CHAPTER XLVIII. “OUT, OUT, BRIEF CANDLE.”
As the clock struck eight Rotha drew her shawls about her shoulders and hurried up the road.
At the turning of the lonnin to Shoulthwaite she met Willy Ray. “I was coming to meet you,” he said, approaching.
“Come no closer,” said Rotha, thrusting out the palm of one hand; “you know where I've been—there, that is near enough.”
“Nonsense, Rotha!” said Willy, stepping up to her and putting a hand on her arm. There was confidence in the touch.
“To-morrow is the day,” Willy added, in an altered tone. “I am leaving for Carlisle at noon—that is, in four hours.”
“Could you not wait four hours longer?” said Rotha.
“I could if you wish it; but why?”
“I don't know—that is, I can't say—but wait until four o'clock, I beg of you.”
The girl spoke with deep earnestness.
“I shall wait,” said Willy, after a pause.
“And you'll meet me at the bridge by the smithy?” said Rotha.
Willy nodded assent.
“At four precisely,” he said.
“This is all I came to ask. I must go back.”
“Rotha, a word: what is your interest in these Garths? Does it concern your father and Ralph?”
“I'll tell you at the bridge,” said Rotha, sidling off.
“Every one is aghast at your going,” he said.
“I have better reasons than any one knows of,” she replied.
“And better faith, and a nobler heart,” he added feelingly as he turned his head away.
Garth was still asleep when she got back to the cottage. A feeble gleam of winter sunshine came languidly through the little window. It fell across the bed and lit up the blue eyelids and discolored lips of the troubled sleeper.
The fire had smouldered out. Only a charred bough and a damp clod of peat lay black among the gray ashes on the hearth.
As Rotha re-entered Mrs. Garth got up from the stool on which she had sat the long night through. There was a strange look on her face. During the heavy hours she had revolved within herself a dark problem which to her was unsolvable, and the puzzle was still printed on her face. Drawing the girl aside, she said in a grating whisper,—
“Tell me, do ye think it's reet what the lad says?”
“About Ralph and father?” asked Rotha.
“Tush! about hissel'. Do ye think he'll die?”
Rotha dropped her head.
“Tell me: do ye think so?”
Rotha was still silent. Mrs. Garth looked searchingly into her face, and in answer to the unuttered reply, she whispered vehemently,—
“It's a lie. He'll be back at his anvil to-morrow. Why do you come wi' yer pale face to me? Crying? What's it for? tell me!”
And the old woman shook the girl roughly by the shoulders.
Rotha made no response. The puzzled expression on Mrs. Garth's face deepened at that instant, but as she turned aside she muttered again, with every accent of determination,—
“He'll be back at his anvil to-morrow, that he will.”
The blacksmith awoke as serene as a child. When he looked at Rotha his hard, drawn face softened to the poor semblance of a smile. Then a shadow crossed it, and once more he turned his head to the wall.
And now to Rotha the hours went by with flying feet. Every hour of them was as precious to her as her heart's blood. How few were the hours of morning! The thing which above all she came here to do was not being done. A dull dead misery seemed to sit cold on her soul.
Rotha tended the sufferer with anxious care, and when the fitful sleep slid over him, she sat motionless with folded hands, and gazed through the window. All was still, sombre, chill, and dreary. The wind had slackened; the river ran smoother. In a field across the valley a woman was picking potatoes. No other human creature was visible.
Thus the hours wore on. At one moment Garth awoke with a troubled look, and glanced watchfully around. His mother was sitting in her accustomed seat, apparently asleep. He clutched at Rotha's gown, and made a motion to her to come closer. She did so, a poor breath of hope fluttering in her breast. But just then Mrs. Garth shifted in her seat, and faced about towards them. The blacksmith drew back his hand, and dropped his half-lifted head.
Towards noon Mrs. Garth got up and left the bedroom. Her son had appeared to be asleep but he was alert to every movement. Again he plucked Rotha's gown, and essayed to speak. But Mrs. Garth returned in a moment, and not a word was said.
Rotha's spirits flagged. It was as though she were crawling hour after hour towards a gleam of hope that fled farther and farther away.
The darkness was gathering in, yet nothing was done. Then the clock struck four, and Rotha drew on her shawl once more, and walked to the bridge.
Willy was there, a saddled horse by his side.
“You look jaded and out of heart, Rotha,” he said.
“Can you stay four hours longer?” she asked.
“Until eight o'clock? It will make the night ride cold and long,” he answered.
“True, but you can stay until eight, can you not?”
“You know why I go. God knows it is not to be present at that last scene of all: that will be soon after daybreak.”
“You want to see him again. Yes; but stay until eight o'clock. I would not make an idle request, Willy. No, not at a solemn hour like this.”
