CHAPTER II.—‘UNCLE’ LUKE AND ‘UNCLE’ MARK.

While the setting sun gleamed on Grayfleet, its grim church, and its cluster of red-tiled dwellings, Uncle Luke took a footpath leading across the marshes. All around them the landscape was flat and level, with little or no vegetation; for over the dark low levels the sea had crawled, and would crawl again. Here and there hovered a seagull, tempted in from the distant salt water, and searching the marsh for plunder; and once, as they passed a shallow pool, blood-red in the light, a heron rose with a harsh cry and flapped slowly away.

A walk of half a mile across the marsh brought them to the river side, and within view of a sort of pendant to the upper village, in the shape of a row of tiny red-tiled cottages on the very bank. Here there was a ferry-house, with a licence ‘to sell ale and tobacco.’

As they turned into the river path, the ferry-boat was crossing leisurely, with a freight of country girls on their way home from Grayfleet.

Uncle Luke trotted cheerfully along, still holding Madeline by the hand. Her eyes were now on the shining river and the drifting ferry-boat, and she had almost forgotten her scene with the Rector.

They were a curious pair. The girl was a slender slight thing, wild as some wayside weed. Her form was curiously light and graceful; her face, with its large passionate eyes, very wistful and sad. The common cotton frock and coarse country shoes and stockings became her well, though her limbs were somewhat long and shapeless as yet. And if the girl was not a little fairylike, Uncle Luke would certainly have passed well for a Gnome, or say rather, one of those quaint Trolls whose task it was, according to Scandinavian legend, to work busily in the bowels of the earth.

All the week long Uncle Luke did work, on the black river barge of which he was mate and his brother captain. From Monday to Saturday his figure was clad in blue jersey, red cap, and rough tarpaulin trousers, and he helped to work the barge on its short journeys up and down the crowded river. But on the present occasion, it being a holiday, his attire was radiant—a high chimney-pot hat, very broad at the brim, and large enough to descend to his ears, a blue pilot coat, a white waistcoat, and a coloured cotton shirt, blue navy trousers, and lace-up boots. For Uncle Luke loved splendour, and nothing suited him better than to shine glorious in the eyes of his neighbours; though Uncle Mark, who was his elder brother, and strictly pious, disapproved of all these vanities of apparel.

It may be admitted, without further preamble, that Uncle Luke, though able-bodied, was mentally deficient; indeed, in the estimation of many sober and wiser people, a simple fool, or, in the local parlance, little better than a natural. Yet his shortcomings were by no means upon the surface, and it would have taken a very wise man to understand them at a glance. He was harmless, industrious, and in some respects particularly shrewd. He knew how many pence make a shilling, and how many shillings a pound, as well as most men, and he had a sharp intuitive perception of human character. With all this he was simple beyond measure, and his reasoning faculties were absolutely infinitesimal.

Great as was his good nature, he strongly resented any imputation on his sagacity. His brother Mark had secured him work at a very low wage, on the understanding that he was weak and easily tired; and there on the barge, under his brother’s eye, he laboured cheerfully, save when some one was cruel enough to take advantage of his weakness or to deride his infirmity. At such times, he was subject to wild fits of passion. When these were over, he would creep into the cabin, cry like a child, and perhaps take to his hammock for days.

But to-day he looked happy enough, partly on account of his lucky escape from the Rector, and partly because Madeline had promised him the unparalleled treat of cutting open her bright new money-box.

This was a kind of temptation he never could resist. Had he possessed a watch, he would have taken it to pieces to examine the works; and he had been languishing with curiosity for days, puzzling his head, as many a child has done, to know what was inside the money-box labelled ‘Savings’ Bank,’ with its front pointed like a town hall, and a slit in its top for the reception of vagrant pence.

Having come in sight of the ferry, the two walked on quickly. The sun blazed down on them with golden splendour, and from beneath their feet the dust arose in a cloud. Neither spoke; Madeline continued to impress an occasional kiss on the hand which she still held fondly in hers—and to each of these exhibitions of feeling her companion replied by a broad grin. Suddenly, however, he gave a start and, looking down at his flushed and dusty companion, said quickly—

‘I say, Madlin, you’d best put on your Sunday hat. There be Uncle Mark at the garden gate!’

