An old stone cross, raised high on steps, stood in the Market Place, and Robbie walked up to it and leaned against it. Then he was conscious that word had gone through the crowd that a famous culprit had surrendered. According to some authorities the culprit was a thief, according to others a murderer; some said that he was a forger, and some said a traitor, and some that he was another of the regicides, and would be sent on to London.

On one point only was there any kind of agreement, and that was that the culprit had voluntarily surrendered to a warrant issued for his arrest.

The commotion reached its climax when the doors of the old hall were seen to open and a company of soldiers and civilians passed out.

It was a guard for the prisoner, who was being taken to the common gaol to await his trial.

A dull, aching, oppressive pain lay at Robbie's heart. He climbed on to the cross and looked over the people's heads at the little company.

The prisoner was Ralph Ray. With a firm step, with upright and steadfast gaze, he walked between two soldiers; and close at his heels, with downcast eyes, Simeon Stagg toiled along.

Robbie's quest was at an end.



CHAPTER XXXV. ROBBIE'S QUEST ENDED.

It was all over now. The weary chase was done, and Robbie Anderson came late. Ralph had surrendered, and a sadder possibility than Robbie guessed at, a more terrible catastrophe than Rotha Stagg or Willy Ray had feared or looked for, lay in the sequel now to be unfolded.

The soldiers and their prisoner had gone; the crowd had gone with them, and Robbie stood alone in the Market Place. From his station on the steps of the cross he turned and looked after the motley company. They took the way down English Street.

How hot and tired his forehead felt! It had ached before, but now it burned like fire. Robbie pressed it hard against the cold stone of the cross. Then he walked aimlessly away. He had nowhere to go; he had nothing to do; and hour after hour he rambled through the narrow streets of the old town. The snow still hung in heavy flakes from the overhanging eaves and porches of the houses, and toppled at intervals in thick clots on to the streets. The causeways were swept dry.

Up and down, through Blackfriars Street, past the gaol that stood on the ruins of the monastery, along Abbey Street, and past the cathedral, across Head Lane, and into the Market Place again; then along the banks of the Caldew, and over the western wall that looked across the hills that stretched into the south; round Shaddon-gate to the bridge that lay under the shadow of the castle, and up to the river Eden and the wide Scotch-gate to the north. On and on, he knew not where, he cared not wherefore; on and on, till his weary limbs were sinking beneath him, until the long lines of houses, with their whitened timbers standing out from their walls, and their pediments and the windows that were dormered into their roofs seemed to reel about him and dance in fantastic figures before his eyes.

The incident of that morning had created an impression among the townspeople. There was a curious absence of unanimity as to the crime with which the prisoner would stand charged; but Robbie noticed that everybody agreed that it was something terrible, and that nobody seemed to suffer much in good humor by reason of the fate that hung over a fellow-creature. "Very shocking, very. Come, John, let's have a glass together!"

Robbie had turned into a byway that bore the name of King's Arms Lane. He paused without purpose or thought before a narrow recess in which a quaint old house stood back from the street. With its low flat windows deeply recessed into the stone, its curious heads carved long ago into bosses that were now ruined by frost and rain, it might have been a wing of the old abbey that had wandered somehow away. A little man, far in years, pottered about in front, brushing the snow and cleaning the windows.

"Yon man is just in time for the 'sizes," said a young fellow as he swung by with another, who was pointing to the house and muttering something that was inaudible to Robbie.

"What place is this?" said Robbie, when they had gone, stepping up to the gate and addressing the old man within.

"The judges' lodgings surely," replied the caretaker, lifting his eyes from his shovel with a look of surprise at the question.

"And the 'sizes, when are they on?"

"Next week; that's when they begin."

The ancient custodian was evidently not of a communicative temperament, and Robbie, who was in no humor for gossip, turned away.

It was of little use to remain longer. All was over. The worst had come to the worst. He might as well turn towards home. But how hot his forehead felt! Could it have been that ducking his head in the river at Wythburn had caused it to burn like a furnace?

Robbie thought of Sim. Why had he not met him in his long ramble through the town? They might have gone home together.

At the corner of Botcher-gate and English Street there stood two shops, and as Robbie passed them the shopkeepers were engaged in an animated conversation on the event of the morning. "I saw him go by with the little daft man; yes, I did. I was just taking down my shutters, as it might be so," said one of the two men, imitating the piece of industry in question.

"Deary me! What o'clock might that be?" asked the other.

"Well, as I say, I was just taking down my shutters, as it might be so," imitating the gesture again. "I'd not sanded my floor, nor yet swept out my shop; so it might have been eight, and it might have been short of eight, and maybe it was somewhere between the three quarters and the hour—that's as I reckon it."

"Deary me! deary me!" responded the other shopkeeper, whose blood was obviously curdling at the bare recital of these harrowing details.

Robbie walked on. Eight o'clock! Then he had been but two hours late—two poor little hours!

Robbie reflected with vexation and bitterness on the many hours which must have been wasted or ill spent since he left Wythburn on Sunday. He begrudged the time that he had given to rest and sleep.

Well, well, it was all over now; and out of Carlisle, through the Botcher-gate, and down the road up which he came, Robbie turned with weary feet. The snow was thawing fast, and the meadows on every side lay green in the sunshine. How full of grace they were! How cruel in her very gladness Nature still seemed to be!

Never for an instant did Robbie lose the sense of a great calamity hanging above him, but a sort of stupefaction was creeping over him nevertheless. He busied himself with reflections on every minor feature of the road. Had he marked this beech before, or that oak? Had he seen this gate on his way into Carlisle, or passed through that bar? A boy on the road was driving a herd of sheep before him. One drift of the sheep was marked with a red cross, and the other drift with a black patch. Robbie counted the two drifts of sheep one by one, and wondered whose they were and where they were going.

Then he sat down to rest, and let his forehead drop on to the grass to cool it. When he rose again the road seemed to swim around him. A farm servant in a smock was leading two horses, and as he passed he bade the wayfarer, "Good afternoon." Robbie went on without seeming to hear, but when the man had got beyond the sound of his voice he turned as if by sudden impulse, and, waving his hand with a gesture of cordiality, he returned the salutation.

Then he sat down once more and held his head between his hands. It was beating furiously, and his body, too, from head to foot, was changing rapidly from hot to cold. At length the consciousness took possession of him that he was ill. "I doubt I'm badly," he thought, and tried to realize his position. Presently he attempted to rise and call back the countryman with the horses. Lifting himself on one trembling knee, he waved a feeble arm spasmodically in the air, and called and called again. The voice startled him; it seemed not to be his own. His strength was spent. He sank back and remembered no more.

The man in the smock was gone, but another countryman was coming down the road at that moment from the direction of Carlisle. This was no other than little blink-eyed Reuben Thwaite. He was sitting muffled up in his farm wagon and singing merry snatches to keep the cold out of his lungs. Reuben had been at Carlisle over night with sundry hanks of thread, which he had sold to the linen weavers. He had found a good market by coming so far, and he was returning to Wythburn in high feckle. When he came (as he would have said) "ebbn fornenst" Robbie lying at the roadside, he jumped down from his seat. "What poor lad's this? Why, what! What say! What!" holding himself back to grasp the situation, "Robbie Anderson!"

Then a knowing smile overspread Reuben's wrinkled features as he stooped to pat and push the prostrate man, in an effort to arouse him to consciousness.

"Tut, Robbie, lad; Robbie, ma lad! This wark will nivver do, Robbie! Brocken loose agen, aye! Come, Robbie, up, lad!"

Robbie lay insensible to all Reuben's appeals, whether of the nature of banter or half-serious menace.

"Weel, weel, the lad has had a fair cargo intil him this voyage, anyway."

There was obviously no likelihood of awakening Robbie, so with a world of difficulty, with infinite puffing and fuming and perspiring, and the help of a passing laborer, Reuben contrived to get the young fellow lifted bodily into his cart. Lying there at full length, a number of the empty thread sacks were thrown over the insensible man, and then Reuben mounted to his seat and drove off.

"Poor old Martha Anderson!" muttered Reuben to himself. "It's weel she's gone, poor body! It wad nigh have brocken her heart—and it's my belief 'at it did."

They had not gone far before Reuben himself, with the inconsistency of more pretentious moralists, felt an impulse to indulge in that benign beverage of which he had just deplored the effects. Drawing up with this object at a public house that stood on the road, he called for a glass of hot spirits. He was in the act of taking it from the hands of the landlord, when a stage-coach drove up, and the coachman and two of the outside passengers ordered glasses of brandy.

"From Carlisle, eh?" said one of the latter, eyeing Reuben from where he sat and speaking with an accent which the little dalesman knew to be "foreign to these parts."

Reuben assented with a satisfied nod and a screwing up of one cheek into a wrinkle about the eyes. He was thinking of the good luck of his visit.

"What's the news there?" asked the other passenger, with an accent which the little dalesman was equally certain was not foreign to these parts.

