CHAPTER XVIIITHE FEUD-WIND FRESHENSIt was high summer now on Marshcotes Moor. Everywhere the farm-folk were full of the busy idleness which comes when ploughing and sowing are over and the crops are not yet ready for the scythe or sickle. The lads found time to go a-courting in shaded lanes or up by the grey old kirk-stone; their elders did much leaning over three-barred gates, with snuff between a thumb and forefinger, while they talked of hay-harvest, of the swelling of corn-husks in the ear, of the feud which had been so hot in the spring and which now seemed like to die for want of fuel.For a strange thing had chanced at Wildwater. The Lean Man, once dauntless, had grown full of some unnamed terror; and, though his arm seemed strong as ever and his body full of vigour, his brain was sapless and inert. His folk came to him with fresh plans for slaying Wayne of Marsh; and he turned a haunted eye on them, and said that naught could kill the lad. The cloud which had hung over Marsh House had settled now on Wildwater, and even the hot youngsters were chilled by a sense of doom. If the Lean Man had given up hope, they said, what chance had they of snaring Shameless Wayne?And so the days went on, and the feud slumbered, and Janet was torn between sorrow for her grandfather and gladness that his malady left Wayne free from ambush or attack. Each day, indeed, seemed to bring fresh trouble in its train; for Red Ratcliffe, dumbfounded as he had been when their errand to Bents Farm had proved no wild-goose chase, was yet distrustful of his cousin. She had spoken a true word that day, and they had met Wayne; but there was some devilry hid under it, and haply she knew enough of the Black Art which had saved her lover to be sure no harm could come to him. Laugh at superstition as he might, Red Ratcliffe had not been cradled in the winds and reared among the grim wastes of heath for naught; he and his fellows were slow to acknowledge witchcraft and the boggarts that stepped in moorside tales, but the seed, once planted, found a rich soil and a deep in which to come to leaf. Little by little he was growing to believe that Janet was the cause of each discomfiture at Wayne's hands; and, while he let no chance pass of railing on her for a witch, he uttered many a scarce-veiled threat that soon he would throw all to the winds and hold her without leave of the Lean Man or the Parson.As for Shameless Wayne, he had ceased to wonder that no fresh attack was made on him. He would die when Fate ordained, and nothing could alter that; but the farm-work, meanwhile, at which he laboured as distastefully and keenly as of old, was going grandly forward, and not sour Hiram Hey himself could say that the land had gone backward since he took the charge of it. Janet had been right when she named pride his strongest passion; and even his love for her, self-thwarted, could not rob him of a certain sober joy in raising crops in face of Ratcliffe sword-points and the keen-toothed winds. It was all uphill nowadays for Wayne of Marsh; and each new difficulty overcome gave him hard and sure content such as no wild frolic of his earlier days had brought.Yet the summer bore hardly on him when he thought of Janet. No farm-hind but was free to couple with his mate; only the Master, it seemed, was doomed to go lonely through these spendthrift days of sun and warm south winds and ripening meadow-grass."Art gloomy, Ned, of late. Is it because the Ratcliffes scruple to come down and fight with thee?" said his sister, as they sat in hall one evening and watched the stir of bees among the roses that clambered up the window-panes."Nay, for I am always fighting one of them—and never more than after a week's idleness."Her voice grew cold. "'Tis time thou didst turn from that—and time Marsh had a mistress. Are there no maids, save one, about the moorside?""None for me, nor ever will be. Besides, Marsh has its mistress; thou'rt not going to leave us, Nell?""By and by I must. Rolf is getting out of hand, and will take the old excuse no longer. Faith, I begin to think he loves me very dearly, for every day he thwarts me more and more.""Thy place is with him, after all, and I'm a fool to think to keep thee here forever.—Where are the lads, Nell? Hunting still, I'll warrant.""Ay. They are restless since they fought the Lean Man; each morning they seem to start earlier for the chase, and sundown rarely sees them home again.""Well, it is making men of them. They are learning a shrewd turn of fence, too, and when their time comes they will know how to parry Ratcliffe cuts.—We wash the sheep to-morrow, Nell; wilt ride with me and watch the scene? If a red sunset be aught to go by, we shall have a cloudless day.""To-morrow I cannot. 'Tis churning-day, Ned, and the butter is always streaked when I leave those want-wit maids alone with it.""It is better that thou should'st not go," said Wayne, after a pause. "I was a fool to speak of it, Nell, for the washing-pools lie over close to Wildwater, and 'twould be unsafe for women-folk.""Unsafe?" she echoed, with a quick glance at him. "Then 'tis unsafe for thee, Ned, and I'll not have thee go to the washing at all.""That is folly, lass. I have a sword, and I carry less risks than a maid would.—A rare holiday the men would have, my faith, if I left them to wash the sheep at their own good pleasure.""Take the lads with thee, then, if thou must go.""I promised them they should go hawking until dinner-time, and after that they must come up; but why spoil a morning's pastime for them?""The old tales fret at times," she answered gravely, "and to-night I'm sad a little, Ned, like thee. The washing-pools lie near to Wildwater, as thou say'st, and thou know'st how Waynes and Ratcliffes first fell out.""Tut! If I give heed to women's fancies, when shall I find an hour to move abroad in? The Ratcliffes have got their fill for a good while to come, and they'll keep well on the far side of the pools, I warrant. What, Mistress? Thy wanderings have brought thee supperless indoors," he broke off, as his step-mother opened the door softly and set down a basket of marsh-marigolds among the dishes and platters that cumbered the great dining-table.Nell rose with no word of greeting and left them; and Mistress Wayne, glancing in troubled fashion after her, crossed to the window and leaned against it."I had better have stayed as I was, Ned," she said, smiling gravely. "Nell was growing kind—but that has passed now I have found my wits again."He winced; for he knew that he, too, had felt less kindliness toward her since her helplessness had gone. Looking at her now, frail against the mullioned casement, he could not but remember that it was she, in her right mind as she was now, who had fouled the good fame of his house."Ay, andthouhast a touch of her aloofness, too," she went on. "I can read it in thy face, Ned.—Listen. I've had in mind to tell thee something these days past, but have never found the words for it. I wronged thy father—but not as deeply as thou think'st. Ned! Canst not think what it meant to me—the dreariness, the cold, the hardness of this moorland life? And when Dick Ratcliffe came, and promised to take me out of it——""See, Mistress, there's naught to be gained by going over the old ground," he interrupted harshly."But, Ned, there is much to be gained. Am I so rich in friends that I can let one as staunch as thou go lightly? Thou'rt midway between hate and love of me, I know, and if—Ned, if I were to tell thee I was less to blame—" She stopped and eyed him wistfully.It was not in Shameless Wayne to resist this sort of pleading from one who had shared with him the bitter months of disfavour and remorse. They had been comrades in adversity, he and she; and was he to turn on her now because she could no longer claim pity for her witlessness?"Thou need'st tell me naught, little bairn," he said."Ah, but I need! I was dying, Ned—dying for lack of warmth. And Dick Ratcliffe promised to take me into shelter; and I clutched at the chance greedily, as a prisoner would if one came and offered him liberty. But the wrong that Wayne fancied of me, when he found us in the orchard, I had never thought to do—never, dear. I was a child, and loved Ratcliffe because he showed me a way out of trouble; and I meant to go away with him because—how shall I tell thee, so as to make thee credit it? I had not a thought of—Ned, I was not wicked, only tired—tired, till I had no eyes to see the straight road, nor heart to follow it. I was hungering for warmth; the ghosts were so busy all about Marsh House, and I wanted the happy valleys, out of reach of the curlew-cries and the shuddering midnight winds."Wayne put an arm about her. "It was worth telling, bairn," he said quietly, "and father would lie quieter if he knew that his honour had not gone so far astray.""Thou'lt still keep a friend to me?" she whispered.The gloom settled more heavily upon his face. "Thou talk'st as if I were thy judge," he said. "'Twas only in seeming thou didst the worst wrong to father—but what of me? Did I look so carefully to his honour? Or was it his own eldest-born who darkened his last days, who made his name a by-word up and down the country-side, who drank while a kinsman