page again to the sunshine, was full of the needless pity of an alien
faith.

Along the white road that led up the mountain, and over the grass-grown
path that climbed the higher slopes, trod a solitary traveler.  Now his
step was swift, as if some invisible spirit of the wind were wafting
him on; and again the pace was slow and his head bent, as if some deep
thought stayed his speed.  There were green slopes above, green slopes
below, and the world opened out as he climbed on and up.  Out and out
sketched the great Campagne, growing wider at each step, with the gray,
unbroken lines of aqueduct leading toward Rome and the shining sea
beyond.

On a great flat stone far up on the heights sat two motionless figures:
below them, partly veiling the lower world, floated a thin mist of
cloud.

"This must be Olympus," said Daphne.

"Any mountain is Olympus that touches the sky," answered Apollo.

"Where are the others?" demanded the girl.  "Am I not to know your
divine friends?"

"Don't you see them?" he asked as in surprise,--"Aphrodite just yonder
in violet robe, and Juno, and Hermes with winged feet"--

"I am afraid I am a wee bit blind, being but mortal," answered Daphne.
"I can see nothing but you."

Beside them on the rock, spread out on oak leaves, lay clusters of
purple grapes, six black ripe olives, and a little pile of biscotti
Inglesi.  The girl bent and poured from the curving flask red wine that
bubbled in the glass, then gave it to her companion, saying:  "Quick,
before Hebe gets here," and the sound of their merriment rung down the
hillside.

"Hark!" whispered Daphne.  "I hear an echo of the unquenchable laughter
of the gods!  They cannot be far away."

From another stone near at hand Bertuccio watched them with eyes that
feigned not to see.  Bertuccio did not understand English, but he
understood everything else.  Goodly shares of the nectar and ambrosia
of this feast had fallen to his lot, and Bertuccio in his own way was
almost as happy as the lovers.  In the soft grass near San Pietro
Martire nibbled peacefully, now and then lifting his eyes to see what
was going on.  Once he brayed.  He alone, of all nature, seemed
impervious to the joy that had descended upon earth.

It was only an hour since Daphne had been overtaken.  Few words had
sufficed for understanding, and Bertuccio had looked away.

"My only fear was that I should find you turned into a laurel tree,"
said Apollo.  "I shall always be afraid of that."

"Apollo," said Daphne irrelevantly, holding out to him a bunch of
purple grapes in the palm of her hand, "there is a practical side to
all this.  People will have to know, I am afraid.  I must write to my
sister."

"I have reason to think that the Countess Accolanti will not be
displeased," he answered.  There was a queer little look about his
mouth, but Daphne asked for no explanation.

"There is your father," he suggested.

"Oh!" said Daphne.  "He will love you at once.  His tastes and mine are
very much alike."

The lover-god smiled, quite satisfied.

"You chose the steepest road of all to-day, little girl," he said. "But
it is not half so long nor so hard as the one I expected to climb to
find you."

"You are tired!" said Daphne anxiously.  "Rest."

Bertuccio was sleeping on his flat rock; San Pietro lay down for a
brief, ascetic slumber.  The lovers sat side by side, with the mystery
of beauty about them:  the purple and gold of nearness and distance;
bright color of green grass near, sombre tint of cypress and stone pine
afar.

"I shall never really know whether you are a god or not," said Daphne
dreamily.

"A very proper attitude for a woman to have toward her husband," he
answered with a smile.  "I must try hard to live up to the character.
You will want to live on Olympus, and you really ought, if you are
going to wear gowns woven of my sunbeams like the one you had on
yesterday.  How shall I convince you that Rome must do part of the
time?  You will want me to make you immortal: that always happens when
a maiden marries a god."

"I think you have done that already," said Daphne.


"This is to say that I, Joseph Garth, being near my end, yet knowing
well the nature of my act, do confess to having committed the crime of
killing the man known as James Wilson, for whose death Ralph Ray and
Simeon Stagg stand condemned."

"Can you sign it now, Joe?" asked Rotha, as tenderly as eagerly.

Garth nodded assent. He was lifted to a sitting position. Rotha spread
the paper before him, and then supported him from behind with her
arms.

He took the pen in his graspless hand, and essayed to write. Oh, the
agony of that effort! How every futile stroke of that pen went to the
girl's heart like a stab of remorse! The name was signed at length,
and in some sorry fashion. The dying man was restored to his pillow.

Peace came to him there and then.

The clock struck eight.

Rotha hurried out of the house and down the road to the bridge. The
moon had just broken over a ridge of black cloud. It was bitterly
cold.

Willy Ray stood with his horse at the appointed place.

"How agitated you are, Rotha; you tremble like an aspen," he said.
"And where are your shawls?"

