On the evening of the day upon which old Wilson was expected back at
Fornside, Ralph Ray turned in at the tailor's cottage. Sim's distress
was, if possible, even greater than before. It seemed as if the gloomy
forebodings of the villagers were actually about to be realized, and
Sim's mind was really giving way. His staring eyes, his unconscious,
preoccupied manner as he tramped to and fro in his little work-room,
sitting at intervals, rising again and resuming his perambulations,
now gathering up his tools and now opening them out afresh, talking
meantime in fitful outbursts, sometimes wholly irrelevantly and
occasionally with a startling pertinency,--all this, though no more
than an excess of his customary habit, seemed to denote a mind
unstrung. The landlord had called that morning for his rent, which was
long in arrears. He must have it. Sim laughed when he told Ralph this,
but it was a shocking laugh; there was no heart in it. Ralph would
rather have heard him whimper and shuffle as he had done before.
“You shall not be homeless, Sim, if the worst comes to the worst,” he
said.
“Homeless, not I!” and the little man laughed again. Ralph felt
unease. This change was not for the better. Rotha had been sitting at
the window to catch the last glimmer of daylight as she spun. It was
dusk, but not yet too dark for Ralph to see the tears standing in her
eyes. Presently she rose and went out of the room.
“Never fear that I shall be clemm'd,” said Sim. “No, no,” he said,
with a grin of satisfied assurance.
“God forbid!” said Ralph, “but things should be better soon. This is
the back end, you know.”
“Aye,” answered the tailor, with a shrug that resembled a shiver.
“And they say,” continued Ralph, “the back end is always the bare
end.”
“And they say, too,” said Sim, “change is leetsome, if it's only out
of bed into the beck!”
The tailor laughed loud, and then stopped himself with a suddenness
quite startling. The jest sounded awful on his lips. “You say the back
end's the bare end,” he said, coming up to where Ralph sat in pain and
amazement; “mine's all bare end. It's nothing but 'bare end' for some
of us. Yesterday morning was wet and cold--you know how cold it was.
Well, Rotha had hardly gone out when a tap came to the door, and what
do you think it was? A woman, a woman thin and blear-eyed. Some one
must have counted her face bonnie once. She was scarce older than my
own lass, but she'd a poor weak barn at her breast and a wee lad that
trudged at her side. She was wet and cold, and asked for rest and
shelter for herself and the children-rest and shelter,” repeated the
tailor in a lower tone, as though muttering to himself,--“rest and
shelter, and from me.”
“Well?” inquired Ralph, not noticing Sim's self-reference.
“Well?” echoed Sim, as though Ralph should have divined the sequel.
“Had the poor creature been turned out of her home?”
“That and worse,” said the little tailor, his frame quivering with
emotion. “Do you know the king's come by his own again?” Sim was
speaking in an accent of the bitterest mockery.
“Worse luck,” said Ralph; “but what of that?”
“Why,” said Sim, almost screaming, “that every man in the land who
fought for the Commonwealth eight years ago is like to be shot as a
traitor. Didn't you know that, my lad?” And the little man put his
hands with a feverish clutch on Ralph's shoulders, and looked into his
face.
For an instant there was a tremor on the young dalesman's features,
but it lasted only long enough for Sim to recognize it, and then the
old firmness returned.
“But what of the poor woman and her barns?” Ralph said, quietly.
“Her husband, an old Roundhead, had fled from a warrant for his
arrest. She had been cast homeless into the road, she and all her
household; her aged mother had died of exposure the first bitter
night, and now for two long weeks she had walked on and on--on and
on--her children with her--on and on--living Heaven knows how!”
A light now seemed to Ralph to be cast on the great change in his
friend; but was it indeed fear for his (Ralph's) well-being that had
goaded poor Sim to a despair so near allied to madness?
“What about Wilson?” he asked, after a pause.
The tailor started at the name.
“I don't know--I don't know at all,” he answered, as though eager to
assert the truth of a statement never called into dispute.
“Does he intend to come back to Fornside to-night, Sim?”
“So he said.”
“What, think you, is his work at Gaskarth?”
“I don't know--I know nothing--at least--no, nothing.”
Ralph was sure now. Sim was too eager to disclaim all knowledge of his
lodger's doings. He would not recognize the connection between the
former and present subjects of conversation.
The night had gathered in, and the room was dark except for the
glimmer of a little fire on the open hearth. The young dalesman looked
long into it: his breast heaved with emotion, and for the first time
in his manhood big tears stood in his eyes. It must be so; it must be
that this poor forlorn creature, who had passed through sufferings of
his own, and borne them, was now shattered and undone at the prospect
of disaster to his friend. Did he know more than he had said? It was
vain to ask. Would he--do anything? Ralph glanced at the little man:
barrow-backed he was, as he had himself said. No, the idea seemed
monstrous. The young man rose to go; he could not speak, but he took
Sim's hand in his and held it. Then he stooped and kissed him on the
cheek.
* * * * *
Next morning, soon after daybreak, all Wythburn was astir. People were
hurrying about from door to door and knocking up the few remaining
sleepers. The voices of the men sounded hoarse in the mist of the
early morning; the women held their heads together and talked in
whispers. An hour or two later two or three horsemen drove up to the
door of the village inn. There was a bustle within; groups of boys
were congregated outside. Something terrible had happened in the
night. What was it?
