The Shadow of a Crime Part 81

Presently a pebble is heard to crack against the window pane.

"What ever can it be?" says one of the maidens with an air of profound amazement.

One venturesome damsel goes to the door "Why, it's a young man!" she says, with overpowering astonishment.

The unexpected creature enters the kitchen, followed by a longish line of similar apparitions. They seat themselves on the table, on the skemmels, on the stools between the spinners--anywhere, everywhere.

What sport ensues! what story-telling! what laughing! what singing!

Ralph comes downstairs, and is hailed with welcomes on all hands. He is called upon for a song. Yes, he can sing. He always sang in the old days. He must sing now.

"I'll sing you something I heard in Lancaster," he says.

"What about--the Lancas.h.i.+re witches?"

"Who writ it--little Monsey?"

"No, but a bigger man than Monsey," said Ralph with a smile.

"He _would_ be a mite if he were no bigger than the schoolmaster," put in that lady of majestic stature, Liza Branthwaite.

Then Ralph sang in his deep baritone, "Fear no more the heat o' the sun."

And the click of the spinning-wheels seemed to keep time to the slow measure of the fine old song.

Laddie, the collie, was there. He lay at Ralph's feet with a solemn face. He was clearly thinking out the grave problems attaching to the place of dogs on this universe.

"Didn't I hear my name awhile ago?" said a voice from behind the door.

The head of the speaker emerged presently. It was Monsey Laman. He had been banished with the "old folks."

"Come your ways in, schoolmaster," cried Robbie Anderson. "Who says 'yes' to a bout of play-acting?"

As a good many said "Yes," an armchair was forthwith placed at one corner of the kitchen with its back to the audience. Monsey mounted it. Robbie went out of doors, and, presently re-entering with a countenance of most woeful solemnity, approached the chair, bent on one knee, and began to speak,--

Oh wad I were a glove upo' yon hand 'At I med kiss yon feace.

A loud burst of laughter rewarded this attempt on the life of the tragic muse. But when the schoolmaster, perched aloft, affecting a peuking voice (a strangely unnecessary artistic effort), said,--

"Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?" and the alleged Romeo on his knees replied, "Nowther, sweet la.s.s, if owther thoo offend," the laughter in the auditorium reached the point of frantic screams. The actors, like wise artists, were obviously indifferent to any question of the kind of impression produced, and went at their task with conscientious ardor.

The little schoolmaster smiled serenely, enchantingly, bewitchingly.

Robbie panted and gasped, and sighed and moaned.

"Did you ever see a man in such a case?" said Liza, wiping away the hysterical tears of merriment that coursed down her cheeks.

"Wait a bit," said Robbie, rather stepping out of his character.

It was a part of the "business" of this tragedy, as Robbie had seen it performed in Carlisle, that Romeo should cast a nosegay up into the balcony to Juliet. Robbie had provided himself with the "property" in question, and, pending the moment at which it was necessary to use it, he had deposited it on the floor behind him. But in the fervor of impersonation, he had not observed that Liza had crept up and stolen it away.

"Where's them flowers?" cried Romeo, scarcely _sotto voce_.

When the nosegay was yielded up to the lover on his knees, it was found to be about three times as big as Juliet's head.

The play came to an abrupt conclusion; the spinning-wheels were pushed aside, a fiddle was brought out, and then followed a dance.

"Iverything has a stopping spot but time," said Mattha Branthwaite, coming in, his hat and cloak on.

The night was spent. The party must break up.

The girls drew on their bonnets and shawls, and the young men shouldered the wheels.

A large company were to sail up the mere to the city in the row-boat, and Rotha, Ralph, and w.i.l.l.y walked with them to Water's Head. Sim remained with Mrs. Ray.

What a night it was! The moon was s.h.i.+ning at the full from a sky of deep blue that was studded with stars. Not a breath of wind was stirring. The slow beat of the water on the s.h.i.+ngle came to the ear over the light lap against the boat. The mere stretched miles away. It seemed to be as still as a white feather on the face of the dead, and to be alive with light. Where the swift but silent current was cut asunder by a rock, the phosph.o.r.escent gleams sent up sheets of brightness. The boat, which rolled slowly, half-afloat and half-ash.o.r.e, was bordered by a fringe of silver. When at one moment a gentle breeze lifted the water into ripples, countless stars floated, down a white waterway from yonder argent moon. Not a house on the banks of the mere; not a sign of life; only the low plash of wavelets on the pebbles. Hark! What cry was that coming clear and shrill? It was the curlew. And when the night bird was gone she left a silence deeper than before.

The citizens, lads and la.s.ses, old men and dames, got into the boat.

Robbie Anderson and three other young fellows took the oars.

"We'll row ourselves up in a twinkling," said Liza, as Ralph and w.i.l.l.y pushed the keel off the s.h.i.+ngle.

"Hark ye the la.s.s!" cried Mattha. "We hounds slew the hare, quo' the terrier to the cur."

The sage has fired off the last rustic proverb that we shall ever hear from his garrulous old lips.

When they were fairly afloat, and rowing hard up the stream, the girls started a song.

The three who stood together at the Water's Head listened long to the dying voices.

A step on the path broke their trance. It was a lone woman, bent and feeble. She went by them without a word.

The brothers exchanged a look.

"Poor Joe," said Rotha, almost in a whisper.

But the girl's cup of joy could bear this memory. She knew her love at last.

w.i.l.l.y stepped between Rotha and Ralph. He was deeply moved. He was about to yield up the dream of his life. He tried to speak, and stopped. He tried again, and stopped once more. Then he took Rotha's hand and put it into Ralph's, and turned away in silence.

And now these two, long knit together, soul to soul, parted by sorrow, purified by affliction, enn.o.bled by suffering, stand in this white moonlight hand in hand.

Hereafter the past is dead to them, and yet lives. What was sown in sorrow is raised in joy; what was sown in affliction is raised in peace; what was sown in suffering is raised in love.

And thus the tired old world wags on, and true it is to-day as yesterday that WHOM G.o.d'S HAND RESTS ON HAS G.o.d AT HIS RIGHT HAND.