The Shadow of a Crime: A Cumbrian Romance

by Sir Hall Caine

“The man's six foot high if he's an inch, and has the strength of an ox,” he said, as he bent over his coadjutor and inquired into the nature of his bruises.

Constable David seemed disposed to exhibit less of the resignation of a brave humility that can find solace and even food for self-flattery in defeat, than of the vexation of a cowardly pride that cannot reconcile itself to a stumble and a fall.

“It all comes of that waistrel Mister Burn-the-wind,” he said, meaning to indicate the blacksmith by this contemptuous allusion to that gentleman's profession.

Constable Jonathan could not forbear a laugh at the name, and at the idea it suggested.

“Ay, but if he'd burned the wind this time instead of blowing it,” he said, “we might have raised it between us. Come, let me raise you into this saddle instead. Hegh, hegh, though,” he continued, as the horse lurched from him with every gust, “no need to raise the wind up here. Easy—there—you're right now, I think. You'll need to ride on one stirrup.”

It was perhaps natural that the constabulary view of the disaster should be limited to the purely legal aspect of the loss of a prisoner; but the subject of the constable's reproaches was not so far dominated by official ardor as to be insensible to the terrible accident of the flight of the horse with the corpse. Mr. Garth had brought his own horse to a stand at some twenty paces from the spot where Ralph Ray had thrown his companions from their saddles, and in the combat ensuing he had not experienced any unconquerable impulse to participate on the side of what stood to him for united revenge and profit, if not for justice also. When, in the result, the mare fled over the fells, he sat as one petrified until Robbie Anderson, who had earlier recovered from his own feeling of stupefaction, and in the first moment of returning consciousness had recognized the blacksmith and guessed the sequel of the rencontre, brought him up to a very lively sense of the situation by bringing him down to his full length on the ground with the timely administration of a well-planted blow. Mr. Garth was probably too much taken by surprise to repay the obligation in kind, but he rapped out a volley of vigorous oaths that fell about his adversary as fast as a hen could peck. Then he remounted his horse, and, with such show of valorous reluctance as could still be assumed after so unequivocal an overthrow, he made the best of haste away.

He was not yet, however, entirely rewarded for his share in the day's proceedings. He had almost reached Wythburn on his return home when he had the singular ill-fortune to encounter Liza. That young damsel was huddled, rather than seated, on the back of a horse, the property of one of the mourners whom Rotha had succeeded in hailing to their rescue. With Rhoda walking by her side, she was now plodding along towards the city in a temper primed by the accidents of the day to a condition of the highest irascibility. As a matter of fact, Liza, in her secret heart, was chiefly angry with herself for the reckless leap over a big stone that had given the sprained ankle, under the pains of which she now groaned; but it was due to the illogical instincts of her sex that she could not consciously take so Spartan a view of her position as to blame herself for what had happened.

It was at this scarcely promising juncture of accident and temper that she came upon the blacksmith, and at the first sight of him all the bitterness of feeling that had been brewing and fermenting within her, and in default of a proper object had been discharged on the horse, on the saddle, on the roads, and even on Rotha, found a full and magnificent outlet on the person of Mr. Joseph Garth.

While that gentleman had been jogging along homewards he had been fostering uncomfortable sentiments of spite respecting the “laal hussy” who had betrayed him. He had been mentally rehearsing the withering reproaches and yet more withering glances which he meant to launch forth upon her when next it should be her misfortune to cross his path. Such disloyalty, such an underhand way of playing double, seemed to Mr. Garth deserving of any punishment short of that physical one which it would be most enjoyable to inflict, but which it might not, with that Robbie in the way, be quite so pleasant to stand responsible for. Perhaps it was due to an illogical instinct of the blacksmith's sex that his conscience did not trouble him when he was concocting these pains and penalties for duplicity. Certainly, when the two persons in question came face to face at the turning of the pack-horse road towards the city, logic played an infinitesimal part in their animated intercourse.

Mr. Garth meant to direct a scorching sneer as silent preamble to his discourse; but owing to the fact that Robbie's blow had fallen about the blacksmith's eyes, and that those organs had since become sensibly eclipsed by a prodigious and discolored swelling, what was meant for a withering glance looked more like a meaningless grin. At this apparent levity under her many distresses, Liza's wrath rose to boiling point, and she burst out upon Mr. Joseph with more of the home-spun of the country-side than ever fell from her lips in calmer moments.