Complete works of hall c.., p.32
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 32
“Who?”
“No matter that,” grumbled the witness. His facetiousness was gone.
There was some slight stir beneath the jurors’ box.
“Tell the court the name of the man you mean.”
Counsel objected to the time of the court being wasted with such questions.
Justice Hide overruled the objection.
Amid much sensation, the witness gave the name of the sheriff of Cumberland, Wilfrey Lawson.
Continuing his evidence in a defiant manner, the witness said he remembered the deceased agent, James Wilson. He saw him last the day before his death. It was in Carlisle they met. Wilson showed witness a warrant with which he was charged for Ray’s arrest, and told him that Ray had often threatened him in years past, and that he believed he meant to take his life. Wilson had said that he intended to be beforehand, for the warrant was a sure preventive. He also said that the Rays were an evil family; the father was a hard, ungrateful brute, who had ill repaid him for six years’ labor. The mother was best; but then she was only a poor simple fool. The worst of the gang was this Ralph, who in the days of the Parliament had more than once threatened to deliver him — Wilson — to the sheriff — the other so-called sheriff, not the present good gentleman.
Ralph asked the witness three questions.
“Have we ever met before?”
“Ey, but we’ll never meet again, I reckon,” said the man, with a knowing wink.
“Did you serve under me in the army of the Parliament?”
“Nowt o’ t’ sort,” with a growl.
“Were you captured by the King’s soldiers, and branded with a hot iron, as a spy of their own who was suspected of betraying them?”
“It’s a’ a lie. I were never brandet.”
“Pull up the right sleeves of your jerkin and sark.”
The witness refused.
Justice Hide called on the keeper to do so.
The witness resisted, but the sleeves were drawn up to the armpit. The flesh showed three clear marks as of an iron band.
The man was hurried away, amid hissing in the court.
The next witness was the constable, Jonathan Briscoe. He described being sent after Wilson early on the day following that agent’s departure from Carlisle. His errand was to bring back the prisoner. He arrived at Wythburn in time to be present at the inquest. The prisoner Stagg was then brought up and discharged.
Ralph asked if it was legal to accuse a man a second time of the same offence.
Justice Millet ruled that the discharge of a coroner (even though he were a resident justice as well) was no acquittal.
The witness remembered how at the inquiry the defendant Ray had defended his accomplice. He had argued that it was absurd to suppose that a man of Stagg’s strength could have killed Wilson by a fall. Only a more powerful man could have done so.
“Had you any doubt as to who that more powerful man might be?”
“None, not I. I knew that the man whose game it was to have the warrant was the likest man to have grabbed it. It warn’t on the body. There was not a scrap of evidence against Ray, or I should have taken him then and there.”
“You tried to take him afterwards, and failed.”
“That’s true enough. The man has the muscles of an ox.”
The next two witnesses were a laborer from Wythburn, who spoke again to passing Sim on the road on the night of the murder, and meeting Wilson a mile farther north, and Sim’s landlord, who repeated his former evidence.
There was a stir in the court as counsel announced his last witness. A woman among the spectators was muttering something that was inaudible except to the few around her. The woman was Mrs. Garth. Willy Ray stood near her, but could not catch her words.
The witness stepped into the box. There was no expression of surprise on Ralph’s face when he saw who stood there to give evidence against him. It was the man who had been known in Lancaster as his “Shadow”; the same that had (with an earlier witness) been Robbie Anderson’s companion in his night journey on the coach; the same that passed Robbie as he lay unconscious in Reuben Thwaite’s wagon; the same that had sat in the bookseller’s snug a week ago; the same that Mrs. Garth had recognized in the corridor that morning; the same that Justice Hide had narrowly scrutinized when he rose in the court to claim the honor of ferreting the facts out of the woman Rushton.
He gave the name of Mark Wilson.
“Your name again?” said Justice Hide, glancing at a paper in his hand.
“Mark Wilson.”
Justice Hide beckoned the sheriff and whispered something. The sheriff crushed his way into an inner room.
“The deceased James Wilson was your brother?”
“He was.”
“Tell my lords and the jury what you know of this matter.”
“My brother was a zealous agent of our gracious King,” said the witness, speaking in a tone of great humility. “He even left his home — his wife and family — in the King’s good cause.”
At this moment Sim was overtaken by faintness. He staggered, and would have fallen. Ralph held him up, and appealed to the judges for a seat and some water to be given to his friend. The request was granted, and the examination continued.
