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Willy seemed to lean on Rotha, and she on her part appeared to grow stronger as she felt this. Ralph had gone to bed much as usual the night before after he had borne upstairs what lay there.
"What?" said Rotha. "Why," answered Liza, with a big tear near to toppling over the corner of her eye, "why, the crack't 'un goes and gathers up all the maimed dogs in Wythburn; 'Becca Rudd's 'Dash, and that's lame on a hind leg, and Nancy Grey's 'Meg, and you know she's blind of one eye, and Grace M'Nippen's 'King Dick, and he's been broken back't this many a long year, and they all up and follow Robbie when he's nigh almost drunk, and then he's right away he goes with his cap a' one side, and all the folks laughin' the big poddish-head!"
Then stepping with great glassy eyes to where Willy sat, the girl clutched him nervously and said, "I loved him." Willy looked up with wonder in his face. "Yes, I! You talk your love; it is but a drop to the ocean I bear him. It is but a grain to the desert of love in my heart that shall never, never blossom." "Rotha!" cried Willy, in amazement. "Your love!
"There's no doubt but we do miss him, do we not?" "Yes," Rotha answered, leaning as much as possible over the fire that she was mending. The tone of the reply made an impression on Willy. In a moment more he appeared to realize that there, had throughout been something unusual in the girl's demeanor. "Not well, Rotha?" he asked in a subdued tone.
Willy's words came more slowly as he continued: "And it was wrong to suppose that whether Ralph were given up or not they would leave us in this place, but it was natural that you should think it a good thing to save this shelter." "I was thinking of your mother, Willy," said Rotha, with her eyes on the ground. "My mother true."
During the day she had been more cheerful, but with the return of the night she grew again silent, and rocked herself in her chair. "It's just t'edge o' dark, lass," said Matthew to Rotha while filling his pipe. "Wilt thoo fetch the cannels?" The candles were brought, and the old man lit his pipe from one of them and sat down with Mrs. Ray before the fire.
"Nay, that I don't; but she told mother she'd be away three or four days." "So you're minding house for her," said Rotha vacantly, her eyes meantime busily traversing the kitchen; they came back to the little housekeeper's face in a twinkling. "Deary me, what a pretty ribbon that is in your hair, Bessy. Do you know it makes you quite smart. But it wants just a little bow like this there, there."
And the old woman shook the girl roughly by the shoulders. Rotha made no response. The puzzled expression on Mrs. Garth's face deepened at that instant, but as she turned aside she muttered again, with every accent of determination, "He'll be back at his anvil to-morrow, that he will." The blacksmith awoke as serene as a child.
It was less than an hour later when Rotha, having got through her immediate duties, was hastening with all speed to Mattha Brander's cottage. In her hand, tightly grasped beneath her cloak, was a bunch of keys, and on her lips were the words of the woman's evidence and of Robbie's delirium. "It was fifty yards to the north of the bridge." This was her sole clew. What could she make of it?
"It's a quibble a base, dishonorable quibble," said Willy; "my father cared nothing for your politics, your kings, or your commonwealths." The constables shifted once more in their seats. "He feels it when it comes nigh abreast of himself," said one of them, and the others laughed. Rotha was in an agony of suspense.
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