"Mattha will sett thee on the road, Robbie," said Mrs. Branthwaite.

"Nay, nay; I reckon, I'd be scarce welcome. Mayhap the lad has welcomer company."

This was said in an insinuating tone, and with a knowing inclination of the head towards Liza, whose back was turned while she stole away to the door.

"Nay, now, but n.o.body shall sett me," said Robbie, "for I must fly over the dikes like a racehorse."

"Ye've certainly got a lang stroke o' the grund, Robbie."

Robbie laughed, waved his hand to the old people, who still sat at dinner, and made his way outside.

Liza was there, looking curiously abashed, as though she felt at the moment prompted to an impulse of generosity of which she had cause to be ashamed.

"Gi'e us a kiss, now, my la.s.s," whispered Robbie, who came behind her and put his arm about her waist.

There was a hearty smacking sound.

"What's that?" cried Mattha from within; "I thought it might be the sneck of a gate."

CHAPTER XXVI. "FOOL, DO NOT FLATTER."

When Mrs. Garth reached home, after her interview with Rotha in the road, there was a velvety softness in her manner as of one who had a sense of smooth satisfaction with herself and her surroundings.

The blacksmith, who was working at a little bench which he had set up in the kitchen, was also in a mood of more than usual cheerfulness.

"Ey, he's caught--as good as caught," said Mrs. Garth.

Her son laughed, but there was the note of forced merriment in his voice.

"Where do they say he is--Lancaster?"

"That's it, not a doubt on't."

"Were they sure of him--the man at Lancaster?"

"No, but _I_ were when they telt me what mak of man it was."

The blacksmith laughed again over a chisel which he was tempering.

"It's nothing to me, is it, mother?"

"Nowt in the warld, Joey, ma lad."

"They are after him for a traitor, but I cannot see as it's anything to me what they do with him when they catch hod on him; it's nothing to me, is it, mother?"

"Nowt."

Garth chuckled audibly. Then in a low tone he added,--

"Nor nothing to me what comes of his kin afterwards."

He paused in his work; his manner changed; he turned to where Mrs.

Garth was coiled up before the fire.

"Had _he_ any kin, mother?"

Mrs. Garth glanced quickly up at her son.

"A brother, na mair."

"What sort of a man, mother?"

"The spit of hissel'."

"Seen anything of him?"

"Not for twenty year."

"Nor want to neither?"

Mrs. Garth curled her lip.

CHAPTER XXVII. RALPH AT LANCASTER.

The night of the day on which the officers of the Sheriff's court of Carlisle visited Shoulthwaite, the night of Simeon Stagg's departure from Wythburn in pursuit of Ralph, the night of Rotha's sorrow and her soul's travail in that solitary house among the mountains, was a night of gayety and festival in the illuminated streets of old Lancaster.

The morning had been wet and chill, but the rain-clouds swept northward as the day wore on, and at sundown the red bars belted the leaden sky that lay to the west of the towers of the gray castle on the hill.

A proclamation by the King had to be read that day, and the ancient city had done all that could be done under many depressing conditions to receive the royal message with fitting honors. Flags that had lain long furled, floated from parapet and pediment, from window and balcony, from tower and turret. Doors were thrown open that had not always swung wide on their hinges, and open house was kept in many quarters.

Towards noon a man mounted the steps in the Market Place, and read this first of the King's proclamations and nailed it to the Cross.

A company of red-coated soldiers were marched from the Castle Hill to the hill on the southwest, which had been thrown up six years before by the russet-coated soldiery who had attacked and seized the castle.

Then they were marched back and disbanded for the night.

When darkness fell over highway and byway, fires were lit down the middle of the narrow streets, and they sent up wide flakes of light that brightened the fronts of the half-timbered houses on either side, and shot a red glow into the sky, where the square walls of the Dungeon Tower stood out against dark rolling clouds. Little knots of people were at every corner, and groups of the baser sort were gathered about every fire. Gossip and laughter and the click of the drinking-horn fell everywhere on the ear. But the night was still young, and order as yet prevailed.

The Market Place was the scene of highest activity. Numbers of men and boys sat and stood on the steps of the Cross, discussing the proclamation that had been read there. Now and again some youth of more scholarship than the rest held a link to the paper, and lisped and stammered through its bewildering sentences for the benefit of a circle of listeners who craned their necks to hear.

The proclamation was against public vice and immorality of various sorts which were unpunishable by law. It set forth that there were many persons who had no method of expressing their allegiance to their Sovereign but that of drinking his health, and others who had so little regard for morality and religion as to have no respect for the virtue of the female s.e.x.