Complete works of hall c.., p.37
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 37
“Rotha, God has put it into your heart to do this thing, and He has given you more than the strength of a strong man!”
“In how many hours might one ride to Carlisle at the fastest — in the night and in a cart?” asked the girl eagerly.
“Five, perhaps, if one knew every inch of the way.”
“Then, before you set out, drive round to Armboth, and ask Mr. Jackson to bring his wagon across to this bridge at midnight. Let him not say ‘No’ as he hopes for his salvation! And now, good bye again, and God speed you on your journey!”
Willy carried a cloak over his arm. He was throwing it across Rotha’s unprotected shoulders.
“No, no,” she said, “you need it yourself. I shall be back in a minute.”
And she was gone almost before he was aware.
Willy was turning away when he heard a step behind. It was the Reverend Nicholas Stevens, lantern in hand, lighting himself home from a coming-of-age celebration at Smeathwaite. As he approached, Willy stepped up to him.
“Stop,” cried the parson, “was she who parted from you but now the daughter of the man Simeon Stagg?”
“The same,” Willy answered.
“And she comes from the home of the infected blacksmith?”
“She is there again, even now,” said Willy. “I thought you might wish to take the solace of religion to a dying man — Garth is dying.”
“Back — away — do not touch me — let me pass,” whispered the parson in an accent of dread, shrinking meantime from the murderous stab of the cloak which Willy carried over his arm.
Rotha was in the cottage once again almost before she had been missed.
Joe was dozing fitfully. His mother was sighing and whimpering in turns. Her wrinkled face, no longer rigid, was a distressing spectacle. When Rotha came close to her she whispered, —
“The lad was wrang, but I dare not have telt ‘im so. Yon man were none of a father to Joe, though he were my husband, mair’s the pity.”
Then getting up, glancing nervously at her son, lifting a knife from the table, creeping to the side of the bed and ripping a hole in the ticking, she drew out a soiled and crumpled paper.
“Look you, lass, I took this frae the man’s trunk when he lodged wi’ yer father and yersel’ at Fornside.”
It was a copy of the register of Joe’s birth, showing that he was the son of a father unknown.
“I knew he must have it. He always threatened that he’d get it. He wad have made mischief wi’ it somehow.”
Mrs. Garth spoke in whispers, but her voice broke her son’s restless sleep. Garth was sinking fast, but he looked quieter when his eyes opened again. “I think God has forgiven me my great crime,” he said calmly, “for the sake of the merciful Saviour, who would not condemn the woman that was a sinner.”
Then he crooned over the Quaker hymn, —
Though your sins be red as scarlet,
He shall wash them white as wool.
Infinitely touching was it to hear his poor, feeble, broken voice spend its last strength so.
“Sing to me, Rotha,” he said, pausing for breath.
“Yes, Joe. What shall I sing?”
“Sing ‘O Lord, my God,’” he answered. And then, over the murmuring voice of the river, above the low wail of the rising wind, the girl’s sweet, solemn voice, deep with tenderness and tears, sang the simple old hymn, —
O Lord, my God,
A broken heart
Is all my part:
Spare not Thy rod,
That I may prove
Therein Thy love.
“Ey, ey,” repeated Garth, “a broken heart is all my part.”
Very tremulous was the voice of the singer as she sang, —
O Lord, my God,
Or ere I die,
And silent lie
Beneath the sod,
Do Thou make whole
This bruisèd soul.
“This bruised soul,” murmured the blacksmith.
Rotha had stopped, and buried her face in her hands.
“There’s another verse, Rotha; there’s another verse.”
But the singer could sing no more. Then the dying man himself sang in his feeble voice, and with panting breath, —
Dear Lord, my God —
Weary and worn,
Bleeding and torn —
Spare now Thy rod.
Sorely distressed —
Lord, give me rest.
