The Shadow of a Crime Part 3

From straps fixed to the rafters hung a gun, a whip, and a horn. Two square windows, that looked out over the narrow causeway, were covered by curtains of red cloth. An oak bench stood in each window recess.

The walls throughout were panelled in oak, which was carved here and there in curious archaic devices. The panelling had for the most part grown black with age; the rosier spots, that were polished to the smoothness and brightness of gla.s.s, denoted the positions of cupboards. Strong settles and broad chairs stood in irregular places about the floor, which was of the bare earth, grown hard as stone, and now sanded. The chimney nook spanned the width of one end of the room.

It was an open ingle with seats in the wall at each end, and the fire on the ground between them. A goat's head and the horns of an ox were the only ornaments of the chimney-breast, which was white-washed.

On this night of 1660 the wind was loud and wild without. The snowstorm that had hung over the head of Castenand in the morning had come down the valley as the day wore on. The heavy sleet rattled at the windows. In its fiercer gusts it drowned the ring of the l.u.s.ty voices. The little parlor looked warm and snug with its great cobs of old peat glowing red as they burnt away sleepily on the broad hearth.

At intervals the door would open and a shepherd would enter. He had housed his sheep for the night, and now, seated as the newest corner on the warmest bench near the fire, with a pipe in one hand and a pot of hot ale in the other, he was troubled by the tempest no more.

"At Michaelmas a good fat goose, at Christmas stannen' pie, and good yal awt year roond," said an old man in the chimney corner. This was Matthew Branthwaite, the wit and sage of Wythburn, once a weaver, but living now on the husbandings of earlier life. He was tall and slight, and somewhat bent with age. He was dressed in a long brown sack coat, belted at the waist, below which were pockets cut perpendicular at the side. Ribbed worsted stockings and heavy shoes made up, with the greater garment, the sum of his visible attire. Old Matthew had a vast reputation for wise saws and proverbs; his speech seemed to be made of little else; and though the dalespeople had heard the old sayings a thousand times, these seemed never to lose anything of their piquancy and rude force.

"It's a bad night, Mattha Branthet," said a new-comer.

"Dost tak me for a born idiot?" asked the old man. "Dost think I duddent known that afore I saw thee, that thou must be blodderen oot,'

It's a bad neet, Mattha Branthet?'" There was a dash of rustic spite in the old man's humor which gave it an additional relish.

"Ye munnet think to win through the world on a feather bed, lad," he added.

The man addressed was one Robbie Anderson, a young fellow who had for a long time indulged somewhat freely in the good ale which the sage had just recommended for use all the year round. Every one had said he was going fast to his ruin, making beggars of himself and of all about him. It was, nevertheless, whispered that Robbie was the favored sweetheart among many of Matthew Branthwaite's young daughter Liza; but the old man, who had never been remarkable for sensibility, had said over and over again, "She'll lick a lean poddish stick, Bobbie, that weds the like of thee." Latterly the young man had in a silent way shown some signs of reform. He had not, indeed, given up the good ale to which his downfall had been attributed; but when he came to the Red Lion he seemed to sleep more of his time there than he drank. So the village philosopher had begun to pat him on the back, and say, encouragingly, "There's nowt so far aslew, Bobbie, but good manishment may set it straight."

Robbie accepted his rebuff on this occasion with undisturbed equanimity, and, taking a seat on a bench at the back, seemed soon to be lost in slumber.

The dalesmen are here in strength to-night. Thomas Fell, the miller of Legberthwaite, is here, with rubicund complexion and fully developed nose. Here, too, is Thomas's cousin, Adam Rutledge, fresh from an adventure at Carlisle, where he has tasted the luxury of Doomsdale, a noisome dungeon reserved for witches and murderers, but sometimes tenanted by obstreperous drunkards. Of a more reputable cla.s.s here is Job Leathes, of Dale Head, a tall, gaunt dalesman, with pale gray eyes. Here is Luke c.o.c.krigg, too, of Aboonbeck Bank; and stout John Jackson, of Armboth, a large and living refutation of the popular fallacy that the companionship of a ghost must necessarily induce such appalling effects as are said to have attended the apparitions which presented themselves to the prophets and seers of the Hebrews. John has slept for twenty years in the room at Armboth in which the spiritual presence is said to walk, and has never yet seen anything more terrible than his own shadow. Here, too, at Matthew Branthwaite's side, sits little blink-eyed Reuben Thwaite, who _has_ seen the Armboth bogle. He saw it one night when he was returning home from the Red Lion. It took the peculiar form of a lime-and-mould heap, and, though in Reuben's case the visitation was not attended by convulsions or idiocy, the effect of it was unmistakable. When Reuben awoke next morning he found himself at the bottom of a ditch.

"A wild neet onyways, Mattha," says Reuben, on Robbie Anderson's retirement. "As I com alang I saw yan of Angus Ray haystacks blown flat on to the field--doon it went in a bash--in ya bash frae top to bottom."

"That minds me of Mother Garth and auld Wilson hayc.o.c.ks," said Matthew.

"Why, what was that?" said Reuben.

