CHAPTER XXIV. TREASON OR MURDER.
The night was dark that followed. It had been a true Cumbrian day in winter. The leaden sky that hung low and dense had been relieved only by the white rolling mists that capped the fells and swept at intervals down their brant and rugged sides. The air had not cleared as the darkness came on. There was no moon. The stars could not struggle through the vapor that lay beneath them. There was no wind. It was a cold and silent night.
Rotha stood at the end of the lonnin, where the lane to Shoulthwaite joined the pack-horse road. She was wrapped in a long woollen cloak having a hood that fell deep over her face. Her father had parted from her half an hour ago, and though the darkness had in a moment hidden him from her sight, she had continued to stand on the spot at which he had left her.
She was slight of figure and stronger of will than physique, but she did not feel the cold. She was revolving the step she had taken, and thinking how great an issue hung on the event. Sometimes she mistrusted her judgment, and felt an impulse to run after her father and bring him back. Then a more potent influence would prompt her to start away and overtake him, yet only in order to bear his message the quicker for her fleeter footsteps.
But no; Fate was in it: a power above herself seemed to dominate her will. She must yield and obey. The thing was done.
The girl was turning about towards the house, when she heard footsteps approaching her from the direction which her father had taken. She could not help but pause, hardly knowing why, when the gaunt figure of Mrs. Garth loomed large in the road beside her. Rotha would now have hastened home, but the woman had recognized her in the darkness.
“How's all at Shoulth'et?” said Mrs. Garth in her blandest tones; “rubbin' on as usual?”
Rotha answered with a civil commonplace, and turned to go. But Mrs. Garth had stood, and the girl felt compelled to stand also.
“It's odd to see ye not at work, lass,” said the woman in a conciliatory way; “ye're nigh almost always as thrang as Thorp wife, tittyvating the house and what not.”
Again some commonplace from Rotha, and another step homewards.
“I've just been takin' a sup o' tea with laal 'Becca Rudd. It's early to go home, but, as I says to my Joey, there's no place like it; and nowther is there. It's like ye've found that yersel', lass, afore this.”
There was an insinuating sneer in the tone in which Mrs. Garth uttered her last words. Getting no response, she added,—
“And yer fadder, I reckon he's found it out too, bein' so lang beholden to others. I met the poor man on the road awhile ago.”
“It's cold and sappy, Mrs. Garth. Good night,” said Rotha.
“Poor man, he has to scrat now,” said Mrs. Garth, regardless of Rotha's adieu. “I reckon he's none gone off for a spoag; he's none gone for a jaunt.”
The woman was angry at Rotha's silence, and, failing to conciliate the girl, she was determined to hold her by other means. Rotha perceived the purpose, and wondered within herself why she did not go.
“But he's gone on a bootless errand, I tell ye,” continued Mrs. Garth.
“What errand?” It was impossible to resist the impulse to probe the woman's meaning.
Mrs. Garth laughed. It was a cruel laugh, with a crow of triumph in it.
“Yer waxin' apace, lass; I reckon ye think ye'll be amang the next batch of weddiners,” said Mrs. Garth.
Rotha was not slow to see the connection of this scarcely relevant observation. Did the woman know on what errand her father had set out? Had she guessed it? And if so, what matter?
“I wish the errand had been mine instead,” said Rotha calmly. But it was an unlucky remark.
“Like enough. Now, that's very like,” said Mrs. Garth with affected sincerity. “Ye'll want to see him badly, lass; he's been lang away. Weel, it's nought but nature. He's a very personable young man. There's no sayin' aught against it. Yes, he's of the bettermer sort, that way.”
Of what use was it to continue this idle gossip? Rotha was again turning about, when Mrs. Garth added, half as comment and half as question,—
“And likely ye've never had the scribe of a line from him sin' he left. But he's no wanter; he'll never marry ye, lass, so ye need never set heart on him.”
Rotha stepped close to the woman and looked into her face. What wickedness was now brewing?
“Nay, saucer een,” said Mrs. Garth with a snirt, “art tryin' to skiander me like yon saucy baggish, laal Liza?”
“Come, Mrs. Garth, let us understand one another,” said Rotha solemnly. “What is it you wish to tell me? You said my father had gone on a bootless errand. What do you know about it? Tell me, and don't torment me, woman.”
“Nay, then, I've naught to say. Naught but that Ralph Ray is on the stormy side of the hedge this time.”
Mrs. Garth laughed again.
“He is in trouble, that is true; but what has he done to you that you should be glad at his misfortunes?”
“Done? done?” said Mrs. Garth; “why—but we'll not talk of that, my lass. Ask him if ye'd know. Or mayhap ye'll ask yon shaffles, yer father.”
What could the woman mean?
“Tak my word for it; never set heart on yon Ralph: he's a doomed man. It's not for what he did at the wars that the redcoats trapes after him. It's worse nor that—a lang way war' nor that.”
“What is it, woman, that you would tell me? Be fair and plain with me,” cried the girl; and the words were scarcely spoken when she despised herself for regarding the matter so seriously.
