“A dream, Sim.”

“No, it was no dream!  What was it I touched?  I was delivered!  Thank heaven, that death was not mine.  I rose, staggered out, and fled.”

By the glimmering light from the windows of the inn—­there came the sound of laughter from within—­Ralph could see that hysterical tears coursed down the poor tailor’s cheeks.  Rotha stood aside, her hands covering her face.

“And, at last, when you could not meet me here, you went to Fornside for Rotha to seek me?” asked Ralph.

“Yes, I did.  Don’t despise me—­don’t do that.”  Then in a supplicating tone he added,—­

“I couldn’t bear it from you, Ralph.”

The tears came again.  The direful agony of Sim’s soul seemed at length to conquer him, and he fell to the ground insensible.  In an instant Rotha was on her knees in the hardening road at her father’s side; but she did not weep.

“We have no choice now,” she said in a broken voice.

“None,” answered Ralph.  “Let me carry him in.”

When the door of the inn had closed behind Ralph as he went out with Rotha, old Matthew Branthwaite, who had recovered his composure after Monsey’s song, and who had sat for a moment with his elbow on his knee, his pipe in his hand and his mouth still open, from which the shaft had just been drawn, gave a knowing twitch to his wrinkled face as he said,—­

“So, so, that’s the fell the wind blows frae!”

“Blow low, my black feutt,” answered Monsey, “and don’t blab.”

“When the whins is oot of blossom, kissing’s oot o’ fashion—­nowt will come of it,” replied the sage on reflection.

“Wrong again, great Solomon!” said Monsey.  “Ralph is not the man to put away the girl because her father is in disgrace.”

“Do ye know he trystes with the lass?”

“Not I.”

“Maybe ye’r like the rest on us:  ye can make nowt on him, back ner edge.”

“Right now, great sage; the sun doesn’t shine through him.”

“He’s a great lounderan fellow,” said one of the dalesmen, speaking into the pewter at his mouth.  He was the blacksmith of Wythburn.

“What do you say?” asked Monsey.

“Nowt!” the man growled sulkily.

“So ye said nowt?” inquired Matthew.

“Nowt to you, or any of you.”

“Then didst a nivver hear it said, ‘He that talks to himsel’ clatters to a fool’?”

The company laughed.

“No,” resumed Matthew, turning to the schoolmaster, “Ralph will nivver tryste with the lass of yon hang-gallows of a tailor.  The gallows rope’s all but roond his neck already.  It’s awesome to see him in his barramouth in the fell side.  He’s dwinnelt away to a atomy.

“It baffles me where he got the brass frae to pay his rent,” said one of the shepherds.  “Where did he get it, schoolmaster?”

Monsey answered nothing.  The topic was evidently a fearsome thing to him.  His quips and cracks were already gone.