"Nay, none of us knows rightly. It"s a horse that flies ower the fell o" nights, and whinnies and whinnies."
"One of the superst.i.tions of your dale,--an old wife"s tale, I suppose. Has it been heard for years?"
"No, nor for weeks neither."
Brown resumed his position in front of the fire, and the hours rolled on.
When the first glimmer of gray appeared in the east, Sim was awakened, and Ralph and he, after eating a hurried breakfast, started away on foot.
Where is Robbie now? A life hangs on the fortunes of this very hour!
"Tell them the horses came from the Woodman at Kendal," said Ralph as he parted from his old comrade. "You"ve done better than save our lives, Brown, G.o.d bless you!"
"That"s a deal more nor my wages, captain," said the honest fellow.
The snow that had fallen during the night lay several inches deep on the roads, and the hills were white as far up as the eye could trace them. The dawn came slowly. The gray bars were long in stretching over the sky, and longer in making way for the first glint of mingled yellow and pink. But the sunrise came at length. The rosy glaives floated upwards over a lake of light, and the broad continents of cloud fell apart. Another day had breathed through another night.
Ralph and Sim walked long in silence. The snow was glistening like a million diamonds over the breast of a mountain, and the upright crags, on which it could not rest, were glittering like shields of steel.
"How beautiful the world is!" said Ralph.
"Ey, but it _is_ that, after all," said Sim.
"After all," repeated Ralph.
They had risen to the summit of a little hill, and they could see as they began to descend on the other side that the snow lay in a deep drift at the bottom.
At the same moment they caught sight of some curious object lying in the distance.
"What thing is that, half covered with the snow?" asked Sim.
"I cannot say. We"ll soon see."
Ralph spoke with panting breath.
"Why, it"s a horse!" said Sim.
"Left out on such a night, too," said Ralph.
His face quivered with emotion. When he spoke again his voice was husky and his face livid.
"Sim, what is that on its back?"
"Surely it"s a pack, the black thing across it," said Sim.
Ralph caught his breath and stopped. Then he ran forward.
"Great G.o.d!" he cried, "Betsy! It is Betsy, with the coffin."
CHAPTER x.x.xIII. SEPULTURE AT LAST.
Truly, it was Betsy, the mare which they had lost on that fearful day at the Stye Head Pa.s.s. Her dread burden, the coffin containing the body of Angus Ray, was still strapped to her back. None had come nigh to her, or this must have been removed. She looked worn and tired as she rose now to her feet amid the snow. The old creature was docile enough this morning, and when Ralph patted her head, she seemed to know the hand that touched her.
She had crossed a range of mountains, and lived, no doubt, on the thin gra.s.s of the fells. She must have famished quickly had the snow fallen before.
Ralph was profoundly agitated. Never before had Sim seen him betray such deep emotion. If the horse with its burden had been a supernatural presence, the effect of its appearance on Ralph had not been greater. At first clutching the bridle, he looked like a man who was puzzled to decide whether, after all, this thing that had occurred were not rather a spectre that had wandered out of his dreams than a tangible reality, a blessed and gracious reality, a mercy for which he ought there and then to fling himself in grat.i.tude on the ground, even though the snow drifted over him forever and made that act his last.
Then the tears that tenderer moments could not bring stood in his enraptured eyes. Those breathless instants were as the mirror of what seemed to be fifty years of fear and hope.
Ralph determined that no power on earth should remove his hand from the bridle until his father had at length been buried. The parish of Askham must have its church and churchyard, and Angus Ray should be buried there. They had not yet pa.s.sed by the church--it must be still in front of them--and with the horse and its burden by their side the friends walked on.
When Ralph found voice to speak, he said, "Wednesday--then it is three weeks to-day since we lost her, and for three weeks my father has waited sepulture!"
Presently they came within sight of a rude chapel that stood at the meeting of two roads. A finger-post was at the angle, with arms pointing in three directions. The chapel was a low whitewashed Gothic building, with a little belfry in which there hung no bell. At its rear was a house with broken gablets and round dormers stuck deep into the thatch. A burial ground lay in front of both edifices, and looked dreary and chilling now, with the snow covering its many mounds and dripping from the warm wood of its rude old crosses.
"This will be the minister"s house," said Ralph.
They drew up in front and knocked at the door of a deep porch. An old man opened it and looked closely at his visitors through sharp, watchful eyes. He wore a close jerkin of thick blue homespun, and his broad-topped boots were strapped round his short pantaloons.
"Does the priest live here?" said Ralph, from the road, where he held the mare"s head.
"No priest lives here," said the old man, somewhat curtly.
"Does the minister?"
"No, nor a minister."
The changes of ecclesiastical administration had been so frequent of late that it was impossible to say what formula was now in the ascendent. Ralph understood the old man"s laconic answers to imply a remonstrance, and he tried again.
"Do you preach in this church?"
"_I_ preach? No; I practise."
It transpired after much wordy fencing, which was at least as irritating as amusing to a man in Ralph"s present temper, that there was no minister now in possession of the benefice, and that the church had for some months been closed, the spiritual welfare of the parishioners being consequently in a state of temporary suspension.
The old man who replied to Ralph"s interrogations proved to be the parish clerk, and whether his duties were also suspended--whether the parishioners did not die, and did not require to be buried--during the period in which the parish was deprived of a parson, was a question of more consequence to Ralph than the cause of the religious bankruptcy which the old man described.
Ralph explained in a few words the occasion of his visit, and begged the clerk to dig a grave at once.
"I fear it will scarce conform to the articles," the clerk said with a grave shake of his old head; "I"m sore afraid I"ll suffer a penalty if it"s known."
Ralph pa.s.sed some coins into the old man"s hand with as little ostentation as possible; whereupon the clerk, much mollified, continued,--