“I shall stay,” he said.
The girl's grief-worn face left no doubt in his mind of her purpose. They parted.
When Rotha re-entered the sick-room a candle was burning on a table by the bedside. Mrs. Garth still crouched before the fire. The blacksmith was awake. As he lifted his eyes to Rotha's face, the girl saw that they wore the same watchful and troubled expression as before.
“Shall I read to you, Mr. Garth?” she asked, taking down from a shelf near the rafters a big leather-bound book. It was a Bible, dust-covered and with rusty clasps, which had lain untouched for years.
“Rotha,” said Garth, “read to me where it tells of sins that are as scarlet being washed whiter nor wool.”
The girl found the place. She read aloud in the rich, soft voice that was like the sigh of the wind through the long grass. The words might have brought solace to another man. The girl's voice might have rested on the ear as a cool hand rests on a throbbing brow. But neither words nor voice brought peace to Garth. His soul seemed to heave like a sea lashed by a storm.
At length he reached out a feeble hand and touched the hand of the girl.
“I have a sin that is red as scarlet,” he said. But before he could say more, his mother had roused herself and turned to him with what Rotha perceived to be a look of warning.
It was plainly evident that but for Mrs. Garth, the blacksmith would make that confession which she wished above all else to hear.
Then Rotha read again. She read of the prodigal son, and of Him who would not condemn the woman that was a sinner. It was a solemn and terrible moment. The fathomless depths of the girl's voice, breaking once and again to a low wail, then rising to a piercing cry, went with the words themselves like an arrow to the heart of the dying man. Still no peace came to him. Chill was the inmost chamber of his soul; no fire was kindled there. His face was veiled in a troubled seriousness, when, at a pause in the reading, he said,—
“There can be no rest for me, Rotha, till I tell you something that lies like iron at my heart.”
“Whisht thee, lad; whisht thee and sleep. Thou'rt safe to be well to-morrow,” said Mrs. Garth in a peevish whimper.
“Mother, mother,” cried Garth aloud in a piteous tone of appeal and remonstrance, “when, when will you see me as I am?”
“Tush, lad! thou'rt mending fast. Thou'rt safe to be at thy fire to-morrow.”
“Ey, mother,” replied the blacksmith, lifting himself feebly and glaring at her now with a fierce light in his eyes,—“eh, mother, but it will be the everlasting fire if I'm to die with this black sin heavy on my soul.”
In spite of her self-deception, the woman's mind had long been busy with its own secret agony, and at these words from her son the rigid wrinkles of her face relaxed, and she turned her head once more aside.
Rotha felt that the moment had at length arrived. She must speak now or never. The one hope for two innocent men who were to die as soon as the world woke again to daylight lay in this moment.
“Mr. Garth,” she began falteringly, “if a sin lies heavy on your soul, it is better to tell God of it and cast yourself on the mercy of our Heavenly Father.”
Gathering strength, the girl continued: “And if it is a dark secret that touches others than yourself—if others may suffer, or are suffering, from it even now—if this is so, I pray of you, as you hope for that Divine mercy, confess it now, confess it before it is too late—fling it forth from your stifled heart—do not bury its dead body there, and leave it to be revealed only at that judgment when every human deed, be it never so secret, shall be stripped naked before the Lord, that retribution may be measured out for ever and ever.”
Rotha had risen to her feet, and was leaning over the bed with one hand in an attitude of acutest pain, convulsively clutching the hand of the blacksmith.
“Oh, I implore you,” she continued, “speak out what is in your heart for your own sake, as well as the sake of others. Do not lose these precious moments. Be true! be true at last! at last! Then let it be with you as God shall order. Do not carry this sin to the eternal judgment. Blessed, a thousand times blessed, will be the outpouring of a contrite heart. God will hear it.”
Garth looked into the girl's inspired face.
“I don't see my way clearly,” he said. “I'm same as a man that gropes nigh midway through yon passage underground at Legberthwaite. The light behind me grows dimmer, dimmer, dimmer, and not yet comes the gleam of the light in front. I'm not at the darkest; no, I'm not.”
“A guest is knocking at your heart, Mr. Garth. Will you open to him?” Then, in another tone, she added: “To-morrow at daybreak two men will die in Carlisle—my father and Ralph Ray—and they are innocent!”
“Ey, it's true,” said the blacksmith, breaking down at length.
Then struggling once more to lift himself in bed, he cried, “Mother, tell her I did it, and not Ralph. Tell them all that it was I myself who did it. Tell them I was driven to it, as God is my judge.”
The old woman jumped up, and, putting her face close to her son's, she whispered,—
“Thou madman! What wadsta say?”
