On Greenhow Hill - Part I

To Love's low voice she lent a careless ear;
Her hand within his rosy fingers lay,
A chilling weight. She would not turn or hear;
But with averted face went on her way.
But when pale Death, all featureless and grim,
Lifted his bony hand, and beckoning
Held out his cypress-wreath, she followed him,
And Love was left forlorn and wondering,
That she who for his bidding would not stay,
At Death's first whisper rose and went away.

_Rivals,_

"_Ohe, Ahmed Din! Shafiz Ulla ahoo!_ Bahadur Khan, where are you? Come out
of the tents, as I have done, and fight against the English. Don't kill
your own kin! Come out to me!"

The deserter from a native corps was crawling round the outskirts of the
camp, firing at intervals, and shouting invitations to his old comrades.
Misled by the rain and the darkness, he came to the English wing of the
camp, and with his yelping and rifle-practice disturbed the men. They had
been making roads all day, and were tired.

Ortheris was sleeping at Learoyd's feet. "Wot's all that?" he said
thickly. Learoyd snored, and a Snider bullet ripped its way through the
tent wall. The men swore, "it's that bloomin' deserter from the
Aurangabadis," said Ortheris. "Git up, some one, an' tell 'im 'e's come to
the wrong shop,"

"Go to sleep, little man," said Mulvaney, who was steaming nearest the
door. "I can't arise and expaytiate with him. Tis rainin' entrenchin'
tools outside."

"'Tain't because you bloomin' can't. It's 'cause you bloomin' won't, ye
long, limp, lousy, lazy beggar, you. 'Ark to 'im 'owlin'!"

"Wot's the good of argifying? Put a bullet into the swine! 'E's keepin' us
awake!" said another voice.

A subaltern shouted angrily, and a dripping sentry whined from the
darkness--

"'Tain't no good, sir. I can't see 'im. 'E's 'idin' somewhere down 'ill."

Ortheris tumbled out of his blanket. "Shall I try to get 'im, sir?" said
he.

"No," was the answer. "Lie down. I won't have the whole camp shooting all
round the clock. Tell him to go and pot his friends."

Ortheris considered for a moment. Then, putting his head under the tent
wall, he called, as a 'bus conductor calls in a block, "'Igher up, there!
'Igher up!"

The men laughed, and the laughter was carried down wind to the deserter,
who, hearing that he had made a mistake, went off to worry his own
regiment half a mile away. He was received with shots; the Aurangabadis
were very angry with him for disgracing their colors.

"An' that's all right," said Ortheris, withdrawing his head as he heard
the hiccough of the Sniders in the distance. "S'elp me Gawd, tho', that
man's not fit to live--messin' with my beauty-sleep this way."

"Go out and shoot him in the morning, then," said the subaltern
incautiously. "Silence in the tents now. Get your rest, men."

Ortheris lay down with a happy little sigh, and in two minutes there was
no sound except the rain on the canvas and the all-embracing and elemental
snoring of Learoyd.

The camp lay on a bare ridge of the Himalayas, and for a week had been
waiting for a flying column to make connection. The nightly rounds of the
deserter and his friends had become a nuisance.

In the morning the men dried themselves in hot sunshine and cleaned their
grimy accoutrements. The native regiment was to take its turn of
road-making that day while the Old Regiment loafed.

"I'm goin' to lay for a shot at that man," said Ortheris, when he had
finished washing out his rifle, "'E comes up the watercourse every evenin'
about five o'clock. If we go and lie out on the north 'ill a bit this
afternoon we'll get 'im."

"You're a bloodthirsty little mosquito," said Mulvaney, blowing blue
clouds into the air. "But I suppose I will have to come wid you. Pwhere's
Jock?"

