The procession had just emerged from the lane, and had turned into the
old road that hugged the margin of the mere, when two men walked
slowly by in the opposite direction. Dark as it had been when Willy
encountered these men before, he had not an instant's doubt as to
their identity.
The reports of Ralph's disappearance, which Matthew had so assiduously
promulgated in whispers, had reached the destination which Ralph had
designed for them. The representatives of the Carlisle high constable
were conscious that they had labored under serious disadvantages in
their efforts to capture a dalesman in his own stronghold of the
mountains. Moreover, their zeal was not so ardent as to make them
eager to risk the dangers of an arrest that was likely to be full of
peril. They were willing enough to accept the story of Ralph's flight,
but they could not reasonably neglect this opportunity to assure
themselves of its credibility. So they had beaten about the house
during the morning under the pioneering of the villager whom they had
injudiciously chosen as their guide, and now they scanned the faces of
the mourners who set out on the long mountain journey.
Old Matthew's risibility was evidently much tickled by the sense of
their thwarted purpose. Despite the mournful conditions under which he
was at that moment abroad, he could not forbear to wish them, from his
place in the procession, “a gay canny mornin'”; and failing to satisfy
himself with the effect produced by this insinuating salutation, he
could not resist the further temptation of reminding them that they
had frightened and not caught their game.
“Fleyin' a bird's not the way to grip it,” he cried, to the obvious
horror of the clergyman, whose first impulse was to remonstrate with
the weaver on his levity, but whose maturer reflections induced the
more passive protest of a lifted head and a suddenly elevated nose.
This form of contempt might have escaped the observation of the person
for whom it was intended had not Reuben Thwaite, who walked beside
Matthew, gently emphasized it with a jerk of the elbow and a motion of
the thumb.
“He'll glower at the moon till he falls in the midden,” said Matthew
with a grunt of amused interest.
The two strangers had now gone by, and Willy Ray breathed freely, as
he thought that with this encounter the threatened danger had probably
been averted.
Then the procession wound its way slowly along the breast of Bracken
Water. When Robbie Anderson, in front, had reached a point at which a
path went up from the pack-horse road to the top of the Armboth Fell,
he paused for a moment, as though uncertain whether to pursue it.
“Keep to the auld corpse road,” cried Matthew; and then, in
explanation of his advice, he explained the ancient Cumbrian land law,
by which a path becomes public property if a dead body is carried over
it.
Before long the procession had reached the mountain path across
Cockrigg Bank, and this path it was intended to follow as far as
Watendlath.
Here the Reverend Nicholas Stevens left the mourners. In accordance
with an old custom, he might have required that they should pass
through his chapel yard on the Raise before leaving the parish, but he
had waived his right to this tribute to episcopacy. After offering a
suitable blessing, he turned away, not without a withering glance at
the weaver, who was muttering rather too audibly an adaptation of the
rhyme,--
I'll set him up on yon crab-tree,
It's sour and dour, and so is he.
“I reckon,” continued Matthew to little Reuben Thwaite, by his side,
as the procession started afresh,--“I reckon yon auld Nick,” with a
lurch of his thumb over his shoulder, “likes Ash Wednesday better ner
this Wednesday--better ner ony Wednesday--for that's the day he curses
every yan all roond, and asks the folks to say Amen tul him.”
The schoolmaster had walked demurely enough thus far; nor did the
departure of the clergyman effect a sensible elevation of his spirits.
Of all the mourners, the “laal limber Frenchman” was the most
mournful.
It was a cheerless winter morning when they set out from Shoulthwaite.
The wind had never fallen since the terrible night of the death of
Angus. As they ascended the fell, however, it was full noon. The sun
had broken languidly through the mists that had rolled midway across
the mountains, and were now being driven by the wind in a long white
continent towards the south, there to gather between more sheltered
headlands to the strength of rain. When they reached the top of the
Armboth Fell the sky was clear, the sun shone brightly and bathed the
gorse that stretched for miles around in varied shades of soft blue,
brightening in some places to purple, and in other places deepening to
black. The wind was stronger here than it had been in the valley, and
blew in gusts of all but overpowering fierceness from High Seat
towards Glaramara.
“This caps owte,” said Matthew, as he lurched to the wind. “Yan
waddent hev a crowful of flesh on yan's bones an yan lived up here.”
When the procession reached the village of Watendlath a pause was
made. From this point onward the journey through Borrowdale towards
the foot of Stye Head Pass must necessarily be a hard and tiresome
one, there being scarcely a traceable path through the huge bowlders.
