Even for Cumbria it was a chill and sunless winter. No bracing frosts,
and persistent northwesterly winds. Day after day the rain, which was
snow on the heights, poured down. Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite rose
till they mingled in one vast lake. The streams thundered from the fells;
every road was a water-course.
Netta lost flesh and appetite. She was a discontented and ailing woman,
and the Dixons could not but notice her fragile state. Mrs. Dixon thought
her "nobbut a silly sort of body," but would sometimes try to cook what
pleased her, or let Anastasia use the kitchen fire for "gnocchi" or
"risotto" or other queer messes; which, however, when they appeared, were
generally more relished by the master than the mistress.
Dixon, perceiving no signs of any desire on Netta's part to attend the
"papish" chapel ten miles away, began to plot for her soul. His own life
was in the little Methodist chapel to which he walked four miles every
Sunday, wet or fine. In the summer he had accompanied the minister and
one or two class leaders in a drive through the hayfields, shouting to
the haymakers--"We're going to heaven!--won't you come with us!"--and he
had been known to spend five hours at a stretch on his knees wrestling
for the salvation of a drunken friend, in the village of Threlkeld. But
Netta baffled him. Sometimes he would come home from chapel, radiant,
and would take her a bunch of holly for the table by way of getting
into conversation with her.
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