"Gone out with the Mixed Pickles, 'cause 'e thinks 'isself a bloomin'
marksman," said Ortheris, with scorn,

The "Mixed Pickles" were a detachment of picked shots, generally employed
in clearing spurs of hills when the enemy were too impertinent. This
taught the young officers how to handle men, and did not do the enemy much
harm. Mulvaney and Ortheris strolled out of camp, and passed the
Aurangabadis going to their road-making,

"You've got to sweat to-day," said Ortheris, genially. "We're going to get
your man. You didn't knock 'im out last night by any chance, any of you?"

"No. The pig went away mocking us. I had one shot at him," said a private,
"He's my cousin, and _I_ ought to have cleared our dishonor. But good luck
to you."

They went cautiously to the north hill, Ortheris leading, because, as he
explained, "this is a long-range show, an' I've got to do it." His was an
almost passionate devotion to his rifle, which, by barrack-room report, he
was supposed to kiss every night before turning in. Charges and scuffles
he held in contempt, and, when they were inevitable, slipped between
Mulvaney and Learoyd, bidding them to fight for his skin as well as their
own. They never failed him. He trotted along, questing like a hound on a
broken trail, through the wood of the north hill. At last he was
satisfied, and threw himself down on the soft pine-needle slope that
commanded a clear view of the watercourse and a brown, bare hillside
beyond it. The trees made a scented darkness in which an army corps could
have hidden from the sun-glare without.

"'Ere's the tail o' the wood," said Ortheris. "'E's got to come up the
watercourse, 'cause it gives 'im cover. We'll lay 'ere. 'Tain't not arf so
bloomin' dusty neither."

He buried his nose in a clump of scentless white violets. No one had come
to tell the flowers that the season of their strength was long past, and
they had bloomed merrily in the twilight of the pines.

"This is something like," he said, luxuriously. "Wot a 'evinly clear drop
for a bullet acrost! How much d'you make it, Mulvaney?"

"Seven hunder. Maybe a trifle less, bekaze the air's so thin."

_Wop! Wop! Wop!_ went a volley of musketry on the rear face of the north
hill.

"Curse them Mixed Pickles firin' at nothin'! They'll scare arf the
country."

"Thry a sightin' shot in the middle of the row," said Mulvaney, the man of
many wiles. "There's a red rock yonder he'll be sure to pass. Quick!"

Ortheris ran his sight up to six hundred yards and fired. The bullet threw
up a feather of dust by a clump of gentians at the base of the rock.

"Good enough!" said Ortheris, snapping the scale down. "You snick your
sights to mine or a little lower. You're always firin' high. But remember,
first shot to me, O Lordy! but it's a lovely afternoon."

The noise of the firing grew louder, and there was a tramping of men in
the wood. The two lay very quiet, for they knew that the British soldier
is desperately prone to fire at anything that moves or calls. Then Learoyd
appeared, his tunic ripped across the breast by a bullet, looking ashamed
of himself. He flung down on the pine-needles, breathing in snorts.

"One o' them damned gardeners o' th' Pickles," said he, fingering the
rent. "Firin' to th' right flank, when he knowed I was there. If I knew
who he was I'd 'a' rippen the hide offan him. Look at ma tunic!"

"That's the spishil trustability av a marksman. Train him to hit a fly wid
a stiddy rest at seven hunder, an' he loose on anythin' he sees or hears
up to th' mile. You're well out av that fancy-firin' gang, Jock. Stay
here."

"Bin firin' at the bloomin' wind in the bloomin' treetops," said Ortheris,
with a chuckle. "I'll show you some firin' later on."

They wallowed in the pine-needles, and the sun warmed them where they lay.
The Mixed Pickles ceased firing, and returned to camp, and left the wood
to a few scared apes. The watercourse lifted up its voice in the silence,
and talked foolishly to the rocks. Now and again the dull thump of a
blasting charge three miles away told that the Aurangabadis were in
difficulties with their road-making. The men smiled as they listened and
lay still, soaking in the warm leisure. Presently Learoyd, between the
whiffs of his pipe--

"Seems queer--about 'im yonder--desertin' at all."

