The History of David Grieve

History of David Grieve, by Mrs.
Humphry Ward

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Title: The History of David Grieve
Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward
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THE HISTORY
OF
DAVID GRIEVE

BY
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
AUTHOR OF 'ROBERT ELSMERE,' ETC.
TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF MY MOTHER

CONTENTS
BOOK I CHILDHOOD
BOOK II YOUTH

BOOK III STORM AND STRESS
BOOK IV MATURITY

BOOK I CHILDHOOD
CHAPTER I
'Tak your hat, Louie! Yo're allus leavin summat behind yer.'
'David, yo go for 't,' said the child addressed to a boy by her side,
nodding her head insolently towards the speaker, a tall and bony
woman, who stood on the steps the children had just descended,
holding out a battered hat.
'Yo're a careless thing, Louie,' said the boy, but he went back and took
the hat.
'Mak her tie it,' said the woman, showing an antiquated pair of strings.
'If she loses it she needna coom cryin for anudder. She'd lose her yead
if it wor loose.'
Then she turned and went back into the house. It was a smallish house
of grey stone, three windows above, two and a door below. Dashes of
white on the stone gave, as it were, eyebrows to the windows, and over
the door there was a meagre trellised porch, up which grew some now
leafless roses and honeysuckles. To the left of the door a scanty bit of
garden was squeezed in between the hill, against which the house was
set edgeways, and the rest of the flat space, occupied by the uneven
farmyard, the cart-shed and stable, the cow-houses and duck-pond. This
garden contained two shabby apple trees, as yet hardly touched by the
spring; some currant and gooseberry bushes, already fairly green; and a
clump or two of scattered daffodils and wallflowers. The hedge round it
was broken through in various places, and it had a casual neglected air.
The children went their way through the yard. In front of them a flock
of some forty sheep and lambs pushed along, guarded by two black

short-haired collies. The boy, brandishing a long stick, opened a gate
deplorably in want of mending, and the sheep crowded through, keenly
looked after by the dogs, who waited meanwhile on their flanks with
heads up, ears cocked, and that air of self-restrained energy which often
makes a sheep-dog more human than his master. The field beyond led
to a little larch plantation, where a few primroses showed among the
tufts of long, rich grass, and the drifts of last year's leaves. Here the
flock scattered a little, but David and the dogs were after them in a
twinkling, and the plantation gate was soon closed on the last bleating
mother. Then there was nothing more for the boy to do than to go up to
the top of the green rising ground on which the farm stood and see if
the gate leading to the moor was safely shut. For the sheep he had been
driving were not meant for the open moorland. Their feeding grounds
lay in the stone-walled fields round the homestead, and had they
strayed on to the mountain beyond, which was reserved for a hardier
Scotch breed, David would have been answerable. So he strode,
whistling, up the hill to have a look at that top gate, while Louie
sauntered down to the stream which ran round the lower pastures to
wait for him.
The top gate was fast, but David climbed the wall and stood there a
while, hands in his pockets, legs apart,