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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 passengers 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.
Standing by her husband's chair, she appeared to be struggling between impulse and fear in an attempt to put her hand on the mouth of her loquacious husband, in order to avert the uncertain catastrophe which she was sure must ensue from this unexpected and uncompromising defiance of the representative in Wythburn of the powers that be.
But, unused as she had been to scenes made solemn by death, she appeared to know her part in this one. Intelligence of the disaster that had fallen on the household at Shoulthwaite Moss was not long in circulating through Wythburn. One after another, the shepherds and their wives called in, and were taken to the silent room upstairs.
Throughout the death-day of the blacksmith at Wythburn the two men who were to die for his crime on the morrow sat together in their cell in the Donjon tower. Ralph was as calm as before, and yet more cheerful. The time of atonement was at hand. The ransom was about to be paid. To break the hard fate of a life, of many lives, he had come to die, and death was here!
Perhaps the crime was something that had occurred at the wars six years ago. It could hardly be the same that still hung over their own Wythburn. That last dread mystery was as mysterious as ever. Ralph had said that her father was innocent of it, and she knew in her heart that he must be so. But what was it that he had said?
The young man rose to go; he could not speak, but he took Sim's hand in his and held it. Then he stooped and kissed him on the cheek. Next morning, soon after daybreak, all Wythburn was astir. People were hurrying about from door to door and knocking up the few remaining sleepers.
He was a diminutive creature, with something infinitely amusing in his curious physical proportions. His head was large and well formed; his body was large and ill formed; his legs were short and shrunken. He was the schoolmaster of Wythburn, and his name Monsey Laman. The dalesmen found the little schoolmaster the merriest comrade that ever sat with them over a glass.
Wythburn and Thirlmere were soon passed; leaving them just time to notice the wrack and ruin which Manchester has made of the once lovely shore of Thirlmere, where hideous stretches of brown mud, and the ruins of long submerged walls and dwellings, reappear with every dry summer to fling reproach in the face of the destroyer.
His worst fears were verified. Was it conceivable that Ralph could escape the machinations of those who had lain a web that had already entangled the lord of Wythburn himself? Every one who had served in the trained bands of the Parliament was at the mercy of any man, who, for the gratification of personal spite, chose to become informer against him.
The worst had come to the worst. He might as well turn towards home. But how hot his forehead felt! Could it have been that ducking his head in the river at Wythburn had caused it to burn like a furnace? Robbie thought of Sim. Why had he not met him in his long ramble through the town? They might have gone home together.
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