Early next morning Willy Ray arrived at Shoulthwaite, splashed from head to foot, worn and torn. He had ridden hard from Carlisle, but not so fast but that two unwelcome visitors were less than half an hour's ride behind him.
“Home again,” he said, in a dejected tone, throwing down his whip as he entered the kitchen, “yet home no longer.”
Rotha struggled to speak. “Ralph, where is he? Is he on the way?” These questions were on her lips, but a great gulp was in her throat, and not a word would come.
“Ralph's a dead man,” said Willy with affected deliberation, pushing off his long boots.
Rotha fell back apace. Willy glanced up at her.
“As good as dead,” he added, perceiving that she had taken his words too literally. “Ah, well, it's over now, it's over; and if you had a hand in it, girl, may God forgive you!”
Willy said this with the air of a man who reconciles himself to an injury, and is persuading his conscience that he pardons it. “Could you not give me something to eat?” he asked, after a pause.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” said Rotha, in a voice as husky as the raven's.
Willie glanced at her again. He felt a passing pang of remorse.
“I had forgotten, Rotha; your father, he is in the same case with Ralph.”
Then he told her all; told her in a simple way, such as he believed would appeal to what he thought her simple nature; told her of the two trials and final conviction, and counselled her to bear her trouble with as stout a heart as might be.
“It will be ended in a week,” he said, in closing his narrative; “and then, Heaven knows what next.” Rotha stood speechless by the chair of the unconscious invalid, with a face more pale than ashes, and fingers clinched in front of her.
“It comes as a shock to you, Rotha, for you seemed somehow to love your poor father.”
Still the girl was silent. Then Willy's sympathies, which had for two minutes been as unselfish as short-sighted, began to revolve afresh about his own sorrows.
“I can scarce blame you for what you did,” he said; “no, I can scarce blame you, when I think of it. He was not your brother, as he was mine. You could know nothing of a brother's love; no, you could know nothing of that.”
“What is the love of a brother?” said Rotha.
Willy started at the unfamiliar voice.
“What would be the love of a world of brothers to such a love as mine?”
Then stepping with great glassy eyes to where Willy sat, the girl clutched him nervously and said, “I loved him.”
Willy looked up with wonder in his face.
“Yes, I! You talk your love; it is but a drop to the ocean I bear him. It is but a grain to the desert of love in my heart that shall never, never blossom.”
“Rotha!” cried Willy, in amazement.
“Your love! Why look you, under the wing of death—now that I may never hope to win him—I tell you that I love Ralph.”
“Rotha!” repeated Willy, rising to his feet.
“Yes, and shall love him when the grass is over him, or me, or both!”
“Love him?”
“To the last drop of my blood, to the last hour of my life, until Death's cold hand lies chill on this heart, until we stand together where God is, and all is love for ever and ever, I tell you I love him, and shall love him, as God Himself is my witness.”
The girl glowed with passion. Her face quivered with emotion, and her upturned eyes were not more full of inspiration than of tears.
Willy sank back into his seat with a feeling akin to awe.
“Let it be so, Rotha,” he said a moment later; “but Ralph is doomed. Your love is barren; it comes too late. Remember what you once said, that death comes to all.” “But there is something higher than death and stronger,” cried Rotha, “or heaven itself is a lie and God a mockery. No, they shall not die, for they are innocent.”
“Innocence is a poor shield from death. It was either father or Ralph,” replied Willy, “and for myself I care not which.”
Then at a calmer moment he repeated to her afresh the evidence of the young woman Rushton, whom she and her father had housed at Fornside.
“You are sure she said 'fifty yards to the north of the bridge'?” interrupted Rotha.
“Sure,” said Willy; “Ralph raised a question on the point, but they flung it aside with contempt.”
“Robbie Anderson,” thought Rotha. “What does Robbie know of this that he was forever saying the same in his delirium? Something he must know. I shall run over to him at once.”
But just then the two officers of the sheriff's court arrived again at Shoulthwaite, and signified by various forms of freedom and familiarity that it was a part of their purpose to settle there until such time as judgment should have taken its course, and left them the duty of appropriating the estate of a felon in the name of the crown.
“Come, young mistress, lead us up to our room, and mind you see smartly to that breakfast. Alack-a-day; we're as hungry as hawks.”
“You come to do hawks' business, sir,” said Rotha, “in spoiling another's nest.”
