Complete works of hall c.., p.13
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 13
“Didn’t it occur to you that the man to whose interest it was to have that warrant had probably got hold of it?”
“Yes; and that he’d burnt it, too. A man doesn’t from choice carry a death-warrant next his heart. It would make a bad poultice.”
“What now,” cried the little man to the blacksmith, who had been listening to the conversation, and in his amazement and confusion had unconsciously pulled at the reins of his horse, and brought it to a stand.
“What are you gaping at now? Come, go along in front. Is this your Scarf Gap?”
IV. Simeon Stagg had followed the three men closely enough to keep them in view, and yet had kept far enough away to escape identification. Ascending the Bleaberry Fell, he had descended into Watendlath, and crossed under the “Bowder” stone as the men passed the village of Rosthwaite. He had lost sight of them for a while as they went up towards Honister, but when he had gained the breast of Grey Knotts he could clearly descry them two miles away ascending the Scarf Gap. If he could but pass Brandreth before they reached the foot of the Black Sail he would have no fear of being seen, and, what was of more consequence, he would have no doubt of being at Stye Head before them. He could then get in between the Kirk Fell and the Great Gable long before they could round the Wastdale Head and return to the pass.
But how weak he felt! How jaded these few miles had made him! Sim remembered that he had eaten little for three days. Would his strength outlast the task before him? It should; it must do so. Injured by tyranny, the affections of this worn-out outcast among men had, like wind-tossed trees, wound their roots about a rock from which no tempest could tear them.
Sim’s step sometimes quickened to a run and sometimes dropped to a labored slouch. The deep declivities, the precipitous ascents, the broad chasm-like basins, the running streams, the soft turf, had tried sorely the little strength that remained to him. Sometimes he would sit for a minute with his long thin hand pressed hard upon his heart; then he would start away afresh, but rather by the impulse of apprehension than by that of renewed strength.
Yes, he was now at the foot of Brandreth, and the horses and their riders had not emerged above the Scarf. How hot and thirsty he felt!
Here stood a shepherd’s cottage, the first human habitation he had passed since he left Watendlath. Should he ask for some milk? It would refresh and sustain him. As Sim stood near the gate of the cottage, doubtful whether to go in or go on, the shepherd’s wife came out. Would she give him a drink of milk? Yes, and welcome. The woman looked closely at him, and Sim shrank under her steady gaze. He was too far from Wythburn to be dogged by the suspicion of crime, yet his conscience tormented him. Did all the world, then, know that Simeon Stagg would have been a murderer if he could — that in fact he had committed murder in his heart? Could he never escape from the unspoken reproach? No; not even on the heights of these solitary hills!
The woman turned about and went into the house for the milk. While she was gone, Sim stood at the gate. In an instant the thought of his own necessities, his own distresses, gave place to the thought of Ralph Ray’s. At that instant he turned his eyes again to the Scarf Gap. The three men had covered the top, and were on the more level side of the hill, riding hard down towards Ennerdale. They would be upon him in ten minutes more.
The woman was coming from her house with a cup of milk in her hand; but, without waiting to accept of it, Sim started away and ran at his utmost speed over the fell. The woman stood with the cup in her hand, watching the thin figure vanishing in the distance, and wondering if it had been an apparition.
V. “You can’t understand why Mr. Wilfrey Lawson is so keen to lay hands on this man Ray?” said Constable David.
“That I cannot,” said Constable Jonathan.
“Why, isn’t it enough that he was in the trained bands of the Parliament?”
“Enough for the King — and this new law of Puritan extermination — yes; for Master Wilfrey — no. Besides, the people can’t stand this hanging of the old Puritan soldiers much longer. The country had been worried and flurried by the Parliament, and cried out like a wearied man for rest — any sort of rest — and it has got it — got it with a vengeance. But there’s no rest more restless than that of an active man except that of an active country, and England won’t put up with this butchering of men to-day for doing what was their duty yesterday — yes, their duty, for that’s what you call it.”
“So you think Master Wilfrey means to set a double trap for Ray?”
“I don’t know what he means; but he doesn’t hunt down a common Roundhead out of thousands with nothing but ‘duty’ in his head; that’s not Master Wilfrey Lawson’s way.”
