Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850.. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
whole party was startled at not seeing the boy, and joined in a simultaneous "Where is he? where is your brother?"
The two children only wept and trembled more violently, and burst into loud crying.
"Silence!" shouted the father. "Where is David? I tell ye? Is he lost? David, lad, where ar ta?"
All listened, but there was no answer but the renewed crying of the two girls.
"Where is the lad, then?" thundered forth the father with a terrible oath.
The two terrified children cried, "Oh, down there! down there!"
"Down where? Oh, God!" exclaimed one of the young men; "why it's a precipice! Down there!"
At this dreadful intelligence the mother gave a wild shriek, and fell senseless on the ground. The young men caught her, and dragged her back from the edge of the precipice. The father in the same moment, furious at what he heard, seized the younger child, that happened to be near him, and shaking it violently, swore he would fling it down after the lad.
He was angry with the poor children, as if they had caused the destruction of his boy. The young men seized him, and bade him think what he was about; but the man believing his boy had fallen down the precipice, was like a madman. He kicked at his wife as she lay on the ground, as if she were guilty of this calamity by leaving the children at home. He was furious against the poor girls, as if they had led their brother into danger. In his violent rage he was a perfect maniac, and the young men pushing him away, cried shame on him. In a while, the desperate man, torn by a hurricane of passion, sate himself down on a crag, and burst into a tempest of tears, and struck his head violently with his clenched fists, and cursed himself and every body. It was a dreadful scene.
Meantime, some of the young men had gone down below the precipice on which the children had stood, and, feeling among the loose stones, had found the body of poor little David. He was truly dead!
When he had heard the shout of his father, or of the young men, he had given one loud shout in answer, and saying, "Come on! never fear now!" sprang forward, and was over the precipice in the dark, and flew down, and was dashed to pieces. His sisters heard a rush, a faint shriek, and suddenly stopping, escaped the destruction that poor David had found.
CHAPTER II. – MILL LIFE
We must pass over the painful and dreadful particulars of that night, and of a long time to come; the maniacal rage of the father, the shattered heart and feelings of the mother, the dreadful state of the two remaining children, to whom their brother was one of the most precious objects in a world which, like theirs, contained so few. One moment to have seen him full of life, and fun, and bravado, and almost the next a lifeless and battered corpse, was something too strange and terrible to be soon surmounted. But this was woefully aggravated by the cruel anger of their father, who continued to regard them as guilty of the death of his favorite boy. He seemed to take no pleasure in them. He never spoke to them but to scold them. He drank more deeply than ever, and came home later; and when there, was sullen and morose. When their mother, who suffered severely, but still plodded on with all her duties, said, "David, they are thy children too," he would reply, savagely, "Hod thy tongue! What's a pack o' wenches to my lad?"
What tended to render the miner more hard toward the two girls was a circumstance which would have awakened a better feeling in a softer father's heart. Nancy, the younger girl, since the dreadful catastrophe, had seemed to grow gradually dull and defective in her intellect, she had a slow and somewhat idiotic air and manner. Her mother perceived it, and was struck with consternation by it. She tried to rouse her, but in vain. She could not perform her ordinary reading and spelling lessons. She seemed to have forgotten what was already learned. She appeared to have a difficulty in moving her legs, and carried her hands as if she had suffered a partial paralysis. Jane, her sister, was dreadfully distressed at it, and she and her mother wept many bitter tears over her. One day, in the following spring, they took her with them to Ashford, and consulted the doctor there. On examining her, and hearing fully what had taken place at the time of the brother's death – the fact of which he well knew, for it, of course, was known to the whole country round – he shook his head, and said he was afraid they must make up their minds to a sad case; that the terrors of that night had affected her brain, and that, through it, the whole nervous system had suffered, and was continuing to suffer the most melancholy effects. The only thing, he thought, in her favor was her youth; and added, that it might have a good effect, if they could leave the place where she had undergone such a terrible shock. But whether they did or not, kindness and soothing attentions to her would do more than any thing else.
Mrs. Dunster and little Jane returned home with heavy hearts. The doctor's opinion had only confirmed their fears; for Jane, though but a child, had quickness and affection for her sister enough to make her comprehend the awful nature of poor Nancy's condition. Mrs. Dunster told her husband the doctor's words, for she thought they would awaken some tenderness in him toward the unfortunate child. But he said, "That's just what I expected. Hou'll grow soft, and then who's to maintain her? Hou mun goo to th' workhouse."
With that he took his maundrel and went off to his work. Instead of softening his nature, this intelligence seemed only to harden and brutalize it. He drank now more and more. But all that summer the mother and Jane did all that they could think of to restore the health and mind of poor Nancy. Every morning, when the father was gone to work, Jane went to a spring up in the opposite wood, famed for the coldness and sweetness of its waters. On this account the proprietors of the mills at Cressbrook had put down a large trough there under the spreading trees, and the people fetched the water even from the village. Hence Jane brought, at many journeys, this cold, delicious water to bathe her sister in; they then rubbed her warm with cloths, and gave her new milk for her breakfast. Her lessons were not left off, lest the mind should sink into fatuity, but were made as easy as possible. Jane continued to talk to her, and laugh with her, as if nothing was amiss, though she did it with a heavy heart, and she engaged her to weed and hoe with her in their little garden. She did not dare to lead her far out into the valley, lest it might excite her memory of the past fearful time, but she gathered her flowers, and continued to play with her at all their accustomed sports, of building houses with pieces of pots and stones, and imagining gardens and parks. The anxious mother, when some weeks were gone by, fancied that there was really some improvement. The cold-bathing seemed to have strengthened the system: the poor child walked, and bore herself with more freedom and firmness. She became ardently fond of being with her sister, and attentive to her directions. But there was a dull cloud over her intellect, and a vacancy in her eyes and features. She was quiet, easily pleased, but seemed to have little volition of her own. Mrs. Dunster thought if they could but get her away from that spot, it might rouse her mind from its sleep. But, perhaps, the sleep was better than the awaking might be; however, the removal came, though in a more awful way than was looked for. The miner, who had continued to drink more and more, and seemed to have almost estranged himself from his home, staying away in his drinking bouts for a week or more together, was one day blasting a rock in the mine, and being half-stupefied with beer, did not take care to get out of the way of the explosion, was struck with a piece of the flying stone, and killed on the spot.
The poor widow and her children were now obliged to remove from under Wardlow-Cop. The place had been a sad one to her; the death of her husband, though he had been latterly far from a good one, and had left her with the children in deep poverty, was a fresh source of severe grief to her. Her religious mind was struck down with a weight of melancholy by the reflection of the life he had led, and the sudden way in which he had been summoned into eternity. When she looked forward, what a prospect was there for her children! It was impossible for her to maintain them from her small earnings, and as to Nancy, would she ever be able to earn her own bread, and protect herself in the world?
It was amid such reflections that Mrs. Dunster quitted this deep, solitary, and, to her, fatal valley, and took up her abode in the village of Cressbrook. Here she had one small room, and by her own labors, and some aid from the parish, she managed to support herself and the children. For seven years she continued her laborious life, assisted by the labor of the two daughters, who also seamed stockings, and in the evenings were instructed by her. Her girls were now thirteen and fifteen years of age: Jane was a tall and very pretty girl of her years; she was