"Threed's up a gay penny!" said Reuben.

"Any news at the Castle the day?"

"The Castle? No—that's to say, yes. I did hear 'at a man had given hissel' up, but I know nowt aboot it."

"Do you know his name?"

"No."

"Be quick in front, my gude man; let's be off; we've lost time enough with the snow already."

The coachman had mounted to his box, and was wrapping a sheepskin about his knees.

"What's that you have there?" he said to Reuben.

"Him? Why, that's Robbie Anderson, poor fellow. One o' them lads, thoo knows, that have no mair nor one enemy in all the world, and that's theirselves."

"Out for a spoag, eh?"

"Come, get along, man, and let's have no more botherment," cried one of the impatient passengers.

Two or three miles farther down the road Reuben was holding in his horse, in order to cross a river, when he thought that, in the comparative silence of his springless wagon, he heard Robbie speaking behind him.

"It's donky weather, this," Robbie was saying.

"Ey, wet and sladderish," said Reuben, in an insinuating tone, "baith inside and out, baith under foot and ower head."

"It was north of the bridge," Robbie whispered.

"What were—Carlisle?" asked Reuben in his most facetious vein.

"It blows a bit on the Stye Head to-day, Ralph. The way's ower narrow. I can never chain the young horse. Steady, Betsy; steady, lass; steady—"

"Why, the lad's ram'lin'," said Reuben to himself.

"It was fifty strides north of the bridge," Robbie whispered again; and then lifting his voice he cried, "She's gone; she's gone."

"He's ram'lin' for sure."

The truth now dawned on Reuben that on the present occasion at least Robbie was not drunk, but sick. With the illogical perversity of some healthy people, he thought to rally the ailing man out of his ailment, whatever it might be; so he expended all the facetiousness of which he was master on Robbie's unconscious figure.

Reuben's well-meant efforts were of no avail. Robbie alternately whispered, "It was north of the bridge," and chuckled, "Ah, ah! there's Garth, Garth—but I downed him, the dummel head!"

The little dalesman relinquished as hopeless all further attempt at rational converse, and gave himself the solemn assurance, conveyed to his acute intelligence by many grave shakes of the head, that "summat was ailin' the lad, after all."

Then they drove for hours in silence. It was dark when they passed through Threlkeld, and turned into the Vale of Wanthwaite on their near approach to Wythburn.

"I scarce know rightly where Robbie bides, now old Martha's dead," thought Reuben; "I'll just slip up the lonnin to Shoulth'et and ask."



CHAPTER XXXVI. ROTHA'S CONFESSION.

And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain. Coleridge.

When Reuben Thwaite formed this resolution he was less than a mile from Shoulthwaite. In the house on the Moss, Rotha was then sitting alone, save for the silent presence of the unconscious Mrs. Ray. The day's work was done. It had been market day, and Willy Ray had not returned from Gaskarth. The old house was quiet within, and not a breath of wind was stirring without. There was no sound except the crackling of the dry boughs on the fire and the hollow drip of the melting snow.

By the chair from which Mrs. Ray gazed vacantly and steadily Rotha sat with a book in her hand. She tried to read, but the words lost their meaning. Involuntarily her eyes wandered from the open page. At length the old volume, with its leathern covers clasped together with their great brass clasp, dropped quietly into the girl's lap.

At that moment there was a sound of footsteps in the courtyard. Getting up with an anxious face, Rotha walked to the window and drew the blind partly aside.

It was Matthew Branthwaite.

"How fend ye, lass?" he said on opening the door; "rubbin' on all reet? The roads are varra drewvy after the snow," he added, stamping the clods from his boots. Then looking about, "Hesn't our Liza been here to-neet?"

"Not yet," Rotha answered.

"Whearaway is t' lass? I thought she was for slipping off to Shoulth'et. But then she's olas gitten her best bib and tucker on nowadays."

"She'll be here soon, no doubt," said Rotha, giving Matthew his accustomed chair facing Mrs. Ray.

"She's a rare brattlecan to chatter is our Liza. I telt her she was ower keen to come away with all the ins and oots aboot the constables coming to Wy'bern yesterday. She had it pat, same as if she'd seen it in prent. That were bad news, and the laal hizzy ran bull-neck to gi'e it oot."

"She meant no harm, Matthew."

"But why duddent she mean some good and run bull-neck to-neet to bring ye the bettermer news?"

"Better news, Matthew? What is it?" asked Rotha eagerly, but with more apprehension than pleasure in her tone.

"Why, that the constables hev gone," said Matthew.

"Gone!"

"Gone! Another of the same sort came to-day to leet them, and away they've gone together."

Matthew clearly expected an outburst of delight at his intelligence. "What dusta say to that, lass?" he added between the puffs of a pipe that he was lighting from a candle. Then, raising his eyes and looking up at Rotha, he said, "Why, what's this? What ails thee? Ey! What's wrang?"

"Gone, you say?" said Rotha. "I fear that is the worst news of all, Matthew."

But now there was the rattle of a wagon on the lonnin. A moment later the door was thrown open, and Liza Branthwaite stood in the porch with Reuben Thwaite behind her.

"Here's Robbie Anderson back home in Reuben's cart," said Liza, catching her breath.

"Fetch him in," said Matthew. "Is he grown shy o' t'yance?"

"That's mair nor my share, Mattha," said Reuben. "The lad's dylt out—fair beat, I tell thee; I picked him up frae the brae side."

"He can scarce move hand or foot," cried Liza. "Come, quick!"

Rotha was out at the wagon in a moment.

"He's ill: he's unconscious," she said. "Where did you find him?"

"A couple of mile or so outside Carlisle," answered Reuben.

Rotha staggered, and must have fallen but for Matthew, who at the moment came up behind her.

"I'll tell thee what it is, lass," said the old man, "thoo'rt like to be bad thysel', and varra bad, too. Go thy ways back to the fire."

"Summat ails Robbie, no doubt about it," said Reuben.

"Of course summat ails him," said Mattha, with an insinuating emphasis on the word. "He nivver were an artistic drunkard, weren't Bobbie."

"He's been ram'lin' and ram'lin' all the way home," continued Reuben. "He's telt ower and ower agen of summat 'at were fifty yards north of the bridge."

"We must take him home," said Liza, who came hurrying from the house with a blanket over her arm. "Here, cover him with this, Rotha can spare it."

In a minute more Robbie's insensible form was wrapped round and round.

"Give him room to breathe," said Mattha; "I declare ye're playing at pund-o'-mair-weight with the lad!" he added as Rotha came up with a sheepskin and a shawl.

"The night is cold, and he has all but three miles to ride yet!" said the girl.

"He lodges with 'Becca Rudd; let's be off," said Liza, clambering into the cart by the step at the shaft. "Come up, father; quick!"

"What, Bobbie, Bobbie, but this is bad wark, bad wark," said Mattha, when seated in the wagon. "Hod thy tail in the watter, lad, and there's hope for thee yit."

With this figurative expression Mattha settled himself for the drive. Rotha turned to Reuben Thwaite.

"At Carlisle, did you hear anything—meet anybody?" she asked.

"Baith," said Reuben, with a twinkle which was lost in the darkness.

"I mean from Wythburn. Did you meet anybody from—did you see Ralph or my father?"

"Nowther."

"Nor hear of them?"

"No—wait—deary me, deary me, now 'at I mind it—I nivver thought of it afore—I heeard 'at a man had been had up at the Toon Hall and taken to the gaol. It cannot be 'at the man were—no, no—I'm ram'lin' mysel sure-ly."

"Ralph; it was Ralph!" said Rotha, trembling visibly. "Be quick. Good night!" "Ralph at Carlisle!" said Mattha. "Weel, weel; after word comes weird. That's why the constables are gone, and that's why Robbie's come. Weel, weel! Up with thee, Reuben, and let us try the legs of this auld dobbin of thine."

How Rotha got back into the house that night she never knew. She could not remember to have heard the rattle of the springless cart as it was being driven off. All was for the moment a blank waste.

When she recovered consciousness she was sitting by the side of Mrs. Ray, with her arms about the neck of the invalid and her head on the unconscious breast. The soulless eyes looked with a meaningless stare at the girl's troubled face.

The agony of suspense was over, and the worst had happened. What now remained to her to say to Willy? He knew nothing of what she had done. Sim's absence had been too familiar an occurrence to excite suspicion, and Robbie Anderson had not been missed. What should she say?

This was the night of Thursday. During the long hours of the weary days since Sunday, Rotha had conjured up again and again a scene overflowing with delight, in which she should tell Willy everything. This was to be when her father or Robbie or both returned, and the crown of her success was upon her. But what now was the word to say?

The noise of wheels approaching startled the girl out of her troubled dream. Willy was coming home. In another minute he was in the house.

"Rotha, Rotha," he cried excitedly, "I've great news, great news."