“But this man was a captain of the trained bands latterly,” said the little constable. “Fellow,” he cried to Mr. Garth, who rode along moodily enough in front of them, “did this Ray ever brag to you of what he did as captain in the army?”
“What was he? Capt’n? I never heard on’t,” growled the blacksmith.
“Brag — pshaw! He’s hardly the man for that,” said Constable Jonathan.
“I mind they crack’t of his saving the life of old Wilson,” said Mr. Garth, growling again.
“And if he took it afterwards, what matter?” said Constable Jonathan, with an expression of contempt. “Push on, there. Here we’re at the top. Is it down now? What’s that below? A house, truly — a house at last. Who’s that running from it? We must be near our trysting place. Is that our man? Come, if we are to do this thing, let us do it.”
“It’s the fellow Ray, to a certainty,” said the little man, pricking his horse into a canter as soon as he reached the first fields of Ennerdale.
In a few minutes the three men had drawn up at the cottage on the breast of Brandreth where Sim had asked for a drink.
“Mistress! Hegh! hegh! Who was the man that left you just now?”
“I dunnet know wha’t war — some feckless body, I’m afeart. He was a’ wizzent and savvorless. He begged ma a drink o’ milk, but lang ere a cud cum tul him he was gane his gate like yan dazt-like.”
“Who could this be? It’s not our man clearly. Who could it be, blacksmith?”
The gentleman addressed had turned alternately white and red at the woman’s description. There had flashed upon his brain the idea that little Lizzie Branthwaite had betrayed him.
“I reckon it must have been that hang-gallows of a tailor — that Sim,” he said, perspiring from head to foot.
“And he’s here to carry tidings of our coming. Push on — follow the man — heed this blockhead no longer.”
VI. The procession of mourners, with Robbie Anderson and the mare at its head, had walked slowly down Borrowdale after the men on foot had turned back towards Withburn. Following the course of the winding Derwent, they had passed the villages of Stonethwaite and Seathwaite, and in two hours from the time they set out from Shoulthwaite they had reached the foot of Stye Head Pass. The brightness of noon had now given place to the chill leaden atmosphere of a Cumbrian December.
In the bed of the dale they were sheltered from the wind, but they saw the mists torn into long streaks overhead, and knew that the storm had not abated. When they came within easy range of the top of the great gap between the mountains over which they were to pass, they saw for a moment a man’s figure clearly outlined against the sky.
“He’s yonder,” thought Robbie, and urged on the mare with her burden. He remembered that Ralph had said, “Chain the young horse to the mare at the bottom of the pass,” and he did so. Before going far, however, he found this new arrangement impeded rather than accelerated their progress.
“The pass has too many ins and outs for this,” he thought, and he unchained the horses. Then they went up the ravine with the loud ghyll boiling into foam at one side of them.
VII. “I cannot go farther, Rotha. I must sit down. My foot is swelling. The bandage is bursting it.”
“Try, my girl; only try a little longer: only hold out five minutes more; only five short minutes, and we may be there.”
“It’s of no use trying,” said Liza with a whimper; “I’ve tried and tried; I must sit down or I shall faint.” The girl dropped down on to the grass and began to untie a linen bandage that was about her ankle.
“O dear! O dear! There they are, more than half-way up the pass. They’ll be at the top in ten minutes! And there’s Ralph; yes, I can see him and the dog. What shall we do? What can we do?”
“Go and leave me and come back — no, no, not that either; don’t leave me in this place,” said Liza, crying piteously and moaning with the pain of a sprained foot.
“Impossible,” said Rotha. “I might never find you again on this pathless fell.”
“Oh, that unlucky stone!” whimpered Liza, “I’m bewitched, surely. It’s that Mother Garth—”
“Ah, he sees us,” said Rotha. She was standing on a piece of rock and waving a scarf in the wind. “Yes, he sees us and answers. But what will he understand by that? O dear! O dear! Would that I could make Willy see, or Robbie — perhaps they would know. Where can father be? O where?”
A terrible sense of powerlessness came upon Rotha as she stood beside her prostrate companion within sight of the goal she had labored to gain, and the strong-hearted girl burst into a flood of tears.
VIII. Yes, from the head of the pass Ralph Ray saw the scarf that was waved by Rotha, but he was too far away to recognize the girls.