The witness was on the point of being dismissed when the sheriff re-entered, and, making his way to the bench, handed a book to Justice Hide. At the same instant Sim’s attention seemed to be arrested to the most feverish alertness. Jumping up from the seat on which Ralph had placed him, he cried out in a thin shrill voice, calling on the witness to remain. There was breathless silence in the court.
“You say that your brother,” cried Sim,— “God in heaven, what a monster he was! — you say that he left his wife and family. Tell us, did he ever go back to them?”
“No.”
“Did you ever hear of money that your brother’s wife came into after he’d deserted her — that was what he did, your lordships, deserted her and her poor babby — did you ever hear of it?”
“What if I did?” replied the witness, who was apparently too much taken by surprise to fabricate a politic falsehood.
“Did you know that the waistrel tried to get hands on the money for himself?”
Sim was screaming out his questions, the sweat standing in round drops on his brow. The judges seemed too much amazed to remonstrate.
“Tell us, quick. Did he try to get hands on it?”
“Perhaps; what then?”
“And did he get it?”
“No.”
“And why not — why not?”
The anger of the witness threw him off his guard.
“Because a cursed scoundrel stepped in and threatened to hang him if he touched the woman’s money.”
“Aye, aye! and who was that cursed scoundrel?”
No answer.
“Who, quick, who?”
“That man there!” pointing to Ralph.
Loud murmurs came from the people in the court. In the midst of them a woman was creating a commotion. She insisted on going out. She cried aloud that she would faint. It was Mrs. Garth again. The sheriff leaned over the table to ask if these questions concerned the inquiry, but Sim gave no time for protest. He never paused to think if his inquiries had any bearing on the issue.
“And now tell the court your name.”
“I have told it.”
“Your true name, and your brother’s.”
Justice Hide looked steadily at the witness. He held an open book in his hand.
“Your true name,” he said, repeating Sim’s inquiry.
“Mark Garth!” mumbled the witness. The judge appeared to expect that reply.
“And your brother’s?”
“Wilson Garth.”
“Remove the perjurer in charge.”
Sim sank back exhausted, and looked about him as one who had been newly awakened from a dream.
The feeling among the spectators, as also among the jurors, wavered between sympathy for the accused and certainty of the truth of the accusation, when the sheriff was seen to step uneasily forward and hand a paper to counsel. Glancing hastily at the document, the lawyer rose with a smile of secure triumph and said that, circumstantial as the evidence on all essential points had hitherto been, he was now in a position to render it conclusive.
Then handing the paper to Ralph, he asked him to say if he had ever seen it before. Ralph was overcome; gasping as if for breath, he raised one hand involuntarily to his breast.
“Tell the court how you came by the instrument in your hand.”
There was no reply. Ralph had turned to Sim, and was looking into his face with what appeared to be equal pity and contrition.
The paper was worn, and had clearly been much and long folded. It was charred at one corner as if at some moment it had narrowly escaped the flames.
“My lords,” said counsel, “this is the very warrant which the deceased Wilson carried from Carlisle for the arrest of the prisoner who now holds it; this is the very warrant which has been missing since the night of the murder of Wilson; and where, think you, my lords, it was found? It was found — you have heard how foolish be the wise — look now how childishly a cunning man can sometimes act, how blundering are clever rogues! — it was found this morning on the defendant Ray’s person while he slept, in an inner breast pocket, which was stitched up, and seemed to have been rarely used.”
“That is direct proof,” said Justice Millet, with a glance at his brother on the bench. “After this there can be no doubt in any mind.”
“Peradventure the prisoner can explain how he came by the document,” said Justice Hide.
“Have you anything to say as to how you became possessed of it?”
“Nothing.”
“Will you offer the court no explanation?”
“None.”
“Would the answer criminate you?”
No reply.
For Ralph the anguish of years was concentrated in that moment. He might say where he was on the night of the murder, but then he had Sim only for witness. He thought of Robbie Anderson — why was he not here? But no, Robbie was better away; he could only clear him of this guilt by involving his father. And what evidence would avail against the tangible witness of the warrant? He had preserved that document with some vague hope of serving Sim, but here it was the serpent in the breast of both.
“This old man,” he said, — his altered tone startled the listeners,— “this old man,” he said, pointing to Sim at his side, “is as innocent of the crime as the purest soul that stands before the White Throne.”
