

There was diplomacy as well as truth in Kester's words when he said that Grannie had told them the story of Janet's Cove the preceding week. The truth was that she had told them that tale every week since winter set in, but nothing could stale its freshness for them. Besides, did not Grannie introduce surprising variations of narrative every time she told it, so that it never seemed quite the same story?

"Janet's Cove" was a story of the birds, and Grannie's knowledge of the life and habits of birds seemed wonderful to them. Crippled with rheumatism as she was, and unable to move from her bed, she nevertheless watched for the return of the spring and autumn migrants with all the eagerness of the born naturalist. She offered the children money if they would bring her the first tidings of the arrival of birds in the dale.

There was always a halfpenny underneath the geranium pot in the window-sill for the child whose eye caught sight of the first swallow, redstart or sandpiper; or whose ear first recognised the clarion call of the cuckoo, or the evening "bleat" of the nightjar on the bracken-mantled fells at the end of May. Or, if the season were autumn, the children were told to watch for the arrival of the woodc.o.c.k and the earliest flock of Norwegian fieldfares. Under Grannie's tuition more than one generation in the village had learnt to take an interest in the movements of migrants in the dale, and that was why the story of Janet and the birds never failed to charm the ears of the children gathered round the kitchen hearth.

"Now then," Grannie would begin, "if I'm boun' to tell you t' tale o'

Janet's Cove, you mun set yoursels down an' be whisht. Tak a seat at t'

top o' bag o' provand, Kester; Betty and Will can hug chairs to t' fire, and lile Joe Moon mun sit on t' end o' t' bed."

Such was Grannie's arrangement of the seats, while to me, the visitor, was a.s.signed the "lang-settle" on the other side of the fireplace. It was a coign of vantage which I shared with the ancestral copper warming-pan, and from it I could see the whole group. Grannie, bent half-double with rheumatism, was propped up in her bed, with the children grouped around her. She wore, as usual, her white mutch cap and grey shawl. Mittens covered her wrists, and her fingers, painfully swollen with chalk-stones, plied her knitting-needles. Her face was sunken in the cheeks and round her mouth, but her large brown eyes, still full of animation, broad forehead, and high-arched brows gave dignity and even beauty to her pale countenance. On the fire the porridge was warming for the calves' supper, while suspended from the wooden ceiling was the "bread-flake," a hurdle-shaped structure across the bars of which hung the pieces of oatcake which were eaten with b.u.t.termilk at supper.

"Well, I've happen telled you afore," Grannie began, "that when I were a lile la.s.s I lived up Malham way. My father had a farm close agen Gordale Scar. Eh! but it's a fearful queer country is yon! Gert nabs o' rock on all sides wheer n.o.bbut goats can clim, an' becks flowin' undergrund an'

then bubblin' up i' t' crofts an' meadows. On t' other side frae our steading were a cove that fowks called Janet's Cove. They telled all maks an' manders o' tales about t' cove an' reckoned it were plagued wi'

boggards. But they couldn't keep me out o' t' cove for all that; 'twere t' bonniest spot i' t' dale, an' I nivver gat stalled o' ramlin' about by t' watter-side an' amang t' rowans. There were a watterfall i' t'

cove, wi' a dark cave behind it, an' 'twere all owerhung wi' eshes an'

hazels.

"One neet I were sittin' up for my father while fower o'clock i' t'

morn. 'Twere t' day afore Easter Sunday an' my father were despert thrang wi' t' lambin' ewes. He hadn't taen off his shoes an' stockins for more nor a week. He'd doze a bit i' his chair by t' fire, an' then he'd wakken up an' leet t' lantern' an' gan out to see if aught ailed t'

sheep. He let me bide up for company, an' so as I could warm him a sup o' tea ower t' fire. But when t' gran'father's clock strake fower he said I mun away to my bed. He'd tak a turn round t' croft, an' then he'd set off wi' his budget to t' mistal to milk t' cows. But I didn't want to gan to bed. I'd bin sleepin' off an' on all t' neet, an' I weren't feelin' a lile bit tired. So when my father had set off I went to t'

door an' looked out. My song! but 'twere a grand neet. T' mooin were just turned full, an' were leetin' up all t' scars an' plats o' meadow; t' becks were just like silver an' t' owd yew-trees that grow on t' face o' t' scar had lang shadows as black as pick. I stood theer on t'

door-sill for mebbe five minutes an' then I said to misel, I'll just run down as far as Janet's Cove afore I gan to bed.' It were a bit cowd, so I lapped my shawl around my head an' set off.

