Читать книгу The Shadow of a Crime - Sir Hall Caine - Страница 7

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On the evening of the day upon which old Wilson was expected back at Fornside, Ralph Ray turned in at the tailor's cottage. Sim's distress was, if possible, even greater than before. It seemed as if the gloomy forebodings of the villagers were actually about to be realized, and Sim's mind was really giving way. His staring eyes, his unconscious, preoccupied manner as he tramped to and fro in his little work-room, sitting at intervals, rising again and resuming his perambulations, now gathering up his tools and now opening them out afresh, talking meantime in fitful outbursts, sometimes wholly irrelevantly and occasionally with a startling pertinency—all this, though no more than an excess of his customary habit, seemed to denote a mind unstrung. The landlord had called that morning for his rent, which was long in arrears. He must have it. Sim laughed when he told Ralph this, but it was a shocking laugh; there was no heart in it. Ralph would rather have heard him whimper and shuffle as he had done before.

“You shall not be homeless, Sim, if the worst comes to the worst,” he said.

“Homeless, not I!” and the little man laughed again. Ralph felt unease. This change was not for the better. Rotha had been sitting at the window to catch the last glimmer of daylight as she spun. It was dusk, but not yet too dark for Ralph to see the tears standing in her eyes. Presently she rose and went out of the room.

“Never fear that I shall be clemm'd,” said Sim. “No, no,” he said, with a grin of satisfied assurance.

“God forbid!” said Ralph, “but things should be better soon. This is the back end, you know.”

“Aye,” answered the tailor, with a shrug that resembled a shiver.

“And they say,” continued Ralph, “the back end is always the bare end.”

“And they say, too,” said Sim, “change is leetsome, if it's only out of bed into the beck!”

The tailor laughed loud, and then stopped himself with a suddenness quite startling. The jest sounded awful on his lips. “You say the back end's the bare end,” he said, coming up to where Ralph sat in pain and amazement; “mine's all bare end. It's nothing but 'bare end' for some of us. Yesterday morning was wet and cold—you know how cold it was. Well, Rotha had hardly gone out when a tap came to the door, and what do you think it was? A woman, a woman thin and blear-eyed. Some one must have counted her face bonnie once. She was scarce older than my own lass, but she'd a poor weak barn at her breast and a wee lad that trudged at her side. She was wet and cold, and asked for rest and shelter for herself and the children-rest and shelter,” repeated the tailor in a lower tone, as though muttering to himself—“rest and shelter, and from me.”

“Well?” inquired Ralph, not noticing Sim's self-reference.

“Well?” echoed Sim, as though Ralph should have divined the sequel.

“Had the poor creature been turned out of her home?”

“That and worse,” said the little tailor, his frame quivering with emotion. “Do you know the king's come by his own again?” Sim was speaking in an accent of the bitterest mockery.

“Worse luck,” said Ralph; “but what of that?”

“Why,” said Sim, almost screaming, “that every man in the land who fought for the Commonwealth eight years ago is like to be shot as a traitor. Didn't you know that, my lad?” And the little man put his hands with a feverish clutch on Ralph's shoulders, and looked into his face.

For an instant there was a tremor on the young dalesman's features, but it lasted only long enough for Sim to recognize it, and then the old firmness returned.

“But what of the poor woman and her barns?” Ralph said, quietly.

“Her husband, an old Roundhead, had fled from a warrant for his arrest. She had been cast homeless into the road, she and all her household; her aged mother had died of exposure the first bitter night, and now for two long weeks she had walked on and on—on and on—her children with her—on and on—living Heaven knows how!”

A light now seemed to Ralph to be cast on the great change in his friend; but was it indeed fear for his (Ralph's) well-being that had goaded poor Sim to a despair so near allied to madness?

“What about Wilson?” he asked, after a pause.

The tailor started at the name.

“I don't know—I don't know at all,” he answered, as though eager to assert the truth of a statement never called into dispute.

“Does he intend to come back to Fornside to-night, Sim?”

“So he said.”

“What, think you, is his work at Gaskarth?”

“I don't know—I know nothing—at least—no, nothing.”

Ralph was sure now. Sim was too eager to disclaim all knowledge of his lodger's doings. He would not recognize the connection between the former and present subjects of conversation.

The night had gathered in, and the room was dark except for the glimmer of a little fire on the open hearth. The young dalesman looked long into it: his breast heaved with emotion, and for the first time in his manhood big tears stood in his eyes. It must be so; it must be that this poor forlorn creature, who had passed through sufferings of his own, and borne them, was now shattered and undone at the prospect of disaster to his friend. Did he know more than he had said? It was vain to ask. Would he—do anything? Ralph glanced at the little man: barrow-backed he was, as he had himself said. No, the idea seemed monstrous. The young man rose to go; he could not speak, but he took Sim's hand in his and held it. Then he stooped and kissed him on the cheek.

Next morning, soon after daybreak, all Wythburn was astir. People were hurrying about from door to door and knocking up the few remaining sleepers. The voices of the men sounded hoarse in the mist of the early morning; the women held their heads together and talked in whispers. An hour or two later two or three horsemen drove up to the door of the village inn. There was a bustle within; groups of boys were congregated outside. Something terrible had happened in the night. What was it?

