Sim accompanied Ralph half-way down the hill when he rose to go. Robbie Anderson could be seen hastening towards them. His mission must be with Ralph, so Sim went back.
“I've been to Shoulthwaite to look for you,” said Robbie. “They told me you'd taken the hills for it, so I followed on.”
“You look troubled, my lad,” said Ralph; “has anything happened to you?”
“No, Ralph, but something may happen to you if you don't heed me what I say.”
“Nothing that will trouble me much, Robbie—nothing of that kind can happen now.”
“Yon gommarel of a Joe Garth, the blacksmith, has never forgotten the thrashing you gave him years ago for killing your dog—Laddie's mother that was.”
“No, he'll never forgive me; but what of that? I've not looked for his forgiveness.”
“But, I'm afeared, Ralph, he means to pay you back more than four to the quarter. Do you know he has spies lodging with him? They've come down here to take you off. Joe has been at the Red Lion this morning—drunk, early as it is. He blurted it out about the spies, so I ran off to find you.”
“It isn't Joe that has done the mischief, my lad, though the spies, or whatever they are, may pay him to play underspy while it serves their turn.”
“Joe or not Joe, they mean to take you the first chance. Folks say everything has got upside down with the laws and the country now that the great man himself is dead. Hadn't you best get off somewhere?
“It was good of you, Robbie, to warn me; but I can't leave home yet; my father must be buried, you know.”
“Ah!” said Robbie in an altered tone, “poor Angus!”
Ralph looked closely at his companion, and thought of Robbie's question last night in the inn.
“Tell me,” he said, glancing searchingly into Robbie's eyes, “did you know anything about old Wilson's death?”
The young dalesman seemed abashed. He dropped his head, and appeared unable to look up.
“Tell me, Robbie; I know much already.”
“I took the money,” said the young man; “I took it, but I threw it into the beck the minute after.”
“How was it, lad? Let me know.”
Robbie was still standing, with his head down, pawing the ground as he said,—
“I'd been drinking hard—you know that. I was drunk yon night, and I hadn't a penny in my pouch. On my way home from the inn I lay down in the dike and fell asleep. I was awakened by the voices of two men quarrelling. You know who they were. Old Wilson was waving a paper over his head and laughing and sneering. Then the other snatched it away. At that Wilson swore a dreadful oath, and flung himself on—the other. It was all over in a moment. He'd given the little waistrel the cross-buttock, and felled him on his head. I saw the other ride off, and I saw Simeon Stagg. When all was still, I crept out and took Wilson's money—yes, I took it; but I flung it into the next beck. For the moment, when I touched him I thought he was alive. I've not been drinking hard since then, Ralph; no, nor never will again.”
“Ey, you'll do better than that, Robbie.”
Ralph said no more. There was a long silence between the two men, until Robbie, unable to support it any longer, broke in again with, “I took it, but I flung it into the next beck.”
The poor fellow seemed determined to dwell upon the latter fact as in some measure an extenuation of his offence. In his silent hours of remorse he had cherished it as one atoning circumstance. It had been the first fruits of a sudden resolution of reform. Sobered by the sense of what part he had played in crime, the money that had lain in his hand was a witness against him; and when he had flung it away he had only the haunting memory left of what he would have done in effect, but had, in fact, done only in name.
“Why did you not say this at the inquest?” asked Ralph. “You might have cleared Simeon Stagg. Was it because you must have accused my father?”
“I can't say it was that. I felt guilty myself. I felt as if half the crime had been mine.”
There was another pause.
“Robbie,” Ralph said at length, “would you, if I wished it, say no more about all this?”
“I've said nothing till now, and I need say nothing more.”
“Sim will be as silent—if I ask him. There is my poor mother, my lad; she can't live long, and why should she be stricken down? Her dear old head is bowed low enough already.”
“I promise you, Ralph,” said Robbie. He had turned half aside, and was speaking falteringly. He remembered one whose head had been bowed lower still—one whose heart had been sick for his own misdeeds, and now the grass was over her.
“Then that is agreed.”
“Ralph, there's something I should have said before, but I was afeared to say it. Who would have believed the word of a drunkard? That's what I was, God forgive me! Besides, it would have done no good to say it, that I can see, and most likely some harm.”
“What was it?”
“Didn't they say they found Wilson lying fifty yards below the river?”
“They did; fifty yards to the south of the bridge.”
“It was as far to the north that I left him. I'm sure of it. I was sobered by what happened. I could swear it in heaven, Ralph. It was full fifty yards on the down side of the bridge from the smithy.”
“Think again, my lad; it's a serious thing that you say.”
“I've thought of it too much. It has tormented me day and night. There's no use in trying to persuade myself I must be wrong. Fifty yards on the down side of the beck from the smithy—that was the place, Ralph.”
The dalesman looked grave. Then a light crossed his face as if a wave of hope had passed through him. Sim had said he was leaning against the bridge. All that Angus could have done must have been done to the north of it. Was it possible, after all, that Angus had not killed Wilson by that fall?
“You say that for the moment, when you touched him, you thought Wilson was not dead?”
“It's true, I thought so.”
Sim had thought the same.
“Did you see any one else that night?”
“No.”
