Ralph walked uneasily across the room. Could it be that these men were already on their way to Wythburn to carry out the processes of the law with respect to himself and his family?
In another minute the landlord returned.
“It's as certain as the Lord's above us,” he whispered. “They wanted to get to you to have you drink the King's health with them, and when I swore you were asleep they ax't if you had no horses with you. I said you had one horse. 'One horse among two,' they said, with a great goasteren laugh; 'why, then, they're Jock and his mither.' 'One horse,' I said, 'or maybe two.' 'We must have 'em,' they said; 'we take possession on 'em in the King's service. We've got to cross the fells to Wy'bern in the morning.'”
“What are they, Brown?”
“Musketeers, three of 'em, and ya sour fellow that limps of a leg; they call him Constable David.”
“Let them have the horses. It will save trouble to you.”
Then turning to Sim, Ralph added, “We must be stirring betimes to-morrow, old friend; the daybreak must see us on the road. The snow will be thick in the morning, and perhaps the horses would have hindered us. Everything is for the best.”
The landlord lifted his curly-headed son (now fast asleep) from Sim's knee, and left the room.
Sim's excitement was plainly visible, and even Ralph could not conceal his own agitation. Was he to be too late to do what it had been in his mind to do?
“Did you say Saturday week next? It is Tuesday to-day,” said Ralph.
“A week come Saturday—that was what Rotha told me.”
“It's strange—very strange!”
Ralph satisfied himself at length that the men in the adjoining, room were but going off to Wythburn nine days in advance in order to be ready to carry into effect the intended confiscation immediately their instructions should reach them. The real evils by which Ralph was surrounded were too numerous to allow of his wasting much apprehension on possible ones.
The din of the drinkers subsided at length, and toper after toper was helped to his bed.
Then blankets were brought into Ralph and Sim, and rough shakedowns were made for them on the broad settles. Sim lay down and fell asleep. Ralph walked to and fro for hours.
The quiet night was far worn towards morning when Brown, the landlord, tapped at the door and entered.
“Not a wink will come to me,” he said, and sat down before the smouldering fire.
Ralph continued his perambulation to and fro, to and fro. He thought again of what had occurred, and of what must soon occur to him and his—of Wilson's death—his father's death—the flight of the horse on the fells—all, all, centring somehow in himself. There must be sin involved, though he knew not how—sin and its penalty. It was more and more clear that God's hand was on him—on him. Every act of his own hand turned to evil, and those whom he would bless were cursed. And this cruel scheme of evil—this fate—could it not be broken? Was there no propitiation? Yes, there was; there must be. That thing which he was minded to do would be expiation in the sight of Heaven. God would accept it for an atonement—yes; and there was soft balm like a river of morning air in the thought.
Sim slept on, and Brown crouched over the fire, with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. There was not a motion within the house or without; the world lay still and white like death.
Yes, it must be so; it must be that his life was to be the ransom.
And it should be paid! Then the clouds would rise and the sun appear.
“Fate that impedes, make way, make way! Mother, Rotha, Willy, wait, wait! I come, I come.”
Ralph's face brightened with the ecstasy of reflection. Was it frenzy in which his morbid idea had ended? If so, it was the frenzy of a self-sacrifice that was sublimity itself.
At one moment Brown stirred in his seat and held his head aside, as though listening for some sound in the far distance.
“Did you hear it?” he asked, in a whisper that had an accent of fear.
“Hear what?” asked Ralph.
“The neigh of the horse,” said Brown. “I heard nothing” replied Ralph, and walked to the window, and listened. “What horse?” he asked, turning about.
“Nay, none of us knows rightly. It's a horse that flies ower the fell o' nights, and whinnies and whinnies.”
“One of the superstitions of your dale,—an old wife's tale, I suppose. Has it been heard for years?”
“No, nor for weeks neither.”
Brown resumed his position in front of the fire, and the hours rolled on.
