Roy Glashan's Library
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ANONYMOUS

THE BELLS OF
GRANGELY-SUPER-MONTEM

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Ex Libris

As published in
The Weekly Mail, Wales, 21 Sepember 1901

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2024
Version Date: 2024-12-29

Produced by Paul Moulder and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.



MANY years ago in Merry England there was joy in the Fen Country. Farmers meeting in the market towns shook their fat sides with glee as they told of re-claimed lands and fruitful pasturages that the envious waters had been forced to yield up to them. For so many generations they had borne with the constant flooding of their land that the evil seemed irremediable; but now the clever Dutchmen had come to their aid, and sent sturdy, stalwart men across, who had dug trenches and channels, and thrown up earthworks and banks, and were gradually draining that part of the Fen country lying in the north of Nottinghamshire.

These dykes were their friends, and the clever Dutchmen were made welcome everywhere. Among these was Mijnheer von Meijer, a big, tall, rosy-cheeked, black-eyed fellow, with broad shoulders, and a jolly laugh that did your heart good to listen to. He was dancing at a farewell gathering on New Year's Eve at Farmer Furley's, and his eyes turned, like the needle to the magnet, to the fair face of Maggie, the daughter of the house, the apple of her father's eye and her mother's pride. He thought of the Grietjes and the Hannas of his own country, with their stolid faces, thick arms and ankles, long plaits of sandy, colourless hair, their prim, orderly lives—each in turn living exactly and doing exactly as her mother had done before her—and he compared them with the wild, sweet, wayward flower of English growth, tall and slim, with a little waist his huge hand could encircle, dainty little limbs, oval face, soft, dark eyes, like stars shining out in a wind-tossed sky; coy and shy, piquant, coquettish—ah, she was a maiden to go mad for—a maiden who could gather up the heart-strings of this great, honest, simple Hans, and twist them as she would; and Hans wanted her solely and desperately; but English Maggie had said him nay. She could not possibly go across that cruel, tossing, treacherous sea she had seen once when she went to the fair at Grimsby. She would not leave the old people, and put her little hand into Hans's huge fist and follow into that unknown country, where even the words they spoke were unintelligible and all their ways strange; and the father and mother, when Hans pressed his suit, said, "Nay, but we cannot spare our Maggie to go foreign, into strange lands, across the sea, where we'd never see her no more; nay, lad, we like thee well, and thou'st a fine, brave man, and thou'st give us back our water meadows there, but we canna give thee our one ewe-lamb."

True love will have its way, and as the mountain would not go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain; and so Hans, with a great gulp at the thought of the upheaval of all his life it would be, had offered to leave Holland for good and settle in Merry England, for Maggie's sake, if she would only say "Yes"—and this was his last night. To-morrow he and his men were all to leave, to take ship back to their own land, and Hans's great heart ached and thumped in his bosom with suspense, and love, and longing.

All day Maggie had teased him almost beyond bearing. Not once could he get her alone. To all his pleading looks and hints she turned a deaf ear. When he looked sentimental she laughed such a rippling, wild laugh, like a brook running over a pebbly, sandy bed—not the grave smile and solid haw-haw of Grietje across the water. Wilful, tantalising Maggie; how was he to win her? It was getting very late, and the Dutchman had far to ride. And now he must go, and without an answer? No! He was standing all irresolute by the kitchen door, his eyes full of tears and his heart aching for a kind word, and his men were calling him. Must he thus leave his English wild flower? Ah, no. Maggie had watched him, and she was not going to let him go thus coldly.

"Art going, Master Hans?"

"Aye, my love," he said, in his broken English. "I am going across the sea, and I cannot go till I get thine answer. Come out with me, Maggie, to the stable."

He drew the unresisting girl out with him till they stood in the warm, dark stable, looking back at the black shadow of the farmhouse and up into the frosty, starry sky, and they saw the old grey church tower on the hill, and the clock struck ten.

"Ah, that clock, it strikes the hour we part, Maggie. Yet 'tis a sweet tone, and I love to listen to it chime. I shall never forget it."

"In an hour, Hans, it will be ringing out the old year and ringing in the new—and thou wilt be gone."

"And wilt thou miss me?"

"Aye, Hans; I shall miss thee sorely," and the little, wilful coquette broke down, and, hiding her face on the Dutchman's broad bosom, sobbed for grief.

"But I will come back to thee, maiden. I but go to sell my house, and kiss my old mother, and say good-bye to all my friends in Holland, and then I will return and thy father will get me a farm near here, and we will drain it, and make it a happy home for my little girl; and you will wait for me faithful and true, won't you, Maggie?"

And so the old story was told, and at last he won her consent and her faithful promise to wait a year.

"It may be less, lassie, but I vow it shall not be more."

"I'll wait for thee, Hans, till this day year, and I will never doubt thee or love another man; but, if thou art not here before the New Year dawns, then I shall know thou hast forgotten me and lovest Grietje better. (How I hate her!)"

"I will be here."

"I will come out to the gate—this gate, see, Hans, and I will wait for thee here this day year when the bells begin to ring out (and they ring for an hour, Hans); and if thou art not here before the clock strikes twelve I shall know I am forgotten."

