"Rotha," said Garth, "read to me where it tells of sins that are as scarlet being washed whiter nor wool."

The girl found the place. She read aloud in the rich, soft voice that was like the sigh of the wind through the long gra.s.s. The words might have brought solace to another man. The girl's voice might have rested on the ear as a cool hand rests on a throbbing brow. But neither words nor voice brought peace to Garth. His soul seemed to heave like a sea lashed by a storm.

At length he reached out a feeble hand and touched the hand of the girl.

"I have a sin that is red as scarlet," he said. But before he could say more, his mother had roused herself and turned to him with what Rotha perceived to be a look of warning.

It was plainly evident that but for Mrs. Garth, the blacksmith would make that confession which she wished above all else to hear.

Then Rotha read again. She read of the prodigal son, and of Him who would not condemn the woman that was a sinner. It was a solemn and terrible moment. The fathomless depths of the girl's voice, breaking once and again to a low wail, then rising to a piercing cry, went with the words themselves like an arrow to the heart of the dying man.

Still no peace came to him. Chill was the inmost chamber of his soul; no fire was kindled there. His face was veiled in a troubled seriousness, when, at a pause in the reading, he said,--

"There can be no rest for me, Rotha, till I tell you something that lies like iron at my heart."

"Whisht thee, lad; whisht thee and sleep. Thou'rt safe to be well to-morrow," said Mrs. Garth in a peevish whimper.

"Mother, mother," cried Garth aloud in a piteous tone of appeal and remonstrance, "when, when will you see me as I am?"

"Tush, lad! thou'rt mending fast. Thou'rt safe to be at thy fire to-morrow."

"Ey, mother," replied the blacksmith, lifting himself feebly and glaring at her now with a fierce light in his eyes,--"eh, mother, but it will be the everlasting fire if I'm to die with this black sin heavy on my soul."

In spite of her self-deception, the woman's mind had long been busy with its own secret agony, and at these words from her son the rigid wrinkles of her face relaxed, and she turned her head once more aside.

Rotha felt that the moment had at length arrived. She must speak now or never. The one hope for two innocent men who were to die as soon as the world woke again to daylight lay in this moment.

"Mr. Garth," she began falteringly, "if a sin lies heavy on your soul, it is better to tell G.o.d of it and cast yourself on the mercy of our Heavenly Father."

Gathering strength, the girl continued: "And if it is a dark secret that touches others than yourself--if others may suffer, or are suffering, from it even now--if this is so, I pray of you, as you hope for that Divine mercy, confess it now, confess it before it is too late--fling it forth from your stifled heart--do not bury its dead body there, and leave it to be revealed only at that judgment when every human deed, be it never so secret, shall be stripped naked before the Lord, that retribution may be measured out for ever and ever."

Rotha had risen to her feet, and was leaning over the bed with one hand in an att.i.tude of acutest pain, convulsively clutching the hand of the blacksmith.

"Oh, I implore you," she continued, "speak out what is in your heart for your own sake, as well as the sake of others. Do not lose these precious moments. Be true! be true at last! at last! Then let it be with you as G.o.d shall order. Do not carry this sin to the eternal judgment. Blessed, a thousand times blessed, will be the outpouring of a contrite heart. G.o.d will hear it."

Garth looked into the girl's inspired face.

"I don't see my way clearly," he said. "I'm same as a man that gropes nigh midway through yon pa.s.sage underground at Legberthwaite. The light behind me grows dimmer, dimmer, dimmer, and not yet comes the gleam of the light in front. I'm not at the darkest; no, I'm not."

"A guest is knocking at your heart, Mr. Garth. Will you open to him?"

Then, in another tone, she added: "To-morrow at daybreak two men will die in Carlisle--my father and Ralph Ray--and they are innocent!"

"Ey, it's true," said the blacksmith, breaking down at length.

Then struggling once more to lift himself in bed, he cried, "Mother, tell her _I_ did it, and not Ralph. Tell them all that it was I myself who did it. Tell them I was driven to it, as G.o.d is my judge."

The old woman jumped up, and, putting her face close to her son's, she whispered,--

"Thou madman! What wadsta say?"

"Mother, dear mother, my mother," he cried, "think of what you would do; think of me standing, as I must soon stand--very soon--before G.o.d's face with this black crime on my soul. Let me cast it off from me forever. Do not tempt me to hide it! Rotha, pray with her; pray that she will not let me stand before G.o.d thus miserably burthened, thus red as scarlet with a foul, foul sin!"

Garth's breath was coming and going like a tempest. It was a terrible moment. Rotha flung herself on her knees. She had not been used to pray, but the words gushed from her.

"Dear Father in heaven," she prayed, "soften the hearts of all of us here in this solemn hour. Let us remember our everlasting souls. Let us not barter them for the poor comforts of this brief life. Father, thou readest all hearts. No secret so secret, none so closely hidden from all men's eyes, but Thou seest it and canst touch it with a finger of fire. Help us here to reveal our sins to Thee. If we have sinned deeply, forgive us in Thy heavenly mercy; in Thy infinite goodness grant us peace. Let Thy angel hover over us even now, even now, now."

And the angel of the Lord was indeed with them in that little cottage among the desolate hills.

Rotha rose up and turned to Garth.

"Under the shadow of death," she said, "tell me, I implore you, how and when you committed the crime for which father and Ralph are condemned to die to-morrow."

Mrs. Garth had returned once more to her seat. The blacksmith's strength was failing him. His agitation had nigh exhausted him. Tears were now in his eyes, and when he spoke in a feeble whisper, a sob was in his throat.

"He was my father," he said, "G.o.d forgive me--Wilson was my father--and he left us to starve, mother and me; and when he came back to us here we thought Ralph Ray had brought him to rob us of the little that we had." "G.o.d forgive me, too," said Mrs. Garth, "but that was wrong."

"Wrong?" inquired the blacksmith.

"Ey, it came out at the trial," muttered his mother.

Garth seemed overcome by a fresh flood of feeling. Rotha lifted a basin of barley-water to his lips.

"Yes, yes; but how was it done--how?"

"He did not die where they threw him--Ralph--Angus--whoever it was--he got up some while after and staggered to this house--he said Ray had thrown him and he was hurt--Ray, that was all. He wanted to come in and rest, but I flung the door in his face and he fell. Then he got up, and shrieked out something--it was something against myself; he called me a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, that's the fact. Then it was as if a hand behind me pushed me on. I opened the door and struck him. I didn't know that I had a hammer in my hand, but I had. He fell dead."

"Well, well, what next?"

"Nothing--yes--late the same night I carried him back to where I thought he had come from--and that's all!"

The little strength Garth had left was wellnigh spent.

"Would you sign a paper saying this?" asked Rotha, bending over him.

"Ey, if there would be any good in it."

"It might save the lives of father and Ralph; but your mother would need to witness it."

"She will do that for me," said Garth feebly. "It will be the last thing I'll ask of her. She will go herself and witness it."

"Ey, ey," sobbed the broken woman, who rocked herself before the fire.

Rotha took the pen and paper, and wrote, in a hand that betrayed her emotion,--

"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 a.s.sent. He was lifted to a sitting position. Rotha spread the paper before him, and then supported him from behind with her arms.