I. When Ralph lay down in his bed that night in a coffee-house in China
Lane, there was no conviction more strongly impressed upon his mind
than that it was his instant duty to leave Lancaster. It was obvious
that he was watched, and that his presence in the old town had excited
suspicion. The man who had pestered him for many days with his
unwelcome society was clearly in league with the other man who had
insulted the girl. The latter rascal he knew of old for a declared and
bitter enemy. Probably the pair were only waiting for authority,
perhaps merely for the verification of some surmise, before securing
the aid of the constable to apprehend him. He must leave Lancaster,
and at once.
Ralph rose from his bed and dressed himself afresh. He strapped his
broad pack across his back, called his hostess, and paid his score.
“Must the gentleman start away at midnight?” Yes; a sudden call
compelled him. “Should she brew him a pot of hot ale?--the nights were
chill in winter.” Not to-night; he must leave without delay.
When Ralph walked through the streets of Lancaster that cold midnight,
it was with no certainty as to his destination. It was to be anywhere,
anywhere in this race for life. Any haven that promised solitude was
to be his city of refuge.
The streets were quiet now, and even the roystering tipplers had gone
off to their homes. For Ralph there was no home--only this wild hunt
from place to place, with no safety and rest.
His heavy tread and the echo of his footfall were at length all that
broke the stillness of the streets.
He walked southwards, and when he reached the turnpike he stood for a
moment and turned his eyes towards the north. The fires that had been
kindled were smouldering away, but even yet a red gleam lay across the
square towers of the castle on the hill.
The old town was now asleep. Thousands of souls lay slumbering there.
Ralph thought of those who slept in a home he knew, far, far north of
this town and those towers. What was his crime that he was banished
from them--perhaps forever? What was his crime before God or man? His
mother, his brother, Rotha--
Ralph struck his breast and turned about. No, it would not bear to be
thought about. _That_ dream, at least, was gone. Rotha was happy in
his brother's love, and as for himself--as for him--it was his
destiny, and he must bear it!
Yet what was life worth now that he should struggle like this to
preserve it?
Ralph returned to his old conviction--God's hand was on him. The idea,
morbid as it might be, brought him solace this time. Once more he
stopped, and turned his eyes afresh towards the north and the fifty
miles of darkness that lay between him and those he loved.
It was at that very moment of desolation that Rotha heard the neigh of
a horse as she leaned out of her open window.
II. “Aye, poor man, about Martinmas the Crown seized his freehold and all
his goods and chattels.”
“It will be sad news for him when he hears that his old mother and the
wife and children were turned into the road.”
“Well, well, I will say, treason or none, that John Rushton was as
good a subject as the loudest bagpipes of them all.”
Ralph was sitting at breakfast in a wayside inn when two Lancashire
yeomen entered and began to converse in these terms: “Aye, aye, and
the leaven of Puritanism is not to be crushed out by such measures.
But it's flat dishonesty, and nothing less. What did the proclamation
of '59 mean if it didn't promise pardon to every man that fought for
the Parliament, save such as were named as regicides?”
“Tut, man, it came to nought; the King returned without conditions;
and the men who fought against him are reckoned as guilty as those
that cut off his father's head.” “But the people will never uphold it.
The little leaven remains, and one day it will leaven the lump.”
“Tut, the people are all fools--except such as are knaves. See how
they're given up to drunkenness and vain pleasures. Hypocrisy and
libertinism are safe for a few years' reign. England is _Merry_
England, as they say, and she'll be merry at any cost.”
“Poor John, it will be a sad blow to him!”
Ralph had been an eager listener to the conversation between the
yeomen, who were clearly old Whigs and Parliamentarians.
“Pardon me, gentlemen,” he interrupted, “do you speak of John Rushton
of Aberleigh?”
“We do. As good a gentleman as lived in Lancashire.”
“That's true, but where was he when this disaster befell his
household?”
“God knows; he had fled from judgment and was outlawed.”
“And the Crown confiscated his estate, you say, and turned his family
into the road? What was the indictment--some trumpery subterfuge for
treason?”
“Like enough; but the indictment counts for nothing in these days;
it's the verdict that is everything, and that's settled beforehand.”
“True, true.”
“Did you know my neighbor John?”
“I did; we were comrades years ago.”
With these words, Ralph rose from his unfinished breakfast and walked
out of the house.
What mischief of the same sort might even now be brewing at Wythburn
in his absence? Should he return? That would be useless, and worse
than useless. What could he do?
The daring impulse suddenly possessed him to go on to London, secure
audience of the King himself, and plead for amnesty. Yes, that was all
that remained to him to do, and it should be done. His petition might
be spurned; his person might be seized, and he might be handed over to
judgment; but what of that? He was certain to be captured sooner or
later, and this sorry race for liberty and for life would be over at
length.
