Complete works of hall c.., p.16
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 16
“An what an they do, laddie; what an they do? Did ye not hear yersel that it were yan o’ the Rays — yan o’ them; and what’s the odds which — what’s the odds, I say — father and son, they were both of a swatch.”
At this moment there came from the inner room some slight noise of motion, and the old woman lifted her finger to her lip.
“And who knows it were not yan on ‘em — who?” added Mrs. Garth, after a moment’s silence.
“Nay, mother,” said Joe, and his gruff voice was husky in his throat,— “nay, mother, but there is them that knows.”
The woman gave a short forced titter.
“Ye wad mak a swine laugh, ye wad,” she said.
Then, coming closer to where her son now stood with a “lash” comb in his hand before a scratched and faded mirror, she said under her breath, —
“There’ll be no rest for him till summat’s done, none; tak my word for that. But yance they hang some riff-raff for him it will soon be forgotten. Then all will be as dead as hissel’, back and end. What’s it to thee, man, who they tak for’t? Nowt, Theer’s nea sel’ like awn sel’, Joey.”
Mrs. Garth emphasized her sentiment with a gentle prod of her son’s breast.
“That’s what you told me long ago,” said the blacksmith, “when you set me to work to help hang the tailor. I cannot bear the sight of him, I cannot.”
Mrs. Garth took her son roughly by the shoulder.
“Ye’d best git off and see to t’ horse and car. Stand blubbering here and ye’ll gang na farther in two days nor yan.”
There was a step on the road in front.
“Who’s that gone by?” asked Mrs. Garth.
Joe stepped to the window.
“Little Sim,” he said, and dropped his head.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE DAWN OF LOVE.
Though she lost the best of her faculties, Mrs. Ray did not succumb to the paralytic seizure occasioned by the twofold shock which she had experienced. On the morning after Ralph’s departure from Wythburn she seemed to awake from the torpor in which she had lain throughout the two preceding days. She opened her eyes and looked up into the faces that were bent above her.
There were evidences of intelligence surviving the wreck of physical strength. Speech had gone, but her eyes remained full of meaning. When they spoke to her she seemed to hear. At some moments she, appeared to struggle with the impulse to answer, but the momentary effort subsided into an inarticulate gurgle, and then it was noticed that for an instant the tears stood in her eyes.
“She wants to say, ‘God bless you,’” said Rotha when she observed these impotent manifestations, and at such times the girl would stoop and put her lips to the forehead of the poor dear soul.
There grew to be a kind of commerce in kind between these two, destitute as the one was of nearly every channel of communication. The hundred tricks of dumb show, the glance, the lifted brow, the touch of the hand, the smile, the kiss, — all these acquired their several meanings, and somehow they seemed to speak to the silent sufferer in a language as definite as words. It came to be realized that this was a condition in which Mrs. Ray might live for years.
After a week, or less, they made a bed for her in a room adjoining the kitchen, and once a day they put her in a great arm-chair and wheeled her into her place by the neuk window.
“It will be more heartsome for her,” said Rotha when she suggested the change; “she’ll like for us to talk to her all the same that she can’t answer us, poor soul.”
So it came about that every morning the invalid spent an hour or two in her familiar seat by the great ingle, the chair she had sat in day after day in the bygone times, before these terrible disasters had come like the breath of a plague-wind and bereft her of her powers.
“I wonder if she remembers what happened,” said Willy; “do you think she has missed them — father and Ralph?”
“Why, surely,” said Rotha. “But her ears are better than her eyes. Don’t you mark how quick her breath comes sometimes when she has heard your voice outside, and how bright her eyes are, and how she tries to say, ‘God bless you!’ as you come up to her?”
“Yes, I think I’ve marked it,” said Willy, “and I’ve seen that light in her eyes die away into a blank stare or puzzled look, as if she wanted to ask some question while she lifted them to my face.”