"'Twere n.o.bbut a two-three minutes' walk, an' afore vara lang I were sittin' anent t' rocks, an' t' mooin were glisterin' through t'

esh-trees on to t' watter. Efter a while I felt a bit sleepy; 'twere t'

nippy air, an' mebbe t' seet o' t' fallin' watter dazed my een.

Onygates, I fell asleep an' slept for better pairt of an hour. When I wakkened t' mooin were well-nigh settin', an' I could see that t'

c.o.c.kleet were coomin' away i' t' east. So I reckoned I'd get back to my bed. But just then I saw summat movin' about on t' other side o' t'

beck. At first I thowt it were n.o.bbut a sheep, but when I'd keeked at it a bit langer I knew it weren't a sheep at all; 'twere a la.s.s o' about t'

same size as misel."

At this point in the story alertness of mind was depicted on the face of every listener. Joe Moon's tongue, as agile as a lizard's, had up to now been revolving like a windmill round the lower half of his face, questing after treacly crumbs which had adhered to his cheeks; but at the mention of the girl by the waterfall it ceased from its labours, and the tightly closed mouth and straining eyes showed that he was not losing a word.

"Queerest thing about t' la.s.s were this," Grannie continued, "shoo were nakt, as nakt as ony hen-egg, an' that at five o'clock on a frosty April morn. Eh! but it made me dither to see her stannin' theer wi' niver a s.h.i.+ft to her back. Well, I crept close to t' gert stone an' kept my een on her. First of all shoo crept down to t' watter an' put her feet intul it, an' gat agate o' splas.h.i.+n' t' watter all ower her, just like a bird wes.h.i.+n' itsel i' t' beck. Then shoo climmed up to t' top o' t' nab that were hingin' ower t' fall an' let t' watter flow all ower her face an'

showders. I could see her lish body s.h.i.+nin' through t' watter an' her yallow hair streamin' out on both sides of her head. Efter a while shoo climmed on to a rock i' t' beck below t' fall an' gat howd o' t' bough of an esh. Shoo brak off t' bough an' shaped it into a sort o' a wand an' started wavin' it i' t' air.

"Now I ought to have telled you that up to now iverything i' t' cove were as whisht as t' grave. I could hear t' c.o.c.ks crowin' up at our house, but all t' wild birds were roostin' i' t' boughs or on t' grund.

But no sooiner did t' la.s.s wave her wand ower her head than t' larks started singin'. T' meadows an' cow-pasturs were full o' sleepin' larks, an' then, all on a sudden, t' sky were fair wick wi' em. I harkened tul 'em, ay, an t' la.s.s harkened an' all, an' kept wavin' t' wand aboon her head. I doubted 'twere t' la.s.s that had wakkened t' larks an' gotten 'em to sing so canty. Efter a while shoo lowered t' wand a bit an' pointed to t' moors, an' then, by t' Mess! curlews gat agate o' singin.' Soom fowks reckons that t' song o' t' curlew is dreesom an' yonderly, but I love to harken to it i' t' springtime when t' birds cooms back to t'

moors frae t' sea. An' so did t' la.s.s. When shoo heerd t' curlews shoo started laughin' an' dashed t' watter about wi' her foot.