fought the vengeance-fight for him? Not if I work to my life's end to wipe off the stain, will it come clean.""'Tis cleansed already, Ned, twice over cleansed—and there's one waiting who will give thee thanks for it. I met her not long since in the kirkyard, and I never saw love so plain on a maid's face." Her voice was eager, and the words came fast, as if she had given long thought to the matter."Mistress Ratcliffe, thou mean'st?" said Wayne, after a silence. "What ails thee, bairn, to be so hot for this unlikely wedding?""Because she is straight and strong, and full of care for thee; because, when an ill chance led me once to Wildwater, it was she who took pity on me and showed me a safe road to Marsh. Ned, she is the one wife in the world for thee; why wilt thou cling to the old troubles?"He shook his head. "The troubles are new that stand 'twixt Janet and myself—and any day may bring forth more of them.""Thy folk will be her folk, if thou'lt take her," she broke in eagerly. "She lives among rough men—there's danger every hour for her."Mistress Wayne had struck the right note at last. Half willing as he was to be convinced, and imbued with the sense that the fairy-kist could give no wrong advice, he would yet have held obstinately to his old path. But he took fire at the suggestion that there was danger to the girl at Wildwater. Now and then a passing fear of it had crossed his own self-poised outlook on the situation; but a hint of it from another roused all his smouldering jealousy and passion."Danger? Of what?" he cried.But Mistress Wayne had no time to answer; for the door opened on the sudden and the four lads came tumbling into hall, piling the fruits of their long day's sport in a heap against the wall."A rare day we've had, Ned!" cried Griff. "Ay, we're late for supper, but thou'lt not grudge it when thou see'st how many other suppers we've brought home to larder."Wayne looked at the heap of grouse and snipe, conies and hares and moor-cock. "Well, fall to, lads," he laughed, "and I'll save my scolding till ye're primed against it.—Are ye still bent on hawking to-morrow, after this full day's sport?""Ay, are we!" cried Griff. "We're but the keener set to have another day of it.""Then go; but mind ye come straight up to the washing-pool after dinner. 'Tis time ye learned the ways of farming."The youngsters made wry faces at this as they settled themselves to the mutton-pasty."We met the Lean Man again to-day," said one presently, in between two goodly mouthfuls."And what said he to you?""Naught. He wore as broken a look as ever I saw, and when we rode at him with a shout——""Lads, lads, fight men less skilled at sword-play than the Lean Man," put in Shameless Wayne, smiling the while at their spirit."But he fled from us, Ned—minding the night, I warrant, when we took him in the back with yond stone ball. Yet they say he's always like that now; Nanny Witherlee tells me he sees the Dog at the side of every Wayne among us, and flees from that, not from us.""Nanny is a fond old wife, with more tales on her tongue-tip than hairs on her thinning thatch.""Yet—dost mind what I saw, too, that night in the garden?" said Mistress Wayne. "Brown, blunt-headed—I can see him yet, Ned, as he fawned against thy side."Wayne did not answer, though he paled a little, and soon he made excuse to leave them."Where art going, Ned? We've fifty tales to tell thee of the day's sport," cried Griff."But have I idleness enough to listen, ye careless rascals?" laughed Wayne from the door. "I must see Hiram Hey and make all ready against to-morrow's work.""Thou'lt not find him, for he was going into the Friendly Inn with shepherd Jose as we passed through Ling Crag.""Was he?" growled the other. "Hiram is a poor drinker by his own showing, and a man with no spare time on his hands—but he has worn many a tavern threshold bare, I'll warrant, since he first learned to set lips to pewter."And, indeed, Hiram wore a leisurely air enough at the moment. Stretched at his ease on the wide lang-settle of the Friendly Inn, he was handling a mug of home-brewed and watching the crumbling faces in the peat-fire, while shepherd Jose talked idly to him from the window."There's somebody got four gooid legs under him," said Jose, as the racket of horse-hoofs came up the road."Ay, by th' sound. Who is't, Jose?" answered Hiram lazily."Why, Mistress Janet fro' Wildwater. She's a tidy seat i' th' saddle, hes th' lass," said the shepherd, pressing his face closer to the glass to see the last of her."A wench can hev a tidy seat i' th' saddle, an' yet be leet as thistle-down.""Ay, but she hes a snod way wi' her, an' all. I've thowt, whiles, she hed more o' th' free, stand-up look o' th' Waynes about her nor her breed warrants.""Well, there's some say that, if wishes war doings, she'd hev a Wayne name to her back," said Hiram, shifting to an easier posture."Nowt o' th' sort!" put in the shepherd warmly. "Th' young Maister may hev been a wild-rake, an' he may be wilful i' farming-matters an' sich—but he'd niver foul th' owd name by gi'eing it to a Ratcliffe.""That's as may be. But young blood's young blood, an' she's winsome to look at, as nawther thee nor me can deny.""There war summat betwixt 'em, now I call to mind, afore this last brew o' trouble war malted. I've heard tell o' their meeting i' th' owd days up by th' kirk-stone when they thowt nobody war looking. But that's owered wi'. Tha doesn't fancy there could be owt o' th' sort now, Hiram?—Theer, get thy mug filled up, lad, for tha needs a sup o' strong drink to brace thee for th' long day's sheep-weshing to-morn.""I'll hev my mug filled, Jose, lad—though I'm no drinker—an' I'll keep my thowts about th' Maister an' th' Wildwater lass to myseln. But I've seen what I've seen—ay, not a three week sin'—an' if iver tha hears 'at two folk are courting on th' sly, doan't thee say I didn't tell thee on 't, that's all.""What didst see, like, a three week sin'?" asked Jose the shepherd, his head tilted gossip-wise to one side."Nay, I war niver one to spread tales abroad, not I. But it warn't a mile fro' where I'm sitting now, on th' varry road 'at runs past th' tavern here, that I happened on two folk standing fair i' th' middle o' th' highway. An' one war fearful like the Maister, an' t' other warn't so different fro' Mistress Ratcliffe; an' they war hugging one another summat fearful.""Now, come, Hiram! Gossip's gossip, but I'll noan believe that sort o' talk about th' Maister.""That's as it pleases thee, lad. I nobbut said 'at th' couple I saw war like as two peas to him an' Mistress Janet. Ay, an' they'd getten dahn fro' their hosses, an' she war crying like a gooid un i' his arms. Well, 'tis as Nanny Witherlee is allus saying, I fear me—if a blackberry's nobbut out o' reach, ye'll find all th' lads i' th' parish itching for 't.""Well, I mun tak thy word for owt to do wi' courting," said the shepherd drily. "Tha'rt framing to learn nowadays thyseln, so they tell me.""An' what about thee?" cried Hiram, roused from the tranquil gaiety which his bit of gossip afforded him. "I'd think shame, if my hair war as white as thine, Jose, to turn sheep's eyes on a young wench like Martha."Jose chuckled, as if he could tell much but would not, and Hiram Hey grew more and more disquieted as he wondered if, after all, he had gone too slow with the first and last great courtship of his life.While Hiram sat nursing his mug, and while the shepherd kept a quizzing eye upon his moodiness, the inn door was thrown open and three rough-headed fellows stamped noisily into the bar. "It smells foul," said one, stopping at sight of Hiram and the shepherd, and holding his nostrils between a dirt-stained thumb and forefinger."Ay," said another, "it's th' Wayne smell—ye can wind 'em like foxes wheriver ye leet on their trail.""Yond's Wildwater talk," said Hiram to the shepherd, not shifting his position on the settle. "They're reared on wind up yonder, an' it gets into their tongues, like.""Thee shut thy mouth, Hiram Hey; tha'rt ower owd to gi'e lip-sauce to lusty folk," said the foremost of the Wildwater trio, coming to the back of the settle and leaning threateningly over the old man.Hiram lifted himself slowly into a sitting-posture. "There'sbreedi' us owd uns," he said; "th' race weakened by th' time it got to sich as thee.""We'll see about that," said his assailant, and stooped quickly, his hands toward Hiram's throat.But Hiram shot out his arms with unlooked-for vigour, and gripped his man under the arm-pits, and pulled him like a kitten over the high back of the lang-settle. Then he got to his feet, still hugging the other close, and gave a steady swing, and landed him clean over his left shoulder on to the sanded floor-stones."If awther o' ye others hes owt to say, I'm noan stalled yet," said Hiram, dropping to his seat again.The fallen man did not move for a space; and then he clapped a hand to one knee with an oath. "There's summat broken," he groaned."Likely," put in Hiram Hey. "I've hed chaps mell on me afore, an' it mostly ends th' same way."The two who were still unhurt helped their comrade to the door, and turned for a sour look at Hiram. "Turn an' turn about," said one; "there's summat i' bottle for all ye Wayne chaps, an' I'll look to thee myseln, Hiram Hey, when th' chance comes.""Summat i' bottle, is there?" said the shepherd, after they had gone. "Th' Lean Man hes been fearful quiet lately; I feared he war hatching weasel-eggs. Ay, an' his men hev been quiet, an' all; 'tis mony a week sin' we hed ony sort o' moil wi' 'em.""Well, I'm stalled o' wondering what's to happen next," said Hiram, yawning with great content. "I war all a-shiver when th' feud first broke out, an' ivery day I looked to be shotten at th' least, if not sliced up wi' a sword at after. But th' days jog on somehow, an' there's nowt mich comes to cross th' farm-wark.""Yond war a shrewd lift o' thine, Hiram," said the shepherd presently, seating himself at the other side of the hearth."I learned to lift, lad, when I war a young un; an' ye doan't loss that sort o' trick so easy. 