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It cannot be 'at the man were no, no I'm ram'lin' mysel sure-ly." "Ralph; it was Ralph!" said Rotha, trembling visibly. "Be quick. Good night!" "Ralph at Carlisle!" said Mattha. "Weel, weel; after word comes weird. That's why the constables are gone, and that's why Robbie's come. Weel, weel! Up with thee, Reuben, and let us try the legs of this auld dobbin of thine."
Neither would she leave it for his displeasure. When the girl reached the weaver's cottage and entered the sick-room, Mattha himself was sitting at the fireside, with a pipe, puffing the smoke up the chimney. Mrs. Branthwaite was bathing the sick man's head, from which the hair had been cut away. Liza was persuading herself that she was busy sewing at a new gown.
And Robbie climbed into the cart. Mattha got up and went out in the road. The two men had hardly got clear away when Rotha entered the cottage all but breathless. "Robbie, where is he?" "Gone, just gone, not above two minutes," replied Liza, still whimpering. "Where?" "I scarce know to Penrith, I think. There was no keeping him back.
She revenged herself by assuming a haughty coldness. But it was of no use. Robbie laughed and crowed and bantered. At this juncture Mattha Branth'et came into the cottage. The weaver was obviously in a state of profound agitation. He had just had a "fratch" with the Quaker preachers on the subject of election.
"Whatever's amiss? The lass went over to the Moss. Why, she stopping, isn't she?" "Ey, at the Lion," answered Mattha. "I reckon there's summat wrang agen with that Robbie. I'll just slip away and see." Panting and heated on this winter's day, red up to the roots of the hair and down to the nape of the neck, Liza had come to a full pause at the door of the village inn.
Ray had been carried out in her chair by her stalwart sons. Her dear old face looked more mellow and peaceful than before. Folks said the paralysis was passing away. Mattha himself, who never at any time took a melancholy view of his old neighbor's seizure, stands by her chair to-day and fires off his sapient saws at her with the certainty that she appreciates every saw of them.
"It's done me a power of good though," said Robbie shaking his wet hair, and then drying it with a handkerchief which Liza had handed him for the purpose. "I'm a stone for strength," added Robbie, but rising to his feet he slipped and fell. "Then didsta nivver hear that a tum'lan stone gedders na moss," said Mattha. The jest was untimely, and the three walked on in silence.
"Ye'll not get many of them, at that rate," answered Mattha, less than half pleased at an event which he could not comprehend. "It's slow wark suppin' buttermilk with a pitchfork." "Will you never be solid with me?" cried Liza, with extreme vexation pictured on every feature as her scapegrace sweetheart tried to imprison her hands in order to kiss her.
Ey, swear it!" cried Robbie at a fuller pitch of his weakened voice. "He's olas running on that, too," whispered Mattha to Rotha. "Dusta mind 'at laal Reuben said the same?" In a soft and pleading tone Robbie mumbled on, "Don't greet, mammy, or ye'll kill me sure enough. Killing you? Ey, it's true it's true; but I'll mend my management I will."
The great man took up his hat and his fee together. His silence at least had been golden. "Didsta iver see sic a dumb daft boggle?" said Mattha as the doctor disappeared. "It cannot even speak when it's spoken to." The medical ghost never again haunted that particular ghost-walk. Robbie lay four days insensible, and Mrs. Branthwaite was thenceforward his sole physician and nurse.
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