The organ of communication between the members of the society at Varley and those in other villages was the blacksmith, or as he preferred to be called, the minister, John Stukeley, who on week-days worked at the forge next door to the " Spotted Dog," and on Sundays held services in "Little Bethel"—a tiny meeting-house standing back from the road.
Had John Stukeley been busier during the week he would have had less time to devote to the cause of "King Lud;" but for many hours a day his fire was banked up, for except to make repairs in any of the frames which had got out of order, or to put on a shoe which a horse had cast on his way up the hill from Marsden, there was but little employment for him.
The man was not a Yorkshireman by birth, but came from Liverpool, and his small spare figure contrasted strongly with those of the tall square-built Yorkshiremen among whom he lived.
He was a good workman, but his nervous irritability, his self-assertion, and impatience of orders had lost him so many places that he had finally determined to become his own master, and, coming into a few pounds at the death of his father, had wandered away from the great towns, until, finding in Varley a village without a smith, he had established himself there, and having adopted the grievances of the men as his own, had speedily become a leading figure among them.
A. short time after his arrival the old man who had officiated at Little Bethel had died, and Stukeley, who had
from the first taken a prominent part in the service, and who possessed the faculty of fluent speech to a degree rare among the Yorkshiremen, was installed as his successor, and soon filled Little Bethel as it had never been filled before. In his predecessor's time, small as the meeting-house was, it had been comparatively empty. Two or three men, half a dozen women, and their children being the only attendants, but it was now filled to crowding'.
Stukeley's religion was political; his prayers and discourses related to the position of affairs in Varley rather than to Christianity. They were a down-trodden people whom he implored to burst the bonds of their Egyptian task-masters. The strength he prayed for was the strength to struggle and to fight. The enemy he denounced was the capitalist rather than the devil.
Up to that time " King Lud" had but few followers in Varley; but the fiery discourses in Little Bethel roused among the younger men a passionate desire to right their alleged wrongs, and to take vengeance upon those denounced as their oppressors, so the society recruited its numbers fast. Stukeley was appointed the local secretary, partly because he was the leading spirit, partly because he alone among its members was able to write, and under his vigorous impulsion Varley became one of the leading centres of the organization in West Yorkshire.
It was on a Saturday evening soon after Bill Swinton had become convalescent. The parlour of the " Brown Cow" was filled with its usual gathering; a peat-fire glowed
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upon the hearth, and two tallow-candles burned somewhat faintly in the dense smoke. Mugs of beer stood on the tables, but they were seldom applied to the lips of the smokers, for they had to do service without being refilled through the long evening. The silence was broken only by the short puffs at the pipes. All were thinking over the usual topic, when old Gideon Jones unexpectedly led their ideas into another channel.
" Oive heern," he said slowly, taking his pipe from his mouth, " as how Nance Wilson's little gal is wuss."
"Ay, indeed!" "So oi've heern;" "Be she now?" and various other exclamations arose from the smokers.
Gideon was pleased with the effect he had produced, and a few minutes later continued the subject.
" It be the empty coopbud more nor illness, I expect." There was another chorus of assent, and a still heartier one when he wound up the subject: "These be hard toimes surelye."
Thinking that he had now done sufficient to vindicate his standing as one of the original thinkers of the village Gideon relapsed into silence and smoked away gravely with his eyes fixed on the fire in the post of honour on one side of which was his regular seat. The subject, however, was too valuable to be allowed to drop altogether, and Luke Marner brought it into prominence again by remarking:
" They tell oi as how Nance has asked Bet Collins to watch by the rood soide to catch doctor as he droives whoam. He went out this arternoon to Eetlow."
" Oi doubt he woant do she much good; it be food, and not doctor's stuff as the child needs," another remarked.
" That be so, surelye," went up in a general chorus, and then a new-comer who had just entered the room said:
" Oi ha' joost coom vrom Nance's and Bill Swinton ha' sent in a basin o' soup as he got vrom the feyther o' that boy as broke his leg. Nance war a feeding the child wi' it, and maybe it will do her good. He ha' been moighty koind to Bill, that chap hav."
" He ha' been that," Gideon said after the chorus of approval had died away.
" Oi seed t' young un to-day a-sitting in front o' th* cottage, a-talking and laughing wi' Bill."
" They be good uns, feyther and son, though they tells oi as neither on them bain't Yaarkshire."
The general feeling among the company was evidently one of surprise that any good thing should be found outside Yorkshire. But further talk on the subject was interrupted by a slight exclamation at the door.
" 0 what a smoke, feyther! I can't see you, but I suppose you're somewhere here. You're wanted at home."
Although the speaker was visible to but few in the room there was no doubt as to her identity, or as to the person addressed as feyther. Mary Powlett was indeed the niece and not the daughter of Luke Marner, but as he had brought her up from childhood she looked upon him as her father. It was her accent and the tone of her voice which rendered it unnecessary for any of those present to see her face.
Luke was a bachelor when the child had arrived fifteen years before in the carrier's cart from Marsden, having made the journey in a similar conveyance to that town from Sheffield, where her father and mother had died within a week of each other, the last request of her mother being that little Polly should be sent off to the care of Luke Marner at Varley.
Luke had not then settled down into the position of one of the elders of the village, and he had been somewhat embarrassed by the arrival of the three-year-old girl. He decided promptly, however, upon quitting the lodgings which he had as a single man occupied and taking a cottage by himself. His neighbours urged upon him that so small a child could not remain alone all day while he was away at Marsden at work—a proposition to which he assented; but to the surprise of everyone, instead of placing her during the day under the care of one of the women of the place, he took her down with him to Marsden and placed her under the care of a respectable woman there who had children of her own.
Starting at five every morning from his cottage with Polly perched on his shoulder he tramped down to the town, leaving her there before going to work, and calling for her in the evening. A year later he married, and the village supposed that Polly would now be left behind. But they were mistaken. When he became engaged he had said:
" Now Loiza, there's one point as oi wish settled. As oi have told ye, oi ha' partly chosen ye becos oi knowed as
how ye would maake a good mother to my little Polly; but oi doan't mean to give up taking her down with me o' days to the town. Oi likes to ha' her wi' me on the roade—it makes it shorter loike. As thou knowest thyself, oi ha' bin a chaanged man sin she coom There warn't a cropper in the village drank harder nor oi; but oi maad oop moi moind when she came to gi' it up, and oi have gi'd it up."