“Tell me,” he said, glancing searchingly into Robbie's eyes, “did you know anything about old Wilson's death?”
The young dalesman seemed abashed. He dropped his head, and appeared unable to look up.
“Tell me, Robbie; I know much already.”
“I took the money,” said the young man; “I took it, but I threw it into the beck the minute after.”
“How was it, lad? Let me know.”
Robbie was still standing, with his head down, pawing the ground as he said,—
“I'd been drinking hard—you know that. I was drunk yon night, and I hadn't a penny in my pouch. On my way home from the inn I lay down in the dike and fell asleep. I was awakened by the voices of two men quarrelling. You know who they were. Old Wilson was waving a paper over his head and laughing and sneering. Then the other snatched it away. At that Wilson swore a dreadful oath, and flung himself on—the other. It was all over in a moment. He'd given the little waistrel the cross-buttock, and felled him on his head. I saw the other ride off, and I saw Simeon Stagg. When all was still, I crept out and took Wilson's money—yes, I took it; but I flung it into the next beck. For the moment, when I touched him I thought he was alive. I've not been drinking hard since then, Ralph; no, nor never will again.”
“Ey, you'll do better than that, Robbie.”
Ralph said no more. There was a long silence between the two men, until Robbie, unable to support it any longer, broke in again with, “I took it, but I flung it into the next beck.”
The poor fellow seemed determined to dwell upon the latter fact as in some measure an extenuation of his offence. In his silent hours of remorse he had cherished it as one atoning circumstance. It had been the first fruits of a sudden resolution of reform. Sobered by the sense of what part he had played in crime, the money that had lain in his hand was a witness against him; and when he had flung it away he had only the haunting memory left of what he would have done in effect, but had, in fact, done only in name.