"'E'll be a bloomin' side queerer when I've done with 'im," said Ortheris.
They were talking in whispers, for the stillness of the wood and the
desire of slaughter lay heavy upon them.

"I make no doubt he had his reasons for desertin'; but, my faith! I make
less doubt ivry man has good reason for killin' him," said Mulvaney.

"Happen there was a lass tewed up wi'it. Men do more than more for th'
sake of a lass."

"They make most av us 'list. They've no manner av right to make us
desert."

"Ah; they make us 'list, or their fathers do," said Learoyd, softly, his
helmet over his eyes.

Ortheris's brows contracted savagely. He was watching the valley, "If it's
a girl I'll shoot the beggar twice over, an' second time for bein' a fool.
You're blasted sentimental all of a sudden, Thinkin' o' your last near
shave?"

"Nay, lad; ah was but thinkin' o' what had happened,"

"An' fwhat has happened, ye lumberin' child av calamity, that you're
lowing like a cow-calf at the back av the pasture, an' suggestin'
invidious excuses for the man Stanley's goin' to kill. Ye'll have to wait
another hour yet, little man. Spit it out, Jock, an' bellow melojus to the
moon. It takes an earthquake or a bullet graze to fetch aught out av you.
Discourse, Don Juan! The a-moors av Lotharius Learoyd! Stanley, kape a
rowlin' rig'mental eye on the valley."

"It's along o' yon hill there," said Learoyd, watching the bare
sub-Himalayan spur that reminded him of his Yorkshire moors. He was
speaking more to himself than his fellows.

"Ay," said he, "Rumbolds Moor stands up ower Skipton town, an' Greenhow
Hill stands up ower Pately Brig. I reckon you've never heeard tell o'
Greenhow Hill, but yon bit o' bare stuff if there was nobbut a white road
windin' is like ut; strangely like. Moors an' moors an' moors, wi' never a
tree for shelter, an' grey houses wi' flagstone rooves, and pewits cryin',
an' a windhover goin' to and fro just like these kites. And cold! A wind
that cuts you like a knife. You could tell Greenhow Hill folk by the
red-apple color o' their cheeks an' nose tips, and their blue eyes, driven
into pin-points by the wind. Miners mostly, burrowin' for lead i' th'
hillsides, followin' the trail of th' ore vein same as a field-rat. It was
the roughest minin' I ever seen. Yo'd come on a bit o' creakin' wood
windlass like a well-head, an' you was let down i' th' bight of a rope,
fendin' yoursen off the side wi' one hand, carryin' a candle stuck in a
lump o' clay with t'other, an' clickin' hold of a rope with t'other hand."

"An' that's three of them," said Mulvaney. "Must be a good climate in
those parts."

Learoyd took no heed.

"An' then yo' came to a level, where you crept on your hands and knees
through a mile o' windin' drift, 'an' you come out into a cave-place as
big as Leeds Townhall, with a engine pumpin' water from workin's 'at went
deeper still. It's a queer country, let alone minin', for the hill is full
of those natural caves, an' the rivers an' the becks drops into what they
call pot-holes, an' come out again miles away."

"Wot was you doin' there?" said Ortheris.