“And what of yourself?”
“As for me, as for me,” he added, struggling with the emotion that surged in his voice, “in the sight of Him that searcheth all hearts I have acquittal. I have sought it long and with tears of Him before whom we are all as chaff.”
“Away with him, the blasphemer!” cried Justice Millet. “Know where you are, sir. This is an assembly of Christians. Dare you call God to acquit you of your barbarous crimes?”
The people in the court took up the judge’s word and broke out into a tempest of irrepressible groans. They were the very people who had cheered a week ago.
Sim cowered in a corner of the box, with his lank fingers in his long hair.
Ralph looked calmly on. He was not to be shaken now. There was one way in which he could quell that clamor and turn it into a tumult of applause, but that way should not be taken. He could extricate himself by criminating his dead father, but that he should never do. And had he not come to die? Was not this the atonement he had meant to make? It was right, it was right, and it was best. But what of Sim; must he be the cause of Sim’s death also? “This poor old man,” he repeated, when the popular clamor had subsided, “he is innocent.”
Sim would have risen, but Ralph guessed his purpose and kept him to his seat. At the same moment Willy Ray among the people was seen struggling towards the witness-bar. Ralph guessed his purpose and checked him, too, with a look. Willy stood as one petrified. He saw only one of two men for the murderer — Ralph or his father.
“Let us go together,” whispered Sim; and in another moment the judge (Justice Millet) was summing up. He was brief; the evidence of the woman Rushton and of the recovered warrant proved everything. The case was as clear as noonday. The jurors need not leave the box.
Without retiring, the jury found a verdict of guilty against both prisoners.
The crier made proclamation of silence, and the awful sentence of death was pronounced.
It was remarked that Justice Hide muttered something about a “writ of error,” and that when he rose from the bench he motioned the sheriff to follow him.
CHAPTER XLIII. LOVE KNOWN AT LAST.
Early next morning Willy Ray arrived at Shoulthwaite, splashed from head to foot, worn and torn. He had ridden hard from Carlisle, but not so fast but that two unwelcome visitors were less than half an hour’s ride behind him.
“Home again,” he said, in a dejected tone, throwing down his whip as he entered the kitchen, “yet home no longer.”
Rotha struggled to speak. “Ralph, where is he? Is he on the way?” These questions were on her lips, but a great gulp was in her throat, and not a word would come.
“Ralph’s a dead man,” said Willy with affected deliberation, pushing off his long boots.
Rotha fell back apace. Willy glanced up at her.
“As good as dead,” he added, perceiving that she had taken his words too literally. “Ah, well, it’s over now, it’s over; and if you had a hand in it, girl, may God forgive you!”
Willy said this with the air of a man who reconciles himself to an injury, and is persuading his conscience that he pardons it. “Could you not give me something to eat?” he asked, after a pause.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” said Rotha, in a voice as husky as the raven’s.
Willie glanced at her again. He felt a passing pang of remorse.
“I had forgotten, Rotha; your father, he is in the same case with Ralph.”
Then he told her all; told her in a simple way, such as he believed would appeal to what he thought her simple nature; told her of the two trials and final conviction, and counselled her to bear her trouble with as stout a heart as might be.
“It will be ended in a week,” he said, in closing his narrative; “and then, Heaven knows what next.” Rotha stood speechless by the chair of the unconscious invalid, with a face more pale than ashes, and fingers clinched in front of her.
“It comes as a shock to you, Rotha, for you seemed somehow to love your poor father.”
Still the girl was silent. Then Willy’s sympathies, which had for two minutes been as unselfish as short-sighted, began to revolve afresh about his own sorrows.
“I can scarce blame you for what you did,” he said; “no, I can scarce blame you, when I think of it. He was not your brother, as he was mine. You could know nothing of a brother’s love; no, you could know nothing of that.”
“What is the love of a brother?” said Rotha.
Willy started at the unfamiliar voice.
“What would be the love of a world of brothers to such a love as mine?”
Then stepping with great glassy eyes to where Willy sat, the girl clutched him nervously and said, “I loved him.”
Willy looked up with wonder in his face.
“Yes, I! You talk your love; it is but a drop to the ocean I bear him. It is but a grain to the desert of love in my heart that shall never, never blossom.”
“Rotha!” cried Willy, in amazement.
“Your love! Why look you, under the wing of death — now that I may never hope to win him — I tell you that I love Ralph.”