“Ha! ha! ha! happy conceit, forsooth! But there's no need to glare at us like that, my sharp-witted wench. Come, lead on, but go slowly, there. This leg of mine has never mended, bating the scar, since yonder unlucky big brother of yours tumbled me on the mountains.”
“He's not my brother.”
“Sweetheart, then, ey? Why, these passages are as dark as the grave.”
“I wish they were as silent, and as deep too, for those who enter them.”
“Ay, what, Jonathan? Grave, silent, deep—but then you would be buried with us, my pretty lassie.”
“And what of that? Here's your room, sirs. Peradventure it will serve until you take every room.” “Remember the breakfast,” cried the little man, after Rotha's retreating figure. “We're as hungry as—as—”
“Hold your tongue, and come in, David. Brush the mud from your pantaloons, and leave the girl to herself.”
“The brazen young noddle,” muttered David.
It was less than an hour later when Rotha, having got through her immediate duties, was hastening with all speed to Mattha Brander's cottage. In her hand, tightly grasped beneath her cloak, was a bunch of keys, and on her lips were the words of the woman's evidence and of Robbie's delirium. “It was fifty yards to the north of the bridge.”
This was her sole clew. What could she make of it?
An hour before Rotha left Shoulthwaite, Robbie Anderson was lying on a settle before the fire in the old weaver's kitchen. Mattha himself and his wife were abroad, but Liza had generously and courageously undertaken the task of attending to the needs of the convalescent.
“Where's all my hair gone?” asked Robbie, with a puzzled expression. He was rubbing his close-cropped head.
Liza laughed roguishly.
“Maybe it's fifty yards north of the bridge,” she said, with her head aside.
Robbie looked at her with blank amazement.
“Why, who told you that, Liza?” he said.
“Told me what?”
“Ey? That!” repeated Robbie, no more explicit.
“Foolish boy! Didn't you tell us yourself fifty times?”
“So I did. Did I though? What am I saying? When did I tell you?”
Robbie's eyes were staring out of his head. His face, not too ruddy at first, was now as pale as ashes.
Liza began to whimper.
“Why do you look like that?” she said.
“Look? Oh, ey, ey! I'm a ruffian, that's what I am. Never mind, lass.”
Robbie's eyes regained their accustomed expression, and his features, which had been drawn down, returned to their natural proportions.
Liza's face underwent a corresponding change.
“Robbie, have you 'downed' him—that Garth?”
“Ey?”
The glaring eyes were coming back. Liza, frightened again, began once more to whimper prettily.
“I didn't mean to flayte you, Liza,” Robbie said coaxingly. “You're a fair coax when you want something,” said Liza, trying to disengage herself from the grasp of Robbie's arm about her waist. He might be an invalid, Liza thought, but he was wonderfully strong, and he was holding her shockingly tight. What was the good of struggling?
Robbie snatched a kiss.
“Oh you—oh you—oh! oh! If I had known that you were so wicked—oh!”
“Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, or I will never let you go, never,” cried Robbie.
“Never?” Liza felt that she must forgive this tyrant.
“Well, if you'll loosen this arm I'll—I'll try.”
“Liza, how much do you love me?” inquired Robbie.
“Did you speak to me?”
“Oh, no, to crusty old 'Becca down the road. How much do you love me?”
Robbie's passion was curiously mathematical.
“Me? How much? About as much as you might put in your eye.”
Robbie pretended to look deeply depressed. He dropped his head, but kept, nevertheless, an artful look out of the corner of the eye which was alleged to be the measure of his sweetheart's affection.
Thinking herself no longer under the fire of Robbie's glances, Liza's affectation of stern disdain melted into a look of tenderness.
Robbie jerked his head up sharply. The little woman was caught. She revenged herself by assuming a haughty coldness. But it was of no use. Robbie laughed and crowed and bantered.
At this juncture Mattha Branth'et came into the cottage.
The weaver was obviously in a state of profound agitation. He had just had a “fratch” with the Quaker preachers on the subject of election.
“I rub't 'm t' wrang way o' t' hair,” said the old man, “when I axt 'em what for they were going aboot preaching if it were all settled aforehand who was to be damned and who was to be saved. 'Ye'r a child of the devil,' says one. 'Mebbee so,' says I, 'and I dunnet know if the devil iver had any other relations; but if so, mebbee yersel's his awn cousin.'”