"Deary me, what thoo minds it weel eneuf. It was the day Wilson was c.o.c.king Angus hay in the low meedow. Mistress Garth came by in the evening, and stood in the road opposite to look at the north leets.

'Come, Sarah,' says auld Wilson, 'show us yan of thy cantrips; I divn't care for thee.' But he'd scarce said it when a whirlblast came frae the fell and owerturn't iv'ry c.o.c.k. Then Sarah she laughed oot loud, and she said, 'Ye'll want na mair cantrips, I reckon.' She was reet theer."

"Like eneuf," said several voices amid a laugh.

"He was hard on Mother Garth was Wilson," continued Matthew; "I nivver could mak ought on it. He called her a witch, and seurly she is a laal bit uncanny."

"Maybe she wasn't always such like," said Mr. Jackson.

"Maybe not, John," said Matthew; "but she was olas a cross-grained yan sin the day she came first to Wy'burn."

"I thought her a harmless young body with her babby,' said Mr.

Jackson.

"Let me see," said Reuben Thwaite; "that must be a matter of six-and-twenty year agone."

"Mair ner that," said Matthew. "It was long afore I bought my new loom, and that's six-and-twenty year come Christmas."

"Ey, I mind they said she'd run away frae the man she'd wedded somewhere in the north," observed Adam Rutledge through the pewter which he had raised to his lips. "Ower fond of his pot for Sarah."

"Nowt o' t' sort," said Matthew. "He used to pommel and thresh her up and doon, and that's why she cut away frae him, and that's why she's sic a sour yan."

"Ey, that's reets on it," said Reuben.

"But auld Wilson's spite on her olas did cap me a laal bit," said Matthew again. "He wanted her burnt for a witch. 'It's all stuff and bodderment aboot the witches,' says I to him ya day; 'there be none.

G.o.d's aboon the devil!' 'Nay, nay,' says Wilson, 'it'll be past jookin' when the heed's off. She'll do something for some of us yit.'"

"Hush," whispered Reuben, as at that moment the door opened and a tall, ungainly young dalesman, with red hair and with a dogged expression of face, entered the inn.

A little later, amid a whirl of piercing wind, Ralph Ray entered, shaking the frozen snow from his cloak with long skirts, wet and cold, his staff in his hand, and his dog at his heels. Old Matthew gave him a cheery welcome.

"It's like ye'd as lief be in this snug room as on the fell to-neet, Ralph?" There was a twinkle in the old man's eye; he had meant more than he said.

"I'd full as soon be here as in Sim's cave, Matthew, if that's what you mean," said Ralph, as he held the palms of his hands to the fire and then rubbed them on his knees.

"Thou wert nivver much of a fool, Ralph," Matthew answered. And with a shovel that facetious occupant of the hearth lifted another cob of turf on to the fire.

"It's lang sin' Sim sat aboon sic a lowe as that," he added, with a motion of his head downwards.

"Worse luck," said Ralph in a low tone, as though trying to avoid the subject.

"Whear the pot's brocken, there let the sherds lie, lad," said the old man; "keep thy breath to cool thy poddish, forby thy mug of yal, and here't comes."

As he spoke the hostess brought up a pot of ale, smoking hot, and put it in Ralph's hand.

"Let every man stand his awn rackups, Ralph. Sim's a bad lot, and reet serv'd."

"You have him there, Mattha Branthet," said the others with a laugh, "a f.e.c.kless fool." The young dalesman leaned back on the bench, took a draught of his liquor, rested the pot on his knee, and looked into the fire with the steady gaze of one just out of the darkness. After a pause he said quietly,--

"I'll wager there's never a man among you dare go up to Sim's cave to-night. Yet you drive him up there every night of the year."

"Bad dreams, lad; bad dreams," said the old man, shaking his head with portentous gravity, "forby the boggle of auld Wilson--that's maybe what maks Sim ga rakin aboot the fell o' neets without ony eerand."

"Ay, ay, that's aboot it," said the others, removing their pipes together and speaking with the gravity and earnestness of men who had got a grip of the key to some knotty problem. "The ghost of auld Wilson."

"The ghost of some of your stout sticks, I reckon," said Ralph, turning upon them with a shadow of a sneer on his frank face.

His companions laughed. Just then the wind rose higher than before, and came in a gust down the open chimney. The dogs that had been sleeping on the sanded floor got up, walked across the room with drooping heads, and growled. Then they lay down again and addressed themselves afresh to sleep. The young dalesman looked into the mouth of his pewter and muttered, as if to himself,--

"Because there was no evidence to convict the poor soul, suspicion, that is worse than conviction, must so fix upon him that he's afraid to sleep his nights in his bed at home, but must go where never a braggart loon of Wythburn dare follow him."

"Aye, lad," said the old man, with a wink of profound import, "foxes hev holes."

The sally was followed by a general laugh.

Not noticing it, Ralph said,--

"A hole, indeed! a cleft in the bare rock, open to nigh every wind, deluged by every rain, desolate, unsheltered by bush or bough--a hole no fox would house in."

Ralph was not unmoved, but the sage in the chimney corner caught little of the contagion of his emotion. Taking his pipe out of his mouth, and with the shank of it marking time to the doggerel, he said,--