“Rotha!” repeated Willy, rising to his feet.
“Yes, and shall love him when the grass is over him, or me, or both!”
“Love him?”
“To the last drop of my blood, to the last hour of my life, until Death’s cold hand lies chill on this heart, until we stand together where God is, and all is love for ever and ever, I tell you I love him, and shall love him, as God Himself is my witness.”
The girl glowed with passion. Her face quivered with emotion, and her upturned eyes were not more full of inspiration than of tears.
Willy sank back into his seat with a feeling akin to awe.
“Let it be so, Rotha,” he said a moment later; “but Ralph is doomed. Your love is barren; it comes too late. Remember what you once said, that death comes to all.” “But there is something higher than death and stronger,” cried Rotha, “or heaven itself is a lie and God a mockery. No, they shall not die, for they are innocent.”
“Innocence is a poor shield from death. It was either father or Ralph,” replied Willy, “and for myself I care not which.”
Then at a calmer moment he repeated to her afresh the evidence of the young woman Rushton, whom she and her father had housed at Fornside.
“You are sure she said ‘fifty yards to the north of the bridge’?” interrupted Rotha.
“Sure,” said Willy; “Ralph raised a question on the point, but they flung it aside with contempt.”
“Robbie Anderson,” thought Rotha. “What does Robbie know of this that he was forever saying the same in his delirium? Something he must know. I shall run over to him at once.”
But just then the two officers of the sheriff’s court arrived again at Shoulthwaite, and signified by various forms of freedom and familiarity that it was a part of their purpose to settle there until such time as judgment should have taken its course, and left them the duty of appropriating the estate of a felon in the name of the crown.
“Come, young mistress, lead us up to our room, and mind you see smartly to that breakfast. Alack-a-day; we’re as hungry as hawks.”
“You come to do hawks’ business, sir,” said Rotha, “in spoiling another’s nest.”
“Ha! ha! ha! happy conceit, forsooth! But there’s no need to glare at us like that, my sharp-witted wench. Come, lead on, but go slowly, there. This leg of mine has never mended, bating the scar, since yonder unlucky big brother of yours tumbled me on the mountains.”
“He’s not my brother.”
“Sweetheart, then, ey? Why, these passages are as dark as the grave.”
“No matter that,” grumbled the witness. His facetiousness was gone.
There was some slight stir beneath the jurors’ box.
“Tell the court the name of the man you mean.”
Counsel objected to the time of the court being wasted with such questions.
Justice Hide overruled the objection.
Amid much sensation, the witness gave the name of the sheriff of Cumberland, Wilfrey Lawson.
Continuing his evidence in a defiant manner, the witness said he remembered the deceased agent, James Wilson. He saw him last the day before his death. It was in Carlisle they met. Wilson showed witness a warrant with which he was charged for Ray’s arrest, and told him that Ray had often threatened him in years past, and that he believed he meant to take his life. Wilson had said that he intended to be beforehand, for the warrant was a sure preventive. He also said that the Rays were an evil family; the father was a hard, ungrateful brute, who had ill repaid him for six years’ labor. The mother was best; but then she was only a poor simple fool. The worst of the gang was this Ralph, who in the days of the Parliament had more than once threatened to deliver him — Wilson — to the sheriff — the other so-called sheriff, not the present good gentleman.
Ralph asked the witness three questions.
“Have we ever met before?”
“Ey, but we’ll never meet again, I reckon,” said the man, with a knowing wink.
“Did you serve under me in the army of the Parliament?”
“Nowt o’ t’ sort,” with a growl.
“Were you captured by the King’s soldiers, and branded with a hot iron, as a spy of their own who was suspected of betraying them?”
“It’s a’ a lie. I were never brandet.”
“Pull up the right sleeves of your jerkin and sark.”
The witness refused.
Justice Hide called on the keeper to do so.
The witness resisted, but the sleeves were drawn up to the armpit. The flesh showed three clear marks as of an iron band.
The man was hurried away, amid hissing in the court.
The next witness was the constable, Jonathan Briscoe. He described being sent after Wilson early on the day following that agent’s departure from Carlisle. His errand was to bring back the prisoner. He arrived at Wythburn in time to be present at the inquest. The prisoner Stagg was then brought up and discharged.
Ralph asked if it was legal to accuse a man a second time of the same offence.
Justice Millet ruled that the discharge of a coroner (even though he were a resident justice as well) was no acquittal.