When the first glimmer of gray appeared in the east, Sim was awakened, and Ralph and he, after eating a hurried breakfast, started away on foot.
Where is Robbie now? A life hangs on the fortunes of this very hour!
“Tell them the horses came from the Woodman at Kendal,” said Ralph as he parted from his old comrade. “You've done better than save our lives, Brown, God bless you!”
“That's a deal more nor my wages, captain,” said the honest fellow.
The snow that had fallen during the night lay several inches deep on the roads, and the hills were white as far up as the eye could trace them. The dawn came slowly. The gray bars were long in stretching over the sky, and longer in making way for the first glint of mingled yellow and pink. But the sunrise came at length. The rosy glaives floated upwards over a lake of light, and the broad continents of cloud fell apart. Another day had breathed through another night.
Ralph and Sim walked long in silence. The snow was glistening like a million diamonds over the breast of a mountain, and the upright crags, on which it could not rest, were glittering like shields of steel.
“How beautiful the world is!” said Ralph.
“Ey, but it is that, after all,” said Sim.
“After all,” repeated Ralph.
They had risen to the summit of a little hill, and they could see as they began to descend on the other side that the snow lay in a deep drift at the bottom.
At the same moment they caught sight of some curious object lying in the distance.
“What thing is that, half covered with the snow?” asked Sim.
“I cannot say. We'll soon see.”
Ralph spoke with panting breath.
“Why, it's a horse!” said Sim.
“Left out on such a night, too,” said Ralph.
His face quivered with emotion. When he spoke again his voice was husky and his face livid.
“Sim, what is that on its back?”
“Surely it's a pack, the black thing across it,” said Sim.
Ralph caught his breath and stopped. Then he ran forward.
“Great God!” he cried, “Betsy! It is Betsy, with the coffin.”
Truly, it was Betsy, the mare which they had lost on that fearful day at the Stye Head Pass. Her dread burden, the coffin containing the body of Angus Ray, was still strapped to her back. None had come nigh to her, or this must have been removed. She looked worn and tired as she rose now to her feet amid the snow. The old creature was docile enough this morning, and when Ralph patted her head, she seemed to know the hand that touched her.
She had crossed a range of mountains, and lived, no doubt, on the thin grass of the fells. She must have famished quickly had the snow fallen before.
Ralph was profoundly agitated. Never before had Sim seen him betray such deep emotion. If the horse with its burden had been a supernatural presence, the effect of its appearance on Ralph had not been greater. At first clutching the bridle, he looked like a man who was puzzled to decide whether, after all, this thing that had occurred were not rather a spectre that had wandered out of his dreams than a tangible reality, a blessed and gracious reality, a mercy for which he ought there and then to fling himself in gratitude on the ground, even though the snow drifted over him forever and made that act his last. Then the tears that tenderer moments could not bring stood in his enraptured eyes. Those breathless instants were as the mirror of what seemed to be fifty years of fear and hope.
Ralph determined that no power on earth should remove his hand from the bridle until his father had at length been buried. The parish of Askham must have its church and churchyard, and Angus Ray should be buried there. They had not yet passed by the church—it must be still in front of them—and with the horse and its burden by their side the friends walked on.
When Ralph found voice to speak, he said, “Wednesday—then it is three weeks to-day since we lost her, and for three weeks my father has waited sepulture!”
Presently they came within sight of a rude chapel that stood at the meeting of two roads. A finger-post was at the angle, with arms pointing in three directions. The chapel was a low whitewashed Gothic building, with a little belfry in which there hung no bell. At its rear was a house with broken gablets and round dormers stuck deep into the thatch. A burial ground lay in front of both edifices, and looked dreary and chilling now, with the snow covering its many mounds and dripping from the warm wood of its rude old crosses.
“This will be the minister's house,” said Ralph.
