Ralph Ray joined Cromwell’s army against the second Charles at Dunbar, in 1650.  Between two and three years afterwards he returned to Wythburn city and resumed his old life on the fells.  There was little more for the train-bands to do.  Charles had fled, peace was restored, the Long Parliament was dissolved, Cromwell was Lord Protector.  Outwardly the young Roundhead was not altered by the campaign.  He had passed through it unscathed.  He was somewhat graver in manner; there seemed to be a little less warmth and spontaneity in his greeting; his voice had lost one or two of its cheerier notes; his laughter was less hearty and more easily controlled.  Perhaps this only meant that the world was doing its work with him.  Otherwise he was the same man.

When Ralph returned to Wythburn he brought with him a companion much older than himself, who forthwith became an inmate of his father’s home, taking part as a servant in the ordinary occupations of the male members of the household.  This man had altogether a suspicious and sinister aspect which his manners did nothing to belie.  His name was James Wilson, and he was undoubtedly a Scot, though he had neither the physical nor the moral characteristics of his race.  His eyes were small, quick, and watchful, beneath heavy and jagged brows.  He was slight of figure and low of stature, and limped on one leg.  He spoke in a thin voice, half laugh, half whimper, and hardly ever looked into the face of the person with whom he was conversing.  There was an air of mystery about him which the inmates of the house on the Moss did nothing to dissipate.  Ralph offered no explanation to the gossips of Wythburn of Wilson’s identity and belongings; indeed, as time wore on, it could be observed that he showed some uneasiness when questioned about the man.

At first Wilson contrived to ingratiate himself into a good deal of favor among the dalespeople.  There was then an insinuating smoothness in his speech, a flattering, almost fawning glibness of tongue, which the simple folks knew no art to withstand.  He seemed abundantly grateful for some unexplained benefits received from Ralph.  “Atweel,” Wilson would say, with his eyes on the ground,—­“atweel I lo’e the braw chiel as ’twere my ain guid billie.”

Ralph paid no heed to the brotherly protestations of his admirer, and exchanged only such words with him as their occupations required.  Old Angus, however, was not so passive an observer of his new and unlooked-for housemate.  “He’s a good for nought sort of a fellow, slenken frae place to place wi’ nowt but a sark to his back,” Angus would say to his wife.  Mr. Wilson’s physical imperfections were an offence in the dalesman’s eyes:  “He’s as widderful in his wizzent old skin as his own grandfather.”  Angus was not less severe on Wilson’s sly smoothness of manner.  “Yon sneaking old knave,” he would say, “is as slape as an eel in the beck; he’d wammel himself into crookedest rabbit hole on the fell.”  Probably Angus entertained some of the antipathy to Scotchmen which was peculiar to his age.  “I’ll swear he’s a taistrel,” he said one day; “I dare not trust him with a mess of poddish until I’d had the first sup.”