Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 38
“It is not for me to think. My part is to act.”
“Where is your chief? Can you go on without him?”
“We can and must.”
* * * * *
The clock in the Market Place registered ten minutes to eight. A pale-faced man in the crowd started a hymn.
“Stop his mouth,” cried a voice from the roof of the shambles, “the Quaker rascal!” And the men in blouses started a catch. But the singing continued; others joined in it, and soon it swelled to a long wave of song and flowed over that human sea.
But the clock was striking, and before its last bell had ceased to ring, between the lines of the hymn, a window of the guard-house was thrown open and a number of men stepped out.
In a moment the vast concourse was hushed to the stillness of death.
“Where is Wilfrey Lawson?” whispered one.
The sheriff was not there. The under sheriff and a burly fellow in black were standing side by side.
Among those who were near to the scaffold on the ground in front of it was one we know. Robbie Anderson had tramped the Market Place the long night through. He had not been able to tear himself from the spot. His eye was the first to catch sight of two men who came behind the chaplain. One of these walked with a firm step, a broad-breasted man, with an upturned face. Supported on his arm the other staggered along, his head on his breast, his hair whiter, and his step feebler than of old. Necks were craned forward to catch a glimpse of them.
* * * * *
“This is terrible,” Sim whispered.
“Only a minute more, and it will be over,” answered Ralph.
Sim burst into tears that shook his whole frame.
“Bravely, old friend,” Ralph said, melted himself, despite his words of cheer. “One minute, and we shall meet again. Bravely, then, and fear not.”
Sim was struggling to regain composure. He succeeded. His tears were gone, but a wild look came into his face. Ralph dreaded this more than tears.
“Be quiet, Sim,” he whispered; “be still, and say no word.”
The under sheriff approached Ralph.
“Have you any statement to make?” he said.
“None.”
“Nor you?” said the officer, turning to Ralph’s companion.
Sim was trying to overcome his emotion.
“He has nothing to say,” said Ralph quietly. Then he whispered again in Sim’s ear, “Bravely.”
Removing his arm from Sim’s convulsive grasp, he threw off his long coat. At that moment the bleared sun lit up his lifted face. There was a hush of awe.
Then, with a frantic gesture, Sim sprang forward, and seizing the arm of the under sheriff, he cried hysterically, —
“Ay, but I have something to say. He is innocent — take me back and let me prove it — he is innocent — it’s true — it’s true — I say it’s true — let me prove it.”
With a face charged with sorrow, Ralph walked to Sim and said, “One moment more and we had clasped hands in heaven.”
* * * * *
But now there was a movement at the back. The sheriff himself was seen stepping from the window to the scaffold. He was followed by Willy Ray and John Jackson. Two women stood together behind, Rotha and Mrs. Garth.
Willy came forward and fell on his brother’s neck.
“God has had mercy upon us,” he cried, amid a flood of tears.
Ralph looked amazed. The sheriff said something to him which he did not hear. The words were inaudible to the crowd, but the quick sympathy of the great heart of the people caught the unheard message.
“A reprieve! a reprieve!” shouted fifty voices.
A woman fainted at the window behind. It was Rotha.
The two men were led off with staring eyes. They walked like men in a dream.
Saved! saved! saved!
Then there went up a mighty shout. It was one vast voice, more loud than the blast on the mountains, more deep than the roar of the sea!
CHAPTER LI. SIX MONTHS AFTER.
It was the height of a Cumbrian summer. Bracken Mere was as smooth as a sheet of glass. The hills were green, gray, and purple to the summits, and their clear outlines stood out against the sky. The sky itself would have been cloudless but for one long scarf of plaited white which wore away across a lake of blue. The ghyll fell like a furled flag. The thin river under the clustering leaves sang beneath its breath. The sun was hot and the air was drowsed by the hum of insects.
And full of happy people was the meadow between the old house on the Moss and the pack-horse road in front of it. It was the day of the Wythburn sports, and this year it was being celebrated at Shoulthwaite. Tents had been pitched here and there in out-of-the-way corners of the field, and Mrs. Branthwaite, with her meek face, was appointed chief mistress and dispenser of the hospitality of the Shoulthwaite household.
