Ralph took the cup, and, pretending to raise it to his lips, cast its contents by a quick gesture over his shoulder, where the liquor fell full in the face of the Shadow, who had at that moment crept up behind him. The soldiers were too drunk to perceive what he had done, and permitted him to go by without further molestation. As he walked on he heard from behind another stave of the ballad, which told how—

This Oliver was of Huntingdon (Fa la la la), Born he was a brewer's son (Fa la la la), He soon forsook the dray and sling, And counted the brewhouse a petty thing Unto the stately throne of a king (Fa la la la).

"What did the great man himself say?" asked the Shadow, stepping up to Ralph's side. "He said, 'I would rather have a plain, russet-coated captain who knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than what you call a gentleman.' And he was right, eh?"

"God knows," said Ralph, and turned aside.

He had stopped to look into the middle of a small crowd that had gathered about the corner of the Bridge Lane. A blind fiddler sat on a stool there and played sprightly airs. His hearers consisted chiefly of men and boys. But among them was one young girl in bright ribbons, who was clearly an outcast of the streets. Despite her gay costume, she had a wistful look in her dark eyes, as of one who was on the point of breaking into tears.

The dance tunes suddenly came to an end, and were followed by the long and solemn sweeps of a simple old hymn such as had been known in many an English home for many an age. Gradually the music rose and fell, and then gently, and before any were aware, a sweet, low, girlish voice took up the burden and sang the words. It was the girl of the streets who sang. Was it the memory of some village home that these chords had awakened? Was it the vision of her younger and purer days that came back to her amid the gayeties of this night—of the hamlet, the church, the choir, and of herself singing there?

The hymn melted the hearts of many that stood around, and tears now stood in the singer's downcast eyes.

* * * * *

At that hour of that night, in the solitary homestead far north, among the hills, what was Rotha's travail of soul?

* * * * *

Ralph dropped his head, and felt something surging in his throat.

At the same instant a thick-lipped man with cruel eyes crushed through the people to where the girl stood, and, taking her roughly by the shoulder, pushed her away.

"Hand thy gab," he said, between clinched teeth; "what's thy business singing hymns in t'streets? Get along home to bed; that's more in thy style, I reckon."

The girl was stealing away covered with shame, when Ralph parted the people that divided him from the man, and, coming in front of him, laid one hand on his throat. Gasping for breath, the fellow would have struggled to free himself, but Ralph held him like a vise.

"This is not the first time we have met; take care it shall be the last."

So saying, Ralph flung the man from him, and he fell like an infant at his feet.

Gathering himself up with a look compounded equally of surprise and hatred, the man said, "Nay, nay; do you think it'll be the last? don't you fear it!"

Then he slunk out of the crowd, and it was observed that when he had gained the opposite side of the street, the little, pale-faced elderly person who had been known as Ralph's Shadow, had joined him.

* * * * *

"Is it our man?"

"The same, for sure."

"Then it must be done the day. We've delayed too long already."



CHAPTER XXVIII. AFTER WORD COMES WEIRD.

I. When Ralph lay down in his bed that night in a coffee-house in China Lane, there was no conviction more strongly impressed upon his mind than that it was his instant duty to leave Lancaster. It was obvious that he was watched, and that his presence in the old town had excited suspicion. The man who had pestered him for many days with his unwelcome society was clearly in league with the other man who had insulted the girl. The latter rascal he knew of old for a declared and bitter enemy. Probably the pair were only waiting for authority, perhaps merely for the verification of some surmise, before securing the aid of the constable to apprehend him. He must leave Lancaster, and at once.

Ralph rose from his bed and dressed himself afresh. He strapped his broad pack across his back, called his hostess, and paid his score. "Must the gentleman start away at midnight?" Yes; a sudden call compelled him. "Should she brew him a pot of hot ale?—the nights were chill in winter." Not to-night; he must leave without delay.

When Ralph walked through the streets of Lancaster that cold midnight, it was with no certainty as to his destination. It was to be anywhere, anywhere in this race for life. Any haven that promised solitude was to be his city of refuge.

The streets were quiet now, and even the roystering tipplers had gone off to their homes. For Ralph there was no home—only this wild hunt from place to place, with no safety and rest.

His heavy tread and the echo of his footfall were at length all that broke the stillness of the streets.

He walked southwards, and when he reached the turnpike he stood for a moment and turned his eyes towards the north. The fires that had been kindled were smouldering away, but even yet a red gleam lay across the square towers of the castle on the hill.

The old town was now asleep. Thousands of souls lay slumbering there.

Ralph thought of those who slept in a home he knew, far, far north of this town and those towers. What was his crime that he was banished from them—perhaps forever? What was his crime before God or man? His mother, his brother, Rotha—

Ralph struck his breast and turned about. No, it would not bear to be thought about. That dream, at least, was gone. Rotha was happy in his brother's love, and as for himself—as for him—it was his destiny, and he must bear it!

Yet what was life worth now that he should struggle like this to preserve it?

Ralph returned to his old conviction—God's hand was on him. The idea, morbid as it might be, brought him solace this time. Once more he stopped, and turned his eyes afresh towards the north and the fifty miles of darkness that lay between him and those he loved.

It was at that very moment of desolation that Rotha heard the neigh of a horse as she leaned out of her open window.

II. "Aye, poor man, about Martinmas the Crown seized his freehold and all his goods and chattels."

"It will be sad news for him when he hears that his old mother and the wife and children were turned into the road."

"Well, well, I will say, treason or none, that John Rushton was as good a subject as the loudest bagpipes of them all."

Ralph was sitting at breakfast in a wayside inn when two Lancashire yeomen entered and began to converse in these terms: "Aye, aye, and the leaven of Puritanism is not to be crushed out by such measures. But it's flat dishonesty, and nothing less. What did the proclamation of '59 mean if it didn't promise pardon to every man that fought for the Parliament, save such as were named as regicides?"

"Tut, man, it came to nought; the King returned without conditions; and the men who fought against him are reckoned as guilty as those that cut off his father's head." "But the people will never uphold it. The little leaven remains, and one day it will leaven the lump."

"Tut, the people are all fools—except such as are knaves. See how they're given up to drunkenness and vain pleasures. Hypocrisy and libertinism are safe for a few years' reign. England is Merry England, as they say, and she'll be merry at any cost."

"Poor John, it will be a sad blow to him!"

Ralph had been an eager listener to the conversation between the yeomen, who were clearly old Whigs and Parliamentarians.

"Pardon me, gentlemen," he interrupted, "do you speak of John Rushton of Aberleigh?"

"We do. As good a gentleman as lived in Lancashire."

"That's true, but where was he when this disaster befell his household?"

"God knows; he had fled from judgment and was outlawed."

"And the Crown confiscated his estate, you say, and turned his family into the road? What was the indictment—some trumpery subterfuge for treason?"

"Like enough; but the indictment counts for nothing in these days; it's the verdict that is everything, and that's settled beforehand."

"True, true."

"Did you know my neighbor John?"

"I did; we were comrades years ago."

With these words, Ralph rose from his unfinished breakfast and walked out of the house.

What mischief of the same sort might even now be brewing at Wythburn in his absence? Should he return? That would be useless, and worse than useless. What could he do?

The daring impulse suddenly possessed him to go on to London, secure audience of the King himself, and plead for amnesty. Yes, that was all that remained to him to do, and it should be done. His petition might be spurned; his person might be seized, and he might be handed over to judgment; but what of that? He was certain to be captured sooner or later, and this sorry race for liberty and for life would be over at length.

III. The same day Ralph Ray, still travelling on foot, had approached the town of Preston. It was Sunday morning, but he perceived that smoke like a black cloud overhung the houses and crept far up the steeples and towers. Presently a tumultuous rabble came howling and hooting out of the town. At the head of them, and apparently pursued by them, was a man half clad, who turned about at every few yards, and, raising his arm, predicted woe and desolation to the people he was leaving. He was a Quaker preacher, and his presence in Preston was the occasion of this disturbance.

"Oh, Preston," he cried, "as the waters run when the floodgates are up, so doth the visitation of God's love pass away from thee, oh, Preston!"

"Get along with thee; thou righteous Crister," said one of the crowd, lifting a stick above his head. "Get along, or ye'll have Gervas Bennett aback of ye again."

"I shall never cease to cry aloud against deceit and vanities," shrieked the preacher above the tumult. "You do profess a Sabbath, and dress yourselves in fine apparel, and your women go with stretched necks."

"Tush, tush! Beat him, stone him!"

"Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment," the preacher replied, "and a babbler is no better. The lips of a fool will swallow up himself."

The church bells were beginning to ring in the town, and the sound came across the fields and was heard even above the mocking laughter of the crowd.

"You have your steeple-houses, too," cried the preacher, "and the bells of your gospel markets are even now a-ringing where your priests and professors are selling their wares. But God dwells not in temples made with hands. Oh, men of Preston, did I not prophesy that fire, and famine, and plagues, and slaughter would come upon ye unless ye came to the light with which Christ hath enlightened all men? And have ye not the plague of the East at your doors already?"

