The Shadow of a Crime Part 40

Ralph dropped his head, and felt something surging in his throat.

At the same instant a thick-lipped man with cruel eyes crushed through the people to where the girl stood, and, taking her roughly by the shoulder, pushed her away.

"Hand thy gab," he said, between clinched teeth; "what's _thy_ business singing hymns in t'streets? Get along home to bed; that's more in thy style, I reckon."

The girl was stealing away covered with shame, when Ralph parted the people that divided him from the man, and, coming in front of him, laid one hand on his throat. Gasping for breath, the fellow would have struggled to free himself, but Ralph held him like a vise.

"This is not the first time we have met; take care it shall be the last."

So saying, Ralph flung the man from him, and he fell like an infant at his feet.

Gathering himself up with a look compounded equally of surprise and hatred, the man said, "Nay, nay; do you think it'll be the last? don't you fear it!"

Then he slunk out of the crowd, and it was observed that when he had gained the opposite side of the street, the little, pale-faced elderly person who had been known as Ralph's Shadow, had joined him.

"Is it our man?"

"The same, for sure."

"Then it must be done the day. We've delayed too long already."

CHAPTER XXVIII. AFTER WORD COMES WEIRD.

I. When Ralph lay down in his bed that night in a coffee-house in China Lane, there was no conviction more strongly impressed upon his mind than that it was his instant duty to leave Lancaster. It was obvious that he was watched, and that his presence in the old town had excited suspicion. The man who had pestered him for many days with his unwelcome society was clearly in league with the other man who had insulted the girl. The latter rascal he knew of old for a declared and bitter enemy. Probably the pair were only waiting for authority, perhaps merely for the verification of some surmise, before securing the aid of the constable to apprehend him. He must leave Lancaster, and at once.

Ralph rose from his bed and dressed himself afresh. He strapped his broad pack across his back, called his hostess, and paid his score.

"Must the gentleman start away at midnight?" Yes; a sudden call compelled him. "Should she brew him a pot of hot ale?--the nights were chill in winter." Not to-night; he must leave without delay.

When Ralph walked through the streets of Lancaster that cold midnight, it was with no certainty as to his destination. It was to be anywhere, anywhere in this race for life. Any haven that promised solitude was to be his city of refuge.

The streets were quiet now, and even the roystering tipplers had gone off to their homes. For Ralph there was no home--only this wild hunt from place to place, with no safety and rest.

His heavy tread and the echo of his footfall were at length all that broke the stillness of the streets.

He walked southwards, and when he reached the turnpike he stood for a moment and turned his eyes towards the north. The fires that had been kindled were smouldering away, but even yet a red gleam lay across the square towers of the castle on the hill.

The old town was now asleep. Thousands of souls lay slumbering there.

Ralph thought of those who slept in a home he knew, far, far north of this town and those towers. What was his crime that he was banished from them--perhaps forever? What was his crime before G.o.d or man? His mother, his brother, Rotha--

Ralph struck his breast and turned about. No, it would not bear to be thought about. _That_ dream, at least, was gone. Rotha was happy in his brother's love, and as for himself--as for him--it was his destiny, and he must bear it!

Yet what was life worth now that he should struggle like this to preserve it?

Ralph returned to his old conviction--G.o.d's hand was on him. The idea, morbid as it might be, brought him solace this time. Once more he stopped, and turned his eyes afresh towards the north and the fifty miles of darkness that lay between him and those he loved.

It was at that very moment of desolation that Rotha heard the neigh of a horse as she leaned out of her open window.

II. "Aye, poor man, about Martinmas the Crown seized his freehold and all his goods and chattels."

"It will be sad news for him when he hears that his old mother and the wife and children were turned into the road."

"Well, well, I will say, treason or none, that John Rushton was as good a subject as the loudest bagpipes of them all."

Ralph was sitting at breakfast in a wayside inn when two Lancas.h.i.+re yeomen entered and began to converse in these terms: "Aye, aye, and the leaven of Puritanism is not to be crushed out by such measures.

But it's flat dishonesty, and nothing less. What did the proclamation of '59 mean if it didn't promise pardon to every man that fought for the Parliament, save such as were named as regicides?"

"Tut, man, it came to nought; the King returned without conditions; and the men who fought against him are reckoned as guilty as those that cut off his father's head." "But the people will never uphold it.

The little leaven remains, and one day it will leaven the lump."

"Tut, the people are all fools--except such as are knaves. See how they're given up to drunkenness and vain pleasures. Hypocrisy and libertinism are safe for a few years' reign. England is _Merry_ England, as they say, and she'll be merry at any cost."

"Poor John, it will be a sad blow to him!"

Ralph had been an eager listener to the conversation between the yeomen, who were clearly old Whigs and Parliamentarians.

"Pardon me, gentlemen," he interrupted, "do you speak of John Rushton of Aberleigh?"

"We do. As good a gentleman as lived in Lancas.h.i.+re."

"That's true, but where was he when this disaster befell his household?"

"G.o.d knows; he had fled from judgment and was outlawed."

"And the Crown confiscated his estate, you say, and turned his family into the road? What was the indictment--some trumpery subterfuge for treason?"

"Like enough; but the indictment counts for nothing in these days; it's the verdict that is everything, and that's settled beforehand."

"True, true."

"Did you know my neighbor John?"

"I did; we were comrades years ago."

With these words, Ralph rose from his unfinished breakfast and walked out of the house.

What mischief of the same sort might even now be brewing at Wythburn in his absence? Should he return? That would be useless, and worse than useless. What could he do?

The daring impulse suddenly possessed him to go on to London, secure audience of the King himself, and plead for amnesty. Yes, that was all that remained to him to do, and it should be done. His pet.i.tion might be spurned; his person might be seized, and he might be handed over to judgment; but what of that? He was certain to be captured sooner or later, and this sorry race for liberty and for life would be over at length.