"What news?" asked Rotha, not daring to look up.

"Great news," repeated Willy.

Lifting her eyes furtively to his face, Rotha saw that, like his voice, it was brimming over with delight.

"The bloodhounds are gone," he said, and, throwing off his cloak and leggings, he embraced the girl and kissed her and laughed the laugh of a happy man. Then he hurried out to see to his horse.

What was Rotha to do? What was she to say? This mistake of Willy's made her position not less than terrible. How was she to tell him that his joyousness was misplaced? If he had come to her with a sad face she might then have told him all—yes, all the cruel truth! If he had come to her with reproaches on his tongue, how easily she might have unburdened her heavy heart! But this laughter and these kisses worked like madness in her brain.

The minutes flew like thought, and Willy was back in the house.

"I thought they dare not do it. You'll remember I told them so. Ah! ah! they find I was in the right."

Willy was too much excited with his own reading of this latest incident to sit in one seat for two minutes together. He walked up and down the room, laughing sometimes, and sometimes pausing to pat his mother's head.

It was fortunate for Rotha that she had to busy herself with the preparations for Willy's supper, and that this duty rendered less urgent the necessity for immediate response to his remarks. Willy, on his part, was in no mood at present to indulge in niceties of observation, and Rotha's perturbation passed for some time unnoticed.

"Ralph will be back with us soon, let us hope," he said. "There's no doubt but we do miss him, do we not?"

"Yes," Rotha answered, leaning as much as possible over the fire that she was mending.

The tone of the reply made an impression on Willy. In a moment more he appeared to realize that there, had throughout been something unusual in the girl's demeanor.

"Not well, Rotha?" he asked in a subdued tone. It had flashed across his mind that perhaps her father was once more in some way the cause of her trouble.

"Oh, very well!" she answered, throwing up her head with a little touch of forced gayety.

"Why, there are tears in your eyes, girl. No? Oh, but there are!" They are tears of joy, he thought. She loves Ralph as a brother. "I laugh when I'm happy, Rotha; it seems that you cry."

"Do I?" she answered, and wondered if the merciful Father above would ever, ever, ever let this bitter hour pass by.

"No, it's worry, Rotha, that's it; you're not well, that's the truth."

Willy would have been satisfied to let the explanation resolve itself into this, but Rotha broke silence, saying, "What if it were not good news—"

The words were choking her, and she stopped.

"Not good news—what news?" asked Willy, half muttering the girl's words in a bewildered way.

"The news that the constables have gone."

"Gone! What is it? What do you mean, Rotha?"

"What if the constables have gone," said the girl, struggling with her emotion, "only because—what if they have gone—because—because Ralph is taken."

"Taken! Where? What are you thinking of?"

"And what if Ralph is to be charged, not with treason—no, but with—with murder? Oh, Willy!" the girl cried in her distress, throwing away all disguise, "it is true, true; it is true."

Willy sat down stupefied. With a wild and rigid look, he stared at Rotha as they sat face to face, eye to eye. He said nothing. A sense of horror mastered him.

"And this is not all," continued Rotha, the tears rolling down her cheeks. "What would you say of the person who did it—of the person who put Ralph in the way of this—this death?" cried the girl, now burying her face in her hands.

Willy's lips were livid. They moved as if in speech, but the words would not come.

"What would I say?" he said at length, bitterly and scornfully, as he rose from his seat with rigid limbs. "I would say—" He stopped; his teeth were clinched. He drew one hand impatiently across his face. The idea that Simeon Stagg must have been the informer had at that moment got possession of his mind. "Never ask me what I would say," he cried.

"Willy, dear Willy," sobbed Rotha, throwing her arms about him, "that person—"

The sobs were stifling her, but she would not spare herself.

"That person was MYSELF!"

"You!" cried Willy, breaking from her embrace. "And the murder?" he asked hoarsely, "whose murder?"

"James Wilson's."

"Let me go—let me go, I say."

"Another word." Rotha stepped into the doorway. Willy threw her hastily aside and hurried out.



CHAPTER XXXVII. WHICH INDICTMENT?

Under the rude old Town Hall at Carlisle there was a shop which was kept by a dealer in second-hand books. The floor within was paved, and the place was lighted at night by two lamps, which swung from the beams of the ceilings. At one end a line of shelves served to separate from the more public part of the shop a little closet of a room, having a fire, and containing in the way of furniture a table, two or three chairs, and a stuffed settle.

In this closet, within a week of the events just narrated, a man of sinister aspect, whom we have met more than once already in other scenes, sat before a fire.

"Not come down yet, Pengelly?" said, this man to the bookseller, a tottering creature in a long gown and velvet skull cap.

"Not yet."

"Will he ever come? It's all a fool's errand, too, I'll swear it is."

Then twisting his shoulders as though shivering, he added,—

"Bitter cold, this shop of yours."

"Warmer than Doomsdale, eh?" replied the bookseller with a grin as he busied himself dusting his shelves.

The other chuckled. He took a stick that lay on the hearth and broke the fire into a sharp blaze. The exercise was an agreeable one. It was accompanied by agreeable reflections, too.

"I hear a foot on the stair." A man entered the shop.

"No use, none," said the new-comer. "It's wasted labor talking to Master Wilfrey."

The tone was one of vexation.

"Did ye tell him what I heard about Justice Hide and his carryings on at Newcastle?"

"Ey, and I told 'im he'd never bring it off with Hide on the bench."

"And what did the chiel say to it?"

"'Tut,' he said, says he, 'Millet is wi' 'im on the circuit, and he'll see the law's safe on treason.'"

"So he will not touch the other indictment?"

"'It's no use,' says he, 'the man's sure to fall for treason,' he says, 'and it's all botherment trying to force me to indict 'im for murder.'"

"Force him! Ha! ha! that's good, that is; force him, eh?"

The speaker renewed his attentions to the fire.

"He'll be beaten," he added,—"he'll be beaten, will Master Wilfrey. With Hide oh the bench there'll be no conviction for treason. And then the capital charge will go to the wall, and Ray will get away scot free."

"It baffles me yet aboot Ray, his giving himself up."

"Shaf, man! Will ye never see through the trick? It was to stand for treason and claim the pardon, or be fined, or take a year in Doomsdale, and escape the gallows. He's a cunning taistrel. He'll do aught to save his life."

"You're wrong there; I cannot but say you're wrong there. I know the man, and as I've told you there's nothing in the world he dare not do. Why, would you credit it, I saw 'im one day—"

"Tut, haud yer tongue. Ye'd see him tremble one day if this sheriff of yours were not flayt by his own shadow. Ye'd see him on Haribee; aye, and maybe ye will see him there yet, sheriff or no sheriff."

This was said with a bitterness indicative of fierce and deadly hatred.

Shifting uneasily under the close gaze of his companion, the other said,—

"What for do you look at me like that? I've no occasion to love him, have I?"

"Nor I, nor I," said the first speaker, his face distorted with evil passions; "and you shall spit on his grave yet, Master Scroope, that you shall; and dance on it till it does yer soul good; you shall, you shall, sheriff or none."

Just then a flourish of trumpets fell on the ear. Conversation was interrupted while the men, with the bookseller, stepped to the door. Numbers of townspeople were crowding into the Market Place. Immediately afterwards there came at a swift pace through Scotch Street a gayly bedecked carriage, with outriders in gold lace and a trumpeter riding in front.

"The judges—going through to King's Arms Lane," observed the bookseller.

"What o'clock do the 'sizes start, Mr. Pengelly?" asked a loiterer outside.

"Ten in the morning, that's when the grand jury sit," the bookseller answered.



CHAPTER XXXVIII. PEINE FORTE ET DURE.

The court was densely packed at ten next morning. Every yard of available space was thronged with people. The crown court lay on the west of the Town Hall. It was a large square chamber without galleries. Rude oak, hewn with the axe straight from the tree, formed the rafters and principals of the roofs. The windows were small, and cast a feeble light. A long table like a block of granite, covered with a faded green cloth and having huge carved legs, stood at one end of the court, and stretched almost from side to side. On a dais over this table sat the two judges in high-backed chairs, deeply carved and black. There was a stout rail at one end of the table, and behind it were steps leading to a chamber below. This was the bar, and an officer of the court stood at one side of it. Exactly opposite it were three rows of seats on graduated levels. This was the jury box. Ranged in front of the table were the counsel for the King, the clerk of the court, and two or three lawyers. An ancient oak chest, ribbed with iron and secured by several massive padlocks, stood on the table.

The day was cold. A close mist that had come from the mountains hovered over the court and crept into every crevice, chilling and dank.

There was much preliminary business to go through, and the people who thronged the court watched it with ill-concealed impatience. True bills were found for this offence and that: assaults, batteries, larcenies.

Amid a general hush the crier called for Ralph Ray.

