The household on the Moss were early astir on the morning appointed
for the funeral of Angus Ray. Matthew Branthwaite's wife and daughter
were bustling about the kitchen of the old house soon after daybreak.
Mrs. Branthwaite was a fragile little body, long past her best, with
the crow's feet deeply indented about her eyes, which had the timid
look of those of a rabbit, and were peculiarly appropriate to a good
old creature who seemed to be constantly laboring against the idea
that everything she did was done wrongly. Her daughter Liza was a neat
little thing of eighteen, with the bluest of blue eyes, the plumpest
of plump cheeks, and the merriest of merry voices. They had walked
from their home in the gray dawn in order to assist at the
preliminaries to the breakfast which had to be eaten by a large
company of the dalesmen before certain of them set out on the long
journey across the fells.
The previous day had been the day of the “winding,” a name that
pointed to the last offices of Abraham Strong, the Wythburn carpenter.
In the afternoon of the winding day the mistresses of the houses
within the “warning” had met to offer liberal doses of solace and to
take equally liberal doses of sweet broth, a soup sweetened with
raisins and sugar, which was reserved for such melancholy occasions.
According to ancient custom, the “maister men” of the dale were to
assemble at nine o'clock on the morning following the winding, and it
was to meet their needs that old Mrs. Branthwaite and her daughter had
walked over to assist Rotha. The long oak table had to be removed from
the wall before the window, and made to stand down the middle of the
floor. Robbie Anderson had arrived early at the Moss in order to
effect this removal. After his muscles had exercised themselves upon
the ponderous article of furniture, and had placed the benches called
skemmels down each side and chairs at each end, he went into the
stable to dress down the mare and sharpen her shoes preparatory to her
long journey.
The preliminaries in the kitchen occupied a couple of hours, and
during this time Mrs. Ray and Willy sat together in a room above. The
reason of Ralph's absence had been explained to his mother by Rotha,
who had received her information from Robbie Anderson. The old dame
had accepted the necessity with characteristic resignation. What Ralph
thought well to do she knew would be best. She did not foresee evil
consequences.
Willy had exhibited more perturbation. Going into his brother's room
on the morning after their conversation, he saw clearly enough that
the bed had not been slept upon. The two friends of Joe Garth's, of
whom Ralph had spoken with so much apparent unconcern, had obviously
driven him away from home in the depth of the night. Then came Rotha's
explanation.
His worst fears were verified. Was it conceivable that Ralph could
escape the machinations of those who had lain a web that had already
entangled the lord of Wythburn himself? Every one who had served in
the trained bands of the Parliament was at the mercy of any man, who,
for the gratification of personal spite, chose to become informer
against him.
The two strangers had been seen in the city during the preceding day.
It was obviously their purpose to remain until time itself verified
the rumor that Ralph had left these parts to escape them. The
blacksmith had bragged in his cups at the Red Lion that Wilfrey Lawson
of the constable's court at Carlisle would have Ralph Ray in less than
a week. Robbie Anderson had overheard this, and had reported it at the
Moss. Robbie professed to know better, and to be able to laugh at such
pretensions. Willy was more doubtful. He thought his better education,
and consequently more intimate acquaintance with the history of such
conflicts with the ruling powers, justified him in his apprehensions.
He sat with his mother while the business was going on downstairs,
apparently struggling with an idea that it was his duty to comfort
her, but offering such curious comfort that the old dame looked up
again and again with wide eyes, which showed that her son was
suggesting to her slower intellect a hundred dangers and a hundred
moods of sorrow that she could neither discover for herself nor cope
with.
Towards nine the “maister men” of Wythburn began to arrive at
Shoulthwaite. Such of them as intended to accompany the remains of
their fellow-dalesman to their resting place at Gosforth came on
mountain ponies, which they dismounted in the court and led into a
spare barn. Many came on foot, and of these by much the larger part
meant to accompany the _cortège_ only to the top of the Armboth Fell,
and, having “sett” it so far, to face no more of the more than twenty
miles of rough country that lay between the valley and the churchyard
on the plains by the sea.
Matthew Branthwaite was among the first to arrive. The old weaver was
resplendent in the apparel usually reserved for “Cheppel Sunday.” The
external elevation of his appearance from the worn and sober brown of
his daily “top-sark” seemed to produce a corresponding elevation of
the weaver's spirit. Despite the solemnity of the occasion, he seemed
tempted to let fall a sapient proverb of anything but a funereal tone.