Here it was agreed that the mourners on foot should turn back, leaving
the more arduous part of the journey to those only who were mounted on
sure-footed ponies. Matthew Branthwaite, Monsey Laman, and Reuben
Thwaite were among the dozen or more dalesmen who left the procession
at this point.
When, on their return journey, they had regained the summit of the
Armboth Fell, and were about to descend past Blea Tarn towards
Wythburn, they stood for a moment at that highest point and took a
last glimpse of the mournful little company, with the one riderless
horse in front, that wended its way slowly beyond Rosthwaite, along
the banks of the winding Derwent, which looked to them now like a thin
streak of blue in the deep valley below.
Soon after the procession left the house on the Moss, arrangements
were put in progress for the meal that had to be prepared for the
mourners upon their return in the evening.
Some preliminary investigations into the quantity of food that would
have to be cooked in the hours intervening disclosed the fact that the
wheaten flour had run short, and that some one would need to go across
to the mill at Legberthwaite at once if hot currant cake were to be
among the luxuries provided for the evening table.
So Liza took down her cloak, tied the ribbons of her bonnet about her
plump cheeks, and set out over the dale almost immediately the funeral
party turned the end of the lonnin. The little creature tripped along
jauntily enough, with a large sense of her personal consequence to the
enterprises afoot, but without an absorbing sentiment of the gravity
of the occurrences that gave rise to them. She had scarcely crossed
the old bridge that led into the Legberthwaite highway when she saw
the blacksmith coming hastily from the opposite direction.
Now, Liza was not insensible of her attractions in the eyes of that
son of Vulcan, and at a proper moment she was not indisposed to accept
the tribute of his admiration. Usually, however, she either felt or
affected a measure of annoyance at the importunity with which he
prosecuted his suit, and when she saw him coming towards her on this
occasion her first feeling was a little touched with irritation.
“Here's this great tiresome fellow again,” she thought; “he can never
let a girl go by without speaking to her. I've a great mind to leap
the fence and cross the fields to the mill.”
Liza did not carry into effect the scarcely feminine athletic exercise
she had proposed to herself; and this change of intention on her part
opens up a more curious problem in psychology than the little creature
herself had any notion of. The fact is that just as Liza had resolved
that she would let nothing in the world interfere with her fixed
determination not to let the young blacksmith speak to her, she
observed, to her amazement, that the gentleman in question had clearly
no desire to do so, but was walking past her hurriedly, and with so
preoccupied an air as actually seemed to suggest that he was not so
much as conscious of her presence.
It was true that Liza did not want to speak to Mr. Joseph. It was also
true that she had intended to ignore him. But that _he_ should not
want to speak to _her_, and that _he_ should seem to ignore _her_, was
much more than could be borne by her stubborn little bit of coquettish
pride, distended at that moment, too, by the splendors of her best
attire. In short, Liza was piqued into a desire to investigate the
portentous business which had obviously shut her out of the
consciousness of the blacksmith.
“Mr. Garth,” she said, stopping as he drew up to her.
“Liza, is that you?” he replied; “I'm in a hurry, lass--good morning.”
“Mr. Garth,” repeated Liza, “and maybe you'll tell me what's all your
hurry about. Has some one's horse dropped a shoe, or is this your
hooping day, or what, that you don't know a body now when you meet one
in the road?”
“No, no, my lass--good morning, Liza, I must be off.”
“Very well, Mr. Garth, and if you must, you must. _I'm_ not the one to
keep any one 'at doesn't want to stop; not I, indeed,” said Liza,
tossing up her head with an air as of supreme indifference, and
turning half on her heel. “Next time you speak to me, you--you--you
_will_ speak to me--mind that.” And with an expression denoting the
triumph of arms achieved by that little outburst of irony and sarcasm
combined, Liza tossed the ribbons aside that were pattering her face
in the wind, and seemed about to continue her journey.
Her parting shot had proved too much for Mr. Garth. That young man had
stopped a few paces down the road, and between two purposes seemed for
a moment uncertain which to adopt; but the impulse of what he thought
his love triumphed over the impulse of what proved to be his hate.
Retracing the few steps that lay between him and the girl, he said,--
“Don't take it cross, Liza, my lass; if I thought you really wanted to
speak to me, I'd stop anywhere for nowt--that I would. I'd stop
anywhere for nowt; but you always seemed to me over throng with yon
Robbie, that you did; but if for certain you really did want
me--that's to say, want to speak to me--I'd stop anywhere for nowt.”
The liberal nature of the blacksmith's offer did not so much impress
the acute intelligence of the girl as the fact that Mr. Garth was
probably at that moment abroad upon an errand which he had not
undertaken from equally disinterested motives. Concerning the nature
of this errand she felt no particular curiosity, but that it was
unknown to her, and was being withheld from her, was of itself a
sufficient provocation to investigation.
