But he stopped. The expression of audacity gave place to a look of blank bewilderment. Paul had torn the parchment from top to bottom, and flung it on the table, and in an instant was walking out of the room.
CHAPTER IV.
Paul Ritson returned to the stack-yard, and worked vigorously three hours longer. A stack had been stripped by a recent storm, and he thatched it afresh with the help of a laborer and a boy. Then he stepped indoors, changed his clothes, and filled a traveling-bag. When this was done he went in search of the stableman. Natt was in his stable, whistling as he polished his harness.
"Bring the trap round to the front at seven," he said, "and put my bag in at the back; you"ll find it in the hall."
By this time the night had closed in, and the young moon showed faintly over the head of Hindscarth. The wind was rising.
Paul returned to the house, ate, drank, and smoked. Then he rose and walked upstairs and knocked at the door of his mother"s room.
Mrs. Ritson was alone. A lamp burned on the table and cast a sharp white light on her face. The face was worn and very pale. Lines were plowed deep on it. She was kneeling, but she rose as Paul entered. He bent his head and kissed her forehead. There was a book before her; a rosary was in her hand. The room was without fire. It was chill and cheerless, and only spa.r.s.ely furnished--sheep-skin rugs on the floor, texts on the walls, a carved oak clothes-chest in one corner, two square high-backed chairs and a small table, a bed, and no more.
"I"m going off, mother," said Paul; "the train leaves in an hour."
"When do you return?" said Mrs. Ritson.
"Let me see--this is Sat.u.r.day; I shall be back on Wednesday evening."
"G.o.d be with you!" she said in a fervent voice.
"Mother, I spoke to Greta last night, and she promised. We shall soon be free of this tyranny. Already the first link of the chain is broken. He called me into his room this morning to sign a mortgage on the Ghyll, and I refused."
"And yet you are about to go away and leave everything in his hands!"
Mrs. Ritson sat down and Paul put his hand tenderly on her head.
"Better that than to have it wrested from me inch by inch--to hold the shadow of an inheritance while he grasps the substance. He knows all.
His dark hints are not needed to tell me that."
"Yet he is silent," said Mrs. Ritson, and her eyes fell on to her book.
"And surely it is for my sake that he is so--if in truth he knows all.
Is he not my son? And is not my honor his honor?"
Paul shook his head.
"If the honor of twenty mothers, as true and dear as you, were the stepping-stones to his interest, over those stones he would go. No, no; it is not honor, whether yours or his, that keeps him silent."
Mrs. Ritson glanced up.
"Are you not too hard on him? He is guiltless in the eye of the world, and that at least should plead for him. Forgive him. Do not leave your brother in anger!"
"I have nothing to forgive," said Paul. "Even if he knew nothing, I should still go away and leave everything. I could not live any longer under the shadow of this secret, bound by an oath. I would go, as I go now, with sealed lips, but a free heart. He should have his own before man--and I mine, before G.o.d."
Mrs. Ritson sat in silence; her lips trembled perceptibly, and her eyelids quivered.
"I shall soon leave you, my dear son," she said in a tremulous voice.
"Nay, nay, you shall not," he answered in an altered tone, half of raillery, half of tenderness; "you are coming with us--with Greta and me--and over there the roses will bloom again in your white cheeks."
Mrs. Ritson shook her head.
"I shall soon leave you, dearest," she repeated, and told her beads.
He tried to dispel her sadness; he laughed, and she smiled feebly; he patted her head playfully. But she came back to the same words: "I shall soon leave you."
The moon was shining at the full when he lifted his hat to go. It was sailing through a sky of fibrous cloud. The wind was high, and rattled the empty boughs of the tree against the window. Keen frost was in the air.
"I shall see my father"s old friend in London on Monday, and be back on Wednesday. Good-bye. Keep a good heart. Good-bye."
She wept on his breast and clung to him.
"Good-bye, good-bye!" he repeated, and triad to disengage himself from her embrace.
But she clung closer. It was as if she was to see him no more.
"Good-bye!" she sobbed, and with the tears in his own eyes he laughed at her idle fears.
"Ha! ha! ha! one would think I was going for life--ha! ha--"
There was a scream on the frosty air without. His laugh died on his lips.
"What was that?" he said, and drew a sharp breath.
She lifted her face, whiter now than ever, and with tearless eyes.
"It was the cry of the bird that foretells death," she said in a whisper.
He laughed a little--boisterously.
"Nay, nay; you will be well and happy yet." Then he broke away.
Natt was sitting in the trap, and it was drawn up in the court-yard to the door. He was looking through the darkness at some object in the distance, and when Paul came up he was not at first conscious of his master"s presence.
"What were you looking at, Natt?" said Paul, pulling on his gloves.
"I war wond"rin" whether lang d.i.c.k o" the Syke had kindled a fire to-night, or whether yon lowe on the side of the Causey were frae the new smelting-house."
Paul glanced over the horse"s head. A deep glow stood out against the fell. All around was darkness.
"The smelting-house, I should say," said Paul, and jumped to his seat beside Natt.
By one of the lamps that the trap carried, he looked at his watch.