It was a simple story, and it came with the accent of sincerity in every word.

He thought perhaps she loved him in return—he had sometimes thought so—was he wrong?

There was a pause between them. Regaining some momentary composure, the girl turned her eyes once more aside and looked through the neuk window towards the south. She felt the color mounting to her cheeks, and knew that the young man had risen to his feet beside her. He, on his part, saw only the fair face before him, and felt only the little hand that lay passively in his own.

"It's a sad sort of home to bring you to. It would be idle to ask if you have been happy here—it would be a mockery; but—but—"

"I have been happy; that is, happy to do as Ralph wished me."

"And as I wished?"

"As you wished too, Willy."

"You've been a blessing to us, Rotha. I sometimes think, though, that it was hardly fair to bring you into the middle of this trouble."

"He did it for the best," said Rotha.

"Who?"

There was a little start of recovering consciousness.

"Ralph," she answered, and dropped her head.

"True—he did it for the best," repeated Willy, and relapsed into silence.

"Besides, I had no home then, you know."

How steadfastly the girl's eyes were fixed oh the distant south!

"You had your father's home, Rotha."

"Ah, no! When it ceased to be poor father's home, how could it be mine any longer? No, I was homeless."

There was another pause.

"Then let me ask you to make this house your home forever. Can you not do so?"

"I think so—I can scarcely tell—he said it might be best—"

Willy let loose her hand. Had he dreamed? Was it a wild hallucination—the bright gleam of happiness that had penetrated the darkness that lay about him at every step?

How yearningly the girl's eyes still inclined to yonder distant south.

"Let us say no more about it now, Rotha," he said huskily. "If you wish it, we'll talk again on this matter—that is, I say, if you wish it; if not, no matter."

The young man was turning away. Without moving the fixed determination of her gaze, Rotha said quietly,—

"Willy, I think perhaps I do love you—perhaps—I don't know. I remember he said that our hearts lay open before each other—"

"Who said so, Rotha?"

There was another start of recovering consciousness. Then the wide eyes looked full into his, and the tongue that would have spoken refused that instant to speak. The name that trembled in a half-articulate whisper on the parted lips came upwards from the heart.

But the girl was ignorant of her own secret even yet.

"We'll say no more about it now, Rotha," repeated Willy in a broken voice. "If you wish it, we'll talk again; give me a sign, and perhaps we'll talk on this matter again."

In another moment the young man was gone.



CHAPTER XIX. THE BETROTHAL. It was not till she was alone that the girl realized the situation. She put her hand over her eyes—the hand that still tingled with the light pressure of his touch.

What had happened? Had Willy asked her to become his wife? And had she seemed to say No?

The sound of his voice was still lingering on her ears; it was a low broken murmur, such as might have fallen to a sob.

Had she, then, refused? That could not be. She was but a poor homeless girl, with nothing to recommend her to such a man as he was. Yet she knew—she had heard—that he loved her, and would one day ask her to be his wife. She had thought that day was far distant. She had never realized that it would be now. Why had he not given her time to think? If Ralph knew what she had done!

For an hour or two Rotha went about the house with a look of bewilderment in her eyes.

Willy came back soon afterwards, and helped her to wheel his mother in her chair to her place by the hearth. He had regained his wonted composure, and spoke to her as if nothing unusual had occurred. Perhaps it had been something like a dream, all this that haunted her. Willy was speaking cheerfully enough. Just then her father came into the kitchen, and slunk away silently to a seat in the remotest corner of the wide ingle. Willy went out almost immediately. Everything was in a maze. Could it be that she had seemed to say No?

Rotha was rudely awakened from her trance by the entrance at this moment of the parson of the chapel on the Raise. The present was the first visit the Reverend Nicholas Stevens had paid since the day of the funeral. He had heard of the latest disaster which had befallen the family at the Moss. He had also learned something of the paralytic seizure which the disaster had occasioned. He could not any longer put away the solemn duty of visitation. To take the comfort of his presence, to give the light of his countenance to the smitten, was a part of his sacred function. These accidents were among the sore trials incident to a cure of souls. The Reverend Nicholas had brushed himself spick-and-span that morning, and, taking up his gold-headed cane, had walked the two miles to Shoulthwaite.

Rotha was tying the ribbons of Mrs. Ray's white cap under her chin as the vicar entered. She took up a chair for him, and placed it near the invalid. But he did not sit immediately. His eye traversed the kitchen at a glance. He saw Mrs. Ray propped up with her pillows, and looking vacantly about her, but his attention seemed to be riveted on Sim, who sat uneasily on the bench, apparently trying to escape the concentrated gaze.

"What have we here?" he said in a cold and strident voice. "The man Simeon Stagg? Is he here too?"

The moment before Rotha had gone into the dairy adjoining, and, coming back, she was handing a bowl of milk to her father. Sim clutched at the dish with nervous fingers.

The Reverend Nicholas walked with measured paces towards where he sat. Then he paused, and stood a yard or two behind Sim, whose eyes were still averted.

"I was told you had made your habitation on the hillside; a fitting home, no doubt, for one unfit to house with his fellows."

Sim's hand trembled violently, and he set the bowl of milk on the floor beside him. Rotha was standing a yard or two apart, her breast heaving.

"Have you left it for good, pray?" There was the suspicion of a sneer in the tone with which the question was asked.

"Yes, he has left it for good," said Rotha, catching her breath.

Sim had dropped his head on his hand, his elbow resting on his knee.

"More's the shame, perhaps; who knows but it may have been the best place for shame to hide in!"

