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Updated: August 20, 2024
"He seems to be," I replied. "Yes. Well, there's some satisfaction in havin' a thick shell; then you don't mind bein' stepped on. Yet, I don't know; sometimes I think fellers of Sim's kind enjoy bein' stepped on, provided the boot that does it is patent leather." "I wonder why they came here," I mused. "Who? the Coltons?
But there was only one way in which to avoid the palpable manifestation of his distrust, and that was to conduct himself in such a manner as to appear unconscious of Sim's presence in the house. "The girl is not to blame," he said to himself again and again. "Rotha is innocent, whoever may be guilty."
The next two witnesses were a laborer from Wythburn, who spoke again to passing Sim on the road on the night of the murder, and meeting Wilson a mile farther north, and Sim's landlord, who repeated his former evidence. There was a stir in the court as counsel announced his last witness. A woman among the spectators was muttering something that was inaudible except to the few around her.
"You have him there, Mattha Branthet," said the others with a laugh, "a feckless fool." The young dalesman leaned back on the bench, took a draught of his liquor, rested the pot on his knee, and looked into the fire with the steady gaze of one just out of the darkness. After a pause he said quietly, "I'll wager there's never a man among you dare go up to Sim's cave to-night.
"I see, sergeant," said Gray, smiling. "Good-bye!" "Good-bye, my lad, good-bye. Here, nobody's looking. Sim's asleep. Shake hands, my lad, shake hands. You see, as your superior officer that's a bit of stooping on my part; but, between man and man, I, Sergeant Lund, look up to you, Private Gray, and always feel as if we ought to change places."
It was as though his heart yearned for that love which he thought he had forfeited the right to claim. In a few words Rotha explained the turn of events. Sim's agitation overpowered him. He walked to and fro in short, fitful steps, crying that there was no help, no help. "I thought I saw three men leading three horses up High Seat from behind the smithy.
Greatly daring, I ventured, before all these Scotsmen, to tell Sim's Tale of Tweedie's dog; and I was held to have done such extraordinary justice to the dialect, 'for a Southron, that I was immediately voted into the Chair of Scots, and became, from that moment, a full member of the University of Cramond.
It would tell of the press of men and beasts by the burnside, and the red glare of Harden's fires, and Wat with his axe, and above all of Sim with his ash-shaft and his long arms, and how Harden drove the raiders up the burn and Sim smote them silently among the cattle. Wat's exploits would come in, but the true glory was Sim's.
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.
Yes, he was somewhat too high. He began to descend. The rock's head sheltered him from the wind now, and in the silence he could hear the thud of a pick or hammer, and then the indistinct murmur of a man's voice singing. It was Sim's voice; and here was Sim's cave. It was a cleft in the side of the mountain, high enough and broad enough for a man to pass in.
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