Liza was a simple country wench, but it would be an error to suppose
that because she had been bred up in a city more diminutive than
anything that ever before gave itself the name, and because she had
lived among hand-looms and milking-pails, and had never seen a ball or
an opera, worn a mask or a domino, she was destitute of the instinct
for intrigue which in the gayer and busier world seems to be the
heritage of half her sex. Putting her head aside demurely, as with
eyes cast, down she ran her fingers through one of her loose ribbons,
she said softly,--
“And who says I'm so very partial to Robbie? _I_ never said so, did I?
Not that I say I'm partial to anybody else either--not that I _ay_
so--Joseph!”
The sly emphasis which was put upon the word that expressed Liza's
unwillingness to commit herself to a declaration of her affection for
some mysterious entity unknown seemed to Mr. Garth to be proof beyond
contempt of question that the girl before him implied an affection for
an entity no more mysterious than himself. The blacksmith's face
brightened, and his manner changed. What had before been almost a
supplicating tone, gave place to a tone of secure triumph.
“Liza,” he said, “I'm going to bring that Robbie down a peg or two.
He's been a perching himself up alongside of Ralph Ray this last back
end, but I'm going to feckle him this turn.”
“No, Joseph; are you going to do that, though?” said Liza, with a
brightening face that seemed to Mr. Garth to say, “Do it by all
means.”
“Mayhap I am,” said the blacksmith, significantly shaking his head. He
was snared as neatly by this simple face as ever was a swallow by a
linnet hidden in a cage among the grass.
“And that Ralph, too, the great lounderan fellow, he treats me like
dirt, that he does.”
“But you'll pay him out now, won't you, Joseph?” said Liza, as though
glorying in the blacksmith's forthcoming glory.
“Liza, my lass, shall I tell you something?” Under the fire of a pair
of coquettish little eyes, his head as well as his heart seemed to
melt, and he became eagerly communicative. Dropping his voice, he
said,--
“That Ralph's not gone away at all. He'll be at his father's berrying,
that he will.”
“Nay!” cried Liza, without a prolonged accent of surprise; and,
indeed, this fact had come upon her with so much unexpectedness that
her curiosity was now actually as well as ostensibly aroused.
“Yes,” said Mr. Garth; “and there's those as knows where to lay hands
on him this very day--that there is.”
“I shouldn't be surprised, now, if yon Robbie Anderson has been up to
something with him,” said Liza, with a curl of the lip intended to
convey an idea of overpowering disgust at the conduct of the absent
Robbie.
“And maybe he has,” said Mr. Garth, with a ponderous shake of the
head, denoting the extent of his reverse. Evidently “he could an' he
would.”
“But you'll go to them, won't you, Joseph? That is them as wants
them--leastways one of them--them as wants _him_ will go and take him,
won't they?”
“That they will,” said Joseph emphatically. “But I must be off, lass;
for I've the horses to get ready, forby the shortness of the time.”
“So you're going on horseback, eh, Joey? Will it take you long?”
“A matter of two hours, for we must go by the Black Sail and come back
to Wastdale Head, and that's round-about, thou knows.” “So you'll take
them on Wastdale Head, then, eh?” said Liza, turning her head aside as
though in the abundance of her maidenly modesty, but really glancing
slyly under the corner of her bonnet in the direction taken by the
mourners, and wondering if they could be overtaken.
Joseph was a little disturbed to find that he had unintentionally
disclosed so much of the design. The potency of the bright blue eyes
that looked up so admiringly into his face at the revelation of the
subtlety with which he had seen through a mystery impenetrable to less
powerful vision, had betrayed him into unexpected depths of
confidence.
Having gone so far, however, Mr. Garth evidently concluded that the
best course was to make a clean breast of it--an expedient which he
conceived to be insusceptible of danger, for he could see that the
funeral party were already on the brow of the hill. So, with one foot
stretched forward as if in the preliminary stage of a hurried
leave-taking, the blacksmith told Liza that he had met the
schoolmaster that morning, and had gathered enough from a word the
little man had dropped without thought to put him upon the trace of
the old garrulous body with whom the schoolmaster lodged; that his
mother, Mistress Garth, had undertaken the office of sounding this
person, and had learned that Ralph had hinted that he would relieve
Robbie Anderson of his duty at the top of the Stye Head Pass.
Having heard this, Liza had heard enough, and she was not unwilling
that the blacksmith should make what speed he could out of her sight,
so that she in turn might make what speed she could out of his sight,
and, returning to the Moss without delay, communicate her fearful
burden of intelligence to Rotha.