'Tis weel enough for these lads to be all for fighting wi' their fists—but let me get to grips wi' a man when he means mischief, say I, an' he'll noan do me mich harm.—Now, Jose, art bahn to get another mug-full? I'm fain o' laziness to-neet, an' I could weel sup another quart, though I'm nowt mich at drinking myseln."Janet, meanwhile, had ridden straight home to Wildwater after passing the window of the Friendly Inn, and had encountered Red Ratcliffe as she led her horse round to stable."Dost ride from Marsh?" he sneered, blocking the stable-door."From seeing a better man than thou? Nay. I have no dealings with Wayne of Marsh.""Thou'lt have no chance of such dealings by and by.""Indeed?" Lifting her brows a little, but disdaining to ask his leave to pass the door. "Indeed, Ratcliffe the Red? I thought—it might have been but fancy—that somehow thou didst shirk talk with Wayne of Marsh?""The Lean Man does—but there's younger blood than his to carry on the feud. We're sick of waiting for the call that never comes, and soon we mean to show Nicholas that what he has not wit to compass, we can.""So eager to clinch the bargain?" she mocked. "Should I make thee a good wife, think'st thou?—There, take him to stall thyself," she added, putting the bridle into his hand. "Iknowthou canst stable a horse, if thou hast scant knowledge of how to woo a maid.""'Tis a knowledge I may gather by and by—and thou shall teach me," he answered, meeting her eye with more than his accustomed boldness.CHAPTER XIXHOW WAYNE KEPT THE PINFOLDThe marshland beyond Robin Hood's Well was noisy this morning with the shouts of men, the sharp, impatient bark of dogs, the shrill bleating of sheep. A warm, lush-hearted day of June it was, with a yellow sun rising clear of the flaked strips of cloud that hung about the middle blue of heaven, and a low wind shaking the budding heather-tips and wrinkling the surface of standing pools; just such a day as fitted a sheep-washing, for wind and sun together would be quick to dry the fleeces.The washing-pools stood a few yards away from the stream that ran through Goblin Ghyll, and were no more than deepish holes dug out of the peat, bottomed and walled with sandstone blocks and rendered water-tight in a measure by lumps of marl worked in between the fissures of the stones. A narrow channel, fitted with a sluice-gate at the upper end, connected the streamway with the pools. On the right hand of each pool was a walled enclosure, into which the flocks were driven from the moor; on the left, a similar pinfold received the sheep as they were washed, and kept them penned there until each batch was ready to be driven off by its own shepherd.Altogether, what with vigour of the sun-rays, and leisurely haste of loose-limbed shepherd folk, and brisk to-and-froing of excited dogs, the scene was a stirring one, contrasting strangely with the eerie hush which was wont to hang over this land of marsh and peat. Hiram Hey was there, his old heart warmed by the abuse, commands and ridicule which he dispensed with a free tongue to all comers. Jose the shepherd was there, with a kindly eye and a word in season for each particular member of his flock. There were other shepherds, too, from outlying portions of the Wayne lands, and thick-thewed farm-lads, and youngsters no more than elbow-high who, under pretence of helping to collect the flocks from off the moor, tried sorely the tempers of the blunt-headed, sagacious sheep-dogs, whose manoeuvres were thrice out of four times defeated by the interference."Well, Hiram, hast getten owt to say agen th' weather?" said Jose, splashing into the pool.Hiram grasped the first of the ewes securely by its fleece, and half pushed, half pulled it to the brink. "Owt to say agen th' weather? I should think I hev!" he cried."I thowt as mich, lad. Trust thee to hev thy grumbles, choose what," panted the other, as he took the sheep bodily into his arms and plunged it under water."'Tis varry weel for ye poor herding folk to thank th' Lord for all this power of sun. But us as hes likelier wark—tilling, tha knaws, an' sich like—it fair breaks a body's heart, that it does. There's yond Low Meadow war bahn to yield th' bonniest crop o' hay iver tha set een on, if we'd nobbut hed a sup o' rain; an' now 'tis brown as a penny-piece—ay, fair dried i' th' sap, it is. But ye poor, shammocky sheep-drivers think there's nowt save ewes an' tups i' th' world.""Poor, are we, say'st 'a?" snapped the shepherd who was working alongside Jose in the pool."Ay, poor as rattens," answered Hiram. "I allus did say a sheep war th' gaumless-est thing 'at iver went on four legs.""There's folk more gaumless goes on two," put in Jose; "an' tha's getten a lob-sided view o' sheep, Hiram Hey; tha's all for beasts, an' hosses, an' pigs, an' tha willun't see 'at sheep are that full o' sense——"The shepherd got no further with his speech; for the ewe which was being pushed toward the brink took a wild leap on the sudden, and landed fair into his arms before he had got his feet well planted on the bottom; and sheep and man went under the grey greasiness that covered the surface of the pool."Ay, they're sensible chaps, is sheep," said Hiram drily, while he watched the shepherd rub the water out of eyes and hair. "A beast now—nay, I'm thinking a calf wod hev hed more wit nor that.""Well, an' wodn't tha knock dahn ony chap that framed to souse thee?" retorted Jose, undaunted still. "'Tis nobbut one more proof o' their sperrit.—Theer, lass, theer! Jose noan wants to wrangle wi' thee—theer, my bonnie—" His voice dropped into inarticulate murmurs as he took a fresh hold of the sheep and fell to rubbing her wool with a long arm and a knotty."Will th' young Maister be coming up, think ye?" asked a farm-hand by and by."He will that, if I knaw him," said Hiram grimly. "He telled me last forenooin he war coming to see 'at ye all kept to it.—Now, lads, will ye frame, or mun I come an' skift ye wi' my foot? I niver see'd sich a shammocky, loose-set lot o' folk i' all my days. Tom o' Thorntop, get them ewes penned, dost hear? Seems tha'd like to keep me ut laking all th' day while tha maks shift to stir thyseln."The work went steadily forward, and soon the pinfolds on the far side of each of the two pools were all but full of ewes, shivering in their snowy fleeces. Neither did jest and banter flag, nor the gruff oaths of the shepherds as they gathered their flocks together under Hiram's wide-reaching eye."We mun hev a bit o' dinner i' a while," said Jose at last; "I'm as dry as a peck o' hay-seeds.""I'll warrant," growled Hiram, and for sheer contrariness went off to see that a new flock was penned ready for the washing.He gave a glance at the sun as he turned, and another across the sweep of peatland. "Begow, but it's bahn to be a warm un, is th' day, afore we've done wi' it," he muttered. "Th' heat-waves fair dance again ower Wildwater way. An' yond grass i' th' Low Meadow 'ull be drying as if ye'd clapped it i' an oven.—What, there's more coming to wesh sheep, is there? They'll hev to bide, I'm thinking, for a tidy while.""What's agate ower yonder, Hiram?" called one of the shepherds. "Tha's getten thy een on summat, by th' look on ye.""There's a big lot o' sheep coming, though they're ower far off for me to tell who belongs 'em," said Hiram, shading his eyes with both hands.Two or three left work and crowded about him. The flock came nearer, followed by a press of men on foot and men on horseback."By th' Heart!" cried one. "They're Wildwater sheep, yond; I can see th' red owning-mark on their backs.""Ay. Lonks they are, if my een's gooid for owt," said Hiram.No man looked at his neighbour, and none spoke of those who rode behind the sheep, though the red-headed horsemen, sword on thigh, were twice as plain to be seen as the breed of sheep they brought to washing. Silently Hiram and his fellows returned to work; silently the Ratcliffes rode forward to the pinfold walls, while their farm-folk followed with the sheep.Red Ratcliffe peered over the wall-top of the nearer pin-fold, and affected vast surprise at sight of the busy stir within. "What is this, lads?" he cried, turning to his kinsfolk."'Twould seem there's more than one has marked how fair a washing day it is," answered another, showing a like surprise. "They're not content with one pool, either, but must use them both.""Whose sheep should they be, think ye? They're sadly lean, once they are rubbed free of dirt," went on Red Ratcliffe, who seemed to be the leader of the band."Nay, if there's aught poor in breed, father it on a Wayne," said the other.Red Ratcliffe fixed his eyes on Hiram Hey, who was watching the pool with that daft air of simplicity which was his staunchest weapon in times of peril."We want to wash our sheep," said Ratcliffe.Hiram lifted his head. "Oh, ay? Well, we shall noan keep ye long—say till six o' th' afternooin," he answered, and resumed his contemplation of the pool."Six of the afternoon? 