That La.s.s O" Lowrie"s.

by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

CHAPTER I - A Difficult Case

They did not look like women, or at least a stranger new to the district might easily have been misled by their appearance, as they stood together in a group, by the pit"s mouth. There were about a dozen of them there--all "pit-girls," as they were called; women who wore a dress more than half masculine, and who talked loudly and laughed discordantly, and some of whom, G.o.d knows, had faces as hard and brutal as the hardest of their collier brothers and husbands and sweethearts.

They had lived among the coal-pits, and had worked early and late at the "mouth," ever since they had been old enough to take part in the heavy labor. It was not to be wondered at that they had lost all bloom of womanly modesty and gentleness. Their mothers had been "pit-girls" in their time, their grandmothers in theirs; they had been born in coa.r.s.e homes; they had fared hardly, and worked hard; they had breathed in the dust and grime of coal, and, somehow or other, it seemed to stick to them and reveal itself in their natures as it did in their bold unwashed faces. At first one shrank from them, but one"s shrinking could not fail to change to pity. There was no element of softness to rule or even influence them in their half savage existence.

On the particular evening of which I speak, the group at the pit"s mouth were even more than usually noisy. They were laughing, gossiping and joking,--coa.r.s.e enough jokes,--and now and then a listener might have heard an oath flung out as if all were well used to the sound. Most of them were young women, though there were a few older ones among them, and the princ.i.p.al figure in the group--the center figure, about whom the rest cl.u.s.tered--was a young woman. But she differed from the rest in two or three respects. The others seemed somewhat stunted in growth; she was tall enough to be imposing. She was as roughly clad as the poorest of them, but she wore her uncouth garb differently. The man"s jacket of fustian, open at the neck, bared a handsome sunbrowned throat. The man"s hat shaded a face with dark eyes that had a sort of animal beauty, and a well-molded chin. It was at this girl that all the rough jokes seemed to be directed.

"I"ll tell thee, Joan," said one woman, "we"st ha" thee sweetheartin"

wi" him afore th" month"s out."

"Aye," laughed her fellows, "so we shall. Tha"st ha" to turn soft after aw. Tha conna stond out again" th" Lunnon chap. We"st ha" thee sweetheartin", Joan, i" th" face o" aw tha"st said."

Joan Lowrie faced them defiantly:

"Tha"st noan ha" me sweetheartin" wi" siccan a foo"," she said, "I amna ower fond o" men folk at no time. I"ve had my fill on "em; and I"m noan loike to tak" up wi" such loike as this un. An" he"s no an a Lunnoner neither. He"s on"y fro" th" South. An th" South is na Lunnon."

"He"s getten" Lunnon ways tho"," put in another. "Choppin" his words up an" mincin" "em sma". He"s noan Lancashire, ony gowk could tell."

"I dunnot see as he minces so," said Joan roughly. "He dunnot speak our loike, but he"s well enow i" his way."

A boisterous peal of laughter interrupted her.

"I thowt tha" ca"ed him a foo" a minute sin"," cried two or three voices at once. "Eh, Joan, la.s.s, tha"st goin" t" change thy moind, I see."

The girl"s eyes flashed.

"Theer"s others I could ca" foo"s," she said; "I need na go far to foind foo"s. Foo" huntin"s th" best sport out, an" th" safest. Leave th"

engineer alone an" leave me alone too. It "ll be th" best fur yo"."

She turned round and strode out of the group.

Another burst of derisive laughter followed her, but she took no notice of it She took no notice of anything--not even of the two men who at that very moment pa.s.sed and turned to look at her as she went by.

"A fine creature!" said one of them.

"A fine creature!" echoed the other. "Yes, and you see that is precisely it, Derrick. "A fine creature"--and nothing else."

They were the young engineer and his friend the Reverend Paul Grace, curate of the parish. There were never two men more unlike, physically and mentally, and yet it would have been a hard task to find two natures more harmonious and sympathetic. Still most people wondered at and failed to comprehend their friendship. The mild, nervous little Oxonian barely reached Derrick"s shoulder; his finely cut face was singularly feminine and innocent; the mild eyes beaming from behind his small spectacles had an absent, dreamy look. One could not fail to see at the first glance, that this refined, restless, conscientious little gentleman was hardly the person to cope successfully with Riggan.

Derrick strode by his side like a young son of Anak--brains and muscle evenly balanced and fully developed.

He turned his head over his shoulder to look at Joan Lowrie once again.

