Upon reaching the Woodman at Kendal, Robbie found little reason to
doubt that Sim had been there and had gone. A lively young
chambermaid, who replied to his questions, told him the story of Sim's
temporary illness and subsequent departure with another man.
“What like of a man was he, lass--him as took off the little fellow?”
asked Robbie.
“A very personable sort; maybe as fine a breed as you'd see here and
there one,” replied the girl.
“Six foot high haply, and square up on his legs?” asked Robbie,
throwing back his body into an upright posture as a supplementary and
explanatory gesture.
“Ey, as big as Bully Ned and as straight as Robin the Devil,” said the
girl.
Robbie was in ignorance of the physical proportions of these local
worthies, but he was nevertheless in little doubt as to the identity
of his man. It was clear that Sim and Ralph had met on this spot only
a few hours ago, and had gone off together.
“What o'clock might it be when they left?” said Robbie.
“Nigh to noon--maybe eleven or so.”
It was now two, and Ralph and Sim, riding good horses, must be many
miles away. Robbie's vexation was overpowering when he thought of the
hours that he had wasted at Winander and of the old gossip at the
street corner who had prompted him to the fruitless search.
“The feckless old ninny,” he thought in his mute indignation; “when an
old man comes to be an old woman it's nothing but right that he should
die, and have himself done with.”
Robbie was unable to hire a horse in order to set off in pursuit of
his friends; nor were his wits so far distraught by the difficulties
tormenting them that he was unable to perceive that, even if he could
afford to ride, his chance would be inconsiderable of overtaking two
men who had already three hours' start of him.
He went into the taproom to consult the driver of the Carlisle coach,
who was taking a glass before going to bed--his hours of work being in
the night and his hours of rest being in the day. That authority
recommended, with the utmost positiveness of advice, that Robbie
should take a seat in his coach when he left for the North that night.
“But you don't start till nine o'clock, they tell me?” said Robbie.
“Well, man, what of that?” replied the driver; “yon two men will have
to sleep to-night, I reckon; and they'll put up to a sartenty
somewhear, and that's how we'll come abreast on 'em. It's no use
tearan like a crazy thing.”
The driver had no misgivings; his conjecture seemed reasonable, and
whether his plan were feasible or not, it was the only one available.
So Robbie had to make a virtue of a necessity, as happens to many a
man of more resource.
He was perhaps in his secret heart the better reconciled to a few
hours' delay in his present quarters, because he fancied that the
little chambermaid had exhibited some sly symptoms of partiality for
his society in the few passages of conversation which he had exchanged
with her.
She was a bright, pert young thing, with just that dash of freedom in
her manners which usually comes of the pursuit of her public calling;
and it is only fair to Robbie's modesty to say that he had not
deceived himself very grossly in his estimate of the interest he had
suddenly excited in her eyes. It was probably a grievous dereliction
of duty to think of a love encounter, however blameless, at a juncture
like this--not to speak of the gravity of the offence of forgetting
the absent Liza. But Robbie was undergoing a forced interlude in the
march; the lady who dominated his affections was unhappily too far
away to appease them, and he was not the sort of young fellow who
could resist the assault of a pair of coquettish black eyes.
Returning from the taproom to announce his intention of waiting for
the coach, Robbie was invited to the fire in the kitchen,--a privilege
for which the extreme coldness of the day was understood to account.
Here he lit a pipe, and discoursed on the route that would probably be
pursued by his friends.
It was obvious that Ralph and Sim had not taken the direct road home
to Wythburn, for if they had done so he must have met them as he came
from Staveley. There was the bare possibility that he had missed them
by going round the fields to the old woman's cottage; but this seemed
unlikely.
“Are you quite sure it's an _old man_ you're after?” said the girl,
with a dig of emphasis that was meant to insinuate a doubt of Robbie's
eagerness to take so much trouble in running after anything less
enticing than one of another sex who might not be old.
Robbie protested on his honor that _he_ was never known to run after
young women,--a statement which did not appear to find a very ready
acceptance. The girl was coming and going from the kitchen in the
discharge of her duties, and on one of her journeys she brought a
parchment map in her hand, saying: “Here's a paper that Jim, the
driver, told me to show you. It gives all the roads atween Kendal and
Carlisle. So you may see for yourself whether your friends could get
round about to Wy'bern.”