"Look at this paper," she said. "You can scarce see to read it here;
but it is a confession. It states that it was poor Joe Garth who
committed the murder for which father and Ralph are condemned to die
at daybreak."

"At last! Thank God!" exclaimed Willy.

"Take it--put it in your breast--keep it safe as you value your
eternal soul--ride to Carlisle as fast as your horse will carry you,
and place it instantly before the sheriff."

"Is it signed?"

"Yes."

"And witnessed?"

"The witness will follow in person--a few hours--a very few--and she
will be with you there."

"Rotha, God has put it into your heart to do this thing, and He has
given you more than the strength of a strong man!"

"In how many hours might one ride to Carlisle at the fastest--in the
night and in a cart?" asked the girl eagerly.

"Five, perhaps, if one knew every inch of the way."

"Then, before you set out, drive round to Armboth, and ask Mr. Jackson
to bring his wagon across to this bridge at midnight. Let him not say
'No' as he hopes for his salvation! And now, good bye again, and God
speed you on your journey!"

Willy carried a cloak over his arm. He was throwing it across Rotha's
unprotected shoulders.

"No, no," she said, "you need it yourself. I shall be back in a
minute."

And she was gone almost before he was aware.

Willy was turning away when he heard a step behind. It was the
Reverend Nicholas Stevens, lantern in hand, lighting himself home from
a coming-of-age celebration at Smeathwaite. As he approached, Willy
stepped up to him.

"Stop," cried the parson, "was she who parted from you but now the
daughter of the man Simeon Stagg?"

"The same," Willy answered.

"And she comes from the home of the infected blacksmith?"

"She is there again, even now," said Willy. "I thought you might wish
to take the solace of religion to a dying man--Garth is dying."

"Back--away--do not touch me--let me pass," whispered the parson in an
accent of dread, shrinking meantime from the murderous stab of the
cloak which Willy carried over his arm.

Rotha was in the cottage once again almost before she had been missed.

Joe was dozing fitfully. His mother was sighing and whimpering in
turns. Her wrinkled face, no longer rigid, was a distressing
spectacle. When Rotha came close to her she whispered,--

"The lad was wrang, but I dare not have telt 'im so. Yon man were none
of a father to Joe, though he were my husband, mair's the pity."

Then getting up, glancing nervously at her son, lifting a knife from
the table, creeping to the side of the bed and ripping a hole in the
ticking, she drew out a soiled and crumpled paper.

"Look you, lass, I took this frae the man's trunk when he lodged wi'
yer father and yersel' at Fornside."

It was a copy of the register of Joe's birth, showing that he was the
son of a father unknown.

"I knew he must have it. He always threatened that he'd get it. He wad
have made mischief wi' it somehow."

Mrs. Garth spoke in whispers, but her voice broke her son's restless
sleep. Garth was sinking fast, but he looked quieter when his eyes
opened again. "I think God has forgiven me my great crime," he said
calmly, "for the sake of the merciful Saviour, who would not condemn
the woman that was a sinner."

Then he crooned over the Quaker hymn,--

     Though your sins be red as scarlet,
       He shall wash them white as wool.

Infinitely touching was it to hear his poor, feeble, broken voice
spend its last strength so.

"Sing to me, Rotha," he said, pausing for breath.

"Yes, Joe. What shall I sing?"

"Sing 'O Lord, my God,'" he answered. And then, over the murmuring
voice of the river, above the low wail of the rising wind, the girl's
sweet, solemn voice, deep with tenderness and tears, sang the simple
old hymn,--

     O Lord, my God,
       A broken heart
       Is all my part:
     Spare not Thy rod,
       That I may prove
       Therein Thy love.

"Ey, ey," repeated Garth, "a broken heart is _all_ my part."

Very tremulous was the voice of the singer as she sang,--

     O Lord, my God,
       Or ere I die,
       And silent lie
     Beneath the sod,
       Do Thou make whole
       This bruisèd soul.

"This bruised soul," murmured the blacksmith.

Rotha had stopped, and buried her face in her hands.

"There's another verse, Rotha; there's another verse."

But the singer could sing no more. Then the dying man himself sang in
his feeble voice, and with panting breath,--

     Dear Lord, my God--
       Weary and worn,
       Bleeding and torn--
     Spare now Thy rod.
       Sorely distressed--
       Lord, give me rest.

There was a bright light in his eyes. And surely victory was his at
last. The burden was cast off forever. "Lord, give me rest," he
murmured again, and the tongue that uttered the prayer spoke no more.

Rotha took his hand. His pulse sank--slower, slower, slower. His end
was like the going out of a lamp--down, down, down--then a fitful
flicker--and then--

Death, the merciful mediator; Death, the Just Judge; Death, the
righter of the wronged; Death was here--here!