“Nor hear other footsteps?”
“No, none but my own at last—none.”
It was no clew. Unconsciously Ralph put his hand to his breast and touched the paper that he had placed there. No, there was no hope. The shadow that had fallen had fallen forever.
“Perhaps the man recovered enough to walk a hundred yards, and then fell dead. Perhaps he had struggled to reach home?”
“He would be going the wrong way for that, Ralph.”
“True, true; it's very strange, very, if it is as you say. He was fifty yards beyond the smithy—north of it?”
“He was.”
The dalesmen walked on. They had got down into the road, when the little schoolmaster ran up against them almost before he had been seen.
“Oh, here you are, are you?” he gasped.
“Are they coming?” said Robbie Anderson, jumping on to the turf hedge to get a wider view.
“That they are.”
The little man had dropped down on to a stone, and was mopping his forehead. When he had recovered his breath, he said,—
“I say, Monsieur the Gladiator, why didn't you kill when you were about it? I say, why didn't you kill?” and Monsey held his thumbs down, as he looked in Ralph's face.
“Kill whom?” said Ralph. He could not help laughing at the schoolmaster's ludicrous figure and gesture.
“Why, that Garth—a bad garth—a kirk-garth—a kirk-warner's garth-a devil's garth—Joe Garth?”
“I can't see them,” said Robbie, and he jumped down again into the road.
“Oh, but you will, you will,” said Monsey; and stretching his arm out towards Ralph with a frantic gesture, he cried, “You fly, fly, fly, fly!”
“Allow me to point out to you,” observed Ralph, smiling, “that I do not at all fly, nor shall I know why I should not remain where I am until you tell me.”
“Then know that your life's not worth a pin's fee if you remain here to be taken. Oh, that Garth—that devil's garth—that—that—Joe Garth!”
There was clearly no epithet that suited better with Monsey's mood than the said monster's proper name.
“Friends,” said Ralph, more seriously, “it's clear I can't leave before I see my father buried, and it's just as clear I can't see him buried if I stay. With your help I may do both—that is, seem to do both.”
“How? how? unfold—I can interpret you no conundrums,” said Monsey. “To go, and yet not to go, that is the question.”
“Can I help you?” said Robbie with the simplicity of earnestness.
“Go back, schoolmaster, to the Lion.”
“I know it—I've been there before—well?”
“Say, if your conscience will let you—I know how tender it is—say you saw me go over Lauvellen in the direction of Fairfield. Say this quietly—say it to old Matthew in a whisper and as a secret; that will be enough.”
“I've shared with that patriarch some secrets before now, and they've been common property in an hour—common as the mushrooms on the common—common as his common saws—common—”
“Robbie, the burial will take place the day after to-morrow, at three in the afternoon, at the kirk-garth—”
“Oh, that Garth,—that devil's garth—that Joe—”
“At the kirk-garth at Gosforth,” continued Ralph. “Go round the city and the dale, and bid every master and mistress within the warning to Shoulthwaite Moss at nine o'clock in the morning. Be there yourself as the representative of the family, and see all our old customs observed. The kirk-garth is twenty miles away, across rugged mountain country, and you must follow the public pass.”
“Styehead Pass?”
Ralph nodded assent. “Start away at eleven o'clock; take the old mare to bear the body; let the boy ride the young horse, and chain him to the mare at the bottom of the big pass. These men, these spies, these constables, whatever they may be, will lie in wait for me about the house that morning. If they don't find me at my father's funeral they'll then believe that I must have gone. Do you hold the mare's head, Robbie—mind that. When you get to the top of the pass, perhaps some one will relieve you—perhaps so, perhaps not. You understand?”
“I do.”
“Let nothing interfere with this plan as I give it you. If you fail in any single particular, all may be lost.”
“I'll let nothing interfere. But what of Willy? What if he object?
“Tell him these are my wishes—he'll yield to that.”
There was a moment's silence.
“Robbie, that was a noble resolve you told me of; and you can keep it, can you not?”
“I can—God help me.”
“Keep it the day after to-morrow—you remember our customs, sometimes more honored, you know, in the breach than the observance—you can hold to your resolve that day; you must hold to it, for everything hangs on it. It is a terrible hazard.”
Robbie put his hand in Ralph's, and the two stalwart dalesmen looked steadily each into the other's face. There was a dauntless spirit of resolution in the eyes of the younger man. His resolve was irrevocable. His crime had saved him.
“That's enough,” said Ralph. He was satisfied.
“Why, you sleep—you sleep,” cried the little schoolmaster. During the preceding conversation he had been capering to and fro in the road, leaping on to the hedge, leaping back again, and putting his hands to the sides of his eyes to shut away the wind that came from behind him, while he looked out for the expected enemy.
“You sleep—you sleep—that Garth—that devil's garth—that worse than kirk-garth—that—that—!”
“And now we part,” said Ralph, “for the present. Good by, both!” And he turned to go back the way he came.
Monsey and Robbie had gone a few paces in the other direction, when the little schoolmaster stopped, and, turning round, cried in a loud voice, “O yes, I know it—the Lion. I've been there before. I'll whisper Father Matthew that you've gone—”
Robbie had put his arm on Monsey's shoulder and swung him round, and Ralph heard no more.
