YORK: THE MILLER OF EAMONT BRIDGE: A WESTMORELAND TALE OF THE LAST CENTURY. BY MRS. HIBBERT WARE, 66 Authoress of "Dr. Harcourt's Assistant,' The Hunlock Title Deeds," CHAPTER XXII. "DINNA SAY I HEV NAE WARNED YE." WE left Grandy Gandy, in our last chapter, standing at the door of the Cliftons' house at Shap, at nine o'clock. At the same hour Mrs. Gurnett was seated in the chamber called the house-place, with Bump Willis. The snow was still falling at Eamont Bridge, and the dark foliage of the firs in the desolate-looking garden by the river side, was white with its flakes. The little wicket-door leading from this cheerless plot of ground had been left open by some one, and it flapped to and fro with every gust of wind. The house itself, under its screen of ivy, formed a dark patch amidst the waste of snow spreading away all around, for there were few lights to be seen in the casements. Mrs. Gurnett had as yet made no change in her style of living; but rumour whispered. that as soon as the wealthy widow should become possessed of the old mansion of the Cheneys, so soon would there be a vast alteration in her mode of life, and that where two domestics were kept now, half-a-dozen would not satisfy her then. Now, on this particular evening, Mrs. Gurnett had but one handmaid to obey her behests, and that one was old Judith. Ann Settle had not been well, and had wished for a holiday; but certainly she was taken somewhat by surprise, and could scarce understand what could have prompted such an unusual fit of good nature in her mistress, as to induce the latter to dispense with her service for three whole days. However, this had been the case, and Ann Settle had gone, early in the morning, to Shap. A broad stream of light fell from the casement window of the room in which Mrs. Gurnett was seated, on to the pile of snow which had drifted against the wall of the house. Without, all was July.-VOL. XIV., NO. LXXIX. 1 cold and desolate within, there was light, and warmth, and comfort. Huge logs were piled up in the yawning stove, and Willis, seated in a high-backed cane chair, extended his legs, cased in welldarned blue worsted hose and rusty black knee-breeches, in front of the fire, and basked in the ruddy flames and thought how well he would like to sit in that warm corner, not as a guest, but as the master of the house. As he thought, he stole a glance at the widow, who sat sipping out of a rare old china cup, gunpowder tea at 17s. a pound, for nothing less than the best would suit that old lady's palate now. She looked very handsome and very fascinating, and Willis sighed and ogled and tried to make himself agreeable. Sometimes he felt hopeful, and then again fell into the depths of despair. To own the truth, he found this love-making desperate hard work. Mrs. Gurnett had something of the tigress in her nature: she would paw one moment and claw the next. The talons were sheathed with velvet, but lay in ambush, ready to start out on the slightest occasion. However, Willis had more moments of blissful hope than he had of despair. Why, he would ask himself, does she invite me here so constantly, and place the best of everything the house contains on the board before me, when she is so close and stingy to everyone else? It must be love, and love only, that makes her act so. Never was a man more egregiously deceived. Cunning as he thought himself, Mistress Gurnett was more than a match for him; and later on, when he discovered his error, he smarted more under the sense of having been outwitted in trickery, than at the loss of the widow and her fortune. Mercenary to the last degree, Mrs. Gurnett was always plotting and planning, how she could save her pocket, and enrich herself at other people's expense. There was some little amount of law business to be done after the miller's death, and as Willis had been so much employed by her late husband, the widow resolved to employ him also; but there was now to be this difference, the miller had paid for all the legal work done for him - his widow had no intention of paying at all. So she invited Willis to her house as a friend, and gave him to understand that the reward for his professional services, was to be her friendship; he accepted with rapture the offer, and became her bounden slave, whilst she threw out the line, and placed the golden bait before his eyes,-alas! never to be his. Eager to please her in every way, Willis, seeing her dislike and hatred to poor Mary, and her very palpable wish to get rid of her by placing her in a lunatic asylum, seconded the project by every means in his power. Here, too, he made a fatal mistake; Mrs. Gurnett did wish to rid herself of Mary by sending her to a madhouse; but like the imperious sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, who signed the death-warrant of ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, and then would shift all the odium of the murder on Secretary Davison; so Mrs. Gurnett made Willis her stalking-horse, and afterwards laid the whole blame of the sad tragedy that followed on his shoulders. "It's a heavy charge for a lone widow woman like myself," sighed the widow, " to hev the custody o' that poor demented wench; it's more than I can bear, sometimes, and it's just wearing me to skin and bone.