Complete works of hall c.., p.28
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 28
“Of course summat ails him,” said Mattha, with an insinuating emphasis on the word. “He nivver were an artistic drunkard, weren’t Bobbie.”
“He’s been ram’lin’ and ram’lin’ all the way home,” continued Reuben. “He’s telt ower and ower agen of summat ‘at were fifty yards north of the bridge.”
“We must take him home,” said Liza, who came hurrying from the house with a blanket over her arm. “Here, cover him with this, Rotha can spare it.”
In a minute more Robbie’s insensible form was wrapped round and round.
“Give him room to breathe,” said Mattha; “I declare ye’re playing at pund-o’-mair-weight with the lad!” he added as Rotha came up with a sheepskin and a shawl.
“The night is cold, and he has all but three miles to ride yet!” said the girl.
“He lodges with ‘Becca Rudd; let’s be off,” said Liza, clambering into the cart by the step at the shaft. “Come up, father; quick!”
“What, Bobbie, Bobbie, but this is bad wark, bad wark,” said Mattha, when seated in the wagon. “Hod thy tail in the watter, lad, and there’s hope for thee yit.”
With this figurative expression Mattha settled himself for the drive. Rotha turned to Reuben Thwaite.
“At Carlisle, did you hear anything — meet anybody?” she asked.
“Baith,” said Reuben, with a twinkle which was lost in the darkness.
“I mean from Wythburn. Did you meet anybody from — did you see Ralph or my father?”
“Nowther.”
“Nor hear of them?”
“No — wait — deary me, deary me, now ‘at I mind it — I nivver thought of it afore — I heeard ‘at a man had been had up at the Toon Hall and taken to the gaol. It cannot be ‘at the man were — no, no — I’m ram’lin’ mysel sure-ly.”
“Ralph; it was Ralph!” said Rotha, trembling visibly. “Be quick. Good night!” “Ralph at Carlisle!” said Mattha. “Weel, weel; after word comes weird. That’s why the constables are gone, and that’s why Robbie’s come. Weel, weel! Up with thee, Reuben, and let us try the legs of this auld dobbin of thine.”
How Rotha got back into the house that night she never knew. She could not remember to have heard the rattle of the springless cart as it was being driven off. All was for the moment a blank waste.
When she recovered consciousness she was sitting by the side of Mrs. Ray, with her arms about the neck of the invalid and her head on the unconscious breast. The soulless eyes looked with a meaningless stare at the girl’s troubled face.
The agony of suspense was over, and the worst had happened. What now remained to her to say to Willy? He knew nothing of what she had done. Sim’s absence had been too familiar an occurrence to excite suspicion, and Robbie Anderson had not been missed. What should she say?
This was the night of Thursday. During the long hours of the weary days since Sunday, Rotha had conjured up again and again a scene overflowing with delight, in which she should tell Willy everything. This was to be when her father or Robbie or both returned, and the crown of her success was upon her. But what now was the word to say?
The noise of wheels approaching startled the girl out of her troubled dream. Willy was coming home. In another minute he was in the house.
“Rotha, Rotha,” he cried excitedly, “I’ve great news, great news.”
“What news?” asked Rotha, not daring to look up.
“Great news,” repeated Willy.
Lifting her eyes furtively to his face, Rotha saw that, like his voice, it was brimming over with delight.
“The bloodhounds are gone,” he said, and, throwing off his cloak and leggings, he embraced the girl and kissed her and laughed the laugh of a happy man. Then he hurried out to see to his horse.
What was Rotha to do? What was she to say? This mistake of Willy’s made her position not less than terrible. How was she to tell him that his joyousness was misplaced? If he had come to her with a sad face she might then have told him all — yes, all the cruel truth! If he had come to her with reproaches on his tongue, how easily she might have unburdened her heavy heart! But this laughter and these kisses worked like madness in her brain.
The minutes flew like thought, and Willy was back in the house.
“I thought they dare not do it. You’ll remember I told them so. Ah! ah! they find I was in the right.”