“And Laddie there, when he barks down the lonnin — haven’t you seen her then — her breast heaving, the fingers of that hand of hers twitching, and the mumble of her poor lost voice, as though she’d say, ‘Come, Rotha, my lass, be quick with the supper — he’s here, my lass, he’s back?’”
“I think you must be right in that, Rotha — that she misses Ralph,” said Willy.
“She’s nobbut a laal bit quieter, that’s all,” said Matthew Branthwaite one morning when he turned in at Shoulthwaite. “The dame nivver were much of a talker — not to say a talker, thoo knows; but mark me, she loves a crack all the same.”
Matthew acted pretty fully upon his own diagnosis of his old neighbor’s seizure. He came to see her frequently, stayed long, rehearsed for her benefit all the gossip of the village, fired off his sapient proverbs, and generally conducted himself in his intercourse with the invalid precisely as he had done before. In answer to any inquiries put to him at the Red Lion he invariably contented himself with his single explanation of Mrs. Ray’s condition, “She’s nobbut a laal bit quieter, and the dame nivver were much of a talker, thoo knows.”
Rotha Stagg remained at Shoulthwaite in accordance with her promise given to Ralph. It was well for the household that she did so. Young as the girl was, she alone seemed to possess either the self-command or the requisite energy and foresight to keep the affairs of the home and of the farm in motion. It was not until many days after the disasters that had befallen the family that Willy Ray recovered enough self-possession to engage once more in his ordinary occupations. He had spent the first few days in the room with his stricken mother, almost as unconscious as herself of what was going on about him; and indeed his nature had experienced a shock only less serious.
Meantime, Rotha undertook the management of the home-stead. None ever disputed her authority. The tailor’s daughter had stepped into her place as head of the household at the Moss, and ruled it by that force of will which inferior natures usually obey without question, and almost without consciousness of servitude. She alone knew rightly what had to be done.
As for the tailor himself, he had also submitted — at least partially — to his daughter’s passive government. A day or two after Ralph Ray’s departure, Rotha had gone in search of her father, and had brought him back with her. She had given him his work to do, and had tried to interest him in his occupations. But a sense of dependence seemed to cling to him, and at times he had the look of some wild creature of the hills which had been captured indeed, but was watching his opportunity of escape.
Sim rose at daybreak, and, wet or dry, he first went up on to the hills. In an hour or two he was back again. Rotha understood his purpose, but no word of explanation passed between them. She looked into his face inquiringly day’ after day, but nothing she saw there gave hint of hope. The mare was lost. She would never be recovered.
Sometimes a fit of peculiar despondency would come upon Sim. At such times he would go off without warning, and be seen no more for days. Rotha knew that he had gone to his old haunts on the hill, for nothing induced him to return to his cottage at Fornside. No one went in pursuit of him. In a day or two he would come back and take up his occupation as if he had never been away. Walking leisurely into the court-yard, he would lift a besom and sweep, or step into the stable and set to work at stitching up a rent in the old harness.
Willy Ray can hardly be said to have avoided Sim; he ignored him. There was a more potent relation between these two than any of which Willy had an idea. Satisfied as he had professed himself to be that Sim was an innocent man, he was nevertheless unable to shake off an uneasy sentiment of repulsion experienced in his presence. He struggled to hold this in check, for Rotha’s sake. But there was only one way in which to avoid the palpable manifestation of his distrust, and that was to conduct himself in such a manner as to appear unconscious of Sim’s presence in the house.
“The girl is not to blame,” he said to himself again and again. “Rotha is innocent, whoever may be guilty.”
He put the case to himself so frequently in this way, he tried so hard to explain to his own mind that Rotha at least was free of all taint, that the very effort made him conscious of a latent suspicion respecting Sim.
As to Sim’s bearing towards Willy, it was the same as he had adopted towards almost the whole of the little world in which he lived; he took up the position of the guilty man, the man to be shunned, the man from whose contaminating touch all other men might fairly shrink. It never occurred to Sim that there lay buried at his own heart a secret that could change the relations in which he stood towards this younger and more self-righteous son of Angus Ray.
