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Updated: May 25, 2025
Mulvaney looked at me hopelessly, but I remembered how the madness of despair had once fallen upon Ortheris, that weary, weary afternoon on the banks of the Khemi River, and how it had been exorcised by the skilful magician Mulvaney. 'Talk, Terence! I said, 'or we shall have Learoyd slinging loose, and he'll be worse than Ortheris was. Talk! He'll answer to your voice.
Even dreamy Learoyd's eyes began to brighten, and he unburdened himself of a long history in which a trip to Malham Cove, a girl at Pateley Brigg, a ganger, himself and a pair of clogs were mixed in drawling tangle. "An' so Ah coot's yead oppen from t' chin to t' hair, an' he was abed for t' matter o' a month," concluded Learoyd, pensively.
"Sixpence is it," said Learoyd, "an' what mak o' man art thou that want to buy her?" The weaver made no reply, but the bystanders, to whom the bidder was well known, gave the necessary information. "It's Tom Parfitt o' Mill Lane; he's lossen his wife a while sin and he'll happen be wantin' a lass to look after t' barns."
'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.
I can bare remimber tellin' him that his mouth opened endways like the mouth av a skate, which was thrue afther Learoyd had handled ut; an' I clear remimber his takin' no manner nor matter av offence, but givin' me a big dhrink of beer. 'Twas the beer did the thrick, for I crawled back into the palanquin, steppin' on me right ear wid me left foot, an' thin I slept like the dead.
"Poor lass, poor lass" was his frequent comment as he listened to the harrowing details and thought of the agony of the market-place; and when she had ended her tale his voice was broken with sobs. "Thou sal niver want for a home, lass, so lang as I can addle a bite an' a sup wi' my weyvin'." "Happen Learoyd will be wantin' me back agean when he's gotten ower things a bit."
"I'd no particular thought to be a soldier i' them days," said Learoyd, still keeping his eye on the bare hill opposite, "but this sort o' talk put it i' my head. They was so good, th' chapel folk, that they tumbled ower t'other side. But I stuck to it for 'Liza's sake, specially as she was learning me to sing the bass part in a horotorio as Jesse were gettin' up.
Ortheris and Learoyd followed snapping their fingers, while Norah smiled at them a sleepy smile. Then carolled Mulvaney, clear as a lark, dancing the baby on his arm "If any young man should marry you, Say nothin' about the joke; That iver ye slep' in a sinthry-box, Wrapped up in a soldier's cloak." "Though, on my sowl, Nonie," he said, gravely, "there was not much cloak about you.
"Now, Gregory, you've just got to take the mile away from Learoyd ... he's a junior ... you've just got to!... besides, if you don't ... there's Flammer has lost the broad jump ... and we won't win the class banner after all." Learoyd was a smallish, golden-faced, downy-headed boy ... almost an albino.... I had seen him run ... he ran low to the ground, in flashes, like some sort of shore-bird.
A shadow fell on the drawbridge, and Ortheris began to rise into the air, lifted by a huge hand upon his collar. "Onything but t' braass," said Learoyd, quietly, as he held the Londoner over the ditch. "Onything but t' braass, Orth'ris, ma son! Ah've got one rupee eight annas of ma own." He showed two coins, and replaced Ortheris on the drawbridge rail.
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