The Shadow of a Crime Part 13

"I do," said Sim; "it was the time of the war. The neighbors told of some maiden aunt, an old crone like herself, who had left Joe's mother aboon a hundred pound."

"Wilson knew that much better than our neighbors. He knew, too, where his wife had hidden herself, as she thought, though it had served his turn to seem ignorant of it until then. Sim, he used _me_ to get to Wythburn."

"Teush!"

"Once here, it was not long before he had made his wife aware of his coming. I had kept an eye on him, and I knew his movements. I saw that he meant to ruin the Garths, mother and son, to strip them and leave them dest.i.tute. I determined that he should not do it. I felt that mine was the blame that he was here to molest them. 'Tamper with them,' I said, 'show once more by word or look that you know anything of them, and I'll hand you over as a traitor to the nearest sheriff.'"

"Why didn't you do it anyhow, why didn't you?" said Sim eagerly.

"That would have been unwise. He now hated me for defeating his designs.

"You had saved his life."

"He hated me none the less for that. There was only one way now to serve either the Garths or myself, and that was to keep the man in hand. I neither sent him away nor let him go."

"You were more than a match for him to the last," said Sim, "and you saved me and my la.s.s from him too. But what about Joe Garth and his old mother? They don't look over-thankful to you, they don't."

"They think that I brought Wilson back to torment them. No words of mine would upset the notion. I'm sorry for that, but leave such mistakes for time to set right. And when the truth comes in such a case it comes to some purpose."

"Aye, when it comes--_when_ it comes."

Sim spoke in an undertone, and as though to himself.

"It's long in the coming sometimes, it is."

"It seems long, truly." The dalesman had caught Sim's drift, and with his old trick of manner, more expressive than his words, he had put his hand on Sim's arm.

"And now there is but one chance that has made it quite worth the while that we should have talked frankly on the subject, you and I, and that is the chance that others may come to do what Wilson tried to do. The authorities who issued this warrant will hardly forget that they issued it. There was a stranger here the day after the inquest. I think I know what he was."

Sim shuddered perceptibly.

"He went away then, but we'll see him once more, depend upon it."

"Is it true, as Wilson said, that Oliver's men are like to be taken?"

"There's a spy in every village, so they say, and blank warrants, duly signed, in every sheriff's court, ready to be filled in with any name that malice may suggest. These men mean that Puritanism shall be rooted out of England. We cannot be too well prepared."

"I wish I could save you, Ralph; leastways, I wish it were myself instead, I do."

"You thought to save me, old friend, when you went out to meet Wilson that night three months ago. My father, too, he thought to save me when he did what he did. You were both rash, both wrong. You could not have helped me at all in that way. Poor father! How little he has helped me, Heaven knows--Heaven alone knows--yet."

Ralph drew his hand across his eyes.

CHAPTER VIII. ROBBIE'S REDEMPTION.

Sim accompanied Ralph half-way down the hill when he rose to go.

Robbie Anderson could be seen hastening towards them. His mission must be with Ralph, so Sim went back.

"I've been to Shoulthwaite to look for you," said Robbie. "They told me you'd taken the hills for it, so I followed on."

"You look troubled, my lad," said Ralph; "has anything happened to you?"

"No, Ralph, but something may happen to you if you don't heed me what I say."

"Nothing that will trouble me much, Robbie--nothing of that kind can happen now."

"Yon gommarel of a Joe Garth, the blacksmith, has never forgotten the thrashing you gave him years ago for killing your dog--Laddie's mother that was."

"No, he'll never forgive me; but what of that? I've not looked for his forgiveness."

"But, I'm afeared, Ralph, he means to pay you back more than four to the quarter. Do you know he has spies lodging with him? They've come down here to take you off. Joe has been at the Red Lion this morning--drunk, early as it is. He blurted it out about the spies, so I ran off to find you."

"It isn't Joe that has done the mischief, my lad, though the spies, or whatever they are, may pay him to play underspy while it serves their turn."

"Joe or not Joe, they mean to take you the first chance. Folks say everything has got upside down with the laws and the country now that the great man himself is dead. Hadn't you best get off somewhere?

"It was good of you, Robbie, to warn me; but I can't leave home yet; my father must be buried, you know."

"Ah!" said Robbie in an altered tone, "poor Angus!"

Ralph looked closely at his companion, and thought of Robbie's question last night in the inn.

"Tell me," he said, glancing searchingly into Robbie's eyes, "did you know anything about old Wilson's death?"

The young dalesman seemed abashed. He dropped his head, and appeared unable to look up.

"Tell me, Robbie; I know much already."

"I took the money," said the young man; "I took it, but I threw it into the beck the minute after."

"How was it, lad? Let me know."

Robbie was still standing, with his head down, pawing the ground as he said,--

"I'd been drinking hard--you know that. I was drunk yon night, and I hadn't a penny in my pouch. On my way home from the inn I lay down in the dike and fell asleep. I was awakened by the voices of two men quarrelling. You know who they were. Old Wilson was waving a paper over his head and laughing and sneering. Then the other s.n.a.t.c.hed it away. At that Wilson swore a dreadful oath, and flung himself on--the other. It was all over in a moment. He'd given the little waistrel the cross-b.u.t.tock, and felled him on his head. I saw the other ride off, and I saw Simeon Stagg. When all was still, I crept out and took Wilson's money--yes, I took it; but I flung it into the next beck. For the moment, when I touched him I thought he was alive. I've not been drinking hard since then, Ralph; no, nor never will again."

"Ey, you'll do better than that, Robbie."

Ralph said no more. There was a long silence between the two men, until Robbie, unable to support it any longer, broke in again with, "I took it, but I flung it into the next beck."

The poor fellow seemed determined to dwell upon the latter fact as in some measure an extenuation of his offence. In his silent hours of remorse he had cherished it as one atoning circ.u.mstance. It had been the first fruits of a sudden resolution of reform. Sobered by the sense of what part he had played in crime, the money that had lain in his hand was a witness against him; and when he had flung it away he had only the haunting memory left of what he would have done in effect, but had, in fact, done only in name.

"Why did you not say this at the inquest?" asked Ralph. "You might have cleared Simeon Stagg. Was it because you must have accused my father?"

"I can't say it was that. I felt guilty myself. I felt as if half the crime had been mine."