The Shadow of a Crime Part 15

"Styehead Pa.s.s?"

Ralph nodded a.s.sent. "Start away at eleven o'clock; take the old mare to bear the body; let the boy ride the young horse, and chain him to the mare at the bottom of the big pa.s.s. These men, these spies, these constables, whatever they may be, will lie in wait for me about the house that morning. If they don't find me at my father's funeral they'll then believe that I must have gone. Do _you_ hold the mare's head, Robbie--mind that. When you get to the top of the pa.s.s, perhaps some one will relieve you--perhaps so, perhaps not. You understand?"

"I do."

"Let nothing interfere with this plan as I give it you. If you fail in any single particular, all may be lost."

"I'll let nothing interfere. But what of w.i.l.l.y? What if he object?

"Tell him these are my wishes--he'll yield to that."

There was a moment's silence.

"Robbie, that was a n.o.ble resolve you told me of; and you can keep it, can you not?"

"I can--G.o.d help me."

"Keep it the day after to-morrow--you remember our customs, sometimes more honored, you know, in the breach than the observance--you can hold to your resolve that day; you _must_ hold to it, for everything hangs on it. It is a terrible hazard."

Robbie put his hand in Ralph's, and the two stalwart dalesmen looked steadily each into the other's face. There was a dauntless spirit of resolution in the eyes of the younger man. His resolve was irrevocable. His crime had saved him.

"That's enough," said Ralph. He was satisfied.

"Why, you sleep--you sleep," cried the little schoolmaster. During the preceding conversation he had been capering to and fro in the road, leaping on to the hedge, leaping back again, and putting his hands to the sides of his eyes to shut away the wind that came from behind him, while he looked out for the expected enemy.

"You sleep--you sleep--that Garth--that devil's garth--that worse than kirk-garth--that--that--!"

"And now we part," said Ralph, "for the present. Good by, both!" And he turned to go back the way he came.

Monsey and Robbie had gone a few paces in the other direction, when the little schoolmaster stopped, and, turning round, cried in a loud voice, "O yes, I know it--the Lion. I've been there before. I'll whisper Father Matthew that you've gone--"

Robbie had put his arm on Monsey's shoulder and swung him round, and Ralph heard no more.

CHAPTER IX. THE SHADOW OF THE CRIME.

But yester-night I prayed aloud In anguish and in agony. Coleridge.

The night was far advanced, and yet Ralph had not returned to Shoulthwaite. It was three hours since Matthew Branthwaite had left the Moss. Mrs. Ray still sat before the turf fire and gazed into it in silence. Rotha was by her side, and w.i.l.l.y lay on the settle drawn up to the hearth. All listened for the sound of footsteps that did not come.

The old clock ticked out louder and more loud; the cricket's measured chirp seemed to grow more painfully audible; the wind whistled through the leafless boughs without, and in the lulls of the abating storm the low rumble of the ghyll could be heard within. What kept Ralph away?

It was no unusual thing for him to be abroad from dawn to dusk, but the fingers of the clock were approaching eleven, and still he did not come. On this night, of all others, he must have wished to be at home.

Earlier in the evening Rotha had found occasion to go on some errand to the neighboring farm, and there she had heard that towards noon Ralph had been seen on horseback crossing Stye Head towards Wastdale.

Upon reporting this at the Moss, the old dame had seemed to be relieved.

"He thinks of everything," she had said. All that day she had cherished the hope that it would be possible to bury Angus over the hills, at Gosforth. It was in the old churchyard there that her father lay-her father, her mother, and all her kindred. It was twenty miles to those plains and uplands, that lay beyond the bleak sh.o.r.es of Wastdale. It was a full five hours' journey there and back. But when twice five hours had been counted, and still Ralph had not returned, the anxiety of the inmates of the old house could no longer be concealed. In the eagerness of their expectation the clock ticked louder than ever, the cricket chirped with more jubilant activity, the wind whistled shriller, the ghylls rumbled longer, but no welcomer sound broke the stillness.

At length w.i.l.l.y got up and put on his hat. He would go down the lonnin to where it joined the road, and meet Ralph on the way. He would have done so before, but the horror of walking under the shadow of the trees where last night his father fell had restrained him. Conquering his fear, he sallied out.

