Devil Water Read Online Free PDF Page A

door, leaving Charles to stand on the road, his spurt of haughtiness evaporated.
    Inside the pitman’s cottage, Geordie had gone and Nan was asleep, so Meg put the jug of ale on the only table and consulted the midwife.
    Mrs. Dodd was town-bred and a great respecter of rank, unlike Meg’s kinfolk. Up in the dales on the Border, there was neither servility nor feudal spirit. Each family was pretty much a law unto itself, and did as it pleased regardless of earls or dukes or even the Queen.
    Mrs. Dodd, never backward with advice, settled the matter of Meg’s invitation at once. “Ye obey your betters, m’lass -- and do as the young gent wants. If he’s took a fancy to ye, ye might wheedle from him a pound or two which’d not come amiss here as I can see.” The midwife gave a disdainful sniff towards the frowzy straw pallet where Nan slept with the baby. “No need to mention it to your sister or that Dick Wilson neither.  I’ll bide till ye get back.”
    Meg’s heart beat fast as she washed her face in the pail, tidied her hair with Nan’s comb, put on her one pair of shoes, and going outside said shyly to Charles, “I’ll come, sir.”
    Charles and Meg had a glorious afternoon. They rode the mare across the Tyne Bridge and then explored Newcastle. They gaped at the Blackgate and St. Nicholas’ Church. They went to the squalid quarter near Sandgate where Dick and many of the keelmen lived, they explored the dark alleys Meg said were called “chares,” they walked out on the great quay and admired the line of barges with foreign flags, ships from Sweden, Holland, and even Turkey. Sailors were unloading bales of damask, barrels of figs and indigo, while the outgoing cargoes of tallow and candles lay ready on the wharf. “Must be Squire Cotesworth’s,” said Meg pointing to the bales. “ ‘Tis his chandlery’s mark. And some of those colliers down river’re his too.”
    Charles glanced at the great ships lying at anchor, and said, “Black William’s done well for himself.”
    “Aye,” said the girl. “Naught but a poor yeoman to start with, but the de’il’s taught him all his tricks.”
    “And the devil may have him,” said Charles absently. “Where are those Faws you spoke of?” He was tiring of sights and wishful of getting Meg to a more secluded spot. Once, on the quay, he had put his arm around her, but she had slipped away.
    They remounted the mare and went along Pilgrim Street, where there were many fine shops, but the young people scarcely glanced at the silks and furbelows to be glimpsed through the twinkling-paned windows. Charles had no taste for shopping and Meg no acquisitiveness at all. They passed through the city wall at Pilgrim Street Gate and presently came to the town moor. Soon they saw an encampment of brightly painted wagons around a fire and heard the skirling of the small Northumbrian pipes.
    “Ah--” whispered Meg on a deep breath. “The bonny sound! Why ‘tis the very band o’ Faws who were camped near our burn yesteryear. Mother had them do tinkering fur us. The piper’s called Jem Bailey. Hark! He’s playing ‘On Cheviot side the wind bla-aws wide --’ Is’t not beautiful?”
    Charles did not think it beautiful at all, he distinguished no melody in the shrill squealing of the pipes, but he saw that Meg’s face had melted into a look of yearning and exaltation.
    “You’re homesick?” he asked, startled.
    “Aye, hinny,” she answered without thinking, using to him the Tyneside pet name, which Dick often used to her. “Homesick fur the winds and the moors and the hills, fur the sound of the pipes through the mist on Ravensheugh.”
    Charles slid off the mare and helped her down. “Don’t think of all that now!” he said with sudden petulance. “You’re here with me. Can’t you think about me?”
    She was startled. It was true that she had forgotten him while the pipes evoked her father’s stern face, the rough-hewn ones of her brothers, and the