On stepping into the kitchen and seeing the provision that had been
made for a repast, he did indeed intimate his intention of assisting
at the ceremony in the language of the time-honored wren who cried “I
helps” as she let a drop of water fall into the sea. At this moment
the clergyman from the chapel-of-ease on the Raise arrived at the
Moss, and Matthew prepared to put his precept into practice.
The priest, Nicholas Stevens by name, was not a Cumbrian. He had kept
his office through three administrations, and to their several forms
of legislation he had proved equally tractable. His spirit of
accommodation had not been quite so conspicuous in his dealings with
those whom he conceived to be beneath him. But in truth he had left
his parishioners very largely to their own devices. When he was moved
to come among them, it was with the preoccupied air not so much of the
student or visionary as of a man who was isolated from those about him
by combined authority, influence, and perhaps superior blood. He now
took his seat at the head of the table with the bearing of one to whom
it had never occurred to take a lower place. He said little at first,
and when addressed he turned his face slowly round to him who spoke
with an air of mingled abstraction and self-satisfaction, through
which a feeble smile of condescension struggled and seemed to say in a
mild voice, “Did you speak?”
Matthew sat at the foot of the table, and down each side were seated
the dalesmen, to the number of twenty-four. There were Thomas Fell and
Adam Rutledge, Job Leathes and Luke Cockrigg, John Jackson of Armboth,
and little Reuben Thwaite.
His reverence cut up the ham into slices as formal as his creed, while
old Matthew poured out the contents of two huge black jacks. Robbie
Anderson carried the plates to and fro; Mrs. Branthwaite and Liza
served out the barley and oaten bread.
The breakfast was hardly more than begun when the kitchen door was
partially opened, and the big head of a little man became visible on
the inner side of it, the body and legs of the new-comer not having
yet arrived in the apartment.
“Am I late?” the head said in a hoarse whisper from its place low down
on the door-jamb. It was Monsey Laman, red and puffing after a sharp
run.
“It's the laal Frenchman. Come thy ways in,” said Matthew. Rotha, who
was coming and going from the kitchen to the larder, found a chair for
the schoolmaster, and he slid into it with the air of one who was
persuading himself that his late advent was unobserved.
“I met that Garth--that--Joe Garth on the road, and he kept me,”
whispered Monsey apologetically to Matthew across the table. The
presence of Death somewhere in the vicinity had banished the
schoolmaster's spirit of fun.
While this was going on at one end of the table, Rotha had made her
way to the other end, with the ostensible purpose of cutting up the
cheese, but with the actual purpose of listening to a conversation in
which his reverence Nicholas Stevens was beginning to bear an
unusually animated part. Some one had made allusion to the sudden and,
as was alleged, the unseemly departure of Ralph Ray on the eve of his
father's funeral. Some one else had deplored the necessity for that
departure, and had spoken of it as a cruel outrage on the liberties of
a good man. From this generous if somewhat disloyal sentiment his
reverence was expressing dissent. He thought it nothing but just that
the law should take its course.
This might involve the mortification of our private feelings; it would
certainly be a grief to him, loving, as he did, the souls committed to
his care; but individual affections must be sacrificed to the general
weal. The young man, Ralph Ray, had outraged the laws of his country
in fighting and conspiring against his anointed King. It was hard, but
it was right, that he should be punished for his treason.
His reverence was speaking in cold metallic tones, that fell like the
clank of chains on Rotha's ears.
“Moreover, we should all do our best for the King,” said the
clergyman, “to bring such delinquents to justice.”
“Shaf!” cried Matthew Branthwaite from the other end of the table. The
little knots of talkers had suddenly become silent.
“Shaf!” repeated Matthew; “what did ye do yersel for the King in
Oliver's days? Wilt thoo mak me tell thee? Didst thoo not tak what
thoo called the oath of abjuration agen the King five years agone?
Didst thoo not? Ey? And didst thoo not come round and ask ivery man on
us to do the same?”
The clergyman looked confounded. He dropped his knife and, unable to
make a rejoinder, turned to those about him and said, in a tone of
amazement, “Did you ever hear the like?”