'Tis easy to be seen, sirrah, that thou hast a taste for jesting," said Red Ratcliffe."We've scant time for jests, Maister, an' I'm telling ye plain truth. Ay, we'll be done by six o' th' clock, for sure—or mebbe a two-three minutes afore, if these feckless shepherds 'ull bestir theirselns. Jose, what dost tha think?""Think?" echoed Jose, rubbing hard and fast at the fleece of an old bell-wether. "Well, mebbe we shall win through by half-after five—but there's niver no telling."Red Ratcliffe curbed his temper; for he had known many moor folk in his time, and this trick of "shamming gaumless" was no new one to him. He changed his key accordingly, seeing that his own rough banter would stand no chance against Hiram's subtler wit."Clear the pens of yond murrain-rotted ewes; we've some whole-bodied sheep to wash," he said peremptorily."Clear th' pens?" said Hiram, scratching his head. "Well, we're framing to clear 'em, fast as iver we can. An' as for th' ewes—there's been no murrain among Wayne sheep these five year past.""Cease fooling, thou lousy dotard! Dost think we've come all the way from Wildwater only to go back again because we find a handful of yokels, belonging to God-know-whom, fouling the water of the pond?""Honest muck fouls no pools, an' I thowt onybody wod hev knawn we belonged to Wayne o' Marsh. Ay, for ye allowed as mich a while back—seeing, I warrant, what well-set-up chaps we war.""Begow, that's th' first we've heard on 't fro' owd Hiram," muttered Jose the shepherd, chuckling soberly as he dipped another ewe."Ay," went on Hiram placidly, "there's none denies 'at th' Wayne farm-folk can best ony others i' th' moorside.""Tha lees, Hiram Hey! Man for man, ye're childer to us as warks at Wildwater," cried one of the Ratcliffe yokels, gathering courage from the armed force about him."Settle that quarrel as best pleases you," cried Red Ratcliffe sharply; "meanwhile 'tis work, not talk, and if yonder pool is not cleared by the time I've counted ten—well, there'll be more than sheep dipped in it."Hiram looked at him with a puzzled air. "Theer!" he said. "Th' gentry mun allus hev their little jests, an' I'll laugh wi' th' best, Maister Ratcliffe, when I find myseln a thowt less thrang. But orders is orders, th' world ower, an' when young Maister says 'at a thing's getten to be done, it's getten to be done.""Where is your Master?" snapped the other. "'Tis a poor farmer lies abed while his hinds play."Hiram's glance was a quick one this time, quenched under his rough grey eyebrows as soon as given. "So ye thowt he'd be here this morn?" he said. "Nay, he's noan a lie-abed, isn't th' Maister, but he's getten summat else to do.""Has he? And what might that be?" said Red Ratcliffe softly."Shall I tell him?" muttered Hiram, half audibly. Then, after a pause of seeming doubt, "He's cutting grass i' th' Low Meadow," he said."Cutting grass at this time of year?""Ay, for sure. Wildwater land ligs cold, an' ye're late wi' crops up yonder; but th' grass lower dahn is running so to seed that it war no use letting it bide a day longer. It 'ull be poor hay as 'tis, an' all along o' this unchristian weather.""So he'll not come to the sheep-washing?" broke in Red Ratcliffe, with a glance at his fellows."I've telled ye so," said Hiram, "an' telling ye twice willun't better a straight tale.""I'm thinking Hiram hes a soft spot i' his heart for young Maister; I've niver knawn him tell so thick a lee afore," muttered shepherd Jose, as he went forward with his work.Red Ratcliffe, looking down the streamway and wondering whether it were worth while to insist on his claim to the pool, laughed suddenly and jerked his bridle-hand in the direction of a horseman who had turned the bend of the track below and jumped the stream."Shameless Wayne will come to the washing after all," he said, and waited, stiff and quiet in the saddle, till Wayne of Marsh should cross the half-mile that intervened."I war mista'en, seemingly. Th' Maister mun hev crossed straight fro' th' grass-cutting," said Hiram, putting a bold face on it to hide a sinking heart.The old man turned his back on the Ratcliffes, and his face to the upcoming horseman, whose head was thrust low upon his shoulders as if some gloomy trend of thought were dulling him to all sights and sounds of this fair June day."I framed weel, an' I could do no more," he said to himself; "but sakes, why couldn't he hev bided a while longer? Th' Ratcliffes 'ud hev been off to th' Low Meadow i' a twinkling, if I knaw owt.—What's to be done, like? He's a wick un to fight, is th' Maister, but there's seven o' these clever Dicks fro' Wildwater, an' that's longish odds."Hiram stood for awhile, puzzled and ill-at-ease, watching his master draw slowly nearer to the pools; and then his face brightened on the sudden as he shuffled across to where two shepherd lads were talking affrightedly together."Set your dogs on a two-three sheep, an' drive 'em downhill, an' reckon to follow 'em," he whispered. "Then ye'll meet Maister—an' a word i' his lug may save him fro' a deal. An' waste no time, for there's none to be lessen."The lads, catching the spirit of it, had already got their dogs to work when Red Ratcliffe's voice brought them to a sudden halt; for Ratcliffe, mistrusting fellows of Hiram's kidney, had marked his whispering and guessed its purpose."Come back, ye farm louts!" he cried, and turned to Hiram with a sneer. "Art fullish of wit, thou think'st? Dost mind how once before we matched wits, thou and I?""I mind," said Hiram. "'Twas when I told ye where th' Marsh peats war stored—but ye didn't burn mich wi' 'em, Maister, if I call to mind."Red Ratcliffe laughed at the retort; for his eyes were on the horseman down below, and his mood was almost playful now that his prey seemed like to come so tame to hand."I'm flaired for th' Maister this time, that I am," muttered Hiram, as he, too, glanced down the slope; "but being flaired niver saved onybody fro' a bull's horns, as th' saying is, so I mun just bide still an' keep my een oppen."The Ratcliffes passed a smile and a jest one to the other as they saw Shameless Wayne draw near and marked the heavy gloom that rested on him; for it pleased them that the man they loathed should have bitterness for his portion during the few moments he had yet to live.Wayne did not glance up the moor until he had ridden within ten-score yards of them. He half drew rein on seeing the seven red-headed horsemen waiting for him on the hill-crest; and Red Ratcliffe, thinking he meant to turn about, was just calling his kinsmen to pursue when he saw Wayne drive home his spurs and ride straight up to meet them."Bide where ye are," said Red Ratcliffe then. "He's courteous as ever, this fool of Marsh, and would not trouble us to gallop after him.""'Tis like him; he war allus obstinate as death, an' wod be if th' Lord o' Hell stood up agen him," groaned Jose the shepherd, as he left the water and joined the knot of farm-folk who stood aloof, expectant, and doubtful for their own safety and the Master's."I give you good-day, Wayne of Marsh," called Red Ratcliffe."I shall fare neither better nor worse for the same. What would you?" answered Wayne, halting at thrice a sword's-length from the group."Why, we would wash our sheep, and yonder rough-tongued hind of thine refused us. So, said I, as I saw you riding up the slope, 'We'll ask the Master's leave, and of his courtesy he'll grant it.'"Shameless Wayne would never stoop to the Ratcliffe frippery of speech. "My courtesy takes no account of such as ye," he answered bluntly."Think awhile!" went on the other gently. "These pools were made for Waynes and Ratcliffes both in the days before there was bad blood between us. 'Tis our right as well as yours to use it when we will.""And when we will. First come, first served.—Come, lads, ye're loitering, and half the sheep are yet unwashed," he broke off, turning to the farm-men.Red Ratcliffe's face darkened. "The old wives say, Wayne of Marsh, that the first feud sprang up at this very spot, because it chanced that the Marsh and the Wildwater ewes came on the same day to the washing. I would have no lad's blood on my hands, for my part, so bear the old tale in mind, and give us room."Wayne had his sword loose all this time, and his eyes, even when they seemed to rove, were never far from Red Ratcliffe's movements. "Your talk, sir, wearies me," he said. "Ye mean to strike, seven against one.