The night was far advanced, and yet Ralph had not returned to Shoulthwaite. It was three hours since Matthew Branthwaite had left the Moss. Mrs. Ray still sat before the turf fire and gazed into it in silence. Rotha was by her side, and Willy lay on the settle drawn up to the hearth. All listened for the sound of footsteps that did not come.
The old clock ticked out louder and more loud; the cricket's measured chirp seemed to grow more painfully audible; the wind whistled through the leafless boughs without, and in the lulls of the abating storm the low rumble of the ghyll could be heard within. What kept Ralph away? It was no unusual thing for him to be abroad from dawn to dusk, but the fingers of the clock were approaching eleven, and still he did not come. On this night, of all others, he must have wished to be at home.
Earlier in the evening Rotha had found occasion to go on some errand to the neighboring farm, and there she had heard that towards noon Ralph had been seen on horseback crossing Stye Head towards Wastdale. Upon reporting this at the Moss, the old dame had seemed to be relieved.
“He thinks of everything,” she had said. All that day she had cherished the hope that it would be possible to bury Angus over the hills, at Gosforth. It was in the old churchyard there that her father lay-her father, her mother, and all her kindred. It was twenty miles to those plains and uplands, that lay beyond the bleak shores of Wastdale. It was a full five hours' journey there and back. But when twice five hours had been counted, and still Ralph had not returned, the anxiety of the inmates of the old house could no longer be concealed. In the eagerness of their expectation the clock ticked louder than ever, the cricket chirped with more jubilant activity, the wind whistled shriller, the ghylls rumbled longer, but no welcomer sound broke the stillness.
At length Willy got up and put on his hat. He would go down the lonnin to where it joined the road, and meet Ralph on the way. He would have done so before, but the horror of walking under the shadow of the trees where last night his father fell had restrained him. Conquering his fear, he sallied out.
The late moon had risen, and was shining at full. With a beating heart he passed the dreaded spot, and reached the highway beyond. He could hear nothing of a horse's canter. There were steps approaching, and he went on towards whence they came. Two men passed close beside him, but neither of them was Ralph. They did not respond to his greeting when, in accordance with the custom of the country, he bade them “Good night.” They were strangers, and they looked closely—he thought suspiciously—at him as they went by.
Willy walked a little farther, and then returned. As he got back to the lane that led to the house, the two men passed him again. Once more they looked closely into his face. His fear prompted him to speak, but again they went on in silence. As Willy turned up towards home, the truth flashed upon him that these men were the cause of Ralph's absence. He knew enough of what was going on in the world to realize the bare possibility that his brother's early Parliamentarian campaign might bring him into difficulties even yet. It seemed certain that the lord of Wythburn Manor would be executed. Only Ralph's obscurity could save him.
When Willy got back into the kitchen, the impression that Ralph was being pursued and dogged was written on his face. His mother understood no more of his trouble than that his brother had not returned; she looked from his face back to the fire, that now died slowly on the hearth. Rotha was quicker to catch the significance of Willy's nervous expression and fitful words. To her the situation now appeared hardly less than tragic. With the old father lying dead in the loft above, what would come to this household if the one strong hand in it was removed? Then she thought of her own father. What would become of him? Where was he this night? The sense of impending disaster gave strength to her, however. She rose and put her hand on Willy's arm as he walked to and fro across the earthen floor. She was the more drawn to him from some scarce explicable sense of his weakness.
“Some one coming now,” he said in eager tones—his ears were awake with a feverish sensitiveness—“some one at the back.” It was Ralph at last. He had come down the side of the ghyll, and had entered the house from behind. All breathed freely.
“God bless thee!” said Mrs. Ray.
“You've been anxious. It was bad to keep you so,” he said, with an obvious effort to assume his ordinary manner.
“I reckon thou couldst not have helped it, my lad,” said Mrs. Ray. Relieved and cheerful, she was bustling about to get Ralph's supper on the table.
“Well, no,” he answered. “You know, I've been over to Gosforth—it's a long ride—I borrowed Jackson's pony from Armboth; and what a wild country it is, to be sure! It blew a gale on Stye Head. It's bleak enough up there on a day like this, mother. I could scarce hold the horse.”
“I don't wonder, Ralph; but see, here's thy poddish—thou must be fair clemm'd.”
“No, no; I called at Broom Hill.”
“How did you come in at the back, lad? Do you not come up the lonnin?”
“I thought I'd go round by the low meadow and see all safe, and then the nearest way home was on the hill side, you know.”
Willy and Rotha glanced simultaneously at Ralph as he said this, but they found nothing in his face, voice, or manner to indicate that his words were intended to conceal the truth.
“But look how late it is!” he said as the clock struck twelve; “hadn't we better go off to bed, all of us?”
“I think I must surely go off,” said Mrs. Ray, and with Rotha she left the kitchen. Willy soon followed them, leaving Ralph to eat his supper alone. Laddie, who had entered with his master, was lying by the smouldering fire, and after the one had finished eating, the other came in for his liberal share of the plain meal. Then Ralph rose, and, lifting up his hat and staff, walked quietly to his brother's room. Willy was already in bed, but his candle was still burning. Sitting on an old oak chest that stood near the door of the little room, Ralph said,—
“I shall perhaps be off again before you are awake in the morning, but all will be done in good time. The funeral will be on the day after to-morrow. Robbie Anderson will see to everything.”
