“I don't see my way clearly,” he said. “I'm same as a man that gropes nigh midway through yon passage underground at Legberthwaite. The light behind me grows dimmer, dimmer, dimmer, and not yet comes the gleam of the light in front. I'm not at the darkest; no, I'm not.”
“A guest is knocking at your heart, Mr. Garth. Will you open to him?” Then, in another tone, she added: “To-morrow at daybreak two men will die in Carlisle—my father and Ralph Ray—and they are innocent!”
“Ey, it's true,” said the blacksmith, breaking down at length.
Then struggling once more to lift himself in bed, he cried, “Mother, tell her I did it, and not Ralph. Tell them all that it was I myself who did it. Tell them I was driven to it, as God is my judge.”
The old woman jumped up, and, putting her face close to her son's, she whispered,—
“Thou madman! What wadsta say?”
“Mother, dear mother, my mother,” he cried, “think of what you would do; think of me standing, as I must soon stand—very soon—before God's face with this black crime on my soul. Let me cast it off from me forever. Do not tempt me to hide it! Rotha, pray with her; pray that she will not let me stand before God thus miserably burthened, thus red as scarlet with a foul, foul sin!”
Garth's breath was coming and going like a tempest. It was a terrible moment. Rotha flung herself on her knees. She had not been used to pray, but the words gushed from her.
“Dear Father in heaven,” she prayed, “soften the hearts of all of us here in this solemn hour. Let us remember our everlasting souls. Let us not barter them for the poor comforts of this brief life. Father, thou readest all hearts. No secret so secret, none so closely hidden from all men's eyes, but Thou seest it and canst touch it with a finger of fire. Help us here to reveal our sins to Thee. If we have sinned deeply, forgive us in Thy heavenly mercy; in Thy infinite goodness grant us peace. Let Thy angel hover over us even now, even now, now.”
And the angel of the Lord was indeed with them in that little cottage among the desolate hills.