"An' all t' while shoo kept beatin' t' time to t' song o' t' birds wi'

her wand. Soomtimes shoo pointed to t' curlews aboon t' moor; then, sudden-like, shoo lowered t' wand, while it were pointin' into t' hazel shaws an' rowan bushes by t' beck-side; and afore I knew what were happening t' blackbirds wakkened up an' started whistlin' like mad. I niver heerd sich a shoutin' afore. It were fair deafenin', just as if there were a blackbird in ivery bush alang t' beck. They kept at it for happen fower or five minutes, an' then t' la.s.s made a fresh motion wi'

t' wand. What's coomin' next, I wondered, an' afore I'd done wonderin', sure enough, t' robins gat agate an' tried to shout down t' blackbirds an' all. You see I'd niver noticed afore that when t' birds start singin' i' t' morn they keep to a reg'lar order. It's just like a procession i' t' church. First cooms t' choir lads i' their supplices, an' happen a peppermint ball i' their mouths; then t' choir men, tenors and ba.s.ses; then t' curate, keekin' alang t' pews to see if squire's la.s.ses are lookin' at him, an' at lang length cooms t' vicar hissen.

Well, it's just t' same wi' t' birds. Skylarks wakkens up first, then curlews, then blackbirds, robins, throstles. You'll niver hear a throstle i' front o' a robin, nor a robin i' front o' a blackbird. They mind what's menseful same as fowks do. At efter, mebbe cuckoo will begin to shout, an' close behind him will coom t' spinks an' pipits an' lile t.i.ts. Eh, deary me! but I've clean forgotten most pairt o' what I've larnt misel about t' birds. They do iverything as reg'lar as if 'twere clockwork.

"I wonder if you childer can tell me what is t' bird that ligs abed langest?"

There was silence for a moment or two, and then Kester Layc.o.c.k suggested rooks.

"Nay," answered Grannie, "rooks are not what I sud call early risers, but they're not t' last birds up, not by a lang way. T' last bird to wakken up an' t' first bird to gan to bed is t' house-sparrow. An idle taistrill is t' sparrow, wi' nowther sense nor mense in his head. But theer, barns, I'm gettin' off t' track o' my story o' Janet an' t' way shoo wakkened up t' birds wi' her wand.

"You see shoo allus knew whose turn sud coom next, an' wheer ivery sort o' bird was roostin'. One minute shoo pointed t' stick to t' top o' t'

trees, an' then I heerd 'Caw! Caw!' Then shoo'd bring t' jackdaws out o'

their holes i' t' rocks, an' next minute shoo were pointin' to t' mossy roots o' t' trees hingin' ower t' beck, while a Jenny wren would hop out an' sing as though he were fit to brust hissen. An' all t' time it were gettin' leeter an' leeter, an' I could see that t' sun were s.h.i.+nin' on'

t' cliffs aboon Malham, though Janet's Cove were still i' t' shade. I knew my mother would sooin be seekin' me i' my cham'er, an' I started wonderin' what shoo'd say when shoo fan' t' bed empty. I gat a bit flaid when I thowt o' that, but I couldn't tak my een off t' la.s.s wi' t' wand.

I were fair bewitched wi' her, an' I doubt that if shoo'd pointed at me I sud hae started singin' 'Here coom three dukes a-rid in'.'

"Howiver, shoo niver clapped een on me wheer I was sittin' behind t'

stone. Shoo were thrang wi' t' birds were Janet, an' gettin' more excited ivery minute. By now t' din were fair deafenin'; I'd niver heerd aught like it afore, nor yet sin: without it were when my man took me down to Keighley, Christmas afore we were wed, an' I heerd t' lads and t' la.s.ses singin' t' Hallelujah Chorus i' t' Methody chapil. When I saw t' conductor-lad wi' t' stick in his hand callin' up t' trebles an'

ba.s.ses an' tother sets o' singers, Marry! I bethowt me o' Janet an' t'

birds i' t' cove, an' I brast out a-laughin' while fowks thowt I were daft.

"But theer, barns, I mun get forrad wi' my tale, or your mothers will be coomin' seekin' you afore I'm through wi' it. By now ommost all t' birds i' t' cove were wakkened up an' were singin' their cantiest. I looked up, an' t' sun had gotten clean ower t' top o' t' fell, an' were s.h.i.+nin'

straight down into t' cove. Ay, an' Janet saw t' sun too, an' when it were like a gert gowden ball at top o' t' hill, shoo pointed her wand at t' sun an' started dancin' aboon t' watterfall. I looked at her and then I looked at t' sun, an', Honey-fathers! if t' owd sun weren't dancin'