“Robbie Anderson?” said Willy in an accent of surprise.
“You know it's the custom in the dale for a friend of the family to attend to these offices.”
“Yes; but Robbie Anderson of all men!”
“You may depend upon him,” said Ralph.
“This is the first time I've heard that he can depend upon himself, said Willy.
“True—true—but I'm satisfied about Robbie. No, you need fear nothing. Robbie's a changed man, I think.”
“Changed he must be, Ralph, if you would commit to his care what could not be too well discharged by the most trustworthy friend of the family.”
“Yes, but Robbie will do as well as another—better. You know, Willy, I have an old weakness for a sheep that strays. When I get it back I fancy, somehow, it's the best of the flock.”
“May your straggler justify your odd fancy this time, brother!”
“Rotha will see to what has to be done at home,” said Ralph, rising and turning to go.
“Ralph,” said Willy, “do you know I—” He faltered and began again, obviously changing the subject. “Have you been in there to-night?” with a motion of the head towards the room wherein lay all that remained of their father.
“No; have you?”
“No; I dare not go. I would not if I could. I wish to remember him as he lived, and one, glance at his dead face would blot out the memory forever.”
Ralph could not understand this. There was no chord in his nature that responded to such feelings; but he said nothing in reply.
“Ralph,” continued Willy, “do you know I think Rotha—I almost thin—do you not think that Rotha rather cares for me?”
A perceptible tremor passed over Ralph's face. Then he said, with something like a smile, “Do you think she does, my lad?”
“I do—I almost do think so.”
Ralph had resumed his seat on the oak chest. The simple, faltering words just spoken had shaken him to the core. Hidden there—hidden even from himself—had lain inert for months a mighty passion such as only a great heart can know. In one moment he had seen it and known it for what it was. Yes, he had indeed loved this girl; he loved her still. When he spoke again his voice seemed to have died inwards; he appeared to be speaking out of his breast.
“And what of yourself, Willy?” he asked.
“I think I care for her, too,—I think so.”
How sure was the other of a more absolute affection than the most positive words could express! Ralph sat silent for a moment, as was his wont when under the influence of strong feeling. His head inclined downwards, and his eyes were fixed on the floor. A great struggle was going on within him. Should he forthwith make declaration of his own passion? Love said, Yes! love should be above all ties of kindred, all claims of blood. But the many tongues of an unselfish nature said, No! If this thing were wrong, it would of itself come to nought; if right, it would be useless to oppose it. The struggle was soon over, and the impulse of self-sacrifice had conquered. But at what a cost—at what a cost!
“Yet there is her father, you know,” Willy added. “One dreads the thought of such a match. There may be something in the blood—at least, one fears—”
“You need have no fear of Rotha that comes of her relation to Simeon Stagg. Sim is an innocent man.”
“So you say—so you say. Let us hope so. It's a terrible thought-that of marriage with the flesh and blood of—of a murderer.”
“Rotha is as free from taint of crime as—you are. She is a noble girl, and worthy of you, worthy of any man, whatever her father may be,” said Ralph.
“Yes, yes, I know; I thought you'd say so. I'm glad, Ralph—I can't tell you how glad I am—to hear you say so. And if I'm right—if Rotha really loves me—I know you'll be as glad as I am.”
Ralph's face trembled slightly at this, but he nodded his head and smiled.
“Not that I could think of it for a long time,” Willy continued. “This dreadful occurrence must banish all such thoughts for a very long time.”
Willy seemed to find happiness in the prospect, remote as it might be. Ralph's breast heaved as he looked upon his brother's brightening face. That secret of his own heart must lie forever buried there. Yes, he had already resolved upon that. He should never darken the future that lay pictured in those radiant eyes. But this was a moment of agony nevertheless. Ralph was following the funeral of the mightiest passion of his soul. He got up and opened the door.
“Good night, and God bless you!” he said huskily.
“One moment, Ralph. Did you see two men, strangers, on the road to-night? Ah, I remember, you came in at the back.”
“Two friends of Joe Garth's,” said Ralph, closing the door behind him.
When he reached his own room he sat for some minutes on the bed. What were the feelings that preyed upon him? He hardly knew. His heart was desolate. His life seemed to be losing its hope, or his hope its object. And not yet had he reached the worst. Some dread forewarning of a sterner fate seemed to hang above him.
Rising, Ralph threw off his shoes, and drew on a pair of stouter ones. Then he laced up a pair of leathern leggings, and, taking down a heavy cloak from behind the door, he put it across his arm. He had no light but the light of the moon.
Stepping quietly along the creaky old corridor to the room where his father lay, Ralph opened the door and entered. A clod of red turf smouldered on the hearth, and the warm glow from it mingled with the cold blue of the moonlight. How full of the odor of a dead age the room now seemed to be! The roof was opened through the rude timbers to the whitened thatch. Sheepskins were scattered about the black oaken floor. Ralph walked to the chimney-breast, and stood on one of the skins as he leaned on the rannel-tree shelf. How still and cheerless it all was!