—Well, strike! I'm waiting for you, with a thought of what chanced once in Marshcotes kirkyard to keep my blood warm."The Ratcliffes were daunted a little by the downright, sturdy fashion of the man; and for a moment they hung back, remembering how Wayne of Marsh had met them time and again with witchcraft and with resistless swordplay. One looked at another, seeking denial of the folly which could credit Wayne with power to match the seven of them."Where is the Lean Man to-day? 'Tis strange he comes not to the sheep-washing," said Wayne of Marsh, as still they halted."He would not trouble," snarled Red Ratcliffe. "'Twas butchery, he said, for a man of his years to fight with such a callow strippling."Wayne smiled with maddening coolness. "That is a lie, Ratcliffe the Red. He dared not come. The last I saw of him, he was riding hard—with my sword-point all but in his back. Well? Am I to wait till nightfall for you, or are ye, too, minded to turn tail?"Stung by the taunt, Red Ratcliffe spurred forward on the sudden, and his comrades followed with a yell; and even sour Hiram Hey sent up a half-shamed prayer that the Master might come through this desperate pass with safety. Hiram, as a practical man and one who dealt chiefly with what he could see and handle, was wont to use prayer as the last resource of all; and his furtive appeal was witness that he saw no hope of rescue—no hope of respite, even—for his Master.But Jose the shepherd had not been idle during that brief pause between Wayne's challenge and the onset of the Ratcliffes. He had watched Hiram's attempt to send a warning down the slope; and while the storm grew ripe for breaking, he bethought him that there were those about Wayne of Marsh who might yet serve him at a pinch. To one hand of the Ratcliffes were the ewes, ten-score or so, which they had brought to give colour to their quarrel; about the shepherd's knees were his two dogs, the canniest brutes in the moorside. A few calls from Jose, in a tongue that they had learned in puppyhood, a sly pointing of his finger at the Ratcliffe sheep, and the dogs rushed in among the huddled, bleating mass. The sheep were for making off across the moor, but Jose the shepherd shouted clear above the feud-cries of the Ratcliffes, and worked his dogs as surely as if this were no more than the usual business of the day; in a moment the flock was headed, turned, driven straight across the strip of moor that lay between Wayne and his adversaries.Quickly done it was, and featly; and just as the Ratcliffes swept on to the attack, the ewes ran pell-mell in between their horses' feet. The dogs, wild with their sport, followed after and snapped, now at the sheep, now at the legs of the bewildered horses. Two of the Wildwater folk were unhorsed forthwith; three others were all but out of saddle, and needed all their wits to keep their beasts in hand; and Shameless Wayne, watching the turmoil from the hillock where he stood firm to meet the onset, laughed grimly as he jerked the curb hard down upon his own beast's jaw."I thowt 'twould unsettle 'em a bittock," murmured Jose the shepherd, stroking his chin contentedly while he watched the ewes driven further down the hill, leaving clear room between his Master and the rearing horses of the Ratcliffes."Dang me, why didn't I think on 't myseln!" cried Hiram Hey. "It war plain as dayleet, an' yond owd fooil Jose 'ull mak a lot of his cleverness when next he goes speering after Martha. Ay, I know him!—That's th' style, Maister!" he broke off, with a sudden, rousing shout. "In at 'em, an' skift 'em afore they've fund their seats again."Wayne had seen his chance, and taken it; and now he was riding full tilt at the enemy, over the pair of fallen horsemen. Red Ratcliffe cut at him in passing, and missed; the rest were overbusy with their horses to do more than raise a clumsy guard; Wayne galloped clean through them, swirling his blade to the right hand and the left, and in a breathing-space, so it seemed to Hiram and the shepherd, the free moor and safety lay before him."Now, God be thanked, he's through, is th' lad!" cried Hiram. "Lord Harry, he swoops an' scampers fair like a storm-wind out o' th' North."But Wayne would not take the plain road of flight; partly his blood was up, and partly he feared for the safety of his farm-hinds if he left them to play the scapegoat to these red-headed gentry. He wheeled about, and the discomfited horsemen, seeing him bear down a second time, were mute with wonder. But their fury was keen sharpened now; they glanced at the two fallen riders, trampled beneath Wayne's hoofs; they heard one of their comrades cursing at a wound that Wayne had given him as he rode through; a moment only they halted for surprise, and then, with a deafening yell ofRatcliffe!they closed in a ring about him."Five to one now. Come, the odds lessen fast," cried Wayne, as he pulled up and seemed to wait their onset.But he knew that flight was hopeless if he let the full company attack him front and rear. One glance he snatched at the open moor behind, and one at the walled enclosure where the sheep had lately been herded for the washing."God's life, I'll trick them yet," he muttered, and reined sharp about, outwitting them, and rode hard as hoofs could kick up the peat toward the shelter of the walls."Is he a Jack-o'-Lanthorn, this fool from Marsh?" growled Red Ratcliffe, foiled a second time.He thought that Wayne was trusting to his horsemanship, that he would double and retreat and glance sideways each time they made at him in force, hoping to get a blow in as occasion offered. But Wayne of Marsh had no such idle play in mind; he was seeking only for sure ground on which to stand and meet them one by one. He had marked the opening in the pinfold through which the sheep were driven, and he knew that, if he could once gain the wall, the battle would narrow to a run of single contests.They saw his aim too late; and as Red Ratcliffe swerved and swooped on him, Wayne backed his horse with its flanks inside the pinfold. He had four stout walls behind him now; the uprights of the gateway were no more than saddle-high, and above them he had free space for arm and sword-swing. It was one against five still—but each of the five must wait his turn, and each must fare alone against the blade which, to the Ratcliffe fancy, was a live, malignant thing in the hand of this witch-guarded lad of Marsh.Again the red-heads fell back, while the Marsh farm-folk, roused by the Master's pluck, sent up a ringing cheer. And Shameless Wayne, who had chafed under long weeks of farming, laughed merrily to feel his sword-hilt grafted to his hot right hand again, to know that he had cut off retreat and that five skilled swordsmen were at hand to give him battle."God rest you, sirs. Wayne and the Dog are waiting," he cried, and laughed anew to mark how they shrank from the old battle-cry.But Red Ratcliffe, seeing his brave scheme like to go the way of other schemes as promising, lost doubts and shrinking on the sudden. Man to man, he was Wayne's equal, and this time he would settle old scores—would go back to the Lean Man with his tale, and claim Janet as the fruit of victory. A thought of the girl's beauty ran across his mind, a swift, unholy sense that it would be sweeter to take her thus, unwilling and by force, than if she had consented to his wooing; and the thought steadied heart and nerve, while it lent him fierce new strength. No cry he gave, but made straight at Wayne and cut across his head-guard. Wayne shot his blade up, withdrew it, and thrust keenly forward; and Ratcliffe parried; and after that the fight ran hot and swift.Steel met steel; the blades hissed, and purred, and shivered; up and down, in and out, the blue-grey lightning ran. The men's breath came hard, their eyes were red with prophecy of blood; their faces, that in peace showed many a subtle difference of breeding and of courtesy, were strangely like now, set to a strained fierceness, the veins upstanding tight as knotted whipcord. Sons of the naked Adam, they fought with gladdening fury; and the naked beast in them rose up and snarled between clenched, gleaming teeth. Their very horses—that are full as men of niceties overlaid by breeding—went back to their old savagery, and bit one at the other, and added their shrill cries to the men's raucous belly-breaths.The farm-folk held their breath and watched. The Ratcliffes, clustered in a little knot, followed each steel-ripple, each cut and counter-cut, and forgot for the moment to take sides from very love of swordsmanship. And then Wayne knocked the other's blade high up in air, and would have had him through the breast had Red Ratcliffe not jerked his left hand on the curb and dragged his horse round into safety. Wayne could not pursue, even had he been minded to leave his shelter, for another Ratcliffe was on him now, offering fight as stubborn as the first."My breath will fail," thought Wayne, and redoubled the swiftness of his blows, and cut his man deep through the rib-bones.But there were three left yet, and Red Ratcliffe, smarting under his defeat, had brought guile to help him where force had failed. While the sword-din began afresh, and again Wayne settled to the desperate conflict, Red Ratcliffe got to ground, picked up the sword that had been ripped from out his grasp, and crept softly to the far edge of the pinfold."'Tis child's play, after all," he thought. "Lord, how the rogue fights, with never a thought that he can be taken in the rear."Wayne—forcing the battle with all his might, lest breath should fail—could get no nearer to his man as yet; and meanwhile Red Ratcliffe had gained the wall behind him and was throwing one leg over."He cannot keep it up, can't th' lad," murmured Hiram Hey. "Sakes, I've a mind to run in myseln an' do summat—though I mun be crazy to think on 't.