Sim got up, and turning about, with his eyes still fixed on the ground, he hurried out of the house.

"You've driven him away again—do you know that?" said Rotha, regaining her voice, and looking fall into the vicar's face, her eyes aflame.

"If so, I have done well, young woman." Then surveying her with a look of lofty condescension, he added, "And what is your business here?"

"To nurse Mrs. Ray; that is part of it."

"Even so? And were you asked to come?"

"Surely."

"By whom?"

"Ralph, her son."

"Small respect he could have had for you, young woman."

"Tell me what you mean, sir," said the girl, with a glance of mingled pride and defiance.

"Tell you what I mean, young woman! Have you, then, no modesty? Has that followed the shame of the hang-dog vagrant who has just left us?"

"Not another word about him! If you have anything to say about me, say it, sir."

"What!—the father dead! the mother stricken into unconsciousness—two sons—and you a young woman—was there no matron in the parish, that a young woman must come here?"

Rotha's color, that had tinged her cheeks, mounted to her eyes and descended to her neck. The prudery that was itself a sin had penetrated the armor of her innocence. Without another word, she turned and left the kitchen.

"Well, Widow Ray," she heard his reverence say, in an altered tone, as he faced the invalid. She listened for no more.

Her trance was over now, and rude indeed had been the awakening. Perhaps, after all, she had no business in this house—perhaps the vicar was right. Yet that could not be. She thought of Mrs. Ray smitten down and dependent upon those about her for help in every simple office of life, and she thought of the promise she had made to Ralph. "Promise me," he had said, "that you will stay in the old home as long as mother lives." And she had promised; her pledged word was registered in heaven.

But then, again, perhaps Ralph had not foreseen that his mother might live for years in her present state. No doubt he thought her near to death. He could not have intended that she should live long in his brother's house.

Yet he had so intended. "He will ask you to be his wife, Rotha," Ralph had said, "but he can't do so yet."

This brought her memory back to the earlier events of the morning. Willy Ray had already asked her to become his wife. And what had she done on her part? Had she not seemed to say No?

Willy was far above her. It was true enough that she was a poor homeless girl, without lands, without anything but the hands she worked with. Willy was now a statesman, and he was something of a scholar too. Yes, he was in every way far above her. Were there not others who might love him? Yet Ralph had seemed to wish her to become his brother's wife, and what Ralph had said would be best, must of course be so.

She could not bring herself to leave Shoulthwaite—that was clear enough to her bewildered sense. Nor could she remain on the present terms of relation—that, also, was but too clear. If Ralph were at home, how different everything would be! He would lead her with a word out of this distressing maze.

When Willy Ray parted from Rotha after he had told her of his love, he felt that the sunshine had gone out of his life forever. He had been living for weeks and months in a paradise that was not his own. Why he had loved this girl he could hardly say. She was—every one knew it—the daughter of a poor tailor, and he was the poorest and meanest creature in the country round about.

The young man could not help telling himself that he might have looked to marry the daughter of the largest statesman in a radius of miles.

But then, the girl herself was a noble creature—none could question it. Rude, perhaps, in some ways, without other learning than the hard usage of life had given her; yet she was a fine soul, as deep as the tarn on the mountain-top, and as pure and clear.

And he had fancied she loved him. No disaster had quite overshadowed the bright hope of that surmise. Yet had she not loved Ralph instead? Perhaps the girl herself did not realize that in reality the love of his brother had taken hold of her. Did Ralph himself love the girl? That could not be, or he should have guessed the truth the night they spoke together. Still, it might be that Ralph loved her after all.

By the following morning Rotha had decided that her duty at this crisis lay one way only, and that way she must take. Ralph had said it would be well for her to become Willy's wife, and she had promised him never to leave the Moss while his mother lived. She would do as he had said.

Willy had asked her for a sign, and she must give hint, one—a sign that she was willing to say "Yes" if he spoke again to-day as he had spoken yesterday.

Having once settled this point, her spirits experienced a complete elevation. What should the sign be? Rotha walked to the neuk window and stood to think, her hand on the wheel and her eyes towards the south. What, then, should the sign be?

It was by no means easy to hit on a sign that would show him at a glance that her mind was made up; that, however she may have wavered in her purpose yesterday, her resolve was fixed to-day. She stood long and thought of many plans, but none harmonized with her mood.

"Why should I not tell him—just in a word?" Often as she put if to herself so, she shrank from the ordeal involved.

No, she must hit on a sign, but she began to despair of lighting on a fitting one. Then she shifted her gaze from the landscape through the window, and turned to where Mrs. Ray sat in her chair close by. How vague and vacant was the look in those dear eyes! how mute hung the lips that were wont to say, "God bless you!" how motionless lay the fingers that once spun with the old wheel so deftly!

The old spinning-wheel—here it was, and Rotha's right hand still rested upon it. Ah! the wheel—surely that was, the sign she wanted.

She would sit and spin—yes, she could spin, too, though it was long since she had done so—she would sit in his mother's chair—the one his mother used to sit in when she spun—and perhaps he would understand from that sign that she would try to take his mother's place if he wished her so to do.

Quick, let it be done at once. He usually came up to the house at this time of the morning.

She looked at the clock. He would be here soon, she thought; he might be coming now.

* * * * *

And Willy Ray was, in truth, only a few yards from the house at the moment. He had been up on to the hills that morning. He had been there on a similar errand several mornings before, and had never told himself frankly what that errand really was. Returning homewards on this occasion, he had revolved afresh the subject that lay nearest to his heart.

