“Dear! dear!” said the voice from the sofa, “and I was thinking of attending divine worship there too! I had my bonnet half on, you remember, Emily, and I said, ‘I shall go to Hebron Chapel,’ and then cook came up to speak to me in the middle, so I was too late and had to go later to St. James’ instead. How one misses one’s opportunities in this world! Dear! dear! dear!”
“Here is something to interest you, Isoline,” said Miss Emily, “for I remember you said that your friend, Mr. Fenton, was concerned about it.”
“‘Some little stir has been occasioned at Llangarth and in the neighbourhood by a statement made by a labouring man. It will not be forgotten that one of the worst of the Rebecca riots took place last January upon the Brecon road near Crishowell, and that the now notorious Rhys Walters took the life of the toll-keeper in the struggle. His subsequent disappearance upon the Black Mountain was, at the time of the disturbance, a nine-days wonder, and no trace of him has been found since that date, now almost a year ago. The labourer in question states that he was returning one night last week to a farm called the Red Field, where he is employed, about half-past twelve. He had been at Abergavenny, on the other side of the Pass, and business had kept him there until a late hour. He carried with him a dark lantern which he had been lent in the town. Being footsore, he sat down to rest upon a piece of rock just under the shoulder of the Twmpa. He had put down the slide of his lantern some time before, for, the path over the turf being good, he felt more able to guide his general direction by the mass of the hill against the sky than by its light, especially as there was a faint starlight. He had sat about ten minutes when he heard a footstep approaching. He called out, but received no answer, and the footstep immediately ceased. He then drew up the slide and saw, not ten yards from him, a figure which he believes to be that of Rhys Walters. The man was looking straight at him, and the labourer, upon whom he produced the effect of an apparition, was so much startled that he dropped the light. It is needless to say that, when he recovered it, the fugitive (if indeed it were he) had disappeared. Questioned closely by the magistrate about his general appearance, he described the person he had seen as a tall man with a long, pale face and piercing eyes. He noticed that he had rather high, square shoulders and eyebrows which came down very low towards the nose. He seemed about thirty years of age. If the labourer speaks accurately, it seems very much as if he were right in his surmises, for the above is a remarkably good description of Rhys Walters. It is even possible that he has been in hiding somewhere in the neighbourhood of the mountain for the last eleven months, though it seems an inconceivable feat for a man to have performed. If this be actually the case, one thing is certain, namely, that he has been assisted in his concealment by some person or persons unknown.’”
“What dreadful things there are in the paper to-night, Emily,” observed Mrs. Johnson. “It is quite alarming to think of such a man being at large—so near, too. Look at Miss Ridgeway. One might think she had seen a ghost!”
Isoline sat like an image, staring before her. Emily’s reading was weaving a distinct picture, a picture which grew more familiar at every word. She felt as though the world were giving way beneath her and she herself being whirled along into a chaos where order was dead and criminals were allowed to go free about the earth to delude respectable young ladies, without the very stones crying out against it. What had Providence been doing? The truth was there in its baldness. She had been associating—she, Isoline—with a murderer; she might even have been killed herself. The tears rushed hot into her eyes. These were the sort of things that might happen to other people—rough people—but not to her, surely not to her! She sat stunned, her eyes fixed and brimming. The most shocking part of the whole thing was the coarseness of its reality.
“Oh, what is the matter, Isoline?” cried Miss Emily in tactless dismay. “Mama, she is crying!”
Mrs. Johnson rose from her sofa. She was a kind soul.
“My dear Miss Ridgeway, you are too sensitive,” she said, “though I do not wonder you are horrified at such a tale,—so near your home, too. Really, what the law and the police are coming to, I do not know!”
Like many ladies, Mrs. Johnson spent much time in lamenting the inefficiency of these bodies. “Go up to bed, my dear, and I will send you a posset. I am taking one myself for my cold. I fear you are terribly upset, but Emily can sleep with you if you are nervous.”
“No, no, thank you,” said Isoline, making a great effort at self-control. “I am quite well now. I am not afraid, thank you, ma’am, but I was upset at thinking—at thinking——”