The Van Buren press., 1899-04-22
The Cottage on the Fell
BY ]. 7. Kingsley Tarpey


and Fazerley, half way up the fell,
there stands the ruin of a pretty little
matched cottage. Roses and honey
suokles twine over the porch; and,
though there is no garden to speak of,
the old road is so overgrown with grass
and flowers that it is a garden in itself.
There is no traffic this way now, ex-
cept on market days, when the carts
from few scattered farmsteads 90
past Fazerley; so the lcng, green
ribbons on the road and the wide bor-
ders gradually encroach year by year,
until in some places they meet in
level stretch of grass. The heather
comes down the hillside almost to the
wall, and through it, laughing and
dancing, runs a little beck, which
crosses the road few yards below the
cottage.
Some ten years ago the place was oc-
cupied by young widow and her twin
children, boy and girl. She had
come there with her babies five years
before, on her husbands death and had
earned a scanty living ever since by
working for one of the shops at Fazer-
ley. She was either too shy or too
proud to make friends easily, and no
Gne knew whether she had friends or
kindred elsewhere. On market days
some one of the passing farmers would
bring her small purchases up from Fa-
zerley, or take her bundle of work down
to the shop. The bustling farmers
wife at the Fellside farm had always
kindly word, and sometimes a bun or
an apple, for the twins, when they
went to fetch the milk two or three
times a week. The old shepherd, when
his sheep were on that side of the fell,
liked to have q chat with the little ones
in passing, or to have them trot beside
him for a mile along the road; but
these were the nearest approaches to
intimacy the country folk had with the
occupants of the cottage, The chill
dren always looked clean and neat and
rosy; the cottage was Il miracle of or
der and trimness; and no one guessed
till it was too late the terrible poverty
that had been hidden under this cheer
full air of independence.
During the winter and spring the
mother had been constantly ailing; she
had a troublesome cough, and more
than once when the farmers passed on
market days the twins had taken mes
sages from her in bed. 1t was
no matter of surprise to Farmer
Bleasdale, therefore, when, to his
usual inquiry one morning in Au-
gust, the little girl replied that
Mother was poorly, and nothing was
wanted" When he passed back in
the evening the two children were sit
ting on the doorstep contentedly eat
ing bread and gooseberries for their
tea, and sharing mug of milk be-
tween them. They had played about
the cottage and the lane all day, pay
ing tiptoe visits now and then to their
mother, who was strangely quiet and
had taken none of the tea they had so
carefully prepared for her. The twins
slept at their mothers feet to make
more room in the narrow bed and when
it grew dusk they crept quietly in with
out disturbing her. In the night the
boy awoke, crying, with the touch oil
something cold.
'Mairly, Mairly, what is it? I'm
frightened" he sobbed.
Hush, Don Don't wake mother
whispered the little girl; and so, cud-
ding close together, they slept again.
Early in the morning they were
waliened by shaft of sunlight through
the eastern window, when the sun rose
over the fell. They sat up together,
feeling lonely and frightened; Don be-
gan to cry.
why doesn't mother wake| he
sobbed. lie crept along the bed, and
patted her cheek gently; at the touch
he screamed and slid to the ground.
'Mairly, Mairly, what is it? Why is
mother so cold?"