The room stretched from the front to the back of the house, and had a window at each end. The moon that shone through the window at the front cast its light across the foot of the bed. Ralph had come to bid his last good-night to him who lay thereon. It was in this room that he himself had been born. He might never enter it again.
How the strong man was laid low! All his pride of strength had shrunk to this! “The lofty looks of men shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down.” What indeed was man, whose breath was in his nostrils!
The light was creeping up the bed. Silent was he who lay there as the secret which he had never discharged even to his deaf pillow. Had that secret mutinied in the heart that knew its purple war no more? Ah! how true it was that conscience was a thousand swords. With no witness against him except himself, whither could he have fled from the accusation that burned within him as a fire! Not chains nor cells could have spoken to this strong man like the awful voice of his solitary heart. How remorse must have corroded that heart! How he must have numbered the hours of that remorse! How one sanguinary deed must have trampled away all joyous memories! But the secret agony was over at last: it was over now.
The moonlight had crept up to the head. It was silvering the gray hairs that rested there. Ralph stepped up to the bedside and uncovered the face. Was it changed since he looked on it last? Last night it was his father's face: was it laden with iniquity now? How the visible phantom of one horrible moment must have stood up again and again before these eyes! How sternly fortune must have frowned on these features! Yet it was his father's face still.
And what of that father's great account? Who could say what the final arbitrament would be? Had he who lay there, the father, taken up all this load of guilt and remorse for love of him, the son? Was he gone to a dreadful audit, too, and all for love of him? And to know nothing of it until now—until it was too late to take him by the hand or to look into his eyes! Nay, to have tortured him unwittingly with a hundred cruel words! Ralph remembered how in days past he had spoken bitterly in his father's presence of the man who allowed Simeon Stagg to rest under an imputation of murder not his own. That murder had been done to save his own life—however unwisely, however rashly, still to save his (Ralph's) own life.
Ralph dropped to his knees at the bedside. What barrier had stood between the dead man and himself that in life the one had never revealed himself to the other? They were beyond that revealment now, yet here was everything as in a glass. “Oh, my father,” cried Ralph as his head fell between his hands, “would that tears of mine could scald away your offence!”
Then there came back the whisper of the old words, “The lofty looks of men shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down.”
Ralph knelt long at his father's side, and when he rose from his knees it was with a calmer but a heavier heart.
“Surely God's hand is upon me,” he murmured. The mystery would yield no other meaning. “Gone to his account with the burden, not of my guilt, but of my fate, upon him.”
Ralph walked to the fire and turned over the expiring peat. It gave a fitful flicker. He took from his pocket the paper that had fallen from his father's breast, and looked long at it in the feeble light. It was all but the only evidence of the crime, and it must be destroyed. He put the paper to the light. Drawing it away, he paused and reflected. He thought of his stricken mother, and his resolve seemed fixed. He must burn this witness against his father; he must crush the black shadow of it in his hand. Could he but crush as easily the black shadow of impending doom! Could he but obliterate as completely the dread reckoning of another world!
The paper that hung in his hand had touched the flickering peat. It was already ignited, but he drew it once more away, and crushed the burning corner to ashes in his palm.
No, it must not be destroyed. He thought of how Rotha had stood over her father's prostrate form in the room of the village inn, and cried in her agony, “Tell them it is not true.” Who could say what this paper might yet do for him and her?
Ralph put the warrant back, charred and crumbled, into the breast pocket of the jerkin he wore.
The burning of the paper had for a moment filled the chamber with light. After the last gleam of it had died away, and the ash of the burnt portion lay in his palm, Ralph walked to the front window and looked out. All was still. Only the wind whistled. How black against the moon loomed the brant walls of the Castle Rock across the vale!
Turning about, Ralph re-covered the face and said, “Death is kindest; how could I look into this face alive?”
And the whisper of the old words came back once more: “The lofty looks of men shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down.”
Ralph walked to the window at the back and gently pushed it open. It overlooked the fell and the Shoulthwaite Ghyll. A low roof went down from it almost to the ground. He stepped out on to this, and stood for a moment in the shadow that lay upon it.
He must take his last look now. He must bid his last good-night. The moon through the opposite window still shone on the silvery hair. The wind was high. It found its way through the open casement. It fluttered the face-cloth above the face. Ralph pushed back the sash, and in a moment he was gone.
The household on the Moss were early astir on the morning appointed for the funeral of Angus Ray. Matthew Branthwaite's wife and daughter were bustling about the kitchen of the old house soon after daybreak.
Mrs. Branthwaite was a fragile little body, long past her best, with the crow's feet deeply indented about her eyes, which had the timid look of those of a rabbit, and were peculiarly appropriate to a good old creature who seemed to be constantly laboring against the idea that everything she did was done wrongly. Her daughter Liza was a neat little thing of eighteen, with the bluest of blue eyes, the plumpest of plump cheeks, and the merriest of merry voices. They had walked from their home in the gray dawn in order to assist at the preliminaries to the breakfast which had to be eaten by a large company of the dalesmen before certain of them set out on the long journey across the fells.
