CHAPTER XXXVI. ROTHA'S CONFESSION.
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
Coleridge.
When Reuben Thwaite formed this resolution he was less than a mile from Shoulthwaite. In the house on the Moss, Rotha was then sitting alone, save for the silent presence of the unconscious Mrs. Ray. The day's work was done. It had been market day, and Willy Ray had not returned from Gaskarth. The old house was quiet within, and not a breath of wind was stirring without. There was no sound except the crackling of the dry boughs on the fire and the hollow drip of the melting snow.
By the chair from which Mrs. Ray gazed vacantly and steadily Rotha sat with a book in her hand. She tried to read, but the words lost their meaning. Involuntarily her eyes wandered from the open page. At length the old volume, with its leathern covers clasped together with their great brass clasp, dropped quietly into the girl's lap.
At that moment there was a sound of footsteps in the courtyard. Getting up with an anxious face, Rotha walked to the window and drew the blind partly aside.
It was Matthew Branthwaite.
“How fend ye, lass?” he said on opening the door; “rubbin' on all reet? The roads are varra drewvy after the snow,” he added, stamping the clods from his boots. Then looking about, “Hesn't our Liza been here to-neet?”
“Not yet,” Rotha answered.
“Whearaway is t' lass? I thought she was for slipping off to Shoulth'et. But then she's olas gitten her best bib and tucker on nowadays.”
“She'll be here soon, no doubt,” said Rotha, giving Matthew his accustomed chair facing Mrs. Ray.
“She's a rare brattlecan to chatter is our Liza. I telt her she was ower keen to come away with all the ins and oots aboot the constables coming to Wy'bern yesterday. She had it pat, same as if she'd seen it in prent. That were bad news, and the laal hizzy ran bull-neck to gi'e it oot.”
“She meant no harm, Matthew.”
“But why duddent she mean some good and run bull-neck to-neet to bring ye the bettermer news?”
“Better news, Matthew? What is it?” asked Rotha eagerly, but with more apprehension than pleasure in her tone.
“Why, that the constables hev gone,” said Matthew.
“Gone!”
“Gone! Another of the same sort came to-day to leet them, and away they've gone together.”
Matthew clearly expected an outburst of delight at his intelligence. “What dusta say to that, lass?” he added between the puffs of a pipe that he was lighting from a candle. Then, raising his eyes and looking up at Rotha, he said, “Why, what's this? What ails thee? Ey! What's wrang?”
“Gone, you say?” said Rotha. “I fear that is the worst news of all, Matthew.”
But now there was the rattle of a wagon on the lonnin. A moment later the door was thrown open, and Liza Branthwaite stood in the porch with Reuben Thwaite behind her.
“Here's Robbie Anderson back home in Reuben's cart,” said Liza, catching her breath.
“Fetch him in,” said Matthew. “Is he grown shy o' t'yance?”
“That's mair nor my share, Mattha,” said Reuben. “The lad's dylt out—fair beat, I tell thee; I picked him up frae the brae side.”
“He can scarce move hand or foot,” cried Liza. “Come, quick!”
Rotha was out at the wagon in a moment.
“He's ill: he's unconscious,” she said. “Where did you find him?”
“A couple of mile or so outside Carlisle,” answered Reuben.
Rotha staggered, and must have fallen but for Matthew, who at the moment came up behind her.
“I'll tell thee what it is, lass,” said the old man, “thoo'rt like to be bad thysel', and varra bad, too. Go thy ways back to the fire.”
“Summat ails Robbie, no doubt about it,” said Reuben.
“Of course summat ails him,” said Mattha, with an insinuating emphasis on the word. “He nivver were an artistic drunkard, weren't Bobbie.”
“He's been ram'lin' and ram'lin' all the way home,” continued Reuben. “He's telt ower and ower agen of summat 'at were fifty yards north of the bridge.”
“We must take him home,” said Liza, who came hurrying from the house with a blanket over her arm. “Here, cover him with this, Rotha can spare it.”
In a minute more Robbie's insensible form was wrapped round and round.
“Give him room to breathe,” said Mattha; “I declare ye're playing at pund-o'-mair-weight with the lad!” he added as Rotha came up with a sheepskin and a shawl.
“The night is cold, and he has all but three miles to ride yet!” said the girl.
“He lodges with 'Becca Rudd; let's be off,” said Liza, clambering into the cart by the step at the shaft. “Come up, father; quick!”
“What, Bobbie, Bobbie, but this is bad wark, bad wark,” said Mattha, when seated in the wagon. “Hod thy tail in the watter, lad, and there's hope for thee yit.”
With this figurative expression Mattha settled himself for the drive. Rotha turned to Reuben Thwaite.
“At Carlisle, did you hear anything—meet anybody?” she asked.
“Baith,” said Reuben, with a twinkle which was lost in the darkness.
“I mean from Wythburn. Did you meet anybody from—did you see Ralph or my father?”
“Nowther.”
“Nor hear of them?”
“No—wait—deary me, deary me, now 'at I mind it—I nivver thought of it afore—I heeard 'at a man had been had up at the Toon Hall and taken to the gaol. It cannot be 'at the man were—no, no—I'm ram'lin' mysel sure-ly.”