Mrs. Garth's grief was uncontrollable. The hard woman was as nerveless
as a baby now. Yet it was not at first that she would accept the
evidence of her senses. Reaching over the bed, she half raised the
body in her arms.

"Why, he's dead, my boy he's dead!" she cried. "Tell me he's not dead,
though he lies sa still."

Rotha drew her away, and, stooping, she kissed the cold wasted
whitened lips.

At midnight a covered cart drove up to the cottage by the smithy. John
Jackson was on the seat outside. Rotha and Mrs. Garth got into it.
Then they started away.

As they crossed the bridge and turned the angle of the road that shut
out the sight of the darkened house they had left, the two women
turned their heads towards it and their hearts sank within them as
they thought of him whom they left behind. Then they wept together.

CHAPTER XLIX. PEACE, PEACE, AND REST.

In Carlisle the time of the end was drawing near. 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!

Bent and feeble, white as his smock, and with staring eyes, Sim
continued to protest that God would not let them die at this time and
in this place.

"If He does," he said, "then it is not true what they have told us,
that God watches over all!"

"What is that you are saying, old friend?" returned Ralph. "Death
comes to every one. The black camel kneels at the gate of all. If it
came to some here and some there, then it would be awful indeed."

"But to die before our time is terrible, it is," said Sim.

"Before our time--what time?" said Ralph. "To-day or to-morrow--who
shall say which is your time or mine?"

"Aye, but to die like this!" said Sim, and rocked himself in his seat.

"And is it not true that a short death is the sovereign good hap of
life?"

"The shame of it--the shame of it," Sim muttered.

"That touches us not at all," said Ralph. "Only the guilty can feel
the shame of a shameful death. No, no; death is kindest. And yet, and
yet, old friend, I half repent me of my resolve. The fatal warrant,
which has been the principal witness against us, was preserved in the
sole hope that one day it might serve you in good stead. For your
sake, and yours only, would to God that I might say where I came by it
and when!"

"No, no, no," cried Sim, with a sudden access of resolution; "I _am_
the guilty man after all, and it is but justice that _I_ should die.
But that _you_ should die also--you that are as innocent as the babe
unborn--God will never look down on it, I tell you. God will never
witness it; never, never!"

At that moment the organ of the chapel of the castle burst on the ear.
It was playing for afternoon service. Then the voices of the choir
came, droned and drowsed and blurred, across the green and through the
thick walls of the tower. The sacred harmonies swept up to them in
their cell as the intoned Litanies sweep down a long cathedral aisle
to those who stand under the sky at its porch. Deep, rich, full, pure,
and solemn. The voice of peace, peace, and rest.

The two men shut their eyes and listened.

In that world on which they had turned their backs men were
struggling, men were fighting, men's souls were being torn by passion.
In that world to which their faces were set no haunting, hurrying
footsteps ever fell; no soul was yet vexed by fierce fire, no dross of
budded hope was yet laid low. All was rest and peace.

The gaoler knocked. A visitor was here to see Ralph. He had secured
the permission of the under sheriff to see him for half an hour alone.

Sim rose, and prepared to follow the gaoler.

"No," said Ralph, motioning him back; "it is too late for secrets to
come between you and me. He must stay," he added, turning to the
gaoler.

A moment later Robbie Anderson entered. He was deeply moved.

"I was ill and insensible at the time of the trial," he said.

Then he told the long story of his fruitless quest.

"My evidence might have saved you," he said. "Is it yet too late?"

"Yes, it is too late," said Ralph.

"I think I could say where the warrant came from."

"Robbie, remember the vow you took never to speak of this matter
again."

At mention of the warrant, Sim had once more crept up eagerly. Ralph
saw that the hope of escape still clung to him. Would that muddy
imperfection remain with him to the last?

"Robbie, if you ever had any feeling for me as a friend and comrade,
let this thing lie forever undiscovered in your mind."

Unable to speak, the young dalesman bent his head.

"As for Sim, it wounds me to the soul. But for myself, what have I now
to live for? Nothing. I tried to save the land to my mother and
brother. How is she?"

"Something better, as I heard."

"Poor mother! And--Rotha--is she--"

"She is well."

"Thank God! Perhaps when these sad events are long gone by, and have
faded away into a dim memory, perhaps then she will be happy in my
brother's love."

"Willy?" said Robbie, with look and accent of surprise.

Then there was a pause.

"She has been an angel," said Robbie feelingly.

"Better than that--she has been a woman; God bless and keep her!" said
Ralph.

Robbie glanced into Ralph's face; tears stood in his eyes.

Sim sat and moaned.

"My poor little Rotie," he mumbled. "My poor little lost Rotie!"