"And who brought it, who brought it?" screamed more than one voice from the crowd. "Who brought the plague to us from the East? Beat him, beat him!" The mob, with many uplifted hands, swayed about the preacher. "Your cities will be laid waste, the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate. And what will ye do, oh men of Preston, in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far?"

The rabble had rushed past by this time, still hooting and howling at the wild, fiery-eyed enthusiast at their head.

Ralph walked on to the town and speedily discovered the cause of the black cloud which overhung it. An epidemic of an alarming nature had broken out in various quarters, and fears were entertained that it was none other than a great pestilence which had been brought to England from the East.

Indescribably eerie was the look of Preston that Sunday morning. Men and boys were bearing torches through the streets to disinfect them, and it was the smoke from these torches that hung like a cloud above the town. Through the thick yellow atmosphere the shapes of people passing to and fro in the thoroughfares stood out large and black.

IV. Ralph had travelled thus far in the fixed determination of pushing on to London, seeking audience of the King himself, and pleading for an amnesty. But the resolution which had never failed him before began now to waver. Surely there was more than his political offences involved in the long series of disasters that had befallen his household? He reflected that every link in that chain of evil seemed to be coupled to the gyves that hung about his own wrists. Wilson's life in Wythburn—his death—Sim's troubles—Rotha's sorrow—even his father's fearful end, and the more fearful accident at the funeral—then his mother's illness, nigh to death—how nigh to death by this time God alone could tell him here—all, all, with this last misery of his own banishment, seemed somehow to centre in himself. Yes, yes, sin and its wages must be in this thing; but what sin, what sin? What was the crime that cast its shadow over his life?

"As the waters run when the flood-gates are up," said the preacher, "so doth the visitation of God's love pass away from thee."

Of what use, then, would be the amnesty of the King? Mockery of mockeries! In a case like this only the Great King Himself could proclaim a pardon. Ralph put his hands over his eyes as the vision came back to him of a riderless horse flying with its dread burden across the fells. No sepulture! It was the old Hebrew curse—the punishment of the unpardonable sin.

He thought again of his stricken mother in the old home, and then of the love which had gone from him like a dream of the night. Heaven had willed it that where the heart of man yearned for love, somewhere in the world there was a woman's heart yearning to respond. But the curse came to some here and some there—the curse of an unrequitable passion.

* * * * *

The church bells were still ringing over the darkened town.

Rotha was happy in her love; Heaven be with her and bless her! As for himself, it was a part of the curse that lay on him that her face should haunt his dreams, that her voice should come to him in his sleep, and that "Rotha, Rotha," should rise in sobs to his lips in the weary watches of the night.

Yes, it must be as he had thought—God's hand was on him. Destiny had to work its own way. Why should he raise his feeble hands to prevent it? The end would be the end, whenever and wherever it might come. Why, then, should he stir?

Ralph had determined to go no farther. He would stay in Preston over the night, and set out again for the north at daybreak. Was it despair that possessed him? Even if so, he was stronger than before. Hope had gone, and fear went with it.

Take heart, Ralph Ray, most unselfish and long-suffering of men. God's hand is indeed upon you, but God Himself is at your right hand!

V. That day Ralph walked through the streets with a calmer mind. Towards nightfall he stepped into a tavern and secured a bed. Then he went into the parlor of the house and sat among the people gathered there, and chatted pleasantly on the topics of the hour.

The governing spirit of the company was a little man who wore a suit of braided black which seemed to indicate that he belonged to one of the clerkly professions. He was addressed by the others as Lawyer Lampitt, and was asked if he would be busy at the court house on the following morning. "Yes," he answered, with an air of consequence, "there's the Quaker preacher to be tried for creating a disturbance."

"Was he taken, then?" asked one.

"He's quiet enough now in the old tower," said the lawyer, stretching himself comfortably before the fire.

"I should have thought his tormentors were fitter occupants of his cell," said Ralph.

"Perhaps so, young man; I express no opinion."

"There was scarce a man among them whose face would not have hanged him," continued Ralph.

"There again I offer no opinion," said the lawyer, "but I'll tell you an old theory of mine. It is that a murderer and a hero are all but the same man."

The company laughed. They were accustomed to these triumphs of logic, and relished them. Every man braced himself up in his seat.

"Why, how's that, lawyer?" said a townsman who sat tailor-fashion on a bench; he would hardly have been surprised if the lawyer had proved beyond question that he swam swanlike among the Isles of Greece.

"I'll tell you a story," said the gentleman addressed. "There was an ancient family in Yorkshire, and the lord of the house was of a very splenetive temper. One day in a fit of jealousy he killed his wife, and put to death all of his children who were at home by throwing them over the battlements of his castle. He had one remaining child, and it was an infant, and was nursed at a farmhouse a mile away. He had set out for the farm with an intent to destroy his only remaining child, when a storm of thunder and lightning came on, and he stopped."

"Thought it was a warning, I should say," interrupted a listener.

"It awakened the compunctions of conscience, and he desisted from his purpose."

"Well?"

"What do you think he did next?"

"Cannot guess—drowned himself?"

"No, and this proves what I say, that a murderer and a hero are all but one. He surrendered himself to justice, and stood mute at the bar, and, in order to secure his estates to his surviving child, he had the resolution to die under the dreadful punishment of peine forte."

"What is that, lawyer?"

"Death by iron weights laid on the bare body until the life is crushed out of it."

"Dreadful! And did he secure his estates to his child by suffering such a death?"

"He did. He stood mute at the bar, and let judgment go against him without trial. It is all in black and white. The Crown cannot confiscate a man's estate until he is tried and condemned."

"What of an outlaw?" asked Ralph somewhat eagerly.

"A man's flight is equal to a plea of guilty."

"I had a comrade once," said Ralph with some tremor of voice; "he fled from judgment and was outlawed, and his poor children were turned into the road. Could he have kept his lands for his family by delivering his body to that death you speak of?"

"He could. The law stands so to this day."

"Think you, in any sudden case, a man could do as much now?"

"He could," answered the lawyer; "but where's the man who would? Only one who must die in any chance, and then none but a murderer, I should say."

"I don't know—I don't know that," said Ralph, rising with ill-concealed agitation, and stalking out of the room, without the curtest leave-taking.

VI. On Tuesday, Ralph was walking through Kendal on his northward journey. The day was young. Ralph meant to take a meal at the old coaching house, the Woodman, in Kirkland, by the river Kent, and then push on till nightfall.

The horn of the incoming coach fell on his ear, and the coach itself—the Carlisle coach, laden with passengers from back to front—swept into the courtyard of the inn at the moment he entered it afoot.

There was a little commotion there. A group of the serving folk, the maids in their caps, the ostlers bareheaded, and some occasional stable people were gathered near the taproom door. The driver of the coach got off his box and crushed into the middle of this company. His passengers paused in their descent from the top to look over the heads of those who were on the ground.

"Drunk, surely," said one of these to another; "that proclamation was not unnecessary."

"Some poor straggler, sir; picked him up insensible and fetched him along," said one of the ostlers.

Ralph walked past the group to the threshold of the inn.

"Loosen his neckcloth!—here, take my brandy," said a passenger.

"Came from the North, seemingly, sir. Looks weak from want and a long journey."

"From the North?" asked the coachman; "I'll give him a seat in the coach to-night and take him home."

Ralph stepped back and looked over some of the people.

A man was lying on the ground, his head in a woman's lap.

It was Simeon Stagg.



CHAPTER XXIX. ROBBIE'S QUEST BEGUN.

When Robbie Anderson left Wythburn, his principal and immediate purpose was to overtake Simeon Stagg. It was of less consequence that he should trace and discover Ralph Ray. Clearly it had been Ralph's object on leaving home to keep out of reach of the authorities who were in pursuit of him. But there was no saying what course a man such as he might take in order to insure the safety of the people who were dear to him, and to whom he was dear. The family at Shoulthwaite Moss had been threatened with eviction. The ransom was Ralph's liberty. Sim had been sent to say so. But a graver issue lay close behind. This shadow of a great crime lay over Ralph's life. If Robbie could overtake Sim before Sim had time to overtake Ralph, he might prevent a terrible catastrophe. Even so fearless a man as Ralph was would surely hesitate if he knew, though but on hearsay, that perhaps a horrible accusation awaited him at Carlisle.

That accusation might be false—it must be false. Robbie believed he could swear that it was a lie if he stood before the Throne of Grace. But of what avail was the innocence of the accused in days when an indictment was equal to a conviction!

Sim was an old man, or at least he was past his best. He was a frail creature, unable to travel fast. There was little doubt in the mind of the lusty young dalesman as he took his "lang stroke o' the ground" that before many hours had gone by Sim would be overtaken and brought back.

It was Sunday morning when little Liza Branthwaite ferreted Robbie out of the Red Lion, and it was no later than noon of the same day when Robbie began his journey. During the first few miles he could discover no trace of Sim. This troubled him a little, until he reflected that it was late at night when Sim started away, and that consequently the tailor would pass the little wayside villages unobserved. After nine or ten miles had been covered, Robbie met with persons who had encountered Sim. The accounts given of him were as painful as they were in harmony with his character. Sim had shrunk from the salutations of those who knew him, and avoided with equal timidity the gaze of those by whom he was not known. The suspicion of being everywhere suspected was with the poor outcast abroad as well as at home.

