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 fearsom