If Ralph really loved the girl—but how should he know the truth as to that, unless Rotha knew it? If the girl loved his brother, he could relinquish her. He was conscious of no pang of what was called jealousy in this matter. An idol that he had worshipped seemed to be shattered—that was all.

If he saw that Rotha loved Ralph, he must give up forever his one dream of happiness—and there an end.

It was in this mood that he opened the kitchen door, just as Rotha had put her foot on the treadle and taken the flax in her hand.

There the girl sat, side by side with his mother, spinning at the wheel which within his recollection no hand but one had touched. How fresh and fair the young face looked, tinged, as it was at this moment, too, with a conscious blush!

Rotha had tried to lift her eyes as Willy entered. She intended to meet his glance with a smile. She wished to catch the significance of his expression. But the lids were heavier than lead that kept her gaze fixed on the "rock" and flax below her.

She felt that after a step or two he had stood still in front of her. She knew that her face was crimson. Her eyes, too, were growing dim.

"Rotha, my darling!" She heard no more.

The spinning-wheel had been pushed hastily aside. She was on her feet, and Willy's arms were about her.



CHAPTER XX. "FOOL, OF THYSELF SPEAK WELL."

As the parson left Shoulthwaite that morning he encountered Joe Garth at the turning of the lonnin. The blacksmith was swinging along the road, with a hoop over his shoulder. He lifted his cap as the Reverend Nicholas came abreast of him. That worthy was usually too much absorbed to return such salutations, but he stopped on this occasion.

"Would any mortal think it?" he said; "the man Simeon Stagg is here housed at the home of my old friend and esteemed parishioner, Angus Ray!"

Mr. Garth appeared to be puzzled to catch the relevancy of the remark. He made no reply.

"The audacity of the man is past belief," continued the parson. "Think of his effrontery! Does he imagine that God or man has forgotten the mystery of that night in Martinmas?"

The blacksmith realized that some response was expected from him. With eyes bent on the ground, he muttered, "He's getting above with himself, sir."

"Getting above himself! I should think so, forsooth. But verily a reckoning day is at hand. Woe to him who carries a load of guilt at his heart and thinks that no man knows of it. Better a millstone were about his neck, and he were swallowed up in the great deep."

The parson turned away. Garth stood for a moment without perceiving that he was alone, his eyes still bent on the ground. Then he walked moodily in the other direction.

When he reached his home, Joe threw down the hoop in the smithy and went into the house. His mother was there.

"Sim, he's at Shoulthwaite," he said. "It's like enough his daughter is there, too."

A sneer crossed Mrs. Garth's face.

"Tut, she's yan as wad wed the midden for sake of the muck."

"You mean she's setting herself at one of the Rays?"

Mrs. Garth snorted, but gave no more explicit reply.

"Ey, she's none so daft, is yon lass," observed the blacksmith.

This was not quite the trace he had meant to follow. After a pause he said, "What came of his papers—in the trunk?"

"Whose?"

"Thou knows."

Mrs. Garth gave her son a quick glance.

"It's like they're still at Fornside. I must see to 'em again."

The blacksmith responded eagerly,—

"Do, mother, do."

There was another pause. Joe made some pretence of scraping a file which he had picked up from a bench.

"Thou hasn't found out if old Angus made a will?" said Mrs. Garth.

"No."

"No, of course not," said Mrs. Garth, with a curl of the lip. "What I want doing I must do myself. Always has been so, and always will be."

"I wish it were true, mother," muttered Joe in a voice scarcely audible.

"What's that?"

"Nowt."

"I'll go over to Shoulth'et to-morrow," purred Mrs. Garth. "If the old man made no will, I'll maybe have summat to say as may startle them a gay bit."

The woman grunted to herself at the prospect. "Ey, ey," she mumbled, "it'll stop their match-makin'. Ey, ey, and what's mair, what's mair, it'll bring yon Ralph back helter-skelter."

"Mother, mother," cried the blacksmith, "can you never leave that ugly thing alone?"



CHAPTER XXI. MRS. GARTH AT SHOULTHWAITE.

The next day or two passed by with Rotha like a dream. Her manners had become even gentler and her voice even softer than before, and the light of self-consciousness had stolen into her eyes. Towards the evening of the following day Liza Branthwaite ran up to the Moss to visit her. Rotha was in the dairy at the churn, and when Liza pushed open the door and came unexpectedly upon her she experienced a momentary sense of confusion which was both painful and unaccountable. The little lady was herself flushed with a sharp walk, and muffled up to the throat from a cutting wind.

"Why, Rotha, my girl, what ever may be the matter with you?" said Liza, coming to a pause in the middle of the floor, and, without removing the hands that had been stuffed up her sleeves from the cold, looking fixedly in her face.

"I don't know, Liza; I wish you could tell me, lass," said Rotha, recovering enough self-possession to simulate a subterfuge.

"Here I've been churning and churning since morning, and don't seem much nigher the butter yet."

"It's more than the butter that pests you," said Liza, with a wise shake of the head.

"Yes; it must be the churn. I can make nothing of it."

"Shaf on the churn, girl! You just look like Bessie MacNab when they said Jamie o' the Glen had coddled her at the durdum yon night at Robin Forbes's."

"Hush, Liza," said Rotha, stooping unnecessarily low to investigate the progress of her labors, and then adding, from the depths of the churn, "why, and how did Bessie look?"

"Look? look?" cried Liza, with a tip of the chin upwards, as though the word itself ought to have been sufficiently explicit,—"look, you say? Why," continued Liza, condescending at length to be more definite as to the aforesaid young lady's appearance after a kiss at a country dance, "why, she looked just for the world like you, Rotha."

