The Shadow of a Crime Part 45

"The f.e.c.kless old ninny," he thought in his mute indignation; "when an old man comes to be an old woman it's nothing but right that he should die, and have himself done with."

Robbie was unable to hire a horse in order to set off in pursuit of his friends; nor were his wits so far distraught by the difficulties tormenting them that he was unable to perceive that, even if he could afford to ride, his chance would be inconsiderable of overtaking two men who had already three hours' start of him.

He went into the taproom to consult the driver of the Carlisle coach, who was taking a gla.s.s before going to bed--his hours of work being in the night and his hours of rest being in the day. That authority recommended, with the utmost positiveness of advice, that Robbie should take a seat in his coach when he left for the North that night.

"But you don't start till nine o'clock, they tell me?" said Robbie.

"Well, man, what of that?" replied the driver; "yon two men will have to sleep to-night, I reckon; and they'll put up to a sartenty somewhear, and that's how we'll come abreast on 'em. It's no use tearan like a crazy thing."

The driver had no misgivings; his conjecture seemed reasonable, and whether his plan were feasible or not, it was the only one available.

So Robbie had to make a virtue of a necessity, as happens to many a man of more resource.

He was perhaps in his secret heart the better reconciled to a few hours' delay in his present quarters, because he fancied that the little chambermaid had exhibited some sly symptoms of partiality for his society in the few pa.s.sages of conversation which he had exchanged with her.

She was a bright, pert young thing, with just that dash of freedom in her manners which usually comes of the pursuit of her public calling; and it is only fair to Robbie's modesty to say that he had not deceived himself very grossly in his estimate of the interest he had suddenly excited in her eyes. It was probably a grievous dereliction of duty to think of a love encounter, however blameless, at a juncture like this--not to speak of the gravity of the offence of forgetting the absent Liza. But Robbie was undergoing a forced interlude in the march; the lady who dominated his affections was unhappily too far away to appease them, and he was not the sort of young fellow who could resist the a.s.sault of a pair of coquettish black eyes.

Returning from the taproom to announce his intention of waiting for the coach, Robbie was invited to the fire in the kitchen,--a privilege for which the extreme coldness of the day was understood to account.

Here he lit a pipe, and discoursed on the route that would probably be pursued by his friends.

It was obvious that Ralph and Sim had not taken the direct road home to Wythburn, for if they had done so he must have met them as he came from Staveley. There was the bare possibility that he had missed them by going round the fields to the old woman's cottage; but this seemed unlikely.

"Are you quite sure it's an _old man_ you're after?" said the girl, with a dig of emphasis that was meant to insinuate a doubt of Robbie's eagerness to take so much trouble in running after anything less enticing than one of another s.e.x who might not be old.

Robbie protested on his honor that _he_ was never known to run after young women,--a statement which did not appear to find a very ready acceptance. The girl was coming and going from the kitchen in the discharge of her duties, and on one of her journeys she brought a parchment map in her hand, saying: "Here's a paper that Jim, the driver, told me to show you. It gives all the roads atween Kendal and Carlisle. So you may see for yourself whether your friends could get round about to Wy'bern."

Robbie spread out the map on the kitchen table, and at once proceeded, with the help of the chambermaid, to trace out the roads that were open to Ralph and Sim to take. It was a labyrinthine web, that map, and it taxed the utmost ingenuity of both Robbie and his little acquaintance to make head or tail of it.

"Here you are," cried Robbie, with the air of a man making a valuable discovery, "here's the milestones--one, two, three--them's milestones, thou knows."

"Tut, you goose; that's only the scale," said the girl; "see what's printed, 'Scale of miles.'"

"Oh, ey, la.s.s," said Robbie, not feeling sure what "scale" might mean, but too shrewd to betray his ignorance a second time in the presence of this learned chambermaid.

The riddle, nevertheless, defied solution. However much they pored over the map, it was still a maze of lines.

"It's as widderful as poor old Sim's face," said Robbie.

Robbie and the chambermaid put their heads together in more senses than one. The map was most inconveniently small. Two folks could not consult it at the same time without coming into really uncomfortable proximity.

"There you are," said Robbie, reaching over, pipe in hand, to where the girl was intent on some minute point.

Suddenly there was a cloud of smoke over the map. It also enveloped the students of geography. Then, somehow, there was a sly smack of lips.

"And there _you_ are," said the girl, with a roguish laugh, as she brought Robbie a great whang over the ear and shot away.

Jim, the driver, came into the kitchen at that moment on his way to bed, and unravelled the mystery of the map by showing that it was possible for Robbie's friends to go off the Carlisle road towards Gaskarth and Wythburn at the village of Askham.

