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The dame had taken the good will for the good deed, and had not looked the gift-horses too closely in the mouth. "Good night, Mattha Branthet," she said, in answer to his good by; "good night, and God bless thee." Matthew had opened the door, and was looking out preparatory to his final leavetaking. "The sky's over-kessen to-neet," he said. "There's na moon yit, and t'wind's high as iver.
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?
"He lodges with 'Becca Rudd; let's be off," said Liza, clambering into the cart by the step at the shaft. "Come up, father; quick!" "What, Bobbie, Bobbie, but this is bad wark, bad wark," said Mattha, when seated in the wagon. "Hod thy tail in the watter, lad, and there's hope for thee yit." With this figurative expression Mattha settled himself for the drive. Rotha turned to Reuben Thwaite.
"A blithe heart maks a blooming look," says Mattha to the girl. Rotha's face deserves the compliment. To-day it looks as fresh as it is always beautiful. But there is something in it now that we have never before observed. The long dark lashes half hide and half reveal a tenderer light than has hitherto stolen into those deep brown eyes.
An hour before Rotha left Shoulthwaite, Robbie Anderson was lying on a settle before the fire in the old weaver's kitchen. Mattha himself and his wife were abroad, but Liza had generously and courageously undertaken the task of attending to the needs of the convalescent. "Where's all my hair gone?" asked Robbie, with a puzzled expression. He was rubbing his close-cropped head.
"This is not taty-and-point," said her husband, with a twinkle in his eyes and a sensation of liquidity about the lips as he came up to survey the outspread tables. Mattha Branthwaite was once more resplendent in those Chapel-Sunday garments with which, in the perversity of the old weaver's unorthodox heart, that auspicious day was not often honored. Mrs.
He's got a lad's heart the laal man has," says Mattha, with the manner of a man who is conscious that he is making an original observation. And now the sun declines between the Noddle Fell and Bleaberry. The sports are over, but not yet is the day's pleasure done. When darkness has fallen over meadow and mountain the kitchen of the house on the Moss is alive with bright faces.
"I've oft telt thee so," said Mattha, not fearing the character of a Job's comforter. "And while this bad work has been afoot too," added Robbie, with a penitent drop of the head. They had a tributary of the Wyth River to pass on the way to Mattha's house. When they came up to it, Robbie cried, "Hold a minute!"
I'd hev to be as poor as a kirk louse afore I'd turn my back on a motherless lad as is nigh to death's door." "Don't say that, father," whimpered Liza. "Nay, Mattha, nay, man," cried 'Becca, "it's nought of that. It's my life that's in danger." "Shaf! that 'at is nowt is nivver in danger. Whear's the plague as wad think it worth while to bodder wid a skinflint like thee?
"It were that ducking of his heed did it, sure enough," said Mattha, "that and the drink together. I mind Bobbie's father just sic like, just sic like! Poor auld Martha, she hed a sad bout of it, she hed, what with father and son. And baith good at the bottom, too, baith, poor lads."
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