mockery of the collier men and lads, with the dramatic mimicry which made him so popular a character. As Derrick had said, Sammy Craddock was a Riggan institution. In his youth, his fellows had feared his strength; in his old age they feared his wit. “Let Owd Sammy tackle him,” they said, when a new-comer was disputatious, and hard to manage; “Owd Sammy's th' one to gi' him one fur his nob. Owd Sammy'll fettle him—graidely.” And the fact was that Craddock's cantankerous sharpness of brain and tongue were usually efficacious. So he “tackled” Barholm, and so he “tackled” the curate. But, for some reason, he was never actually bitter against Grace. He spoke of him lightly, and rather sneered at his physical insignificance; but he did not hold him up to public ridicule.
“I hav' not quite settled i' my moind about th' little chap,” he would say sententiously to his admirers. “He's noan siccan a foo' as th' owd un, for he's a graidely foo', he is, and no mistake. At any rate a little foo' is better nor a big un.”
And there the matter stood. Against these tremendous odds Grace fought—against coarse and perverted natures—worse than all, against the power that should have been ranged upon his side. And added to these discouragements, were the obstacles of physical delicacy, and an almost morbid conscientiousness. A man of coarser fibre might have borne the burden better—or at least with less pain to himself.
“A drop or so of Barholm's blood in Grace's veins,” said Derrick, communing with himself on the Knoll Road after their interview—“a few drops of Barholm's rich, comfortable, stupid blood in Grace's veins would not harm him. And yet it would have to be but a few drops indeed,” hastily. “On the whole I think it would be better if he had more blood of his own.”
The following day Miss Barholm came. Business had taken Derrick to the station in the morning, and being delayed, he was standing upon the platform when one of the London trains came in. There were generally so few passengers on such trains who were likely to stop at Riggan, that the few who did so were of some interest to the bystanders. Accordingly he stood gazing, in rather a preoccupied fashion, at the carriages, when the door of a first-class compartment opened, and a girl stepped out upon the platform near him. Before seeing her face one might have imagined her to be a child of scarcely more than fourteen or fifteen. This was Derrick's first impression; but when she turned toward him he saw at once that it was not a child. And yet it was a small face, with delicate oval features, smooth, clear skin, and stray locks of hazel brown hair that fell over the low forehead. She had evidently made a journey of some length, for she was encumbered with travelling wraps, and in her hands she held a little flower-pot containing a cluster of early blue violets—such violets as would not bloom so far north as Riggan for weeks to come. She stood upon the platform for a moment or so, glancing up and down as if in search of some one, and then, plainly deciding that the object of her quest had not arrived, she looked at Derrick in a business-like, questioning way. She was going to speak to him. The next minute she stepped forward without a shadow of girlish hesitation.
“May I trouble you to tell me where I can find a conveyance of some sort?” she said. “I want to go to the Rectory.”
Derrick uncovered, recognizing his friend's picture at once.
“I think,” he said with far more hesitancy than she had herself shown, “that this must be Miss Barholm.”
“Yes,” she answered, “Anice Barholm. I think,” she said, “from what Mr. Grace has said to me, that you must be his friend.”
“I am one of Grace's friends,” he answered, “Fergus Derrick.”
She managed to free one of her small hands, and held it out to him.
She had arrived earlier than had been expected, it turned out, and through some mysterious chance or other, her letters to her friends had not preceded her, so there was no carriage in waiting, and but for Derrick she would have been thrown entirely upon her own resources. But after their mutual introduction the two were friends at once, and before he had put her into the cab, Derrick had begun to understand what it was that led the Reverend Paul to think her an exceptional girl. She knew where her trunks were, and was quite definite upon the subject of what must be done with them. Though pretty and frail looking enough, there was no suggestion of helplessness about her. When she was safely seated in the cab, she spoke to Derrick through the open window.
“If you will come to the Rectory to-night, and let papa thank you,” she said, “we shall all be very glad. Mr. Grace will be there, you know, and I have a great many questions to ask which I think you must be able to answer.”
Derrick went back to his work, thinking about Miss Barholm, of course. She was different from other girls, he felt, not only in her fragile frame and delicate face, but with another more subtle and less easily defined difference. There was a suggestion of the development in a child of the soul of a woman.
Going down to the mine, Derrick found on approaching that there was some commotion among the workers at the pit's mouth, and before he turned in to his office, he paused upon the threshold for a few minutes to see what it meant. But it was not a disturbance with which it was easy for an outsider to interfere. A knot of women drawn away from their work by some prevailing excitement, were gathered together around a girl—a pretty but pale and haggard creature, with a helpless, despairing face—who stood at bay in the midst of them, clasping a child to her bosom—a target for all eyes. It was a wretched sight, and told its own story.
“Wheer ha' yo' been, Liz?” Derrick heard two or three voices exclaim at once. “What did you coom back for? This is what thy handsome face has browt thee to, is it?”
And then the girl, white, wild-eyed and breathless with excitement, turned on them, panting, bursting into passionate tears.
“Let me a-be:” she cried, sobbing. “There's none of yo' need to talk. Let me a-be! I didna coom back to ax nowt fro' none on you! Eh Joan! Joan Lowrie?”
Derrick turned to ascertain the meaning of this cry of appeal, but almost before he had time to do so, Joan herself had borne down upon the group; she had pushed her way through it, and was standing in the centre, confronting the girl's tormentors in a flame of wrath, and Liz was clinging to her.
“What ha' they been sayin' to yo', lass?” she demanded. “Eh! but yo're a brave lot, yo' are—women yo' ca' yo'rsens!—badgerin' a slip o' a wench loike this.”
“I did na coom back to ax nowt fro' noan o' them,” sobbed the girl. “I'd rayther dee ony day nor do it! I'd rayther starve i' th' ditch—an' it's comin' to that.”
“Here,” said Joan, “gi' me th' choild.”
She bent down and took it from her, and then stood up before them all, holding it high in her strong arms—so superb, so statuesque, and yet so womanly a figure, that a thrill shot through the heart of the man watching her.
“Lasses,” she cried, her voice fairly ringing, “do yo' see this? A bit o' a helpless thing as canna answer back yo're jeers! Aye! look at it well, aw' on yo'. Some on yo's getten th' loike at whoam. An' when yo've looked at th' choild, look at th' mother! Seventeen year owd, Liz is, an' th' world's gone wrong wi' her. I wunnot say as th' world's gone ower reet wi' ony on us; but them on us as has had th' strength to howd up agen it, need na set our foot on them as has gone down. Happen theer's na so much to choose betwixt us after aw. But I've gotten this to tell yo'—them as has owt to say o' Liz, mun say it to Joan Lowrie!”
Rough, and coarsely pitiless as the majority of them were, she had touched the right chord. Perhaps the bit of the dramatic in her championship of the girl had as much to do with the success of her half-commanding appeal as anything