They drew up in front and knocked at the door of a deep porch. An old man opened it and looked closely at his visitors through sharp, watchful eyes. He wore a close jerkin of thick blue homespun, and his broad-topped boots were strapped round his short pantaloons.
“Does the priest live here?” said Ralph, from the road, where he held the mare's head.
“No priest lives here,” said the old man, somewhat curtly.
“Does the minister?”
“No, nor a minister.”
The changes of ecclesiastical administration had been so frequent of late that it was impossible to say what formula was now in the ascendent. Ralph understood the old man's laconic answers to imply a remonstrance, and he tried again.
“Do you preach in this church?”
“I preach? No; I practise.”
It transpired after much wordy fencing, which was at least as irritating as amusing to a man in Ralph's present temper, that there was no minister now in possession of the benefice, and that the church had for some months been closed, the spiritual welfare of the parishioners being consequently in a state of temporary suspension. The old man who replied to Ralph's interrogations proved to be the parish clerk, and whether his duties were also suspended—whether the parishioners did not die, and did not require to be buried—during the period in which the parish was deprived of a parson, was a question of more consequence to Ralph than the cause of the religious bankruptcy which the old man described.
Ralph explained in a few words the occasion of his visit, and begged the clerk to dig a grave at once.
“I fear it will scarce conform to the articles,” the clerk said with a grave shake of his old head; “I'm sore afraid I'll suffer a penalty if it's known.”
Ralph passed some coins into the old man's hand with as little ostentation as possible; whereupon the clerk, much mollified, continued,—
“But it's not for me to deny to any Christian a Christian burial—that is to say, as much of it as stands in no need of the book. Sir, I'll be with you in a crack. Go round, sir, to the gate.”
Ralph and his companion did as they were bidden, and in a few minutes the old clerk came hurrying towards them from a door at the back of his house that looked into the churchyard.
He had a spade over his shoulder and a great key in his hand.
Putting the key into a huge padlock, he turned back its rusty bolt, and the gate swung stiff on its hinges, which were thick with moss.
Then Ralph, still holding the mare's head, walked into the churchyard with Sim behind him.
“Here's a spot which has never been used,” said the old man, pointing to a patch close at hand where long stalks of yarrow crept up through the snow. “It's fresh mould, sir, and on the bright days the sun shines on it.”
“Let it be here,” said Ralph.
The clerk immediately cleared away the snow, marked out his ground with the edge of the spade, and began his work.
Ralph and Sim, with Betsy, stood a pace or two apart. It was still early morning, and none came near the little company gathered there.
Now and again the old man paused in his work to catch his breath or to wipe the perspiration from his brow. His communicativeness at such moments of intermission would have been almost equal to his reticence at an earlier stage, but Ralph was in no humor to encourage his garrulity, and Sim stood speechless, with something like terror in his eyes. “Yes, we've had no minister since Michaelmas; that, you know, was when the new Act came In,” said the clerk.
“What Act?” Ralph asked.
“Why, sir, you never mean that you don't know about the Act of Uniformity?”
“That's what I do mean, my friend,” said Ralph.
“Don't know the Act of Uniformity! Have you heard of the Five Mile Bill?”
“No.”
“Nor the Test Bill that the Bishop wants to get afoot?”
“No.”
“Deary me, deary me,” said the clerk, with undisguised horror at Ralph's ignorance of the projected ecclesiastical enactments of his King and country. Then, with a twinkle in the corner of his upward eye as he held his head aside, the old man said,—
“Perhaps your honor has been away in foreign parts?”
Ralph had to decline this respectable cover for his want of familiarity with matters which were obviously vital concerns, and perhaps the subjects of daily conversation, with his interlocutor.
The clerk had resumed his labors. When he paused again it was in order to enlighten Ralph's ignorance on these solemn topics.
“You see, sir, the old 'piscopacy is back again, and the John Presbyters that joined it are snug in their churches, but the Presbyters that would not join it are turned out of their livings. There—that's the Act of Uniformity.”
