Rotha's apprehension of mischief, either as a result of Mrs. Garth's menace or as having occasioned it, was speedily to find realization.
A day or two after the rencontre, three strangers arrived at Shoulthwaite, who, without much ceremony, entered the house, and took seats on the long settle in the kitchen.
Rotha and Willy were there at the moment, the one baking oaten cake, and the other tying a piece of cord about a whip which was falling to pieces. The men wore plain attire, but a glance was enough to satisfy Willy that one of them was the taller of the two constables who had tried to capture Ralph on Stye Head.
“What do you want?” he asked abruptly.
“A little courtesy,” answered the stalwart constable, who apparently constituted himself spokesman to his party.
“From whom do you come?”
“From whom and for whom!—you shall know both, young man. We come from the High Sheriff of Carlisle, and we come for—so please you—Ralph Ray.”
“He's not here.”
“So we thought.” The constables exchanged glances and broad smiles.
“He's not here, I tell you,” said Willy, obviously losing his self-command as he became excited.
“Then go and fetch him.”
“I would not if I could; I could not if I would. So be off.”
“We might ask you for the welcome that is due to the commissioners of a sheriff.”
“You take it. But you'll be better welcome to take yourselves after it.”
“Listen, young master, and let it be to your profit. We want Ralph Ray, sometime captain in the rebel army of the late usurper in possession. We hold a warrant for his arrest. Here it is.” And the man tapped with his fingers a paper which he drew from his belt.
“I tell you once more he is not here,” said Willy.
“And we tell you again, Go and fetch him, and God send you may find him! It will be better for all of you,” added the constable, glancing about the room.
Willy was now almost beyond speech with excitement. He walked nervously across the kitchen, while the constable, with the utmost calmness of voice and manner, opened his warrant and read:—
“These are to will and require you forthwith to receive into your charge the body of Ralph Ray, and him detain under secure imprisonment—”
“You've had the warrant a long while to no purpose, I believe,” Willy broke in. “You may keep it still longer.”
The constable took no further note of the interruption than to pause in his reading, and begin again in the same measured tones:—
“We do therefore command, publish, and declare that the said Ralph Ray, having hitherto withheld himself from judgment, shall within fourteen days next after personally deliver himself to the High Sheriff of Carlisle, under pain of being excepted from any pardon or indemnity both for his life and estate.”
Then the constable calmly folded up his paper, and returned it to its place in his belt. Willy now stood as one transfixed.
“So you see, young man, it will be best for you all to go and fetch him.”
“And what if I cannot?” asked Willy. “What then will happen?”
“Outlawry; and God send that that be all!”
“And what then?”
“The confiscation to the Crown of these goods and chattels.”
“How so?” said Rotha, coming forward. “Mrs. Ray is still alive, and this is a brother.”
“They must go elsewhere, young mistress.”
“You don't mean that you can turn the poor dame into the road?” said Rotha eagerly.
The man shrugged his shoulders. His companions grinned, and shifted in their seats.
“You can't do it; you cannot do it,” said Willy emphatically, stamping his foot on the floor.
“And why not?” The constable was unmoved. “Angus Ray is dead. Ralph Ray is his eldest son.”
“It's against the law, I tell you,” said Willy.
“You seem learned in the law, young farmer; enlighten us, pray.”
“My mother, as relict of my father, has her dower, as well as her own goods and chattels, which came from her own father, and revert to her now on her husband's death.”
“True; a learned doctor of the law, indeed!” said the constable, turning to his fellows.
“I have also my share,” continued Willy, “of all except the freehold. These apportionments the law cannot touch, however it may confiscate the property of my brother.”
“Look you, young man,” said the constable, facing about and lifting his voice; “every commissioner must feel that the law had the ill-luck to lose an acute exponent when you gave up your days and nights to feeding sheep; but there is one point which so learned a doctor ought not to have passed over in silence. When you said the wife of the deceased had a right to her dower, and his younger son to his portion, you forgot that the wife and children of a traitor are in the same case with a traitor himself.”
“Be plain, sir; what do you mean?” said Willy.
“That wise brain of yours should have jumped my meaning; it is that Angus Ray was as much a traitor as his son Ralph Ray, and that if the body of the latter is not delivered to judgment within fourteen days, the whole estate of Shoulthwaite will be forfeited to the Crown as the property of a felon and of the outlawed son of a felon.”
“It's a quibble—a base, dishonorable quibble,” said Willy; “my father cared nothing for your politics, your kings, or your commonwealths.”
The constables shifted once more in their seats.
“He feels it when it comes nigh abreast of himself,” said one of them, and the others laughed.
Rotha was in an agony of suspense. This, then, was what the woman had meant by her forebodings of further disaster to the semiconscious sufferer in the adjoining room. The men rose to go. Wrapping his cloak about him, the constable who had been spokesman said,—
“You see it will be wisest to do as we say. Find him for us, and he may have the benefit of pardon and indemnity for his life and estate.”
“It's a trick, a mean trick,” cried Willy, tramping the floor; “your pardon is a mockery, and your indemnity a lie.”
“Take care, young man; keep your strong words for better service, and do you profit by what we say.”