Willie Ray, who had left home at early dawn, came back to Shoulthwaite
Moss with flushed face and quick-coming breath. Ralph and his mother
were at breakfast. His father, who had been at market the preceding
day, had not risen.
“Dreadful, dreadful!” cried Willy. “Old Wilson is dead. Found dead in
the dike between Smeathwaite and Fornside. Murdered, no doubt, for his
wages; nothing left about him.”
“Heaven bless us!” cried Mrs. Ray, “to kill a poor man for his week's
wage!” And she sank back into the chair from which she had risen in
her amazement.
“They've taken his body to the Red Lion, and the coroner is there from
Gaskarth.”
Willy was trembling in every limb.
Ralph rose as one stupefied. He said nothing, but taking down his hat
he went out. Willy looked after him, and marked that he took the road
to Fornside.
When he got there he found the little cottage besieged. Crowds of
women and boys stood round the porch and peered in at the window.
Ralph pushed his way through them and into the house. In the kitchen
were the men from Gaskarth and many more. On a chair near the cold
hearth, where no fire had been kindled since he last saw it, sat Sim
with glassy eyes. His neck was bare and his clothes disordered. At his
back stood Rotha, with her arms thrown round her father's neck. His
long, thin fingers were clutching her clasped hands as with a vise.
“You must come with us,” said one of the strangers, addressing the
tailor. He was justice and coroner of the district.
Sim said nothing and did not stir. Then the young girl's voice broke
the dreadful silence.
“Come, father; let us go.”
Sim rose at this, and walked like one in a dream. Ralph took his arm,
and as the people crowded upon them, he pushed them aside, and they
passed out.
The direction of the company through the gray mist of that morning was
towards the place where the body lay. Sim was to be accused of the
crime. After the preliminaries of investigation were gone through, the
witnesses were called. None had seen the murder. The body of the
murdered man had been found by a laborer. There was a huge sharp stone
under the head, and death seemed to have resulted from a fracture of
the skull caused by a heavy fall. There was no appearance of a blow.
As to Sim, the circumstantial evidence looked grave. Old Wilson had
been seen to pass through Smeathwaite after dark; he must have done so
to reach his lodgings at the tailor's house. Sim had been seen abroad
about the same hour. This was not serious; but now came Sim's
landlord. He had called on the tailor the previous morning for his
rent and could not get it. Late the same night Sim had knocked at his
door with the money.
“When I ax't him where he'd come from so late,” said the man, “he
glower't at me daiztlike, and said nought.”
“What was his appearance?”
“His claes were a' awry, and he keep't looking ahint him.”
At this there was a murmur among the bystanders. There could not be a
doubt of Sim's guilt.
At a moment of silence Ralph stepped out. He seemed much moved. Might
he ask the witnesses some questions? Certainly. It was against the
rule, but still he might do so. Then he inquired exactly into the
nature of the wound that had apparently caused death. He asked for
precise information as to the stone on which the head of the deceased
was found lying.
It lay fifty yards to the south of the bridge.
Then he argued that as there was no wound on the dead man other than
the fracture of the skull, it was plain that death had resulted from a
fall. How the deceased had come by that fall was now the question. Was
it not presumable that he had slipped his foot and had fallen? He
reminded them that Wilson was lame on one leg. If the fall were the
result of a blow, was it not preposterous to suppose that a man of
Sim's slight physique could have inflicted it? Under ordinary
circumstances, only a more powerful man than Wilson himself could have
killed him by a fall.
At this the murmur rose again among the bystanders, but it sounded to
Ralph like the murmur of beasts being robbed of their prey.
As to the tailor having been seen abroad at night, was not that the
commonest occurrence? With the evidence of Sim's landlord Ralph did
not deal.
It was plain that Sim could not be held over for trial on evidence
such as was before them. He was discharged, and an open verdict was
returned. The spectators were not satisfied, however, to receive the
tailor back again as an innocent man. Would he go upstairs and look at
the body? There was a superstition among them that a dead body would
bleed at a touch from the hand of the murderer. Sim said nothing, but
stared wildly about him.
“Come, father,” said Rotha, “do as they wish.”
The little man permitted himself to be led into the room above. Ralph
followed with a reluctant step. He had cleared his friend, but looked
more troubled than before. When the company reached the bedside, Ralph
stood at its head while one of the men took a cloth off the dead man's
face.
There was a stain of earth on it.
Then they drew Sim up in front of it. When his eyes fell on the white,
upturned face, he uttered a wild cry and fell senseless to the floor.
Ha! The murmur rose afresh. Then there was a dead silence. Rotha was
the first to break the awful stillness. She knelt over her father's
prostrate form, and said amid stifling sobs,--
“Tell them it is not true; tell them so, father.”
The murmur came again. She understood it, and rose up with flashing
eyes.
“_I_ tell them it is not true,” she said. Then stepping firmly to the
bedside, she cried, “Look you all! I, his daughter, touch here this
dead man's hand, and call on God to give a sign if my father did this
thing.”
So saying, she took the hand of the murdered man, and held it
convulsively in her own.
The murmur died to a hush of suspense and horror. The body remained
unchanged. Loosing her grip, she turned on the bystanders with a look
of mingled pride and scorn.
“Take this from heaven for a witness that my father is innocent.”
The tension was too much for the spectators, and one by one they left
the room. Ralph only remained, and when Sim returned to consciousness
he raised him up, and took him back to Fornside.