The Martyrdom of Madeline. Robert Williams Buchanan
he never could resist. Had he possessed a watch, he would have taken it to pieces to examine the works; and he had been languishing with curiosity for days, puzzling his head, as many a child has done, to know what was inside the money-box labelled ‘Savings’ Bank,’ with its front pointed like a town hall, and a slit in its top for the reception of vagrant pence.
Having come in sight of the ferry, the two walked on quickly. The sun blazed down on them with golden splendour, and from beneath their feet the dust arose in a cloud. Neither spoke; Madeline continued to impress an occasional kiss on the hand which she still held fondly in hers—and to each of these exhibitions of feeling her companion replied by a broad grin. Suddenly, however, he gave a start and, looking down at his flushed and dusty companion, said quickly—
‘I say, Madlin, you’d best put on your Sunday hat. There be Uncle Mark at the garden gate!’
Without a word, Madeline obeyed. She took the hat, which for coolness and comfort she had swung on her arm, and tied it carefully on her head. Then regaining possession of her uncle’s hand, she walked decorously up to one of the little green cottage gates, on the other side of which stood, indeed, her Uncle Mark.
Though Luke and Mark were brothers, they were as unlike one another as two men could possibly be. Mark Peartree stood six feet in his shoes; he was very thin, and he stooped slightly at the shoulders. His hair was grey, his face red as a Ripston pippin, but his cheeks were sunken, perhaps from the loss of many teeth.
The cottage was one of a row of red brick, with creepers crawling over the front, a small plot of garden facing the river, enclosed by green wooden railings and a green wooden gate. Upon one of the gates now leaned Uncle Mark, clad, too, in his Sunday best, but much less gaudily than Luke, and looking down the road with impatience marked on every lineament of his face.
‘Here you be at last,’ he said, when the vagrant pair came up. ‘Why, mate alive, can’t you be home at meal times? Mother’s in a powerful rage. Brother Brown be coming this afternoon, and he’ll be here afore we can get our wittles done!’
At this speech the smile faded from Luke’s face; but, before he could utter a word in reply, another voice, evidently that of a female, chimed in from the cottage—
‘I’m sure, father, it be like you to be asking Brother Brown and the Brethren here of a Good Friday, as if we didn’t get enough of them every day i’ the year. However, coming they be, but we shan’t get the dinner over any the quicker with you standing racketing there!’
The speaker stood in the doorway, the red brick and the green creepers framing her as she stood. A comfortable looking woman, dressed in a clean cotton gown, with a coarse white apron tied round her waist. She was short and stout, with a brown good-humoured face and glossy black hair. She wore a cap the long ends of which were thrown over her shoulders and pinned behind, as if for freedom; her sleeves were rolled up nearly to the elbow, and her hands and arms were mottled brown and red with constant work in soap and water.
At sight of this figure, no other indeed than Mrs. Mark Peartree, or, as Madeline called her, ‘Aunt Jane,’ the good-humoured grin again took possession of Uncle Luke’s face. Passing through the little gate he made for the door and at once entered the house, while Madeline transferred her attentions to Uncle Mark.
‘It wasn’t any fault o’ Uncle Luke’s,’ she said, looking up into the weather-beaten face, ‘indeed, Uncle Mark, ’twas all on account o’ me that he was so long—I was up there with Polly Lowther, looking at the graves.’
In her eagerness to excuse her favourite, Madeline might have revealed the dreaded secret of the dance, but Uncle Mark, who had his own reasons for wishing to get the dinner quickly disposed of, patted her hand and said—
‘All right, Madlin, my lass;’ and, taking her small hot hand in his big horny first, led her into the house.
It was a very small house. A long narrow passage led from the front door to the back, and midway in the passage was a flight of narrow carpetless stairs. On the right opened out two rooms—a kitchen, and a parlour, as it was called. During the week, while the men were at work on the river, the parlour was carefully closed up. No fire was ever lit in it—it was dark, well polished, and genteel, with a bit of drugget for a carpet, a china shepherd and shepherdess, and several shells on the mantelpiece, and on the walls two highly illuminated pictures, one representing the Prodigal Son, the other Susannah and the Elders. But in the centre of the mantelpiece stood the crowning glory of the apartment—a small ‘weather-cottage’ made of wood, formed in the shape of a roofed shed, and containing two figures, one of ‘Darby’ and another of ‘Joan,’ standing on either side of a piece of wood, suspended in the centre by a quicksilver pole. When the weather was fine, Joan swung out, with her basket on her arm, as if going to market, and left Darby under cover; when it was wet, Joan retreated, and Darby emerged to brave the elements like a man. This weather-cottage was a miracle of art in Madeline’s eyes, and was regarded with no little reverence by all the members of the house. Indeed, the parlour altogether was a sanctuary, full of a pious clamminess and darkness, and even Mrs. Peartree never entered it without a certain awe, tempered with a sense of increased respectability. From week’s end to week’s end they remained in the red-tiled kitchen, while on Sunday evening, and indeed on every festive occasion like the present, the parlour was thrown open for the family use.
CHAPTER III.—EASTER SOLEMNITIES OF THE BRETHREN.
It was in the paven kitchen, however, that the party now assembled, and taking their seats round the square deal table, which was spread with a clean table-cloth, began at once upon the dinner—a boiled leg of pork and potatoes.
With her little feet swinging to and fro, and her large blue wistful eyes roving wistfully about the room, Madeline sat and ate up her portion contentedly. The sun streaming through the back window caressed her bright cheek and dusty hair, and made her think of the glad light which had touched her only a short time ago, while she had been learning to dance upon the tombs. Suddenly a strange thought seemed to strike her.
‘Uncle Mark,’ she said, while Uncle Luke dropped his knife and fork in wonder, ‘can dead folk feel?’
‘No, my lass,’ returned Uncle Mark, with some little surprise in his mild blue eyes. ‘Dead men is dead as nails is—they can’t feel nothing. What put that into your head?’
But Madeline did not answer; a sense of great satisfaction had stolen over her at this brief assurance, and, with a glance of meaning at Uncle Luke, she said to herself that, for once in his life, the parson had been wrong.
Dinner being over, there was a general movement, and a great awe came over the family as the door of communication between the kitchen and parlour was thrown open, and the latter was seen in all its sepulchral splendour. Uncles Mark and Luke passed reverently in, and closed the door; but soon Madeline was made straight and clean, and sent in after them, while Aunt Jane, who seemed seized with unaccountable irritability, remained to tidy up the kitchen.
Once in the parlour, Madeline crept up to the window, and gazed with wistful dreamy eyes across the little garden on the great still river, which crept past flashing and darkening in the sun. Uncle Mark, seated on a very shiny and sticky horsehair sofa, was deep in the pages of the family Bible, while Uncle Luke, with a face as grave as a judge, was repeating in an undertone the words of an Easter hymn. All was quiet and still in the sepulchral chamber; but through the closed door they could distinctly hear the rattling of dishes, the clangour of pots and pans, from the kitchen. Presently this rattling and clangour became positively furious, and simultaneously a loud rat-a-tat was heard at the front door. Finally, to the same noisy accompaniment, the room door was opened, and a number of visitors came in one by one.
They consisted of a tall thin man, dressed in glossy black, with a long thin face, broad protruding forehead, and