Ralph stepped up quietly, and laid one hand on the rail in front of him. The hand was chained. He looked round. There was not a touch either of pride or modesty in his steady gaze. He met without emotion the sea of faces upturned to his own face. Near the door at the end of the court stood the man who had been known in Lancaster as Ralph's shadow. Their eyes met, but there was no expression of surprise in either face. Close at hand was the burlier ruffian who had insulted the girl that sang in the streets. In the body of the court there was another familiar face. It was Willy Ray's, and on meeting his brother's eyes for an instant Ralph turned his own quickly away. Beneath the bar, with downcast eyes, sat Simeon Stagg.

The clerk of the court was reading a commission authorizing the court to hear and determine treasons, and while this formality was proceeding Ralph was taking note of his judges. One of them was a stout, rubicund person advanced in years. Ralph at once recognized him as a lawyer who had submitted to the Parliament six years before. The other judge was a man of austere countenance, and quite unknown to Ralph. It was the former of the two judges who had the principal management of the case. The latter sat with a paper before his face. The document sometimes concealed his eyes and sometimes dropped below his mouth.

"Gentlemen," said the judge, beginning his charge, "you are the grand inquest for the body of this county, and you have now before you a prisoner charged with treason. Treason, gentlemen, has two aspects: there is treason of the wicked imagination, and there is treason apparent: the former poisons the heart, the latter breaks forth in action."

The judge drew his robes about him, and was about to continue, when the paper suddenly dropped from the face of the other occupant of the bench.

"Your pardon, brother Millet," he interrupted, and pointed towards Ralph's arms. "When a prisoner comes to the bar his irons ought to be taken off. Have you anything to object against these irons being struck away?"

"Nothing, brother Hide," replied the judge rather testily. "Keeper, knock off the prisoner's irons."

The official appealed to looked abashed, and replied that the necessary instruments were not at hand.

"They are of no account, my lord," said Ralph.

"They must be removed."

When the delay attending this process was over and the handcuffs fell to the ground, the paper rose once more in front of the face of Justice Hide, and Justice Millet continued his charge. He defined the nature and crime of treason with elaboration and circumlocution. He quoted the ancient statute wherein the people, speaking of themselves, say that they recognize no superior under God but only the King's grace. "I do no speak my own words," he said, "but the words of the law, and I urge this the more lest any persons should draw dangerous inferences to shadow their traitorous acts. Gentlemen, the King is the vicegerent of God, and has no superior. If any man shall shroud himself under any pretended authority, you must know that this is not an excuse, but the height of aggravation."

Once more the judge paused, drew his robes about him, and turned sharply to the jury to observe the effect of his words; then to his brother on the bench, for the light of his countenance. The paper was covering the eyes of Justice Hide.

"But now, gentlemen, to come from the general to the particular. It is treason to levy war against the King's person, and to levy war against the King's authority is treason too. It follows, therefore, that all acts which were done to the keeping of the King out of the exercise of his kingly office were treason. If persons assembled themselves in a warlike manner to do any of these acts, that was treason. Remember but this, and I have done."

A murmur of assent and approbation passed over the court when the judge ceased to speak. Perhaps a close observer might have marked an expression of dissatisfaction on the face of the other judge as often as the document held in front of it permitted the eyes and mouth to be seen. He shifted restlessly from side to side while the charge was being delivered, and at the close of it he called somewhat impatiently for the indictment.

The clerk was proceeding to give the names of the witnesses, when Ralph asked to be permitted to see the indictment. With a smile, the clerk handed him a copy in Latin. Ralph glanced at it, threw it back to the table, and asked for a translation.

"Let the indictment be read aloud and in English," said Justice Hide.

It was then read, and purported that, together with others, Ralph Ray, not having the fear of God before his eyes, and being instigated by the devil, had traitorously and feloniously, contrary to his due allegiance and bounden duty, conspired against the King's authority on sundry occasions and in divers places.

There was a strained attitude of attention while the indictment was being read, and a dead stillness when the prisoner was called upon to plead.

"How sayest thou, Ralph Ray? Art thou guilty of that treason whereof thou standest indicted and for which thou hast been arraigned, or not guilty?"

Ralph did not reply at once. He looked calmly around. Then, in a firm voice, without a trace of emotion, he said,—

"I claim exemption under the Act of Oblivion."

There was a murmur of inquiry.

"That will avail you nothing," replied the judge who had delivered the charge. "The Act does not apply to your case. You must plead Guilty or Not Guilty."

"Have I no right to the benefit of the Act of Oblivion?"

The clerk rose again.

"Are you Guilty or Not Guilty?"

"Have I liberty to move exceptions to the indictment?"

"You shall have the liberty that any subject can have," replied Justice Millet. "You have heard the indictment read, and you must plead, Guilty or Not Guilty."

The paper had again gone up before the face of Justice Hide.

"I stand at this bar," said Ralph quietly, "charged with conspiring against the King's authority. The time of the alleged treason is specified. I move this exception to the indictment, that the King of England was dead at the period named."

There was some shuffling in the court. The paper had dropped below the eyes.

"You trouble the court with these damnable excursions," cried Justice Millet, with no attempt to conceal his anger. "By the law of England the King never dies. Your plea must be direct,—'Guilty,' or 'Not Guilty.' No man standing in your position at the bar must make any other answer to the indictment."

"Shall I be heard, my lord?"

"You shall, sir, but only on your trial."

"I urge a point of law, and I ask for counsel," said Ralph; "I can pay." "You seem to be versed in proceedings of law, young man," replied the judge, with an undisguised sneer.

The paper dropped below the mouth.

"Mr. Ray," said Justice Hide, in a friendly tone, "the course is that you should plead."

"I stand charged, my lord, with no crime. How, then, shall I plead?"

"Mr. Ray," said the judge again, "I am sorry to interrupt you. I hold that a man in your position should have every leniency shown to him. But these discourses are contrary to all proceedings of this nature. Will you plead?"

"He must plead, brother; there is no will you?" rejoined the other occupant of the bench.

The paper went up over the eyes once more. There was some laughter among the men before the table.

"He thinks it cheap to defy the court," said counsel for the King.

"Brother Millet," said Justice Hide, "when a prisoner at the bar would plead anything in formality, counsel should be allowed."

"Oh, certainly, certainly," replied the judge, recovering his suavity. Then turning to Ralph, he said,—

"What is the point of law you urge?"

"What I am accused of doing," replied Ralph, "was done under the command of the Parliament, when the Parliament was the supreme power."

"Silence, sir," cried Justice Millet. "The Parliament was made up of a pack of usurpers with a low mechanic fellow at their head. Gentlemen," turning with a gracious smile to the jury, "you will remember what I said."

"The Parliament was appointed by the people," replied Ralph quietly, "and recognized by foreign princes."

"It was only a third part of the constitution."

"It did not live in a corner. The sound of it went out among many nations."

Ralph still spoke calmly. The spectators held their breath.

"Do you know where you are, sir?" cried the judge, now grown scarlet with anger. "You are in the court of his Majesty the King. Would you have the boldness here, before the faces of the servants of that gracious Prince, to justify your crimes by claiming for them the authority of usurpers?" "I am but charged," replied Ralph, "with putting my hand to that plough which all men were then compelled to follow. I am but accused of fidelity to that cause which some of my prosecutors, as I see, did themselves at first submit to, and afterwards betray."

At this there were loud murmurs in the court. The paper had fallen from the face of Justice Hide. His brother justice was livid with rage.

"What fellow is this?" said the latter judge, with obvious uneasiness. "A dalesman from the mountains, did you say?"

"Dalesman or not, my lord, a cunning and dangerous man," replied counsel.

"I see already that he is one who is ready to say anything to save his miserable life."

"Brother Millet," interrupted the other judge, "you have rightly observed that this is a court of his Gracious Majesty. Let us conduct it as such."

There was a rustle of gowns before the table and some whispering in the court.

"Mr. Ray, you have heard the indictment. It charges you as a false traitor against his Most Gracious Majesty, your supreme and natural lord. The course is for you to plead Guilty or Not Guilty."

"Have I no right to the General Pardon?" asked Ralph.

Justice Millet, recovering from some temporary discomfiture, interposed,—

"The proclamation of pardon was issued before his Majesty came into possession."

"And my crime—was not that committed before the King came into possession? Are the King's promises less sacred than the people's laws?"

Again some murmuring in the court.

"Brother Hide, is the court to be troubled longer with these idle disputations?"

"I ask for counsel," said Ralph.

"This," replied Justice Hide, "is not a matter in which counsel can be assigned. If your crime be treason, it cannot be justified; if it be justifiable, it is not treason. The law provides that we shall be your counsel, and, as such, I advise that you do not ask exemption under the Act of Oblivion, for that is equal to a confession." "I do not confess," said Ralph.

"You must plead Guilty or Not Guilty. There is no third course. Are you Guilty or Not Guilty?"

There was a stillness like that of the chamber of death in the court as this was spoken.