“The Act of Non-Conformity, I should say,” replied Ralph.
“Well, the Jack Presbyters are not to be allowed within five miles of a market town—that's the new Five Mile Bill. And they are not to be made schoolmasters or tutors, or to hold public offices, unless they take the sacrament of the Church—and that's what the Bishop calls his Test Act; but he'll scarce get it this many a long year, say I—no, not he.”
The clerk had offered his lucid exposition with the air of one who could afford to be modestly sensible of the superiority of his knowledge.
“And when he does get it he'll want an Act more, so far as I can see,” said Ralph, “and that's a Burial Act—an Act to bury the Presbyters alive. They'd be full as well buried, I think.”.
A shrewd glance from the old man's quick eyes showed that at that moment he had arrived at one of three conclusions—that Ralph himself was a Presbyter or a Roundhead, or both.
“Our minister was a Presbyter,” he observed aloud, “and when the Act came in he left his benefice.”
But Ralph was not minded to pursue the subject.
The grave was now ready; it had required to be long and wide, but not deep.
The snow was beginning to fall again.
“Hard work on a morning like this,” said the clerk, coughing as he threw aside his spade. “This is the sort of early morning that makes an old man like me catch his breath. And I haven't always been parish clerk and dug graves. I was schoolmaster till Michaelmas.”
It was time to commit to the grave the burden which had passed three long weeks on the back of the mare. Not until this moment did Ralph's hand once relax its firm grip of Betsy's bridle. Loosing it now, he applied himself to the straps and ropes that bound the coffin. When all was made clear, he prepared to lift the body to the ground. It was large and heavy, and required the hands of Sim and the clerk as well.
By their united efforts the coffin was raised off the horse's back and lowered. The three men were in the act of doing this, when Betsy, suddenly freed from the burden which she had carried, pranced aside, looked startled, plunged through the gate, and made off down the road.
“Let her go,” said Ralph, and turned his attention once more to what now lay on the ground.
Then Angus Ray was lowered into his last home, and the flakes of snow fell over him like a white and silent pall.
Ralph stood aside while the old man threw back the earth. It fell from the spade in hollow thuds.
Sim crouched beside a stone, and looked on with frightened eyes.
The sods were replaced; there was a mound the more in the little churchyard of Askham, and that was the end. The clerk shouldered his spade and prepared to lock the gate.
It was then they were aware that there came from over their heads a sound like the murmuring of a brook under the leaves of June; like the breaking of deep waters at a weir; like the rolling of foam-capped wavelets against an echoing rock. Look up! Every leafless bough of yonder lofty elder-tree is thick with birds. Listen! A moment, and their song has ceased; they have risen on the wing; they are gone like a cloud Of black rain through the white feathery air. Then silence everywhere.
Was it God's sign and symbol—God's message to the soul of this stricken man? God's truce?
Who shall say it was not!
“A load is lifted off my heart,” said Ralph. He was thinking of the terrible night he had spent on the fells. And indeed there was the light of another look in his face. His father had sepulture. God had shown him this mercy as a sign that what he purposed to do ought to be done. Such was Ralph's reading of the accidental finding of the horse.
They bade good morning to the old man and left him. Then they walked to the angle of the roads where the guidepost stood. The arms were covered with the snow, and Ralph climbed on to the stone wall behind and brushed their letters clear.
“To Kendal.” That pointed in the direction from whence they came.
“To Gaskarth.”
“That's our road,” said Sim.
“No,” said Ralph; “this is it—'To Penrith and Carlisle.'”
What chance remained now to Robbie?
A few minutes after the coach arrived at Mardale, Robbie was toiling along in the darkness over an unfamiliar road. That tiresome old headache was coming back to him, and he lifted a handful of snow now and again to cool his aching forehead.
It was a weary, weary tramp, such as only young, strong limbs, and a stout heart could have sustained. Villages were passed, but they lay as quiet as the people that slumbered in them. Five hours had gone by before Robbie encountered a living soul.