"I was a young chap then, an' mostly went wi' 'osses, leadin' coal and
lead ore; but at th' time I'm tellin' on I was drivin' the waggon-team i'
th' big sumph. I didn't belong to that countryside by rights. I went there
because of a little difference at home, an' at fust I took up wi' a rough
lot. One night we'd been drinkin', an' I must ha' hed more than I could
stand, or happen th' ale was none so good. Though i' them days, By for
God, I never seed bad ale." He flung his arms over his head, and gripped a
vast handful of white violets. "Nah," said he, "I never seed the ale I
could not drink, the bacca I could not smoke, nor the lass I could not
kiss. Well, we mun have a race home, the lot on us. I lost all th' others,
an' when I was climbin' ower one of them walls built o' loose stones, I
comes down into the ditch, stones and all, an' broke my arm. Not as I
knawed much about it, for I fell on th' back of my head, an' was knocked
stupid like. An' when I come to mysen it were mornin', an' I were lyin' on
the settle i' Jesse Roantree's house-place, an' 'Liza Roantree was settin'
sewin'. I ached all ower, and my mouth were like a limekiln. She gave me a
drink out of a china mug wi' gold letters--'A Present from Leeds'--as I
looked at many and many a time at after. 'Yo're to lie still while Dr.
Warbottom comes, because your arm's broken, and father has sent a lad to
fetch him. He found yo' when he was goin' to work, an' carried you here on
his back,' sez she. 'Oa!' sez I; an' I shet my eyes, for I felt ashamed o'
mysen. 'Father's gone to his work these three hours, an' he said he' tell
'em to get somebody to drive the tram.' The clock ticked, an' a bee comed
in the house, an' they rung i' my head like mill-wheels. An' she give me
another drink an' settled the pillow. 'Eh, but yo're young to be getten
drunk an' such like, but yo' won't do it again, will yo'?'--'Noa,' sez I,
'I wouldn't if she'd not but stop they mill-wheels clatterin'.'"

"Faith, it's a good thing to be nursed by a woman when you're sick!" said
Mulvaney. "Dir' cheap at the price av twenty broken heads."

Ortheris turned to frown across the valley. He had not been nursed by many
women in his life.

"An' then Dr. Warbottom comes ridin' up, an' Jesse Roantree along with
'im. He was a high-larned doctor, but he talked wi' poor folk same as
theirsens. 'What's ta bin agaate on naa?' he sings out. 'Brekkin' tha
thick head?' An' he felt me all ovver. 'That's none broken. Tha' nobbut
knocked a bit sillier than ordinary, an' that's daaft eneaf.' An' soa he
went on, callin' me all the names he could think on, but settin' my arm,
wi' Jesse's help, as careful as could be. 'Yo' mun let the big oaf bide
here a bit, Jesse,' he says, when he hed strapped me up an' given me a
dose o' physic; 'an' you an' 'Liza will tend him, though he's scarcelins
worth the trouble. An' tha'll lose tha work,' sez he, 'an' tha'll be upon
th' Sick Club for a couple o' months an' more. Doesn't tha think tha's a
fool?'"

"But whin was a young man, high or low, the other av a fool, I'd like to
know?" said Mulvaney, "Sure, folly's the only safe way to wisdom, for I've
thried it."

"Wisdom!" grinned Ortheris, scanning his comrades with uplifted chin.
"You're bloomin' Solomons, you two, ain't you?"

Learoyd went calmly on, with a steady eye like an ox chewing the cud.

"And that was how I come to know 'Liza Roantree. There's some tunes as she
used to sing--aw, she were always singin'--that fetches Greenhow Hill
before my eyes as fair as yon brow across there. And she would learn me to
sing bass, an' I was to go to th' chapel wi' 'em where Jesse and she led
the singin', th' old man playin' the fiddle. He was a strange chap, old
Jesse, fair mad wi' music, an' he made me promise to learn the big fiddle
when my arm was better. It belonged to him, and it stood up in a big case
alongside o' th' eight-day clock, but Willie Satterthwaite, as played it
in the chapel, had getten deaf as a door-post, and it vexed Jesse, as he
had to rap him ower his head wi' th' fiddle-stick to make him give ower
sawin' at th' right time.