“Mother, dear mother, my mother,” he cried, “think of what you would do; think of me standing, as I must soon stand—very soon—before God's face with this black crime on my soul. Let me cast it off from me forever. Do not tempt me to hide it! Rotha, pray with her; pray that she will not let me stand before God thus miserably burthened, thus red as scarlet with a foul, foul sin!”
Garth's breath was coming and going like a tempest. It was a terrible moment. Rotha flung herself on her knees. She had not been used to pray, but the words gushed from her.
“Dear Father in heaven,” she prayed, “soften the hearts of all of us here in this solemn hour. Let us remember our everlasting souls. Let us not barter them for the poor comforts of this brief life. Father, thou readest all hearts. No secret so secret, none so closely hidden from all men's eyes, but Thou seest it and canst touch it with a finger of fire. Help us here to reveal our sins to Thee. If we have sinned deeply, forgive us in Thy heavenly mercy; in Thy infinite goodness grant us peace. Let Thy angel hover over us even now, even now, now.”
And the angel of the Lord was indeed with them in that little cottage among the desolate hills.
Rotha rose up and turned to Garth.
“Under the shadow of death,” she said, “tell me, I implore you, how and when you committed the crime for which father and Ralph are condemned to die to-morrow.”
Mrs. Garth had returned once more to her seat. The blacksmith's strength was failing him. His agitation had nigh exhausted him. Tears were now in his eyes, and when he spoke in a feeble whisper, a sob was in his throat.
“He was my father,” he said, “God forgive me—Wilson was my father—and he left us to starve, mother and me; and when he came back to us here we thought Ralph Ray had brought him to rob us of the little that we had.” “God forgive me, too,” said Mrs. Garth, “but that was wrong.”
“Wrong?” inquired the blacksmith.
“Ey, it came out at the trial,” muttered his mother.
Garth seemed overcome by a fresh flood of feeling. Rotha lifted a basin of barley-water to his lips.
“Yes, yes; but how was it done—how?”
“He did not die where they threw him—Ralph—Angus—whoever it was—he got up some while after and staggered to this house—he said Ray had thrown him and he was hurt—Ray, that was all. He wanted to come in and rest, but I flung the door in his face and he fell. Then he got up, and shrieked out something—it was something against myself; he called me a bastard, that's the fact. Then it was as if a hand behind me pushed me on. I opened the door and struck him. I didn't know that I had a hammer in my hand, but I had. He fell dead.”
“Well, well, what next?”
“Nothing—yes—late the same night I carried him back to where I thought he had come from—and that's all!”
The little strength Garth had left was wellnigh spent.
“Would you sign a paper saying this?” asked Rotha, bending over him.
“Ey, if there would be any good in it.”
“It might save the lives of father and Ralph; but your mother would need to witness it.”
“She will do that for me,” said Garth feebly. “It will be the last thing I'll ask of her. She will go herself and witness it.”
“Ey, ey,” sobbed the broken woman, who rocked herself before the fire.
Rotha took the pen and paper, and wrote, in a hand that betrayed her emotion,—
“This is to say that I, Joseph Garth, being near my end, yet knowing well the nature of my act, do confess to having committed the crime of killing the man known as James Wilson, for whose death Ralph Ray and Simeon Stagg stand condemned.”
“Can you sign it now, Joe?” asked Rotha, as tenderly as eagerly.
Garth nodded assent. He was lifted to a sitting position. Rotha spread the paper before him, and then supported him from behind with her arms.
He took the pen in his graspless hand, and essayed to write. Oh, the agony of that effort! How every futile stroke of that pen went to the girl's heart like a stab of remorse! The name was signed at length, and in some sorry fashion. The dying man was restored to his pillow.
Peace came to him there and then.
The clock struck eight.
Rotha hurried out of the house and down the road to the bridge. The moon had just broken over a ridge of black cloud. It was bitterly cold.
Willy Ray stood with his horse at the appointed place.
“How agitated you are, Rotha; you tremble like an aspen,” he said. “And where are your shawls?”
“Look at this paper,” she said. “You can scarce see to read it here; but it is a confession. It states that it was poor Joe Garth who committed the murder for which father and Ralph are condemned to die at daybreak.”
“At last! Thank God!” exclaimed Willy.
“Take it—put it in your breast—keep it safe as you value your eternal soul—ride to Carlisle as fast as your horse will carry you, and place it instantly before the sheriff.”
“Is it signed?”
“Yes.”
“And witnessed?”
“The witness will follow in person—a few hours—a very few—and she will be with you there.”
“Rotha, God has put it into your heart to do this thing, and He has given you more than the strength of a strong man!”
“In how many hours might one ride to Carlisle at the fastest—in the night and in a cart?” asked the girl eagerly.