Quickly as the darkness fell in on that Sunday in mid-winter, Robbie had travelled many miles before the necessity occurred to him of seeking lodgings for the night. He had intended to reach the little town of Winander that day, and he had done so. It was late, however, and after a frugal supper, Robbie went off to bed.

Early next day, Monday, the young dalesman set about inquiries among the townspeople as to whether a man answering to the description which he gave of Sim had been seen to pass through the town. Many persons declared that they had seen such a one the day before, and some insisted that he was still in Winander. An old fellow in a smock, who, being obviously beyond all active labor, employed his time and energies in the passive occupation of watching everybody from the corner of a street, and in chatting with as many as had conversation to spend on his superannuated garrulity, affirmed very positively that he had talked with Sim as recently as an hour ago.

Right or wrong, this was evidence of Sim's whereabouts which Robbie felt that he could not ignore. He must at least test its truthfulness by walking through the streets and inquiring further. It would be idle to travel on until this clew had been cleared up.

And so Robbie spent almost the whole day in what proved to be a fruitless search. It was apparent that if Sim had been in Winander he had left it on Sunday. Robbie reflected with vexation that it was now the evening of Monday, and that he was farther behind the man of whom he was in pursuit than he had been at starting from Wythburn.

In no very amiable mood Robbie set out afresh just as darkness was coming on, and followed the road as far as the village of Staveley. Here there was nothing more hopeful to do at a late hour on Monday night than to seek for a bed and sleep. On Tuesday morning Robbie lost no time in making inquiries, but he wasted several hours in ascertaining particulars that were at all reliable and satisfactory. No one appeared to have seen such a man as Sim, either to-day, yesterday, or on Sunday.

Robbie was perplexed. He was in doubt if it might not be his best course to turn back, when a happy inspiration occurred to him.

What had the people said of Sim's shyness and timidity? Why, it was as clear as noonday that the poor little man would try to avoid the villages by making a circuit of the fields about them.

With this conviction, Robbie set out again, intending to make no pause in his next stage until he had reached Kendal. Upon approaching the villages he looked about for the footpaths that might be expected to describe short arcs around them; and, following one of these, he passed a cottage that stood at a corner of a lane. He had made many fruitless inquiries hitherto, and had received replies that had been worse than valueless; but he could not resist the temptation to ask at this house.

Walking round the cottage to where the door opened on the front farthest from the lane, Robbie entered the open porch. His unfamiliar footstep brought from an inner room an old woman with a brown and wrinkled face, who curtsied, and, speaking in a meek voice, asked, or seemed to ask, his pleasure.

"Your pardon, mistress," said Robbie, "but mayhap you've seen a little man with gray hair and a long beard going by?"

"Do you say a laal man?" asked the old woman.

"Ey, wrinkled and wizzent a bit?" said Robbie.

"Yes," said the woman.

Robbie was uncertain as to what the affirmation implied. Taking it to be a sort of request for a more definite description, he continued,—

"A blate and fearsome sort of a fellow, you know."

"Yes," repeated the woman, and then there was a pause.

Robbie, getting impatient of the delay, was turning on his heel with scant civility, when the old woman said, "Are you seeking him for aught that is good?"

"Why, ey, mother," said Robbie, regaining his former position and his accustomed geniality in an instant. "Do you know his name?" she asked.

"Sim—that's to say Sim Stagg. Don't you fear me, mother; I'm a friend to Sim, take my word."

"You're a good-like sort of a lad, I think," said the old woman; "Sim was here ower the night last night."

"Where is he now?" said Robbie.

"He left me this morning at t' edge o' t' daylight. He axed for t' coach to Lancaster, and I telt him it started frae the Woodman, in Kirklands, and so he went off there."

"Kirklands; where's Kirklands?"

"In Kendal, near the church."

It turned out that the good old woman had known Sim many years before, when they were neighbors in a street of a big town. She had been with Sim's wife in her last illness, and had cared for his little daughter when the child's mother died.

Robbie did not know when the coach might leave Kendal for Lancaster; Sim was several hours in front of them, and therefore he took a hasty leave. The old woman, who lived a solitary life in the cottage, looked after the young man with eyes which seemed to say that, in spite of the instinct which prompted her to confide in Robbie, she half regretted what she had done.



CHAPTER XXX. A RACE AGAINST LIFE.

No sooner had Ralph discovered that the straggler from the North who lay insensible in the yard of the inn at Kendal was Simeon Stagg than he pushed through the crowd, and lifting the thin and wasted figure in his arms, ordered a servant to show him to a room within.

There in a little while sensibility returned to Sim, who was suffering from nothing more serious than exhaustion and the excitement by which it had been in part occasioned.

When in the first moment of consciousness he opened his eyes and met the eyes of Ralph, who was bending above him, he exhibited no sign of surprise. With a gesture indicative of irritation he brushed his long and bony hand over his face, as though trying to shut out a vision that had more than once before haunted and tormented him. But when he realized the reality of the presence of the man whom he had followed over many weary miles, whose face had followed him in his dreams,—when it was borne in upon his scattered sense that Ralph Ray was actually here at his side, holding his hand and speaking to him in the deep tones which he knew so well,—then the poor worn wayfarer could no longer control the emotion that surged upwards from his heart.

It was a wild, disjointed, inconsequential tale which Sim thereupon told, which he had come all this way to tell, and which now revealed its full import to the eager listener in spite of the narrator's eagerness rather than by means of it. Amid spasms of feeling, however, the story came at length to an end; and gathering up the threads of it for himself, and arranging them in what seemed to him their natural sequence, Ralph understood all that it was essential to understand of his own position and the peril of those who were dear to him. That he was to be outlawed, and that his estate was to be confiscated; that his mother, who still lived, was, with his brother and Rotha, to be turned into the road,—this injustice was only too imminent.

"In a fortnight—was it so?" he asked. "In a fortnight they were to be back? A fortnight from what day?"

"Saturday," said Sim; "that's to say, a week come Saturday next."

"And this is Tuesday; ten full days between," said Ralph, walking with drooping head across the room; "I must leave immediately for the North. Heigh!" opening a window, and hailing the ostler who at the moment went past, "when does your next coach start for the North?"

"At nine o'clock, sir."

"Nine to-night? So late? Have you nothing before—no wagon—nothing?"

"Nothing before, sir; 'cept—leastways—no, nothing before. Ye see, it waits for the coach from Lancaster, and takes on its passengers."

"John, John," cried the landlady, who had overheard the conversation from a neighboring window, "mayhap the gentleman would like to take a pair of horses a stage or two an he's in a hurry."

"Have you a horse that can cover thirty miles to-day?" said Ralph.

"That we have, yer honor, and mair ner ya horse."

"Where will the coach be at six to-morrow?"

"At Penrith, I reckon," said the ostler, lifting his cap, and scratching his head with the air of one who was a good deal uncertain alike of his arithmetic and his geography.

"How long do they reckon the whole journey?"

"Twelve hours, I've heeard—that's if nothing hinders; weather, nor the like."

"Get your horse ready at once, my lad, and then take me to your landlady."

"You'll not leave me behind, Ralph," said Sim when Ralph had shut back the casement.

"You're very weak, old friend; it will be best for you to sleep here to-day, and take to-night's Carlisle coach as far back as Mardale. It will be early morning when the coach gets there, and at daybreak you can walk over the Stye Pass to Shoulthwaite."

"I dare not, I dare not; no, no, don't leave me here." Sim's importunity was irresistible, and Ralph yielded more out of pity than by persuasion. A second horse was ordered, and in less than half an hour the travellers, fortified by a meal, were riding side by side on the high road from Kendal to the North.

Sim was not yet so far recovered from his exhaustion but that the exertion of riding—at any time a serious undertaking to him—was quick in producing symptoms of collapse. But he held on to his purpose of accompanying Ralph on his northward journey with a tenacity which was unshaken either by his companion's glances of solicitude or yet by the broad mouthed merriment of the rustics, who obviously found it amusing to watch the contortions of an ill-graced, weak, and spiritless rider, and to fire off at him as he passed the sallies of an elephantine humor.

When the pair started away from Kendal, Sim had clearly no thought but that their destination was to be Wythburn. It was therefore with some surprise and no little concern that he observed that Ralph took the road to the right which led to Penrith and the northeast, when they arrived at that angle of the highway outside the town where two turnpikes met, and one went off to Wythburn and the Northwest.

"I should have reckoned that the nighest way home was through Staveley," Sim said with hesitation.

"We can turn to the left at Mardale," said Ralph, and pushed on without further explanation. "Do you say that mother has never once spoken?" he asked, drawing up at one moment to give Sim a little breathing space.

"Never once, Ralph—mute as the grave, she is—poor body."

"And Rotha—Rotha—"

"Yes, the lass is with her, she is."

"God bless her in this world and the next!"

Then the two pushed on again, with a silence between them that was more touching than speech. They rode long and fast this spell, and when they drew up once more, Ralph turned in his saddle and saw that the ruins that stood at the top of the Kendal Scar were already far behind them.