Robbie was satisfied with this explanation, and did his best under the circ.u.mstances to rest content until nine o'clock with the harbor into which he had drifted. He succeeded more completely, perhaps, in this endeavor than might be expected, when the peril of his friends and his allegiance to Liza Branthwaite is taken into account.

But when nine o'clock had come and gone, and still the coach stood in the yard of the inn, Robbie's sense of duty overcame his appet.i.te for what he would have called a "spoag." It was usual for the Carlisle coach to await the coach from Lancaster, and it was because the latter had not yet arrived at Kendal that the former was unable to depart from it. Robbie's impatience waxed considerably during the half-hour thence ensuing; but when ten o'clock had struck, and still no definite movement was made, his indignation became boisterous.

There were to be four inside pa.s.sengers, all women; and cold as the night might prove, Robbie's seat must be outside. The protestations of all five pa.s.sengers were at length too loud, and their importunity was too earnest, to admit of longer delay. So the driver put in his horses and took his seat on the box.

This had scarcely been done when the horn of the Lancaster coach was heard in the distance, and some further waiting ensued.

"Let's hope you'll have no traffic out of, it when it does come," said Robbie with a dash of spite. A few minutes afterwards the late coach drove into the yard and discharged its travellers.

Two of these, who were going forward to Carlisle, climbed the ladder and took seats behind Robbie. It was too dark to see who or what they were except that they were men, that they were wrapped in long cloaks, and wore caps that fitted close to their heads and cheeks, being tied over their beards and beneath their chins.

The much-maligned Jim now gave a smart whip to his horses, and in a moment more the coach was on the road.

The night was dark and bitterly cold, and once outside the town the glimmer of the lamps which the coach carried was all the light the pa.s.sengers had for miles.

A slight headache from which Robbie had suffered at intervals since the ducking of his head in the river at Wythburn had now quite disappeared, but a curious numbness, added to a degree of stupefaction, began to take its place. As the coach jogged along on its weary journey, not even the bracing surroundings of Robbie's present elevated and exposed position had the effect of keeping him actively awake. He dozed in short s.n.a.t.c.hes and awoke with slight shudders, feeling alternately hot and cold.

In one of his intervals of wakefulness he heard fragments of a conversation which was being sustained by the strangers behind him.

Robbie had neither activity nor curiosity to waste on their talk, but he could not avoid listening.

"He would have been the best agent in the King's service to a certainty," said one. "He's the 'cutest man _I_ ever tackled. It's parlish odd how he baffles us."

The speaker was clearly a c.u.mbrian.

"Shaf!" replied his companion, in a kind of whisper, "he's a pauchtie clot-heed. I'll have him at Haribee in a crack."

The second speaker was as clearly a Scot who was struggling against the danger there might be of his speech bewraying him.

"Well, you're pretty smart on 'im. I never could rightly make aught of thy hate of 'im."

"Tut, man, live and learn. Let me have him in Wilfrey Lawson's hands, and ye'll see what for I hate the proud-stomached taistrel."

"Well," said the c.u.mbrian, in a tone indicative of more resignation than he had previously exhibited, "I've no more cause to love 'im than yourself. You saw 'im knock me down in the streets of Lancaster."

"May ye hang him up for it, Bailiff Scroope," replied the Scot. "May ye hang him up for it on the top of Haribee!"

Robbie understood enough of this conversation to realize the character and pursuit of his travelling companions; but the details and tone of the dialogue were not of an interest sufficiently engrossing to keep him awake. He dozed afresh, and in the unconsciousness of a fitful sleep he pa.s.sed a good many miles of his dreary night ride.

A sudden glare in his eyes awoke him at one moment. They were pa.s.sing the village of Hollowbank. Fires were lit on the road, and dark figures were crouching around them. Robbie was too drowsy to ask the meaning of these sights, and he soon slept once more.

When he awoke again, he thought he caught the echo of the word "Wythburn" as having been spoken behind him; but whether this were more than a delusion of the ear, such as sometimes comes at the moment of awakening, he could not be sure until (now fully awake) he distinctly heard the c.u.mbrian use the name of Ralph Ray.

Robbie's curiosity was instantly aroused, and in the effort to shake off the weight of his drowsiness he made a backward movement of the head, which was perceived by the strangers. He was conscious that one of the men had risen, and was leaning over to the driver to ask who he himself might be, and where he was going.

"A country lad of some sort," said Jim. "I know nought, no mair."

"I thought maybe he were a friend," said the stranger, with questionable veracity.

The conversation thereupon proceeded with unrestrained vigor.

"It baffles me, his going to Carlisle. As I say, he's a 'cute sort.