"But there was a black drop in it all, an' it was a man in a black coat
that brought it. When th' primitive Methodist preacher came to Greenhow,
he would always stop wi' Jesse Roantree, an' he laid hold of me from th'
beginning. It seemed I wor a soul to be saved, and he meaned to do it. At
th' same time I jealoused 'at he were keen o' savin' 'Liza Roantree's soul
as well, and I could ha' killed him many a time. An' this went on till one
day I broke out, an' borrowed th' brass for a drink from 'Liza. After
fower days I come back, wi' my tail between my legs, just to see 'Liza
again. But Jesse were at home an' th' preacher--th' Reverend Amos
Barraclough. 'Liza said naught, but a bit o' red come into her face as
were white of a regular thing. Says Jesse, tryin' his best to be civil,
'Nay, lad, it's like this. You've getten to choose which way it's goin' to
be. I'll ha' nobody across ma doorstep as goes a-drinkin', an' borrows my
lass's money to spend i' their drink. Ho'd tha tongue, 'Liza,' sez he,
when she wanted to put in a word 'at I were welcome to th' brass, and she
were none afraid that I wouldn't pay it back. Then the Reverend cuts in,
seein' as Jesse were losin' his temper, an' they fair beat me among them.
But it were 'Liza, as looked an' said naught, as did more than either o'
their tongues, an' soa I concluded to get converted."

"Fwhat?" shouted Mulvaney. Then, checking himself, he said softly, "Let
be! Let be! Sure the Blessed Virgin is the mother of all religion an' most
women; an' there's a dale av piety in a girl if the men would only let ut
stay there. I'd ha' been converted myself under the circumstances."

"Nay, but," pursued Learoyd with a blush, "I meaned it."

Ortheris laughed as loudly as he dared, having regard to his business at
the time.

"Ay, Ortheris, you may laugh, but you didn't know yon preacher
Barraclough--a little white-faced chap, wi' a voice as 'ud wile a bird off
an a bush, and a way o' layin' hold of folks as made them think they'd
never had a live man for a friend before. You never saw him, an'--an'--you
never seed 'Liza Roantree--never seed 'Liza Roantree.... Happen it was as
much 'Liza as th' preacher and her father, but anyways they all meaned it,
an' I was fair shamed o' mysen, an' so I become what they call a changed
character. And when I think on, it's hard to believe as yon chap going to
prayermeetin's, chapel, and class-meetin's were me. But I never had naught
to say for mysen, though there was a deal o' shoutin', and old Sammy
Strother, as were almost clemmed to death and doubled up with the
rheumatics, would sing out, 'Joyful! Joyful!' and 'at it were better to go
up to heaven in a coal-basket than down to hell i' a coach an' six. And he
would put his poor old claw on my shoulder, sayin', 'Doesn't tha feel it,
tha great lump? Doesn't tha feel it?' An' sometimes I thought I did, and
then again I thought I didn't, an' how was that?"

"The iverlastin' nature av mankind," said Mulvaney. "An', furthermore, I
misdoubt you were built for the Primitive Methodians. They're a new corps
anyways. I hold by the Ould Church, for she's the mother of them all--ay,
an' the father, too. I like her bekase she's most remarkable regimental in
her fittings. I may die in Honolulu, Nova Zambra, or Cape Cayenne, but
wherever I die, me bein' fwhat I am, an' a priest handy, I go under the
same orders an' the same words an' the same unction as tho' the Pope
himself come down from the roof av St. Peter's to see me off. There's
neither high nor low, nor broad nor deep, nor betwixt nor between wid her,
an' that's what I like. But mark you, she's no manner av Church for a wake
man, bekaze she takes the body and the soul av him, onless he has his
proper work to do. I remember when my father died that was three months
comin' to his grave; begad he'd ha' sold the shebeen above our heads for
ten minutes' quittance of purgathory. An' he did all he could. That's why
I say ut takes a strong man to deal with the Ould Church, an' for that
reason you'll find so many women go there. An' that same's a conundrum."

"Wot's the use o' worritin' 'bout these things?" said Ortheris. "You're
bound to find all out quicker nor you want to, any'ow." He jerked the
cartridge out of the breech-block into the palm of his hand. "Ere's my
chaplain," he said, and made the venomous black-headed bullet bow like a
marionette. "'E's goin' to teach a man all about which is which, an' wot's
true, after all, before sundown. But wot 'appened after that, Jock?"