Perhaps, if it had once been borne in upon him that another than himself was involved in the suspicion which had settled upon his name — if he had even come to realize that Rotha might suffer the stigma of a fatal reproach for no worse offence than that she was her father’s daughter — perhaps, if he had once felt this as a possible contingency, he would have shaken off the black cloud that seemed to justify the odium in which he was held by those about him, and lifted up his head for her sake if not for his own.
But Sim lacked virile strength. The disease of melancholy had long kept its seat at his heart, and that any shadow of doubt could rest on Rotha as a result of a misdeed, or supposed misdeed, of his had never yet occurred to Sim’s mind.
And truly Rotha was above the blight of withering doubt. Rude daughter of a rude age, in a rude country and without the refinements of education, still how pure and sweet she was; how strong, and yet how tender; how unconscious in her instinct of self-sacrifice; how devoted in her loyalty; how absolute in her trust!
But deep and rich as was Rotha’s simple nature, it was yet incomplete. She herself was made aware that a great change was even now coming to pass. She understood the transformation little, if at all; but it seemed as though, somehow, a new sense were taking hold of her. And, indeed, a new light had floated into her little orbit. Was it too bright as yet for her to see it for what it was? It flooded everything about her, and bathed the world in other hues than the old time. Disaster had followed on disaster in the days that had just gone by, but nevertheless — she knew not how — it was not all gloom in her heart. In the waking hours of the night there was more than the memory of the late events in her mind; her dreams were not all nightmares; and in the morning, when the swift recoil of sad thoughts rushed in at her first awakening, a sentiment of indefinite solace came close behind it. What was it that was coming to pass?
It was love that was now dawning upon her, though still vague and indeterminate; it hardly knew its object.
Willy Ray took note of this change in the girl, and thought he understood it. He accepted it as the one remaining gleam of hope and happiness for both of them amid the prevailing gloom. Rotha avoided the searching light of his glances. When the work of the household was in hand she shook off the glamour of the new-found emotion.
In the morning when the men came down for breakfast, and again in the evening when they came in for supper, the girl busied herself in her duties with the ardor of one having no thought behind them and no feeling in which they did not share. But when the quieter hours of the day left her free for other thoughts, she would stand and look long into the face of the poor invalid to whom she had become nurse and foster-child in one; or walk, without knowing why, to the window neuk, and put her hand on the old wheel, that now rested quiet and unused beneath it, while she looked towards the south through eyes that saw nothing that was there.
She was standing so one morning a fortnight or more after Ralph’s departure from Wythburn, when Willy came into the kitchen, and, before she was conscious of his presence, sat in the seat of the little alcove within which she stood.
He took the hand that lay disengaged by her side and told her in a word or two of his love. He had loved her long in silence. He had loved her before she became the blessing she now was to him and to his; to-day he loved her more than ever before.
It was a simple story, and it came with the accent of sincerity in every word.
He thought perhaps she loved him in return — he had sometimes thought so — was he wrong?
There was a pause between them. Regaining some momentary composure, the girl turned her eyes once more aside and looked through the neuk window towards the south. She felt the color mounting to her cheeks, and knew that the young man had risen to his feet beside her. He, on his part, saw only the fair face before him, and felt only the little hand that lay passively in his own.
“It’s a sad sort of home to bring you to. It would be idle to ask if you have been happy here — it would be a mockery; but — but—”
“I have been happy; that is, happy to do as Ralph wished me.”
“And as I wished?”
“As you wished too, Willy.”
“You’ve been a blessing to us, Rotha. I sometimes think, though, that it was hardly fair to bring you into the middle of this trouble.”
“He did it for the best,” said Rotha.
“Who?”
There was a little start of recovering consciousness.