It was hard on Matthew that, after upholding Quakerism for years against the sneers of the Reverend Nicholas Stevens, he should be thus disowned and discredited by the brotherhood itself.
“Tut! theer's six o' tean an' hofe a duzzen of t' tudder,” said the old sage, dismissing the rival theologians from his mind forever.
“Oh, Robbie, lad,” said Matthew, as if by a sudden thought, “John Jackson met Willy Ray coming frae Carlisle, and what think ye hes happent?”
“Nay, what?” said Robbie, turning pale again.
“Ralph Ray and Sim Stagg are condemned to death for t' murder of auld Wilson.”
Robbie leapt to his feet.
“The devil!”
“Come, dunnet ye tak on like the Quakers,” said Matthew.
Robbie had caught up his coat and hat.
“Why, where are you going?” said Liza.
“Going? Aye? Going?”
“Yes, where? You're too weak to go anywhere. You'll have another fever.”
A light wagon was running on the road outside. Reuben Thwaite was driving.
Robbie rushed to the door, and hailed him.
“Going off with thread again, Reuben?”
“That's reets on't,” answered the little man.
“Let me in with you?”
And Robbie climbed into the cart.
Mattha got up and went out in the road.
The two men had hardly got clear away when Rotha entered the cottage all but breathless.
“Robbie, where is he?”
“Gone, just gone, not above two minutes,” replied Liza, still whimpering.
“Where?”
“I scarce know—to Penrith, I think. There was no keeping him back. When father came in and told him what had happened at Carlisle, he flung away and would not be hindered. He has gone off in Reuben's wagon.”
“Which way?”
“They took the low road.”
“Then I've missed them,” said Rotha, sinking into a chair in a listless attitude.
“And he's as weak as water, and he'll take another fever, as I told him, and ramble on same as—”
“Liza,” interrupted Rotha, “did you ever tell him—in play I mean—did you ever repeat anything he had said when he was unconscious?”
“Not that about his mammy?”
“No, no; but anything else?”
“I mind I told him what he said over and over again about his fratch with that Garth.”
“Nothing else?”
“Why, yes, now I think on't. I mind, too, that I told him he was always running on it that something was fifty yards north of the bridge, and he could swear it, swear it in hea—”
“What did he say to that?” asked Rotha eagerly.
“Say! he said nothing, but he glowered at me till I thought sure he was off again.”
“Is that all?”
“All what, Rotha?”
“They said in evidence that Ralph—it was a lie, remember—they said that Wilson was killed fifty yards to the north of the bridge. Now his body was found as far to the south of it. Robbie knows something. I hoped to learn what he knows; but oh, everything is against me—everything, everything.”
Rising hastily, she added, “Perhaps Robbie has gone to Carlisle. I must be off, Liza.”
In another moment she was hurrying up the road.
Taking the high path, the girl came upon the Quaker preachers, surrounded by a knot of villagers. To avoid them she turned up an unfrequented angle of the road. There, in the recess of a gate, unseen by the worshippers, but commanding a view of them, and within hearing of all that was sung and said, stood Garth, the blacksmith. He wore his leathern apron thrown over one shoulder. This was the hour of mid-day rest. He had not caught the sound of Rotha's light footstep as she came up beside him. He was leaning over the gate and listening intently. There was more intelligence and also more tenderness in his face than Rotha had observed before.
She paused, and seemed prompted to a nearer approach, but for the moment she held back. The worshippers began to sing a simple Quaker hymn. It spoke of pardon and peace:—
Garth seemed to be touched. His hard face softened; his lips parted, and his eyes began to swim.
When the singing ceased, he repeated the refrain beneath his breath. “What if one could but think it?” he muttered, and dropped his head into his hands.
Rotha stepped up and tapped his shoulder.
“Mr. Garth,” she said.
He started, and then struggled to hide his discomposure. There was only one way in which a man of his temperament and resource could hope to do it—he snarled.
“What do you want with me?”
“It was a beautiful hymn,” said Rotha, ignoring his question.
“Do you think so?” he growled, and turned his head away.
“What if one could but think it?” she said, as if speaking as much to herself as to him.
Garth faced about, and looked at her with a scowl.
The girl's eyes were as meek as an angel's.