Without a word, Madeline obeyed. She took the hat, which for coolness and comfort she had swung on her arm, and tied it carefully on her head. Then regaining possession of her uncle’s hand, she walked decorously up to one of the little green cottage gates, on the other side of which stood, indeed, her Uncle Mark.

Though Luke and Mark were brothers, they were as unlike one another as two men could possibly be. Mark Peartree stood six feet in his shoes; he was very thin, and he stooped slightly at the shoulders. His hair was grey, his face red as a Ripston pippin, but his cheeks were sunken, perhaps from the loss of many teeth.

The cottage was one of a row of red brick, with creepers crawling over the front, a small plot of garden facing the river, enclosed by green wooden railings and a green wooden gate. Upon one of the gates now leaned Uncle Mark, clad, too, in his Sunday best, but much less gaudily than Luke, and looking down the road with impatience marked on every lineament of his face.

‘Here you be at last,’ he said, when the vagrant pair came up. ‘Why, mate alive, can’t you be home at meal times? Mother’s in a powerful rage. Brother Brown be coming this afternoon, and he’ll be here afore we can get our wittles done!’

At this speech the smile faded from Luke’s face; but, before he could utter a word in reply, another voice, evidently that of a female, chimed in from the cottage—

‘I’m sure, father, it be like you to be asking Brother Brown and the Brethren here of a Good Friday, as if we didn’t get enough of them every day i’ the year. However, coming they be, but we shan’t get the dinner over any the quicker with you standing racketing there!’

The speaker stood in the doorway, the red brick and the green creepers framing her as she stood. A comfortable looking woman, dressed in a clean cotton gown, with a coarse white apron tied round her waist. She was short and stout, with a brown good-humoured face and glossy black hair. She wore a cap the long ends of which were thrown over her shoulders and pinned behind, as if for freedom; her sleeves were rolled up nearly to the elbow, and her hands and arms were mottled brown and red with constant work in soap and water.

At sight of this figure, no other indeed than Mrs. Mark Peartree, or, as Madeline called her, ‘Aunt Jane,’ the good-humoured grin again took possession of Uncle Luke’s face. Passing through the little gate he made for the door and at once entered the house, while Madeline transferred her attentions to Uncle Mark.

‘It wasn’t any fault o’ Uncle Luke’s,’ she said, looking up into the weather-beaten face, ‘indeed, Uncle Mark, ’twas all on account o’ me that he was so long—I was up there with Polly Lowther, looking at the graves.’

In her eagerness to excuse her favourite, Madeline might have revealed the dreaded secret of the dance, but Uncle Mark, who had his own reasons for wishing to get the dinner quickly disposed of, patted her hand and said—

‘All right, Madlin, my lass;’ and, taking her small hot hand in his big horny first, led her into the house.

It was a very small house. A long narrow passage led from the front door to the back, and midway in the passage was a flight of narrow carpetless stairs. On the right opened out two rooms—a kitchen, and a parlour, as it was called. During the week, while the men were at work on the river, the parlour was carefully closed up. No fire was ever lit in it—it was dark, well polished, and genteel, with a bit of drugget for a carpet, a china shepherd and shepherdess, and several shells on the mantelpiece, and on the walls two highly illuminated pictures, one representing the Prodigal Son, the other Susannah and the Elders. But in the centre of the mantelpiece stood the crowning glory of the apartment—a small ‘weather-cottage’ made of wood, formed in the shape of a roofed shed, and containing two figures, one of ‘Darby’ and another of ‘Joan,’ standing on either side of a piece of wood, suspended in the centre by a quicksilver pole. When the weather was fine, Joan swung out, with her basket on her arm, as if going to market, and left Darby under cover; when it was wet, Joan retreated, and Darby emerged to brave the elements like a man. This weather-cottage was a miracle of art in Madeline’s eyes, and was regarded with no little reverence by all the members of the house. Indeed, the parlour altogether was a sanctuary, full of a pious clamminess and darkness, and even Mrs. Peartree never entered it without a certain awe, tempered with a sense of increased respectability. From week’s end to week’s end they remained in the red-tiled kitchen, while on Sunday evening, and indeed on every festive occasion like the present, the parlour was thrown open for the family use.