As daylight dawned the snow ceased to fall, and when Robbie had reached Askham the late sun had risen. He was now beginning to feel the need of food, and stepping into a cottage he asked an old daleswoman who lived there if he might trouble her in the way of trade to make him some breakfast. The good soul took compassion on the young man's weary face, and said he was welcome to such as she had. When Robbie had eaten a bowl of porridge and milk, the fatigue of his journey quite overcame him. Even while answering his humble hostess's questions in broken sentences he fell asleep in his chair. Out of pity the old woman allowed him to sleep on. “The lad's fair done out,” she said, glancing at his haggard face. It was later than noon when he awoke.
Alas! what then was lost forever! What was gone beyond recall!
Starting up in annoyance at the waste of time, he set off afresh, and, calling at the inn as he passed by, he learned to his great vexation that if he had come on there when, at sunrise, he went into the cottage a hundred yards away, he must have been within easy reach of Sim and Ralph. The coach, nevertheless, had not yet got to this stage, and that fact partially reconciled Robbie to the delay.
He had little doubt which path to take when he reached the angle of the roads at the corner of the churchyard. If Ralph had taken the road leading to Gaskarth he might be safe, but if he had taken the road leading to Carlisle he must be in danger. Therefore Robbie determined to follow the latter.
He made no further inquiries until he had walked through the market town of Penrith, and had come out on the turnpike to the north of it. Then he asked the passers-by who seemed to come some distance if they had encountered two such men as he was in search of. In this way he learned many particulars of the toilsome journey that was being made by his friends. Sim's strength had failed him, and Ralph had wished to leave him at a lodging on the road while he himself pushed forward to Carlisle. But Sim had prayed to be taken on, and eventually a countryman going to the Carlisle market, and with space for one only on his cart, had offered to give Sim a lift. Of this tender the friends had thankfully availed themselves.
It was only too clear from every detail which Robbie gleaned that Ralph was straining every muscle to reach Carlisle. What terrible destiny could it be that was thus compelling him to fly, perhaps to his death!
Mile after mile Robbie plodded along the weary road. He was ill, though he had scarcely realized that fact. He took many a rest.
Daylight faded, and once more the night came on, but still the brave young dalesman held to his purpose. The snow had become crisp and easier to the foot, but the way was long and the wayfarer was sick at heart.
Morning came at last, and when the mists had risen above the meadows, Robbie saw before him, nigh at hand, the ancient city of Carlisle. A presentiment that he came too late took the joy out of the long-expected sight.
Was the sky gloomy? Did a storm threaten? Were the murmuring rivers and the roaring ghylls telling to Robbie's ear the hopeless tale that lay cold and silent at his heart? No!
The sun arose and sparkled over the white landscape. It thawed the stiff boughs of the trees, and the snow dropped from them in gracious drops like dew. All nature seemed glad—cruelly, mockingly, insensately glad—lightsome, jubilant. The birds forsook their frost-bound nests, and sang cheerily in the clear morning air. One little linnet—so very little—perched on a delicate silver birch, and poured its full soul out of its liquid throat.
Robbie toiled painfully along with a feeble step, and with nerveless despondency on every feature of his face—his coat flying open to his woollen shirt; one of his hands thrust with his pipe into his belt; the other hand dragging after him a heavy staff; his cap pushed back from his hot forehead.
When he walked listlessly into Carlisle it was through the Botcher-gate on the south. The clock of the cathedral was striking ten. Robbie passed along the streets scarcely knowing his own errand or destination. Without seeking for it he came upon the old Town Hall. Numbers of people were congregated in the Market Place outside, and crowds were hurrying up from the adjacent streets. Robbie had only once been in Carlisle before, but he felt convinced that these must be unaccustomed occurrences. He asked a townsman standing near him what the tumult meant. The man could tell him nothing. Then he asked another and another spectator of the scene in which there appeared to be nothing to see, but all seemed as ignorant as himself. Nevertheless there was an increasing commotion.