"That girl," said Grace, "has worked at the pit"s mouth from her childhood; her mother was a pit girl until she died--of hard work, privation and ill treatment. Her father is a collier and lives as most of them do--drinking, rioting, fighting. Their home is such a home as you have seen dozens of since you came here; the girl could not better it if she tried, and would not know how to begin if she felt inclined.

She has borne, they tell me, such treatment as would have killed most women. She has been beaten, bruised, felled to the earth by this father of hers, who is said to be a perfect fiend in his cups. And yet she holds to her place in their wretched hovel, and makes herself a slave to the fellow with a dogged, stubborn determination. What can I do with such a case as that, Derrick?"

"You have tried to make friends with the girl?" said Derrick.

Grace colored sensitively.

"There is not a man, woman or child in the parish," he answered, "with whom I have not conscientiously tried to make friends, and there is scarcely one, I think, with whom I have succeeded. Why can I not succeed? Why do I always fail? The fault must be with myself----"

"A mistake that at the outset," interposed Derrick. "There is no "fault" in the matter; there is simply misfortune. Your parishioners are so unfortunate as not to be able to understand you, and on your part you are so unfortunate as to fail at first to place yourself on the right footing with them. I say "at first" you observe. Give yourself time, Grace, and give them time too."

"Thank you," said the Reverend Paul. "But speaking of this girl--"That la.s.s o" Lowrie"s," as she is always called--Joan I believe her name is.

Joan Lowrie is, I can a.s.sure you, a weight upon me. I cannot help her and I cannot rid my mind of her. She stands apart from her fellows. She has most of the faults of her cla.s.s, but none of their follies; and she has the reputation of being half feared, half revered. The man who dared to approach her with the coa.r.s.e love-making which is the fashion among them, would rue it to the last day of his life. She seems to defy all the world."

"And it is impossible to win upon her?"

"More than impossible. The first time I went to her with sympathy, I felt myself a child in her hands. She never laughed nor jeered at me as the rest do. She stood before me like a rock, listening until I had finished speaking. "Parson," she said, "if thal"t leave me alone, I"ll leave thee alone," and then turned about and walked into the house. I am nothing but "th" parson" to these people, and "th" parson" is one for whom they have little respect and no sympathy."

He was not far wrong. The stolid heavy-natured colliers openly looked down upon "th" parson." A "bit of a whipper snapper," even the best-natured called him in sovereign contempt for his insignificant physical proportions. Truly the sensitive little gentleman"s lines had not fallen in pleasant places. And this was not all. There was another source of discouragement with which he had to battle in secret, though of this he would have felt it almost dishonor to complain. But Derrick"s keen eyes had seen it long ago, and, understanding it well, he sympathized with his friend accordingly. Yet, despite the many rebuffs the curate had met with, he was not conquered by any means. His was not an easily subdued nature, after all. He was very warm on the subject of Joan Lowrie this evening--so warm, indeed, that the interest the mere sight of the girl had awakened in Derrick"s mind was considerably heightened. They were still speaking of her when they stopped before the door of Grace"s modest lodgings.

"You will come in, of course?" said Paul.

"Yes," Derrick answered, "for a short time. I am tired and shall feel all the better for a cup of Mrs. Burnie"s tea," pushing the hair back from his forehead, as he had a habit of doing when a little excited.

He made the small parlor appear smaller than ever, when he entered it.

He was obliged to bend his head when he pa.s.sed through the door, and it was not until he had thrown himself into the largest easy chair, that the trim apartment seemed to regain its countenance.

Grace paused at the table, and with a sudden flush, took up a letter that lay there among two or three uninteresting-looking epistles.

"It is a note from Miss Anice," he said, coming to the hearth and applying his pen-knife in a gentle way to the small square envelope.

"Not a letter, Grace?" said Derrick with a smile.

"A letter! Oh dear, no! She has never written me a letter. They are always notes with some sort of business object. She has very decided views on the subject of miscellaneous letter-writing."

He read the note himself and then handed it to Derrick.

It was a compact, decided hand, free from the suspicion of an unnecessary curve.

"Dear Mr. Grace,--

"Many thanks for the book. You are very kind indeed. Pray let us hear something more about your people. I am afraid papa must find them very discouraging, but I cannot help feeling interested. Grandmamma wishes to be remembered to you,

"With more thanks,

"Believe me your friend,

"Anice Barholm."

Derrick refolded the note and handed it back to his friend. To tell the truth, it did not impress him very favorably. A girl not yet twenty years old, who could write such a note as this to a man who loved her, must be rather _too_ self-contained and well balanced.

"You have never told me much of this story, Grace," he said.