The witness remembered how at the inquiry the defendant Ray had defended his accomplice. He had argued that it was absurd to suppose that a man of Stagg’s strength could have killed Wilson by a fall. Only a more powerful man could have done so.
“Had you any doubt as to who that more powerful man might be?”
“None, not I. I knew that the man whose game it was to have the warrant was the likest man to have grabbed it. It warn’t on the body. There was not a scrap of evidence against Ray, or I should have taken him then and there.”
“You tried to take him afterwards, and failed.”
“That’s true enough. The man has the muscles of an ox.”
The next two witnesses were a laborer from Wythburn, who spoke again to passing Sim on the road on the night of the murder, and meeting Wilson a mile farther north, and Sim’s landlord, who repeated his former evidence.
There was a stir in the court as counsel announced his last witness. A woman among the spectators was muttering something that was inaudible except to the few around her. The woman was Mrs. Garth. Willy Ray stood near her, but could not catch her words.
The witness stepped into the box. There was no expression of surprise on Ralph’s face when he saw who stood there to give evidence against him. It was the man who had been known in Lancaster as his “Shadow”; the same that had (with an earlier witness) been Robbie Anderson’s companion in his night journey on the coach; the same that passed Robbie as he lay unconscious in Reuben Thwaite’s wagon; the same that had sat in the bookseller’s snug a week ago; the same that Mrs. Garth had recognized in the corridor that morning; the same that Justice Hide had narrowly scrutinized when he rose in the court to claim the honor of ferreting the facts out of the woman Rushton.
He gave the name of Mark Wilson.
“Your name again?” said Justice Hide, glancing at a paper in his hand.
“Mark Wilson.”
Justice Hide beckoned the sheriff and whispered something. The sheriff crushed his way into an inner room.
“The deceased James Wilson was your brother?”
“He was.”
“Tell my lords and the jury what you know of this matter.”
“My brother was a zealous agent of our gracious King,” said the witness, speaking in a tone of great humility. “He even left his home — his wife and family — in the King’s good cause.”
At this moment Sim was overtaken by faintness. He staggered, and would have fallen. Ralph held him up, and appealed to the judges for a seat and some water to be given to his friend. The request was granted, and the examination continued.
The witness was on the point of being dismissed when the sheriff re-entered, and, making his way to the bench, handed a book to Justice Hide. At the same instant Sim’s attention seemed to be arrested to the most feverish alertness. Jumping up from the seat on which Ralph had placed him, he cried out in a thin shrill voice, calling on the witness to remain. There was breathless silence in the court.
“You say that your brother,” cried Sim,— “God in heaven, what a monster he was! — you say that he left his wife and family. Tell us, did he ever go back to them?”
“No.”
“Did you ever hear of money that your brother’s wife came into after he’d deserted her — that was what he did, your lordships, deserted her and her poor babby — did you ever hear of it?”
“What if I did?” replied the witness, who was apparently too much taken by surprise to fabricate a politic falsehood.
“Did you know that the waistrel tried to get hands on the money for himself?”
Sim was screaming out his questions, the sweat standing in round drops on his brow. The judges seemed too much amazed to remonstrate.
“Tell us, quick. Did he try to get hands on it?”
“Perhaps; what then?”
“And did he get it?”
“No.”
“And why not — why not?”
The anger of the witness threw him off his guard.
“Because a cursed scoundrel stepped in and threatened to hang him if he touched the woman’s money.”
“Aye, aye! and who was that cursed scoundrel?”
No answer.
“Who, quick, who?”
“That man there!” pointing to Ralph.
Loud murmurs came from the people in the court. In the midst of them a woman was creating a commotion. She insisted on going out. She cried aloud that she would faint. It was Mrs. Garth again. The sheriff leaned over the table to ask if these questions concerned the inquiry, but Sim gave no time for protest. He never paused to think if his inquiries had any bearing on the issue.
“And now tell the court your name.”
“I have told it.”
“Your true name, and your brother’s.”
Justice Hide looked steadily at the witness. He held an open book in his hand.
“Your true name,” he said, repeating Sim’s inquiry.
“Mark Garth!” mumbled the witness. The judge appeared to expect that reply.
“And your brother’s?”
“Wilson Garth.”
“Remove the perjurer in charge.”
Sim sank back exhausted, and looked about him as one who had been newly awakened from a dream.