Then throwing off her thick outer garment without waiting for any kind of formal invitation, Liza proceeded to make herself at home in a very practical way.

"Come, let me have a turn at the churn," she said, "and let us see if it is the churn that ails you—giving you two great eyes staring wide as if you were sickening for a fever, and two cheeks as red as the jowls of 'Becca Rudd's turkey."

In another moment Liza was rolling up the sleeves of her gown, preparatory to the experimental exercise she had proposed to herself; but this was not a task that had the disadvantage of interrupting the flow of her gossip.

"But I say, lass," she rattled on, "have you heard what that great gammerstang of a Mother Garth has been telling 'Becca Rudd about you? 'Becca told me herself, and I says to 'Becca, says I, 'Don't you believe it; it's all a lie, for that old wizzent ninny bangs them all at lying; and that's saying a deal, you know. Besides,' I says, 'what does it matter to her or to you, 'Becca, or to me, if so be that it is true, which I'm not for believing that it is, not I,' I says."

"But what was it, Liza? You've not told me what it was, lass, that Mrs. Garth had said about me."

Rotha had stopped churning, and was standing, with the color rising even closer round her eyes. Luckily, Liza had no time to observe the minor manifestations of her friend's uneasiness; she had taken hold of the "plunger," and was squaring herself to her work.

"Say!" she cried; "why the old carlin will say aught in the world but her prayers—she says that you're settin' your cap at one of these Rays boys; that's about what she says the old witchwife, for she's no better. But it's as I said to 'Becca Rudd, says I, 'If it is true what traffic is it of anybody's; but it isn't true,' I says, 'and if it is, where's the girl that has more right? It can't be Ralph that she's settin' her cap at, 'Becca,' I says, 'for Ralph's gone, and mayhap never to come to these parts again the longest day he lives.'"

"Don't say that, Liza," interrupted Rotha in a hoarse voice.

"Why not? Those redcoats are after him from Carlisle, arn't they?"

"Don't say he'll not come back. We scarce know what may happen."

"Well, that's what father says, anyway. But, back or not back, it can't be Ralph, I says to 'Becca."

"There's not a girl worthy of him, Liza; not a girl on the country side. But we'll not repeat their old wife's gossip, eh, lass?"

"Not if you're minded not to, Rotha. But as to there being no girl worthy of Ralph," said Liza, pausing in her work and lifting herself into an erect position with an air of as much dignity as a lady of her stature could assume, "I'm none so sure of that, you know. He has a fine genty air, I will say; and someways you don't feel the same to him when he comes by you as you do to other men, and he certainly is a great traveller; but to say that there isn't a girl worthy of him, that's like Nabob Johnny tellin' Tibby Fowler that he never met the girl that wasn't partial to him."

Rotha did not quite realize the parallel that had commended itself to Liza's quick perception, but she raised no objection to the sentiment, and would have shifted the subject.

"What about Robbie, my lass?" she said.

"'And as to Willy Ray,' says I to 'Becca," continued the loquacious churner, without noticing the question, "' it isn't true as Rotha would put herself in his way; but she's full his match, and you can't show me one that is nigher his equal.'"

Rotha's confusion was increasing every minute.

"'What if her father can't leave her much gear, she has a head that's worth all the gold in Willy's pocket, and more.' Then says 'Becca, 'What about Kitty Jackson?' 'Shaf,' says I, 'she's always curlin' her hair before her bit of a looking-glass.' 'And what about Maggie of Armboth?' says 'Becca. 'She hasn't got such a head as Rotha,' says I, 'forby that she's spending a fortune on starch, what with her caps, and her capes, and her frills, and what not.'"

Liza had by this time rattled away, until by the combined exertion of arms and tongue she had brought herself to a pause for lack of breath. Resting one hand on the churn, she lifted the other to her head to push back the hair that had tumbled over her forehead. As she tossed up her head to facilitate the latter process, her eyes caught a glimpse of Rotha's crimsoning face. "Well," she said, "I must say this churn's a funny one; it seems to make you as red as 'Becca's turkey, whether you're working at it or lookin' at some one else."

"Do you think I could listen to all that praise of myself and not blush?" said Rotha, turning aside.

"I could—just try me and see," responded Liza, with a laugh. "That's nothing to what Nabob Johnny said to me once, and I gave him a slap over the lug for it, the strutting and smirking old peacock. Why, he's all lace—lace at his neck and at his wrists, and on his—"

"You didn't favor him much, Liza."

"No, but Daddie did; and he said" (the wicked little witch imitated her father's voice and manner), "'Hark ye, lass, ye must hev him and then ye'll be yan o' his heirs!' He wants one or two, I says, 'for the old carle would be bald but for the three that are left on his crown.'"

"Well, but what about Robbie Anderson?" said Rotha, regaining her composure, with a laugh.

At this question Liza's manner underwent a change. The perky chirpness that had a dash of wickedness, not to say of spite, in it, entirely disappeared. Dropping her head and her voice together, she answered,—

"I don't know what's come over the lad. He's maunderin' about all day long except when he's at the Lion, and then, I reckon, he's maunderin' in another fashion."

"Can't you get him to bide by his work?"

"No; it's first a day for John Jackson at Armboth, and then two days for Sammy Robson at the Lion, and what comes one way goes the other. When he's sober—and that's not often in these days—he's as sour as Mother Garth's plums, and when he's tipsy his head's as soft as poddish."

"It was a sad day for Robbie when his old mother died," said Rotha.