“That for what you say,” cried Willy, losing all self-control and snapping his fingers before their faces. “Do your worst; and be sure of this, that nothing would prevail with me to disclose my brother's whereabouts even if I knew it, which I do not.”
The constables laughed. “We know all about it, you see. Ha! ha! You want a touch of your brother's temper, young master. He could hardly fizz over like this. We should have less trouble with him if he could. But he's a vast deal cooler than that—worse luck!”
Willy's anger was not appeased by this invidious parallel. “That's enough,” he cried at all but the full pitch of his voice, pointing at the same time to the door.
The men smiled grimly and turned about.
“Remember, a fortnight to-day, and we'll be with you again.”
Rotha clung to the rannel-tree rafter to support herself. Willy thrust out his arm again, trembling with excitement.
“A fortnight to-day,” repeated the constable calmly, and pulled the door after him.
When the door had closed behind the constables, Willy Ray sank exhausted into a chair. The tension of excitement had been too much for his high-strung temperament, and the relapse was swift and painful.
“Pardon and indemnity!” he muttered, “a mockery and a lie—that's what it is, as I told them. Once in their clutches, and there would be no pardon and no indemnity. I know enough for that. It's a trick to catch us, but, thank God, we cannot be caught.”
“Yet I think Ralph ought to know; that is, if we can tell him,” said Rotha. She was still clinging to the rannel-tree over the ingle. Her face, which had been flushed, was now ashy pale, and her lips were compressed.
“He would deliver himself up. I know him too well; I cannot doubt what he would do,” said Willy.
“Still, I think he ought to know,” said Rotha. The girl was speaking in a low tone, but with every accent of resolution.
“He would be denied the pardon if he obtained the indemnity. He would be banished perhaps for years.”
“Still, I think he ought to know.” Rotha spoke calmly and slowly, but with every evidence of suppressed emotion.
“My dear Rotha,” said Willy in a peevish tone, “I understand this matter better than you think for, and I know my brother better than you can know him. There would be no pardon, I tell you. Ralph would be banished.”
“Let us not drive them to worse destruction,” said Rotha.
“And what could be worse?” said Willy, rising and walking aimlessly across the room. “They might turn us from this shelter, true; they might leave us nothing but charity or beggary, that is sure enough. Is this worse than banishment? Worse! Nothing can be worse—”
“Yes, but something can be worse,” said the girl firmly, never shifting the fixed determination of her gaze from the spot whence the constables had disappeared. “Willy, there is worse to come of this business, and Ralph should be told of it if we can tell him.”
“You don't know my brother,” repeated Willy in a high tone of extreme vexation. “He would be banished, I say.”
“And if so—” said Rotha.
“If so!” cried Willy, catching at her unfinished words,—“if so we should purchase our privilege of not being kicked out of this place at the price of my brother's liberty. Can you be so mean of soul, Rotha?”
“Your resolve is a noble one, but you do me much wrong,” said Rotha with more spirit than before.
“Nay, then,” said Willy, assuming a tone of some anger, not unmixed with a trace of reproach, “I see how it is. I know now what you'd have me to do. You'd keep me from exasperating these bloodhounds to further destruction in the hope of saving these pitiful properties to us, and perchance to our children. But with what relish could I enjoy them if bought at such a price? Do you think of that? And do you think of the curse that would hang on them—every stone and every coin—for us and for our children, and our children's children? Heaven forgive me, but I was beginning to doubt if one who could feel so concerning these things were worthy to bear the name that goes along with them.”
“Nay, sir, but if it's a rue-bargain it is easily mended,” said the girl, her eyes aflame and her figure quivering and erect.
Willy scarcely waited for her response. Turning hurriedly about, he hastened out of the house.
“It is a noble resolve,” Rotha said to herself when left alone; “and it makes up for a worse offence. Yes, such self-sacrifice merits a deeper forgiveness than it is mine to offer. He deserves my pardon. And he shall have it, such as it is. But what he said was cruel indeed—indeed it was.”
The girl walked to the neuk window and put her hand on the old wheel. The tears were creeping up into the eyes that looked vacantly towards the south.
“Very, very cruel; but then he was angry. The men had angered him. He was sore put about. Poor Willy, he suffers much. Yet it was cruel; it was cruel, indeed it was.”
Rotha walked across the kitchen and again took hold of the rannel-tree. It was as though her tempest-tossed soul were traversing afresh every incident of the scenes that had just before been enacted on that spot where now she stood alone.
Alone! the burden of a new grief was with her. To be suspected of selfish motives when nothing but sacrifice had been in her heart, that was hard to bear. To be suspected of such motives by that man, of all others, who should have looked into her heart and seen what lay there, that was yet harder. “Willy's sore put about, poor lad,” she told herself again; but close behind this soothing reflection crept the biting memory, “It was cruel, what he said; indeed it was.”
The girl tried to shake off the distress which the last incident had perhaps chiefly occasioned. It was natural that her own little sorrow should be uppermost, but the heart that held it was too deep to hold her personal sorrow only.