But Mrs. Garth leaned over to her with an ominous countenance, and whispered, “There's murder in it, and that's war' nor war. May war' never come among us, say I!” Rotha put her hands over her face, and the next moment the woman shuffled on.
It was out at length.
Rotha staggered back to the house. The farm people had taken supper, and were lounging in various attitudes of repose on the skemmel in the kitchen.
The girl's duties were finished for the day, and she went up to her own room. She had no light, and, without undressing, she threw herself on the bed. But no rest came to her. Hour after hour she tossed about, devising reason on reason for disbelieving the woman's word. But apprehension compelled conviction.
Mrs. Garth had forewarned them of the earlier danger, and she might be but too well informed concerning this later one.
Rotha rejected from the first all idea of Ralph being guilty of the crime in question. She knew nothing of the facts, but her heart instantly repudiated the allegation. Perhaps the crime was something that had occurred at the wars six years ago. It could hardly be the same that still hung over their own Wythburn. That last dread mystery was as mysterious as ever. Ralph had said that her father was innocent of it, and she knew in her heart that he must be so. But what was it that he had said? “Do you know it was not father?” she had asked; and he had answered, “I know it was not.” Did he mean that he himself—
The air of her room felt stifling on that winter's night. Her brow was hot and throbbing, and her lips were parched and feverish. Rising, she threw open the window, and waves of the cold mountain vapor rolled in upon her.
That was a lie which had tried a moment ago to steal into her mind—a cruel, shameless lie. Ralph was as innocent of murder as she was. No purer soul ever lived on earth; God knew it was the truth.
Hark! what cry was that which was borne to her through the silent night? Was it not a horse's neigh?
Rotha shuddered, and leaned out of the window. It was gone. The reign of silence was unbroken. Perhaps it had been a fancy. Yet she thought it was the whinny of a horse she knew.
Rotha pulled back the sash and returned to her bed. How long and heavy were the hours till morning! Would the daylight never dawn? or was the blackness that rested in her own heart to lie forever over all the earth?
But it came at last—the fair and gracious morning of another day came to Rotha even as it always has come to the weary watcher, even as it always will come to the heartsore and heavy-laden, however long and black the night.
The girl rose at daybreak, and then she began to review the late turn of events from a practical standpoint.
Assuming the woman's word to be true, in what respect was the prospect different for Mrs. Garth's disclosure? Rotha had to confess to herself that it was widely different. When she told Willy that she could give up Ralph, were he a thousand times her brother, to such a death of sacrifice as he had pictured, she had not conceived of a death that would be the penalty of murder. That Ralph would be innocent of the crime could not lessen the horror of such an end. Then there was the certainty that conviction on such a charge would include the seizure of the property. Rotha dwelt but little on the chances of an innocent man's acquittal. The law was to her uninformed mind not an agent of justice, but an instrument of punishment, and to be apprehended was to be condemned.
Ralph must be kept out of the grip of the law. Yes, that was beyond question. Whether the woman's words were true or false, the issues were now too serious to be played with.
She had sent her father in pursuit of Ralph, and the effect of what he would tell of the forthcoming eviction might influence Ralph to adopt a course that would be imprudent, even dangerous—nay, even fatal, in the light of the more recent disclosure.
What had she done? God alone could say what would come of it.
But perhaps her father could still be overtaken and brought back. Yet who was to do it? She herself was a woman, doomed as such to sit at her poor little wheel, to lie here like an old mastiff or its weak tottering whelp, while Ralph was walking—perhaps at her bidding—to his death.
She would tell Willy, and urge him to go in pursuit of Sim. Yet, no, that was not possible. She would have to confess that she had acted against his wish, and that he had been right while she had been wrong. Even that humiliation was as nothing in the face of the disaster that she foresaw: but Willy and Sim!—Rotha shuddered as she reflected how little the two names even could go together.
The morning was growing apace, and still Rotha's perplexity increased. She went downstairs and made breakfast with an absent mind.
The farm people came and went; they spoke, and she answered; but all was as a dream, except only the one grim reality that lay on her mind.
She was being driven to despair. It was far on towards midday, and she was alone; still no answer came to her question. She threw herself on the settle, and buried her face in her hands. She was in too much agony to weep. What had she done? What could she do?
When she lifted her eyes, Liza Branthwaite was beside her, looking amazed and even frightened.
“What has happened, lass?” said Liza fearfully.
Then Rotha, having no other heart to trust with her haunting secret, confided it to this simple girl.
“And what can I do?” she added in a last word.
During the narration, Liza had been kneeling, with her arms in her friend's lap. Jumping up when Rotha had ceased, she cried, in reply to the last inquiry, “I know. I'll just slip away to Robbie. He shall be off and fetch your father back.”
“Robbie?” said Rotha, looking astonished.
“Never fear, I'll manage him. And now, cheer up, my lass; cheer up.”
In another moment Liza was running at her utmost speed down the lonnin.