"It's a right good thing that you've given up your solitary life on the fells, Sim. It wilt cheer me a deal, old friend, to think you'll always live with the folks at Shoulthwaite." Ralph spoke as if he himself had never to return. Sim felt this before Ralph had realized the implication of his words.

"It's hard for a hermit to be a good man," continued Ralph; "he begins with being miserable and ends with being selfish and superstitious, and perhaps mad. Have you never marked it?"

"Maybe so, Ralph; maybe so. It's like it's because the world's bitter cruel that so many are buryin' theirsels afore they're dead."

"Then it's because they expect too much of the world," said Ralph. "We should take the world on easier terms. Fallible humanity must have its weaknesses and poor human life its disasters, and where these are mighty and inevitable, what folly is greater than to fly from them or to truckle to them, to make terms with them? Our duty is simply to endure them, to endure them—that's it, old friend."

There was no answer that Sim could make to this. Ralph was speaking to the companion who rode by his side; but in fact he seemed to be addressing himself.

"And to see a man buy a reprieve from Death!" he continued. "Never do that—never? Did you ever think of it, Sim, that what happens is always the best?"

"It scarce looks like it, Ralph; that it don't."

"Then it's because you don't look long enough. In the end, it is always the best that happens. Truth and the right are the last on the field; it always has been so, and always will be; it only needs that you should wait to the close of the battle to see that."

There would have been a sublime solemnity in these rude words of a rude man of action if Sim had divined that they were in fact the meditations of one who believed himself to be already under the shadow of his death.

* * * * *

The horses broke again into a canter, and it was long before the reins of the riders brought them to another pause. The day was bitterly cold, and, notwithstanding the exertion of riding, Sim's teeth chattered sometimes as with ague, and his fingers were numb and stiff. It was an hour before noon when the travellers left Kendal, and now they had ridden for two hours. The brighter clouds of the morning had disappeared, and a dull, leaden sky was overhead. Gradually the heavy atmosphere seemed to close about them, yet a cutting wind blew smartly from the east.

"A snowstorm is coming, Sim. Look yonder; how thick it hangs over the Gray Crag sheer ahead! We must push on, or we'll be overtaken."

"How long will it be coming?" asked Sim.

"Five hours full, perhaps longer," said Ralph; "we may reach Penrith before that time."

"Penrith!"

Sim's tone was one of equal surprise and fear.

Ralph gave him a quick glance; then reaching over the neck of his horse to stroke its long mane, he said, with the manner of one who makes too palpable an effort to change the subject of conversation: "Isn't this mare something like old Betsy? I couldn't but mark how like she was to our old mare that is lost when the ostler brought her into the yard this morning."

Sim made no reply.

"Poor Betsy!" said Ralph, and dropped his head on to his breast.

Another long canter. When the riders drew up again it was to take a steadier view of some objects in the distance which had simultaneously awakened their curiosity.

"There seem to be many of them," said Ralph; and, shielding his ear from the wind, he added, "do you catch their voices?"

"Are they quarrelling?—is it a riot?" Sim asked.

"Quick, and let us see."

In a few moments they had reached a little wayside village.

There they found children screaming and women wringing their hands. In the high road lay articles of furniture, huddled together, thrown in heaps one on another, and broken into fragments in the fall. A sergeant and company of musketeers were even then in the midst of this pitiful work of devastation, turning the people out of their little thatched cottages and flinging their poor sticks of property out after them. Everywhere were tumult and ruin. Old people were lying on the cold earth by the wayside. They had been born in these houses; they had looked to die in these homes; but houses and homes were to be theirs no more. Amidst the wreck strode the gaunt figure of a factor, directing and encouraging, and firing off meantime a volley of revolting oaths.

"What's the name of this place?" asked Ralph of a man who stood, with fury in his eyes, watching the destruction of his home.

"Hollowbank," answered the man between his teeth.

Ralph remembered that here had lived a well-known Royalist, whom the Parliament had dispossessed of his estates. The people of this valley had been ardent Parliamentarians during the long campaign. Could it be that his lordship had been repossessed of his property, and was taking this means of revenging himself upon his tenantry for resisting the cause he had fought for?

An old man lay by the hedge looking down to the ground with eyes that told only of despair. A little fair-haired boy, with fear in his innocent face, was clinging to his grandfather's cloak and crying piteously.

"Get off with you and begone!" cried the factor, rapping out another volley.

"Is it Hollowbank you call this place?" said Ralph, looking the fellow in the face. "Hellbank would be a fitter name."

The man answered nothing, but his eyes glared angrily as Ralph put spur to his horse and rode on.

"God in heaven!" cried Ralph when Sim had come up by his side, "to think that work like this goes on in God's sight!"

"Yet you say the best happens," said Sim.

"It does; it does; God knows it does, for all that," insisted Ralph. "But to think of these poor souls thrown out into the road like cattle. Cattle? To cattle they would be merciful!—thrown out into the road to lie and die and rot!"

"Have they been outlawed—these men?" said Sim.

"Damnation!" cried Ralph, as though at Sim's ignorant word a new and terrible thought had flashed upon his mind and wounded him like a dagger.

Then they rode long in silence.

Away they went, mile after mile, without rest and without pause, through dales and over uplands, past meres and across rivers, and still with the gathering blackness overhead.

What force of doom was spurring them on in this race against Life? It was the depth of a Cumbrian winter, and the days were short. Clearly they would never reach Penrith to-night. The delay at Hollowbank and the shortened twilight before a coming snowstorm must curtail their journey. They agreed to put up for the night at the inn at Askham.

As they approached that house of entertainment they observed that the coach which had left Carlisle that morning was in the act of drawing up at the door. It waited only while three or four passengers alighted, and then drove on and passed them in its journey south.

Five hours hence it would pass the northward coach from Kendal.

When Ralph and Sim dismounted at the Fox and Hounds, at Askham, the landlord came hastily to the door. He was a brawny dalesman, of perhaps thirty. He was approaching the travellers with the customary salutations of a host, when, checking himself, and coming to Ralph, he said in a low tone, "I ask pardon, sir, but is your name Ray?—Captain—hush!" he whispered; and then, becoming suddenly mute, without waiting for a reply to his questions, he handed the horses to a man who came up at the moment, and beckoned Ralph and Sim to follow him, not through the front of the house, but towards the yard that led to the back.

"Don't you know me?" he said as soon as he had conveyed them, as if by stealth, into a little room detached from the rest of the house.

"Surely it's Brown? And how are you, my lad?"

"Gayly; and you seem gayly yourself, and not much altered since the great days at Dunbar—only a bit lustier, mayhap, and with something more of beard. I'll never forget the days I served under you!"

"That's well, Brown; but why did you bring us round here?" said Ralph.

"Hush!" whispered the landlord. "I've a pack of the worst bloodhounds from Carlisle just come. They're this minute down by the coach. I know the waistrels. They've been here before to-day. They'd know you to a certainty, and woe's me if once the gommarels come abreast of you. It's like I'd never forgive myself if my old captain came by any ill luck in my house."

"How long will they stay?" "Until morning, it's like."

"How far is it to the next inn?"

"Three miles to Clifton."

"We shall sleep till daybreak to-morrow, Brown, on the settles you have here. And now, my lad, bloodhounds or none on our trail, bring us something to eat."



CHAPTER XXXI. ROBBIE, SPEED ON!

Upon reaching the Woodman at Kendal, Robbie found little reason to doubt that Sim had been there and had gone. A lively young chambermaid, who replied to his questions, told him the story of Sim's temporary illness and subsequent departure with another man.

"What like of a man was he, lass—him as took off the little fellow?" asked Robbie.

"A very personable sort; maybe as fine a breed as you'd see here and there one," replied the girl.

"Six foot high haply, and square up on his legs?" asked Robbie, throwing back his body into an upright posture as a supplementary and explanatory gesture.

"Ey, as big as Bully Ned and as straight as Robin the Devil," said the girl.

Robbie was in ignorance of the physical proportions of these local worthies, but he was nevertheless in little doubt as to the identity of his man. It was clear that Sim and Ralph had met on this spot only a few hours ago, and had gone off together.

"What o'clock might it be when they left?" said Robbie.

"Nigh to noon—maybe eleven or so."

It was now two, and Ralph and Sim, riding good horses, must be many miles away. Robbie's vexation was overpowering when he thought of the hours that he had wasted at Winander and of the old gossip at the street corner who had prompted him to the fruitless search.

"The feckless old ninny," he thought in his mute indignation; "when an old man comes to be an old woman it's nothing but right that he should die, and have himself done with."

Robbie was unable to hire a horse in order to set off in pursuit of his friends; nor were his wits so far distraught by the difficulties tormenting them that he was unable to perceive that, even if he could afford to ride, his chance would be inconsiderable of overtaking two men who had already three hours' start of him.

He went into the taproom to consult the driver of the Carlisle coach, who was taking a glass before going to bed—his hours of work being in the night and his hours of rest being in the day. That authority recommended, with the utmost positiveness of advice, that Robbie should take a seat in his coach when he left for the North that night.