The feeling among the spectators, as also among the jurors, wavered between sympathy for the accused and certainty of the truth of the accusation, when the sheriff was seen to step uneasily forward and hand a paper to counsel. Glancing hastily at the document, the lawyer rose with a smile of secure triumph and said that, circumstantial as the evidence on all essential points had hitherto been, he was now in a position to render it conclusive.
Then handing the paper to Ralph, he asked him to say if he had ever seen it before. Ralph was overcome; gasping as if for breath, he raised one hand involuntarily to his breast.
“Tell the court how you came by the instrument in your hand.”
There was no reply. Ralph had turned to Sim, and was looking into his face with what appeared to be equal pity and contrition.
The paper was worn, and had clearly been much and long folded. It was charred at one corner as if at some moment it had narrowly escaped the flames.
“My lords,” said counsel, “this is the very warrant which the deceased Wilson carried from Carlisle for the arrest of the prisoner who now holds it; this is the very warrant which has been missing since the night of the murder of Wilson; and where, think you, my lords, it was found? It was found — you have heard how foolish be the wise — look now how childishly a cunning man can sometimes act, how blundering are clever rogues! — it was found this morning on the defendant Ray’s person while he slept, in an inner breast pocket, which was stitched up, and seemed to have been rarely used.”
“That is direct proof,” said Justice Millet, with a glance at his brother on the bench. “After this there can be no doubt in any mind.”
“Peradventure the prisoner can explain how he came by the document,” said Justice Hide.
“Have you anything to say as to how you became possessed of it?”
“Nothing.”
“Will you offer the court no explanation?”
“None.”
“Would the answer criminate you?”
No reply.
For Ralph the anguish of years was concentrated in that moment. He might say where he was on the night of the murder, but then he had Sim only for witness. He thought of Robbie Anderson — why was he not here? But no, Robbie was better away; he could only clear him of this guilt by involving his father. And what evidence would avail against the tangible witness of the warrant? He had preserved that document with some vague hope of serving Sim, but here it was the serpent in the breast of both.
“This old man,” he said, — his altered tone startled the listeners,— “this old man,” he said, pointing to Sim at his side, “is as innocent of the crime as the purest soul that stands before the White Throne.”
“And what of yourself?”
“As for me, as for me,” he added, struggling with the emotion that surged in his voice, “in the sight of Him that searcheth all hearts I have acquittal. I have sought it long and with tears of Him before whom we are all as chaff.”
“Away with him, the blasphemer!” cried Justice Millet. “Know where you are, sir. This is an assembly of Christians. Dare you call God to acquit you of your barbarous crimes?”
The people in the court took up the judge’s word and broke out into a tempest of irrepressible groans. They were the very people who had cheered a week ago.
Sim cowered in a corner of the box, with his lank fingers in his long hair.
Ralph looked calmly on. He was not to be shaken now. There was one way in which he could quell that clamor and turn it into a tumult of applause, but that way should not be taken. He could extricate himself by criminating his dead father, but that he should never do. And had he not come to die? Was not this the atonement he had meant to make? It was right, it was right, and it was best. But what of Sim; must he be the cause of Sim’s death also? “This poor old man,” he repeated, when the popular clamor had subsided, “he is innocent.”
Sim would have risen, but Ralph guessed his purpose and kept him to his seat. At the same moment Willy Ray among the people was seen struggling towards the witness-bar. Ralph guessed his purpose and checked him, too, with a look. Willy stood as one petrified. He saw only one of two men for the murderer — Ralph or his father.
“Let us go together,” whispered Sim; and in another moment the judge (Justice Millet) was summing up. He was brief; the evidence of the woman Rushton and of the recovered warrant proved everything. The case was as clear as noonday. The jurors need not leave the box.
Without retiring, the jury found a verdict of guilty against both prisoners.
The crier made proclamation of silence, and the awful sentence of death was pronounced.
It was remarked that Justice Hide muttered something about a “writ of error,” and that when he rose from the bench he motioned the sheriff to follow him.
CHAPTER XLIII. LOVE KNOWN AT LAST.
Early next morning Willy Ray arrived at Shoulthwaite, splashed from head to foot, worn and torn. He had ridden hard from Carlisle, but not so fast but that two unwelcome visitors were less than half an hour’s ride behind him.
“Home again,” he said, in a dejected tone, throwing down his whip as he entered the kitchen, “yet home no longer.”
