The Shadow of a Crime Part 44

Ralph gave him a quick glance; then reaching over the neck of his horse to stroke its long mane, he said, with the manner of one who makes too palpable an effort to change the subject of conversation: "Isn't this mare something like old Betsy? I couldn't but mark how like she was to our old mare that is lost when the ostler brought her into the yard this morning."

Sim made no reply.

"Poor Betsy!" said Ralph, and dropped his head on to his breast.

Another long canter. When the riders drew up again it was to take a steadier view of some objects in the distance which had simultaneously awakened their curiosity.

"There seem to be many of them," said Ralph; and, s.h.i.+elding his ear from the wind, he added, "do you catch their voices?"

"Are they quarrelling?--is it a riot?" Sim asked.

"Quick, and let us see."

In a few moments they had reached a little wayside village.

There they found children screaming and women wringing their hands. In the high road lay articles of furniture, huddled together, thrown in heaps one on another, and broken into fragments in the fall. A sergeant and company of musketeers were even then in the midst of this pitiful work of devastation, turning the people out of their little thatched cottages and flinging their poor sticks of property out after them. Everywhere were tumult and ruin. Old people were lying on the cold earth by the wayside. They had been born in these houses; they had looked to die in these homes; but houses and homes were to be theirs no more. Amidst the wreck strode the gaunt figure of a factor, directing and encouraging, and firing off meantime a volley of revolting oaths.

"What's the name of this place?" asked Ralph of a man who stood, with fury in his eyes, watching the destruction of his home.

"Hollowbank," answered the man between his teeth.

Ralph remembered that here had lived a well-known Royalist, whom the Parliament had dispossessed of his estates. The people of this valley had been ardent Parliamentarians during the long campaign. Could it be that his lords.h.i.+p had been repossessed of his property, and was taking this means of revenging himself upon his tenantry for resisting the cause he had fought for?

An old man lay by the hedge looking down to the ground with eyes that told only of despair. A little fair-haired boy, with fear in his innocent face, was clinging to his grandfather's cloak and crying piteously.

"Get off with you and begone!" cried the factor, rapping out another volley.

"Is it Hollowbank you call this place?" said Ralph, looking the fellow in the face. "h.e.l.lbank would be a fitter name."

The man answered nothing, but his eyes glared angrily as Ralph put spur to his horse and rode on.

"G.o.d in heaven!" cried Ralph when Sim had come up by his side, "to think that work like this goes on in G.o.d's sight!"

"Yet you say the best happens," said Sim.

"It does; it does; G.o.d knows it does, for all that," insisted Ralph.

"But to think of these poor souls thrown out into the road like cattle. Cattle? To cattle they would be merciful!--thrown out into the road to lie and die and rot!"

"Have they been outlawed--these men?" said Sim.

"d.a.m.nation!" cried Ralph, as though at Sim's ignorant word a new and terrible thought had flashed upon his mind and wounded him like a dagger.

Then they rode long in silence.

Away they went, mile after mile, without rest and without pause, through dales and over uplands, past meres and across rivers, and still with the gathering blackness overhead.

What force of doom was spurring them on in this race against Life? It was the depth of a c.u.mbrian winter, and the days were short. Clearly they would never reach Penrith to-night. The delay at Hollowbank and the shortened twilight before a coming snowstorm must curtail their journey. They agreed to put up for the night at the inn at Askham.

As they approached that house of entertainment they observed that the coach which had left Carlisle that morning was in the act of drawing up at the door. It waited only while three or four pa.s.sengers alighted, and then drove on and pa.s.sed them in its journey south.

Five hours hence it would pa.s.s the northward coach from Kendal.

When Ralph and Sim dismounted at the Fox and Hounds, at Askham, the landlord came hastily to the door. He was a brawny dalesman, of perhaps thirty. He was approaching the travellers with the customary salutations of a host, when, checking himself, and coming to Ralph, he said in a low tone, "I ask pardon, sir, but is your name Ray?--Captain--hus.h.!.+" he whispered; and then, becoming suddenly mute, without waiting for a reply to his questions, he handed the horses to a man who came up at the moment, and beckoned Ralph and Sim to follow him, not through the front of the house, but towards the yard that led to the back.

"Don't you know me?" he said as soon as he had conveyed them, as if by stealth, into a little room detached from the rest of the house.

"Surely it's Brown? And how are you, my lad?"

"Gayly; and you seem gayly yourself, and not much altered since the great days at Dunbar--only a bit l.u.s.tier, mayhap, and with something more of beard. I'll never forget the days I served under you!"

"That's well, Brown; but why did you bring us round here?" said Ralph.

"Hus.h.!.+" whispered the landlord. "I've a pack of the worst bloodhounds from Carlisle just come. They're this minute down by the coach. I know the waistrels. They've been here before to-day. They'd know you to a certainty, and woe's me if once the gommarels come abreast of you.

It's like I'd never forgive myself if my old captain came by any ill luck in my house."

"How long will they stay?" "Until morning, it's like."

"How far is it to the next inn?"

"Three miles to Clifton."

"We shall sleep till daybreak to-morrow, Brown, on the settles you have here. And now, my lad, bloodhounds or none on our trail, bring us something to eat."

CHAPTER x.x.xI. ROBBIE, SPEED ON!

Upon reaching the Woodman at Kendal, Robbie found little reason to doubt that Sim had been there and had gone. A lively young chambermaid, who replied to his questions, told him the story of Sim's temporary illness and subsequent departure with another man.

"What like of a man was he, la.s.s--him as took off the little fellow?"

asked Robbie.

"A very personable sort; maybe as fine a breed as you'd see here and there one," replied the girl.

"Six foot high haply, and square up on his legs?" asked Robbie, throwing back his body into an upright posture as a supplementary and explanatory gesture.

"Ey, as big as Bully Ned and as straight as Robin the Devil," said the girl.

Robbie was in ignorance of the physical proportions of these local worthies, but he was nevertheless in little doubt as to the ident.i.ty of his man. It was clear that Sim and Ralph had met on this spot only a few hours ago, and had gone off together.

"What o'clock might it be when they left?" said Robbie.

"Nigh to noon--maybe eleven or so."

It was now two, and Ralph and Sim, riding good horses, must be many miles away. Robbie's vexation was overpowering when he thought of the hours that he had wasted at Winander and of the old gossip at the street corner who had prompted him to the fruitless search.