The days of her childhood had flowed back to him. She was a child once
more in his memory.

"Robbie," said Ralph, "since we have been here one strange passage has
befallen me, and I believe it is real and not the effect of a
disturbed fancy."

"What is it, Ralph?" said Robbie.

"The first night after we were shut up in this place, I thought in the
darkness, being fully awake, that one opened the door. I turned my
head, thinking it must be the gaoler. But when I looked it was Rotha.
She had a sweet smile on her dear face. It was a smile of hope and
cheer. Last night, again, I was awakened by Sim crying in his
sleep--the strange, shrill, tearless night-cry that freezes the blood
of the listener. Then I lay an hour awake. Again I thought that one
opened the door. I looked to see Rotha. It was she. I believe she was
sent to us in the spirit as a messenger of peace and hope--hope of
that better world which we are soon to reach."

The gaoler knocked. Robbie's time had expired. "How short these last
moments seem!" said Ralph; "yet an eternity of last moments would be
brief. Farewell, my lad! God bless you!"

The dalesmen shook hands. Their eyes were averted.

Robbie took his leave with many tears.

Then rose again the voices of the unseen choir within the chapel. The
organ pealed out in loud flute tones that mounted like a lark, higher,
higher, higher, winging its way in the clear morning air. It was the
chant of a returning angel scaling heaven. Then came the long sweeps
of a more solem harmony. Peace, peace! And rest! And rest!

CHAPTER L. NEXT MORNING.

Next morning at daybreak the hammering of the carpenters had ceased in
the Market Place, and their lamps, that burned dim in their sockets,
like lights across a misty sea, were one by one put out. Draped in
black, the ghastly thing that they had built during the night stood
between the turrets of the guard-house.

Already the townspeople were awake. People were hurrying to and fro.
Many were entering the houses that looked on to the market. They were
eager to secure their points of vantage from which to view that
morning's spectacle.

The light came slowly. It was a frosty morning. At seven o'clock a
thin vapor hung in the air and waved to and fro like a veil. It
blurred the face of the houses, softened their sharp outlines, and
seemed at some moments to carry them away into the distance. The sun
rose soft and white as an autumn moon behind a scarf of cloud.

At half past seven the Market Place was thronged. On every inch of the
ground, on every balcony, in every window, over every portico, along
the roofs of the houses north, south, east, and west, clinging to the
chimney-stacks, hanging high up on the pyramidical turrets of the
guard-house itself, astride the arms of the old cross, peering from
between the battlements of the cathedral tower and the musket lancets
of the castle, were crowded, huddled, piled, the spectators of that
morning's tragedy.

What a motley throng! Some in yellow and red, some in black; men,
women, and children lifted shoulder-high. Some with pale faces and
bloodshot eyes, some with rubicund complexion and laughing lips, some
bantering as if at a fair, some on the ground hailing their fellows on
the roofs. What a spectacle were they in themselves!

There at the northeast of the Market Place, between Scotch Street amid
English Street, were half a hundred men and boys in blouses, seated on
the overhanging roof of the wooden shambles. They were shouting sorry
jests at half a dozen hoydenish women who looked out of the windows of
a building raised on pillars over a well, known as Carnaby's Folly.

On the roof of the guard-house stood five or six soldiers in red
coats. One fellow, with a pipe between his lips, leaned over the
parapet to kiss his hand to a little romping serving-wench who giggled
at him from behind a curtain in a house opposite. There was an open
carriage in the very heart of that throng below. Seated within it was
a stately gentleman with a gray peaked beard, and dressed in black
velvet cloak and doublet, having lace collar and ruffles; and side by
side with him was a delicate young maiden muffled to the throat in
fur. The morning was bitterly cold, but even this frail flower of
humanity had been drawn forth by the business that was now at hand.
Where is she now, and what?

A spectacle indeed, and for the eye of the mind a spectacle no less
various than for the bodily organ.

Bosoms seared and foul and sick with uncleanliness. Hearts bound in
the fetters of crime. Hot passions broken loose. Discord rampant. Some
that smote the breast nightly in the anguish of remorse. Some that
knew not where to hide from the eye of conscience the secret sin that
corroded the soul.

Lonely, utterly lonely, in this dense throng were some that shuddered
and laughed by turns.

There were blameless men and women, too, drawn by curiosity and by
another and stronger magnet that they knew of. How would the condemned
meet their end? Would it be with craven timidity or with the
intrepidity of heroes, or again with the insensibility of brutes?
Death was at hand--the inexorable, the all-powerful. How could mortal
man encounter it face to face? This was the great problem then; it is
the great problem now.