—Hallo, what's agate wi' Red Ratcliffe? He looks pleased-like, an' he's getten off his horse. Oh, that's it, is't? Well, I can do a bit o' summat, happen, after all."Hiram moved briskly up to the pinfold and reached the hinder wall just as Red Ratcliffe was climbing over it; he set a pair of arms about his middle, as he had done to one of the Wildwater farm-folk not long ago, and put his muscle into the lift, and brought his enemy with a thud on to the peat five yards away."Fair play's a jewel ye've niver learned th' price on at Wildwater," he said quietly. "Ye war for sticking th' Maister i' th' back, as ye could no way meet him i' front? Well, there's two opinions about ivery matter, an' mine's th' reet un this time, I'm thinking. 'Twar a Providence, it war, that yond hind o' thine came in to th' Friendly tavern yesterneet; he braced me fine for hoicking feather-weights ower my shoulder, like."The shepherds looked at Hiram, and then at Red Ratcliffe, who was lifting himself in dazed sort to a sitting posture; it was plain they needed but the one word to close round and stamp the life out of this treacherous hound who could aim to strike from behind when Wayne had proved his match in open fight. But Hiram had an old grievance to straighten—a grievance that had rankled ever since Red Ratcliffe interrupted his courtship on a long-dead day of spring—and he paid no heed to his comrades' meaning glances."So, Maister; ye fooiled me once on a time, as ye called to mind just now—an' now I've fooiled ye," said Hiram, stroking his frill of beard and watching Red Ratcliffe's lowering face."And, by Wayne's cursed Dog, the third time shall pay for all," snapped the other, making a second effort to stand upright."Mebbe, but I'm fain to hev squared th' reckoning, choose what comes. Ay, it war grand, warn't it, to get Hiram Hey to tell ye how mich ling an' bracken there war at Marsh, an' th' varry spot it war stored in? Ye went home fetching a rare crack o' laughter, I'll be bound, an' ye came that varry neet to mak use o' what I telled ye. What, ye're dizzy sick? An' I'm laughing. An' that's how th' world allus wags wi' them as thinks to best Hiram Hey."Red Ratcliffe shook off his dizziness, and snatched a dagger from his belt. "Thou foul-mouthed sot, I'll teach thee to set thyself against thy betters," he cried.Hiram stood, sturdy and stiff; he knew there was little chance for him, but still he hoped to come to grips with his assailant and crush his ribs in before he could compass a clean stroke with the dagger. He feared the upshot not at all, and even as he waited he smiled in his old sour fashion to think that he had settled his own private cause of quarrel with Red Ratcliffe. The wind, freshening from the west, brought up a sound of shouting with it; but Hiram had no eyes for what was chancing on the far side of the pinfold."Begow, I shall niver be wedded now to Martha," he thought; "a chapcango too slow, 'twould seem. Ay, well, I shall be saved a power o' worry, doubtless, an' wedlock's noan all cakes an' ale, they say. But, lord, I'd right weel hev liked to try it for myseln."The fight at the pinfold was waxing keener all the while; but Shameless Wayne was hard-pressed now, and the first twinges of arm-tiredness were cramping his strokes a little. Yet his laugh rang deep as ever, and the sweetness of each stroke was doubled, since each must be near his last. One thought only held him, and that was a thought of pride—pride that he would die in the mid-day open, righting the old Wayne battle."He gives, he gives!" cried one of the two horsemen who were left to take their turn."Does he give?" panted Wayne, and made the quick cross-cut, following a straight lunge, which his father had taught him long ago.The stroke told, and his opponent's bridle-arm dropped heavy to his side; but still he fought on, and still his comrades watched, eager to take his place the moment he fell back. Then Wayne was touched on the neck, and again on the side, just as Red Ratcliffe roused himself to leap on Hiram Hey.Shameless Wayne in front, and Hiram, with whom he had waged many a stubborn contest, on the far side of the pinfold—it seemed that master and man would go out of life together, each dauntless, each proud in his own hard way, each ready, doubtless, to turn on the further shore of Death and take up some interrupted quarrel touching farm-matters—yet each dying because he had stayed to save the other when flight had been full easy.Shepherd Jose, not caring to see such matters as he knew must follow, turned a pair of dim eyes down the slope, and started, and clutched his neighbour by the arm."In time—by th' Heart, in time!" he cried.As if in answer to him, a swift, clear shout came up the moor, over the sun-bright sweep of ling."Wayne and the Dog. Hold to it, Ned! Hold to it."Wayne knew the boyish voices, and his heart leaped, but he dared not let his eyes wander until the cry had been thrice repeated, until his adversary had given back for dread of the new foe. Red Ratcliffe, at the same moment, stopped half toward Hiram Hey, turning his eyes on the upcoming horsemen; then he raced for his horse, and sprang to saddle, and joined his hesitating band of comrades."Begow, that's a let-off, an' proper," said Hiram Hey, scarce comprehending yet that he was safe.For a moment a silence as of night held the Ratcliffes, while they watched the four Wayne lads charge gaily up the slope, plucking their swords free of the scabbard as they rode."On to them; they'll break at the first onset," muttered Red Ratcliffe, and galloped down to meet them.For the first time Shameless Wayne's heart grew soft and his nerve weak. They were over young, these lads who had been left to his care, to fight with grown men; what if one of them were slain in saving the life he had gladly given up a while since? But that passed; breathing again, he felt new strength in his arm, and as he crashed headlong in at the rear of the down-sweeping band, he swore that this thing should not be."Wayne and the Dog!" cried Griff, as he made at the foremost Ratcliffe."Wayne and the Dog!" roared Ned from the rear, and cleft the nearest Ratcliffe through the skull. And even as he wrenched his blade free, he laughed to mark with what elderly and sober glee these youngsters waged their maiden battle.Front and rear the Ratcliffes were taken. Confused, hard pressed on every side, their blows grew wilder and more flurried. But still they held to it, and Wayne's four brothers had cause to thank the hard, monotonous hours they had spent in learning tricks of fence.All was changed on the sudden. There had been quick breathing of striving swordsmen, and quiet, deep breaths of silent watchers—a quiet which Hiram Hey's conflict at the far side of the pinfold had scarce ruffled. But now it seemed as if Bedlam had let loose a second strife of tongues. The farm-men, maddened by the sight of blows, ran in at one another and fought for Wildwater or for Marsh. The dogs played Merry-Andrew with the sheep, and scattered them wide across the moor, and still pursued them. Cries of men, bleating of bewildered ewes, wild barking of dogs a-holydaying—and then, clear above all, Griff's shrill cry, "They flee, they free!"—and after that three flying horsemen steering a zig-zag course through sheep and dogs and wrestling farm-folk.And over all was the splendour of the mid-day sun, the wind among the ling, the deep, unalterable silence that lies forever at the moor's heart, whether men live or die, whether they fight or drink in peace together. Only the plover heeded the swift fight, and screamed their plaudits to the victors.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FEUD-WIND FRESHENS
It was high summer now on Marshcotes Moor. Everywhere the farm-folk were full of the busy idleness which comes when ploughing and sowing are over and the crops are not yet ready for the scythe or sickle. The lads found time to go a-courting in shaded lanes or up by the grey old kirk-stone; their elders did much leaning over three-barred gates, with snuff between a thumb and forefinger, while they talked of hay-harvest, of the swelling of corn-husks in the ear, of the feud which had been so hot in the spring and which now seemed like to die for want of fuel.
For a strange thing had chanced at Wildwater. The Lean Man, once dauntless, had grown full of some unnamed terror; and, though his arm seemed strong as ever and his body full of vigour, his brain was sapless and inert. His folk came to him with fresh plans for slaying Wayne of Marsh; and he turned a haunted eye on them, and said that naught could kill the lad. The cloud which had hung over Marsh House had settled now on Wildwater, and even the hot youngsters were chilled by a sense of doom. If the Lean Man had given up hope, they said, what chance had they of snaring Shameless Wayne?