There was a bright light in his eyes. And surely victory was his at last. The burden was cast off forever. “Lord, give me rest,” he murmured again, and the tongue that uttered the prayer spoke no more.
Rotha took his hand. His pulse sank — slower, slower, slower. His end was like the going out of a lamp — down, down, down — then a fitful flicker — and then —
Death, the merciful mediator; Death, the Just Judge; Death, the righter of the wronged; Death was here — here!
Mrs. Garth’s grief was uncontrollable. The hard woman was as nerveless as a baby now. Yet it was not at first that she would accept the evidence of her senses. Reaching over the bed, she half raised the body in her arms.
“Why, he’s dead, my boy he’s dead!” she cried. “Tell me he’s not dead, though he lies sa still.”
Rotha drew her away, and, stooping, she kissed the cold wasted whitened lips.
At midnight a covered cart drove up to the cottage by the smithy. John Jackson was on the seat outside. Rotha and Mrs. Garth got into it. Then they started away.
As they crossed the bridge and turned the angle of the road that shut out the sight of the darkened house they had left, the two women turned their heads towards it and their hearts sank within them as they thought of him whom they left behind. Then they wept together.
CHAPTER XLIX. PEACE, PEACE, AND REST.
In Carlisle the time of the end was drawing near. Throughout the death-day of the blacksmith at Wythburn the two men who were to die for his crime on the morrow sat together in their cell in the Donjon tower.
Ralph was as calm as before, and yet more cheerful. The time of atonement was at hand. The ransom was about to be paid. To break the hard fate of a life, of many lives, he had come to die, and death was here!
Bent and feeble, white as his smock, and with staring eyes, Sim continued to protest that God would not let them die at this time and in this place.
“If He does,” he said, “then it is not true what they have told us, that God watches over all!”
“What is that you are saying, old friend?” returned Ralph. “Death comes to every one. The black camel kneels at the gate of all. If it came to some here and some there, then it would be awful indeed.”
“But to die before our time is terrible, it is,” said Sim.
“Before our time — what time?” said Ralph. “To-day or to-morrow — who shall say which is your time or mine?”
“Aye, but to die like this!” said Sim, and rocked himself in his seat.
“And is it not true that a short death is the sovereign good hap of life?”
“The shame of it — the shame of it,” Sim muttered.
“That touches us not at all,” said Ralph. “Only the guilty can feel the shame of a shameful death. No, no; death is kindest. And yet, and yet, old friend, I half repent me of my resolve. The fatal warrant, which has been the principal witness against us, was preserved in the sole hope that one day it might serve you in good stead. For your sake, and yours only, would to God that I might say where I came by it and when!”
“No, no, no,” cried Sim, with a sudden access of resolution; “I am the guilty man after all, and it is but justice that I should die. But that you should die also — you that are as innocent as the babe unborn — God will never look down on it, I tell you. God will never witness it; never, never!”
At that moment the organ of the chapel of the castle burst on the ear. It was playing for afternoon service. Then the voices of the choir came, droned and drowsed and blurred, across the green and through the thick walls of the tower. The sacred harmonies swept up to them in their cell as the intoned Litanies sweep down a long cathedral aisle to those who stand under the sky at its porch. Deep, rich, full, pure, and solemn. The voice of peace, peace, and rest.
The two men shut their eyes and listened.
In that world on which they had turned their backs men were struggling, men were fighting, men’s souls were being torn by passion. In that world to which their faces were set no haunting, hurrying footsteps ever fell; no soul was yet vexed by fierce fire, no dross of budded hope was yet laid low. All was rest and peace.
The gaoler knocked. A visitor was here to see Ralph. He had secured the permission of the under sheriff to see him for half an hour alone.
Sim rose, and prepared to follow the gaoler.
“No,” said Ralph, motioning him back; “it is too late for secrets to come between you and me. He must stay,” he added, turning to the gaoler.
A moment later Robbie Anderson entered. He was deeply moved.
“I was ill and insensible at the time of the trial,” he said.
