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    Irresolute Catherine
    Irresolute Catherine
    Irresolute Catherine
    Ebook87 pages1 hour

    Irresolute Catherine

    By Violet Jacob

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    About this ebook

    Irresolute Catherine written by Violet Jacob who was a Scottish writer, now known especially for her historical novel Flemington and for her poetry. This book was published in 1908. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPublisher s11838
    Release dateJul 14, 2018
    ISBN9788828356530
    Irresolute Catherine

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      Book preview

      Irresolute Catherine - Violet Jacob

      Jacob

      Table of Contents

      CHAPTER I.  BETHESDA

      CHAPTER II.  A NIGHT OF STARS

      CHAPTER III.  TALGWYNNE FAIR

      CHAPTER IV.  ACTION

      CHAPTER V.  PENCOED

      CHAPTER VI.  CATHERINE OPENS THE GATE

      CHAPTER I.

      BETHESDA

      A DULL patter of sheep’s hurrying feet came from behind a small knoll that jutted into the track along the mountain. The level plateau was wide and smooth below the towering slopes, and the threads of water crossing it at intervals had laid the underlying rock bare. As the sound neared, a travelling flock came round the knoll, herded thickly together and running before a man on horseback like clouds scudding before a gale. Forty pairs of light-coloured eyes, with their clear black bar of pupil, stared limpidly into space, and the backs of the flock bobbed and heaved as the hundred and sixty little cloven hoofs set their mark on the earthy places over which they passed.

      Heber Moorhouse, pressing hard on their heels, shouted now and again, swinging the rope’s end he carried and leaning far out of his saddle as he drove the stragglers in. The rough-coated, weedy-looking pony under him cantered on, stubborn in face and obedient in limb to the rider’s hand and balance. ‘Black Heber’ could bring in his sheep as easily without his dog as with him.

      It was nothing in his colouring that had earned him the title by which some spoke of him, for his hair was of the same indefinite shade as that of many of his neighbours, and his eyes were rather light than dark. But they had a fire, on occasion, that suggested dark things even to the ardent and sober Baptist community to which he belonged. Though he was a young man he looked older than his years by reason of his gauntness and his thin beard. He had sole charge of the flock on a fair-sized sheep farm, and was counted by his employer a responsible, if inconveniently independent, fellow. He was a convinced chapel-goer, rather bigoted and with qualities which made certain wildnesses in him doubly marked by contrast.

      He looked wild enough this afternoon, with his battered, wide-brimmed hat and the arm which swung the rope-end showing sharply against the sky. He was a figure which by no stretch of imagination could be supposed to belong to the valley lying below his feet, rich, chequered, and green; its soft luxuriance pertained to another world from that which had given birth to this crude son of action.

      The afternoon was wearing on and he was anxious to get the crowd in front of him to its destination in a pen farther along the plateau; when the sheep were off his hands there would be other matters calling him, and his mind was running on far before the flock.

      Meanwhile, as he rode on the mountain turf, a little concourse of people waited about among the trees at the head of the dingle farther on. Where a primitive cart-road plunged through a grove of alders, a two-storied house, scarcely more pretentious than a cottage, stood back from it, facing the passer-by and parted from him by a wide yard. An obliterated signboard, high on the rough-cast wall, showed that the building had formerly been a house of entertainment, while it offered no clue to the device it had once borne, nor suggested the name, Bethesda, by which it was now known. What gave the place significance was the stream of water which crossed the road on its downward course and dived in among the trees, falling from level to level, and disappearing in the thicket of hazels and undergrowth.

      Opposite to the house, but on the farther side of the way, a paved channel was cut from the stream to a square pool the sides of which were walled by slabs of stone. From this another channel led to the edge of the high ground, but at the present moment it was blocked by a single slab, the removal of which would drain the basin dry. The inlet from the main flow was controlled in like manner, and now both these sluices were closed and more than three feet of water lay in the pool, dark, and spotted with islands of bursting bubbles. A couple of two-wheeled vehicles rested on their shafts in the yard, while the beasts belonging to them, tethered upon the grass, got all they could out of their situation.

      As Heber emerged from the outhouse in which he had tied up his pony to approach the pool, two persons were standing apart from the rest, with their backs turned to him, and he went towards a thick place, from which he could see them without being noticed. The woman was a young, slight creature, soft-eyed, and with a swift gentleness of movement unlike that of the working class to which she belonged. Her clear skin flushed when her companion spoke to her as she stood by him holding a hymn-book and nervously turning its leaves. She had a sensitive mouth and when she looked down her lashes rested in a broad fringe upon her cheek.

      The other was a human being of a very different type, a man of ruddy complexion, with white teeth showing in a pleasant smile when he spoke; he was well dressed and had the assured bearing of one who expects well of the world. Moorhouse watched the pair from where he stood in the background of alder stems. It was easy now to see why he was called ‘Black Heber.’

      As more people arrived at the spot the girl seemed to shrink closer to the man beside her; and when three women went off alone towards the house, she gave her book into his hand and prepared to follow them.

      It’s time now, she said tremulously. I must go. You’ll follow soon, Charles.

      I suppose you must have your way, Catherine, he said.

      He looked after her as she disappeared and the door of the old inn closed behind her. Then a dark-coated man held up his hand for silence and the whole assembly went down upon its knees; Heber, too, knelt in his brake of alder. The dark-coated man began to pray aloud.

      The prayer had continued a little time when Charles, who was looking eagerly towards the house from under the hand with which he had covered his face, saw the four women emerge again and come across the yard.

      They approached slowly, one behind the other, a grey-headed woman first; and there was something in the solemn demeanour of each that sent Charles Saunders’s mind back to the woodcuts of martyrdoms and executions he had seen as a boy in his school history-books. This half-barbarous scene was heightening the barrier which his slightly superior station had raised between himself and Catherine Dennis, though he was to be married to her in a week, and though he believed it to have fallen altogether. He frowned as the prayer ceased and he took his hands from his eyes. So far as he was anything, he was a Baptist by force of parentage and tradition, though the doctrine of total immersion appealed neither to him nor to his family. Nevertheless, he had promised her that he would embrace it practically, and he

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