Ralph paused, lifted his head, and looked calmly about him. Every eye was fixed on his face. That face was as firm as a rock. Two eyes near the door were gleaming with the light of fiendish triumph. Ralph returned his gaze to the judges. Still the silence was unbroken. It seemed to hang in the air.

"Guilty or Not Guilty?"

There was no reply.

"Does the prisoner refuse to plead?" asked Justice Hide. Still there was no reply. Not a whisper in the court; not the shuffle of a foot. The judge's voice fell slowly on the ear,—

"Ralph Ray, we would not have you deceive yourself. If you do not plead, it will be the same with you as if you had confessed."

"Am I at liberty to stand mute?"

"Assuredly not," Justice Millet burst out, pulling his robes about him.

"Your pardon, brother; it is the law that the prisoner may stand mute if he choose."

Then turning to Ralph,—

"But why?"

"To save from forfeiture my lands, sheep, goods, and chattels, and those of my mother and brother, falsely stated to be mine."

Justice Millet gave an eager glance at Justice Hide.

"It is the law," said the latter, apparently replying to an unuttered question. "The estate of an offender cannot be seized to the King's use before conviction. My Lord Coke is very clear on that point. It is the law; we must yield to it."

"God forefend else!" replied Justice Millet in his meekest tone.

"Ralph Ray," continued the judge, "let us be sure that you know what you do. If you stand mute a terrible punishment awaits you."

Justice Millet interposed,—

"I repeat that the prisoner must plead. In the ancient law of peine forte et dure an exception is expressly made of all cases of regicide."

"The indictment does not specify regicide as the prisoner's treason."

Justice Millet hid his discomfiture in an ostentatious perusal of a copy of the indictment.

"But do not deceive yourself," continued the judge, turning again towards the prisoner. "Do you know the penalty of standing mute? Do you know that to save your estates to your family by refusing to plead, you must suffer a terrible death,—a death without judgment, a death too shocking perhaps for so much as bare contemplation? Do you know this?"

The dense throng in the court seemed not to breathe at that awful moment. Every one waited for the reply. It came slowly and deliberately,—

"I know it."

The paper dropped from the judge's hand, and fluttered to the floor. In the court there was a half-uttered murmur of amazement. A man stood there to surrender his life, with all that was near and dear to it. Not dogged, trapped, made desperate by fate, but cheerfully and of his own free will.

Wonder and awe fell on that firmament of faces. Brave fellows there found the heart swell and the pulse beat quick as they saw that men— plain, rude men, Englishmen, kinsmen—might still do nobly. Cowards shrank closer together.

And, in the midst of all, the man who stood to die wore the serenest look to be seen there. Not an eye but was upturned to his placid face.

The judge's voice broke the silence,—

"And was it with this knowledge and this view that you surrendered?"

Ralph folded his arms across his breast and bowed.

The silence could be borne no longer. The murmurs of the spectators broke into a wild tumult of cheers, like the tossing of many waters; like the roar and lash of mighty winds that rise and swell, then ebb and surge again.

The usher of the court had not yet suppressed the applause, when it was observed that a disturbance of another kind had arisen near the door. A young woman with a baby in her arms was crushing her way in past the javelin man stationed there, and was craning her neck to catch sight of the prisoner above the dense throng that occupied every inch of the floor.

"Let me have but a glance at him—one glance—for the dear God's sake let me but see him—only once—only for a moment."

The judge called for silence, and the officer was hurrying the woman away when Ralph turned his face full towards the door.

"I see him now," said the woman. "He's not my husband. No," she added, "but I've seen him before somewhere."

"Where, my good woman? Where have you seen him before the day?"

This was whispered in her ear by a man who had struggled his way to her side.

"Does he come from beyond Gaskarth?" she asked.

"Why, why?"

"This commotion ill befits the gravity of a trial of such grave concernment," said one of the judges in an austere tone.

In another moment the woman and her eager interlocutor had left the court together.

There was then a brief consultation between the occupants of the bench.

"The pardon is binding," said one; "if it were otherwise it were the hardest case that could be for half the people of England."

"Yet the King came back without conditions," replied the other.

There was a general bustle in the court. The crier proclaimed silence.

"The prisoner stands remanded for one week."

Then Ralph was removed from the bar.



CHAPTER XXXIX. THE FIERY HAND.

They drove Robbie Anderson that night to the house of the old woman with whom he lodged, but their errand was an idle one. Reuben Thwaite jumped from the cart and rapped at the door. Old 'Becca Rudd opened it, held a candle over her head, and peered into the darkness. When she heard what sick guest they had brought her, she trembled from head to foot, and cried to them not to shorten the life of a poor old soul whose days were numbered.

"Nay, nay; take him away, take him away," she said.

"Art daft, or what dusta mean?" said Mattha from his seat in the cart.

"Nay, but have mercy on me, have mercy on me," cried 'Becca beseechingly.

"Weel, weel," said Mattha, "they do say as theer's no fools like auld fools. Why, the lad's ram'lin'. Canst hear?—ram'lin'. Wadst hev us keck him intil the dike to die like ony dog?"

"Take him away, take him away," cried 'Becca, retiring inwards, her importunity becoming every moment louder and more vehement.

"I reckon ye wad be a better stepmother to yon brocken-backt bitch of yours an it had the mange?" said Mattha.

"Nay, but the plague—the plague. Ye've heard what the new preachers are telling about the plague. Robbie's got it, Robbie's got the plague; I'm sure of it, sure."

'Becca set down the candle to wring her hands.

"So thoo's sure of it, ista?" said Mattha. "Weel, I'll tell thee what I's sure on, and that is that thoo art yan o' them folks as waddant part with the reek off their kail. Ye'r nobbut an auld blatherskite, 'Becca, as preaches mair charity in a day ner ye'r ready to stand by in a twelvemonth. Come, Reuben, whip up yer dobbin. Let's away to my own house. I'd hev to be as poor as a kirk louse afore I'd turn my back on a motherless lad as is nigh to death's door."

"Don't say that, father," whimpered Liza.

"Nay, Mattha, nay, man," cried 'Becca, "it's nought of that. It's my life that's in danger."

"Shaf! that 'at is nowt is nivver in danger. Whear's the plague as wad think it worth while to bodder wid a skinflint like thee? Good neet, 'Becca, good neet, and 'od white te, lass, God requite thee!"

So they drove to Matthew Branthwaite's cottage, and installed the sick man in the disused workroom, where the loom had stood silent for nearly ten years.

A rough shakedown was improvised, a log fire was speedily kindled, and in half an hour Mrs. Branthwaite was sitting at Robbie's bedside bathing his hot forehead with cloths damped in vinegar. The little woman—timid and nervous in quieter times—was beginning to show some mettle now.

"Robbie has the fever, the brain fever," she said. She was right. The old wife's diagnosis was as swift as thought. Next day they sent for the doctor from Gaskarth. He came; looked wise and solemn; asked three questions in six syllables apiece, and paused between them. Then he felt the sick man's pulse. He might almost have heard the tick of it. Louder was the noise of the beating heart. Still not a word. In the dread stillness out came the lance, and Robbie was bled. Then sundry hums and ahs, but no syllable of counsel or cheer.

"Is there any danger?" asked little Liza in a fretful tone. She was standing with head averted from the bowl which was in her mother's hands, with nervous fingers and palpitating breast.

The wise man replied in two guarded words.

Robbie had appeared to be conscious before the operation of the lance. He was wandering again. He would soon be wildly delirious.

The great man took up his hat and his fee together. His silence at least had been golden.

"Didsta iver see sic a dumb daft boggle?" said Mattha as the doctor disappeared. "It cannot even speak when it's spoken to."

The medical ghost never again haunted that particular ghost-walk.

Robbie lay four days insensible, and Mrs. Branthwaite was thenceforward his sole physician and nurse. On the afternoon of the third day of Robbie's illness—it was Sunday—Rotha Stagg left her own peculiar invalid in the care of one of the farm women and walked over to Mattha's house.

Willy Ray had not returned from Carlisle. He had exchanged scarcely six words with her since the interview previously recorded. Rotha had not come to Shoulthwaite for Willy's satisfaction. Neither would she leave it for his displeasure.

When the girl reached the weaver's cottage and entered the sick-room, Mattha himself was sitting at the fireside, with a pipe, puffing the smoke up the chimney. Mrs. Branthwaite was bathing the sick man's head, from which the hair had been cut away. Liza was persuading herself that she was busy sewing at a new gown. The needle stuck and stopped twenty times a minute. Robbie was delirious.

"Robbie, Robbie, do you know who has come to see you?" said Liza, bending over him.

"Ey, mother, ey, here I am, home at last," muttered Robbie.

"He's ram'lin' agen," said Mattha from the chimney corner.

"Bless your old heart, mammy, but I'll mend my management. I will, that I will. It's true this time, mammy, ey, it is. No, no; try me again just once, mammy!"