"And that was in one of his bouts" said Liza; "but I thought it had sobered him forever. He loved the old soul, did Robbie, though he didn't always do well by her. And now he's broken loose again."

It was clearly as much as Liza could do to control her tears, and, being conscious of this, she forthwith made a determined effort to simulate the sternest anger.

"I hate to see a man behave as if his head were as soft as poddish. Not that I care," she added, as if by an afterthought, and as though to conceal the extent to which she felt compromised; "it's nothing to me, that I can see. Only Wythburn's a hard-spoken place, and they're sure to make a scandal of it."

"It's a pity about Robbie," said Rotha sympathetically.

Liza could scarcely control her tears. After she had dashed a drop or two from her eyes, she said: "I cannot tell what it's all about. He's always in a ponder, ponder, with his mouth open—except when he's grindin' his teeth. I hate to see a man walking about like a haystack. And Robbie used to have so much fun once on a time."

The tears were stealing up to Liza's eyes again.

"He can't forget what happened on the fell with the mare—that was a fearful thing, Liza."

"Father says it's 'cause Robbie had the say over it all; but Joe Garth says it comes of Robbie sticking himself up alongside of Ralph Ray. What a genty one Robbie used to be!"

Liza's face began to brighten at some amusing memories.

"Do you mind Reuben Thwaite's merry night last winter at Aboon Beck?"

"I wasn't there, Liza," said Rotha.

"Robbie was actin' like a play-actor, just the same as he'd seen at Carlisle. He was a captain, and he murdered a king, and then he was made king himself, and the ghost came and sat in his chair at a great feast he gave. Lord o' me! but it was queer. First he came on when he was going to do the murder and let wit he saw a dagger floating before him. He started and jumped same as our big tom cat when Mouser comes round about him. You'd have died of laughing. Then he comes on for the bank'et, and stamps his foot and tells the ghost to be off; and then he trembles and dodders from head to foot like Mouser when he's had his wash on Saturday nights. You'd have dropt, it was so queer."

Liza's enjoyment of the tragedy had not been exhausted with the occasion, for now she laughed at the humors of her own narrative.

"But those days are gone," she continued. "I met Robbie last night, and I says, says I, 'Have you pawned your dancing shoes, Robbie, as you're so glum?' And that's what he is, save when he's tipsy, and then what do ye think the maizelt creature does?"

"What?" said Rotha.

"Why," answered Liza, with a big tear near to toppling over the corner of her eye, "why, the crack't 'un goes and gathers up all the maimed dogs in Wythburn; 'Becca Rudd's 'Dash,' and that's lame on a hind leg, and Nancy Grey's 'Meg,' and you know she's blind of one eye, and Grace M'Nippen's 'King Dick,' and he's been broken back't this many a long year, and they all up and follow Robbie when he's nigh almost drunk, and then he's right—away he goes with his cap a' one side, and all the folks laughin'—the big poddish-head!"

There was a great sob for Liza in the heart of the humor of that situation; and trying no longer to conceal her sorrow at her lover's relapse into drinking habits, she laid her head on Rotha's breast and wept outright.

"We must go to Mrs. Ray; she'll be lonely, poor old thing," said Rotha, drying Liza's eyes; "besides, she hasn't had her supper, you know."

The girls left the dairy, where the churning had made small progress as yet, and went through the kitchen towards the room where the Dame of Shoulthwaite lay in that long silence which had begun sooner with her than with others.

As they passed towards the invalid's room, Mrs. Garth came in at the porch. It was that lady's first visit for years, and her advent on this occasion seemed to the girls to forebode some ill. But her manner had undergone an extraordinary transformation. Her spiteful tone was gone, and the look of sourness, which had often suggested to Liza her affinity to the plums that grew in her own garden, had given place to what seemed to be a look of extreme benevolence.

"It's slashy and cold, but I've come to see my old neighbor," she said. "I'm sure I've suffered lang and sair ower her affliction, poor body."

Without much show of welcome from Rotha, the three women went into Mrs. Ray's room and sat down.

"Poor body, who wad have thought it?" said Mrs. Garth, putting her apron to her eye as she looked up at the vacant gaze in the eyes of the sufferer. "I care not now how soon my awn glass may run out. I've so fret myself ower this mischance that the wrinkles'll soon come."

"She needn't wait much for them if she's anxious to be off," whispered Liza to Rotha.

"Yes," continues Mrs. Garth, in her melancholy soliloquy, "I fret mysel' the lee-lang day."

"She's a deal over slape and smooth," whispered Liza again. "What's it all about? There's something in the wind, mind me."

"The good dear old creatur; and there's no knowin' now if she's provided for; there's no knowin' it, I say, is there?"

To this appeal neither of the girls showed any disposition to respond. Mrs. Garth thereupon applied the apron once more to her eye, and continued: "Who wad have thought she could have been brought down so low, she as held her head so high."

"So she did, did she! Never heard on it," Liza broke in.

Not noticing the interruption, Mrs. Garth continued: "And now, who knows but she may come down lower yet—who knows but she may?"

Still failing to gain a response to her gloomy prognostications, Mrs. Garth replied to her own inquiry.

"None on us knows, I reckon! And what a down-come it wad be for her, poor creatur!"

"She's sticking to that subject like a cockelty burr," said Liza, not troubling this time to speak beneath her breath. "What ever does she mean by it?"

Rotha was beginning to feel concerned on the same score, so she said: "Mrs. Ray, poor soul, is not likely to come to a worse pass while she has two sons to take care of her."