Rotha stepped into the room adjoining, which for her convenience, as well as that of the invalid, had been made the bedroom of Mrs. Ray. Placid and even radiant in its peacefulness lay the face of Ralph's mother. There was not even visible at this moment the troubled expression which, to Rotha's mind, denoted the baffled effort to say, “God bless you!” Thank God, she at least was unconscious of what had happened and was still happening! It was with the thought of her alone—the weak, unconscious sufferer, near to death—that Rotha had said that worse might occur. Such an eviction from house and home might bring death yet nearer. To be turned into the road, without shelter—whether justly or unjustly, what could it matter? —this would be death itself to the poor creature that lay here.
No, it could not, it should not happen, if she had power to prevent it.
Rotha reached over the bed and put her arms about the head of the invalid and fervently kissed the placid face. Then the girl's fair head, with its own young face already ploughed deep with labor and sorrow, fell on to the pillow, and rested there, while the silent tears coursed down her cheeks.
“Not if I can prevent it,” she whispered to the deaf ears. But in the midst of her thought for another, and that other Willy's mother as well as Ralph's, like a poisonous serpent crept up the memory of Willy's bitter reproach. “It was cruel, very cruel.”
In the agony of her heart the girl's soul turned one way only, and that was towards him whose absence had occasioned this latest trouble. “Ralph! Ralph!” she cried, and the tears that had left her eyes came again in her voice.
But perhaps, after all, Willy was right. To be turned into the road would not mean that this poor sufferer should die of the cold of the hard winter. There were tender hearts round about, and shelter would be found for her. Yet, no! it was Ralph's concernment, and what right had they to take charity for his mother without his knowledge? Ralph ought to be told, if they could tell him. Yes, he must be told.
Having come to a settled resolution on this point, Rotha rose up from the bed, and, brushing her tangled hair from her forehead, walked back into the kitchen. Standing where she had stood while the constables were there, she enacted every incident and heard every syllable afresh.
There could be no longer any doubt that Ralph should know what had already happened and what further was threatened. Yet who was to tell him, and how was he to be told? It was useless to approach Willy in his present determination rather to suffer eviction than to do Ralph the injury of leading, or seeming to lead, to his apprehension.
“That was a noble purpose, but it was wrong,” thought Rotha, and it never occurred to her to make terms with a mistake. “It was a noble purpose,” she thought again; and when the memory of her own personal grief crept up once more, she suppressed it with the reflection, “Willy was sore tried, poor lad.”
Who was to tell Ralph, and how was he to be told? Who knew where he had gone, or, knowing this, could go in search of him? Would that she herself had been born a man; then she would have travelled the kingdom over, but she would have found him. She was only a woman, however, and her duty lay here—here in the little circle with Ralph's mother, and in his house and his brother's. Who could go in search of Ralph?
At this moment of doubt, Sim walked into the courtyard of the homestead. He had not been seen since the day of the parson's visit, but, without giving sign of any consciousness that he had been away, he now took up a spade and began to remove a drift of sleet that had fallen during the previous night. Rotha's eyes brightened, and she hastened to the door and hailed him.
“Father,” she said, when Sim had followed her into the house, “you made a great journey for Ralph awhile ago; could you make another now?”
“What has happened? Do they rype the country with yon warrant still?” asked Sim.
“Worse than that,” said Rotha. “If that were all, we could leave Ralph to settle with them; they would never serve their warrant, never.”
“Worse; what's worse, lass?” said Sim, changing color.
“Outlawry,” said Rotha.
“What's that, girl?—what's outlawry?—nothing to do with—with—with Wilson, has it?” said Sim, speaking beneath his breath, and in quick and nervous accents.
“No, no: not that. It means that unless Ralph is delivered up within fourteen days this place will be taken by the bailiffs of the Sheriff.”
“And what of that?” said Sim. “Let them take it—better let them have it than Ralph fall into their hands.”
“Father, poor Mistress Ray would be turned into the roads—they'd have no pity, none.”
“I'll uphod thee that's true,” said Sim. “It staggers me.”
“We must find Ralph, and at once too,” said Rotha.
“Find him? He's gone, but Heaven knows where.”
“Father, if I were a man, I'd find him, God knows I would.”
“It's nigh about the worst as could have happened, it is,” said Sim.
“The worst will be to come if we do not find him.”
“But how? where? Following him will be the rule o' thumb,” said Sim.
“You said he took the road over the Raise,” said Rotha. “He'll not go far, depend upon that. The horse has not been caught. Ralph is among the mountains yet, take my word for it, father.”
“It's bad weather to trapes the fells, Rotha. The ground is all slush and sladderment.”
“So it is, so it is; and you're grown weak, father. I'll go myself. Liza Branthwaite will come here and fill my place.”
“No, no, I'll go; yes, that I will,” said Sim. Rotha's ardor of soul had conquered her father's apprehension of failure.
“It's only for a fortnight at most, that's all,” added Sim.
“No more than that. If Ralph is not found in a fortnight, make your way home.”
“But he shall be found, God helping me, he shall,” said Sim.
“He will help you, father,” said Rotha, her eyes glistening with tears.
“When should I start away?”
“To-morrow, at daybreak; that's as I could wish you,” said Rotha.