Rotha struggled to speak. “Ralph, where is he? Is he on the way?” These questions were on her lips, but a great gulp was in her throat, and not a word would come.
“Ralph’s a dead man,” said Willy with affected deliberation, pushing off his long boots.
Rotha fell back apace. Willy glanced up at her.
“As good as dead,” he added, perceiving that she had taken his words too literally. “Ah, well, it’s over now, it’s over; and if you had a hand in it, girl, may God forgive you!”
Willy said this with the air of a man who reconciles himself to an injury, and is persuading his conscience that he pardons it. “Could you not give me something to eat?” he asked, after a pause.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” said Rotha, in a voice as husky as the raven’s.
Willie glanced at her again. He felt a passing pang of remorse.
“I had forgotten, Rotha; your father, he is in the same case with Ralph.”
Then he told her all; told her in a simple way, such as he believed would appeal to what he thought her simple nature; told her of the two trials and final conviction, and counselled her to bear her trouble with as stout a heart as might be.
“It will be ended in a week,” he said, in closing his narrative; “and then, Heaven knows what next.” Rotha stood speechless by the chair of the unconscious invalid, with a face more pale than ashes, and fingers clinched in front of her.
“It comes as a shock to you, Rotha, for you seemed somehow to love your poor father.”
Still the girl was silent. Then Willy’s sympathies, which had for two minutes been as unselfish as short-sighted, began to revolve afresh about his own sorrows.
“I can scarce blame you for what you did,” he said; “no, I can scarce blame you, when I think of it. He was not your brother, as he was mine. You could know nothing of a brother’s love; no, you could know nothing of that.”
“What is the love of a brother?” said Rotha.
Willy started at the unfamiliar voice.
“What would be the love of a world of brothers to such a love as mine?”
Then stepping with great glassy eyes to where Willy sat, the girl clutched him nervously and said, “I loved him.”
Willy looked up with wonder in his face.
“Yes, I! You talk your love; it is but a drop to the ocean I bear him. It is but a grain to the desert of love in my heart that shall never, never blossom.”
“Rotha!” cried Willy, in amazement.
“Your love! Why look you, under the wing of death — now that I may never hope to win him — I tell you that I love Ralph.”
“Rotha!” repeated Willy, rising to his feet.
“Yes, and shall love him when the grass is over him, or me, or both!”
“Love him?”
“To the last drop of my blood, to the last hour of my life, until Death’s cold hand lies chill on this heart, until we stand together where God is, and all is love for ever and ever, I tell you I love him, and shall love him, as God Himself is my witness.”
The girl glowed with passion. Her face quivered with emotion, and her upturned eyes were not more full of inspiration than of tears.
Willy sank back into his seat with a feeling akin to awe.
“Let it be so, Rotha,” he said a moment later; “but Ralph is doomed. Your love is barren; it comes too late. Remember what you once said, that death comes to all.” “But there is something higher than death and stronger,” cried Rotha, “or heaven itself is a lie and God a mockery. No, they shall not die, for they are innocent.”
“Innocence is a poor shield from death. It was either father or Ralph,” replied Willy, “and for myself I care not which.”
Then at a calmer moment he repeated to her afresh the evidence of the young woman Rushton, whom she and her father had housed at Fornside.
“You are sure she said ‘fifty yards to the north of the bridge’?” interrupted Rotha.
“Sure,” said Willy; “Ralph raised a question on the point, but they flung it aside with contempt.”
“Robbie Anderson,” thought Rotha. “What does Robbie know of this that he was forever saying the same in his delirium? Something he must know. I shall run over to him at once.”
But just then the two officers of the sheriff’s court arrived again at Shoulthwaite, and signified by various forms of freedom and familiarity that it was a part of their purpose to settle there until such time as judgment should have taken its course, and left them the duty of appropriating the estate of a felon in the name of the crown.
“Come, young mistress, lead us up to our room, and mind you see smartly to that breakfast. Alack-a-day; we’re as hungry as hawks.”
“You come to do hawks’ business, sir,” said Rotha, “in spoiling another’s nest.”
“Ha! ha! ha! happy conceit, forsooth! But there’s no need to glare at us like that, my sharp-witted wench. Come, lead on, but go slowly, there. This leg of mine has never mended, bating the scar, since yonder unlucky big brother of yours tumbled me on the mountains.”
“He’s not my brother.”
“Sweetheart, then, ey? Why, these passages are as dark as the grave.”
