The Shadow of a Crime Part 7

The two women left the room.

Sim's eyes opened; there was a watery humor in them which was not tears. The color came back to his cheeks, but with the return of consciousness his face grew thinner and more haggard. He heaved a heavy sigh, and seemed to realize his surroundings. With the only hand disengaged (Robbie held one of them) he clutched at Ralph's belt.

"I'm better--let me go," he said in a hoa.r.s.e voice, trying to rise.

"No!" said Ralph,--"no!" and he gently pushed him back into his rec.u.mbent position.

"You had best let the snuffling waistrel go," said one of the men in a surly tone. "Maybe he never fainted at all."

It was the blacksmith who had growled at the mention of Ralph's name in Ralph's absence. They called him Joe Garth.

"Be silent, you loon," answered Robbie Anderson, turning upon the last speaker.

Ralph seemed not to have heard him.

"Here," he said, tossing Sim's coat to Matthew, who had returned with a new pipe to his seat in the chimney corner, "dry that at the fire."

The coat had been growing hard with the frost.

"This wants the batling stone ower it," said the old weaver, spreading it out before him.

"See to this, schoolmaster," said Ralph, throwing Sim's cap into his lap.

Monsey jumped, with a scream, out of his seat as though stung by an adder.

Ralph looked at him for a moment with an expression of pity.

"I might have known you were timid at heart, schoolmaster. Perhaps you're gallant over a gla.s.s."

There could be no doubt of little Monsey's timidity. All his jests had forsaken him.

Sim had seen the gesture that expressed horror at contact even with his clothes. He was awake to every pa.s.sing incident with a feverish alertness.

"Let me go," he said again, with a look of supplicatory appeal.

Old Matthew got up and opened the door.

"Sista, there's some betterment in the weather, now; it teem't awhile ago."

"What of that?" asked Ralph; but he understood the observation.

"For G.o.d's sake let me go," cried Sim in agony, looking first at one face and then at another.

"No," said Ralph, and sat down beside him. Robbie had gone back to his bench.

"Ye'll want the bull-grips to keep _him_ quiet," said old Matthew to Ralph, with a sneer.

"And the a.s.s's barnicles to keep your tongue in your mouth," added Ralph sternly.

"For fault of wise men fools sit on the bench, or we should hev none of this," continued Matthew. "I reckon some one that's here is nigh ax't oot by Auld Nick in the kirk of the nether world."

"Then take care you're not there yourself to give something at the bridewain."

Old Mathew grumbled something under his breath.

There was a long silence. Ralph had rarely been heard to speak so bitterly. It was clear that opposition had gone far enough. Sim's watery eyes were never for an instant still. Full of a sickening apprehension, they cast furtive glances into every face. The poor creature seemed determined to gather up into his wretched breast the scorn that was blasting it. The turf on the hearth gave out a great heat, but the tailor s.h.i.+vered as with cold. Then Ralph reached the coat and cap, and, after satisfying himself that they were dry, he handed them back to Sim, who put them on. Perhaps he had mistaken the act, for, rising to his feet, Sim looked into Ralph's face inquiringly, as though to ask if he might go.

"Not yet, Sim," said Ralph. "You shall go when I go. You lodge with me to-night."

Monsey in the corner looked aghast, and crept closer under the flitch of bacon that hung above him.

"Men," said Ralph, "hearken here. You call it a foul thing to kill a man, and so it is."

Monsey turned livid; every one held his breath. Ralph went on,--

"Did you ever reflect that there are other ways of taking a man's life besides killing him?"

There was no response. Ralph did not seem to expect one, for he continued,--

"You loathe the man who takes the blood of his fellow-man, and you're right so to do. It matters nothing to you that the murdered man may have been a worse man than the murderer. You're right there too. You look to the motive that inspired the crime. Is it greed or revenge?

Then you say, 'This man must die.' G.o.d grant that such horror of murder may survive among us." There was a murmur of a.s.sent.

"But it is possible to kill without drawing blood. We may be murderers and never suspect the awfulness of our crime. To wither with suspicion, to blast with scorn, to dog with cruel hints, to torture with hard looks',--this is to kill without blood. Did you ever think of it? There are worse hangmen than ever stood on the gallows."

"Ay, but _he's_ shappin' to hang hissel'," muttered Matthew Branthwaite. And there was some inaudible muttering among the others.

"I know what you mean," Ralph continued. "That the guilty man whom the law cannot touch is rightly brought under the ban of his fellows. Yes, it is Heaven's justice."

Sim crept closer to Ralph, and trembled perceptibly.

"Men, hearken again," said Ralph. "You know I've spoken up for Sim,"

and he put his great arm about the tailor's shoulders; "but you don't know that I have never asked him, and he has never said whether he is innocent or not. The guilty man may be in this room, and he may not be Simeon Stagg. But if he were my own brother--my own father--"

Old Matthew's pipe had gone out; he was puffing at the dead shaft. Sim rose up; his look of abject misery had given place to a look of defiance; he stamped on the floor.

"Let me go; let me go," he cried.

Robbie Anderson came up and took him by the hand; but Sim's brain seemed rent in twain, and in a burst of hysterical pa.s.sion he fell back into his seat, and buried his head in his breast.

"He'll be hanged with the foulest collier yet," growled one of the men. It was Joe Garth again. He was silenced once more. The others had begun to relent.

"I've not yet asked him if he is innocent," continued Ralph; "but this persecution drives me to it, and I ask him now."

"Yes, yes," cried Sim, raising his head, and revealing an awful countenance. A direful memory seemed to haunt every feature.

"Do you know the murderer?"

"I do--that is--what am I saying?--let me go."