Robbie spread out the map on the kitchen table, and at once proceeded,
with the help of the chambermaid, to trace out the roads that were
open to Ralph and Sim to take. It was a labyrinthine web, that map,
and it taxed the utmost ingenuity of both Robbie and his little
acquaintance to make head or tail of it.
“Here you are,” cried Robbie, with the air of a man making a valuable
discovery, “here's the milestones--one, two, three--them's milestones,
thou knows.”
“Tut, you goose; that's only the scale,” said the girl; “see what's
printed, 'Scale of miles.'”
“Oh, ey, lass,” said Robbie, not feeling sure what “scale” might mean,
but too shrewd to betray his ignorance a second time in the presence
of this learned chambermaid.
The riddle, nevertheless, defied solution. However much they pored
over the map, it was still a maze of lines.
“It's as widderful as poor old Sim's face,” said Robbie.
Robbie and the chambermaid put their heads together in more senses
than one. The map was most inconveniently small. Two folks could not
consult it at the same time without coming into really uncomfortable
proximity.
“There you are,” said Robbie, reaching over, pipe in hand, to where
the girl was intent on some minute point.
Suddenly there was a cloud of smoke over the map. It also enveloped
the students of geography. Then, somehow, there was a sly smack of
lips.
“And there _you_ are,” said the girl, with a roguish laugh, as she
brought Robbie a great whang over the ear and shot away.
Jim, the driver, came into the kitchen at that moment on his way to
bed, and unravelled the mystery of the map by showing that it was
possible for Robbie's friends to go off the Carlisle road towards
Gaskarth and Wythburn at the village of Askham.
Robbie was satisfied with this explanation, and did his best under the
circumstances to rest content until nine o'clock with the harbor into
which he had drifted. He succeeded more completely, perhaps, in this
endeavor than might be expected, when the peril of his friends and his
allegiance to Liza Branthwaite is taken into account.
But when nine o'clock had come and gone, and still the coach stood in
the yard of the inn, Robbie's sense of duty overcame his appetite for
what he would have called a “spoag.” It was usual for the Carlisle
coach to await the coach from Lancaster, and it was because the latter
had not yet arrived at Kendal that the former was unable to depart
from it. Robbie's impatience waxed considerably during the half-hour
thence ensuing; but when ten o'clock had struck, and still no definite
movement was made, his indignation became boisterous.
There were to be four inside passengers, all women; and cold as the
night might prove, Robbie's seat must be outside. The protestations of
all five passengers were at length too loud, and their importunity was
too earnest, to admit of longer delay. So the driver put in his horses
and took his seat on the box.
This had scarcely been done when the horn of the Lancaster coach was
heard in the distance, and some further waiting ensued.
“Let's hope you'll have no traffic out of, it when it does come,” said
Robbie with a dash of spite. A few minutes afterwards the late coach
drove into the yard and discharged its travellers.
Two of these, who were going forward to Carlisle, climbed the ladder
and took seats behind Robbie. It was too dark to see who or what they
were except that they were men, that they were wrapped in long cloaks,
and wore caps that fitted close to their heads and cheeks, being tied
over their beards and beneath their chins.
The much-maligned Jim now gave a smart whip to his horses, and in a
moment more the coach was on the road.
The night was dark and bitterly cold, and once outside the town the
glimmer of the lamps which the coach carried was all the light the
passengers had for miles.
A slight headache from which Robbie had suffered at intervals since
the ducking of his head in the river at Wythburn had now quite
disappeared, but a curious numbness, added to a degree of
stupefaction, began to take its place. As the coach jogged along on
its weary journey, not even the bracing surroundings of Robbie's
present elevated and exposed position had the effect of keeping him
actively awake. He dozed in short snatches and awoke with slight
shudders, feeling alternately hot and cold.
In one of his intervals of wakefulness he heard fragments of a
conversation which was being sustained by the strangers behind him.
Robbie had neither activity nor curiosity to waste on their talk, but
he could not avoid listening.
“He would have been the best agent in the King's service to a
certainty,” said one. “He's the 'cutest man _I_ ever tackled. It's
parlish odd how he baffles us.”
The speaker was clearly a Cumbrian.
“Shaf!” replied his companion, in a kind of whisper, “he's a pauchtie
clot-heed. I'll have him at Haribee in a crack.”