The previous day had been the day of the “winding,” a name that pointed to the last offices of Abraham Strong, the Wythburn carpenter. In the afternoon of the winding day the mistresses of the houses within the “warning” had met to offer liberal doses of solace and to take equally liberal doses of sweet broth, a soup sweetened with raisins and sugar, which was reserved for such melancholy occasions.
According to ancient custom, the “maister men” of the dale were to assemble at nine o'clock on the morning following the winding, and it was to meet their needs that old Mrs. Branthwaite and her daughter had walked over to assist Rotha. The long oak table had to be removed from the wall before the window, and made to stand down the middle of the floor. Robbie Anderson had arrived early at the Moss in order to effect this removal. After his muscles had exercised themselves upon the ponderous article of furniture, and had placed the benches called skemmels down each side and chairs at each end, he went into the stable to dress down the mare and sharpen her shoes preparatory to her long journey.
The preliminaries in the kitchen occupied a couple of hours, and during this time Mrs. Ray and Willy sat together in a room above. The reason of Ralph's absence had been explained to his mother by Rotha, who had received her information from Robbie Anderson. The old dame had accepted the necessity with characteristic resignation. What Ralph thought well to do she knew would be best. She did not foresee evil consequences.
Willy had exhibited more perturbation. Going into his brother's room on the morning after their conversation, he saw clearly enough that the bed had not been slept upon. The two friends of Joe Garth's, of whom Ralph had spoken with so much apparent unconcern, had obviously driven him away from home in the depth of the night. Then came Rotha's explanation.
His worst fears were verified. Was it conceivable that Ralph could escape the machinations of those who had lain a web that had already entangled the lord of Wythburn himself? Every one who had served in the trained bands of the Parliament was at the mercy of any man, who, for the gratification of personal spite, chose to become informer against him.
The two strangers had been seen in the city during the preceding day. It was obviously their purpose to remain until time itself verified the rumor that Ralph had left these parts to escape them. The blacksmith had bragged in his cups at the Red Lion that Wilfrey Lawson of the constable's court at Carlisle would have Ralph Ray in less than a week. Robbie Anderson had overheard this, and had reported it at the Moss. Robbie professed to know better, and to be able to laugh at such pretensions. Willy was more doubtful. He thought his better education, and consequently more intimate acquaintance with the history of such conflicts with the ruling powers, justified him in his apprehensions. He sat with his mother while the business was going on downstairs, apparently struggling with an idea that it was his duty to comfort her, but offering such curious comfort that the old dame looked up again and again with wide eyes, which showed that her son was suggesting to her slower intellect a hundred dangers and a hundred moods of sorrow that she could neither discover for herself nor cope with.
Towards nine the “maister men” of Wythburn began to arrive at Shoulthwaite. Such of them as intended to accompany the remains of their fellow-dalesman to their resting place at Gosforth came on mountain ponies, which they dismounted in the court and led into a spare barn. Many came on foot, and of these by much the larger part meant to accompany the cortège only to the top of the Armboth Fell, and, having “sett” it so far, to face no more of the more than twenty miles of rough country that lay between the valley and the churchyard on the plains by the sea.
Matthew Branthwaite was among the first to arrive. The old weaver was resplendent in the apparel usually reserved for “Cheppel Sunday.” The external elevation of his appearance from the worn and sober brown of his daily “top-sark” seemed to produce a corresponding elevation of the weaver's spirit. Despite the solemnity of the occasion, he seemed tempted to let fall a sapient proverb of anything but a funereal tone. On stepping into the kitchen and seeing the provision that had been made for a repast, he did indeed intimate his intention of assisting at the ceremony in the language of the time-honored wren who cried “I helps” as she let a drop of water fall into the sea. At this moment the clergyman from the chapel-of-ease on the Raise arrived at the Moss, and Matthew prepared to put his precept into practice.
The priest, Nicholas Stevens by name, was not a Cumbrian. He had kept his office through three administrations, and to their several forms of legislation he had proved equally tractable. His spirit of accommodation had not been quite so conspicuous in his dealings with those whom he conceived to be beneath him. But in truth he had left his parishioners very largely to their own devices. When he was moved to come among them, it was with the preoccupied air not so much of the student or visionary as of a man who was isolated from those about him by combined authority, influence, and perhaps superior blood. He now took his seat at the head of the table with the bearing of one to whom it had never occurred to take a lower place. He said little at first, and when addressed he turned his face slowly round to him who spoke with an air of mingled abstraction and self-satisfaction, through which a feeble smile of condescension struggled and seemed to say in a mild voice, “Did you speak?”
Matthew sat at the foot of the table, and down each side were seated the dalesmen, to the number of twenty-four. There were Thomas Fell and Adam Rutledge, Job Leathes and Luke Cockrigg, John Jackson of Armboth, and little Reuben Thwaite.
His reverence cut up the ham into slices as formal as his creed, while old Matthew poured out the contents of two huge black jacks. Robbie Anderson carried the plates to and fro; Mrs. Branthwaite and Liza served out the barley and oaten bread.
The breakfast was hardly more than begun when the kitchen door was partially opened, and the big head of a little man became visible on the inner side of it, the body and legs of the new-comer not having yet arrived in the apartment.
