"Not all; no, not all, neither. Your father had got up into the saddle
in an instant, and I labored out into the middle of the road. He saw
me and stopped. 'Ye've earned nowt of late,' he said; 'tak this, my
man, and gae off and pay your rent.' Then he put some money into my
hand from his purse and galloped on. I thought he'd killed Wilson, and
I crept along to look at the dead man. I couldn't find him at first,
and groped about in the darkness till my hand touched his face. Then I
thought he was alive, I did. The touch flayt me, and I fled away--I
don't know how. Ralph, I saw the mark of my hand on his face when they
drew me up to it next day in the bedroom of the inn. That night I paid
my rent with your father's money, and then I went home."

"It was my father's money, then--not Wilson's?" said Ralph.

"It was as I say," Sim answered, as though hurt by the implication.

Ralph put his hand on Sim's shoulder. Self-condemned, this poor man's
conscience was already a whirlpool that drew everything to itself.

"Tell me, Sim--that is, if you can--tell me how you came to suspect
Wilson of these dealings."

As he said this Ralph tapped with his fingers the warrant which Sim
had returned to him.

"By finding that James Wilson was not his name."

"So you found that, did you; how?"

"It was Mother Garth's doings, not mine," said Sim.

"What did she tell you?"

"Nothing; that is, nothing about Wilson going by a false name. No; I
found that out for myself, though it was all through her that I found
it."

"You knew it all that bad night in Martinmas, did you not?"

"That's true enough, Ralph. The old woman, she came one night and
broke open Wilson's trunk, and carried off some papers--leastways one
paper."

"You don't know what it was?"

"No. It was in one of Wilson's bouts away at--at Gaskarth, so he said.
Rotha was at the Moss: she hadn't come home for the night. I had
worked till the darknin', and my eyes were heavy, they were, and then
I had gone into the lanes. The night came on fast, and when I turned
back I heard men singing and laughing as they came along towards me."

"Some topers from the Red Lion, that was all?"

"Yes, that was all. I jumped the dike and crossed the fields instead
of taking the road. As I came by Fornside I saw that there was a light
in the little room looking to the back. It was Wilson's room; he would
have no other. I thought he had got back, and I crept up--I don't know
why--I c