"No good to her, nowther on 'em—no good, I reckon; mair's the pity," murmured Mrs. Garth, calling her apron once more into active service.

"How so?" Rotha could not resist the temptation to probe these mysterious deliverances.

"Leastways, not 'xcept the good dear man as is gone, Angus hissel', made a will for her; and, as I say to my Joey, there's no knowin' as ever he did; and nowther is there."

Rotha replied that it was not usual for a statesman to make a will. The law was clear enough as to inheritance. There could be no question of Mrs. Ray's share of what had been left. Besides, if there were, it would not matter much in her case, where everything that was the property of her sons was hers, and everything that was hers was theirs.

Mrs. Garth pricked up her ears at this. She could not conceal her interest in what Rotha had said, and throwing aside her languor, she asked, in anything but a melancholy tone, "So he's left all hugger-mugger, has he?"

"I know nothing of that," replied Rotha; "but if he has not made a will it cannot concern us at all. It's all very well for the lords of the manor and such sort of folk to make their wills, for, what with one thing and another, their property runs cross and cross, and there's scarce any knowing what way it lies; but for a statesman owning maybe a hundred or two of acres and a thousand or two of sheep, forby a house and the like, it's not needful at all. The willing is all done by the law."

"So it is, so it is, lass," said Mrs. Garth. The girls thought there was a cruel and sinister light in the old woman's eyes as she spoke. "Ey, the willin's all done by t' law; but, as I says to my Joey, 'It isn't always done to our likin', Joey'; and nowther is it."

Liza could bear no longer Mrs. Garth's insinuating manner. Coming forward with a defiant air, the little woman said: "Look you, don't you snurl so; but if you've anything to say, just open your mouth and tell us what it's about."

The challenge was decidedly unequivocal.

"'Od bliss the lass!" cried Mrs. Garth with an air of profound astonishment "What ails the bit thing?"

"Look here, you've got a deal too much talk to be jannic, you have," cried Liza, with an emphasis intended to convey a sense of profound contempt of loquaciousness in general and of Mrs. Garth's loquaciousness in particular.

Mrs. Garth's first impulse was to shame her adversary out of her warlike attitude with a little biting banter. Curling her lip, she said not very relevantly to the topic in hand, "They've telt me yer a famous sweethearter, Liza."

"That's mair nor iver you could have been," retorted the girl, who always dropt into the homespun of the country side in degree as she became excited.

"Yer gitten ower slape, a deal ower slippery," said Mrs. Garth. "I always told my Joey as he'd have to throw ye up, and I'm fair pleased to see he's taken me at my word."

"Oh, he has, has he?" said Liza, rising near to boiling point at the imputation of being the abandoned sweetheart of the blacksmith. "I always said as ye could bang them all at leein. I would not have your Joey if his lips were droppin' honey and his pockets droppin' gold. Nothing would hire me to do it. Joey indeed!" added Liza, with a vision of the blacksmith's sanguine head rising before her, "why, you might light a candle at his poll."

Mrs. Garth's banter was not calculated to outlast this kind of assault. Rising to her feet, she said: "Weel, thou'rt a rare yan, I will say. Yer ower fond o' red ribbons, laal thing. It's aff with her apron and on with her bonnet, iv'ry chance. I reckon ye'd like a silk gown, ye wad."

"Never mind my clothes," said Liza. Mrs. Garth gave her no time to say more, for, at the full pitch of indignation, she turned to Rotha, and added: "And ye're a rare pauchtie damsel. Ye might have been bred at Court, you as can't muck a byre."

"Go home to bed, old Cuddy Garth," said Liza, "and sup more poddish, and take some of the wrinkles out of your wizzent skin."

"Setting yer cap at the Rays boys," continued Mrs. Garth, "but it'll be all of no use to ye, mark my word. Old Angus never made a will, and the law'll do all the willin', ye'll see."

"Don't proddle up yon matter again, woman," said Liza.

"And dunnet ye threep me down. I'll serve ye all out, and soon too."

Mrs. Garth had now reached the porch. She had by this time forgotten her visit of consolation and the poor invalid, who lay on the bed gazing vacantly at her angry countenance.

"Good evening, Sarah," cried Liza, with an air of provoking familiarity. "May you live all the days o' your life!"

Mrs. Garth was gone by this time.

Rotha stood perplexed, and looked after her as she disappeared down the lonnin. Liza burst into a prolonged fit of uproarious laughter.

"Hush, Liza; I'm afraid she means mischief."

"The old witch-wife!" cried Liza. "If tempers were up at the Lion for sale, what a fortune yon woman's would fetch!"



CHAPTER XXII. THE THREATENED OUTLAWRY.

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.



CHAPTER XXIII. SHE NEVER TOLD HER LOVE.

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!"



CHAPTER XXIV. TREASON OR MURDER.

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.



CHAPTER XXV. LIZA'S DEVICE.

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."



CHAPTER XXVI. "FOOL, DO NOT FLATTER."

When Mrs. Garth reached home, after her interview with Rotha in the road, there was a velvety softness in her manner as of one who had a sense of smooth satisfaction with herself and her surroundings.

The blacksmith, who was working at a little bench which he had set up in the kitchen, was also in a mood of more than usual cheerfulness.

"Ey, he's caught—as good as caught," said Mrs. Garth.

Her son laughed, but there was the note of forced merriment in his voice.

"Where do they say he is—Lancaster?"

"That's it, not a doubt on't."

"Were they sure of him—the man at Lancaster?"

"No, but I were when they telt me what mak of man it was."