Two men were to be executed at eight that morning. Again and again the
people turned to look at the clock. It hung by the side of the dial in
the cupola of the old Town Hall. How slowly moved its tardy figures!
God forgive them, there were those in that crowd who would have helped
forward, if they could, its passionless pulse. And a few minutes more
or fewer in this world or the next, of what account were they in the
great audit of men who were doomed to die?

In a room of the guard-house the condemned sat together. They had been
brought from the castle in the night.

"We shall fight our last battle to-day," said Ralph. "The enemy will
take our camp, but, God willing, we shall have the victory. Never
lower the flag. Cheer up! Keep a brave heart! A few swift minutes
more, and all will be well!"

Sim was crouching at a fire, wringing his lean hands or clutching his
long gray hair.

"Ralph, it shall never be! God will never see it done!"

"Put away the thought," replied Ralph. "God has brought us here."

Sim jumped to his feet and cried, "Then I will never witness it--
never!"

Ralph put his hand gently but firmly on Sim's arm and drew him back to
his seat.

The sound of singing came from without, mingled with laughter and
jeers.

"Hark!" cried Sim, "hearken to them again; nay, hark!"

Sim put his head aside and listened. Then, leaping up, he shouted yet
more wildly than before, "No, no! never, never!"

Ralph took him once more by the arm, and the poor worn creature sank
into his seat with a low wail.

There was commotion in the corridors and chief chamber of the
guard-house.

"Where is the sheriff?" was the question asked on every hand.

Willy Ray was there, and had been for hours closeted with the
sheriff's assistant.

"Here is the confession duly signed," he said for the fiftieth time,
as he walked nervously to and fro.

"No use, none. Without the King's pardon or reprieve, the thing must
be done."

"But the witnesses will be with us within the hour. Put it back but
one little hour and they must be here."

"Impossible. We hold the King's warrant, and must obey it to the
letter."

"God in heaven! Do you not see yourself, do you not think that if this
thing is done, two innocent men will die?"

"It is not for me to think. My part is to act."

"Where is your chief? Can you go on without him?"

"We can and must."

The clock in the Market Place registered ten minutes to eight.
A pale-faced man in the crowd started a hymn.

"Stop his mouth," cried a voice from the roof of the shambles, "the
Quaker rascal!" And the men in blouses started a catch. But the
singing continued; others joined in it, and soon it swelled to a long
wave of song and flowed over that human sea.

But the clock was striking, and before its last bell had ceased to
ring, between the lines of the hymn, a window of the guard-house was
thrown open and a number of men stepped out.

In a moment the vast concourse was hushed to the stillness of death.

"Where is Wilfrey Lawson?" whispered one.

The sheriff was not there. The under sheriff and a burly fellow in
black were standing side by side.

Among those who were near to the scaffold on the ground in front of it
was one we know. Robbie Anderson had tramped the Market Place the long
night through. He had not been able to tear himself from the spot. His
eye was the first to catch sight of two men who came behind the
chaplain. One of these walked with a firm step, a broad-breasted man,
with an upturned face. Supported on his arm the other staggered along,
his head on his breast, his hair whiter, and his step feebler than of
old. Necks were craned forward to catch a glimpse of them.

"This is terrible," Sim whispered.

"Only a minute more, and it will be over," answered Ralph.

Sim burst into tears that shook his whole frame.

"Bravely, old friend," Ralph said, melted himself, despite his words
of cheer. "One minute, and we shall meet again. Bravely, then, and
fear not."

Sim was struggling to regain composure. He succeeded. His tears were
gone, but a wild look came into his face. Ralph dreaded this more than
tears.

"Be quiet, Sim," he whispered; "be still, and say no word."

The under sheriff approached Ralph.

"Have you any statement to make?" he said.

"None."

"Nor you?" said the officer, turning to Ralph's companion.

Sim was trying to overcome his emotion.

"He has nothing to say," said Ralph quietly. Then he whispered again
in Sim's ear, "Bravely."

Removing his arm from Sim's convulsive grasp, he threw off his long
coat. At that moment the bleared sun lit up his lifted face. There was
a hush of awe.

Then, with a frantic gesture, Sim sprang forward, and seizing the arm
of the under sheriff, he cried hysterically,--

"Ay, but I _have_ something to say. He is innocent--take me back and
let me prove it--he is innocent--it's true--it's true--I say it's
true--let me prove it."

With a face charged with sorrow, Ralph walked to Sim and said, "One
moment more and we had clasped hands in heaven."

But now there was a movement at the back. The sheriff himself was seen
stepping from the window to the scaffold. He was followed by Willy Ray
and John Jackson. Two women stood together behind, Rotha and Mrs.
Garth.

Willy came forward and fell on his brother's neck.

"God has had mercy upon us," he cried, amid a flood of tears.