"But you don't start till nine o'clock, they tell me?" said Robbie.

"Well, man, what of that?" replied the driver; "yon two men will have to sleep to-night, I reckon; and they'll put up to a sartenty somewhear, and that's how we'll come abreast on 'em. It's no use tearan like a crazy thing."

The driver had no misgivings; his conjecture seemed reasonable, and whether his plan were feasible or not, it was the only one available. So Robbie had to make a virtue of a necessity, as happens to many a man of more resource.

He was perhaps in his secret heart the better reconciled to a few hours' delay in his present quarters, because he fancied that the little chambermaid had exhibited some sly symptoms of partiality for his society in the few passages of conversation which he had exchanged with her.

She was a bright, pert young thing, with just that dash of freedom in her manners which usually comes of the pursuit of her public calling; and it is only fair to Robbie's modesty to say that he had not deceived himself very grossly in his estimate of the interest he had suddenly excited in her eyes. It was probably a grievous dereliction of duty to think of a love encounter, however blameless, at a juncture like this—not to speak of the gravity of the offence of forgetting the absent Liza. But Robbie was undergoing a forced interlude in the march; the lady who dominated his affections was unhappily too far away to appease them, and he was not the sort of young fellow who could resist the assault of a pair of coquettish black eyes.

Returning from the taproom to announce his intention of waiting for the coach, Robbie was invited to the fire in the kitchen,—a privilege for which the extreme coldness of the day was understood to account. Here he lit a pipe, and discoursed on the route that would probably be pursued by his friends.

It was obvious that Ralph and Sim had not taken the direct road home to Wythburn, for if they had done so he must have met them as he came from Staveley. There was the bare possibility that he had missed them by going round the fields to the old woman's cottage; but this seemed unlikely.

"Are you quite sure it's an old man you're after?" said the girl, with a dig of emphasis that was meant to insinuate a doubt of Robbie's eagerness to take so much trouble in running after anything less enticing than one of another sex who might not be old.

Robbie protested on his honor that he was never known to run after young women,—a statement which did not appear to find a very ready acceptance. The girl was coming and going from the kitchen in the discharge of her duties, and on one of her journeys she brought a parchment map in her hand, saying: "Here's a paper that Jim, the driver, told me to show you. It gives all the roads atween Kendal and Carlisle. So you may see for yourself whether your friends could get round about to Wy'bern."

Robbie spread out the map on the kitchen table, and at once proceeded, with the help of the chambermaid, to trace out the roads that were open to Ralph and Sim to take. It was a labyrinthine web, that map, and it taxed the utmost ingenuity of both Robbie and his little acquaintance to make head or tail of it.

"Here you are," cried Robbie, with the air of a man making a valuable discovery, "here's the milestones—one, two, three—them's milestones, thou knows."

"Tut, you goose; that's only the scale," said the girl; "see what's printed, 'Scale of miles.'"

"Oh, ey, lass," said Robbie, not feeling sure what "scale" might mean, but too shrewd to betray his ignorance a second time in the presence of this learned chambermaid.

The riddle, nevertheless, defied solution. However much they pored over the map, it was still a maze of lines.

"It's as widderful as poor old Sim's face," said Robbie.

Robbie and the chambermaid put their heads together in more senses than one. The map was most inconveniently small. Two folks could not consult it at the same time without coming into really uncomfortable proximity.

"There you are," said Robbie, reaching over, pipe in hand, to where the girl was intent on some minute point.

Suddenly there was a cloud of smoke over the map. It also enveloped the students of geography. Then, somehow, there was a sly smack of lips.

"And there you are," said the girl, with a roguish laugh, as she brought Robbie a great whang over the ear and shot away.

Jim, the driver, came into the kitchen at that moment on his way to bed, and unravelled the mystery of the map by showing that it was possible for Robbie's friends to go off the Carlisle road towards Gaskarth and Wythburn at the village of Askham.

Robbie was satisfied with this explanation, and did his best under the circumstances to rest content until nine o'clock with the harbor into which he had drifted. He succeeded more completely, perhaps, in this endeavor than might be expected, when the peril of his friends and his allegiance to Liza Branthwaite is taken into account.

But when nine o'clock had come and gone, and still the coach stood in the yard of the inn, Robbie's sense of duty overcame his appetite for what he would have called a "spoag." It was usual for the Carlisle coach to await the coach from Lancaster, and it was because the latter had not yet arrived at Kendal that the former was unable to depart from it. Robbie's impatience waxed considerably during the half-hour thence ensuing; but when ten o'clock had struck, and still no definite movement was made, his indignation became boisterous.

There were to be four inside passengers, all women; and cold as the night might prove, Robbie's seat must be outside. The protestations of all five passengers were at length too loud, and their importunity was too earnest, to admit of longer delay. So the driver put in his horses and took his seat on the box.

This had scarcely been done when the horn of the Lancaster coach was heard in the distance, and some further waiting ensued.

"Let's hope you'll have no traffic out of, it when it does come," said Robbie with a dash of spite. A few minutes afterwards the late coach drove into the yard and discharged its travellers.

Two of these, who were going forward to Carlisle, climbed the ladder and took seats behind Robbie. It was too dark to see who or what they were except that they were men, that they were wrapped in long cloaks, and wore caps that fitted close to their heads and cheeks, being tied over their beards and beneath their chins.

The much-maligned Jim now gave a smart whip to his horses, and in a moment more the coach was on the road.

The night was dark and bitterly cold, and once outside the town the glimmer of the lamps which the coach carried was all the light the passengers had for miles.

A slight headache from which Robbie had suffered at intervals since the ducking of his head in the river at Wythburn had now quite disappeared, but a curious numbness, added to a degree of stupefaction, began to take its place. As the coach jogged along on its weary journey, not even the bracing surroundings of Robbie's present elevated and exposed position had the effect of keeping him actively awake. He dozed in short snatches and awoke with slight shudders, feeling alternately hot and cold.

In one of his intervals of wakefulness he heard fragments of a conversation which was being sustained by the strangers behind him. Robbie had neither activity nor curiosity to waste on their talk, but he could not avoid listening.

"He would have been the best agent in the King's service to a certainty," said one. "He's the 'cutest man I ever tackled. It's parlish odd how he baffles us."

The speaker was clearly a Cumbrian.

"Shaf!" replied his companion, in a kind of whisper, "he's a pauchtie clot-heed. I'll have him at Haribee in a crack."

The second speaker was as clearly a Scot who was struggling against the danger there might be of his speech bewraying him.

"Well, you're pretty smart on 'im. I never could rightly make aught of thy hate of 'im."

"Tut, man, live and learn. Let me have him in Wilfrey Lawson's hands, and ye'll see what for I hate the proud-stomached taistrel."

"Well," said the Cumbrian, in a tone indicative of more resignation than he had previously exhibited, "I've no more cause to love 'im than yourself. You saw 'im knock me down in the streets of Lancaster."

"May ye hang him up for it, Bailiff Scroope," replied the Scot. "May ye hang him up for it on the top of Haribee!"

Robbie understood enough of this conversation to realize the character and pursuit of his travelling companions; but the details and tone of the dialogue were not of an interest sufficiently engrossing to keep him awake. He dozed afresh, and in the unconsciousness of a fitful sleep he passed a good many miles of his dreary night ride.

A sudden glare in his eyes awoke him at one moment. They were passing the village of Hollowbank. Fires were lit on the road, and dark figures were crouching around them. Robbie was too drowsy to ask the meaning of these sights, and he soon slept once more.

When he awoke again, he thought he caught the echo of the word "Wythburn" as having been spoken behind him; but whether this were more than a delusion of the ear, such as sometimes comes at the moment of awakening, he could not be sure until (now fully awake) he distinctly heard the Cumbrian use the name of Ralph Ray.

Robbie's curiosity was instantly aroused, and in the effort to shake off the weight of his drowsiness he made a backward movement of the head, which was perceived by the strangers. He was conscious that one of the men had risen, and was leaning over to the driver to ask who he himself might be, and where he was going.

"A country lad of some sort," said Jim. "I know nought, no mair."

"I thought maybe he were a friend," said the stranger, with questionable veracity.

The conversation thereupon proceeded with unrestrained vigor.

"It baffles me, his going to Carlisle. As I say, he's a 'cute sort. What's his game in this hunt?"

"Shaf! he's bagged himself, stump and rump."

"I don't mind how soon we've done with this trapesing here and there. Which will be the 'dictment, think ye?"

"Small doubt which." "Murder, eh? Can you manage it, Wilfrey and yourself?"

"Leave that to the pair of us."

The perspiration was standing in beads on every inch of Robbie's body. He was struggling with an almost overpowering temptation to test the strength of his muscles at pitching certain weighty "bodies" off the top of that coach, in order to relieve it of some of the physical burden and a good deal of the moral iniquity under which it seemed to him just then to groan.

Snow began now to fall, and the driver gave the whip to his horses in order to reach a village which was not far away.

"We'll be bound to put up for the night," he said; "this snowstorm will soon stop us."