The blacksmith laughed again over a chisel which he was tempering.

"It's nothing to me, is it, mother?"

"Nowt in the warld, Joey, ma lad."

"They are after him for a traitor, but I cannot see as it's anything to me what they do with him when they catch hod on him; it's nothing to me, is it, mother?"

"Nowt."

Garth chuckled audibly. Then in a low tone he added,—

"Nor nothing to me what comes of his kin afterwards."

He paused in his work; his manner changed; he turned to where Mrs. Garth was coiled up before the fire.

"Had he any kin, mother?"

Mrs. Garth glanced quickly up at her son.

"A brother, na mair."

"What sort of a man, mother?"

"The spit of hissel'."

"Seen anything of him?"

"Not for twenty year."

"Nor want to neither?"

Mrs. Garth curled her lip.



CHAPTER XXVII. RALPH AT LANCASTER.

The night of the day on which the officers of the Sheriff's court of Carlisle visited Shoulthwaite, the night of Simeon Stagg's departure from Wythburn in pursuit of Ralph, the night of Rotha's sorrow and her soul's travail in that solitary house among the mountains, was a night of gayety and festival in the illuminated streets of old Lancaster. The morning had been wet and chill, but the rain-clouds swept northward as the day wore on, and at sundown the red bars belted the leaden sky that lay to the west of the towers of the gray castle on the hill.

A proclamation by the King had to be read that day, and the ancient city had done all that could be done under many depressing conditions to receive the royal message with fitting honors. Flags that had lain long furled, floated from parapet and pediment, from window and balcony, from tower and turret. Doors were thrown open that had not always swung wide on their hinges, and open house was kept in many quarters.

Towards noon a man mounted the steps in the Market Place, and read this first of the King's proclamations and nailed it to the Cross.

A company of red-coated soldiers were marched from the Castle Hill to the hill on the southwest, which had been thrown up six years before by the russet-coated soldiery who had attacked and seized the castle. Then they were marched back and disbanded for the night.

When darkness fell over highway and byway, fires were lit down the middle of the narrow streets, and they sent up wide flakes of light that brightened the fronts of the half-timbered houses on either side, and shot a red glow into the sky, where the square walls of the Dungeon Tower stood out against dark rolling clouds. Little knots of people were at every corner, and groups of the baser sort were gathered about every fire. Gossip and laughter and the click of the drinking-horn fell everywhere on the ear. But the night was still young, and order as yet prevailed.

The Market Place was the scene of highest activity. Numbers of men and boys sat and stood on the steps of the Cross, discussing the proclamation that had been read there. Now and again some youth of more scholarship than the rest held a link to the paper, and lisped and stammered through its bewildering sentences for the benefit of a circle of listeners who craned their necks to hear.

The proclamation was against public vice and immorality of various sorts which were unpunishable by law. It set forth that there were many persons who had no method of expressing their allegiance to their Sovereign but that of drinking his health, and others who had so little regard for morality and religion as to have no respect for the virtue of the female sex.

The loyaly of the Lancasterians might be unimpeachable, but their amusement at the proclamation was equally beyond question.

"That from Charles Stuart!" said one, with a laugh; and he added, with more familiarity of affection for his King than reverence for his august state, "What a sly dog he is, to be sure!"

"Who is that big man in the long coat?" said another, who had not participated in the banter of his companions on the Puritanical devices of Charles and his cronies. He was jerking his head aside to where a man whom we have known in other scenes was pushing his way through the crowd.

"Don't know; no one knows, seemingly," answered the politician whose penetration had solved the mystery of the proclamation against vice and all loose livers.

"He's been in Lancaster this more nor a week, hasn't he?"

"Believe he has; and so has the little withered fellow that haunts him like his shadow. Don't seem over-welcome company, so far as I can see."

"Where's the little one now?"

"I reckon he's nigh about somewhere."

Ralph Ray borrowed a link from a boy who was near, and stood before the paper that was posted upon the Cross. Just then a short, pale-faced, elderly man, with quick eyes beneath shaggy brows, elbowed his way between the people and came up close at Ray's side.

It was clearly not his object to read the proclamation, for after a glance at it his eyes were turned towards Ralph's face. If he had hoped to catch the light of an expression there he was disappointed. Ralph read the proclamation without changing a muscle of his countenance. He was returning the link to its owner, when the little man reached out his long finger, and, touching the paper as it hung on the Cross, looked up into Ralph's eyes with a cunning leer, and said, "Unco' gude, eh?"

Ralph made no reply. As though determined to draw him into converse, the little man shrugged his shoulders, and added, "Clarendon's work that, eh?"

There was still no response, so the speaker continued: "It'll deceive none. It's lang sin' the like of it stood true in England—worse luck!"

The dialect in which this was spoken was of that mongrel sort which in these troublous days was sometimes adopted by degenerate Scotchmen who, living in England, had reasons of their own for desiring to conceal their nationality.

"I'll wager it's all a joke," added the speaker, dropping his voice, but still addressing Ralph, and ignoring the people that stood around them.

Ralph turned about, and, giving but a glance to his interlocutor, passed out of the crowd without a word.

The little man remained a moment or two behind, and then slunk down the street in the direction which Ralph had taken.

There was to be a performance at the theatre that night, and already the people had begun to troop towards St. Leonard's Gate. Chairs were being carried down the causeway, with link-boys walking in front of them, and coaches were winding their way among the fires in the streets. Scarlet cloaks were mingling with the gray jerkins of the townspeople, and swords were here and there clanking on the pavement.

