Sim accompanied Ralph half-way down the hill when he rose to go.
Robbie Anderson could be seen hastening towards them. His mission must
be with Ralph, so Sim went back.
“I've been to Shoulthwaite to look for you,” said Robbie. “They told
me you'd taken the hills for it, so I followed on.”
“You look troubled, my lad,” said Ralph; “has anything happened to
you?”
“No, Ralph, but something may happen to you if you don't heed me what
I say.”
“Nothing that will trouble me much, Robbie--nothing of that kind can
happen now.”
“Yon gommarel of a Joe Garth, the blacksmith, has never forgotten the
thrashing you gave him years ago for killing your dog--Laddie's mother
that was.”
“No, he'll never forgive me; but what of that? I've not looked for his
forgiveness.”
“But, I'm afeared, Ralph, he means to pay you back more than four to
the quarter. Do you know he has spies lodging with him? They've come
down here to take you off. Joe has been at the Red Lion this
morning--drunk, early as it is. He blurted it out about the spies, so
I ran off to find you.”
“It isn't Joe that has done the mischief, my lad, though the spies, or
whatever they are, may pay him to play underspy while it serves their
turn.”
“Joe or not Joe, they mean to take you the first chance. Folks say
everything has got upside down with the laws and the country now that
the great man himself is dead. Hadn't you best get off somewhere?
“It was good of you, Robbie, to warn me; but I can't leave home yet;
my father must be buried, you know.”
“Ah!” said Robbie in an altered tone, “poor Angus!”
Ralph looked closely at his companion, and thought of Robbie's
question last night in the inn.
“Tell me,” he said, glancing searchingly into Robbie's eyes, “did you
know anything about old Wilson's death?”
The young dalesman seemed abashed. He dropped his head, and appeared
unable to look up.
“Tell me, Robbie; I know much already.”
“I took the money,” said the young man; “I took it, but I threw it
into the beck the minute after.”
“How was it, lad? Let me know.”
Robbie was still standing, with his head down, pawing the ground as he
said,--
“I'd been drinking hard--you know that. I was drunk yon night, and I
hadn't a penny in my pouch. On my way home from the inn I lay down in
the dike and fell asleep. I was awakened by the voices of two men
quarrelling. You know who they were. Old Wilson was waving a paper
over his head and laughing and sneering. Then the other snatched it
away. At that Wilson swore a dreadful oath, and flung himself on--the
other. It was all over in a moment. He'd given the little waistrel the
cross-buttock, and felled him on his head. I saw the other ride off,
and I saw Simeon Stagg. When all was still, I crept out and took
Wilson's money--yes, I took it; but I flung it into the next beck. For
the moment, when I touched him I thought he was alive. I've not been
drinking hard since then, Ralph; no, nor never will again.”
“Ey, you'll do better than that, Robbie.”
Ralph said no more. There was a long silence between the two men,
until Robbie, unable to support it any longer, broke in again with, “I
took it, but I flung it into the next beck.”
The poor fellow seemed determined to dwell upon the latter fact as in
some measure an extenuation of his offence. In his silent hours of
remorse he had cherished it as one atoning circumstance. It had been
the first fruits of a sudden resolution of reform. Sobered by the
sense of what part he had played in crime, the money that had lain in
his hand was a witness against him; and when he had flung it away he
had only the haunting memory left of what he would have done in
effect, but had, in fact, done only in name.
“Why did you not say this at the inquest?” asked Ralph. “You might
have cleared Simeon Stagg. Was it because you must have accused my
father?”
“I can't say it was that. I felt guilty myself. I felt as if half the
crime had been mine.”
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 grass 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, God 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 passed 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 pass.”
“Styehead Pass?”
Ralph nodded assent. “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 pass. 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 pass, 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 Willy? 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 noble resolve you told me of; and you can keep it,
can you not?”
“I can--God 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.