The Shadow of a Crime Part 37

"Sure enough, it is," she said. "Whatever's amiss? The la.s.s went over to the Moss. Why, she stopping, isn't she?" "Ey, at the Lion,"

answered Mattha. "I reckon there's summat wrang agen with that Robbie.

I'll just slip away and see."

Panting and heated on this winter's day, red up to the roots of the hair and down to the nape of the neck, Liza had come to a full pause at the door of the village inn. It was not a false instinct that had led the girl to choose this destination. Sunday as it was, the young man whom she sought was there, and, morning though it might be, he was already in that condition of partial inebriation which Liza had recognized as the sign of a facetious mood.

Opening the door with a disdainful push, compounded partly of her contempt for the place and partly of the irritation occasioned by the events that had brought her to the degradation of calling there, Liza cried out, as well as she could in her present breathless condition,--

"Robbie, come your ways out of this."

The gentleman addressed was at the moment lying in a somewhat undignified position on the floor. Half sprawling, half resting on one knee, Robbie was surprised in the midst of an amus.e.m.e.nt of which the perky little body whom he claimed as his sweetheart had previously expressed her high disdain. This consisted of a hopeless endeavor to make a lame dog dance. The animal in question was no other than 'Becca Rudd's Dash, a piece of nomenclature which can only be described as the wildest and most satirical misnomer. Liza had not been too severe on Dash's physical infirmities when she described him as lame on one of his hind legs, for both those members were so effectually out of joint as to render locomotion of the simplest kind a difficulty attended by violent oscillation. This was probably the circ.u.mstance that had recommended Dash as the object of Robbie's half-drunken pastime; and after a fruitless half-hour's exercise the tractable little creature, with a woeful expression of face, was at length poised on its hindmost parts just as Liza pushed open the door and called to its instructor.

The new arrival interrupted the course of tuition, and Dash availed himself of his opportunity to resume the normal functions of his front paws. At this the reclining tutor looked up from his place on the floor with a countenance more of sorrow than of anger, and said, in a tone that told how deeply he was grieved, "_There_, la.s.s, see how you've spoilt it!"

"Get up, you daft-head! Whatever are you m.u.f.flin' about, you silly one, lying down there with the dogs and the fleas?"

Liza still stood in the doorway with an august severity of pose that would have befitted Ca.s.sandra at the porch. Her unsparing tirade had provoked an outburst of laughter, but not from Robbie. There were two other occupants of the parlor--Reuben Thwaite, who had never been numbered among the regenerate, and had always spent his Sunday mornings in this place and fas.h.i.+on; and little Monsey Laman, whose duty as schoolmaster usually embraced that of s.e.xton, bell-ringer, and pew-opener combined, but who had escaped his clerical offices on this Sabbath morning by some plea of indisposition which, as was eventually perceived, would only give way before liberal doses of the medicine kept at the sign of the Red Lion.

The laughter of these worthies did not commend itself to Liza's sympathies, for, turning hotly upon them, she said, "And you're worse nor he is, you old sypers."

"Liza, Liza," cried Robbie, raising his forefinger in an att.i.tude of remonstrance, which he had just previously been practising on the unhappy Dash,--"Liza, think what it is to call this reverend clerk and s.e.xton and curate a _toper!_"

"And so he is; he's like yourself, he's only half-baked, the half thick."

"Now--now--now, Liza!" cried Robbie, raising himself on his haunches the better to give effect to his purpose of playing the part of peacemaker and restraining the ardor of his outspoken little friend.

"Come your ways out, I say," said Liza, not waiting for the admonition that was hanging large on the lips of the blear-eyed philosopher on the floor.

"Come your ways," she repeated; "I would be solid and solemn with you."

Robbie was at this instant struggling to regain possession of the itinerant Dash, who, perceiving a means of escape, was hobbling his way to the door.

"Wait a minute," said Robbie, having captured the runaway,--"wait a minute, Liza, and Dash will show you how to dance like Mother Garth."

"Shaf on Das.h.!.+" said Liza, taking a step or two into the room and securing to that animal his emanc.i.p.ation by giving him a smack that knocked him out of Robbie's hands. "Do you think I've come here to see your tipsy games?"

Robbie responded to this inquiry by asking with provoking good nature if she had not rather come to give him a token of her love.

