The Shadow of a Crime Part 14

There was another pause.

"Robbie," Ralph said at length, "would you, if I wished it, say no more about all this?"

"I've said nothing till now, and I need say nothing more."

"Sim will be as silent--if I ask him. There is my poor mother, my lad; she can't live long, and why should she be stricken down? Her dear old head is bowed low enough already."

"I promise you, Ralph," said Robbie. He had turned half aside, and was speaking falteringly. He remembered one whose head had been bowed lower still--one whose heart had been sick for his own misdeeds, and now the gra.s.s was over her.

"Then that is agreed."

"Ralph, there's something I should have said before, but I was afeared to say it. Who would have believed the word of a drunkard? That's what I was, G.o.d forgive me! Besides, it would have done no good to say it, that I can see, and most likely some harm."

"What was it?"

"Didn't they say they found Wilson lying fifty yards below the river?"

"They did; fifty yards to the south of the bridge."

"It was as far to the north that I left him. I'm sure of it. I was sobered by what happened. I could swear it in heaven, Ralph. It was full fifty yards on the down side of the bridge from the smithy."

"Think again, my lad; it's a serious thing that you say."

"I've thought of it too much. It has tormented me day and night.

There's no use in trying to persuade myself I must be wrong. Fifty yards on the down side of the beck from the smithy--that was the place, Ralph."

The dalesman looked grave. Then a light crossed his face as if a wave of hope had pa.s.sed through him. Sim had said he was leaning against the bridge. All that Angus could have done must have been done to the north of it. Was it possible, after all, that Angus had not killed Wilson by that fall?

"You say that for the moment, when you touched him, you thought Wilson was not dead?"

"It's true, I thought so."

Sim had thought the same.

"Did you see any one else that night?"

"No."

"Nor hear other footsteps?"

"No, none but my own at last--none."

It was no clew. Unconsciously Ralph put his hand to his breast and touched the paper that he had placed there. No, there was no hope. The shadow that had fallen had fallen forever.

"Perhaps the man recovered enough to walk a hundred yards, and then fell dead. Perhaps he had struggled to reach home?"

"He would be going the wrong way for that, Ralph."

"True, true; it's very strange, very, if it is as you say. He was fifty yards beyond the smithy--north of it?"

"He was."

The dalesmen walked on. They had got down into the road, when the little schoolmaster ran up against them almost before he had been seen.

"Oh, here you are, are you?" he gasped.

"Are they coming?" said Robbie Anderson, jumping on to the turf hedge to get a wider view.

"That they are."

The little man had dropped down on to a stone, and was mopping his forehead. When he had recovered his breath, he said,--

"I say, Monsieur the Gladiator, why didn't you kill when you were about it? I say, why didn't you kill?" and Monsey held his thumbs down, as he looked in Ralph's face.

"Kill whom?" said Ralph. He could not help laughing at the schoolmaster's ludicrous figure and gesture.

"Why, that Garth--a bad garth--a kirk-garth--a kirk-warner's garth-a devil's garth--_Joe_ Garth?"

"I can't see them," said Robbie, and he jumped down again into the road.

"Oh, but you will, you will," said Monsey; and stretching his arm out towards Ralph with a frantic gesture, he cried, "You fly, fly, fly, fly!"

"Allow me to point out to you," observed Ralph, smiling, "that I do not at all fly, nor shall I know why I should not remain where I am until you tell me."

"Then know that your life's not worth a pin's fee if you remain here to be taken. Oh, that Garth--that devil's garth--that--that--_Joe_ Garth!"

There was clearly no epithet that suited better with Monsey's mood than the said monster's proper name.

"Friends," said Ralph, more seriously, "it's clear I can't leave before I see my father buried, and it's just as clear I can't see him buried if I stay. With your help I may do both--that is, seem to do both."

"How? how? unfold--I can interpret you no conundrums," said Monsey.

"To go, and yet not to go, that is the question."

"Can I help you?" said Robbie with the simplicity of earnestness.

"Go back, schoolmaster, to the Lion."

"I know it--I've been there before--well?"

"Say, if your conscience will let you--I know how tender it is--say you saw me go over Lauvellen in the direction of Fairfield. Say this quietly--say it to old Matthew in a whisper and as a secret; that will be enough."

"I've shared with that patriarch some secrets before now, and they've been common property in an hour--common as the mushrooms on the common--common as his common saws--common--"

"Robbie, the burial will take place the day after to-morrow, at three in the afternoon, at the kirk-garth--"

"Oh, that Garth,--that devil's garth--that Joe--"

"At the kirk-garth at Gosforth," continued Ralph. "Go round the city and the dale, and bid every master and mistress within the warning to Shoulthwaite Moss at nine o'clock in the morning. Be there yourself as the representative of the family, and see all our old customs observed. The kirk-garth is twenty miles away, across rugged mountain country, and you must follow the public pa.s.s."