“Nay,” cried Matthew, following up his advantage, “ye may hear it
agen, an ye will.”
Poor Mrs. Branthwaite seemed sorely distressed. Standing by her
husband's chair, she appeared to be struggling between impulse and
fear in an attempt to put her hand on the mouth of her loquacious
husband, in order to avert the uncertain catastrophe which she was
sure must ensue from this unexpected and uncompromising defiance of
the representative in Wythburn of the powers that be.
Rotha gave Matthew a look of unmistakable gratitude, which, however,
was wasted on that infuriated iconoclast. Fixing his eyes steadily on
the priest, the weaver forthwith gave his reverence more than one
opportunity of hearing the unwelcome outburst again, telling him by
only too palpable hints that the depth of his loyalty was his stipend
of £300 a year, and the secret of his willingness to see Ralph in the
hands of the constable of Carlisle was the fact that the young man had
made no secret of his unwillingness to put off his hat to a priest who
had thrice put off his own hat to a money-bag.
“Gang yer gate back to yer steeple-house, Nicholas Stevens,” said
Matthew, “and mortify yer fatherly bosom for the good of the only soul
the Almighty has geàn to yer charge, and mind the auld saying, 'Nivver
use the taws when a gloom will do the turn.'”
“You deserve the taws about your back, sirrah, to forget my sacred
office so far as to speak so,” said the minister.
“And ye hev forgat yer sacred office to call me nicknames,” answered
Matthew, nothing abashed.
“I see you are no better than those blaspheming Quakers whom Justice
Rawlinson has wisely committed to the common gaol--poor famished
seducers that deserve the stocks!”
“Rich folk hev rowth of friends,” rejoined Matthew, “an' olas will hev
while the mak of thyself are aboot.”
His reverence was not slow to perceive that the pulpit had been no
match for the Red Lion as a place of preparation for an encounter like
the present. Gathering up with what grace he could the tattered and
besmeared skirts of his priestly dignity, he affected contempt for the
weaver by ignoring his remarks; and, turning to those immediately
around him, he proceeded with quite unusual warmth to deliver a homily
on duty. Reverting to the subject of Ralph Ray's flight from Wythburn,
he said that it was well that the young man had withdrawn himself, for
had he remained longer in these parts, and had the high sheriff at
Carlisle not proceeded against him, he himself, though much against
his inclination, might have felt it his duty as a servant of God and
the King to put the oath of allegiance to him.
“I do not say positively that I should have done so,” he said, in a
confidential parenthesis, “but I fear I could not have resisted that
duty.”
“Dree out the inch when ye've tholed the span,” cried Matthew; “I'd
nivver strain lang at sic a wee gnat as that.”
Without condescending to notice the interruption, his reverence
proceeded to say he had recently learned that it had been the
intention of the judges on the circuit to recommend Angus Ray, the
lamented departed, as a justice for the district. This step had been
in contemplation since the direful tragedy which had recently been
perpetrated in their midst, and of which the facts remained still
unexplained, though circumstantial evidence pointed to a solution of
the mystery.
When saying this the speaker turned, as though with an involuntary and
unconscious gaze, towards the spot where Rotha stood. He had pushed
past the girl on coming through the porch without acknowledging her
salutation.
“And if Angus Ray had lived to become a justice,” continued the
Reverend Nicholas, “it very likely must have been his duty before God
and the King to apprehend his son Ralph on a charge of treason.”
Robbie Anderson, who was standing by, felt at that moment that it
would very likely be _his_ duty before long to take the priest by
certain appendages of his priestly apparel, and carry him less than
tenderly to a bed more soft than odorous.
“It must have been his duty, I repeat,” said his reverence, speaking
with measured emphasis, “before God and the King.”
“Leave God oot on't,” shouted Matthew. “Ye may put that in when ye get
intil yer pulpit, and then ye'll deceive none but them that lippen
till ye. Don't gud yersel wi' God's name.”
“It is written,” said his reverence, “'It is an abomination to
kings to commit wickedness; for the throne is established by
righteousness.'”
“Dus'ta think to knock me doon wi' the Bible?” said Matthew with a
touch of irreverence. “I reckon ony cock may crouse on his own
middenheed. Ye mind me of the clerk at Tickell, who could argify none
at all agen the greet Geordie Fox, so he up and broke his nose wi' a
bash of his family Bible.”