“It's what I was thinking mysel', that is,” he mumbled after a pause; then added aloud with an access of irritation, “Think what?”
“That there is pardon for us all, no matter what our sins—pardon and peace.”
“Humph!”
“It is beautiful; religion is very beautiful, Mr. Garth.”
The blacksmith forced a short laugh.
“You'd best go and hire yourself to the Quakers. They would welcome a woman preacher, no doubt.”
She would have bartered away years of her life at this instant for one glimpse of what was going on in that man's heart. If she had found corruption there, sin and crime, she would have thanked God for it as for manna from above. Rotha clutched the keys beneath her cloak and subdued her anger.
“You scarce seem yourself to-day, Mr. Garth,” she said.
“All the better,” he replied, with a mocking laugh. “I've heard that they say my own sel' is a bad sel'.”
The words were hardly off his lips when he turned again sharply and faced Rotha with an inquiring look. He had reminded himself of a common piece of his mother's counsel; but in the first flash of recollection it had almost appeared to him that the words had been Rotha's, not his.
The girl's face was as tender as a Madonna's.
“Maybe I am a little bit out of sorts to-day; maybe so. I've felt daizt this last week end; I have, somehow.”
Rotha left him a minute afterwards. Continuing her journey, she drew the bunch of keys from under her cloak and examined them.
They were the same that she had found attached to Wilson's trunk on the night of her own and Mrs. Garth's visit to the deserted cottage at Fornside. There were perhaps twenty keys in all, but two only bore any signs of recent or frequent use. One of these was marked with a cross scratched roughly on the flat of the ring. The other had a piece of white tape wrapped about the shaft. The rest of the keys were worn red with thick encrustation of rust. And now, by the power of love, this girl with the face of an angel in its sweetness and simplicity—this girl, usually as tremulous as a linnet—was about to do what a callous man might shrink from.
She followed the pack-horse road beyond the lonnin that turned up to Shoulthwaite, and stopped at the gate of the cottage that stood by the smithy near the bridge. Without wavering for an instant, without the quivering of a single muscle, she opened the gate and walked up to the door.
“Mrs. Garth,” she called.
A young girl came out. She was a neighbor's daughter.
“Why, she's away, Rotha, Mistress Garth is,” said the little lassie.
“Away, Bessy?” said Rotha, entering the house and seating herself. “Do you know where she's gone?”
“Nay, that I don't; but she told mother she'd be away three or four days.”
“So you're minding house for her,” said Rotha vacantly, her eyes meantime busily traversing the kitchen; they came back to the little housekeeper's face in a twinkling.
“Deary me, what a pretty ribbon that is in your hair, Bessy. Do you know it makes you quite smart. But it wants just a little bow like this—there, there.”
The guileless child blushed and smiled, and sidled slyly up to where she could catch a sidelong glance at herself in a scratched mirror that hung against the wall.
“Tut, Bessy, you should go and kneel on the river bank just below, and look at yourself in the still water. Go, lass, and come back and tell me what you think now.”
The little maiden's vanity prompted her to go, but her pride urged her to remain, lest Rotha should think her too vain. Pride conquered, and Bessy hung down her pretty head and smiled. Rotha turned wearily about and said, “I'm very thirsty, and I can't bear that well water of Mrs. Garth's.”
“Why, she's not got a well, Rotha.”
“Hasn't she? Now, do you know, I thought she had, but it must be 'Becca Rudd's well I'm thinking of.”
Bessy stepped outside for a moment, and came back with a basin of water in her hand.
“What sort of water is this, Bessy—river water?” said Rotha languidly, with eyes riveted on an oak chest that stood at one side of the kitchen.
“Oh, no; spring water,” said the little one, with many protestations of her shaking head.
“Now, do you know, Bessy—you'll think it strange, won't you?—do you know, I never care for spring water.”
“I'll get you a cup of milk,” said Bessy.
“No, no; it's river water I like. Just slip away and get me a cup of it, there's a fine lass, and I'll show you how to tie the ribbon for yourself.”
The little one tripped off. Vanity reminded her that she could kill two birds with one stone. Instantly she had gone Rotha rose to her feet and drew out the keys. Taking the one with the tape on it, she stepped to the oak chest and tried it on the padlock that hung in front of it. No; that was not the lock it fitted. There was a corner cupboard that hung above the chest. But, no; neither had the cupboard the lock which fitted the key in Rotha's hand.