"Forgotten! I can never forget thee, Maggie. When the bells ring out thy faithful Hans shall be by thy side and win thee for his wife."

And so, with promises and kisses and tears, they parted. "This day year," he whispered to himself.


THE winter wore away into spring, spring blossomed into summer, which, in its turn, ripened into autumn; and with it Maggie ripened, too, from a bright, wild girlhood into a sweet, pure, wholesome, loving Englishwoman; and truly she cherished the thought of Hans.

Letter-writing in those days was all but unknown; yet once a traveller brought a parcel of quaint Dutch oddities, in delft and wrought needlework, and a letter in the most absolutely illegible and not-to-be-understood English that ever pen put to paper; and the good man waited while Maggie carefully and laboriously wrote a little answer:—


My faithful Hans,—

I love thee still, and I will wait for thee till stroke of twelve on New Year's Eve.—

Thy Margaret.


But that was in the early spring, and since then no communication had passed between the lovers; yet she never doubted him. And as all things come to her who waits, once more came New Year's Eve; once more the old rafters of Farmer Furley's kitchen rang with merriment and the sound of the fiddle, and lads and lasses danced and made love as of yore. Nor was Maggie without her admirers; one, in particular—a prosperous young tradesman from Gainsborough—was desperately anxious to win her for his wife; and his suit had for weeks been backed up by her parents' persuasion. But Maggie would not listen.

"Maggie," quoth this fine fellow, John Gurnhill, "I will dance the New Year's dance with thee, and we will drink our wassail cup from the same horn, and thou wilt not be so cold and coy, my Maggie. Is it not so?"

"Nay, John; I dance no New Year dance with thee. I am waiting for Hans from across the sea."

"Silly girl! Dost thou ever think he will return? Why, he has long ago forgotten thee, and has married his Dutch love ere now."

"Thou art not complimentary, Master Gurnhill, to think I could be so soon forgotten—that is, doubtless, what thou wouldst do; but not my Hans," and the girl broke from his detaining grasp, and, flinging a little hood of homespun over her head and shoulders, stole out to the stable gate.

The church clock struck eleven, and then the bells rang out. "Ding-dong! ding-dong!" in the frosty air.

"Hans will be here," she whispered.

The quarter struck, and the bells chimed; but he came not. She shivered and drew the wrap closer round her. "Foolish that I am to expect him to the minute; the snow lies deep on the fens, and he may be late."

The bells chimed on, and the half-hour struck, and the first great tear rolled down her cheek.

The air grew colder. Up at Grangely-super-Montem it had been clear and bright, but down in the fens a cold, cruel fog had crept up, and was crawling up the hill—fog without and a cruel, cold pang of disappointment and hope betrayed within.

The three-quarter struck, and Maggie's sobs shook her slight figure; but the merciless bells rang on with their senseless, joyless ding-dong, ding-dong.

Far down below in the fens a horseman had all the long evening been pressing on a jaded steed. The way was hard to find, the fog rose thickly and crawled round his eyes and throat, will-o'-the-wisps lured him from the road, his horse grew wearier and stumbled, and at last, putting his foot in a deep hole, fell heavily, pitching his rider over his head in the snow.

"Donder en bliksem," muttered the man, as he struck flint and steel and consulted a huge watch; "eleven of the clock all but, and I know not where I am, nor which is road nor which is fen; and the horse is dying—lost! lost! lost!"

Yet he stumbled on, till he hit his head against a post—a finger-post. Eagerly Hans brushed off the snow and struck a light again. Alas! the name was strange to him, and he was completely lost in the fens in the cruel fog, and Maggie!—she was lost to him!

With a groan Hans sat down in the snow; he knew this was madness, but he had no heart to wander on—every step might lead him more or less astray. If he did not die in the night, morning might bring relief.

Hark! What was that? Far away in the distance rang faint, yet clear, a merry chime—ding-dong, ding-dong—the bells of Grangely-super-Montem! New life rushed through his veins, hope hung out her beacon—the bells had saved him; once more he set to breast the dangers of the roads. His feet felt firm ground, the bells, surely, rang clearer and louder, and—yes, the road was surely ascending.

Aye, but it was yet a long, hard struggle, and many a time he left the road and had to wander back and fro to regain it—ever guided by the bells.

At last he began to strike ground that was familiar, and the fog began to fall from him. Clear and loud the bells rang out just over his head, as it were, and then—oh! joyful sight—stood out the grey tower of the church.

Spent and weary and out of breath, yet did Hans almost run the rest of the way.

The bells ceased suddenly—only a sort of echo filled the air, and now slowly did the twelve strokes of midnight strike his ear.

Round the farmhouse he ran, and there, by the gate, stood his little girl—a poor, little, sad, shivering, wet, and miserable Maggie.

"Oh, Hans! Hans!" she wailed, "why hast thou forgotten me—? (not hearing his foot-steps in the soft straw and snow).

"Nay, lassie, thou art never forgotten. See, it is Hans—thy Hans—that holds thee!"


THE END


Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.