III. The same day Ralph Ray, still travelling on foot, had approached the
town of Preston. It was Sunday morning, but he perceived that smoke
like a black cloud overhung the houses and crept far up the steeples
and towers. Presently a tumultuous rabble came howling and hooting out
of the town. At the head of them, and apparently pursued by them, was
a man half clad, who turned about at every few yards, and, raising his
arm, predicted woe and desolation to the people he was leaving. He was
a Quaker preacher, and his presence in Preston was the occasion of
this disturbance.
“Oh, Preston,” he cried, “as the waters run when the floodgates are
up, so doth the visitation of God's love pass away from thee, oh,
Preston!”
“Get along with thee; thou righteous Crister,” said one of the crowd,
lifting a stick above his head. “Get along, or ye'll have Gervas
Bennett aback of ye again.”
“I shall never cease to cry aloud against deceit and vanities,”
shrieked the preacher above the tumult. “You do profess a Sabbath, and
dress yourselves in fine apparel, and your women go with stretched
necks.”
“Tush, tush! Beat him, stone him!”
“Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment,” the preacher
replied, “and a babbler is no better. The lips of a fool will swallow
up himself.”
The church bells were beginning to ring in the town, and the sound
came across the fields and was heard even above the mocking laughter
of the crowd.
“You have your steeple-houses, too,” cried the preacher, “and the
bells of your gospel markets are even now a-ringing where your priests
and professors are selling their wares. But God dwells not in temples
made with hands. Oh, men of Preston, did I not prophesy that fire, and
famine, and plagues, and slaughter would come upon ye unless ye came
to the light with which Christ hath enlightened all men? And have ye
not the plague of the East at your doors already?”
“And who brought it, who brought it?” screamed more than one voice
from the crowd. “Who brought the plague to us from the East? Beat him,
beat him!” The mob, with many uplifted hands, swayed about the
preacher. “Your cities will be laid waste, the houses without man, and
the land be utterly desolate. And what will ye do, oh men of Preston,
in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from
far?”
The rabble had rushed past by this time, still hooting and howling at
the wild, fiery-eyed enthusiast at their head.
Ralph walked on to the town and speedily discovered the cause of the
black cloud which overhung it. An epidemic of an alarming nature had
broken out in various quarters, and fears were entertained that it was
none other than a great pestilence which had been brought to England
from the East.
Indescribably eerie was the look of Preston that Sunday morning. Men
and boys were bearing torches through the streets to disinfect them,
and it was the smoke from these torches that hung like a cloud above
the town. Through the thick yellow atmosphere the shapes of people
passing to and fro in the thoroughfares stood out large and black.
IV. Ralph had travelled thus far in the fixed determination of pushing on
to London, seeking audience of the King himself, and pleading for an
amnesty. But the resolution which had never failed him before began
now to waver. Surely there was more than his political offences
involved in the long series of disasters that had befallen his
household? He reflected that every link in that chain of evil seemed
to be coupled to the gyves that hung about his own wrists. Wilson's
life in Wythburn--his death--Sim's troubles--Rotha's sorrow--even his
father's fearful end, and the more fearful accident at the
funeral--then his mother's illness, nigh to death--how nigh to death
by this time God alone could tell him here--all, all, with this last
misery of his own banishment, seemed somehow to centre in himself.
Yes, yes, sin and its wages must be in this thing; but what sin, what
sin? What was the crime that cast its shadow over his life?
“As the waters run when the flood-gates are up,” said the preacher,
“so doth the visitation of God's love pass away from thee.”
Of what use, then, would be the amnesty of the King? Mockery of
mockeries! In a case like this only the Great King Himself could
proclaim a pardon. Ralph put his hands over his eyes as the vision
came back to him of a riderless horse flying with its dread burden
across the fells. No sepulture! It was the old Hebrew curse--the
punishment of the unpardonable sin.
He thought again of his stricken mother in the old home, and then of
the love which had gone from him like a dream of the night. Heaven had
willed it that where the heart of man yearned for love, somewhere in
the world there was a woman's heart yearning to respond. But the curse
came to some here and some there--the curse of an unrequitable
passion.
* * * * *
The church bells were still ringing over the darkened town.
Rotha was happy in her love; Heaven be with her and bless her! As for
himself, it was a part of the curse that lay on him that her face
should haunt his dreams, that her voice should come to him in his
sleep, and that “Rotha, Rotha,” should rise in sobs to his lips in the
weary watches of the night.
Yes, it must be as he had thought--God's hand was on him. Destiny had
to work its own way. Why should he raise his feeble hands to prevent
it? The end would be the end, whenever and wherever it might come.
Why, then, should he stir?
Ralph had determined to go no farther. He would stay in Preston over
the night, and set out again for the north at daybreak. Was it despair
that possessed him? Even if so, he was stronger than before. Hope had
gone, and fear went with it.