Ralph looked amazed. The sheriff said something to him which he did
not hear. The words were inaudible to the crowd, but the quick
sympathy of the great heart of the people caught the unheard message.

"A reprieve! a reprieve!" shouted fifty voices.

A woman fainted at the window behind. It was Rotha.

The two men were led off with staring eyes. They walked like men in a
dream.

Saved! saved! saved!

Then there went up a mighty shout. It was one vast voice, more loud
than the blast on the mountains, more deep than the roar of the sea!

CHAPTER LI. SIX MONTHS AFTER.

It was the height of a Cumbrian summer. Bracken Mere was as smooth as
a sheet of glass. The hills were green, gray, and purple to the
summits, and their clear outlines stood out against the sky. The sky
itself would have been cloudless but for one long scarf of plaited
white which wore away across a lake of blue. The ghyll fell like a
furled flag. The thin river under the clustering leaves sang beneath
its breath. The sun was hot and the air was drowsed by the hum of
insects.

And full of happy people was the meadow between the old house on the
Moss and the pack-horse road in front of it. It was the day of the
Wythburn sports, and this year it was being celebrated at
Shoulthwaite. Tents had been pitched here and there in out-of-the-way
corners of the field, and Mrs. Branthwaite, with her meek face, was
appointed chief mistress and dispenser of the hospitality of the
Shoulthwaite household.

"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. 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.

"The dame's to the fore yit," he says, "and lang will be."

At Mrs. Ray's feet her son Willy lies on the grass in a blue jerkin
and broad-brimmed black hat with a plume. Willy's face is of the type
on which trouble tells. Behind him, and leaning on the gate that leads
from the court to the meadow, is Ralph, in a loose jacket with deep
collar and a straw hat. He looks years younger than when we saw him
last. He is just now laughing heartily at a batch of the
schoolmaster's scholars who are casting lots close at hand. One
bullet-headed little fellow has picked up a couple of pebbles, and
after putting them through some unseen and mysterious manoeuvres
behind him, is holding them out in his two little fists, saying,--

     Neevy, neevy nack,
     Whether hand will ta tack--
     T' topmer or t' lowmer?

"What hantle of gibberish is that?" says Monsey Laman himself.

"_I_ is to tumble the poppenoddles," cries the bullet-headed
gentleman. And presently the rustic young gamester is tossing
somersets for a penny.

In the middle of the meadow, and encircled by a little crowd of
excited male spectators, two men are trying a fall at wrestling.
Stripped to the waist, they are treating each other to somewhat
demonstrative embraces.

At a few yards' distance another little circle, of more symmetrical
outlines, and comprising both sexes, are standing with linked hands. A
shame-faced young maiden is carrying a little cushion around her
companions. They are playing the "cushion game."

At one corner of the field there is a thicket overgrown with wild
roses, white and red. Robbie Anderson, who has just escaped from a
rebellious gang of lads who have been climbing on his shoulders and
clinging to his legs, is trying to persuade Liza Branthwaite that
there is something curious and wonderful lying hidden within this
flowery ambush.

"It's terrible nice," he says, rather indefinitely. "Come, lass, come
and see."

Liza refuses plump.

The truth is that Liza has a shrewd suspicion that the penalty of
acquiescence would be a kiss. Now, she has no particular aversion to
that kind of commerce, but since Robbie is so eager, she has resolved,
like a true woman, that his appetite shall be whetted by a temporary
disappointment.

"Not I," she says, with arms akimbo and a rippling laugh of knowing
mockery. Presently her sprightly little feet are tripping away.

Still encircled by half a score of dogs, Robbie returns to the middle
of the meadow, where the wrestlers have given way to some who are
preparing for a race up the fell. Robbie throws off his coat and cap,
and straps a belt about his waist.

"Why, what's this?" inquires Liza, coming up at the moment, with
mischief in her eyes, and bantering her sweetheart with roguish jeers.
"_You_ going to run! Why, you are only a bit of a boy, you know. How
can _you_ expect to win?"

"Just you wait and see, little lass," says Robbie, with undisturbed
good humor.

"You'll slidder all the way down the fell, sure enough," saves Liza.

"All right; just you get a cabbish-skrunt poultice ready for my broken
shins," says Robbie.

"I would scarce venture if I were you," continues Liza, to the vast
amusement of the bystanders. "Wait till you're a man, Robbie."

The competitors--there are six of them--are now stationed; the signal
is given, and away they go.

The fell is High Seat, and it is steep and rugged. The first to round
the "man" at the summit and reach the meadow again wins the prize.

Over stones, across streams, tearing through thickets, through belts
of trees--look how they go! Now they are lost to the sight of the
spectators below; now they are seen, and now they are hidden; now
three of the six emerge near the top.