“This is not taty-and-point,” said her husband, with a twinkle in his eyes and a sensation of liquidity about the lips as he came up to survey the outspread tables.
Mattha Branthwaite was once more resplendent in those Chapel-Sunday garments with which, in the perversity of the old weaver’s unorthodox heart, that auspicious day was not often honored. Mrs. Ray had been carried out in her chair by her stalwart sons. Her dear old face looked more mellow and peaceful than before. Folks said the paralysis was passing away. Mattha himself, who never at any time took a melancholy view of his old neighbor’s seizure, stands by her chair to-day and fires off his sapient saws at her with the certainty that she appreciates every saw of them.
“The dame’s to the fore yit,” he says, “and lang will be.”
At Mrs. Ray’s feet her son Willy lies on the grass in a blue jerkin and broad-brimmed black hat with a plume. Willy’s face is of the type on which trouble tells. Behind him, and leaning on the gate that leads from the court to the meadow, is Ralph, in a loose jacket with deep collar and a straw hat. He looks years younger than when we saw him last. He is just now laughing heartily at a batch of the schoolmaster’s scholars who are casting lots close at hand. One bullet-headed little fellow has picked up a couple of pebbles, and after putting them through some unseen and mysterious manoeuvres behind him, is holding them out in his two little fists, saying, —
Neevy, neevy nack,
Whether hand will ta tack —
T’ topmer or t’ lowmer?
“What hantle of gibberish is that?” says Monsey Laman himself.
“I is to tumble the poppenoddles,” cries the bullet-headed gentleman. And presently the rustic young gamester is tossing somersets for a penny.
In the middle of the meadow, and encircled by a little crowd of excited male spectators, two men are trying a fall at wrestling. Stripped to the waist, they are treating each other to somewhat demonstrative embraces.
At a few yards’ distance another little circle, of more symmetrical outlines, and comprising both sexes, are standing with linked hands. A shame-faced young maiden is carrying a little cushion around her companions. They are playing the “cushion game.”
At one corner of the field there is a thicket overgrown with wild roses, white and red. Robbie Anderson, who has just escaped from a rebellious gang of lads who have been climbing on his shoulders and clinging to his legs, is trying to persuade Liza Branthwaite that there is something curious and wonderful lying hidden within this flowery ambush.
“It’s terrible nice,” he says, rather indefinitely. “Come, lass, come and see.”
Liza refuses plump.
The truth is that Liza has a shrewd suspicion that the penalty of acquiescence would be a kiss. Now, she has no particular aversion to that kind of commerce, but since Robbie is so eager, she has resolved, like a true woman, that his appetite shall be whetted by a temporary disappointment.
“Not I,” she says, with arms akimbo and a rippling laugh of knowing mockery. Presently her sprightly little feet are tripping away.
Still encircled by half a score of dogs, Robbie returns to the middle of the meadow, where the wrestlers have given way to some who are preparing for a race up the fell. Robbie throws off his coat and cap, and straps a belt about his waist.
“Why, what’s this?” inquires Liza, coming up at the moment, with mischief in her eyes, and bantering her sweetheart with roguish jeers. “You going to run! Why, you are only a bit of a boy, you know. How can you expect to win?”
“Just you wait and see, little lass,” says Robbie, with undisturbed good humor.
“You’ll slidder all the way down the fell, sure enough,” saves Liza.
“All right; just you get a cabbish-skrunt poultice ready for my broken shins,” says Robbie.
“I would scarce venture if I were you,” continues Liza, to the vast amusement of the bystanders. “Wait till you’re a man, Robbie.”
The competitors — there are six of them — are now stationed; the signal is given, and away they go.
The fell is High Seat, and it is steep and rugged. The first to round the “man” at the summit and reach the meadow again wins the prize.
Over stones, across streams, tearing through thickets, through belts of trees — look how they go! Now they are lost to the sight of the spectators below; now they are seen, and now they are hidden; now three of the six emerge near the top.
The excitement in the field is at full pitch. Liza is beside herself with anxiety.