Willy was too much excited with his own reading of this latest incident to sit in one seat for two minutes together. He walked up and down the room, laughing sometimes, and sometimes pausing to pat his mother’s head.
It was fortunate for Rotha that she had to busy herself with the preparations for Willy’s supper, and that this duty rendered less urgent the necessity for immediate response to his remarks. Willy, on his part, was in no mood at present to indulge in niceties of observation, and Rotha’s perturbation passed for some time unnoticed.
“Ralph will be back with us soon, let us hope,” he said. “There’s no doubt but we do miss him, do we not?”
“Yes,” Rotha answered, leaning as much as possible over the fire that she was mending.
The tone of the reply made an impression on Willy. In a moment more he appeared to realize that there, had throughout been something unusual in the girl’s demeanor.
“Not well, Rotha?” he asked in a subdued tone. It had flashed across his mind that perhaps her father was once more in some way the cause of her trouble.
“Oh, very well!” she answered, throwing up her head with a little touch of forced gayety.
“Why, there are tears in your eyes, girl. No? Oh, but there are!” They are tears of joy, he thought. She loves Ralph as a brother. “I laugh when I’m happy, Rotha; it seems that you cry.”
“Do I?” she answered, and wondered if the merciful Father above would ever, ever, ever let this bitter hour pass by.
“No, it’s worry, Rotha, that’s it; you’re not well, that’s the truth.”
Willy would have been satisfied to let the explanation resolve itself into this, but Rotha broke silence, saying, “What if it were not good news—”
The words were choking her, and she stopped.
“Not good news — what news?” asked Willy, half muttering the girl’s words in a bewildered way.
“The news that the constables have gone.”
“Gone! What is it? What do you mean, Rotha?”
“What if the constables have gone,” said the girl, struggling with her emotion, “only because — what if they have gone — because — because Ralph is taken.”
“Taken! Where? What are you thinking of?”
“And what if Ralph is to be charged, not with treason — no, but with — with murder? Oh, Willy!” the girl cried in her distress, throwing away all disguise, “it is true, true; it is true.”
Willy sat down stupefied. With a wild and rigid look, he stared at Rotha as they sat face to face, eye to eye. He said nothing. A sense of horror mastered him.
“And this is not all,” continued Rotha, the tears rolling down her cheeks. “What would you say of the person who did it — of the person who put Ralph in the way of this — this death?” cried the girl, now burying her face in her hands.
Willy’s lips were livid. They moved as if in speech, but the words would not come.
“What would I say?” he said at length, bitterly and scornfully, as he rose from his seat with rigid limbs. “I would say—” He stopped; his teeth were clinched. He drew one hand impatiently across his face. The idea that Simeon Stagg must have been the informer had at that moment got possession of his mind. “Never ask me what I would say,” he cried.
“Willy, dear Willy,” sobbed Rotha, throwing her arms about him, “that person—”
The sobs were stifling her, but she would not spare herself.
“That person was MYSELF!”
“You!” cried Willy, breaking from her embrace. “And the murder?” he asked hoarsely, “whose murder?”
“James Wilson’s.”
“Let me go — let me go, I say.”
“Another word.” Rotha stepped into the doorway. Willy threw her hastily aside and hurried out.
CHAPTER XXXVII. WHICH INDICTMENT?
Under the rude old Town Hall at Carlisle there was a shop which was kept by a dealer in second-hand books. The floor within was paved, and the place was lighted at night by two lamps, which swung from the beams of the ceilings. At one end a line of shelves served to separate from the more public part of the shop a little closet of a room, having a fire, and containing in the way of furniture a table, two or three chairs, and a stuffed settle.
In this closet, within a week of the events just narrated, a man of sinister aspect, whom we have met more than once already in other scenes, sat before a fire.
“Not come down yet, Pengelly?” said, this man to the bookseller, a tottering creature in a long gown and velvet skull cap.
“Not yet.”
“Will he ever come? It’s all a fool’s errand, too, I’ll swear it is.”