“Am I late?” the head said in a hoarse whisper from its place low down on the door-jamb. It was Monsey Laman, red and puffing after a sharp run.
“It's the laal Frenchman. Come thy ways in,” said Matthew. Rotha, who was coming and going from the kitchen to the larder, found a chair for the schoolmaster, and he slid into it with the air of one who was persuading himself that his late advent was unobserved.
“I met that Garth—that—Joe Garth on the road, and he kept me,” whispered Monsey apologetically to Matthew across the table. The presence of Death somewhere in the vicinity had banished the schoolmaster's spirit of fun.
While this was going on at one end of the table, Rotha had made her way to the other end, with the ostensible purpose of cutting up the cheese, but with the actual purpose of listening to a conversation in which his reverence Nicholas Stevens was beginning to bear an unusually animated part. Some one had made allusion to the sudden and, as was alleged, the unseemly departure of Ralph Ray on the eve of his father's funeral. Some one else had deplored the necessity for that departure, and had spoken of it as a cruel outrage on the liberties of a good man. From this generous if somewhat disloyal sentiment his reverence was expressing dissent. He thought it nothing but just that the law should take its course.
This might involve the mortification of our private feelings; it would certainly be a grief to him, loving, as he did, the souls committed to his care; but individual affections must be sacrificed to the general weal. The young man, Ralph Ray, had outraged the laws of his country in fighting and conspiring against his anointed King. It was hard, but it was right, that he should be punished for his treason.
His reverence was speaking in cold metallic tones, that fell like the clank of chains on Rotha's ears.
“Moreover, we should all do our best for the King,” said the clergyman, “to bring such delinquents to justice.”
“Shaf!” cried Matthew Branthwaite from the other end of the table. The little knots of talkers had suddenly become silent.
“Shaf!” repeated Matthew; “what did ye do yersel for the King in Oliver's days? Wilt thoo mak me tell thee? Didst thoo not tak what thoo called the oath of abjuration agen the King five years agone? Didst thoo not? Ey? And didst thoo not come round and ask ivery man on us to do the same?”
The clergyman looked confounded. He dropped his knife and, unable to make a rejoinder, turned to those about him and said, in a tone of amazement, “Did you ever hear the like?”
“Nay,” cried Matthew, following up his advantage, “ye may hear it agen, an ye will.”
Poor Mrs. Branthwaite seemed sorely distressed. Standing by her husband's chair, she appeared to be struggling between impulse and fear in an attempt to put her hand on the mouth of her loquacious husband, in order to avert the uncertain catastrophe which she was sure must ensue from this unexpected and uncompromising defiance of the representative in Wythburn of the powers that be.
Rotha gave Matthew a look of unmistakable gratitude, which, however, was wasted on that infuriated iconoclast. Fixing his eyes steadily on the priest, the weaver forthwith gave his reverence more than one opportunity of hearing the unwelcome outburst again, telling him by only too palpable hints that the depth of his loyalty was his stipend of £300 a year, and the secret of his willingness to see Ralph in the hands of the constable of Carlisle was the fact that the young man had made no secret of his unwillingness to put off his hat to a priest who had thrice put off his own hat to a money-bag.
“Gang yer gate back to yer steeple-house, Nicholas Stevens,” said Matthew, “and mortify yer fatherly bosom for the good of the only soul the Almighty has geàn to yer charge, and mind the auld saying, 'Nivver use the taws when a gloom will do the turn.'”
“You deserve the taws about your back, sirrah, to forget my sacred office so far as to speak so,” said the minister.
“And ye hev forgat yer sacred office to call me nicknames,” answered Matthew, nothing abashed.
“I see you are no better than those blaspheming Quakers whom Justice Rawlinson has wisely committed to the common gaol—poor famished seducers that deserve the stocks!”
“Rich folk hev rowth of friends,” rejoined Matthew, “an' olas will hev while the mak of thyself are aboot.”
His reverence was not slow to perceive that the pulpit had been no match for the Red Lion as a place of preparation for an encounter like the present. Gathering up with what grace he could the tattered and besmeared skirts of his priestly dignity, he affected contempt for the weaver by ignoring his remarks; and, turning to those immediately around him, he proceeded with quite unusual warmth to deliver a homily on duty. Reverting to the subject of Ralph Ray's flight from Wythburn, he said that it was well that the young man had withdrawn himself, for had he remained longer in these parts, and had the high sheriff at Carlisle not proceeded against him, he himself, though much against his inclination, might have felt it his duty as a servant of God and the King to put the oath of allegiance to him.
“I do not say positively that I should have done so,” he said, in a confidential parenthesis, “but I fear I could not have resisted that duty.”
“Dree out the inch when ye've tholed the span,” cried Matthew; “I'd nivver strain lang at sic a wee gnat as that.”
Without condescending to notice the interruption, his reverence proceeded to say he had recently learned that it had been the intention of the judges on the circuit to recommend Angus Ray, the lamented departed, as a justice for the district. This step had been in contemplation since the direful tragedy which had recently been perpetrated in their midst, and of which the facts remained still unexplained, though circumstantial evidence pointed to a solution of the mystery.