The excitement in the field is at full pitch. Liza is beside herself
with anxiety.

"It's Robbie--no, yes--no--egg him on, do; te-lick; te-smack."

One man has rounded the summit, and two others follow him
neck-and-neck. They are coming down, jumping, leaping, flying. They're
here, here, and it is--yes, it _is_ Robbie that leads!

"Well done! Splendid! Twelve minutes! Well done! Weel, weel, I oles do
say 'at ye hev a lang stroke o' the grund, Robbie," says Mattha.

"And what do _you_ say?" says Robbie, panting, and pulling on his coat
as he turns to Liza, who is trying to look absent and unconcerned.

"Ay! Did you speak to me? I say that perhaps you didn't go round the
'man' at all. You were always a bit of a cheat, you know."

"Then here goes for cheating you." Robbie had caught Liza about the
waist, and was drawing her to that rose-covered thicket. She found he
was holding her tight. He was monstrously strong. What ever _was_ the
good of trying to get away?

Two elderly women were amused spectators of Liza's ineffectual
struggles.

"I suppose you know they are to be wedded," said one.

"I suppose so," rejoined the other; "and I hear that Ralph is to let a
bit of land to Robbie; he has given him a horse, I'm told."

Matthew Branthwaite had returned to his station by Mrs. Ray's chair.

"Whear's Rotha?" says the old weaver.

"She said she would come and bring her father," said Willy from the
grass, where he still lay at his mother's feet.

"It was bad manishment, my lad, to let the lass gang off agen with Sim
to yon Fornside."

Mattha is speaking with an insinuating smile.

"Could ye not keep her here? Out upon tha for a good to nowt."

Willy makes no reply to the weaver's banter.

At that moment Rotha and her father are seen to enter the meadow by a
gate at the lower end.

Ralph steps forward and welcomes the new-comers.

Sim has aged fast these last six months, but he is brighter looking
and more composed. The dalespeople have tried hard to make up to him
for their former injustice. He receives their conciliatory attentions
with a somewhat too palpable effort at cordiality, but he is only less
timid than before.

Ralph leads Rotha to a vacant chair near to where his mother sits.

"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.
The general expression of the girl's face is not of laughter nor yet
of tears, but of that indescribable something that lies between these
two, when, after a world of sadness, the heart is glad--the sunshine
of an April day.

"This seems like the sunny side of the hedge at last, Rotha," says
Ralph, standing by her side, twirling his straw hat on one hand.

There is some bustle in their vicinity. The schoolmaster, who prides
himself on having the fleetest foot in the district, has undertaken to
catch a rabbit. Trial of speed is made, and he succeeds in two hundred
yards.

"Theer's none to match the laal limber Frenchman," says Mattha, "for
catching owte frae a rabbit to a slap ower the lug at auld Nicky
Stevens's."

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughs Reuben Thwaite, rather boisterously, as he comes
up in time to hear the weaver's conceit.

"There's one thing I never caught yet, Master Reuben," says Monsey.

"And what is it?" says the little blink-eyed dalesman.

"A ghost on a lime-and-mould heap!"

"Ha! ha! ha! 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. The young women of Wythburn have
brought their spinning-wheels, and they sit together and make some
pretence to spin. The young men are outside. The old folks are in
another room with Mrs. Ray.

Presently a pebble is heard to crack against the window pane.

"What ever can it be?" says one of the maidens with an air of profound
amazement.

One venturesome damsel goes to the door "Why, it's a young man!" she
says, with overpowering astonishment.

The unexpected creature enters the kitchen, followed by a longish line
of similar apparitions. They seat themselves on the table, on the
skemmels, on the stools between the spinners--anywhere, everywhere.

What sport ensues! what story-telling! what laughing! what singing!

Ralph comes downstairs, and is hailed with welcomes on all hands. He
is called upon for a song. Yes, he can sing. He always sang in the old
days. He must sing now.

"I'll sing you something I heard in Lancaster," he says.

"What about--the Lancashire witches?"

"Who writ it--little Monsey?"

"No, but a bigger man than Monsey," said Ralph with a smile.

"He _would_ be a mite if he were no bigger than the schoolmaster," put
in that lady of majestic stature, Liza Branthwaite.

Then Ralph sang in his deep baritone, "Fear no more the heat o' the
sun."

And the click of the spinning-wheels seemed to keep time to the slow
measure of the fine old song.

Laddie, the collie, was there. He lay at Ralph's feet with a solemn
face. He was clearly thinking out the grave problems attaching to the
place of dogs on this universe.

"Didn't I hear my name awhile ago?" said a voice from behind the door.
The head of the speaker emerged presently. It was Monsey Laman. He had
been banished with the "old folks."