The second speaker was as clearly a Scot who was struggling against
the danger there might be of his speech bewraying him.
“Well, you're pretty smart on 'im. I never could rightly make aught of
thy hate of 'im.”
“Tut, man, live and learn. Let me have him in Wilfrey Lawson's hands,
and ye'll see what for I hate the proud-stomached taistrel.”
“Well,” said the Cumbrian, in a tone indicative of more resignation
than he had previously exhibited, “I've no more cause to love 'im than
yourself. You saw 'im knock me down in the streets of Lancaster.”
“May ye hang him up for it, Bailiff Scroope,” replied the Scot. “May
ye hang him up for it on the top of Haribee!”
Robbie understood enough of this conversation to realize the character
and pursuit of his travelling companions; but the details and tone of
the dialogue were not of an interest sufficiently engrossing to keep
him awake. He dozed afresh, and in the unconsciousness of a fitful
sleep he passed a good many miles of his dreary night ride.
A sudden glare in his eyes awoke him at one moment. They were passing
the village of Hollowbank. Fires were lit on the road, and dark
figures were crouching around them. Robbie was too drowsy to ask the
meaning of these sights, and he soon slept once more.
When he awoke again, he thought he caught the echo of the word
“Wythburn” as having been spoken behind him; but whether this were
more than a delusion of the ear, such as sometimes comes at the moment
of awakening, he could not be sure until (now fully awake) he
distinctly heard the Cumbrian use the name of Ralph Ray.
Robbie's curiosity was instantly aroused, and in the effort to shake
off the weight of his drowsiness he made a backward movement of the
head, which was perceived by the strangers. He was conscious that one
of the men had risen, and was leaning over to the driver to ask who he
himself might be, and where he was going.
“A country lad of some sort,” said Jim. “I know nought, no mair.”
“I thought maybe he were a friend,” said the stranger, with
questionable veracity.
The conversation thereupon proceeded with unrestrained vigor.
“It baffles me, his going to Carlisle. As I say, he's a 'cute sort.
What's his game in this hunt?”
“Shaf! he's bagged himself, stump and rump.”
“I don't mind how soon we've done with this trapesing here and there.
Which will be the 'dictment, think ye?”
“Small doubt which.” “Murder, eh? Can you manage it, Wilfrey and
yourself?”
“Leave that to the pair of us.”
The perspiration was standing in beads on every inch of Robbie's body.
He was struggling with an almost overpowering temptation to test the
strength of his muscles at pitching certain weighty “bodies” off the
top of that coach, in order to relieve it of some of the physical
burden and a good deal of the moral iniquity under which it seemed to
him just then to groan.
Snow began now to fall, and the driver gave the whip to his horses in
order to reach a village which was not far away.
“We'll be bound to put up for the night,” he said; “this snowstorm
will soon stop us.”
The two strangers were apparently much concerned at the necessity, and
used every available argument to induce the driver to continue his
journey.
Robbie could not bring himself to a conclusion as to whether it would
be best for his purpose that the coach should stop, and so keep back
the vagabonds who were sitting behind him, or go on, and so help him
to overtake Ralph. The driver in due course settled the problem very
decisively by drawing up at the inn of the hamlet of Mardale and
proceeding to take his horses off the chains.
“There be some folk as have mercy neither on man nor beast,” he said
in reply to a protest from the strangers.
Jim's sentiment was more apposite than he thought.
The two men grumbled their way into the inn. Robbie remained outside
and gave the driver a hand with the horses.
“Where's Haribee?” he asked.
“In Carlisle,” said the driver.
“What place is it?” asked Robbie.
“Haribee?--why, the place of execution.”
When left alone outside in the snow, Robbie began to reflect on the
position of affairs. It was past midnight. The two strangers, who were
obviously in pursuit of Ralph, would stay in this house at least until
morning. Ralph himself was probably asleep at this moment, some ten
miles or thereabouts farther up the road.
It was bitterly cold. Robbie's hands and face were numbed. The flakes
of snow fell thicker and faster than before.
Robbie perceived that there was only one chance that would make it
worth while to have come on this journey: the chance that he could
overtake Ralph before the coach and its passengers could overtake him.
To do this he must walk the whole night through, let it rain or snow
or freeze.
He could and he would do it!
Bravely, Robbie! A greater issue than you know of hangs on your
journey. On! on! on!