"Give us a kiss, la.s.s," he said, getting up to his feet and extending his arms to help himself.

Liza gave him something instead, but it produced a somewhat louder and smarter percussion.

"What a whang over the lug she brong him!" said Reuben, turning to the schoolmaster.

"I reckon it's mair wind ner wool, like clippin' a swine," said Matthew Branthwaite, who entered the inn at this juncture.

Robbie's good humor was as radiant as ever. "A kiss for a blow," he said, laughing and struggling with the little woman. "It's a Christian virtue, eh, father?"

"Ye'll not get many of them, at that rate," answered Mattha, less than half pleased at an event which he could not comprehend. "It's slow wark suppin' b.u.t.termilk with a pitchfork."

"Will you _never_ be solid with me?" cried Liza, with extreme vexation pictured on every feature as her scapegrace sweetheart tried to imprison her hands in order to kiss her. "I tell you--" and then there was some momentary whispering between them, which seemed to have the effect of sobering Robbie in an instant. His exuberant vivacity gave place to a look of the utmost solemnity, not unmixed with a painful expression as of one who was struggling hard to gather together his scattered wits.

"They'll only have another to take once they catch _him_," said Robbie in an altered tone, as he drew his hand hard across his eyes.

There was some further whispering, and then the two went outside.

Returning to the door, Liza hailed her father, who joined them on the causeway in front of the inn.

Robbie was another man. Of his reckless abandonment of spirit no trace was left.

Mattha was told of the visit of the constables to Shoulthwaite, and of Sim's despatch in search of Ralph.

"He'll be off for Carlisle," said Robbie, standing square on his legs, and tugging with his cap off at the hair at the back of his head.

"Like eneuf," answered Mattha, "and likely that's the safest place for him. It's best to sit near the fire when the chimney smokes, thoo knows."

"He'll none go for safety, father," answered Robbie; and turning to Liza, he added, "But what was it you said about Mother Garth?"

"The old witch-wife said that Ralph was wanted for murder," replied the girl.

"It's a lie," said Robbie vehemently.

"I'll uphod thee there," said Mattha; "but whatever's to be done?"

"Why, Robbie must go and fetch Sim back," said Liza eagerly.

"The la.s.s is right," said Robbie; "I'll be off." And the young man swung on his heel as though about to carry out his purpose on the instant.

"Stop, stop," said Mattha; "I reckon the laal tailor's got farther ner the next cause'y post. You must come and tak a bite of dinner and set away with summat in yer pocket."

"Hang the pocket! I must be off," said Robbie. But the old man took him too firmly by the arm to allow of his escape without deliberate rudeness. They turned and walked towards the weaver's cottage.

"What a maizelt fool I've been to spend my days and nights in this hole!" said Robbie, tipping his finger over his shoulder towards the Red Lion, from which they were walking.

"I've oft telt thee so," said Mattha, not fearing the character of a Job's comforter.

"And while this bad work has been afoot too," added Robbie, with a penitent drop of the head.

They had a tributary of the Wyth River to pa.s.s on the way to Mattha's house. When they came up to it, Robbie cried, "Hold a minute!" Then running to the bank of the stream, he dropt on to his knees, and before his companions could prevent him he had pulled off his cap and plunged his head twice or thrice in the water.

"What, man!" said Mattha, "ye'd want mair ner the strength of men and pitchforks to stand again the like of that. Why, the water is as biting as a stepmother welcome on a winter's mornin' same as this."

"It's done me a power of good though," said Robbie shaking his wet hair, and then drying it with a handkerchief which Liza had handed him for the purpose. "I'm a stone for strength," added Robbie, but rising to his feet he slipped and fell.

"Then didsta nivver hear that a tum'lan stone gedders na moss," said Mattha.

The jest was untimely, and the three walked on in silence. Once at the house the dinner was soon over, and not even Mrs. Branthwaite's homely, if hesitating, importunity could prevail with Robbie to make a substantial meal.

"Come, lad," said Matthew, "you've had but a stepmother bit."

"I've had more than I've eaten at one meal for nigh a month--more than I've taken since that thing happened on the fell," answered Robbie, rising from the table, strapping his long coat tightly about him with his belt, and tying cords about the wide f.l.a.n.g.es of his big boots.