“To-morrow—Sunday? Let it be to-night. It will rain to-morrow, for it rained on Friday. Let it be to-night, Rotha.”
“To-night, then,” said the girl, yielding to her father's superstitious fears. Thrusting her hand deep into a pocket, she added, “I have some money, not much, but it will find you lodgings for a fortnight.”
“Never mind the money, girl,” said Sim; “give me the horse-wallet on my back, with a bit of barley bread—and that will do.”
“You must take the money as well. These are cold, hard nights. Promise me you'll lodge at the inns on the road; remember to keep yourself strong, for it's your only chance of finding Ralph—promise me!”
“I give you my word, Rotha.”
“And now promise to say nothing of this to Willy,” said Rotha.
Sim did not reply, but a quick glance expressed more than words of the certainty of secrecy in that regard.
“When you've crossed the Raise, follow on to Kendal,” said Rotha, “and ask everywhere as you go. A fortnight to-day the men return; remember that, and tell Ralph when you meet.”
“I fear he'll give himself up, I do,” said Sim ruefully, and still half doubting his errand.
“That's for him to decide, and he knows best,” answered Rotha. “To-night, after supper, be you at the end of the lonnin, and I'll meet you there.”
Then Sim went out of the house.
When Willy Ray left Rotha an hour ago it was with an overwhelming sense of disappointment. Catching at an unfinished phrase, he had jumped to a false conclusion as to her motives. He thought that he had mistaken her character, and painful as it had been to him some days ago to think that perhaps the girl had not loved him, the distress of that moment was as nothing to the agony of this one, when he began to suspect that perhaps he did not love her. Or if, indeed, he loved her, how terrible it was to realize, as he thought he did but too vividly, that she was unworthy of his love! Had she not wished to save the old home at the cost of his brother's liberty? True, Ralph was his brother, not hers, and perhaps it was too much to expect that she should feel his present situation as deeply as he did. Yet he had thought her a rich, large soul, as unselfish as pure. It was terrible to feel that this had been an idle dream, a mere mockery of the poor reality, and that his had been a vain fool's paradise.
Then to think that he was forever to be haunted by this idle dream; to think that the shattered idol which he could no longer worship was to live with him to the end, to get up and lie down with him, and stand forever beside him!
Perhaps, after all, he had been too hard on the girl. Willy told himself it had been wrong to expect so much of her. She was—he must look the stern fact in the face—she was a country girl, and no more. Then was she not also the daughter of Simeon Stagg?
Yes, the sunshine had been over her when he looked at her before, and it had bathed her in a beauty that was not her own. That had not been her fault, poor girl. He had been too hard on her. He would go and make amends.
As Willy entered the house, Sim was coming out of it. They passed without a word.
“Forgive me, Rotha,” said Willy, walking up to her and taking her hand. “I spoke in haste and too harshly.”
Rotha let her hand lie in his, but made no reply. After his apology, Willy would have extenuated his fault.
“You see, Rotha, you don't know my brother as well as I do, and hence you could not foresee what would have happened if we had done what you proposed.”
Still there was no response. Willy's words came more slowly as he continued: “And it was wrong to suppose that whether Ralph were given up or not they would leave us in this place, but it was natural that you should think it a good thing to save this shelter.”
“I was thinking of your mother, Willy,” said Rotha, with her eyes on the ground.
“My mother—true.” Willy had not thought of this before; that Rotha's mind had been running on the possible dangers to his mother of the threatened eviction had never occurred to him until now. He had been wrong—entirely so. His impulse was to take the girl in his arms and confess the injustice of his reflections; but he shrank from this at the instant, and then his mind wriggled with apologies for his error.
“To spare mother the peril of being turned into the roads—that would have been something; yes, much. Ralph himself must have chosen to do that. But once in the clutches of those bloodhounds, and it might have meant banishment for years, for life perhaps—aye, perhaps even death itself.”
“And even so,” said Rotha, stepping back a pace and throwing up her head, while her hands were clinched convulsively,—“and even so,” she repeated. “Death comes to all; it will come to him among the rest, and how could he die better? If he were a thousand times my brother, I could give him up to such a death.”
“Rotha, my darling,” cried Willy, throwing his arms about her, “I am ashamed. Forgive me if I said you were thinking of yourself. Look up, my darling; give me but one look, and say you have pardoned me.”
Rotha had dropped her eyes, and the tears were now blinding them.
“I was a monster to think of it, Rotha; look in my face, my girl, and say you forgive me.”
“I could have followed you over the world, Willy, and looked for no better fortune. I could have trusted to you, and loved you, though we had no covering but the skies above us.”
“Don't kill me with remorse, Rotha; don't heap coals of fire on my head. Look up and smile but once, my darling.”
Rotha lifted her tear-dimmed eyes to the eyes of her lover, and Willy stooped to kiss her trembling lips. At that instant an impulse took hold of him which he was unable to resist, and words that he struggled to suppress forced their own utterance.
“Great God!” he cried, and drew back his head with a quick recoil, “how like your father you are!”
