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Updated: June 22, 2025
Garth, sobered somewhat by rage which was no longer assumed but real, pushed them aside and strode down the lane. Rotha turned away from the crowd and walked towards Shoulthwaite. Before her, at fifty paces, the blacksmith tramped doggedly on, with head towards the ground. Drunk, mad, devilish as at this moment he might be, Rotha felt an impulse to overtake him.
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?"
The light of the kitchen window at Shoulthwaite would be seen from the turn of the road. Only through yonder belt of trees that overhung the "lonnin," and they would be in the court of Angus Ray's homestead. "Ralph," said Rotha she had walked in silence for some little time "all the sorrow of my life seems gone. You have driven it all away."
When the full flood of daylight streamed into the little room, Garth had sunk into a deep sleep. As the clock struck eight Rotha drew her shawls about her shoulders and hurried up the road. At the turning of the lonnin to Shoulthwaite she met Willy Ray. "I was coming to meet you," he said, approaching.
Ralph walked to the window at the back and gently pushed it open. It overlooked the fell and the Shoulthwaite Ghyll. A low roof went down from it almost to the ground. He stepped out on to this, and stood for a moment in the shadow that lay upon it. He must take his last look now. He must bid his last good-night. The moon through the opposite window still shone on the silvery hair.
Ray's condition, "She's nobbut a laal bit quieter, and the dame nivver were much of a talker, thoo knows." Rotha Stagg remained at Shoulthwaite in accordance with her promise given to Ralph. It was well for the household that she did so.
"Partly fear, but partly greed, and partly revenge. He was hardly a week at Shoulthwaite before I guessed his secret I couldn't be blind to that. When he married his young wife on the Borders, folks didn't use to call her a witch. She had a little fortune coming to her one day, and when she fled the prospect of it was lost to her husband.
It wilt cheer me a deal, old friend, to think you'll always live with the folks at Shoulthwaite." Ralph spoke as if he himself had never to return. Sim felt this before Ralph had realized the implication of his words. "It's hard for a hermit to be a good man," continued Ralph; "he begins with being miserable and ends with being selfish and superstitious, and perhaps mad. Have you never marked it?"
He had already heard of the sorrow that had fallen on the household at Shoulthwaite. With an unspeakable look of sympathy in his wild, timid eyes, as though some impulse of affection urged him to throw his arms about Ralph and embrace him, while some sense of shame impelled him to kneel at his feet, Sim approached him, and appeared to make an effort to speak. But he could say nothing.
Mattha was told of the visit of the constables to Shoulthwaite, and of Sim's despatch in search of Ralph. "He'll be off for Carlisle," said Robbie, standing square on his legs, and tugging with his cap off at the hair at the back of his head. "Like eneuf," answered Mattha, "and likely that's the safest place for him. It's best to sit near the fire when the chimney smokes, thoo knows."
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