Part 9

The next morning was brilliant after the storm, and naturally suggested an expedition.

'Let's go for a walk right across the moors,' said Sandie to me; 'the other two want to work, but I've turned restless.'

I agreed at once, for I was restless also in disappointment of our errand. We ordered sandwiches, obtained leave from 'the Dean,' and prepared to start off at once.

'Don't fret if we don't get back to-night,' cried Sandie, the 'second-sighted,' to our tutor as we departed; 'we may get lost, Ted may break down under his weight of learning, or one of Saint Cuthbert's Cross Fell fiends may "lift" him.'

We wanted to get as far as Brough under Stanemoor, and back by the great 'Nick,' and then athwart Cross Fell's desolate moor, but we had not taken the weather into our consideration, nor thought of possible sopping peat-hags on our return journey.

Thus when we had toiled up 'the Nick' by a narrow path from Brough to the wild moorland we found our track across the waste very difficult to follow. By six o'clock the clouds had gathered black above us, and another thunderstorm grew imminent.

Suddenly the lightning flared through the serrated gloom, and thunder reverberated over the heather.

The rain descended javelin-like upon us as we struggled through the heavy peat-hags; we lost our bearings and determined to make for any light that we might descry in lonely farm or shepherd's sheil on this forsaken waste. We had almost given up hope when we saw a faint glimmer through the increasing gloom three-quarters of a mile away, perhaps, on our left hand.

We made for our beacon as straightly as we could; then in a dip we lost sight of it, but eventually succeeded in discovering it again, and judged the light to proceed from the window of a small farm, as indeed proved to be the case when we had traversed another mile of broken moorland.

After knocking on the door repeatedly, we heard some one moving within. We went up to the window, and asked for shelter from the storm, as we were strangers who had lost our way.

The door slowly opened, and a man bearing a tallow dip in a battered sconce showed himself in the entry.

'We've little accommodation here the night,' he said, as he looked at us somewhat suspiciously; 'the goodman has died and lies steekit in his coffin, but ye can come in for shelter if ye have a mind.'

This did not sound very inviting, but any shelter was preferable to a night in a peat-hag; so we accepted his offer, and followed the man within.

It was a strange scene that met our eyes in the little kitchen. On trestles in the middle of the room stood the coffin; in a box-bed to one side of the hearth an old woman in a white mutch or cap sat up against pillows; on the farther side of the hearth sat an untidy, foolish-faced girl who peeled potatoes with an uncanny disconcern.

The old woman, on the contrary, had exceedingly bright eyes, and seemed to note everything with extraordinary interest. 'Wha's there?' she asked, as we bowed in a hesitating manner to our hostess.

Sandie explained who we were and how we had chanced to intrude upon her in such an untimely hour.

'Ay,' she replied, 'the goodman's dead, and is to be lifted the morn, but ye can bide the night; and if ye dinna mind such company,' she pointed contemptuously at the man who had let us in, 'ye can sleep wi' him i' the room above.'

'Whisht, mother, whisht wi' yer talk afore strange gentlemen,' said he, and he seemed to be very uneasy beneath her scorn.

'Why should I whisht?' she said angrily. 'Why hae na ye brocht my daughter Jean to her father's burying?'

The man turned to us eagerly, evidently anxious to divert our attention.

'Be seated, gentlemen,' he said, drawing up two chairs to the fire; 'ye'll be ready for something to eat belike. Mary can give ye some bacon and eggs and potatoes for supper whilst ye dry your coats.'

'Ay,' interrupted the old lady, 'ye shall have meat and drink. Nane shall come to a burying at my hoose and no have meat and drink before they gang awa. Set oot the bannocks and honey and milk, Mary, for the lads, then mak ready the bacon and eggs.'

Mary with a strange disordered giggle that brought a chill to my bones, looked up at this and half spoke, half sang, aloud to herself by way of reply. 'Meat and drink for Dad's burying. But wherefore not for Jean's? Puir lassie, she was aye kind to me, was Jeannie.'

'Don't heed her, gentlemen,' said the man in a husky voice, 'she's a bit daft, poor girl,' and as he spoke he trod noisily on the stone floor, evidently trying to drown her voice, and forthwith dragged a table that stood in the window somewhat nearer the hearth.

Mary had now finished with her potatoes, and was cutting rashers of bacon which were soon sizzling delightfully in the pan. Meantime Sandie was talking to our bedridden hostess, whom he had discovered to be of Scottish extraction, and I was conversing with the son-in-law about the danger of being lost on Cross Fell.

There was a lull in the storm at this time, but one could hear the long lances of rain striking on the stone tiles above; it was good to be within doors, and to dry one's coat by the peat embers. We insisted on our hostess partaking of supper, which we served up to her in bed; then Sandie and I, the girl and the man, set ourselves down by the table and stretched forth our hands, in the Homeric phrase, 'to the good things set before us.'

Sandie and I had our backs to the coffin, and had forgotten all about it and the 'goodman,' its occupant; Mary and her brother-in-law sat at the corners of the table, and their features were lit up by the flickering peats. The man had shifty, furtive eyes, set rather deep beneath an overhanging forehead, lined cheeks, and a clean-shaven heavy jaw; Mary, with sallow face, light eyes, and disordered hair sat opposite him, evidently apprehensive.

A strange party amid strange surroundings, thought I, for a moment, as I framed an etching of the black coffin, the bright-eyed old woman in the night mutch abed, the daft girl and dour man and two Oxford undergraduates eating heartily amid the flickering light of the dip and the peat flames.