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But now there was the rattle of a wagon on the lonnin. A moment later the door was thrown open, and Liza Branthwaite stood in the porch with Reuben Thwaite behind her. "Here's Robbie Anderson back home in Reuben's cart," said Liza, catching her breath. "Fetch him in," said Matthew. "Is he grown shy o' t'yance?" "That's mair nor my share, Mattha," said Reuben.
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."
A graver result than any that Mattha dreamt of hung at this moment on Robbie's insensibility, and when consciousness returned the catastrophe had fallen. As Rotha left the weaver's cottage she found Liza in the porch. "I'm just laughing at the new preachers," she said huskily. She was turning her head aside slyly to brush the tears from her eyes into a shawl which was over her head.
"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.
The needle stuck and stopped twenty times a minute. Robbie was delirious. "Robbie, Robbie, do you know who has come to see you?" said Liza, bending over him. "Ey, mother, ey, here I am, home at last," muttered Robbie. "He's ram'lin' agen," said Mattha from the chimney corner. "Bless your old heart, mammy, but I'll mend my management. I will, that I will. It's true this time, mammy, ey, it is.
"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.
"What's that?" cried Mattha from within; "I thought it might be the sneck of a gate." When Mrs. Garth reached home, after her interview with Rotha in the road, there was a velvety softness in her manner as of one who had a sense of smooth satisfaction with herself and her surroundings.
They were at their evening meal of sweet broth when Matthew's knock came to the door, followed, without much interval, by his somewhat gaunt figure on the threshold. "Come your ways in," said Mrs. Ray. "And how fend you, Mattha?" "For mysel', I's gayly. Are ye middlin' weel?" the old man said. "I'm a lang way better, but I'm going yon way too. It's far away the bainer way for me now." And Mrs.
"I reckon ye wad be a better stepmother to yon brocken-backt bitch of yours an it had the mange?" said Mattha. "Nay, but the plague the plague. Ye've heard what the new preachers are telling about the plague. Robbie's got it, Robbie's got the plague; I'm sure of it, sure." 'Becca set down the candle to wring her hands. "So thoo's sure of it, ista?" said Mattha.
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."
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