Willie Ray, who had left home at early dawn, came back to Shoulthwaite Moss with flushed face and quick-coming breath. Ralph and his mother were at breakfast. His father, who had been at market the preceding day, had not risen.

“Dreadful, dreadful!” cried Willy. “Old Wilson is dead. Found dead in the dike between Smeathwaite and Fornside. Murdered, no doubt, for his wages; nothing left about him.”

“Heaven bless us!” cried Mrs. Ray, “to kill a poor man for his week's wage!” And she sank back into the chair from which she had risen in her amazement.

“They've taken his body to the Red Lion, and the coroner is there from Gaskarth.”

Willy was trembling in every limb.

Ralph rose as one stupefied. He said nothing, but taking down his hat he went out. Willy looked after him, and marked that he took the road to Fornside.

When he got there he found the little cottage besieged. Crowds of women and boys stood round the porch and peered in at the window. Ralph pushed his way through them and into the house. In the kitchen were the men from Gaskarth and many more. On a chair near the cold hearth, where no fire had been kindled since he last saw it, sat Sim with glassy eyes. His neck was bare and his clothes disordered. At his back stood Rotha, with her arms thrown round her father's neck. His long, thin fingers were clutching her clasped hands as with a vise.

“You must come with us,” said one of the strangers, addressing the tailor. He was justice and coroner of the district.

Sim said nothing and did not stir. Then the young girl's voice broke the dreadful silence.

“Come, father; let us go.”

Sim rose at this, and walked like one in a dream. Ralph took his arm, and as the people crowded upon them, he pushed them aside, and they passed out.

The direction of the company through the gray mist of that morning was towards the place where the body lay. Sim was to be accused of the crime. After the preliminaries of investigation were gone through, the witnesses were called. None had seen the murder. The body of the murdered man had been found by a laborer. There was a huge sharp stone under the head, and death seemed to have resulted from a fracture of the skull caused by a heavy fall. There was no appearance of a blow. As to Sim, the circumstantial evidence looked grave. Old Wilson had been seen to pass through Smeathwaite after dark; he must have done so to reach his lodgings at the tailor's house. Sim had been seen abroad about the same hour. This was not serious; but now came Sim's landlord. He had called on the tailor the previous morning for his rent and could not get it. Late the same night Sim had knocked at his door with the money.

“When I ax't him where he'd come from so late,” said the man, “he glower't at me daiztlike, and said nought.”

“What was his appearance?”

“His claes were a' awry, and he keep't looking ahint him.”

At this there was a murmur among the bystanders. There could not be a doubt of Sim's guilt.

At a moment of silence Ralph stepped out. He seemed much moved. Might he ask the witnesses some questions? Certainly. It was against the rule, but still he might do so. Then he inquired exactly into the nature of the wound that had apparently caused death. He asked for precise information as to the stone on which the head of the deceased was found lying.

It lay fifty yards to the south of the bridge.

Then he argued that as there was no wound on the dead man other than the fracture of the skull, it was plain that death had resulted from a fall. How the deceased had come by that fall was now the question. Was it not presumable that he had slipped his foot and had fallen? He reminded them that Wilson was lame on one leg. If the fall were the result of a blow, was it not preposterous to suppose that a man of Sim's slight physique could have inflicted it? Under ordinary circumstances, only a more powerful man than Wilson himself could have killed him by a fall.

At this the murmur rose again among the bystanders, but it sounded to Ralph like the murmur of beasts being robbed of their prey.

As to the tailor having been seen abroad at night, was not that the commonest occurrence? With the evidence of Sim's landlord Ralph did not deal.

It was plain that Sim could not be held over for trial on evidence such as was before them. He was discharged, and an open verdict was returned. The spectators were not satisfied, however, to receive the tailor back again as an innocent man. Would he go upstairs and look at the body? There was a superstition among them that a dead body would bleed at a touch from the hand of the murderer. Sim said nothing, but stared wildly about him.

“Come, father,” said Rotha, “do as they wish.”

The little man permitted himself to be led into the room above. Ralph followed with a reluctant step. He had cleared his friend, but looked more troubled than before. When the company reached the bedside, Ralph stood at its head while one of the men took a cloth off the dead man's face.

There was a stain of earth on it.

Then they drew Sim up in front of it. When his eyes fell on the white, upturned face, he uttered a wild cry and fell senseless to the floor. Ha! The murmur rose afresh. Then there was a dead silence. Rotha was the first to break the awful stillness. She knelt over her father's prostrate form, and said amid stifling sobs—

“Tell them it is not true; tell them so, father.”

The murmur came again. She understood it, and rose up with flashing eyes.

“I tell them it is not true,” she said. Then stepping firmly to the bedside, she cried, “Look you all! I, his daughter, touch here this dead man's hand, and call on God to give a sign if my father did this thing.”

So saying, she took the hand of the murdered man, and held it convulsively in her own.

The murmur died to a hush of suspense and horror. The body remained unchanged. Loosing her grip, she turned on the bystanders with a look of mingled pride and scorn.

“Take this from heaven for a witness that my father is innocent.”

The tension was too much for the spectators, and one by one they left the room. Ralph only remained, and when Sim returned to consciousness he raised him up, and took him back to Fornside.