An old stone cross, raised high on steps, stood in the Market Place, and Robbie walked up to it and leaned against it. Then he was conscious that word had gone through the crowd that a famous culprit had surrendered. According to some authorities the culprit was a thief, according to others a murderer; some said that he was a forger, and some said a traitor, and some that he was another of the regicides, and would be sent on to London.
On one point only was there any kind of agreement, and that was that the culprit had voluntarily surrendered to a warrant issued for his arrest.
The commotion reached its climax when the doors of the old hall were seen to open and a company of soldiers and civilians passed out.
It was a guard for the prisoner, who was being taken to the common gaol to await his trial.
A dull, aching, oppressive pain lay at Robbie's heart. He climbed on to the cross and looked over the people's heads at the little company.
The prisoner was Ralph Ray. With a firm step, with upright and steadfast gaze, he walked between two soldiers; and close at his heels, with downcast eyes, Simeon Stagg toiled along.
Robbie's quest was at an end.
It was all over now. The weary chase was done, and Robbie Anderson came late. Ralph had surrendered, and a sadder possibility than Robbie guessed at, a more terrible catastrophe than Rotha Stagg or Willy Ray had feared or looked for, lay in the sequel now to be unfolded.
The soldiers and their prisoner had gone; the crowd had gone with them, and Robbie stood alone in the Market Place. From his station on the steps of the cross he turned and looked after the motley company. They took the way down English Street.
How hot and tired his forehead felt! It had ached before, but now it burned like fire. Robbie pressed it hard against the cold stone of the cross. Then he walked aimlessly away. He had nowhere to go; he had nothing to do; and hour after hour he rambled through the narrow streets of the old town. The snow still hung in heavy flakes from the overhanging eaves and porches of the houses, and toppled at intervals in thick clots on to the streets. The causeways were swept dry.
Up and down, through Blackfriars Street, past the gaol that stood on the ruins of the monastery, along Abbey Street, and past the cathedral, across Head Lane, and into the Market Place again; then along the banks of the Caldew, and over the western wall that looked across the hills that stretched into the south; round Shaddon-gate to the bridge that lay under the shadow of the castle, and up to the river Eden and the wide Scotch-gate to the north. On and on, he knew not where, he cared not wherefore; on and on, till his weary limbs were sinking beneath him, until the long lines of houses, with their whitened timbers standing out from their walls, and their pediments and the windows that were dormered into their roofs seemed to reel about him and dance in fantastic figures before his eyes.
The incident of that morning had created an impression among the townspeople. There was a curious absence of unanimity as to the crime with which the prisoner would stand charged; but Robbie noticed that everybody agreed that it was something terrible, and that nobody seemed to suffer much in good humor by reason of the fate that hung over a fellow-creature. “Very shocking, very. Come, John, let's have a glass together!”
Robbie had turned into a byway that bore the name of King's Arms Lane. He paused without purpose or thought before a narrow recess in which a quaint old house stood back from the street. With its low flat windows deeply recessed into the stone, its curious heads carved long ago into bosses that were now ruined by frost and rain, it might have been a wing of the old abbey that had wandered somehow away. A little man, far in years, pottered about in front, brushing the snow and cleaning the windows.
“Yon man is just in time for the 'sizes,” said a young fellow as he swung by with another, who was pointing to the house and muttering something that was inaudible to Robbie.
“What place is this?” said Robbie, when they had gone, stepping up to the gate and addressing the old man within.
“The judges' lodgings surely,” replied the caretaker, lifting his eyes from his shovel with a look of surprise at the question.
“And the 'sizes, when are they on?”
“Next week; that's when they begin.”
The ancient custodian was evidently not of a communicative temperament, and Robbie, who was in no humor for gossip, turned away.