The late moon had risen, and was s.h.i.+ning at full. With a beating heart he pa.s.sed the dreaded spot, and reached the highway beyond. He could hear nothing of a horse's canter. There were steps approaching, and he went on towards whence they came. Two men pa.s.sed close beside him, but neither of them was Ralph. They did not respond to his greeting when, in accordance with the custom of the country, he bade them "Good night." They were strangers, and they looked closely--he thought suspiciously--at him as they went by.

w.i.l.l.y walked a little farther, and then returned. As he got back to the lane that led to the house, the two men pa.s.sed him again. Once more they looked closely into his face. His fear prompted him to speak, but again they went on in silence. As w.i.l.l.y turned up towards home, the truth flashed upon him that these men were the cause of Ralph's absence. He knew enough of what was going on in the world to realize the bare possibility that his brother's early Parliamentarian campaign might bring him into difficulties even yet. It seemed certain that the lord of Wythburn Manor would be executed. Only Ralph's obscurity could save him.

When w.i.l.l.y got back into the kitchen, the impression that Ralph was being pursued and dogged was written on his face. His mother understood no more of his trouble than that his brother had not returned; she looked from his face back to the fire, that now died slowly on the hearth. Rotha was quicker to catch the significance of w.i.l.l.y's nervous expression and fitful words. To her the situation now appeared hardly less than tragic. With the old father lying dead in the loft above, what would come to this household if the one strong hand in it was removed? Then she thought of her own father. What would become of him? Where was he this night? The sense of impending disaster gave strength to her, however. She rose and put her hand on w.i.l.l.y's arm as he walked to and fro across the earthen floor. She was the more drawn to him from some scarce explicable sense of his weakness.

"Some one coming now," he said in eager tones--his ears were awake with a feverish sensitiveness--"some one at the back." It was Ralph at last. He had come down the side of the ghyll, and had entered the house from behind. All breathed freely.

"G.o.d bless thee!" said Mrs. Ray.

"You've been anxious. It was bad to keep you so," he said, with an obvious effort to a.s.sume his ordinary manner.

"I reckon thou couldst not have helped it, my lad," said Mrs. Ray.

Relieved and cheerful, she was bustling about to get Ralph's supper on the table.

"Well, no," he answered. "You know, I've been over to Gosforth--it's a long ride--I borrowed Jackson's pony from Armboth; and what a wild country it is, to be sure! It blew a gale on Stye Head. It's bleak enough up there on a day like this, mother. I could scarce hold the horse."

"I don't wonder, Ralph; but see, here's thy poddish--thou must be fair clemm'd."

"No, no; I called at Broom Hill."

"How did you come in at the back, lad? Do you not come up the lonnin?"

"I thought I'd go round by the low meadow and see all safe, and then the nearest way home was on the hill side, you know."

w.i.l.l.y and Rotha glanced simultaneously at Ralph as he said this, but they found nothing in his face, voice, or manner to indicate that his words were intended to conceal the truth.

"But look how late it is!" he said as the clock struck twelve; "hadn't we better go off to bed, all of us?"

"I think I must surely go off," said Mrs. Ray, and with Rotha she left the kitchen. w.i.l.l.y soon followed them, leaving Ralph to eat his supper alone. Laddie, who had entered with his master, was lying by the smouldering fire, and after the one had finished eating, the other came in for his liberal share of the plain meal. Then Ralph rose, and, lifting up his hat and staff, walked quietly to his brother's room.

w.i.l.l.y was already in bed, but his candle was still burning. Sitting on an old oak chest that stood near the door of the little room, Ralph said,--

"I shall perhaps be off again before you are awake in the morning, but all will be done in good time. The funeral will be on the day after to-morrow. Robbie Anderson will see to everything."

"Robbie Anderson?" said w.i.l.l.y in an accent of surprise.

"You know it's the custom in the dale for a friend of the family to attend to these offices."

"Yes; but Robbie Anderson of all men!"

"You may depend upon him," said Ralph.

"This is the first time I've heard that he can depend upon himself, said w.i.l.l.y.

"True--true--but I'm satisfied about Robbie. No, you need fear nothing. Robbie's a changed man, I think."