"He's forever running on that, poor lad," whispered Mattha. "I reckon it's been a sair point with him sin' he put auld Martha intil t' grund."

"Don't greet, mammy; don't greet."

Poor Liza found the gown wanted close attention at that moment. It went near enough to her eyes.

"I say it was fifty strides to the north of the bridge! Swear it? Ey, swear it!" cried Robbie at a fuller pitch of his weakened voice.

"He's olas running on that, too," whispered Mattha to Rotha. "Dusta mind 'at laal Reuben said the same?"

In a soft and pleading tone Robbie mumbled on,—

"Don't greet, mammy, or ye'll kill me sure enough. Killing you? Ey, it's true it's true; but I'll mend my management—I will." There were sobs in Robbie's voice, but no tears in his bloodshot eyes.

"There, there, Robbie," whispered Mrs. Branthwaite soothingly in his ear; "rest thee still, Robbie, rest thee still."

It was a pitiful scene. The remorse of the poor, worn, wayward, tender-hearted lad seemed to rend the soul in his unconscious body.

"If he could but sleep!" said Mrs. Branthwaite; "but he cannot."

Liza got up and went out.

Robbie struggled to raise himself on one elbow. His face, red as a furnace, was turned aside as though in the act of listening for some noise far away. Then in a thick whisper he said,—

"Fifty strides north of the bridge. No dreaming about it—north, I say, north."

Robbie sank back exhausted, and Rotha prepared to leave.

"It were that ducking of his heed did it, sure enough," said Mattha, "that and the drink together. I mind Bobbie's father—just sic like, just sic like! Poor auld Martha, she hed a sad bout of it, she hed, what with father and son. And baith good at the bottom, too, baith, poor lads."

A graver result than any that Mattha dreamt of hung at this moment on Robbie's insensibility, and when consciousness returned the catastrophe had fallen.



CHAPTER XL. GARTH AND THE QUAKERS.

As Rotha left the weaver's cottage she found Liza in the porch.

"I'm just laughing at the new preachers," she said huskily. She was turning her head aside slyly to brush the tears from her eyes into a shawl which was over her head.

"There they are by the Lion. It's wrong to laugh, but they are real funny, aye!"

The artifice was too palpable to escape Rotha's observation. Without a word she put her arms about Liza and kissed her. Then the lurking tears gushed out openly, and the girl wept on her breast. They parted in silence, and Rotha walked towards a little company gathered under the glow of a red sun on the highway, and almost in front of the village inn. They were the "new preachers" of whom Liza had spoken. The same that had, according to Robbie's landlady, foretold the plague. They were three men, and they stood in the middle of a ring of men, women, and children. One of them, tall and gaunt, with long gray hair and wild eyes, was speaking at the full pitch of his voice. Another was emphasizing his words with loud hallelujahs. Then the third dropped down on his knees in the road, and prayed with earnestness in a voice that rang along the village street—silent to-day, save for him—and echoed back and back. Before the prayer had quite ended a hymn was begun in a jaunting measure, with a chorus that danced to a spirit of joyfulness.

Then came another exhortation. It was heavy with gloomy prediction. The world was full of oppression, and envy, and drunkenness, and vain pleasures. Men had forsaken the light that should enlighten all men. They were full of deceit and vanities. They put their trust in priests and professors who were but empty hollow casks. "Yet the Lord is at hand," cried the preacher, "to thrash the mountains, and beat them to dust."

Another hymn followed, more jubilant than before. One by one the people around caught the contagion of excitement. There were old men there with haggard faces that told of the long hard fight with the world in which they were of the multitude of the vanquished; old women, too, jaded and tired, and ready to slip into oblivion, their long day's duty done; mothers with babes in their arms and young children nestling close at their sides; rollicking boys and girls as well, with all the struggle of life in front of them.

The simple Quaker hymn told of a great home of rest far away, yet very near.

The tumult had attracted the frequenters of the Red Lion, and some of these had stepped out on to the causeway. Two or three of them were already drunk. Among them was Garth, the blacksmith. He laughed frantically, and shrieked and crowed at every address and every hymn. When the preachers shouted "Hallelujah," he shouted "Hallelujah" also; shouted again and again, in season and out of season; shouted until he was hoarse, and the perspiration poured down his crimsoning face. His tipsy companions at first assisted him with noisy cheers. When one of the men in the ring lifted up his voice in the ardor of prayer, Garth yelled out yet louder to ask if he thought God Almighty was deaf.

The people began to tremble at the blacksmith's blasphemies. The tipsiest of his fellows slunk away from his side.

The preacher spoke at one moment of the numbers of their following.

"You carry a bottle of liquor somewhere," cried Garth; "that's why they follow you."

Wearied out by such a shrieking storm of discord, one of the three Quakers—a little man with quick eyes and nervous lips—made his way through the crowd to where the blacksmith stood at the outskirts of it. Garth propped his back against the wall of the inn and laughed hysterically at the preacher's remonstrance: "Woe to thee and such as thee when God's love passes away from thee."

Garth replied with a mocking blasphemy too terrible for record. He repeated it, shouted it, screamed it.

In sheer horror the Quaker dropped on his knees in front of the blacksmith and muttered a prayer that was almost inaudible:—

"God grant that the seven devils, yea seven times seven, may come out of him!"

Then Garth was silent for a moment.

"I knew such a one as thou art five years ago," said the Quaker; "and where thinkest thou he died?"

"Where?" said Garth, with a drunken hiccup.

"But he was a saved man at last—saved by the light with which Christ enlightened all men—saved—"

"Where?" repeated Garth, with a hideous imprecation.

"On the gallows—he had killed his own father—he was—"

"Curse you! Curse you on earth and in hell!"

The people who had crowded round held their hands to their ears to shut out the fearful blasphemies. Garth, sobered somewhat by rage which was no longer assumed but real, pushed them aside and strode down the lane.

Rotha turned away from the crowd and walked towards Shoulthwaite. Before her, at fifty paces, the blacksmith tramped doggedly on, with head towards the ground. Drunk, mad, devilish as at this moment he might be, Rotha felt an impulse to overtake him. She knew not what power prompted her, or what idea or what hope. Never before had she felt an instinct drawing her to this man. Yet she wished to speak with him now. Would she had done so! Would she had done so—not for his sake or yet for hers—but now, even now, while the impieties were hot on his burning lips!

Rotha ran a step or two and stopped. Garth shambled sullenly on. He never lifted his eyes to the sky.

When he reached his home he threw himself on the skemmel drawn up to the hearth. He was sober now. His mother had been taking her Sunday afternoon's sleep on the settle, which stood at one side of the kitchen. His noisy entrance awoke her. He broke the peat with the peat-stick and kicked it into the fire.

"What's come ower thee?" said Mrs. Garth, opening her eyes and yawning.

"What's come over you more like?" growled Joe.

"What now?"

"Do you sell your own flesh and blood?" said Joe. "Sell? What's thy mare's nest now, thou weathercock? One wouldn't think that butter wad melt in thy mouth sometimes, and then agen—"

"I'm none so daft as daftly dealt with, mother," interrupted the blacksmith.

"I've telt thee afore thou'rt yan of the wise asses. What do you mean by sell?"

"I reckon you know when strangers in the street can tell me."

The blacksmith coiled himself up in his gloomy reserve and stared into the fire.

"Oh, thou's heard 'at yon man's in Doomsdale, eh?"

Joe grunted something that was inarticulate.

"I mean to hear the trial," continued Mrs. Garth, with a purr of satisfaction.

"Maybe you wouldn't like to see me in his place, mother? Oh, no; certainly not."

"Thou great bledderen fool," cried Mrs. Garth, getting on to her feet and lifting her voice to a threatening pitch; "whearaway hast been?"

Joe growled again, and crept closer over the fire, his mother's brawny figure towering above him.



CHAPTER XLI. A HORSE'S NEIGH.

A bleared winter sun was sinking down through a scarf of mist. Rotha was walking hurriedly down the lonnin that led from the house on the Moss. Laddie, the collie, had attached himself to her since Ralph's departure, and now he was running by her side.

She was on her way to Fornside, but on no errand of which she was conscious. Willy Ray had not yet returned. Her father had not come back from his long journey. Where was Willy? Where was her father? What kept them away? And what of Ralph—standing as he did, in the jaws of that Death into which her own hands had thrust him! Would hope ever again be possible? These questions Rotha had asked herself a hundred times, and through the responseless hours of the long days and longer nights of more than a week she had lived on somehow, somehow, somehow.

The anxiety was burning her heart away; it would be burnt as dry as ashes soon. And she had been born a woman—a weak woman—a thing meant to sit at home with her foot on the treadle of her poor little wheel, while dear lives were risked and lost elsewhere.

Rotha was a changed being. She was no longer the heartsome lassie who had taken captive the stoical fancy of old Angus. Tutored by suffering, she had become a resolute woman. Goaded by something akin to despair, she was now more dangerous than resolute.