And so the days went on, and the feud slumbered, and Janet was torn between sorrow for her grandfather and gladness that his malady left Wayne free from ambush or attack. Each day, indeed, seemed to bring fresh trouble in its train; for Red Ratcliffe, dumbfounded as he had been when their errand to Bents Farm had proved no wild-goose chase, was yet distrustful of his cousin. She had spoken a true word that day, and they had met Wayne; but there was some devilry hid under it, and haply she knew enough of the Black Art which had saved her lover to be sure no harm could come to him. Laugh at superstition as he might, Red Ratcliffe had not been cradled in the winds and reared among the grim wastes of heath for naught; he and his fellows were slow to acknowledge witchcraft and the boggarts that stepped in moorside tales, but the seed, once planted, found a rich soil and a deep in which to come to leaf. Little by little he was growing to believe that Janet was the cause of each discomfiture at Wayne's hands; and, while he let no chance pass of railing on her for a witch, he uttered many a scarce-veiled threat that soon he would throw all to the winds and hold her without leave of the Lean Man or the Parson.
As for Shameless Wayne, he had ceased to wonder that no fresh attack was made on him. He would die when Fate ordained, and nothing could alter that; but the farm-work, meanwhile, at which he laboured as distastefully and keenly as of old, was going grandly forward, and not sour Hiram Hey himself could say that the land had gone backward since he took the charge of it. Janet had been right when she named pride his strongest passion; and even his love for her, self-thwarted, could not rob him of a certain sober joy in raising crops in face of Ratcliffe sword-points and the keen-toothed winds. It was all uphill nowadays for Wayne of Marsh; and each new difficulty overcome gave him hard and sure content such as no wild frolic of his earlier days had brought.
Yet the summer bore hardly on him when he thought of Janet. No farm-hind but was free to couple with his mate; only the Master, it seemed, was doomed to go lonely through these spendthrift days of sun and warm south winds and ripening meadow-grass.
"Art gloomy, Ned, of late. Is it because the Ratcliffes scruple to come down and fight with thee?" said his sister, as they sat in hall one evening and watched the stir of bees among the roses that clambered up the window-panes.
"Nay, for I am always fighting one of them—and never more than after a week's idleness."
Her voice grew cold. "'Tis time thou didst turn from that—and time Marsh had a mistress. Are there no maids, save one, about the moorside?"
"None for me, nor ever will be. Besides, Marsh has its mistress; thou'rt not going to leave us, Nell?"
"By and by I must. Rolf is getting out of hand, and will take the old excuse no longer. Faith, I begin to think he loves me very dearly, for every day he thwarts me more and more."
"Thy place is with him, after all, and I'm a fool to think to keep thee here forever.—Where are the lads, Nell? Hunting still, I'll warrant."
"Ay. They are restless since they fought the Lean Man; each morning they seem to start earlier for the chase, and sundown rarely sees them home again."
"Well, it is making men of them. They are learning a shrewd turn of fence, too, and when their time comes they will know how to parry Ratcliffe cuts.—We wash the sheep to-morrow, Nell; wilt ride with me and watch the scene? If a red sunset be aught to go by, we shall have a cloudless day."
"To-morrow I cannot. 'Tis churning-day, Ned, and the butter is always streaked when I leave those want-wit maids alone with it."
"It is better that thou should'st not go," said Wayne, after a pause. "I was a fool to speak of it, Nell, for the washing-pools lie over close to Wildwater, and 'twould be unsafe for women-folk."
"Unsafe?" she echoed, with a quick glance at him. "Then 'tis unsafe for thee, Ned, and I'll not have thee go to the washing at all."
"That is folly, lass. I have a sword, and I carry less risks than a maid would.—A rare holiday the men would have, my faith, if I left them to wash the sheep at their own good pleasure."
"Take the lads with thee, then, if thou must go."
"I promised them they should go hawking until dinner-time, and after that they must come up; but why spoil a morning's pastime for them?"
"The old tales fret at times," she answered gravely, "and to-night I'm sad a little, Ned, like thee. The washing-pools lie near to Wildwater, as thou say'st, and thou know'st how Waynes and Ratcliffes first fell out."
"Tut! If I give heed to women's fancies, when shall I find an hour to move abroad in? The Ratcliffes have got their fill for a good while to come, and they'll keep well on the far side of the pools, I warrant. What, Mistress? Thy wanderings have brought thee supperless indoors," he broke off, as his step-mother opened the door softly and set down a basket of marsh-marigolds among the dishes and platters that cumbered the great dining-table.
Nell rose with no word of greeting and left them; and Mistress Wayne, glancing in troubled fashion after her, crossed to the window and leaned against it.
"I had better have stayed as I was, Ned," she said, smiling gravely. "Nell was growing kind—but that has passed now I have found my wits again."
He winced; for he knew that he, too, had felt less kindliness toward her since her helplessness had gone. Looking at her now, frail against the mullioned casement, he could not but remember that it was she, in her right mind as she was now, who had fouled the good fame of his house.
"Ay, andthouhast a touch of her aloofness, too," she went on. "I can read it in thy face, Ned.—Listen. I've had in mind to tell thee something these days past, but have never found the words for it. I wronged thy father—but not as deeply as thou think'st. Ned! Canst not think what it meant to me—the dreariness, the cold, the hardness of this moorland life? And when Dick Ratcliffe came, and promised to take me out of it——"
"See, Mistress, there's naught to be gained by going over the old ground," he interrupted harshly.
"But, Ned, there is much to be gained. Am I so rich in friends that I can let one as staunch as thou go lightly? Thou'rt midway between hate and love of me, I know, and if—Ned, if I were to tell thee I was less to blame—" She stopped and eyed him wistfully.
It was not in Shameless Wayne to resist this sort of pleading from one who had shared with him the bitter months of disfavour and remorse. They had been comrades in adversity, he and she; and was he to turn on her now because she could no longer claim pity for her witlessness?
"Thou need'st tell me naught, little bairn," he said.
"Ah, but I need! I was dying, Ned—dying for lack of warmth. And Dick Ratcliffe promised to take me into shelter; and I clutched at the chance greedily, as a prisoner would if one came and offered him liberty. But the wrong that Wayne fancied of me, when he found us in the orchard, I had never thought to do—never, dear. I was a child, and loved Ratcliffe because he showed me a way out of trouble; and I meant to go away with him because—how shall I tell thee, so as to make thee credit it? I had not a thought of—Ned, I was not wicked, only tired—tired, till I had no eyes to see the straight road, nor heart to follow it. I was hungering for warmth; the ghosts were so busy all about Marsh House, and I wanted the happy valleys, out of reach of the curlew-cries and the shuddering midnight winds."
Wayne put an arm about her. "It was worth telling, bairn," he said quietly, "and father would lie quieter if he knew that his honour had not gone so far astray."
"Thou'lt still keep a friend to me?" she whispered.
The gloom settled more heavily upon his face. "Thou talk'st as if I were thy judge," he said. "'Twas only in seeming thou didst the worst wrong to father—but what of me? Did I look so carefully to his honour? Or was it his own eldest-born who darkened his last days, who made his name a by-word up and down the country-side, who drank while a kinsman fought the vengeance-fight for him? Not if I work to my life's end to wipe off the stain, will it come clean."
"'Tis cleansed already, Ned, twice over cleansed—and there's one waiting who will give thee thanks for it. I met her not long since in the kirkyard, and I never saw love so plain on a maid's face." Her voice was eager, and the words came fast, as if she had given long thought to the matter.
"Mistress Ratcliffe, thou mean'st?" said Wayne, after a silence. "What ails thee, bairn, to be so hot for this unlikely wedding?"
"Because she is straight and strong, and full of care for thee; because, when an ill chance led me once to Wildwater, it was she who took pity on me and showed me a safe road to Marsh. Ned, she is the one wife in the world for thee; why wilt thou cling to the old troubles?"
He shook his head. "The troubles are new that stand 'twixt Janet and myself—and any day may bring forth more of them."
"Thy folk will be her folk, if thou'lt take her," she broke in eagerly. "She lives among rough men—there's danger every hour for her."
Mistress Wayne had struck the right note at last. Half willing as he was to be convinced, and imbued with the sense that the fairy-kist could give no wrong advice, he would yet have held obstinately to his old path. But he took fire at the suggestion that there was danger to the girl at Wildwater. Now and then a passing fear of it had crossed his own self-poised outlook on the situation; but a hint of it from another roused all his smouldering jealousy and passion.
"Danger? Of what?" he cried.
But Mistress Wayne had no time to answer; for the door opened on the sudden and the four lads came tumbling into hall, piling the fruits of their long day's sport in a heap against the wall.
"A rare day we've had, Ned!" cried Griff. "Ay, we're late for supper, but thou'lt not grudge it when thou see'st how many other suppers we've brought home to larder."