The two strangers were apparently much concerned at the necessity, and used every available argument to induce the driver to continue his journey.

Robbie could not bring himself to a conclusion as to whether it would be best for his purpose that the coach should stop, and so keep back the vagabonds who were sitting behind him, or go on, and so help him to overtake Ralph. The driver in due course settled the problem very decisively by drawing up at the inn of the hamlet of Mardale and proceeding to take his horses off the chains.

"There be some folk as have mercy neither on man nor beast," he said in reply to a protest from the strangers.

Jim's sentiment was more apposite than he thought.

The two men grumbled their way into the inn. Robbie remained outside and gave the driver a hand with the horses.

"Where's Haribee?" he asked.

"In Carlisle," said the driver.

"What place is it?" asked Robbie.

"Haribee?—why, the place of execution."

When left alone outside in the snow, Robbie began to reflect on the position of affairs. It was past midnight. The two strangers, who were obviously in pursuit of Ralph, would stay in this house at least until morning. Ralph himself was probably asleep at this moment, some ten miles or thereabouts farther up the road.

It was bitterly cold. Robbie's hands and face were numbed. The flakes of snow fell thicker and faster than before.

Robbie perceived that there was only one chance that would make it worth while to have come on this journey: the chance that he could overtake Ralph before the coach and its passengers could overtake him.

To do this he must walk the whole night through, let it rain or snow or freeze.

He could and he would do it!

Bravely, Robbie! A greater issue than you know of hangs on your journey. On! on! on!



CHAPTER XXXII. WHAT THE SNOW GAVE UP.

The agitation of the landlord of the inn at Askham, who was an old Parliamentarian, on discovering the captain under whom he had served in the person of Ralph Ray, threatened of itself to betray him. With infinite perturbation he came and went, and set before Ralph and Sim such plain fare as his house could furnish after the more luxurious appetites of the Royalist visitors had been satisfied.

The room into which the travellers had been smuggled was a wing of the old house, open to the whitewashed rafters, and with the customary broad hearth. Armor hung about the walls—a sword here, a cutlass there, and over the rannel-tree a coat of chain steel. It was clearly the living-room of the landlord's family, and was jealously guarded from the more public part of the inn. But when the door was open into the passage that communicated with the rest of the house, the loud voices of the Royalists could be heard in laughter or dispute.

When the family vacated this room for the convenience of Ralph and Sim, they left behind at the fireside, sitting on a stool, a little boy of three or four, who was clearly the son of the landlord. Ralph sat down, and took the little fellow between his knees. The child had big blue eyes and thin curls of yellow hair. The baby lips answered to his smile, and the baby tongue prattled in his ear with the easy familiarity which children extend only to those natures that hold the talisman of child-love.

"And what is your name, my little man?" said Ralph.

"Darling," answered the child, looking up frankly into Ralph's face.

"Good. And anything else?"

"Ees, Villie."

"Do they not say you are like your mother, Willie?" said Ralph, brushing the fair curls from the boy's forehead. "Me mammy's darling," said the little one, with innocent eyes and a pretty curve of the little mouth.

"Surely. And what will you be when you grow up, my sunny boy?"

"A man."

"Ah! and a wit, eh? But what will you be at your work—a farmer?"

"Me be a soldier." The little face grew bright at the prospect.

"Not that, sweetheart. If you have luck like most of us, perhaps you'll have enough fighting in your life without making it your trade to fight. But you don't understand me yet, Willie, darling?"

The little one's father entered the room at this moment, and the opening of the door brought the sound of jumbled voices from a distant apartment. The noisy party of Royalists apparently belonged to the number of those who hold that a man's manners in an inn may properly be the reverse of what they are expected to be at home. The louder such roysterers talk, the more they rap out oaths, the oftener they bellow for the waiters and slap them on the back, the better they think they are welcome in a house of public entertainment.

Amidst the tumult that came from a remote part of the inn a door was heard to open, and a voice was distinguishable above the rest calling lustily for the landlord.

"I must go off to them," said that worthy. "They expect me to stand host as well as landlord, and sit with them at their drinking."

When the door closed again, Sim lifted the boy on to his knee, and looked at him with eyes full of tenderness. The little fellow returned his gaze with a bewildered expression that seemed to ask a hundred silent questions of poor Sim's wrinkled cheeks and long, gray, straggling hair.

"I mind me when my own lass was no bigger nor this," said Sim.

Ralph did not answer, but turned his head aside and listened.

"She was her mammy's darling, too, she was."

Sim's voice was thick in his throat.

"And mine as well," he added. "We used to say to her, laughing and teasing like, 'Who will ye marry, Rotie?'—we called her Rotie then,—'who will ye marry, Rotie, when ye grow up to be a big, big woman?' 'My father,' she would say, and throw her little arms about my neck and kiss me."

Sim raised his hard fingers to his forehead to cover his eyes.

Ralph still sat silent, his head aside, looking into the fire.

"That's many and many a year agone; leastways, so it seems. My wife was living then. We were married in Gaskarth, but work was bad, and we packed up and went to live for a while in a great city, leagues and leagues to the south. And there my poor girl, Josephine—I called her Josie for short, and because it was more kind and close like—there my poor girl fell ill and died. Her face got paler day by day, but she kept a brave heart—she was just such like as Rotha that way—and she tended the house till the last, she did."

A louder burst of merriment than usual came from the distant room. The fellows were singing a snatch together.

"Do you know, Rotha called her mother, Josie, too. I checked her, I did; but my poor girl she said, said she, 'Never mind; the little one has been hearkening to yourself.' You'd have cried, I think, if you'd been with us the day she died. I was sitting at work, and she called out that she felt faint; so I jumped up and held her in my arms and sent our little Rotha for a neighbor. But it was too late. My poor darling was gone in a minute, and when the wee thing came running back to us, with red cheeks, she looked frightened, and cried, 'Josie! Josie!' 'My poor Rotie, my poor little lost Rotie,' I said, 'our dear Josie, she is in heaven!' Then the little one cried, 'No, no, no'; and wept, and wept till—till—I wept with her."

The door of the distant apartment must have been again thrown open, for a robustious fellow could be heard to sing a stave of a drinking song. The words came clearly in the silence that preceded a general outburst of chorus:—

"Then to the Duke fill, Fill up the glass; The son of our martyr, beloved of the King."

"We buried her there," continued Sim; "ay, we buried her in the town; and, with the crowds and the noise above her, there sleeps my brave Josie, and I shall see her face no more."

Ralph rose up, and walked to the door by which he and Sim had entered from the yard of the inn. He opened it and stood for a moment on the threshold. The snow was falling in thick flakes. Already it covered the ground and lay heavy on the roofs of the outhouses and on the boughs of the leafless trees. A great calm was on the earth and in the air.

* * * * *

Robbie speed on! Lose not an hour now, for an hour lost may be a life's loss.

* * * * *

Ralph was turning back into the room, and bolting the outer door, when the landlord entered hurriedly from the passage. He was excited.

"Is it not—captain, tell me—is it not Wy'bern—your father's home—Wy'bern, on Bracken Mere?"

"It was my father's home—why?"

"Then the bloodhounds are on your trail!"

The perspiration was standing in beads on Brown's forehead.

"They talk of nothing to each other but of a game that's coming on at Wy'bern, and what they'll do for some one that they never name. If they'd but let wit who he is I'd—I'd know them."

"Landlord, landlord!" cried a man whose uncertain footsteps could be heard in the passage,—"landlord, bring your two guests to us—bring them for a glass."

The fellow was making his way to the room into which Ralph and Sim had been hustled. The landlord slid out of it through the smallest aperture between the door and its frame that could discharge a man of his sturdy physique. When the door closed behind him he could be heard to protest against any intention of disturbing his visitors. The two gentlemen had made a long journey, travelling two nights and two days at a stretch; so they'd gone off to bed and were snoring hard by this time; the landlord could stake his solemn honor upon it.

The tipsy Royalist seemed content with the apology for non-appearance, and returned to his companions bellowing,—

"Let Tories guard the King; Let Whigs in halters swing."

Ralph walked uneasily across the room. Could it be that these men were already on their way to Wythburn to carry out the processes of the law with respect to himself and his family?

In another minute the landlord returned.

"It's as certain as the Lord's above us," he whispered. "They wanted to get to you to have you drink the King's health with them, and when I swore you were asleep they ax't if you had no horses with you. I said you had one horse. 'One horse among two,' they said, with a great goasteren laugh; 'why, then, they're Jock and his mither.' 'One horse,' I said, 'or maybe two.' 'We must have 'em,' they said; 'we take possession on 'em in the King's service. We've got to cross the fells to Wy'bern in the morning.'"

"What are they, Brown?"

"Musketeers, three of 'em, and ya sour fellow that limps of a leg; they call him Constable David."

"Let them have the horses. It will save trouble to you."

Then turning to Sim, Ralph added, "We must be stirring betimes to-morrow, old friend; the daybreak must see us on the road. The snow will be thick in the morning, and perhaps the horses would have hindered us. Everything is for the best."

The landlord lifted his curly-headed son (now fast asleep) from Sim's knee, and left the room.