Then twisting his shoulders as though shivering, he added, —
“Bitter cold, this shop of yours.”
“Warmer than Doomsdale, eh?” replied the bookseller with a grin as he busied himself dusting his shelves.
The other chuckled. He took a stick that lay on the hearth and broke the fire into a sharp blaze. The exercise was an agreeable one. It was accompanied by agreeable reflections, too.
“I hear a foot on the stair.” A man entered the shop.
“No use, none,” said the new-comer. “It’s wasted labor talking to Master Wilfrey.”
The tone was one of vexation.
“Did ye tell him what I heard about Justice Hide and his carryings on at Newcastle?”
“Ey, and I told ‘im he’d never bring it off with Hide on the bench.”
“And what did the chiel say to it?”
“‘Tut,’ he said, says he, ‘Millet is wi’ ‘im on the circuit, and he’ll see the law’s safe on treason.’”
“So he will not touch the other indictment?”
“‘It’s no use,’ says he, ‘the man’s sure to fall for treason,’ he says, ‘and it’s all botherment trying to force me to indict ‘im for murder.’”
“Force him! Ha! ha! that’s good, that is; force him, eh?”
The speaker renewed his attentions to the fire.
“He’ll be beaten,” he added,— “he’ll be beaten, will Master Wilfrey. With Hide oh the bench there’ll be no conviction for treason. And then the capital charge will go to the wall, and Ray will get away scot free.”
“It baffles me yet aboot Ray, his giving himself up.”
“Shaf, man! Will ye never see through the trick? It was to stand for treason and claim the pardon, or be fined, or take a year in Doomsdale, and escape the gallows. He’s a cunning taistrel. He’ll do aught to save his life.”
“You’re wrong there; I cannot but say you’re wrong there. I know the man, and as I’ve told you there’s nothing in the world he dare not do. Why, would you credit it, I saw ‘im one day—”
“Tut, haud yer tongue. Ye’d see him tremble one day if this sheriff of yours were not flayt by his own shadow. Ye’d see him on Haribee; aye, and maybe ye will see him there yet, sheriff or no sheriff.”
This was said with a bitterness indicative of fierce and deadly hatred.
Shifting uneasily under the close gaze of his companion, the other said, —
“What for do you look at me like that? I’ve no occasion to love him, have I?”
“Nor I, nor I,” said the first speaker, his face distorted with evil passions; “and you shall spit on his grave yet, Master Scroope, that you shall; and dance on it till it does yer soul good; you shall, you shall, sheriff or none.”
Just then a flourish of trumpets fell on the ear. Conversation was interrupted while the men, with the bookseller, stepped to the door. Numbers of townspeople were crowding into the Market Place. Immediately afterwards there came at a swift pace through Scotch Street a gayly bedecked carriage, with outriders in gold lace and a trumpeter riding in front.
“The judges — going through to King’s Arms Lane,” observed the bookseller.
“What o’clock do the ‘sizes start, Mr. Pengelly?” asked a loiterer outside.
“Ten in the morning, that’s when the grand jury sit,” the bookseller answered.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. PEINE FORTE ET DURE.
The court was densely packed at ten next morning. Every yard of available space was thronged with people. The crown court lay on the west of the Town Hall. It was a large square chamber without galleries. Rude oak, hewn with the axe straight from the tree, formed the rafters and principals of the roofs. The windows were small, and cast a feeble light. A long table like a block of granite, covered with a faded green cloth and having huge carved legs, stood at one end of the court, and stretched almost from side to side. On a dais over this table sat the two judges in high-backed chairs, deeply carved and black. There was a stout rail at one end of the table, and behind it were steps leading to a chamber below. This was the bar, and an officer of the court stood at one side of it. Exactly opposite it were three rows of seats on graduated levels. This was the jury box. Ranged in front of the table were the counsel for the King, the clerk of the court, and two or three lawyers. An ancient oak chest, ribbed with iron and secured by several massive padlocks, stood on the table.