“Two women, and one of them lying,” he thought; “there has been an accident.”
Where he stood the leaden sky had broken into a drizzling rain, which was being driven before the wind in clouds like mist. It was soaking the soft turf, and lying heavy on the thick moss that coated every sheltered stone.
“Slipt a foot, no doubt,” thought Ralph. “I must ride over to them when the horses come up and have crossed the pass; I cannot go before.”
The funeral train was now in sight. In a few minutes more it would be at his side. Yes, there was Robbie Anderson leading the mare. He had not chained the young horse, but that could be done at this point. It should have been done at the bottom, however. How had Robbie forgotten it?
Ralph’s grave face became yet more grave as he looked down at the solemn company approaching him. Willy had recognized him. See, his head drooped as he sat in the saddle. At this instant Ralph thought no longer of the terrible incidents and the more terrible revelations of the past few days. He thought not at all of the untoward fortune that had placed him where he stood. He saw only the white burden that was strapped to the mare, and thought only of him with whom his earliest memories were entwined.
Raising his head, and dashing the gathering tears from his eyes, he saw one of the women on the hill opposite running towards him and crying loudly, as if in fear; but the wind carried away her voice, and he could not catch her words.
From her gestures, however, he gathered that something had occurred behind him. No harm to the funeral train could come of their following on a few paces, and Ralph turned about and walked rapidly upwards. Then the woman’s voice seemed louder and shriller than ever, and appeared to cry in an agony of distress.
Ralph turned again and stood. Had he mistaken the gesture? Had something happened to the mourners? No, the mare walked calmly up the pass. What could it mean? Still the shrill cry came to him, and still the words of it were borne away by the wind. Something was wrong — something serious. He must go farther and see.
Then in an instant he became conscious that Simeon Stagg was running towards him with a look of terror. Close behind him were two men, mounted, and a third man rode behind them. Sim was being pursued. His frantic manner denoted it. Ralph did not ask himself why. He ran towards Sim. Quicker than speech, and before Sim had recovered breath, Ralph had swung himself about, caught the bridles of both horses, and by the violent lurch had thrown both riders from their seats. But neither seemed hurt. Leaping to their feet together, they bounded down upon Ralph, and laying firm hold upon him tried to manacle him.
Then, with the first moment of reflection, the truth flashed upon him. It was he who had been pursued, and he had thrown himself into the arms of his pursuers.
They were standing by the gap in the furze bushes. The mourners were at the top of the pass, and they saw what had happened. Robbie Anderson was coming along faster with the mare. The two men saw that help for their prisoner was at hand. They dropped the manacles, and tried to throw Ralph on to the back of one of their horses. Sim was dragging their horse away. The dog was barking furiously and tearing at their legs. But they were succeeding: they were overpowering him; they had him on the ground.
Now, they were all in the gap of the furze bushes, struggling in the shallow stream. Robbie dropped the reins of the mare, and ran to Ralph’s aid. At that moment a mighty gust of wind came down from the fell, and swept through the channel. It caught the mare, and startled by the loud cries of the men and the barking of the dog, and affrighted by the tempest, she started away at a terrific gallop over the mountains, with the coffin on her back.
“The mare, the mare!” cried Ralph, who had seen the accident as Robbie dropped the reins; “for God’s sake, after her!”
The strength of ten men came into his limbs at this. He rose from where the men held him down, and threw them from him as if they had been green withes that he snapped asunder. They fell on either side, and lay where they fell. Then he ran to where the young horse stood a few paces away, and lifting the boy from the saddle leapt into it himself. In a moment he was galloping after the mare.
But she had already gone far. She was flying before the wind towards the great dark pikes in the distance. Already the mists were obscuring her. Ralph followed on and on, until the company that stood as though paralyzed on the pass could see him no mere.
CHAPTER XIII. A ‘BATABLE POINT.
When Constable David tried to rise after that fall, he discovered too many reasons to believe that his leg had been broken. Constable Jonathan had fared better as to wind and limb, but upon regaining his feet he found the voice of duty silent within him as to the necessity of any further action such as might expose him to more serious disabilities. With the spirit of the professional combatant, he rather admired the prowess of their adversary, and certainly bore him no ill-will because he had vanquished them.
“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.