“Ralph; it was Ralph!” said Rotha, trembling visibly. “Be quick. Good night!” “Ralph at Carlisle!” said Mattha. “Weel, weel; after word comes weird. That's why the constables are gone, and that's why Robbie's come. Weel, weel! Up with thee, Reuben, and let us try the legs of this auld dobbin of thine.”
How Rotha got back into the house that night she never knew. She could not remember to have heard the rattle of the springless cart as it was being driven off. All was for the moment a blank waste.
When she recovered consciousness she was sitting by the side of Mrs. Ray, with her arms about the neck of the invalid and her head on the unconscious breast. The soulless eyes looked with a meaningless stare at the girl's troubled face.
The agony of suspense was over, and the worst had happened. What now remained to her to say to Willy? He knew nothing of what she had done. Sim's absence had been too familiar an occurrence to excite suspicion, and Robbie Anderson had not been missed. What should she say?
This was the night of Thursday. During the long hours of the weary days since Sunday, Rotha had conjured up again and again a scene overflowing with delight, in which she should tell Willy everything. This was to be when her father or Robbie or both returned, and the crown of her success was upon her. But what now was the word to say?
The noise of wheels approaching startled the girl out of her troubled dream. Willy was coming home. In another minute he was in the house.
“Rotha, Rotha,” he cried excitedly, “I've great news, great news.”
“What news?” asked Rotha, not daring to look up.
“Great news,” repeated Willy.
Lifting her eyes furtively to his face, Rotha saw that, like his voice, it was brimming over with delight.
“The bloodhounds are gone,” he said, and, throwing off his cloak and leggings, he embraced the girl and kissed her and laughed the laugh of a happy man. Then he hurried out to see to his horse.
What was Rotha to do? What was she to say? This mistake of Willy's made her position not less than terrible. How was she to tell him that his joyousness was misplaced? If he had come to her with a sad face she might then have told him all—yes, all the cruel truth! If he had come to her with reproaches on his tongue, how easily she might have unburdened her heavy heart! But this laughter and these kisses worked like madness in her brain.
The minutes flew like thought, and Willy was back in the house.
“I thought they dare not do it. You'll remember I told them so. Ah! ah! they find I was in the right.”
Willy was too much excited with his own reading of this latest incident to sit in one seat for two minutes together. He walked up and down the room, laughing sometimes, and sometimes pausing to pat his mother's head.
It was fortunate for Rotha that she had to busy herself with the preparations for Willy's supper, and that this duty rendered less urgent the necessity for immediate response to his remarks. Willy, on his part, was in no mood at present to indulge in niceties of observation, and Rotha's perturbation passed for some time unnoticed.
“Ralph will be back with us soon, let us hope,” he said. “There's no doubt but we do miss him, do we not?”
“Yes,” Rotha answered, leaning as much as possible over the fire that she was mending.
The tone of the reply made an impression on Willy. In a moment more he appeared to realize that there, had throughout been something unusual in the girl's demeanor.
“Not well, Rotha?” he asked in a subdued tone. It had flashed across his mind that perhaps her father was once more in some way the cause of her trouble.
“Oh, very well!” she answered, throwing up her head with a little touch of forced gayety.
“Why, there are tears in your eyes, girl. No? Oh, but there are!” They are tears of joy, he thought. She loves Ralph as a brother. “I laugh when I'm happy, Rotha; it seems that you cry.”
“Do I?” she answered, and wondered if the merciful Father above would ever, ever, ever let this bitter hour pass by.
“No, it's worry, Rotha, that's it; you're not well, that's the truth.”
Willy would have been satisfied to let the explanation resolve itself into this, but Rotha broke silence, saying, “What if it were not good news—”
The words were choking her, and she stopped.
“Not good news—what news?” asked Willy, half muttering the girl's words in a bewildered way.
“The news that the constables have gone.”
“Gone! What is it? What do you mean, Rotha?”
“What if the constables have gone,” said the girl, struggling with her emotion, “only because—what if they have gone—because—because Ralph is taken.”
“Taken! Where? What are you thinking of?”
“And what if Ralph is to be charged, not with treason—no, but with—with murder? Oh, Willy!” the girl cried in her distress, throwing away all disguise, “it is true, true; it is true.”
Willy sat down stupefied. With a wild and rigid look, he stared at Rotha as they sat face to face, eye to eye. He said nothing. A sense of horror mastered him.
“And this is not all,” continued Rotha, the tears rolling down her cheeks. “What would you say of the person who did it—of the person who put Ralph in the way of this—this death?” cried the girl, now burying her face in her hands.
Willy's lips were livid. They moved as if in speech, but the words would not come.
“What would I say?” he said at length, bitterly and scornfully, as he rose from his seat with rigid limbs. “I would say—” He stopped; his teeth were clinched. He drew one hand impatiently across his face. The idea that Simeon Stagg must have been the informer had at that moment got possession of his mind. “Never ask me what I would say,” he cried.
“Willy, dear Willy,” sobbed Rotha, throwing her arms about him, “that person—”
The sobs were stifling her, but she would not spare herself.
“That person was MYSELF!”
“You!” cried Willy, breaking from her embrace. “And the murder?” he asked hoarsely, “whose murder?”
“James Wilson's.”
“Let me go—let me go, I say.”
“Another word.” Rotha stepped into the doorway. Willy threw her hastily aside and hurried out.