Part 18 (1/2)

During the encounter between the weaver and the clergyman the company had outwardly observed a rigid neutrality. Little Liza, it is true, had obviously thought it all the best of good fun, and had enjoyed it accordingly. She had grinned and giggled just as she had done on the preceding Sunday when a companion, the only surviving child of Baptist parents now dead, had had the water sprinkled on her face at her christening in the chapel on the Raise. But Luke c.o.c.krigg, Reuben Thwaite, and the rest had remained silent and somewhat appalled. The schoolmaster had felt himself called upon to partic.i.p.ate in the strife, but being in the anomalous position of owing his official obligations to the minister and his convictions to the side championed by the weaver, he had contented him with sundry grave shakes of his big head, which shakes, being subject to diverse interpretations, were the least compromising expressions of opinion which his genius could suggest to him. No sooner, however, had the door closed on the clergyman than a t.i.tter went round the table. Matthew was still at a white heat. Accustomed as he was to ”tum'le” his neighbors at the Red Lion, he was now profoundly agitated. It was not frequently that he brought down such rare game in his sport.

”Mattha Branthet,” said Reuben Thwaite, ”what, man, thoo didst flyte the minister! What it is to hev the gift o' gob and gumption!”

”Shaf! It's kittle shootin' at crows and clergy,” replied Matthew.

The breakfast being over, the benches were turned towards the big peat fire that glowed red on the hearth and warmed the large kitchen on this wintry day. The ale jars were refilled, pipes and tobacco were brought in, and the weaver relinquished his office of potman to his daughter.

”I'd be n.o.bbut a clot-heed,” he said when abdicating, ”and leave nane for mysel if I sarrad it oot.”

Robbie Anderson now put on his great cloak, and took down a whip from a strap against the rafters.

”What's this?” said little Reuben to Robbie. ”Are you going without a gla.s.s?”

Robbie signified his intention of doing just that and nothing else. At this there was a general laugh, after which Reuben, with numerous blinkings of his little eyes, bantered Robbie about the great drought not long before, when a universal fast had been proclaimed, and Robbie had asked why, if folks could not get water, they would not content themselves with ale.

”Liza, teem a short pint intil this lang Robbie,” said Matthew.

Liza brought up a foaming pot, but the young man put it aside with a bashful smile at the girl, who laughed and blushed as she pressed it back upon him.

”Not yet, Liza; when we come back, perhaps.”

”Will you not take it from me?” said the girl, turning her pretty head aside, and giving a sly dig of emphasis to the p.r.o.nouns.

”Not even from you, Liza, yet awhile.”

The mischievous little minx was piqued at his refusal, and determined that he should drink it, or decline to do so at the peril of losing her smiles.

”Come, Robbie, you shall drink it off--you must.”

”No, my girl, no.”

”I think I know those that would do it if I asked them,” said Liza, with an arch elevation of her dimpled chin and a shadow of a pout.

”Who wouldn't do it, save Robbie Anderson?” he said, laughing for the first time that morning as he walked out of the kitchen.

In a few minutes he returned, saying all was ready, and it was time to start away. Every man rose and went to the front of the house. The old mare Betsy was there, with the coffin strapped on her broad back. Her bruised knees had healed; the frost had disappeared, her shoes were sharpened, and she could not slip. When the mourners had a.s.sembled and ranged themselves around the horse, the Reverend Nicholas Stevens came out with the relatives, the weeping mother and son, with Rotha Stagg, and the ”Old Hundredth” was sung.

Then the procession of men on foot and men on horseback set off, Robbie Anderson in front leading the mare that bore the coffin, and a boy riding a young horse by his side. Last of all rode w.i.l.l.y Ray, and as they pa.s.sed beneath the trees that overhung the lane, he turned in the saddle and waved his arm to the two women, who, through the blinding mist of tears, watched their departure from the porch.

CHAPTER XI. LIZA'S WILES.

The procession had just emerged from the lane, and had turned into the old road that hugged the margin of the mere, when two men walked slowly by in the opposite direction. Dark as it had been when w.i.l.l.y encountered these men before, he had not an instant's doubt as to their ident.i.ty.

The reports of Ralph's disappearance, which Matthew had so a.s.siduously promulgated in whispers, had reached the destination which Ralph had designed for them. The representatives of the Carlisle high constable were conscious that they had labored under serious disadvantages in their efforts to capture a dalesman in his own stronghold of the mountains. Moreover, their zeal was not so ardent as to make them eager to risk the dangers of an arrest that was likely to be full of peril. They were willing enough to accept the story of Ralph's flight, but they could not reasonably neglect this opportunity to a.s.sure themselves of its credibility. So they had beaten about the house during the morning under the pioneering of the villager whom they had injudiciously chosen as their guide, and now they scanned the faces of the mourners who set out on the long mountain journey.

Old Matthew's risibility was evidently much tickled by the sense of their thwarted purpose. Despite the mournful conditions under which he was at that moment abroad, he could not forbear to wish them, from his place in the procession, ”a gay canny mornin'”; and failing to satisfy himself with the effect produced by this insinuating salutation, he could not resist the further temptation of reminding them that they had frightened and not caught their game.

”Fleyin' a bird's not the way to grip it,” he cried, to the obvious horror of the clergyman, whose first impulse was to remonstrate with the weaver on his levity, but whose maturer reflections induced the more pa.s.sive protest of a lifted head and a suddenly elevated nose.

This form of contempt might have escaped the observation of the person for whom it was intended had not Reuben Thwaite, who walked beside Matthew, gently emphasized it with a jerk of the elbow and a motion of the thumb.