There was a bedroom leading out of the kitchen. Rotha entered it and looked around. A linen trunk, a bed, and a chair were all that it contained. She went upstairs. There were two bedrooms there, but no chest, box, cabinet, cupboard, not anything having a lock which a key like this might fit.
Bessy would be back soon. Rotha returned to the kitchen. She went again into the adjoining bedroom. Yes, under the bed was a trunk, a massive plated trunk. She tried to move it, but it would not stir. She went down on her knees to examine it. It had two padlocks, but neither suited the key. Back to the kitchen, she sat down half bewildered and looked around.
At that instant the little one came in, with a dimple in her rosy cheeks and a cup of water in her hand.
Rotha took the water and tried to drink.
She was defeated once more. She put the keys into her pocket. Was she ever to be one step nearer the heart of this mystery?
She rose wearily and walked out, forgetting to show the trick of the bow to the little housekeeper who stood with a rueful pout in the middle of the floor.
There was one thing left to do; with this other key, the key marked with a cross, she could open Wilson's trunk in her father's cottage, look at the papers, and perhaps discover wherein lay their interest for Mrs. Garth. But first she must examine the two places in the road referred to in the evidence at the trial.
In order to do this at once, Rotha turned towards Smeathwaite when she left the blacksmith's cottage, and walked to the bridge.
The river ran in a low bed, and was crossed by the road at a sharp angle. Hence the bridge lay almost out of sight of persons walking towards it.
Fifty yards to the north of it was the spot where the woman Rushton said she saw the murder. Fifty yards to the south of it was the spot where the body was picked up next morning.
Rotha had reached the bridge, and was turning the angle of the road, when she drew hastily back. Stepping behind a bush for further concealment, she waited. Some one was approaching. It was Mrs. Garth. The woman walked on until she came to within fifty paces of where Rotha stood. Then she stopped. The girl observed her movements, herself unseen.
Mrs. Garth looked about her to the north and south of the road and across the fields on either hand. Then she stepped into the dike and prodded the ground for some yards and kicked the stones that lay there.
Rotha's breath came and went like a tempest.
Mrs. Garth stooped to look closely at a huge stone that lay by the highway. Then she picked up a smaller stone and seemed to rub it on the larger one, as if she wished to remove a scratch or stain.
Rotha was sure now.
Mrs. Garth stood on the very spot where the crime was said to have been committed. This woman, then, and her son were at the heart of the mystery. It was even as she had thought.
Rotha could hear the beat of her own heart. She plunged from behind the bush one step into the road. Then she drew back.
The day was cold but dry, and Mrs. Garth heard the step in front of her. She came walking on with apparent unconcern. Rotha thought of her father and Ralph condemned to die as innocent men.
The truth that would set them free lay with seething dregs of falsehood at the bottom of this woman's heart. It should come up; it should come up.
When Mrs. Garth had reached the bridge Rotha stepped out and confronted her. The woman gave a little start and then a short forced titter.
“Deary me, lass, ye mak a ghost of yersel', coming and going sa sudden.”
“And you make ghosts of other people.” Then, without a moment's warning, Rotha looked close into her eyes and said, “Who killed James Wilson? Tell me quick, quick.”
Mrs. Garth flinched, and for the instant looked confused.
“Tell me, woman, tell me; who killed him there—there where you've been beating the ground to conceal the remaining traces of a struggle?”
“Go off and ask thy father,” said Mrs. Garth, recovering herself; and then she added, with a sneer, “but mind thou'rt quick, or he'll never tell thee in this world.” “Nor will you tell me in the next. Woman, woman!” cried Rotha in another tone, “woman, have you any bowels? You have no heart, I know; but can you stand by and be the death of two men who have never, never done you wrong?”
Rotha clutched Mrs. Garth's dress in the agony of her appeal.
“You have a son, too. Think of him standing where they stand, an innocent man.”
Rotha had dropped to her knees in the road, still clinging to Mrs. Garth's dress.
“What's all this to me, girl? Let go yer hod, do you hear? Will ye let go? What wad I know about Wilson—nowt.”
“It's a lie,” cried Rotha, starting to her feet. “What were you doing in his room at Fornside?”