The night was dark that followed. It had been a true Cumbrian day in winter. The leaden sky that hung low and dense had been relieved only by the white rolling mists that capped the fells and swept at intervals down their brant and rugged sides. The air had not cleared as the darkness came on. There was no moon. The stars could not struggle through the vapor that lay beneath them. There was no wind. It was a cold and silent night.
Rotha stood at the end of the lonnin, where the lane to Shoulthwaite joined the pack-horse road. She was wrapped in a long woollen cloak having a hood that fell deep over her face. Her father had parted from her half an hour ago, and though the darkness had in a moment hidden him from her sight, she had continued to stand on the spot at which he had left her.
She was slight of figure and stronger of will than physique, but she did not feel the cold. She was revolving the step she had taken, and thinking how great an issue hung on the event. Sometimes she mistrusted her judgment, and felt an impulse to run after her father and bring him back. Then a more potent influence would prompt her to start away and overtake him, yet only in order to bear his message the quicker for her fleeter footsteps.
But no; Fate was in it: a power above herself seemed to dominate her will. She must yield and obey. The thing was done.
The girl was turning about towards the house, when she heard footsteps approaching her from the direction which her father had taken. She could not help but pause, hardly knowing why, when the gaunt figure of Mrs. Garth loomed large in the road beside her. Rotha would now have hastened home, but the woman had recognized her in the darkness.
“How's all at Shoulth'et?” said Mrs. Garth in her blandest tones; “rubbin' on as usual?”
Rotha answered with a civil commonplace, and turned to go. But Mrs. Garth had stood, and the girl felt compelled to stand also.
“It's odd to see ye not at work, lass,” said the woman in a conciliatory way; “ye're nigh almost always as thrang as Thorp wife, tittyvating the house and what not.”
Again some commonplace from Rotha, and another step homewards.
“I've just been takin' a sup o' tea with laal 'Becca Rudd. It's early to go home, but, as I says to my Joey, there's no place like it; and nowther is there. It's like ye've found that yersel', lass, afore this.”
There was an insinuating sneer in the tone in which Mrs. Garth uttered her last words. Getting no response, she added,—
“And yer fadder, I reckon he's found it out too, bein' so lang beholden to others. I met the poor man on the road awhile ago.”
“It's cold and sappy, Mrs. Garth. Good night,” said Rotha.
“Poor man, he has to scrat now,” said Mrs. Garth, regardless of Rotha's adieu. “I reckon he's none gone off for a spoag; he's none gone for a jaunt.”
The woman was angry at Rotha's silence, and, failing to conciliate the girl, she was determined to hold her by other means. Rotha perceived the purpose, and wondered within herself why she did not go.
“But he's gone on a bootless errand, I tell ye,” continued Mrs. Garth.
“What errand?” It was impossible to resist the impulse to probe the woman's meaning.
Mrs. Garth laughed. It was a cruel laugh, with a crow of triumph in it.
“Yer waxin' apace, lass; I reckon ye think ye'll be amang the next batch of weddiners,” said Mrs. Garth.
Rotha was not slow to see the connection of this scarcely relevant observation. Did the woman know on what errand her father had set out? Had she guessed it? And if so, what matter?
“I wish the errand had been mine instead,” said Rotha calmly. But it was an unlucky remark.
“Like enough. Now, that's very like,” said Mrs. Garth with affected sincerity. “Ye'll want to see him badly, lass; he's been lang away. Weel, it's nought but nature. He's a very personable young man. There's no sayin' aught against it. Yes, he's of the bettermer sort, that way.”
Of what use was it to continue this idle gossip? Rotha was again turning about, when Mrs. Garth added, half as comment and half as question,—
“And likely ye've never had the scribe of a line from him sin' he left. But he's no wanter; he'll never marry ye, lass, so ye need never set heart on him.”
Rotha stepped close to the woman and looked into her face. What wickedness was now brewing?
“Nay, saucer een,” said Mrs. Garth with a snirt, “art tryin' to skiander me like yon saucy baggish, laal Liza?”
“Come, Mrs. Garth, let us understand one another,” said Rotha solemnly. “What is it you wish to tell me? You said my father had gone on a bootless errand. What do you know about it? Tell me, and don't torment me, woman.”
“Nay, then, I've naught to say. Naught but that Ralph Ray is on the stormy side of the hedge this time.”
Mrs. Garth laughed again.
“He is in trouble, that is true; but what has he done to you that you should be glad at his misfortunes?”
“Done? done?” said Mrs. Garth; “why—but we'll not talk of that, my lass. Ask him if ye'd know. Or mayhap ye'll ask yon shaffles, yer father.”
What could the woman mean?
“Tak my word for it; never set heart on yon Ralph: he's a doomed man. It's not for what he did at the wars that the redcoats trapes after him. It's worse nor that—a lang way war' nor that.”
“What is it, woman, that you would tell me? Be fair and plain with me,” cried the girl; and the words were scarcely spoken when she despised herself for regarding the matter so seriously.
But Mrs. Garth leaned over to her with an ominous countenance, and whispered, “There's murder in it, and that's war' nor war. May war' never come among us, say I!” Rotha put her hands over her face, and the next moment the woman shuffled on.
