"God help us, Dick—it's a madman!" cried Elizabeth. "What will we do?"
They both stood in terror at the door. There was a moment's pause of horror and dismay. Dick was pale, but he was brave. "Go you and shut yourself in the byre, mother, and I will see——"
"Nay, nay, my lad; your mother's life is less worth than yours. But look at Watch!" she said, with a strange thrill at her heart.
Watch had been taken by surprise, and struck with terror as well as themselves. He had run terrified out of the way with another howl when the man rushed past. But now he had followed into the kitchen, without either fear or anger apparently. "He never can bide a tramp," Elizabeth said, with a strange aching wonder in her heart. They could see the huddled mass of shivering limbs before the fire. Watch went in, cautiously snuffed all round the prostrate figure, and then began slowly to wag his tail—slowly at first, and then with an appearance of wild joy, and yelps and barks of welcome. Elizabeth Murray's heart seemed to stand still. She gave Dick a look of horrible suspicion and misery. Then she made a gesture to him to keep behind her, and went in with the silence and swiftness of a ghost.
The terrible being who had thus arrived upon them had fallen down on the floor, apparently in a fit. He was lying writhing and struggling before the fire, his face distorted, his eyes glaring, foam and blood on his mouth. She went in and bent over him, then knelt down by him. She had not seen him since he was a boy. He had been twelve years old when he had gone away. She looked at him now, knowing before she looked who it was. Heaven help her! had she ever been light of heart, peaceful, happy, though this was coming? Was it years ago since she stood at her door and heard Dick whistling and the bees humming? She knew who it was even before she looked. She knew him for all his convulsed face, his terrible struggles and contortions. Abel! her son—who was a gentleman, who was too grand for his own people. The dog, faithful brute, with a truer memory than even the mother's, was licking the terrible face. She gave a great outcry, words and sobs together. "It's Watch that knows him, and not me, first!" she said.
Then she got water and dashed in his face, and rubbed his stiffened hands. She did not even know what to do for him. She knelt by his side, her face too as pale as death, unconscious cries coming from her—"Oh my lad! Oh be still! Oh let him be, good Lord, let him be!" She did not know what she said. And Dick, with a face blanched to the colour of his linen, kept plucking at her sleeve and calling softly, "Mother?" She took no notice for a long time, then irritated by the repetition turned upon him sharply, "What is it, lad?" Dick could not get any question out of his parched lips, he only looked at her and then at the writhing figure on the floor, "Can you not see for yourself?" she cried, with a groan in which there was a kind of wild incredulous laugh. "Can you not tell without asking? It's my boy Abel, him that's a gentleman; our pride and our joy!"
How the rest of the horrible morning went they never knew. Their peaceful occupations were all abandoned. In the midst of their cares for Abel—whom after a while they managed to get transferred to a bed, when the fit going off left him half unconscious and entirely prostrate—arrived Lily, all unaware of any new event at home, but with the news that a horrible murder had been discovered—Sir Richard Featherstonhaugh lying dead on the hillside, all beaten and battered. This did not seem to Elizabeth, for the moment at least, any concern of theirs; but when Lily, very frightened and half reluctant, was taken up-stairs to see her brother in his raving sleep, a gleam of painful light, a dawning of some horror seemed to gleam among them, though they could not perceive what it revealed. Lily turned from the room where lay the stranger whom they called her brother Abel, with a suppressed shriek. "It's the gentleman!" she cried; and when she had told all her story the little awe-stricken party looked each other in the face, each paler than the other, not knowing what to think. "Was he—friends—with the lad that's killed?" Elizabeth asked, turning away her face. She could not allow her children to perceive the dawn of meaning in it. When Lily replied by a tremulous account of how and when she had seen them together, Elizabeth made no comment, but by-and-by she went up-stairs and returned with the clothes Abel had worn, made up into a bundle. Lily, whose attention was still unaroused, did not notice what her mother did. But Dick, who had watched her closely, went out after her, and found her burying her bundle deep in the potato-field where he had been digging. With tremulous energy she threw up the easily dug soil, making a deep hole in a corner. She said nothing in explanation of what she did, even to him, nor did he ask—but she took hold of his arm to help her to the higher level on which he stood, and gripped it with a convulsive strain. "God grant I'm a' wrong," she said, looking as if she had been turned to stone. "Ay, mother," said Dick. It would have been more comforting to her if he had not understood her so well.
But the events of the day were not yet over; enough, indeed, had passed already to make it terrible. All this peaceful life, which had been so quiet this morning, had disappeared from them, and in its place had come a mystery and horror such as surely never before had come upon decent folk. Who thought of the mild beasts in the field, the cows grazing, the bees keeping up that busy hum of undisturbed labour, the milk that was setting in the dairy, the eggs to be gathered, all the soft growth and production of nature that was going on for their benefit? The whole had been swept away from their thoughts by this sudden wreck, this falling among them of a ruined being, a distracted life. How many anguishes had come with him! terror, suspicion, crime! and yet it was all guess-work, and there might be nothing after all but madness in poor Abel's misery. Nothing but madness! which would have seemed the most horrible of miseries yesterday, but now would be a relief from other fears. There was only Lily in the house who did not entertain these fears. She had not seen him come flying like a hunted creature to the one place that could shelter him. She had not associated him with the murder of which, on the other hand, her mind was full. Only yesterday Featherstonhaugh had spoken to her, had tried to "court" her; had made an effort to take her hand and draw her to him; and now he was murdered—murdered! lying in his blood, scarcely recognisable! The story had been brought to the village with all its terrible details before Lily started, and she could not but go over them in her mind. So living, such power in him, such a grand gentleman! and now with the life beaten out of him, a piece of dishonoured clay! She sat down and cried, sitting by the door, while her mother watched the other gentleman, who was her brother she could not tell how. Lily sat alone in the solitude, and wept, partly for the murdered man, partly out of vague agitation and excitement, partly for herself, who had lost all pleasant things and pleasant prospects. What was there for her now but solitude and forgetfulness, all the delights of her youth over and done? She put up her hand to the little ribbon with its hidden locket round her neck. Oh how sweet it had been to receive that secret treasure! and now it was all that was left to her. In all likelihood she would never, never see the giver more.
"Lily!" said a voice near to her. She gave a great start and cry and rose to her feet. Had he come after her—and so soon? Notwithstanding the sense of trouble about her, Lily's heart rose; but there was nothing encouraging in the face of the lover whom she supposed to have come after her. He was pale and haggard, his eyes bloodshot, his frame trembling. "Where is he? Has he come here?" he cried. Of her, in the old tender winning way, he took no notice at all; if it had been Dick, Roger Ridley could not have been more indifferent. "Has he come here?" he repeated, almost with impatience. Lily was wounded in her foolish expectations. "How am I to tell who you mean?" she said. She stood in the door barring his passage. The attitude meant a great deal more than was in Lily's mind. She looked like the guardian and defender of the secret that had come into the house.
Elizabeth, who was above, heard the voices and came to the window, which she opened softly, looking out with anxious eyes. "I will not betray him," she heard Roger say. Then he looked up and saw her, and beckoned to her to come down. Elizabeth hesitated only for a moment. She must hear sooner or later all there was to say. She must find out how to defend her boy, and what he might be accused of. She locked the door upon him as he lay there moaning in a stupor which was scarcely sleep, and came down. She was but a common woman, with nothing to distinguish her from the other cotters in the dale; but as she went slowly to the door to hear her son's sentence, so to speak, she marched unconsciously as a martyr might to his death. What would death have been in comparison of this which she had to face?