“Ralph,” she answered, and dropped her head.
“True — he did it for the best,” repeated Willy, and relapsed into silence.
“Besides, I had no home then, you know.”
How steadfastly the girl’s eyes were fixed oh the distant south!
“You had your father’s home, Rotha.”
“Ah, no! When it ceased to be poor father’s home, how could it be mine any longer? No, I was homeless.”
There was another pause.
“Then let me ask you to make this house your home forever. Can you not do so?”
“I think so — I can scarcely tell — he said it might be best—”
Willy let loose her hand. Had he dreamed? Was it a wild hallucination — the bright gleam of happiness that had penetrated the darkness that lay about him at every step?
How yearningly the girl’s eyes still inclined to yonder distant south.
“Let us say no more about it now, Rotha,” he said huskily. “If you wish it, we’ll talk again on this matter — that is, I say, if you wish it; if not, no matter.”
The young man was turning away. Without moving the fixed determination of her gaze, Rotha said quietly, —
“Willy, I think perhaps I do love you — perhaps — I don’t know. I remember he said that our hearts lay open before each other—”
“Who said so, Rotha?”
There was another start of recovering consciousness. Then the wide eyes looked full into his, and the tongue that would have spoken refused that instant to speak. The name that trembled in a half-articulate whisper on the parted lips came upwards from the heart.
But the girl was ignorant of her own secret even yet.
“We’ll say no more about it now, Rotha,” repeated Willy in a broken voice. “If you wish it, we’ll talk again; give me a sign, and perhaps we’ll talk on this matter again.”
In another moment the young man was gone.
CHAPTER XIX. THE BETROTHAL.
It was not till she was alone that the girl realized the situation. She put her hand over her eyes — the hand that still tingled with the light pressure of his touch.
What had happened? Had Willy asked her to become his wife? And had she seemed to say No?
The sound of his voice was still lingering on her ears; it was a low broken murmur, such as might have fallen to a sob.
Had she, then, refused? That could not be. She was but a poor homeless girl, with nothing to recommend her to such a man as he was. Yet she knew — she had heard — that he loved her, and would one day ask her to be his wife. She had thought that day was far distant. She had never realized that it would be now. Why had he not given her time to think? If Ralph knew what she had done!
For an hour or two Rotha went about the house with a look of bewilderment in her eyes.
Willy came back soon afterwards, and helped her to wheel his mother in her chair to her place by the hearth. He had regained his wonted composure, and spoke to her as if nothing unusual had occurred. Perhaps it had been something like a dream, all this that haunted her. Willy was speaking cheerfully enough. Just then her father came into the kitchen, and slunk away silently to a seat in the remotest corner of the wide ingle. Willy went out almost immediately. Everything was in a maze. Could it be that she had seemed to say No?
Rotha was rudely awakened from her trance by the entrance at this moment of the parson of the chapel on the Raise. The present was the first visit the Reverend Nicholas Stevens had paid since the day of the funeral. He had heard of the latest disaster which had befallen the family at the Moss. He had also learned something of the paralytic seizure which the disaster had occasioned. He could not any longer put away the solemn duty of visitation. To take the comfort of his presence, to give the light of his countenance to the smitten, was a part of his sacred function. These accidents were among the sore trials incident to a cure of souls. The Reverend Nicholas had brushed himself spick-and-span that morning, and, taking up his gold-headed cane, had walked the two miles to Shoulthwaite.
Rotha was tying the ribbons of Mrs. Ray’s white cap under her chin as the vicar entered. She took up a chair for him, and placed it near the invalid. But he did not sit immediately. His eye traversed the kitchen at a glance. He saw Mrs. Ray propped up with her pillows, and looking vacantly about her, but his attention seemed to be riveted on Sim, who sat uneasily on the bench, apparently trying to escape the concentrated gaze.
“What have we here?” he said in a cold and strident voice. “The man Simeon Stagg? Is he here too?”
