Read Online Black Heather by Virginia Coffman - Free Book Online
Authors: Virginia Coffman
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storm and my pursuit of mischievous little Timothy, I should have found the Heatherton Moor a thing of beauty even then. I liked the brisk challenge of the climate and the feeling of immensity in its space.
Before walking down through the village that bordered on its steep, narrow street, I looked behind the village, up across the limitless stretch of what the south of England called “wasteland” but which still had the last, faintly heathery glow upon it. My own West Country had such “wastes,” and I loved them. They were unconquerable, or so I thought, and like some of mankind, both forbidding and challenging. How much more glorious it was to me than the soft, crowded countryside I had passed through in the York Mail Coach!
When I stood on tiptoe, I fancied I could just barely see the rooftops of the Hag’s Head Inn, far away to the north and east. The inn was a haunting place to me, in several senses. I still could not believe that the innocuous gallant of the graveyard the night before had knocked his wife in the head and then set fire to the inn. And I could hardly believe that the dark, rude, handsome justice of the peace, Sir Nicholas Everett, who had so annoyed me yesterday, was still pining with love for the poor victim of that fire. He did not look like a man who pined for anything. More likely, he was a man who hated and punished. I should not like to be brought up before him in his capacity as magistrate of the countryside!
When I started down the hill that contained the single street of Maidenmoor, I nearly had a change of heart about its severe beauty. Primitive man and the primeval nature were all very well, but I had never seen such a precipitous hill in my life and was baffled at how little the local inhabitants were impeded by that hill. All those black-clad men went clumping down to their work across the valley at the new wool mills in noisy iron pateens. And the women in black shawls were beginning to sit down to their spinning, but they peered out at me through little windowpanes that glittered in the morning light. Each house was a decided step below the one to the north of it, and as I descended the street I felt that I must constantly pause and dig my toes into the cobbles for fear, of sliding the rest of the way.
There was a public house halfway down the street, the Owl of York. Even at this early hour, scarcely after dawn, it was open, with the taprail plainly in view beyond the long cold-looking passage that led in from the street. Several men and one or two women were there with steaming mugs, and the open doorway smelled of boiling rum. I could not blame them. It probably took hot rum to get them on their way up or down that hill on these brisk mornings. But it was invigorating, and I rather liked it.
I walked to the bottom of the hill and stood on the ancient stone bridge, watching the trickle of new water make its way through the rushes, carrying the debris of the summer after yesterday’s flashing storm. I thought of how disappointed I had been when we could find nothing suitable at home, and when not enough pupils had been interested in my school with Miss Higsby. Only after Mama complained of our local disinterest in education in an exchange of letters with Mrs. Sedley did we consider faraway Yorkshire. And now I was wondering if, perhaps, it had all been for the best.
I began to smile at my own perversity. Could it have been that odd, romantic dream last night, which had quite efficiently blurred my memory of Elspeth Sedley’s insulting remarks and the earlier uneasiness over my visit to the Hag’s Head Inn?
I felt the heathery, mist-scented breeze against my cheeks and turned a little, to breathe it full in the face. Greatly startled, I saw a man standing just under the further arch of the bridge, looking up at me. He was in worn hunting jacket, breeches, and boots, with a years-old sugar-loaf hat cocked jauntily on his sandy air. He had an extremely infectious grin, and
Before walking down through the village that bordered on its steep, narrow street, I looked behind the village, up across the limitless stretch of what the south of England called “wasteland” but which still had the last, faintly heathery glow upon it. My own West Country had such “wastes,” and I loved them. They were unconquerable, or so I thought, and like some of mankind, both forbidding and challenging. How much more glorious it was to me than the soft, crowded countryside I had passed through in the York Mail Coach!
When I stood on tiptoe, I fancied I could just barely see the rooftops of the Hag’s Head Inn, far away to the north and east. The inn was a haunting place to me, in several senses. I still could not believe that the innocuous gallant of the graveyard the night before had knocked his wife in the head and then set fire to the inn. And I could hardly believe that the dark, rude, handsome justice of the peace, Sir Nicholas Everett, who had so annoyed me yesterday, was still pining with love for the poor victim of that fire. He did not look like a man who pined for anything. More likely, he was a man who hated and punished. I should not like to be brought up before him in his capacity as magistrate of the countryside!
When I started down the hill that contained the single street of Maidenmoor, I nearly had a change of heart about its severe beauty. Primitive man and the primeval nature were all very well, but I had never seen such a precipitous hill in my life and was baffled at how little the local inhabitants were impeded by that hill. All those black-clad men went clumping down to their work across the valley at the new wool mills in noisy iron pateens. And the women in black shawls were beginning to sit down to their spinning, but they peered out at me through little windowpanes that glittered in the morning light. Each house was a decided step below the one to the north of it, and as I descended the street I felt that I must constantly pause and dig my toes into the cobbles for fear, of sliding the rest of the way.
There was a public house halfway down the street, the Owl of York. Even at this early hour, scarcely after dawn, it was open, with the taprail plainly in view beyond the long cold-looking passage that led in from the street. Several men and one or two women were there with steaming mugs, and the open doorway smelled of boiling rum. I could not blame them. It probably took hot rum to get them on their way up or down that hill on these brisk mornings. But it was invigorating, and I rather liked it.
I walked to the bottom of the hill and stood on the ancient stone bridge, watching the trickle of new water make its way through the rushes, carrying the debris of the summer after yesterday’s flashing storm. I thought of how disappointed I had been when we could find nothing suitable at home, and when not enough pupils had been interested in my school with Miss Higsby. Only after Mama complained of our local disinterest in education in an exchange of letters with Mrs. Sedley did we consider faraway Yorkshire. And now I was wondering if, perhaps, it had all been for the best.
I began to smile at my own perversity. Could it have been that odd, romantic dream last night, which had quite efficiently blurred my memory of Elspeth Sedley’s insulting remarks and the earlier uneasiness over my visit to the Hag’s Head Inn?
I felt the heathery, mist-scented breeze against my cheeks and turned a little, to breathe it full in the face. Greatly startled, I saw a man standing just under the further arch of the bridge, looking up at me. He was in worn hunting jacket, breeches, and boots, with a years-old sugar-loaf hat cocked jauntily on his sandy air. He had an extremely infectious grin, and
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