-Well, what's to do, Judith?" she added, as that withered, cross-grained old dame entered the room, and stood twitching her checked apron in her brown fingers, and looking alternately at her mistress and Willis. She was a cross old woman, we must confess, and she was very ignorant and stupid, understanding more, probably, about the cows she milked so assiduously, than she did of human nature, or, at least, of the more sensitive and tender feelings of the human mind. She was not gentle, or kind, or loving; but she was not, on the other hand, vicious and cruel, and no particle of the vile passions that actuated Mrs. Gurnett and Willis existed in the heart of this poor woman, with her rugged face and her sullen look. "I'se just come to say a word about yon wench o' yourn, misses." "She's no wench o' mine," said Mrs. Gurnett, sharply. "Weel, wench o' thine or no, mistress, I wad warn ye to look mair after her. She's been none so well in mind or body these last few days. I've got it o' my mind that if she's not weel watched, she'll do hersel' a mischief." "She's mair like to do me a mischief," replied Mrs. Gurnett, trtly; "and she has done me enow already. I canna sleep o' neets, and I canna enjoy my victuals, wi' thinkin' o' her and her tantrums, and wonderin' what devilries she'll be at next." "Weel, missus, I reckon she'll not trouble any one much longer this world; she's worsened ever sin' her faither deed, and she's verra ill th' neet. Ye suld hev some one to watch her." "What do you sleep with her for?" asked Mrs. Gurnett, darting a furious look at the old woman. "Because ye tauld me to," replied the latter, doggedly; "but its sma' use putting an auld woman like me to watch her in ony sort o' fashion. I'se deaf, and I sleep heavy after my day's wark." "Get thee gone to bed, and dinna prate any longer. I know one thing, I shall hev to put the wench i' a mad-house if thi' goes on. best, an' I winna As for putting the there is ony need o' Weel, missus, ye ken your ain affairs meddle; but dinna say I hev nae warned ye. poor lassie in a mad-house, I dinna think that. Howsomever, I've said my say, an' I've nowt mair to do wi't; I'se wash my hands o't aw." And so the old woman did; and when afterwards her mistress tried to wash her hands also, and put all the mire on the lawyer, Judith was the great stumbling-block in the way of Mrs. Gurnett's accomplishing her feat. "I marvel, ma'am, how you can put up wi' the insolence o' that auld hussey," exclaimed Willis, when Judith had quitted the room. "I've a many things to put up wi', Mr. Willis, for I've nae friends. If I knew any person who deserved the name, they would hev helped me long sin' to rid my house o' that mad wench." "Good lack, madam," replied the lawyer, trying to assume a sentimental air, which ill became him, and laying his hand on his heart, "you have a friend; but, alas! you seem to know him not, one who would die for you-and-and suffer the torture of the rack," be added, floundering dreadfully in this, to him, new style of speech. Dinna make a fule o' yoursel'," answered Mrs. Gurnett with a tigerish look, which quite daunted the lawyer; "there are nae racks now-a-days, ye ken that weel, an', as for dyin', I want no one to die for me; but I wad ca' that person my friend, and be vastly obliged to him, who wad get that mad wench off my hands, and settled quiet and safe for good and aw' in a mad-house, which is the only place that's fit for her?" "Weel, ma'am, you know full well I am ready to arrange that matter for you. Only make up your mind. I know a private mad. house some way from here, where Mary might be stowed away, and none be any the wiser. I could come to-morrow evening after dark, and we would soon have her off. I would bring those with me that would know how to quiet her, if she got into one of her devil's moods. Pr'ythee, what was that?" he added suddenly, looking startled. "Did you not hear a noise at yon door?" And he pointed to a door at the other end of the room, which Judith, when she went out, had left a little ajar. "I hurd nae noise. One wad think ye had been plotting a murder to look at your white, scared face; 'twas nowt but th' wind soughing round the house, and the ivy-leaves, happen, flapping against the window. |