“It’s Robbie — no, yes — no — egg him on, do; te-lick; te-smack.”
One man has rounded the summit, and two others follow him neck-and-neck. They are coming down, jumping, leaping, flying. They’re here, here, and it is — yes, it is Robbie that leads!
“Well done! Splendid! Twelve minutes! Well done! Weel, weel, I oles do say ‘at ye hev a lang stroke o’ the grund, Robbie,” says Mattha.
“And what do you say?” says Robbie, panting, and pulling on his coat as he turns to Liza, who is trying to look absent and unconcerned.
“Ay! Did you speak to me? I say that perhaps you didn’t go round the ‘man’ at all. You were always a bit of a cheat, you know.”
“Then here goes for cheating you.” Robbie had caught Liza about the waist, and was drawing her to that rose-covered thicket. She found he was holding her tight. He was monstrously strong. What ever was the good of trying to get away?
Two elderly women were amused spectators of Liza’s ineffectual struggles.
“I suppose you know they are to be wedded,” said one.
“I suppose so,” rejoined the other; “and I hear that Ralph is to let a bit of land to Robbie; he has given him a horse, I’m told.”
Matthew Branthwaite had returned to his station by Mrs. Ray’s chair.
“Whear’s Rotha?” says the old weaver.
“She said she would come and bring her father,” said Willy from the grass, where he still lay at his mother’s feet.
“It was bad manishment, my lad, to let the lass gang off agen with Sim to yon Fornside.”
Mattha is speaking with an insinuating smile.
“Could ye not keep her here? Out upon tha for a good to nowt.”
Willy makes no reply to the weaver’s banter.
At that moment Rotha and her father are seen to enter the meadow by a gate at the lower end.
Ralph steps forward and welcomes the new-comers.
Sim has aged fast these last six months, but he is brighter looking and more composed. The dalespeople have tried hard to make up to him for their former injustice. He receives their conciliatory attentions with a somewhat too palpable effort at cordiality, but he is only less timid than before.
Ralph leads Rotha to a vacant chair near to where his mother sits.
“A blithe heart maks a blooming look,” says Mattha to the girl. Rotha’s face deserves the compliment. To-day it looks as fresh as it is always beautiful. But there is something in it now that we have never before observed. The long dark lashes half hide and half reveal a tenderer light than has hitherto stolen into those deep brown eyes. The general expression of the girl’s face is not of laughter nor yet of tears, but of that indescribable something that lies between these two, when, after a world of sadness, the heart is glad — the sunshine of an April day.
“This seems like the sunny side of the hedge at last, Rotha,” says Ralph, standing by her side, twirling his straw hat on one hand.
There is some bustle in their vicinity. The schoolmaster, who prides himself on having the fleetest foot in the district, has undertaken to catch a rabbit. Trial of speed is made, and he succeeds in two hundred yards.
“Theer’s none to match the laal limber Frenchman,” says Mattha, “for catching owte frae a rabbit to a slap ower the lug at auld Nicky Stevens’s.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughs Reuben Thwaite, rather boisterously, as he comes up in time to hear the weaver’s conceit.
“There’s one thing I never caught yet, Master Reuben,” says Monsey.
“And what is it?” says the little blink-eyed dalesman.
“A ghost on a lime-and-mould heap!”
“Ha! ha! ha! He’s got a lad’s heart the laal man has,” says Mattha, with the manner of a man who is conscious that he is making an original observation.
And now the sun declines between the Noddle Fell and Bleaberry. The sports are over, but not yet is the day’s pleasure done. When darkness has fallen over meadow and mountain the kitchen of the house on the Moss is alive with bright faces. The young women of Wythburn have brought their spinning-wheels, and they sit together and make some pretence to spin. The young men are outside. The old folks are in another room with Mrs. Ray.
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 Lancashire 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 feàce.
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 lass, 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 Willy walked with them to Water’s Head. Sim remained with Mrs. Ray.
What a night it was! The moon was shining 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 shingle 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 phosphorescent gleams sent up sheets of brightness. The boat, which rolled slowly, half-afloat and half-ashore, 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.