“Tush, maybe I was only seeking that fine father of thine. Let go your hod, do you hear? Let go, or I'll—I'll—”
Rotha had dropped the woman's dress and grasped her shoulders. In another instant the slight pale-faced girl had pulled this brawny woman to her knees. They were close to the parapet of the bridge, and it was but a few inches high.
“As sure as God's in heaven,” cried Rotha with panting breath and flaming eyes, “I'll fling you into this river if you utter that lie again. Woman, give me the truth! Cast away these falsehoods, that would blast the souls of the damned in hell.”
“Get off. Wilta not? Nay, then, but I'll mak thee, and quick.”
The struggle was short. The girl was flung aside into the road.
Mrs. Garth rose from her knees with a bitter smile on her lips. “I mak na doubt 'at thou wouldn't be ower keen to try the same agen,” she said, going off. “Go thy ways to Doomsdale, my lass, and ax yer next batch of questions there. I've just coom't frae it mysel', do you know?”
Late the same evening, as the weary sun went down behind the smithy, Rotha hastened from the cottage at Fornside back to the house on the Moss at Shoulthwaite. She had a bundle of papers beneath her cloak, and the light of hope in her face.
The clew was found.
When Ralph, accompanied by Sim, arrived at Carlisle and surrendered himself to the high sheriff, Wilfrey Lawson, he was at once taken before the magistrates, and, after a brief examination, was ordered to wait his trial at the forthcoming assizes. He was then committed to the common gaol, which stood in the ruins of the old convent of Black Friars. The cell he occupied was shared by two other prisoners—a man and a woman. It was a room of small dimensions, down a small flight of steps from the courtyard, noisome to the only two senses to which it appealed—gloomy and cold. It was entered from a passage in an outer cell, and the doors to both were narrow, without so much as the ventilation of an eye-hole, strongly bound with iron, and double locked. The floor was the bare earth, and there was no furniture except such as the prisoners themselves provided. A little window near to the ceiling admitted all the light and air and discharged all the foul vapor that found entrance and egress.
The prisoners boarded themselves. For an impost of 7s per week, an under gaoler undertook to provide food for Ralph and to lend him a mattress. His companions in this wretched plight were a miserable pair who were suspected of a barbarous and unnatural murder. They had been paramours, and their victim had been the woman's husband. Once and again they had been before the judges, and though none doubted their guilt, they had been sent back to await more conclusive or more circumstantial evidence. Whatever might hitherto have been the ardor of their guilty passion, their confinement together in this foul cell had resulted in a mutual loathing. Within the narrow limits of these walls neither seemed able to support the barest contact with the other. They glared at each other in the dim light with ghoul-like eyes, and at night they lay down at opposite sides of the floor on bundles of straw for beds. This straw, having served them in their poverty for weeks and even months, had fermented and become filthy and damp.
Such was the place and such the society in which Ralph spent the seven days between the day on which he surrendered and that on which he was indicted for treason.
The little window looked out into the streets, and once or twice daily Simeon Stagg, who discovered the locality of Ralph's confinement, came and exchanged some words of what were meant for solace with his friend. It was small comfort Ralph found in the daily sight of the poor fellow's sorrowful face; but perhaps Ralph's own brighter countenance and cheerier tone did something for the comforter himself.
Though the two unhappy felons were made free of the spacious courtyard for an hour every day, the like privilege was not granted to Ralph, who was kept close prisoner, and, except on the morning of his trial, was even denied water for washing and cleansing.
When he was first to appear before the judges of assize, this prisoner of state, who had voluntarily surrendered himself, after many unsuccessful efforts at capturing him, was bound hand and foot. On the hearing of his case being adjourned, he was taken back to the cell which he had previously shared; but whether he felt that the unhappy company was more than he could any longer support, or whether the foul atmosphere of the stinking room seemed the more noisome from the comparative respite of a crowded court, he determined to endure the place no longer. He asked to be permitted to write to the governor of the city. The request was not granted. Then, hailing Sim from the street, he procured by his assistance a bundle of straw and a candle. The straw, clean and sweet, he exchanged with his fellow-prisoners for that which had served them for beds. Then, gathering the rotten stuff into a heap in the middle of the floor, he put a light to it and stirred it into a fire. This was done partly to clear the foul atmosphere, which was so heavy and dank as to gather into beads of moisture on the walls, and partly to awaken the slugglish interest of the head gaoler, whose rooms, as Ralph had learned, were situated immediately above this cell. The former part of the artifice failed (the filthy straw engendered as much stench as it dissipated), but the latter part of it succeeded effectually. The smoke found its way where the reeking vapor which was natural to the cell could not penetrate.
