CHAPTER XXII. THE THREATENED OUTLAWRY.
Rotha's apprehension of mischief, either as a result of Mrs. Garth's menace or as having occasioned it, was speedily to find realization.
A day or two after the rencontre, three strangers arrived at Shoulthwaite, who, without much ceremony, entered the house, and took seats on the long settle in the kitchen.
Rotha and Willy were there at the moment, the one baking oaten cake, and the other tying a piece of cord about a whip which was falling to pieces. The men wore plain attire, but a glance was enough to satisfy Willy that one of them was the taller of the two constables who had tried to capture Ralph on Stye Head.
“What do you want?” he asked abruptly.
“A little courtesy,” answered the stalwart constable, who apparently constituted himself spokesman to his party.
“From whom do you come?”
“From whom and for whom!—you shall know both, young man. We come from the High Sheriff of Carlisle, and we come for—so please you—Ralph Ray.”
“He's not here.”
“So we thought.” The constables exchanged glances and broad smiles.
“He's not here, I tell you,” said Willy, obviously losing his self-command as he became excited.
“Then go and fetch him.”
“I would not if I could; I could not if I would. So be off.”
“We might ask you for the welcome that is due to the commissioners of a sheriff.”
“You take it. But you'll be better welcome to take yourselves after it.”
“Listen, young master, and let it be to your profit. We want Ralph Ray, sometime captain in the rebel army of the late usurper in possession. We hold a warrant for his arrest. Here it is.” And the man tapped with his fingers a paper which he drew from his belt.
“I tell you once more he is not here,” said Willy.
“And we tell you again, Go and fetch him, and God send you may find him! It will be better for all of you,” added the constable, glancing about the room.
Willy was now almost beyond speech with excitement. He walked nervously across the kitchen, while the constable, with the utmost calmness of voice and manner, opened his warrant and read:—
“These are to will and require you forthwith to receive into your charge the body of Ralph Ray, and him detain under secure imprisonment—”
“You've had the warrant a long while to no purpose, I believe,” Willy broke in. “You may keep it still longer.”
The constable took no further note of the interruption than to pause in his reading, and begin again in the same measured tones:—
“We do therefore command, publish, and declare that the said Ralph Ray, having hitherto withheld himself from judgment, shall within fourteen days next after personally deliver himself to the High Sheriff of Carlisle, under pain of being excepted from any pardon or indemnity both for his life and estate.”
Then the constable calmly folded up his paper, and returned it to its place in his belt. Willy now stood as one transfixed.
“So you see, young man, it will be best for you all to go and fetch him.”
“And what if I cannot?” asked Willy. “What then will happen?”
“Outlawry; and God send that that be all!”
“And what then?”
“The confiscation to the Crown of these goods and chattels.”
“How so?” said Rotha, coming forward. “Mrs. Ray is still alive, and this is a brother.”
“They must go elsewhere, young mistress.”
“You don't mean that you can turn the poor dame into the road?” said Rotha eagerly.
The man shrugged his shoulders. His companions grinned, and shifted in their seats.
“You can't do it; you cannot do it,” said Willy emphatically, stamping his foot on the floor.
“And why not?” The constable was unmoved. “Angus Ray is dead. Ralph Ray is his eldest son.”
“It's against the law, I tell you,” said Willy.
“You seem learned in the law, young farmer; enlighten us, pray.”
“My mother, as relict of my father, has her dower, as well as her own goods and chattels, which came from her own father, and revert to her now on her husband's death.”
“True; a learned doctor of the law, indeed!” said the constable, turning to his fellows.
“I have also my share,” continued Willy, “of all except the freehold. These apportionments the law cannot touch, however it may confiscate the property of my brother.”
“Look you, young man,” said the constable, facing about and lifting his voice; “every commissioner must feel that the law had the ill-luck to lose an acute exponent when you gave up your days and nights to feeding sheep; but there is one point which so learned a doctor ought not to have passed over in silence. When you said the wife of the deceased had a right to her dower, and his younger son to his portion, you forgot that the wife and children of a traitor are in the same case with a traitor himself.”
“Be plain, sir; what do you mean?” said Willy.
“That wise brain of yours should have jumped my meaning; it is that Angus Ray was as much a traitor as his son Ralph Ray, and that if the body of the latter is not delivered to judgment within fourteen days, the whole estate of Shoulthwaite will be forfeited to the Crown as the property of a felon and of the outlawed son of a felon.”
“It's a quibble—a base, dishonorable quibble,” said Willy; “my father cared nothing for your politics, your kings, or your commonwealths.”
The constables shifted once more in their seats.
“He feels it when it comes nigh abreast of himself,” said one of them, and the others laughed.
Rotha was in an agony of suspense. This, then, was what the woman had meant by her forebodings of further disaster to the semiconscious sufferer in the adjoining room. The men rose to go. Wrapping his cloak about him, the constable who had been spokesman said,—
“You see it will be wisest to do as we say. Find him for us, and he may have the benefit of pardon and indemnity for his life and estate.”
“It's a trick, a mean trick,” cried Willy, tramping the floor; “your pardon is a mockery, and your indemnity a lie.”
“Take care, young man; keep your strong words for better service, and do you profit by what we say.”
“That for what you say,” cried Willy, losing all self-control and snapping his fingers before their faces. “Do your worst; and be sure of this, that nothing would prevail with me to disclose my brother's whereabouts even if I knew it, which I do not.”
The constables laughed. “We know all about it, you see. Ha! ha! You want a touch of your brother's temper, young master. He could hardly fizz over like this. We should have less trouble with him if he could. But he's a vast deal cooler than that—worse luck!”
Willy's anger was not appeased by this invidious parallel. “That's enough,” he cried at all but the full pitch of his voice, pointing at the same time to the door.
The men smiled grimly and turned about.
“Remember, a fortnight to-day, and we'll be with you again.”
Rotha clung to the rannel-tree rafter to support herself. Willy thrust out his arm again, trembling with excitement.
“A fortnight to-day,” repeated the constable calmly, and pulled the door after him.