It was out at length.
Rotha staggered back to the house. The farm people had taken supper, and were lounging in various attitudes of repose on the skemmel in the kitchen.
The girl's duties were finished for the day, and she went up to her own room. She had no light, and, without undressing, she threw herself on the bed. But no rest came to her. Hour after hour she tossed about, devising reason on reason for disbelieving the woman's word. But apprehension compelled conviction.
Mrs. Garth had forewarned them of the earlier danger, and she might be but too well informed concerning this later one.
Rotha rejected from the first all idea of Ralph being guilty of the crime in question. She knew nothing of the facts, but her heart instantly repudiated the allegation. Perhaps the crime was something that had occurred at the wars six years ago. It could hardly be the same that still hung over their own Wythburn. That last dread mystery was as mysterious as ever. Ralph had said that her father was innocent of it, and she knew in her heart that he must be so. But what was it that he had said? “Do you know it was not father?” she had asked; and he had answered, “I know it was not.” Did he mean that he himself—
The air of her room felt stifling on that winter's night. Her brow was hot and throbbing, and her lips were parched and feverish. Rising, she threw open the window, and waves of the cold mountain vapor rolled in upon her.
That was a lie which had tried a moment ago to steal into her mind—a cruel, shameless lie. Ralph was as innocent of murder as she was. No purer soul ever lived on earth; God knew it was the truth.
Hark! what cry was that which was borne to her through the silent night? Was it not a horse's neigh?
Rotha shuddered, and leaned out of the window. It was gone. The reign of silence was unbroken. Perhaps it had been a fancy. Yet she thought it was the whinny of a horse she knew.
Rotha pulled back the sash and returned to her bed. How long and heavy were the hours till morning! Would the daylight never dawn? or was the blackness that rested in her own heart to lie forever over all the earth?
But it came at last—the fair and gracious morning of another day came to Rotha even as it always has come to the weary watcher, even as it always will come to the heartsore and heavy-laden, however long and black the night.
The girl rose at daybreak, and then she began to review the late turn of events from a practical standpoint.
Assuming the woman's word to be true, in what respect was the prospect different for Mrs. Garth's disclosure? Rotha had to confess to herself that it was widely different. When she told Willy that she could give up Ralph, were he a thousand times her brother, to such a death of sacrifice as he had pictured, she had not conceived of a death that would be the penalty of murder. That Ralph would be innocent of the crime could not lessen the horror of such an end. Then there was the certainty that conviction on such a charge would include the seizure of the property. Rotha dwelt but little on the chances of an innocent man's acquittal. The law was to her uninformed mind not an agent of justice, but an instrument of punishment, and to be apprehended was to be condemned.
Ralph must be kept out of the grip of the law. Yes, that was beyond question. Whether the woman's words were true or false, the issues were now too serious to be played with.
She had sent her father in pursuit of Ralph, and the effect of what he would tell of the forthcoming eviction might influence Ralph to adopt a course that would be imprudent, even dangerous—nay, even fatal, in the light of the more recent disclosure.
What had she done? God alone could say what would come of it.
But perhaps her father could still be overtaken and brought back. Yet who was to do it? She herself was a woman, doomed as such to sit at her poor little wheel, to lie here like an old mastiff or its weak tottering whelp, while Ralph was walking—perhaps at her bidding—to his death.
She would tell Willy, and urge him to go in pursuit of Sim. Yet, no, that was not possible. She would have to confess that she had acted against his wish, and that he had been right while she had been wrong. Even that humiliation was as nothing in the face of the disaster that she foresaw: but Willy and Sim!—Rotha shuddered as she reflected how little the two names even could go together.
The morning was growing apace, and still Rotha's perplexity increased. She went downstairs and made breakfast with an absent mind.
The farm people came and went; they spoke, and she answered; but all was as a dream, except only the one grim reality that lay on her mind.
She was being driven to despair. It was far on towards midday, and she was alone; still no answer came to her question. She threw herself on the settle, and buried her face in her hands. She was in too much agony to weep. What had she done? What could she do?
When she lifted her eyes, Liza Branthwaite was beside her, looking amazed and even frightened.
“What has happened, lass?” said Liza fearfully.
Then Rotha, having no other heart to trust with her haunting secret, confided it to this simple girl.
“And what can I do?” she added in a last word.
During the narration, Liza had been kneeling, with her arms in her friend's lap. Jumping up when Rotha had ceased, she cried, in reply to the last inquiry, “I know. I'll just slip away to Robbie. He shall be off and fetch your father back.”
“Robbie?” said Rotha, looking astonished.
“Never fear, I'll manage him. And now, cheer up, my lass; cheer up.”
In another moment Liza was running at her utmost speed down the lonnin.
When she reached the road, the little woman turned towards Wythburn. Never pausing for an instant, she ran on and on, passing sundry groups of the country folks, and rarely waiting to exchange more than the scant civilities of a hasty greeting.
It was Sunday morning, and through the dense atmosphere that preceded rain came the sound of the bells of the chapel on the Raise, which rang for morning service.
“What's come over little Liza?” said a young dalesman, who, in the solemnity of Sunday apparel, was wending his way thither, as the little woman flew past him, “tearing,” as he said, “like a crazy thing.”