Ralph was removed forthwith to the outer room. But for the improvement in his lodgings he was punished indirectly. Poor Sim had dislocated a bar of the window in pushing the straw into Ralph's hands, and for this offence he was apprehended and charged with prison breaking. Four days later the paltry subterfuge was abandoned, as we know, for a more serious indictment. Ralph's new abode was brighter and warmer than the old one, and had no other occupant. Here he passed the second week of his confinement. The stone walls of this cell had a melancholy interest. They were carved over nearly every available inch with figures of men, birds, and animals, cut, no doubt, by the former prisoners to beguile the weary hours.
In these quarters life was at least tolerable; but tenancy of so habitable a place was not long to be Ralph's portion.
When the trial for murder had ended in condemnation, Ralph and Sim were removed from the bar, not to the common gaol from whence they came, but to the castle, and were there committed to a pestilential dungeon under the keep. This dungeon was known as Doomsdale. It was indeed a “seminary of every vice and of every disease.” Many a lean and yellow culprit, it was said, had carried up from its reeking floor into the court an atmosphere of pestilence which avenged him on his accusers. Some affirmed that none who ever entered it came out and lived. The access to it was down a long flight of winding stairs, and through a cleft hewn out of the bare rock on which the castle stood. It was wet with the waters that oozed out of countless fissures and came up from the floor and stood there in pools of mire that were ankle deep.
Ralph was scarcely the man tamely to endure a horrible den like this. Once again he demanded to see the governor, but was denied that justice.
As a prisoner condemned to die, he, with Sim, was allowed to attend service daily in the chapel of the castle. The first morning of his imprisonment in this place he availed himself of the privilege. Crossing the castle green towards the chapel, he attempted to approach the governor's quarters, but the guard interposed. Throughout the service he was watchful of any opportunity that might arise, but none appeared. At the close he was being taken back to Doomsdale, side by side with his companion, when he saw the chaplain, in his surplice, crossing the green to his rooms. Then, at a sudden impulse, Ralph pushed aside the guard, and, tapping the clergyman on the shoulder, called on him to stop and listen.
“We are condemned men,” he said; “and if the law takes its course, in six days we are to die; but in less time than that we will be dead already if they keep us in that hell on earth.”
The chaplain stared at Ralph's face with a look compounded equally of amazement and fear.
“Take him away,” he cried nervously to the guard, who had now regained possession of their prisoner.
“You are a minister of the Gospel,” said Ralph.
“Your servant,” said the clergyman, with mock humility.
“My servant, indeed!” said Ralph; “my servant before God, yet beware of hypocrisy. You are a Christian minister, and you read in your Bible of the man who was cast into a lion's den, and of the three men who were thrown into the fiery furnace. But what den of lions was ever so deadly as this, where no fire would burn in the pestilential air?”
“He is mad,” cried the chaplain, sidling off; “look at his eyes.” The guard were making futile efforts to hurry Ralph away, but he shouted again, in a voice that echoed through the court,—
“You are a Christian minister, and your Master sent his disciples over all the earth without purse or scrip, but you lie here in luxury, while we die there in disease. Look to it, man, look to it! A reckoning day is at hand as sure as the same God is over us all!”
“The man is mad and murderous!” cried the affrighted chaplain. “Take him away.”
Not waiting for his order to be executed, the spick-and-span wearer of the unsoiled surplice disappeared into one of the side rooms of the court.
This extraordinary scene might have resulted in a yet more rigorous treatment of the prisoners, but it produced the opposite effect. Within the same hour Ralph and Sim were removed from Doomsdale and imprisoned in a room high up in the Donjon tower.
Their new abode was in every way more tolerable than the old one. It had no fire, and it enjoyed the questionable benefit of being constantly filled with nearly all the smoke of every fire beneath it. The dense clouds escaped in part through a hole in the wall where a stone had been disturbed. This aperture also served the less desirable purpose of admitting the rain and the wind.
Here the days were passed. They were few and short. Doomsdale itself could not have made them long.
With his long streaky hair hanging wild about his temples, Sim sat hour after hour on a low bench beneath the window, crying at intervals that God would not let them die.