She was to do strange things soon. Even her sunny and girlish ingenuousness was to desert her. She was to become as cunning as dauntless. Do you doubt it? Put yourself in her place. Think of what she had done, and why she had done it; think of what came of it, and may yet come of it. Then look into your own heart; or, better far, look into the heart of another—you will be quicker to detect the truth and the falsehood that lies there.

Then listen to what the next six days will bring forth.

The cottage at Fornside has never been occupied since the tailor abandoned it. Hardly in Wythburn was there any one so poor as to covet such shelter for a home. It was a single-storied house with its back to the road. Its porch was entered from five or six steps that led downwards from a little garden. It had three small rooms, with low ceilings and paved floors. In the summer the fuchsia flecked its front with white and red. In these winter days the dark ivy was all that grew about it.

Lonely, cheerless, and now proscribed by the fears and superstitions of the villagers, it stood as gaunt as a solitary pine on the mountain head that has been blasted and charred by the lightning.

When Rotha reached it she hesitated as if uncertain whether to go in or go back. She stood at the little wicket, while the dog bounded into the garden. In another moment Laddie had run into the house itself.

How was this? She had locked the door. The key had been hidden as usual in the place known only to her father and herself. Rotha hurried down, and pushed her hand deep into the thatch covering the porch. The key was gone. The door stood open.

And now, besides the pat of the dog's feet, she heard noises from within.

Rotha put her hand to her heart. Could it be that her father had come home? Was he here, here?

The girl stepped into the kitchen. Then a loud clash, as of a closing chest, came from an inner room. In an instant there was the rustle of a dress, and Mrs. Garth and Rotha were face to face in that dim twilight.

The recoil of emotion was too much for the girl. She stood silent. The woman looked at her for an instant with something more like a frightened expression than had yet been seen on her hard face.

Then she brushed past her and away.

"Stop!" cried Rotha, recovering herself.

The woman was gone, and the girl did not pursue her.

Rotha went into the room which Mrs. Garth had come from. It was Wilson's room. There was his trunk still, which none had claimed. The trunk—the hasty closing of its lid had been the noise she heard! But it had always been heavily locked. With feverish fingers Rotha clutched at the great padlock that hung from the front of the trunk. It had a bunch of keys suspended from it. They were strange to her. Whose keys were they?

The trunk was not locked; the lid had merely been shut down. Rotha raised it with trembling hands. Inside were clothes of various kinds, but these had been thrust hurriedly aside, and beneath them were papers—many papers—scattered loosely at the bottom. What were they?

It was growing dark. Rotha remembered that there was no candle in the house, and no lamp that had oil. She thrust her hand down to snatch up the papers, meaning to carry them away. She touched the dead man's clothes, and shrank back affrighted. The lid fell heavily again.

The girl began to quiver in every limb.

Who could say that the spirits of the dead did not haunt the scenes of their lives and deaths? Gracious heaven! she was in Wilson's room!

Rotha tottered her way out in the gathering gloom, clutching at the door as she went. Back in the porch again, she felt for the key to the outer door. It was in the lock. She should carry it with her this time. Then she remembered the keys in the trunk. She must carry them away also. She never asked herself why. What power of good or evil was prompting the girl?

Calling the dog, she went boldly into the house again, and once more into the dead man's room. She fixed the padlock, turned the key, drew it out of its wards, and put the bunch of keys in her pocket. In two minutes more she was on the high road, walking back to Shoulthwaite.

There was something in her heart that told her that to-day's event was big with issues. And, truly, an angel of light had led her to that dark house.

The sun was gone. A vapory mist was preceding the night. The dead day lay clammy on her hands and cheeks.

When she reached the Fornside road, her eyes turned towards the smithy. There it was, and a bright red glow from the fire, white at its hissing heart, lit up the air about it. Rotha could hear the thick breathing of the bellows and the thin tinkle of the anvil. Save for these all was silent. What was the secret of the woman who lived there? That it concerned her father, Ralph, herself, and all people dear to her, was as clear as day to Rotha. The girl then resolved that, come what should or could, that secret should be torn from the woman's heart.

The moon was struggling feebly through a ridge of cloud, lighting the sky at moments like a revolving lamp at sea. On the road home Rotha passed two young people who were tripping along and laughing as they went.

"Good night, Rotha," said the young dalesman.

"Good night, dear," said his sweetheart.

Rotha returned the salutations.

"Fine lass that," said the young fellow in a whisper.

"Do you think so? She's too moapy for me," replied his companion. "I hate moapy folks."

After this slight interruption the two resumed the sport of their good spirits.

The moon had cleared the clouds now.

It was to be just such a night—save for the frost and wind—as that fateful one on which Ralph and Rotha walked together from the Red Lion. How happy that night had seemed to her then to be—happy, at least, until the end! She had even sung under the moonlight. But her songs had been truer than she knew—terribly, horribly true.

One lonely foot sounds on the keep, And that's the warder's tread.

Step by step Rotha retraced every incident of that night's walk; every word of Ralph's and every tone.

He had told her that her father was innocent, and that he knew it was so.

He had asked her if she did not love her father, and she had said, "Better than all the world."

Had that been true, quite true? Rotha stopped and plucked at a bough in the fence.

When she had asked him the cause of his sadness, when she had hinted that perhaps he was keeping something behind which might yet take all the joy out of the glad news that he gave her—what, then, had he said? He had told her there was nothing to come that need mar her happiness or disturb her love. Had that also been true, quite true? No, no, no, neither had been true; but the falsehood had been hers.

She loved her father, yes; but not, no, not better than all the world. And what had come after had marred her happiness and disturbed her love. Where lay her love—where?

Rotha stopped again, and as though to catch her breath. Nature within her seemed at war with itself. It was struggling to tear away a mask that hid its own face. That mask must soon be plucked aside.

Rotha thought of her betrothal to Willy, and then a cold chill passed over her.

She walked on until she came under the shadow of the trees beneath which Angus Ray had met his death. There she paused and looked down. She could almost conjure up the hour of the finding of the body.

At that moment the dog was snuffling at the very spot. Here it was that she herself had slipped; here that Ralph had caught her in his arms; here, again, that he had drawn her forward; here that they had heard noises from the court beyond.

Stop—what noise was that! It was the whinny of a horse! They had heard that too. Her dream of the past and the present reality were jumbling themselves together.

Again? No, no; that was the neigh—the real neigh—of a horse. Rotha hastened forward. The dog had run on. A minute later Laddie was barking furiously. Rotha reached the courtyard.

There stood the old mare, exactly as before!

Was it a dream? Had she gone mad? Rotha ran and caught the bridle.

Yes, yes! It was a reality. It was Betsy!

There was no coffin on her back; the straps that had bound it now dangled to the ground.

But it was the mare herself, and no dream.

Yes, Betsy had come home.



CHAPTER XLII. THE FATAL WITNESS.

Long before the hour appointed for the resumption of the trial of Ralph Ray, a great crowd filled the Market Place at Carlisle, and lined the steps of the old Town Hall, to await the opening of the doors. As the clock in the cupola was striking ten, three men inside the building walked along the corridor to unbar the public entrance.

"I half regret it," said one; "you have forced me into it. I should never have touched it but for you."

"Tut, man," whispered another, "you saw how it was going. With yon man on the bench and yon other crafty waistrel at the bar, the chance was wellnigh gone. What hope was there of a conviction?"

"None, none; never make any more botherment about it, Master Lawson," said the third.

"The little tailor is safe. He can do no harm as a witness."

"I'm none so sure of that," rejoined the first speaker.

The door was thrown open and the three men stepped aside to allow the crush to pass them. One of the first to enter was Mrs. Garth. The uncanny old crone cast a quick glance about her as she came in with the rest, hooded close against the cold. Her eyes fell on one of the three men who stood apart. For a moment she fixed her gaze steadfastly upon him, and then the press from behind swept her forward. But in that moment she had exchanged a swift and unmistakable glance of recognition. The man's face twitched slightly. He looked relieved when the woman had passed on.

Dense as had been the throng that filled the court on the earlier hearing, the throng was now even yet more dense. The benches usually provided for the public had been removed, and spectators stood on every inch of the floor. Some crept up to the windows, and climbed on to the window boards. One or two daring souls clambered over the shoulders of their fellows to the principals of the roof, and sat perched across them. The old court house was paved and walled with people.

From the entrance at the western end the occupants of the seats before the table filed in one by one. The first to come was the sheriff, Wilfrey Lawson. With papers in hand, he stationed himself immediately under the jurors' box and facing the bar. Then came the clerk of the court, who was making an ostentatious display of familiarity with counsel for the King, who walked half a pace behind him.

The judges took their seats. As they entered, the gentleman of the rubicund complexion was chatting in a facetious vein with his brother judge, who, however, relaxed but little of the settled austerity of his countenance under the fire of many jests.

