The Shadow of a Crime Part 21

"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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s.

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 pa.s.sed 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 vanis.h.i.+ng 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, p.r.i.c.king 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 f.e.c.kless body, I'm afeart. He was a'

wizzent and savvorless. He begged ma a drink o' milk, but lang ere a cud c.u.m 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 pa.s.sed 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 Pa.s.s. The brightness of noon had now given place to the chill leaden atmosphere of a c.u.mbrian 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 pa.s.s, 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 pa.s.s," and he did so. Before going far, however, he found this new arrangement impeded rather than accelerated their progress.

"The pa.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.s.

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 w.i.l.l.y 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.