“Five, perhaps, if one knew every inch of the way.”
“Then, before you set out, drive round to Armboth, and ask Mr. Jackson to bring his wagon across to this bridge at midnight. Let him not say 'No' as he hopes for his salvation! And now, good bye again, and God speed you on your journey!”
Willy carried a cloak over his arm. He was throwing it across Rotha's unprotected shoulders.
“No, no,” she said, “you need it yourself. I shall be back in a minute.”
And she was gone almost before he was aware.
Willy was turning away when he heard a step behind. It was the Reverend Nicholas Stevens, lantern in hand, lighting himself home from a coming-of-age celebration at Smeathwaite. As he approached, Willy stepped up to him.
“Stop,” cried the parson, “was she who parted from you but now the daughter of the man Simeon Stagg?”
“The same,” Willy answered.
“And she comes from the home of the infected blacksmith?”
“She is there again, even now,” said Willy. “I thought you might wish to take the solace of religion to a dying man—Garth is dying.”
“Back—away—do not touch me—let me pass,” whispered the parson in an accent of dread, shrinking meantime from the murderous stab of the cloak which Willy carried over his arm.
Rotha was in the cottage once again almost before she had been missed.
Joe was dozing fitfully. His mother was sighing and whimpering in turns. Her wrinkled face, no longer rigid, was a distressing spectacle. When Rotha came close to her she whispered,—
“The lad was wrang, but I dare not have telt 'im so. Yon man were none of a father to Joe, though he were my husband, mair's the pity.”
Then getting up, glancing nervously at her son, lifting a knife from the table, creeping to the side of the bed and ripping a hole in the ticking, she drew out a soiled and crumpled paper.
“Look you, lass, I took this frae the man's trunk when he lodged wi' yer father and yersel' at Fornside.”
It was a copy of the register of Joe's birth, showing that he was the son of a father unknown.
“I knew he must have it. He always threatened that he'd get it. He wad have made mischief wi' it somehow.”
Mrs. Garth spoke in whispers, but her voice broke her son's restless sleep. Garth was sinking fast, but he looked quieter when his eyes opened again. “I think God has forgiven me my great crime,” he said calmly, “for the sake of the merciful Saviour, who would not condemn the woman that was a sinner.”
Then he crooned over the Quaker hymn,—
Though your sins be red as scarlet,
He shall wash them white as wool.
Infinitely touching was it to hear his poor, feeble, broken voice spend its last strength so.
“Sing to me, Rotha,” he said, pausing for breath.
“Yes, Joe. What shall I sing?”
“Sing 'O Lord, my God,'” he answered. And then, over the murmuring voice of the river, above the low wail of the rising wind, the girl's sweet, solemn voice, deep with tenderness and tears, sang the simple old hymn,—
O Lord, my God,
A broken heart
Is all my part:
Spare not Thy rod,
That I may prove
Therein Thy love.
“Ey, ey,” repeated Garth, “a broken heart is all my part.”
Very tremulous was the voice of the singer as she sang,—
O Lord, my God,
Or ere I die,
And silent lie
Beneath the sod,
Do Thou make whole
This bruisèd soul.
“This bruised soul,” murmured the blacksmith.
Rotha had stopped, and buried her face in her hands.
“There's another verse, Rotha; there's another verse.”
But the singer could sing no more. Then the dying man himself sang in his feeble voice, and with panting breath,—
Dear Lord, my God—
Weary and worn,
Bleeding and torn—
Spare now Thy rod.
Sorely distressed—
Lord, give me rest.
There was a bright light in his eyes. And surely victory was his at last. The burden was cast off forever. “Lord, give me rest,” he murmured again, and the tongue that uttered the prayer spoke no more.
Rotha took his hand. His pulse sank—slower, slower, slower. His end was like the going out of a lamp—down, down, down—then a fitful flicker—and then—
Death, the merciful mediator; Death, the Just Judge; Death, the righter of the wronged; Death was here—here!
Mrs. Garth's grief was uncontrollable. The hard woman was as nerveless as a baby now. Yet it was not at first that she would accept the evidence of her senses. Reaching over the bed, she half raised the body in her arms.
“Why, he's dead, my boy he's dead!” she cried. “Tell me he's not dead, though he lies sa still.”
Rotha drew her away, and, stooping, she kissed the cold wasted whitened lips.
At midnight a covered cart drove up to the cottage by the smithy. John Jackson was on the seat outside. Rotha and Mrs. Garth got into it. Then they started away.
As they crossed the bridge and turned the angle of the road that shut out the sight of the darkened house they had left, the two women turned their heads towards it and their hearts sank within them as they thought of him whom they left behind. Then they wept together.