Silence was commanded, and Ralph Ray was ordered to the bar. He had scarcely taken his place there when the name of Simeon Stagg was also called. For an instant Ralph looked amazed. The sheriff observed his astonishment and smiled. The next moment Sim was by his side. His face was haggard; his long gray-and-black hair hung over his temples. He was led in. He clutched feverishly at the rail in front. He had not yet lifted his eyes. After a moment he raised them, and met the eyes of Ralph turned towards him. Then he shuffled and sidled up to Ralph's elbow. The people stretched their necks to see the unexpected prisoner.

After many preliminary formalities it was announced that the grand jury had found a true bill for murder against the two prisoners.

The indictment was read. It charged Ralph Ray and Simeon Stagg with having murdered with malice aforethought James Wilson, agent to the King's counsel.

The prisoners were told to plead. Ralph answered promptly and in a clear tone, "Not Guilty." Sim hesitated, looked confused, stammered, lifted his eyes as if inquiringly to Ralph's face, then muttered indistinctly, "Not Guilty."

The judges exchanged glances. The clerk, with a sneer on his lip, mumbled something to counsel. The spectators turned with a slight bustle among themselves. Their pleas had gone against the prisoners—at least against Ralph.

When the men at the bar were asked how they would be tried, Ralph turned to the bench and said he had been kept close prisoner for seven days, none having access to him. Was he to be called to trial, not knowing the charge against him until he was ordered to the bar?

No attention was paid to his complaint, and the jury was empanelled. Then counsel rose, and with the customary circumlocution opened the case against the prisoners. In the first place, he undertook to indicate the motive and occasion of the horrid, vile, and barbarous crime which had been committed, and which, he declared, scarce anything in the annals of justice could parallel; then, he would set forth the circumstances under which the act was perpetrated; and, finally, he proposed to show what grounds existed for inferring that the prisoners were guilty thereof.

He told the court that the deceased James Wilson, as became him according to the duty of his secret office, had been a very zealous person. In his legal capacity he had sought and obtained a warrant for the arrest of the prisoner Ray. That warrant had never been served. Why? The dead body of Wilson had been found at daybreak in a lonely road not far from the homes of both prisoners. The warrant was not on the body. It had been missing to that day. His contention would be that the prisoners had obtained knowledge of the warrant; that they had waylaid the deceased agent in a place and at a time most convenient for the execution of their murderous design. With the cunning of clever criminals, they had faced the subsequent coroner's inquiry. One of them, being the less artful, had naturally come under suspicion. The other, a cunning and dangerous man, had even taken an active share in defending his confederate. But being pursued by a guilty conscience, they dared not stay at the scene of their crime, and both had fled from their homes. All this would be justified by strong and undeniable circumstances.

Counsel resumed his seat amid the heavy breathings and inaudible mutterings of the throng behind him. He was proceeding to call his witnesses, when Ralph asked to be heard.

"Is it the fact that I surrendered of my own free will and choice?"

"It is." "Is it assumed that I was prompted to that step also by a guilty conscience?"

Counsel realized that he was placed on the horns of a dilemma. Ignoring Ralph, he said,—

"My lords, the younger prisoner did surrender. He surrendered to a warrant charging him with conspiring to subvert the King's authority. He threw himself on the mercy of his Sovereign, and claimed the benefit of the pardon. And why? To save himself from indictment on the capital charge; at the price, peradventure, of a fine or a year's imprisonment to save himself from the gallows. Thus he tried to hoodwink the law; but, my lords,"—and counsel lifted himself to his utmost height,—"the law is not to be hoodwinked."

"God forfend else!" echoed Justice Millet, shifting in his seat and nodding his head with portentous gravity.

"I was loath to interrupt you," said Justice Hide, speaking calmly and for the first time, "or I should have pointed out wherein your statement did not correspond with the facts of the prisoner Ray's conduct as I know it. Let us without delay hear the witnesses."

The first witness called was a woman thinly and poorly clad, who came to the box with tears in her eyes, and gave the name of Margaret Rushton. Ralph recognized her as the young person who had occasioned a momentary disturbance near the door towards the close of the previous trial. Sim recognized her also, but his recollection dated farther back.

She described herself as the wife of a man who had been outlawed, and whose estates had been sequestered. She had been living the life of a vagrant woman.

"Was your husband named John Rushton?" asked Ralph.

"Yes," she replied meekly, and all but inaudibly.

"John Rushton of Aberleigh!"

"The same."

"Did you ever hear him speak of an old comrade—Ralph Ray?"

"Yes, yes," answered the witness, lifting her hands to her face and sobbing aloud.

"The prisoner wastes the time of the court. Let us proceed."

Ralph saw the situation at a glance. The woman's evidence—whatever it might be—was to be forced from her. "Have you seen these prisoners before?"

"Yes, one of them."

"Perhaps both?"

"Yes, perhaps both."

"Pray tell my lords and the jury what you know concerning them."

The woman tried to speak and stopped, tried again and stopped.

Counsel, coming to her relief, said,—

"It was in Wythburn you saw them; when was that?"

"I passed through it with my two children at Martinmas," the witness began falteringly.

"Tell my lords and the jury what happened then."

"I had passed by the village, and had come to a cottage that stood at the angle of two roads. The morning was cold, and my poor babies were crying. Then it came on to rain. So I knocked at the cottage, and an old man opened the door."

"Do you see the old man in this court?"

"Yes—there," pointing to where Sim stood in the dock with downcast eyes.

There was a pause.

"Come, good woman, let my lords and the jury hear what further you know of this matter. You went into the cottage!"

"He said I might warm the children at the fire; their little limbs were as cold as stone."

"Well, well?"

"He seemed half crazed, I thought; but he was very kind to me and my little ones. He gave them some warm milk, and said we might stay till the weather cleared. It did not clear all day. Towards nightfall the old man's daughter came home. She was a dear fine girl, God bless her!"

The silence of the court was only disturbed by a stifled groan from the bar, where Sim still stood with downcast eyes. Ralph gazed through a blinding mist at the rafters overhead.

"She nursed the little ones, and gave them oaten cake and barley bread. The good people were poor themselves; I could see they were. It rained heavier than ever, so the young woman made a bed for us in a little room, and we slept in the cottage until morning."

"Was anything said concerning the room you slept in?" "They said it was their lodger's room; but he was away, and would not return until the night following."

"Next day you took the road towards the North?"

"Yes, towards Carlisle. They told me that if my husband were ever taken he would be brought to Carlisle. That was why I wished to get here. But I had scarce walked a mile—I had a baby at the breast and a little boy who could just toddle beside me—I had scarce walked a mile before the boy became ill, and could not walk. I first thought to go back to the cottage, but I was too weak to carry both children. So I sat with my little ones by the roadside."

The witness paused again. Ralph was listening with intense eagerness. He was leaning over the rail before him to catch every syllable. When the woman had regained some composure he said quietly,—

"There is a bridge thereabouts that spans a river. Which side of the bridge were you then?"

"The Carlisle side; that is to say, the north."

The voice of counsel interrupted a further inquiry.

"Pray tell my lords and the jury what else you know, good woman."

"We should have perished of cold where we sat, but looking up I saw that there was a barn in a field close by. It was open to the front, but it seemed to be sheltered on three sides, and had some hay in it. So I made my way to it through a gate, and carried the children."

"What happened while you were there?—quick, woman, let us get to the wicked fact itself."

"We stayed there all day, and when the night came on I covered the little ones in the hay, and they cried themselves to sleep."

The tears were standing in the woman's eyes. The eyes of others were wet.

"Yes, yes, but what occurred?" said counsel, to whom the weeping of outcast babes was obviously less than an occurrence.

"I could not sleep," said the woman hoarsely; and lifting her voice to a defiant pitch, she said, "Would that the dear God had let me sleep that night of all nights of my life!"

"Come, good woman," said counsel more soothingly, "what next?"

"I listened to the footsteps that went by on the road, and so the weary hours trailed on. At last they had ceased to come and go. It was then that I heard a horse's canter far away to the north."

The witness was speaking in a voice so low as to be scarcely audible to the people, who stood on tiptoe and held their breath to hear.

"My little boy cried in his sleep. Then all was quiet again."

Sim shuddered perceptibly. He felt his flesh creep.

"The thought came to me that perhaps the man on the horse could give me something to do the boy good. If he came from a distance, he would surely carry brandy. So I labored out of the barn and trudged through the grass to the hedge. Then I heard footsteps on the road. They were coming towards me."

"Was it dark?"

"Yes, but not very dark. I could see the hedge across the way. The man on foot and the man on the horse came together near where I stood."

"How near—twenty paces?"

"Less. I was about to call, when I heard the man on foot speak to the other, who was riding past him."

"You saw both men clearly?"

"No," replied the woman firmly; "not clearly. I saw the one on the road. He was a little man, and he limped in his walk."