The theatre was a rude wooden structure that stood near the banks of the river, on a vacant plot of ground that bordered the city on the east and skirted the fields. It had a gallery that sloped upwards from the pit, and the more conspicuous seats in it were draped in crimson cloth. The stage, which went out as a square chamber from one side of the circular auditorium, was lighted by lamps that hung above the heads of the actors.

Before the performance began every seat was filled. The men hailed their friends from opposite sides of the house, and laughed and chaffed, and sang snatches of Royalist and other ballads. The women, who for the most part wore veils or masks, whispered together, flirted their fans, and returned without reserve the salutations that were offered them.

Ralph Ray, who was there, stood at the back of the pit, and close at his left was the sinister little man who had earlier in the evening been described as his shadow. Their bearing towards each other was the same as had been observed at the Cross: the one constantly interrogating in a low voice; the other answering with a steadfast glance or not at all.

When the curtain rose, a little butterfly creature, in the blue-and-scarlet costume of a man,—all frills and fluffs and lace and linen,—came forward, with many trips and skips and grimaces, and pronounced a prologue, which consisted of a panegyric on the King and his government in their relations to the stage.

It was not very pointed, conclusive, or emphatic, but it was rewarded with applause, which rose to a general outburst of delighted approval when the rigor of the "late usurpers" was gibbeted in the following fashion:—

Affrighted with the shadow of their rage, They broke the mirror of the times, the Stage; The Stage against them still maintained the war, When they debauched the Pulpit and the Bar.

"Pretty times, forsooth, of which one of that breed could be the mirror," whispered the little man at Ralph's elbow.

The play forthwith proceeded, and proved to be the attempt of a gentleman of fashion to compromise the honor of a lady of the Court whom he had mistaken for a courtesan. The audience laughed at every indelicate artifice of the libertine, and screamed when the demure maiden let fall certain remarks which bore a double significance. Finally, when the lady declared her interest in a cage of birds, and the gentleman drew from his pocket a purse of guineas, and, shaking them before her face, asked if those were the dicky-birds she wished for, the enjoyment of the audience passed all bounds of ordinary expression. The men in lace and linen lay back in their seats to give vent to loud guffaws, and the women flirted their fans coquettishly before their eyes, or used them to tap the heads of their male companions in mild and roguish remonstrance.

"Pity they didn't debauch the stage as well as the pulpit and bar, if this is its condition inviolate," whispered the little man again.

The intervals between the acts were occupied by part of the audience in drinking from the bottles which they carried strapped about their waists, and in singing snatches of songs. One broad-mouthed roysterer on the ground proposed the King's health, and supported the toast by a ballad in which "Great Charles, like Jehovah," was described as merciful and generous to the foes that would unking him and the vipers that would sting him. The chorus to this loyal lyric was sung by the "groundlings" with heartiness and unanimity:—

Let none fear a fever, But take it off thus, boys; Let the King live forever, 'Tis no matter for us, boys.

Ralph found the atmosphere stifling in this place, which was grown noisome now to wellnigh every sense. He forced his way out through the swaying bodies and swinging arms of the occupants of the pit. As he did so he was conscious, though he did not turn his head, that close behind him, in the opening which he made in the crowd, his inevitable "Shadow" pursued him.

The air breathed free and fresh outside. Ralph walked from St. Leonard's Gate by a back lane to the Dam Side. The river as well as the old town was illuminated. Every boat bore lamps to the masthead. Lamps, too, of many colors, hung downwards from the bridge, and were reflected in their completed circle in the waters beneath them.

The night was growing apace, and the streets were thronged with people, some laughing, some singing, some wrangling, and some fighting. Every tavern and coffee-house, as Ralph went by, sent out into the night its babel of voices. Loyal Lancasterians were within, doing honor to the royal message of that day by observing the spirit while violating the letter of it.

Ralph had walked up the Dam Side near to that point at which the Covel Cross lies to the left, when a couple of drunken men came reeling out of a tavern in front of him. Their dress denoted their profession and rank. They were lieutenants of the regiment which had been newly quartered at the castle. Both were drunk. One was capering about in a hopeless effort to dance; the other was trolling out a stave of the ballad that was just then being sung at the corner of every street:—

The blood that he lost, as I suppose (Fa la la la), Caused fire to rise in Oliver's nose (Fa la la la). This ruling nose did bear such a sway, It cast such a heat and shining ray, That England scarce knew night from day (Fa la la la).

The singer who thus described Cromwell and his shame was interrupted by a sudden attack of thirst, and forthwith applied the unfailing antidote contained in a leathern bottle which he held in one hand.

Ralph stepped off the pavement to allow the singer the latitude his condition required, when that person's companion pirouetted into his breast, and went backwards with a smart rebound.

"What's this, stopping the way of a gentleman?" hiccuped the man, bringing himself up with ludicrous effort to his full height, and suspending his capering for the better support of his soldierly dignity.

Then, stepping closer to Ralph, and peering into his face, he cried, "Why, it's the man of mystery, as the sergeant calls him. Here, I say, sir," continued the drunken officer, drawing with difficulty the sword that had dangled and clanked at his side; "you've got to tell us who you are. Quick, what's your name?"

The man was flourishing his sword with as much apparent knowledge of how to use it as if it had been a marlin-spike. Ralph pushed it aside with a stout stick that he carried, and was passing on, when the singing soldier came up and said, "Never mind his name; but whether he be Presbyter Jack or Quaker George, he must drink to the health of the King. Here," he cried, filling a drinking-cup from the bottle in his hand, "drink to King Charles and his glory!"