“Some barn to be christened afore the service, Liza?” called another young dalesman after her, with the memory of the girl's enjoyment of a similar ceremony not long before.
Liza heeded neither the questions nor the banter. Her destination was certainly not the church, but she ran with greater speed in that direction than the love of the Reverend Nicholas's ministrations had yet prompted her to compass.
The village was reached at length, and her father's house was near at hand; but the girl ran on, without stopping to exchange a word with her sententious parent, who stood in the porch, pipe in hand, and clad in those “Cheppel Sunday” garments with which, we fear, the sanctuary was rarely graced.
“Why, theer's Liza,” said Matthew, turning his head into the house to speak to his wife, who sat within; “flying ower the road like a mad greyhound.”
Mrs. Branthwaite had been peeling apples towards the family's one great dinner in the week. Putting down the bowl which contained them, she stepped to the door and looked after her daughter's vanishing figure.
“Sure enough, it is,” she said. “Whatever's amiss? The lass went over to the Moss. Why, she stopping, isn't she?” “Ey, at the Lion,” answered Mattha. “I reckon there's summat wrang agen with that Robbie. I'll just slip away and see.”
Panting and heated on this winter's day, red up to the roots of the hair and down to the nape of the neck, Liza had come to a full pause at the door of the village inn. It was not a false instinct that had led the girl to choose this destination. Sunday as it was, the young man whom she sought was there, and, morning though it might be, he was already in that condition of partial inebriation which Liza had recognized as the sign of a facetious mood.
Opening the door with a disdainful push, compounded partly of her contempt for the place and partly of the irritation occasioned by the events that had brought her to the degradation of calling there, Liza cried out, as well as she could in her present breathless condition,—
“Robbie, come your ways out of this.”
The gentleman addressed was at the moment lying in a somewhat undignified position on the floor. Half sprawling, half resting on one knee, Robbie was surprised in the midst of an amusement of which the perky little body whom he claimed as his sweetheart had previously expressed her high disdain. This consisted of a hopeless endeavor to make a lame dog dance. The animal in question was no other than 'Becca Rudd's Dash, a piece of nomenclature which can only be described as the wildest and most satirical misnomer. Liza had not been too severe on Dash's physical infirmities when she described him as lame on one of his hind legs, for both those members were so effectually out of joint as to render locomotion of the simplest kind a difficulty attended by violent oscillation. This was probably the circumstance that had recommended Dash as the object of Robbie's half-drunken pastime; and after a fruitless half-hour's exercise the tractable little creature, with a woeful expression of face, was at length poised on its hindmost parts just as Liza pushed open the door and called to its instructor.
The new arrival interrupted the course of tuition, and Dash availed himself of his opportunity to resume the normal functions of his front paws. At this the reclining tutor looked up from his place on the floor with a countenance more of sorrow than of anger, and said, in a tone that told how deeply he was grieved, “There, lass, see how you've spoilt it!”
“Get up, you daft-head! Whatever are you mufflin' about, you silly one, lying down there with the dogs and the fleas?”
Liza still stood in the doorway with an august severity of pose that would have befitted Cassandra at the porch. Her unsparing tirade had provoked an outburst of laughter, but not from Robbie. There were two other occupants of the parlor—Reuben Thwaite, who had never been numbered among the regenerate, and had always spent his Sunday mornings in this place and fashion; and little Monsey Laman, whose duty as schoolmaster usually embraced that of sexton, bell-ringer, and pew-opener combined, but who had escaped his clerical offices on this Sabbath morning by some plea of indisposition which, as was eventually perceived, would only give way before liberal doses of the medicine kept at the sign of the Red Lion.
The laughter of these worthies did not commend itself to Liza's sympathies, for, turning hotly upon them, she said, “And you're worse nor he is, you old sypers.”
“Liza, Liza,” cried Robbie, raising his forefinger in an attitude of remonstrance, which he had just previously been practising on the unhappy Dash,—“Liza, think what it is to call this reverend clerk and sexton and curate a toper!”
“And so he is; he's like yourself, he's only half-baked, the half thick.”
“Now—now—now, Liza!” cried Robbie, raising himself on his haunches the better to give effect to his purpose of playing the part of peacemaker and restraining the ardor of his outspoken little friend.
“Come your ways out, I say,” said Liza, not waiting for the admonition that was hanging large on the lips of the blear-eyed philosopher on the floor.
“Come your ways,” she repeated; “I would be solid and solemn with you.”
Robbie was at this instant struggling to regain possession of the itinerant Dash, who, perceiving a means of escape, was hobbling his way to the door.
“Wait a minute,” said Robbie, having captured the runaway,—“wait a minute, Liza, and Dash will show you how to dance like Mother Garth.”
“Shaf on Dash!” said Liza, taking a step or two into the room and securing to that animal his emancipation by giving him a smack that knocked him out of Robbie's hands. “Do you think I've come here to see your tipsy games?”
Robbie responded to this inquiry by asking with provoking good nature if she had not rather come to give him a token of her love.