This final rejoinder proved too much for the minister, who rose, the
repast being over, and stalked past Rotha into the adjoining chamber,
where the widow and Willy sat in their sorrow. The dalesmen looked
after his retreating figure, and as the door of the inner room closed,
they heard his metallic voice ask if the deceased had judiciously
arranged his temporal affairs.
During the encounter between the weaver and the clergyman the company
had outwardly observed a rigid neutrality. Little Liza, it is true,
had obviously thought it all the best of good fun, and had enjoyed it
accordingly. She had grinned and giggled just as she had done on the
preceding Sunday when a companion, the only surviving child of Baptist
parents now dead, had had the water sprinkled on her face at her
christening in the chapel on the Raise. But Luke Cockrigg, Reuben
Thwaite, and the rest had remained silent and somewhat appalled. The
schoolmaster had felt himself called upon to participate in the
strife, but being in the anomalous position of owing his official
obligations to the minister and his convictions to the side championed
by the weaver, he had contented him with sundry grave shakes of his
big head, which shakes, being subject to diverse interpretations, were
the least compromising expressions of opinion which his genius could
suggest to him. No sooner, however, had the door closed on the
clergyman than a titter went round the table. Matthew was still at a
white heat. Accustomed as he was to “tum'le” his neighbors at the Red
Lion, he was now profoundly agitated. It was not frequently that he
brought down such rare game in his sport.
“Mattha Branthet,” said Reuben Thwaite, “what, man, thoo didst flyte
the minister! What it is to hev the gift o' gob and gumption!”
“Shaf! It's kittle shootin' at crows and clergy,” replied Matthew.
The breakfast being over, the benches were turned towards the big peat
fire that glowed red on the hearth and warmed the large kitchen on
this wintry day. The ale jars were refilled, pipes and tobacco were
brought in, and the weaver relinquished his office of potman to his
daughter.
“I'd be nobbut a clot-heed,” he said when abdicating, “and leave nane
for mysel if I sarrad it oot.”
Robbie Anderson now put on his great cloak, and took down a whip from
a strap against the rafters.
“What's this?” said little Reuben to Robbie. “Are you going without a
glass?”
Robbie signified his intention of doing just that and nothing else. At
this there was a general laugh, after which Reuben, with numerous
blinkings of his little eyes, bantered Robbie about the great drought
not long before, when a universal fast had been proclaimed, and Robbie
had asked why, if folks could not get water, they would not content
themselves with ale.
“Liza, teem a short pint intil this lang Robbie,” said Matthew.
Liza brought up a foaming pot, but the young man put it aside with a
bashful smile at the girl, who laughed and blushed as she pressed it
back upon him.
“Not yet, Liza; when we come back, perhaps.”
“Will you not take it from me?” said the girl, turning her pretty head
aside, and giving a sly dig of emphasis to the pronouns.
“Not even from you, Liza, yet awhile.”
The mischievous little minx was piqued at his refusal, and determined
that he should drink it, or decline to do so at the peril of losing
her smiles.
“Come, Robbie, you shall drink it off--you must.”
“No, my girl, no.”
“I think I know those that would do it if I asked them,” said Liza,
with an arch elevation of her dimpled chin and a shadow of a pout.
“Who wouldn't do it, save Robbie Anderson?” he said, laughing for the
first time that morning as he walked out of the kitchen.
In a few minutes he returned, saying all was ready, and it was time to
start away. Every man rose and went to the front of the house. The old
mare Betsy was there, with the coffin strapped on her broad back. Her
bruised knees had healed; the frost had disappeared, her shoes were
sharpened, and she could not slip. When the mourners had assembled and
ranged themselves around the horse, the Reverend Nicholas Stevens came
out with the relatives, the weeping mother and son, with Rotha Stagg,
and the “Old Hundredth” was sung.
Then the procession of men on foot and men on horseback set off,
Robbie Anderson in front leading the mare that bore the coffin, and a
boy riding a young horse by his side. Last of all rode Willy Ray, and
as they passed beneath the trees that overhung the lane, he turned in
the saddle and waved his arm to the two women, who, through the
blinding mist of tears, watched their departure from the porch.