It was of little use to remain longer. All was over. The worst had come to the worst. He might as well turn towards home. But how hot his forehead felt! Could it have been that ducking his head in the river at Wythburn had caused it to burn like a furnace?
Robbie thought of Sim. Why had he not met him in his long ramble through the town? They might have gone home together.
At the corner of Botcher-gate and English Street there stood two shops, and as Robbie passed them the shopkeepers were engaged in an animated conversation on the event of the morning. “I saw him go by with the little daft man; yes, I did. I was just taking down my shutters, as it might be so,” said one of the two men, imitating the piece of industry in question.
“Deary me! What o'clock might that be?” asked the other.
“Well, as I say, I was just taking down my shutters, as it might be so,” imitating the gesture again. “I'd not sanded my floor, nor yet swept out my shop; so it might have been eight, and it might have been short of eight, and maybe it was somewhere between the three quarters and the hour—that's as I reckon it.”
“Deary me! deary me!” responded the other shopkeeper, whose blood was obviously curdling at the bare recital of these harrowing details.
Robbie walked on. Eight o'clock! Then he had been but two hours late—two poor little hours!
Robbie reflected with vexation and bitterness on the many hours which must have been wasted or ill spent since he left Wythburn on Sunday. He begrudged the time that he had given to rest and sleep.
Well, well, it was all over now; and out of Carlisle, through the Botcher-gate, and down the road up which he came, Robbie turned with weary feet. The snow was thawing fast, and the meadows on every side lay green in the sunshine. How full of grace they were! How cruel in her very gladness Nature still seemed to be!
Never for an instant did Robbie lose the sense of a great calamity hanging above him, but a sort of stupefaction was creeping over him nevertheless. He busied himself with reflections on every minor feature of the road. Had he marked this beech before, or that oak? Had he seen this gate on his way into Carlisle, or passed through that bar? A boy on the road was driving a herd of sheep before him. One drift of the sheep was marked with a red cross, and the other drift with a black patch. Robbie counted the two drifts of sheep one by one, and wondered whose they were and where they were going.
Then he sat down to rest, and let his forehead drop on to the grass to cool it. When he rose again the road seemed to swim around him. A farm servant in a smock was leading two horses, and as he passed he bade the wayfarer, “Good afternoon.” Robbie went on without seeming to hear, but when the man had got beyond the sound of his voice he turned as if by sudden impulse, and, waving his hand with a gesture of cordiality, he returned the salutation.
Then he sat down once more and held his head between his hands. It was beating furiously, and his body, too, from head to foot, was changing rapidly from hot to cold. At length the consciousness took possession of him that he was ill. “I doubt I'm badly,” he thought, and tried to realize his position. Presently he attempted to rise and call back the countryman with the horses. Lifting himself on one trembling knee, he waved a feeble arm spasmodically in the air, and called and called again. The voice startled him; it seemed not to be his own. His strength was spent. He sank back and remembered no more.
The man in the smock was gone, but another countryman was coming down the road at that moment from the direction of Carlisle. This was no other than little blink-eyed Reuben Thwaite. He was sitting muffled up in his farm wagon and singing merry snatches to keep the cold out of his lungs. Reuben had been at Carlisle over night with sundry hanks of thread, which he had sold to the linen weavers. He had found a good market by coming so far, and he was returning to Wythburn in high feckle. When he came (as he would have said) “ebbn fornenst” Robbie lying at the roadside, he jumped down from his seat. “What poor lad's this? Why, what! What say! What!” holding himself back to grasp the situation, “Robbie Anderson!”
Then a knowing smile overspread Reuben's wrinkled features as he stooped to pat and push the prostrate man, in an effort to arouse him to consciousness.
“Tut, Robbie, lad; Robbie, ma lad! This wark will nivver do, Robbie! Brocken loose agen, aye! Come, Robbie, up, lad!”
Robbie lay insensible to all Reuben's appeals, whether of the nature of banter or half-serious menace.