“Give us a kiss, lass,” he said, getting up to his feet and extending his arms to help himself.
Liza gave him something instead, but it produced a somewhat louder and smarter percussion.
“What a whang over the lug she brong him!” said Reuben, turning to the schoolmaster.
“I reckon it's mair wind ner wool, like clippin' a swine,” said Matthew Branthwaite, who entered the inn at this juncture.
Robbie's good humor was as radiant as ever. “A kiss for a blow,” he said, laughing and struggling with the little woman. “It's a Christian virtue, eh, father?”
“Ye'll not get many of them, at that rate,” answered Mattha, less than half pleased at an event which he could not comprehend. “It's slow wark suppin' buttermilk with a pitchfork.”
“Will you never be solid with me?” cried Liza, with extreme vexation pictured on every feature as her scapegrace sweetheart tried to imprison her hands in order to kiss her. “I tell you—” and then there was some momentary whispering between them, which seemed to have the effect of sobering Robbie in an instant. His exuberant vivacity gave place to a look of the utmost solemnity, not unmixed with a painful expression as of one who was struggling hard to gather together his scattered wits.
“They'll only have another to take once they catch him,” said Robbie in an altered tone, as he drew his hand hard across his eyes.
There was some further whispering, and then the two went outside. Returning to the door, Liza hailed her father, who joined them on the causeway in front of the inn.
Robbie was another man. Of his reckless abandonment of spirit no trace was left.
Mattha was told of the visit of the constables to Shoulthwaite, and of Sim's despatch in search of Ralph.
“He'll be off for Carlisle,” said Robbie, standing square on his legs, and tugging with his cap off at the hair at the back of his head.
“Like eneuf,” answered Mattha, “and likely that's the safest place for him. It's best to sit near the fire when the chimney smokes, thoo knows.”
“He'll none go for safety, father,” answered Robbie; and turning to Liza, he added, “But what was it you said about Mother Garth?”
“The old witch-wife said that Ralph was wanted for murder,” replied the girl.
“It's a lie,” said Robbie vehemently.
“I'll uphod thee there,” said Mattha; “but whatever's to be done?”
“Why, Robbie must go and fetch Sim back,” said Liza eagerly.
“The lass is right,” said Robbie; “I'll be off.” And the young man swung on his heel as though about to carry out his purpose on the instant.
“Stop, stop,” said Mattha; “I reckon the laal tailor's got farther ner the next cause'y post. You must come and tak a bite of dinner and set away with summat in yer pocket.”
“Hang the pocket! I must be off,” said Robbie. But the old man took him too firmly by the arm to allow of his escape without deliberate rudeness. They turned and walked towards the weaver's cottage.
“What a maizelt fool I've been to spend my days and nights in this hole!” said Robbie, tipping his finger over his shoulder towards the Red Lion, from which they were walking.
“I've oft telt thee so,” said Mattha, not fearing the character of a Job's comforter.
“And while this bad work has been afoot too,” added Robbie, with a penitent drop of the head.
They had a tributary of the Wyth River to pass on the way to Mattha's house. When they came up to it, Robbie cried, “Hold a minute!” Then running to the bank of the stream, he dropt on to his knees, and before his companions could prevent him he had pulled off his cap and plunged his head twice or thrice in the water.
“What, man!” said Mattha, “ye'd want mair ner the strength of men and pitchforks to stand again the like of that. Why, the water is as biting as a stepmother welcome on a winter's mornin' same as this.”
“It's done me a power of good though,” said Robbie shaking his wet hair, and then drying it with a handkerchief which Liza had handed him for the purpose. “I'm a stone for strength,” added Robbie, but rising to his feet he slipped and fell.
“Then didsta nivver hear that a tum'lan stone gedders na moss,” said Mattha.
The jest was untimely, and the three walked on in silence. Once at the house the dinner was soon over, and not even Mrs. Branthwaite's homely, if hesitating, importunity could prevail with Robbie to make a substantial meal.
“Come, lad,” said Matthew, “you've had but a stepmother bit.”
“I've had more than I've eaten at one meal for nigh a month—more than I've taken since that thing happened on the fell,” answered Robbie, rising from the table, strapping his long coat tightly about him with his belt, and tying cords about the wide flanges of his big boots.
“Mattha will sett thee on the road, Robbie,” said Mrs. Branthwaite.
“Nay, nay; I reckon, I'd be scarce welcome. Mayhap the lad has welcomer company.”
This was said in an insinuating tone, and with a knowing inclination of the head towards Liza, whose back was turned while she stole away to the door.
“Nay, now, but nobody shall sett me,” said Robbie, “for I must fly over the dikes like a racehorse.”
“Ye've certainly got a lang stroke o' the grund, Robbie.”
Robbie laughed, waved his hand to the old people, who still sat at dinner, and made his way outside.
Liza was there, looking curiously abashed, as though she felt at the moment prompted to an impulse of generosity of which she had cause to be ashamed.
“Gi'e us a kiss, now, my lass,” whispered Robbie, who came behind her and put his arm about her waist.
There was a hearty smacking sound.
“What's that?” cried Mattha from within; “I thought it might be the sneck of a gate.”