Take heart, Ralph Ray, most unselfish and long-suffering of men. God's
hand is indeed upon you, but God Himself is at your right hand!
V. That day Ralph walked through the streets with a calmer mind. Towards
nightfall he stepped into a tavern and secured a bed. Then he went
into the parlor of the house and sat among the people gathered there,
and chatted pleasantly on the topics of the hour.
The governing spirit of the company was a little man who wore a suit
of braided black which seemed to indicate that he belonged to one of
the clerkly professions. He was addressed by the others as Lawyer
Lampitt, and was asked if he would be busy at the court house on the
following morning. “Yes,” he answered, with an air of consequence,
“there's the Quaker preacher to be tried for creating a disturbance.”
“Was he taken, then?” asked one.
“He's quiet enough now in the old tower,” said the lawyer, stretching
himself comfortably before the fire.
“I should have thought his tormentors were fitter occupants of his
cell,” said Ralph.
“Perhaps so, young man; I express no opinion.”
“There was scarce a man among them whose face would not have hanged
him,” continued Ralph.
“There again I offer no opinion,” said the lawyer, “but I'll tell you
an old theory of mine. It is that a murderer and a hero are all but
the same man.”
The company laughed. They were accustomed to these triumphs of logic,
and relished them. Every man braced himself up in his seat.
“Why, how's that, lawyer?” said a townsman who sat tailor-fashion on a
bench; he would hardly have been surprised if the lawyer had proved
beyond question that he swam swanlike among the Isles of Greece.
“I'll tell you a story,” said the gentleman addressed. “There was an
ancient family in Yorkshire, and the lord of the house was of a very
splenetive temper. One day in a fit of jealousy he killed his wife,
and put to death all of his children who were at home by throwing them
over the battlements of his castle. He had one remaining child, and it
was an infant, and was nursed at a farmhouse a mile away. He had set
out for the farm with an intent to destroy his only remaining child,
when a storm of thunder and lightning came on, and he stopped.”
“Thought it was a warning, I should say,” interrupted a listener.
“It awakened the compunctions of conscience, and he desisted from his
purpose.”
“Well?”
“What do you think he did next?”
“Cannot guess--drowned himself?”
“No, and this proves what I say, that a murderer and a hero are all
but one. He surrendered himself to justice, and stood mute at the bar,
and, in order to secure his estates to his surviving child, he had the
resolution to die under the dreadful punishment of _peine forte_.”
“What is that, lawyer?”
“Death by iron weights laid on the bare body until the life is crushed
out of it.”
“Dreadful! And did he secure his estates to his child by suffering
such a death?”
“He did. He stood mute at the bar, and let judgment go against him
without trial. It is all in black and white. The Crown cannot
confiscate a man's estate until he is tried and condemned.”
“What of an outlaw?” asked Ralph somewhat eagerly.
“A man's flight is equal to a plea of guilty.”
“I had a comrade once,” said Ralph with some tremor of voice; “he fled
from judgment and was outlawed, and his poor children were turned into
the road. Could he have kept his lands for his family by delivering
his body to that death you speak of?”
“He could. The law stands so to this day.”
“Think you, in any sudden case, a man could do as much _now?_”
“He _could_,” answered the lawyer; “but where's the man who _would?_
Only one who must die in any chance, and then none but a murderer, I
should say.”
“I don't know--I don't know that,” said Ralph, rising with
ill-concealed agitation, and stalking out of the room, without the
curtest leave-taking.
VI. On Tuesday, Ralph was walking through Kendal on his northward journey.
The day was young. Ralph meant to take a meal at the old coaching
house, the Woodman, in Kirkland, by the river Kent, and then push on
till nightfall.
The horn of the incoming coach fell on his ear, and the coach
itself--the Carlisle coach, laden with passengers from back to
front--swept into the courtyard of the inn at the moment he entered it
afoot.
There was a little commotion there. A group of the serving folk, the
maids in their caps, the ostlers bareheaded, and some occasional
stable people were gathered near the taproom door. The driver of the
coach got off his box and crushed into the middle of this company. His
passengers paused in their descent from the top to look over the heads
of those who were on the ground.
“Drunk, surely,” said one of these to another; “that proclamation was
not unnecessary.”
“Some poor straggler, sir; picked him up insensible and fetched him
along,” said one of the ostlers.
Ralph walked past the group to the threshold of the inn.
“Loosen his neckcloth!--here, take my brandy,” said a passenger.
“Came from the North, seemingly, sir. Looks weak from want and a long
journey.”
“From the North?” asked the coachman; “I'll give him a seat in the
coach to-night and take him home.”
Ralph stepped back and looked over some of the people.
A man was lying on the ground, his head in a woman's lap.
It was Simeon Stagg.