“Weel, weel, the lad has had a fair cargo intil him this voyage, anyway.”
There was obviously no likelihood of awakening Robbie, so with a world of difficulty, with infinite puffing and fuming and perspiring, and the help of a passing laborer, Reuben contrived to get the young fellow lifted bodily into his cart. Lying there at full length, a number of the empty thread sacks were thrown over the insensible man, and then Reuben mounted to his seat and drove off.
“Poor old Martha Anderson!” muttered Reuben to himself. “It's weel she's gone, poor body! It wad nigh have brocken her heart—and it's my belief 'at it did.”
They had not gone far before Reuben himself, with the inconsistency of more pretentious moralists, felt an impulse to indulge in that benign beverage of which he had just deplored the effects. Drawing up with this object at a public house that stood on the road, he called for a glass of hot spirits. He was in the act of taking it from the hands of the landlord, when a stage-coach drove up, and the coachman and two of the outside passengers ordered glasses of brandy.
“From Carlisle, eh?” said one of the latter, eyeing Reuben from where he sat and speaking with an accent which the little dalesman knew to be “foreign to these parts.”
Reuben assented with a satisfied nod and a screwing up of one cheek into a wrinkle about the eyes. He was thinking of the good luck of his visit.
“What's the news there?” asked the other passenger, with an accent which the little dalesman was equally certain was not foreign to these parts.
“Threed's up a gay penny!” said Reuben.
“Any news at the Castle the day?”
“The Castle? No—that's to say, yes. I did hear 'at a man had given hissel' up, but I know nowt aboot it.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No.”
“Be quick in front, my gude man; let's be off; we've lost time enough with the snow already.”
The coachman had mounted to his box, and was wrapping a sheepskin about his knees.
“What's that you have there?” he said to Reuben.
“Him? Why, that's Robbie Anderson, poor fellow. One o' them lads, thoo knows, that have no mair nor one enemy in all the world, and that's theirselves.”
“Out for a spoag, eh?”
“Come, get along, man, and let's have no more botherment,” cried one of the impatient passengers.
Two or three miles farther down the road Reuben was holding in his horse, in order to cross a river, when he thought that, in the comparative silence of his springless wagon, he heard Robbie speaking behind him.
“It's donky weather, this,” Robbie was saying.
“Ey, wet and sladderish,” said Reuben, in an insinuating tone, “baith inside and out, baith under foot and ower head.”
“It was north of the bridge,” Robbie whispered.
“What were—Carlisle?” asked Reuben in his most facetious vein.
“It blows a bit on the Stye Head to-day, Ralph. The way's ower narrow. I can never chain the young horse. Steady, Betsy; steady, lass; steady—”
“Why, the lad's ram'lin',” said Reuben to himself.
“It was fifty strides north of the bridge,” Robbie whispered again; and then lifting his voice he cried, “She's gone; she's gone.”
“He's ram'lin' for sure.”
The truth now dawned on Reuben that on the present occasion at least Robbie was not drunk, but sick. With the illogical perversity of some healthy people, he thought to rally the ailing man out of his ailment, whatever it might be; so he expended all the facetiousness of which he was master on Robbie's unconscious figure.
Reuben's well-meant efforts were of no avail. Robbie alternately whispered, “It was north of the bridge,” and chuckled, “Ah, ah! there's Garth, Garth—but I downed him, the dummel head!”
The little dalesman relinquished as hopeless all further attempt at rational converse, and gave himself the solemn assurance, conveyed to his acute intelligence by many grave shakes of the head, that “summat was ailin' the lad, after all.”
Then they drove for hours in silence. It was dark when they passed through Threlkeld, and turned into the Vale of Wanthwaite on their near approach to Wythburn.
“I scarce know rightly where Robbie bides, now old Martha's dead,” thought Reuben; “I'll just slip up the lonnin to Shoulth'et and ask.”