Then he told the long story of his fruitless quest.
“My evidence might have saved you,” he said. “Is it yet too late?”
“Yes, it is too late,” said Ralph.
“I think I could say where the warrant came from.”
“Robbie, remember the vow you took never to speak of this matter again.”
At mention of the warrant, Sim had once more crept up eagerly. Ralph saw that the hope of escape still clung to him. Would that muddy imperfection remain with him to the last?
“Robbie, if you ever had any feeling for me as a friend and comrade, let this thing lie forever undiscovered in your mind.”
Unable to speak, the young dalesman bent his head.
“As for Sim, it wounds me to the soul. But for myself, what have I now to live for? Nothing. I tried to save the land to my mother and brother. How is she?”
“Something better, as I heard.”
“Poor mother! And — Rotha — is she—”
“She is well.”
“Thank God! Perhaps when these sad events are long gone by, and have faded away into a dim memory, perhaps then she will be happy in my brother’s love.”
“Willy?” said Robbie, with look and accent of surprise.
Then there was a pause.
“She has been an angel,” said Robbie feelingly.
“Better than that — she has been a woman; God bless and keep her!” said Ralph.
Robbie glanced into Ralph’s face; tears stood in his eyes.
Sim sat and moaned.
“My poor little Rotie,” he mumbled. “My poor little lost Rotie!”
The days of her childhood had flowed back to him. She was a child once more in his memory.
“Robbie,” said Ralph, “since we have been here one strange passage has befallen me, and I believe it is real and not the effect of a disturbed fancy.”
“What is it, Ralph?” said Robbie.
“The first night after we were shut up in this place, I thought in the darkness, being fully awake, that one opened the door. I turned my head, thinking it must be the gaoler. But when I looked it was Rotha. She had a sweet smile on her dear face. It was a smile of hope and cheer. Last night, again, I was awakened by Sim crying in his sleep — the strange, shrill, tearless night-cry that freezes the blood of the listener. Then I lay an hour awake. Again I thought that one opened the door. I looked to see Rotha. It was she. I believe she was sent to us in the spirit as a messenger of peace and hope — hope of that better world which we are soon to reach.”
The gaoler knocked. Robbie’s time had expired. “How short these last moments seem!” said Ralph; “yet an eternity of last moments would be brief. Farewell, my lad! God bless you!”
The dalesmen shook hands. Their eyes were averted.
Robbie took his leave with many tears.
Then rose again the voices of the unseen choir within the chapel. The organ pealed out in loud flute tones that mounted like a lark, higher, higher, higher, winging its way in the clear morning air. It was the chant of a returning angel scaling heaven. Then came the long sweeps of a more solem harmony. Peace, peace! And rest! And rest!
CHAPTER L. NEXT MORNING.
Next morning at daybreak the hammering of the carpenters had ceased in the Market Place, and their lamps, that burned dim in their sockets, like lights across a misty sea, were one by one put out. Draped in black, the ghastly thing that they had built during the night stood between the turrets of the guard-house.
Already the townspeople were awake. People were hurrying to and fro. Many were entering the houses that looked on to the market. They were eager to secure their points of vantage from which to view that morning’s spectacle.
The light came slowly. It was a frosty morning. At seven o’clock a thin vapor hung in the air and waved to and fro like a veil. It blurred the face of the houses, softened their sharp outlines, and seemed at some moments to carry them away into the distance. The sun rose soft and white as an autumn moon behind a scarf of cloud.
At half past seven the Market Place was thronged. On every inch of the ground, on every balcony, in every window, over every portico, along the roofs of the houses north, south, east, and west, clinging to the chimney-stacks, hanging high up on the pyramidical turrets of the guard-house itself, astride the arms of the old cross, peering from between the battlements of the cathedral tower and the musket lancets of the castle, were crowded, huddled, piled, the spectators of that morning’s tragedy.