"Come your ways in, schoolmaster," cried Robbie Anderson. "Who says
'yes' to a bout of play-acting?"

As a good many said "Yes," an armchair was forthwith placed at one
corner of the kitchen with its back to the audience. Monsey mounted
it. Robbie went out of doors, and, presently re-entering with a
countenance of most woeful solemnity, approached the chair, bent on
one knee, and began to speak,--

     Oh wad I were a glove upo' yon hand
     'At I med kiss yon feàce.

A loud burst of laughter rewarded this attempt on the life of the
tragic muse. But when the schoolmaster, perched aloft, affecting a
peuking voice (a strangely unnecessary artistic effort), said,--

"Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?" and the alleged Romeo on his
knees replied, "Nowther, sweet lass, if owther thoo offend," the
laughter in the auditorium reached the point of frantic screams. The
actors, like wise artists, were obviously indifferent to any question
of the kind of impression produced, and went at their task with
conscientious ardor.

The little schoolmaster smiled serenely, enchantingly, bewitchingly.
Robbie panted and gasped, and sighed and moaned.

"Did you ever see a man in such a case?" said Liza, wiping away the
hysterical tears of merriment that coursed down her cheeks.

"Wait a bit," said Robbie, rather stepping out of his character.

It was a part of the "business" of this tragedy, as Robbie had seen it
performed in Carlisle, that Romeo should cast a nosegay up into the
balcony to Juliet. Robbie had provided himself with the "property" in
question, and, pending the moment at which it was necessary to use it,
he had deposited it on the floor behind him. But in the fervor of
impersonation, he had not observed that Liza had crept up and stolen
it away.

"Where's them flowers?" cried Romeo, scarcely _sotto voce_.

When the nosegay was yielded up to the lover on his knees, it was
found to be about three times as big as Juliet's head.

The play came to an abrupt conclusion; the spinning-wheels were pushed
aside, a fiddle was brought out, and then followed a dance.

"Iverything has a stopping spot but time," said Mattha Branthwaite,
coming in, his hat and cloak on.

The night was spent. The party must break up.

The girls drew on their bonnets and shawls, and the young men
shouldered the wheels.

A large company were to sail up the mere to the city in the row-boat,
and Rotha, Ralph, and Willy walked with them to Water's Head. Sim
remained with Mrs. Ray.

What a night it was! The moon was shining at the full from a sky of
deep blue that was studded with stars. Not a breath of wind was
stirring. The slow beat of the water on the shingle came to the ear
over the light lap against the boat. The mere stretched miles away. It
seemed to be as still as a white feather on the face of the dead, and
to be alive with light. Where the swift but silent current was cut
asunder by a rock, the phosphorescent gleams sent up sheets of
brightness. The boat, which rolled slowly, half-afloat and
half-ashore, was bordered by a fringe of silver. When at one moment a
gentle breeze lifted the water into ripples, countless stars floated,
down a white waterway from yonder argent moon. Not a house on the
banks of the mere; not a sign of life; only the low plash of wavelets
on the pebbles. Hark! What cry was that coming clear and shrill? It
was the curlew. And when the night bird was gone she left a silence
deeper than before.

The citizens, lads and lasses, old men and dames, got into the boat.
Robbie Anderson and three other young fellows took the oars.

"We'll row ourselves up in a twinkling," said Liza, as Ralph and Willy
pushed the keel off the shingle.

"Hark ye the lass!" cried Mattha. "We hounds slew the hare, quo' the
terrier to the cur."

The sage has fired off the last rustic proverb that we shall ever hear
from his garrulous old lips.

When they were fairly afloat, and rowing hard up the stream, the girls
started a song.

The three who stood together at the Water's Head listened long to the
dying voices.

A step on the path broke their trance. It was a lone woman, bent and
feeble. She went by them without a word.

The brothers exchanged a look.

"Poor Joe," said Rotha, almost in a whisper.

But the girl's cup of joy could bear this memory. She knew her love at
last.

Willy stepped between Rotha and Ralph. He was deeply moved. He was
about to yield up the dream of his life. He tried to speak, and
stopped. He tried again, and stopped once more. Then he took Rotha's
hand and put it into Ralph's, and turned away in silence.

And now these two, long knit together, soul to soul, parted by sorrow,
purified by affliction, ennobled by suffering, stand in this white
moonlight hand in hand.

Hereafter the past is dead to them, and yet lives. What was sown in
sorrow is raised in joy; what was sown in affliction is raised in
peace; what was sown in suffering is raised in love.

And thus the tired old world wags on, and true it is to-day as
yesterday that WHOM GOD'S HAND RESTS ON HAS GOD AT HIS RIGHT HAND.