When saying this the speaker turned, as though with an involuntary and unconscious gaze, towards the spot where Rotha stood. He had pushed past the girl on coming through the porch without acknowledging her salutation.
“And if Angus Ray had lived to become a justice,” continued the Reverend Nicholas, “it very likely must have been his duty before God and the King to apprehend his son Ralph on a charge of treason.”
Robbie Anderson, who was standing by, felt at that moment that it would very likely be his duty before long to take the priest by certain appendages of his priestly apparel, and carry him less than tenderly to a bed more soft than odorous.
“It must have been his duty, I repeat,” said his reverence, speaking with measured emphasis, “before God and the King.”
“Leave God oot on't,” shouted Matthew. “Ye may put that in when ye get intil yer pulpit, and then ye'll deceive none but them that lippen till ye. Don't gud yersel wi' God's name.”
“It is written,” said his reverence, “'It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness; for the throne is established by righteousness.'”
“Dus'ta think to knock me doon wi' the Bible?” said Matthew with a touch of irreverence. “I reckon ony cock may crouse on his own middenheed. Ye mind me of the clerk at Tickell, who could argify none at all agen the greet Geordie Fox, so he up and broke his nose wi' a bash of his family Bible.”
This final rejoinder proved too much for the minister, who rose, the repast being over, and stalked past Rotha into the adjoining chamber, where the widow and Willy sat in their sorrow. The dalesmen looked after his retreating figure, and as the door of the inner room closed, they heard his metallic voice ask if the deceased had judiciously arranged his temporal affairs.
During the encounter between the weaver and the clergyman the company had outwardly observed a rigid neutrality. Little Liza, it is true, had obviously thought it all the best of good fun, and had enjoyed it accordingly. She had grinned and giggled just as she had done on the preceding Sunday when a companion, the only surviving child of Baptist parents now dead, had had the water sprinkled on her face at her christening in the chapel on the Raise. But Luke Cockrigg, Reuben Thwaite, and the rest had remained silent and somewhat appalled. The schoolmaster had felt himself called upon to participate in the strife, but being in the anomalous position of owing his official obligations to the minister and his convictions to the side championed by the weaver, he had contented him with sundry grave shakes of his big head, which shakes, being subject to diverse interpretations, were the least compromising expressions of opinion which his genius could suggest to him. No sooner, however, had the door closed on the clergyman than a titter went round the table. Matthew was still at a white heat. Accustomed as he was to “tum'le” his neighbors at the Red Lion, he was now profoundly agitated. It was not frequently that he brought down such rare game in his sport.
“Mattha Branthet,” said Reuben Thwaite, “what, man, thoo didst flyte the minister! What it is to hev the gift o' gob and gumption!”
“Shaf! It's kittle shootin' at crows and clergy,” replied Matthew.
The breakfast being over, the benches were turned towards the big peat fire that glowed red on the hearth and warmed the large kitchen on this wintry day. The ale jars were refilled, pipes and tobacco were brought in, and the weaver relinquished his office of potman to his daughter.
“I'd be nobbut a clot-heed,” he said when abdicating, “and leave nane for mysel if I sarrad it oot.”
Robbie Anderson now put on his great cloak, and took down a whip from a strap against the rafters.
“What's this?” said little Reuben to Robbie. “Are you going without a glass?”
Robbie signified his intention of doing just that and nothing else. At this there was a general laugh, after which Reuben, with numerous blinkings of his little eyes, bantered Robbie about the great drought not long before, when a universal fast had been proclaimed, and Robbie had asked why, if folks could not get water, they would not content themselves with ale.
“Liza, teem a short pint intil this lang Robbie,” said Matthew.
Liza brought up a foaming pot, but the young man put it aside with a bashful smile at the girl, who laughed and blushed as she pressed it back upon him.
“Not yet, Liza; when we come back, perhaps.”
“Will you not take it from me?” said the girl, turning her pretty head aside, and giving a sly dig of emphasis to the pronouns.
“Not even from you, Liza, yet awhile.”
The mischievous little minx was piqued at his refusal, and determined that he should drink it, or decline to do so at the peril of losing her smiles.
“Come, Robbie, you shall drink it off—you must.”
“No, my girl, no.”
“I think I know those that would do it if I asked them,” said Liza, with an arch elevation of her dimpled chin and a shadow of a pout.
“Who wouldn't do it, save Robbie Anderson?” he said, laughing for the first time that morning as he walked out of the kitchen.
In a few minutes he returned, saying all was ready, and it was time to start away. Every man rose and went to the front of the house. The old mare Betsy was there, with the coffin strapped on her broad back. Her bruised knees had healed; the frost had disappeared, her shoes were sharpened, and she could not slip. When the mourners had assembled and ranged themselves around the horse, the Reverend Nicholas Stevens came out with the relatives, the weeping mother and son, with Rotha Stagg, and the “Old Hundredth” was sung.
Then the procession of men on foot and men on horseback set off, Robbie Anderson in front leading the mare that bore the coffin, and a boy riding a young horse by his side. Last of all rode Willy Ray, and as they passed beneath the trees that overhung the lane, he turned in the saddle and waved his arm to the two women, who, through the blinding mist of tears, watched their departure from the porch.