What a motley throng! Some in yellow and red, some in black; men, women, and children lifted shoulder-high. Some with pale faces and bloodshot eyes, some with rubicund complexion and laughing lips, some bantering as if at a fair, some on the ground hailing their fellows on the roofs. What a spectacle were they in themselves!
There at the northeast of the Market Place, between Scotch Street amid English Street, were half a hundred men and boys in blouses, seated on the overhanging roof of the wooden shambles. They were shouting sorry jests at half a dozen hoydenish women who looked out of the windows of a building raised on pillars over a well, known as Carnaby’s Folly.
On the roof of the guard-house stood five or six soldiers in red coats. One fellow, with a pipe between his lips, leaned over the parapet to kiss his hand to a little romping serving-wench who giggled at him from behind a curtain in a house opposite. There was an open carriage in the very heart of that throng below. Seated within it was a stately gentleman with a gray peaked beard, and dressed in black velvet cloak and doublet, having lace collar and ruffles; and side by side with him was a delicate young maiden muffled to the throat in fur. The morning was bitterly cold, but even this frail flower of humanity had been drawn forth by the business that was now at hand. Where is she now, and what?
A spectacle indeed, and for the eye of the mind a spectacle no less various than for the bodily organ.
Bosoms seared and foul and sick with uncleanliness. Hearts bound in the fetters of crime. Hot passions broken loose. Discord rampant. Some that smote the breast nightly in the anguish of remorse. Some that knew not where to hide from the eye of conscience the secret sin that corroded the soul.
Lonely, utterly lonely, in this dense throng were some that shuddered and laughed by turns.
There were blameless men and women, too, drawn by curiosity and by another and stronger magnet that they knew of. How would the condemned meet their end? Would it be with craven timidity or with the intrepidity of heroes, or again with the insensibility of brutes? Death was at hand — the inexorable, the all-powerful. How could mortal man encounter it face to face? This was the great problem then; it is the great problem now.
Two men were to be executed at eight that morning. Again and again the people turned to look at the clock. It hung by the side of the dial in the cupola of the old Town Hall. How slowly moved its tardy figures! God forgive them, there were those in that crowd who would have helped forward, if they could, its passionless pulse. And a few minutes more or fewer in this world or the next, of what account were they in the great audit of men who were doomed to die?
* * * * *
In a room of the guard-house the condemned sat together. They had been brought from the castle in the night.
“We shall fight our last battle to-day,” said Ralph. “The enemy will take our camp, but, God willing, we shall have the victory. Never lower the flag. Cheer up! Keep a brave heart! A few swift minutes more, and all will be well!”
Sim was crouching at a fire, wringing his lean hands or clutching his long gray hair.
“Ralph, it shall never be! God will never see it done!”
“Put away the thought,” replied Ralph. “God has brought us here.”
Sim jumped to his feet and cried, “Then I will never witness it — never!”
Ralph put his hand gently but firmly on Sim’s arm and drew him back to his seat.
The sound of singing came from without, mingled with laughter and jeers.
“Hark!” cried Sim, “hearken to them again; nay, hark!”
Sim put his head aside and listened. Then, leaping up, he shouted yet more wildly than before, “No, no! never, never!”
Ralph took him once more by the arm, and the poor worn creature sank into his seat with a low wail.
* * * * *
There was commotion in the corridors and chief chamber of the guard-house.
“Where is the sheriff?” was the question asked on every hand.
Willy Ray was there, and had been for hours closeted with the sheriff’s assistant.
“Here is the confession duly signed,” he said for the fiftieth time, as he walked nervously to and fro.
“No use, none. Without the King’s pardon or reprieve, the thing must be done.”
“But the witnesses will be with us within the hour. Put it back but one little hour and they must be here.”
“Impossible. We hold the King’s warrant, and must obey it to the letter.”
“God in heaven! Do you not see yourself, do you not think that if this thing is done, two innocent men will die?”