Sim's excitement was plainly visible, and even Ralph could not conceal his own agitation. Was he to be too late to do what it had been in his mind to do?

"Did you say Saturday week next? It is Tuesday to-day," said Ralph.

"A week come Saturday—that was what Rotha told me."

"It's strange—very strange!"

Ralph satisfied himself at length that the men in the adjoining, room were but going off to Wythburn nine days in advance in order to be ready to carry into effect the intended confiscation immediately their instructions should reach them. The real evils by which Ralph was surrounded were too numerous to allow of his wasting much apprehension on possible ones.

The din of the drinkers subsided at length, and toper after toper was helped to his bed.

Then blankets were brought into Ralph and Sim, and rough shakedowns were made for them on the broad settles. Sim lay down and fell asleep. Ralph walked to and fro for hours.

The quiet night was far worn towards morning when Brown, the landlord, tapped at the door and entered.

"Not a wink will come to me," he said, and sat down before the smouldering fire.

Ralph continued his perambulation to and fro, to and fro. He thought again of what had occurred, and of what must soon occur to him and his—of Wilson's death—his father's death—the flight of the horse on the fells—all, all, centring somehow in himself. There must be sin involved, though he knew not how—sin and its penalty. It was more and more clear that God's hand was on him—on him. Every act of his own hand turned to evil, and those whom he would bless were cursed. And this cruel scheme of evil—this fate—could it not be broken? Was there no propitiation? Yes, there was; there must be. That thing which he was minded to do would be expiation in the sight of Heaven. God would accept it for an atonement—yes; and there was soft balm like a river of morning air in the thought.

* * * * *

Sim slept on, and Brown crouched over the fire, with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. There was not a motion within the house or without; the world lay still and white like death.

Yes, it must be so; it must be that his life was to be the ransom.

And it should be paid! Then the clouds would rise and the sun appear.

"Fate that impedes, make way, make way! Mother, Rotha, Willy, wait, wait! I come, I come."

Ralph's face brightened with the ecstasy of reflection. Was it frenzy in which his morbid idea had ended? If so, it was the frenzy of a self-sacrifice that was sublimity itself.

At one moment Brown stirred in his seat and held his head aside, as though listening for some sound in the far distance.

"Did you hear it?" he asked, in a whisper that had an accent of fear.

"Hear what?" asked Ralph.

"The neigh of the horse," said Brown. "I heard nothing" replied Ralph, and walked to the window, and listened. "What horse?" he asked, turning about.

"Nay, none of us knows rightly. It's a horse that flies ower the fell o' nights, and whinnies and whinnies."

"One of the superstitions of your dale,—an old wife's tale, I suppose. Has it been heard for years?"

"No, nor for weeks neither."

Brown resumed his position in front of the fire, and the hours rolled on.

When the first glimmer of gray appeared in the east, Sim was awakened, and Ralph and he, after eating a hurried breakfast, started away on foot.

* * * * *

Where is Robbie now? A life hangs on the fortunes of this very hour!

* * * * *

"Tell them the horses came from the Woodman at Kendal," said Ralph as he parted from his old comrade. "You've done better than save our lives, Brown, God bless you!"

"That's a deal more nor my wages, captain," said the honest fellow.

The snow that had fallen during the night lay several inches deep on the roads, and the hills were white as far up as the eye could trace them. The dawn came slowly. The gray bars were long in stretching over the sky, and longer in making way for the first glint of mingled yellow and pink. But the sunrise came at length. The rosy glaives floated upwards over a lake of light, and the broad continents of cloud fell apart. Another day had breathed through another night.

Ralph and Sim walked long in silence. The snow was glistening like a million diamonds over the breast of a mountain, and the upright crags, on which it could not rest, were glittering like shields of steel.

"How beautiful the world is!" said Ralph.

"Ey, but it is that, after all," said Sim.

"After all," repeated Ralph.

They had risen to the summit of a little hill, and they could see as they began to descend on the other side that the snow lay in a deep drift at the bottom.

At the same moment they caught sight of some curious object lying in the distance.

"What thing is that, half covered with the snow?" asked Sim.

"I cannot say. We'll soon see."

Ralph spoke with panting breath.

"Why, it's a horse!" said Sim.

"Left out on such a night, too," said Ralph.

His face quivered with emotion. When he spoke again his voice was husky and his face livid.

"Sim, what is that on its back?"

"Surely it's a pack, the black thing across it," said Sim.

Ralph caught his breath and stopped. Then he ran forward.

"Great God!" he cried, "Betsy! It is Betsy, with the coffin."



CHAPTER XXXIII. SEPULTURE AT LAST.

Truly, it was Betsy, the mare which they had lost on that fearful day at the Stye Head Pass. Her dread burden, the coffin containing the body of Angus Ray, was still strapped to her back. None had come nigh to her, or this must have been removed. She looked worn and tired as she rose now to her feet amid the snow. The old creature was docile enough this morning, and when Ralph patted her head, she seemed to know the hand that touched her.

She had crossed a range of mountains, and lived, no doubt, on the thin grass of the fells. She must have famished quickly had the snow fallen before.

Ralph was profoundly agitated. Never before had Sim seen him betray such deep emotion. If the horse with its burden had been a supernatural presence, the effect of its appearance on Ralph had not been greater. At first clutching the bridle, he looked like a man who was puzzled to decide whether, after all, this thing that had occurred were not rather a spectre that had wandered out of his dreams than a tangible reality, a blessed and gracious reality, a mercy for which he ought there and then to fling himself in gratitude on the ground, even though the snow drifted over him forever and made that act his last. Then the tears that tenderer moments could not bring stood in his enraptured eyes. Those breathless instants were as the mirror of what seemed to be fifty years of fear and hope.

Ralph determined that no power on earth should remove his hand from the bridle until his father had at length been buried. The parish of Askham must have its church and churchyard, and Angus Ray should be buried there. They had not yet passed by the church—it must be still in front of them—and with the horse and its burden by their side the friends walked on.

When Ralph found voice to speak, he said, "Wednesday—then it is three weeks to-day since we lost her, and for three weeks my father has waited sepulture!"

Presently they came within sight of a rude chapel that stood at the meeting of two roads. A finger-post was at the angle, with arms pointing in three directions. The chapel was a low whitewashed Gothic building, with a little belfry in which there hung no bell. At its rear was a house with broken gablets and round dormers stuck deep into the thatch. A burial ground lay in front of both edifices, and looked dreary and chilling now, with the snow covering its many mounds and dripping from the warm wood of its rude old crosses.

"This will be the minister's house," said Ralph.

They drew up in front and knocked at the door of a deep porch. An old man opened it and looked closely at his visitors through sharp, watchful eyes. He wore a close jerkin of thick blue homespun, and his broad-topped boots were strapped round his short pantaloons.

"Does the priest live here?" said Ralph, from the road, where he held the mare's head.

"No priest lives here," said the old man, somewhat curtly.

"Does the minister?"

"No, nor a minister."

The changes of ecclesiastical administration had been so frequent of late that it was impossible to say what formula was now in the ascendent. Ralph understood the old man's laconic answers to imply a remonstrance, and he tried again.

"Do you preach in this church?"

"I preach? No; I practise."

It transpired after much wordy fencing, which was at least as irritating as amusing to a man in Ralph's present temper, that there was no minister now in possession of the benefice, and that the church had for some months been closed, the spiritual welfare of the parishioners being consequently in a state of temporary suspension. The old man who replied to Ralph's interrogations proved to be the parish clerk, and whether his duties were also suspended—whether the parishioners did not die, and did not require to be buried—during the period in which the parish was deprived of a parson, was a question of more consequence to Ralph than the cause of the religious bankruptcy which the old man described.

Ralph explained in a few words the occasion of his visit, and begged the clerk to dig a grave at once.

"I fear it will scarce conform to the articles," the clerk said with a grave shake of his old head; "I'm sore afraid I'll suffer a penalty if it's known."

Ralph passed some coins into the old man's hand with as little ostentation as possible; whereupon the clerk, much mollified, continued,—

"But it's not for me to deny to any Christian a Christian burial—that is to say, as much of it as stands in no need of the book. Sir, I'll be with you in a crack. Go round, sir, to the gate."

Ralph and his companion did as they were bidden, and in a few minutes the old clerk came hurrying towards them from a door at the back of his house that looked into the churchyard.

He had a spade over his shoulder and a great key in his hand.

Putting the key into a huge padlock, he turned back its rusty bolt, and the gate swung stiff on its hinges, which were thick with moss.

Then Ralph, still holding the mare's head, walked into the churchyard with Sim behind him.

"Here's a spot which has never been used," said the old man, pointing to a patch close at hand where long stalks of yarrow crept up through the snow. "It's fresh mould, sir, and on the bright days the sun shines on it."

"Let it be here," said Ralph.

The clerk immediately cleared away the snow, marked out his ground with the edge of the spade, and began his work.

Ralph and Sim, with Betsy, stood a pace or two apart. It was still early morning, and none came near the little company gathered there.