The day was cold. A close mist that had come from the mountains hovered over the court and crept into every crevice, chilling and dank.
There was much preliminary business to go through, and the people who thronged the court watched it with ill-concealed impatience. True bills were found for this offence and that: assaults, batteries, larcenies.
Amid a general hush the crier called for Ralph Ray.
Ralph stepped up quietly, and laid one hand on the rail in front of him. The hand was chained. He looked round. There was not a touch either of pride or modesty in his steady gaze. He met without emotion the sea of faces upturned to his own face. Near the door at the end of the court stood the man who had been known in Lancaster as Ralph’s shadow. Their eyes met, but there was no expression of surprise in either face. Close at hand was the burlier ruffian who had insulted the girl that sang in the streets. In the body of the court there was another familiar face. It was Willy Ray’s, and on meeting his brother’s eyes for an instant Ralph turned his own quickly away. Beneath the bar, with downcast eyes, sat Simeon Stagg.
The clerk of the court was reading a commission authorizing the court to hear and determine treasons, and while this formality was proceeding Ralph was taking note of his judges. One of them was a stout, rubicund person advanced in years. Ralph at once recognized him as a lawyer who had submitted to the Parliament six years before. The other judge was a man of austere countenance, and quite unknown to Ralph. It was the former of the two judges who had the principal management of the case. The latter sat with a paper before his face. The document sometimes concealed his eyes and sometimes dropped below his mouth.
“Gentlemen,” said the judge, beginning his charge, “you are the grand inquest for the body of this county, and you have now before you a prisoner charged with treason. Treason, gentlemen, has two aspects: there is treason of the wicked imagination, and there is treason apparent: the former poisons the heart, the latter breaks forth in action.”
The judge drew his robes about him, and was about to continue, when the paper suddenly dropped from the face of the other occupant of the bench.
“Your pardon, brother Millet,” he interrupted, and pointed towards Ralph’s arms. “When a prisoner comes to the bar his irons ought to be taken off. Have you anything to object against these irons being struck away?”
“Nothing, brother Hide,” replied the judge rather testily. “Keeper, knock off the prisoner’s irons.”
The official appealed to looked abashed, and replied that the necessary instruments were not at hand.
“They are of no account, my lord,” said Ralph.
“They must be removed.”
When the delay attending this process was over and the handcuffs fell to the ground, the paper rose once more in front of the face of Justice Hide, and Justice Millet continued his charge. He defined the nature and crime of treason with elaboration and circumlocution. He quoted the ancient statute wherein the people, speaking of themselves, say that they recognize no superior under God but only the King’s grace. “I do no speak my own words,” he said, “but the words of the law, and I urge this the more lest any persons should draw dangerous inferences to shadow their traitorous acts. Gentlemen, the King is the vicegerent of God, and has no superior. If any man shall shroud himself under any pretended authority, you must know that this is not an excuse, but the height of aggravation.”
Once more the judge paused, drew his robes about him, and turned sharply to the jury to observe the effect of his words; then to his brother on the bench, for the light of his countenance. The paper was covering the eyes of Justice Hide.
“But now, gentlemen, to come from the general to the particular. It is treason to levy war against the King’s person, and to levy war against the King’s authority is treason too. It follows, therefore, that all acts which were done to the keeping of the King out of the exercise of his kingly office were treason. If persons assembled themselves in a warlike manner to do any of these acts, that was treason. Remember but this, and I have done.”
A murmur of assent and approbation passed over the court when the judge ceased to speak. Perhaps a close observer might have marked an expression of dissatisfaction on the face of the other judge as often as the document held in front of it permitted the eyes and mouth to be seen. He shifted restlessly from side to side while the charge was being delivered, and at the close of it he called somewhat impatiently for the indictment.
The clerk was proceeding to give the names of the witnesses, when Ralph asked to be permitted to see the indictment. With a smile, the clerk handed him a copy in Latin. Ralph glanced at it, threw it back to the table, and asked for a translation.