Now and again the old man paused in his work to catch his breath or to wipe the perspiration from his brow. His communicativeness at such moments of intermission would have been almost equal to his reticence at an earlier stage, but Ralph was in no humor to encourage his garrulity, and Sim stood speechless, with something like terror in his eyes. "Yes, we've had no minister since Michaelmas; that, you know, was when the new Act came In," said the clerk.

"What Act?" Ralph asked.

"Why, sir, you never mean that you don't know about the Act of Uniformity?"

"That's what I do mean, my friend," said Ralph.

"Don't know the Act of Uniformity! Have you heard of the Five Mile Bill?"

"No."

"Nor the Test Bill that the Bishop wants to get afoot?"

"No."

"Deary me, deary me," said the clerk, with undisguised horror at Ralph's ignorance of the projected ecclesiastical enactments of his King and country. Then, with a twinkle in the corner of his upward eye as he held his head aside, the old man said,—

"Perhaps your honor has been away in foreign parts?"

Ralph had to decline this respectable cover for his want of familiarity with matters which were obviously vital concerns, and perhaps the subjects of daily conversation, with his interlocutor.

The clerk had resumed his labors. When he paused again it was in order to enlighten Ralph's ignorance on these solemn topics.

"You see, sir, the old 'piscopacy is back again, and the John Presbyters that joined it are snug in their churches, but the Presbyters that would not join it are turned out of their livings. There—that's the Act of Uniformity."

"The Act of Non-Conformity, I should say," replied Ralph.

"Well, the Jack Presbyters are not to be allowed within five miles of a market town—that's the new Five Mile Bill. And they are not to be made schoolmasters or tutors, or to hold public offices, unless they take the sacrament of the Church—and that's what the Bishop calls his Test Act; but he'll scarce get it this many a long year, say I—no, not he."

The clerk had offered his lucid exposition with the air of one who could afford to be modestly sensible of the superiority of his knowledge.

"And when he does get it he'll want an Act more, so far as I can see," said Ralph, "and that's a Burial Act—an Act to bury the Presbyters alive. They'd be full as well buried, I think.".

A shrewd glance from the old man's quick eyes showed that at that moment he had arrived at one of three conclusions—that Ralph himself was a Presbyter or a Roundhead, or both.

"Our minister was a Presbyter," he observed aloud, "and when the Act came in he left his benefice."

But Ralph was not minded to pursue the subject.

The grave was now ready; it had required to be long and wide, but not deep.

The snow was beginning to fall again.

"Hard work on a morning like this," said the clerk, coughing as he threw aside his spade. "This is the sort of early morning that makes an old man like me catch his breath. And I haven't always been parish clerk and dug graves. I was schoolmaster till Michaelmas."

It was time to commit to the grave the burden which had passed three long weeks on the back of the mare. Not until this moment did Ralph's hand once relax its firm grip of Betsy's bridle. Loosing it now, he applied himself to the straps and ropes that bound the coffin. When all was made clear, he prepared to lift the body to the ground. It was large and heavy, and required the hands of Sim and the clerk as well.

By their united efforts the coffin was raised off the horse's back and lowered. The three men were in the act of doing this, when Betsy, suddenly freed from the burden which she had carried, pranced aside, looked startled, plunged through the gate, and made off down the road.

"Let her go," said Ralph, and turned his attention once more to what now lay on the ground.

Then Angus Ray was lowered into his last home, and the flakes of snow fell over him like a white and silent pall.

Ralph stood aside while the old man threw back the earth. It fell from the spade in hollow thuds.

Sim crouched beside a stone, and looked on with frightened eyes.

The sods were replaced; there was a mound the more in the little churchyard of Askham, and that was the end. The clerk shouldered his spade and prepared to lock the gate.

It was then they were aware that there came from over their heads a sound like the murmuring of a brook under the leaves of June; like the breaking of deep waters at a weir; like the rolling of foam-capped wavelets against an echoing rock. Look up! Every leafless bough of yonder lofty elder-tree is thick with birds. Listen! A moment, and their song has ceased; they have risen on the wing; they are gone like a cloud Of black rain through the white feathery air. Then silence everywhere.

Was it God's sign and symbol—God's message to the soul of this stricken man? God's truce?

Who shall say it was not!

"A load is lifted off my heart," said Ralph. He was thinking of the terrible night he had spent on the fells. And indeed there was the light of another look in his face. His father had sepulture. God had shown him this mercy as a sign that what he purposed to do ought to be done. Such was Ralph's reading of the accidental finding of the horse.

They bade good morning to the old man and left him. Then they walked to the angle of the roads where the guidepost stood. The arms were covered with the snow, and Ralph climbed on to the stone wall behind and brushed their letters clear.

"To Kendal." That pointed in the direction from whence they came.

"To Gaskarth."

"That's our road," said Sim.

"No," said Ralph; "this is it—'To Penrith and Carlisle.'"

What chance remained now to Robbie?



CHAPTER XXXIV. FATE THAT IMPEDES, FALL BACK.

A few minutes after the coach arrived at Mardale, Robbie was toiling along in the darkness over an unfamiliar road. That tiresome old headache was coming back to him, and he lifted a handful of snow now and again to cool his aching forehead.

It was a weary, weary tramp, such as only young, strong limbs, and a stout heart could have sustained. Villages were passed, but they lay as quiet as the people that slumbered in them. Five hours had gone by before Robbie encountered a living soul.

As daylight dawned the snow ceased to fall, and when Robbie had reached Askham the late sun had risen. He was now beginning to feel the need of food, and stepping into a cottage he asked an old daleswoman who lived there if he might trouble her in the way of trade to make him some breakfast. The good soul took compassion on the young man's weary face, and said he was welcome to such as she had. When Robbie had eaten a bowl of porridge and milk, the fatigue of his journey quite overcame him. Even while answering his humble hostess's questions in broken sentences he fell asleep in his chair. Out of pity the old woman allowed him to sleep on. "The lad's fair done out," she said, glancing at his haggard face. It was later than noon when he awoke.

Alas! what then was lost forever! What was gone beyond recall!

Starting up in annoyance at the waste of time, he set off afresh, and, calling at the inn as he passed by, he learned to his great vexation that if he had come on there when, at sunrise, he went into the cottage a hundred yards away, he must have been within easy reach of Sim and Ralph. The coach, nevertheless, had not yet got to this stage, and that fact partially reconciled Robbie to the delay.

He had little doubt which path to take when he reached the angle of the roads at the corner of the churchyard. If Ralph had taken the road leading to Gaskarth he might be safe, but if he had taken the road leading to Carlisle he must be in danger. Therefore Robbie determined to follow the latter.

He made no further inquiries until he had walked through the market town of Penrith, and had come out on the turnpike to the north of it. Then he asked the passers-by who seemed to come some distance if they had encountered two such men as he was in search of. In this way he learned many particulars of the toilsome journey that was being made by his friends. Sim's strength had failed him, and Ralph had wished to leave him at a lodging on the road while he himself pushed forward to Carlisle. But Sim had prayed to be taken on, and eventually a countryman going to the Carlisle market, and with space for one only on his cart, had offered to give Sim a lift. Of this tender the friends had thankfully availed themselves.

It was only too clear from every detail which Robbie gleaned that Ralph was straining every muscle to reach Carlisle. What terrible destiny could it be that was thus compelling him to fly, perhaps to his death!

Mile after mile Robbie plodded along the weary road. He was ill, though he had scarcely realized that fact. He took many a rest.

Daylight faded, and once more the night came on, but still the brave young dalesman held to his purpose. The snow had become crisp and easier to the foot, but the way was long and the wayfarer was sick at heart.

Morning came at last, and when the mists had risen above the meadows, Robbie saw before him, nigh at hand, the ancient city of Carlisle. A presentiment that he came too late took the joy out of the long-expected sight.

Was the sky gloomy? Did a storm threaten? Were the murmuring rivers and the roaring ghylls telling to Robbie's ear the hopeless tale that lay cold and silent at his heart? No!

The sun arose and sparkled over the white landscape. It thawed the stiff boughs of the trees, and the snow dropped from them in gracious drops like dew. All nature seemed glad—cruelly, mockingly, insensately glad—lightsome, jubilant. The birds forsook their frost-bound nests, and sang cheerily in the clear morning air. One little linnet—so very little—perched on a delicate silver birch, and poured its full soul out of its liquid throat.

Robbie toiled painfully along with a feeble step, and with nerveless despondency on every feature of his face—his coat flying open to his woollen shirt; one of his hands thrust with his pipe into his belt; the other hand dragging after him a heavy staff; his cap pushed back from his hot forehead.

When he walked listlessly into Carlisle it was through the Botcher-gate on the south. The clock of the cathedral was striking ten. Robbie passed along the streets scarcely knowing his own errand or destination. Without seeking for it he came upon the old Town Hall. Numbers of people were congregated in the Market Place outside, and crowds were hurrying up from the adjacent streets. Robbie had only once been in Carlisle before, but he felt convinced that these must be unaccustomed occurrences. He asked a townsman standing near him what the tumult meant. The man could tell him nothing. Then he asked another and another spectator of the scene in which there appeared to be nothing to see, but all seemed as ignorant as himself. Nevertheless there was an increasing commotion.