Wayne looked at the heap of grouse and snipe, conies and hares and moor-cock. "Well, fall to, lads," he laughed, "and I'll save my scolding till ye're primed against it.—Are ye still bent on hawking to-morrow, after this full day's sport?"
"Ay, are we!" cried Griff. "We're but the keener set to have another day of it."
"Then go; but mind ye come straight up to the washing-pool after dinner. 'Tis time ye learned the ways of farming."
The youngsters made wry faces at this as they settled themselves to the mutton-pasty.
"We met the Lean Man again to-day," said one presently, in between two goodly mouthfuls.
"And what said he to you?"
"Naught. He wore as broken a look as ever I saw, and when we rode at him with a shout——"
"Lads, lads, fight men less skilled at sword-play than the Lean Man," put in Shameless Wayne, smiling the while at their spirit.
"But he fled from us, Ned—minding the night, I warrant, when we took him in the back with yond stone ball. Yet they say he's always like that now; Nanny Witherlee tells me he sees the Dog at the side of every Wayne among us, and flees from that, not from us."
"Nanny is a fond old wife, with more tales on her tongue-tip than hairs on her thinning thatch."
"Yet—dost mind what I saw, too, that night in the garden?" said Mistress Wayne. "Brown, blunt-headed—I can see him yet, Ned, as he fawned against thy side."
Wayne did not answer, though he paled a little, and soon he made excuse to leave them.
"Where art going, Ned? We've fifty tales to tell thee of the day's sport," cried Griff.
"But have I idleness enough to listen, ye careless rascals?" laughed Wayne from the door. "I must see Hiram Hey and make all ready against to-morrow's work."
"Thou'lt not find him, for he was going into the Friendly Inn with shepherd Jose as we passed through Ling Crag."
"Was he?" growled the other. "Hiram is a poor drinker by his own showing, and a man with no spare time on his hands—but he has worn many a tavern threshold bare, I'll warrant, since he first learned to set lips to pewter."
And, indeed, Hiram wore a leisurely air enough at the moment. Stretched at his ease on the wide lang-settle of the Friendly Inn, he was handling a mug of home-brewed and watching the crumbling faces in the peat-fire, while shepherd Jose talked idly to him from the window.
"There's somebody got four gooid legs under him," said Jose, as the racket of horse-hoofs came up the road.
"Ay, by th' sound. Who is't, Jose?" answered Hiram lazily.
"Why, Mistress Janet fro' Wildwater. She's a tidy seat i' th' saddle, hes th' lass," said the shepherd, pressing his face closer to the glass to see the last of her.
"A wench can hev a tidy seat i' th' saddle, an' yet be leet as thistle-down."
"Ay, but she hes a snod way wi' her, an' all. I've thowt, whiles, she hed more o' th' free, stand-up look o' th' Waynes about her nor her breed warrants."
"Well, there's some say that, if wishes war doings, she'd hev a Wayne name to her back," said Hiram, shifting to an easier posture.
"Nowt o' th' sort!" put in the shepherd warmly. "Th' young Maister may hev been a wild-rake, an' he may be wilful i' farming-matters an' sich—but he'd niver foul th' owd name by gi'eing it to a Ratcliffe."
"That's as may be. But young blood's young blood, an' she's winsome to look at, as nawther thee nor me can deny."
"There war summat betwixt 'em, now I call to mind, afore this last brew o' trouble war malted. I've heard tell o' their meeting i' th' owd days up by th' kirk-stone when they thowt nobody war looking. But that's owered wi'. Tha doesn't fancy there could be owt o' th' sort now, Hiram?—Theer, get thy mug filled up, lad, for tha needs a sup o' strong drink to brace thee for th' long day's sheep-weshing to-morn."
"I'll hev my mug filled, Jose, lad—though I'm no drinker—an' I'll keep my thowts about th' Maister an' th' Wildwater lass to myseln. But I've seen what I've seen—ay, not a three week sin'—an' if iver tha hears 'at two folk are courting on th' sly, doan't thee say I didn't tell thee on 't, that's all."
"What didst see, like, a three week sin'?" asked Jose the shepherd, his head tilted gossip-wise to one side.
"Nay, I war niver one to spread tales abroad, not I. But it warn't a mile fro' where I'm sitting now, on th' varry road 'at runs past th' tavern here, that I happened on two folk standing fair i' th' middle o' th' highway. An' one war fearful like the Maister, an' t' other warn't so different fro' Mistress Ratcliffe; an' they war hugging one another summat fearful."
"Now, come, Hiram! Gossip's gossip, but I'll noan believe that sort o' talk about th' Maister."
"That's as it pleases thee, lad. I nobbut said 'at th' couple I saw war like as two peas to him an' Mistress Janet. Ay, an' they'd getten dahn fro' their hosses, an' she war crying like a gooid un i' his arms. Well, 'tis as Nanny Witherlee is allus saying, I fear me—if a blackberry's nobbut out o' reach, ye'll find all th' lads i' th' parish itching for 't."
"Well, I mun tak thy word for owt to do wi' courting," said the shepherd drily. "Tha'rt framing to learn nowadays thyseln, so they tell me."
"An' what about thee?" cried Hiram, roused from the tranquil gaiety which his bit of gossip afforded him. "I'd think shame, if my hair war as white as thine, Jose, to turn sheep's eyes on a young wench like Martha."
Jose chuckled, as if he could tell much but would not, and Hiram Hey grew more and more disquieted as he wondered if, after all, he had gone too slow with the first and last great courtship of his life.
While Hiram sat nursing his mug, and while the shepherd kept a quizzing eye upon his moodiness, the inn door was thrown open and three rough-headed fellows stamped noisily into the bar. "It smells foul," said one, stopping at sight of Hiram and the shepherd, and holding his nostrils between a dirt-stained thumb and forefinger.
"Ay," said another, "it's th' Wayne smell—ye can wind 'em like foxes wheriver ye leet on their trail."
"Yond's Wildwater talk," said Hiram to the shepherd, not shifting his position on the settle. "They're reared on wind up yonder, an' it gets into their tongues, like."
"Thee shut thy mouth, Hiram Hey; tha'rt ower owd to gi'e lip-sauce to lusty folk," said the foremost of the Wildwater trio, coming to the back of the settle and leaning threateningly over the old man.
Hiram lifted himself slowly into a sitting-posture. "There'sbreedi' us owd uns," he said; "th' race weakened by th' time it got to sich as thee."
"We'll see about that," said his assailant, and stooped quickly, his hands toward Hiram's throat.
But Hiram shot out his arms with unlooked-for vigour, and gripped his man under the arm-pits, and pulled him like a kitten over the high back of the lang-settle. Then he got to his feet, still hugging the other close, and gave a steady swing, and landed him clean over his left shoulder on to the sanded floor-stones.
"If awther o' ye others hes owt to say, I'm noan stalled yet," said Hiram, dropping to his seat again.
The fallen man did not move for a space; and then he clapped a hand to one knee with an oath. "There's summat broken," he groaned.
"Likely," put in Hiram Hey. "I've hed chaps mell on me afore, an' it mostly ends th' same way."
The two who were still unhurt helped their comrade to the door, and turned for a sour look at Hiram. "Turn an' turn about," said one; "there's summat i' bottle for all ye Wayne chaps, an' I'll look to thee myseln, Hiram Hey, when th' chance comes."
"Summat i' bottle, is there?" said the shepherd, after they had gone. "Th' Lean Man hes been fearful quiet lately; I feared he war hatching weasel-eggs. Ay, an' his men hev been quiet, an' all; 'tis mony a week sin' we hed ony sort o' moil wi' 'em."
"Well, I'm stalled o' wondering what's to happen next," said Hiram, yawning with great content. "I war all a-shiver when th' feud first broke out, an' ivery day I looked to be shotten at th' least, if not sliced up wi' a sword at after. But th' days jog on somehow, an' there's nowt mich comes to cross th' farm-wark."
"Yond war a shrewd lift o' thine, Hiram," said the shepherd presently, seating himself at the other side of the hearth.
"I learned to lift, lad, when I war a young un; an' ye doan't loss that sort o' trick so easy. 'Tis weel enough for these lads to be all for fighting wi' their fists—but let me get to grips wi' a man when he means mischief, say I, an' he'll noan do me mich harm.—Now, Jose, art bahn to get another mug-full? I'm fain o' laziness to-neet, an' I could weel sup another quart, though I'm nowt mich at drinking myseln."
Janet, meanwhile, had ridden straight home to Wildwater after passing the window of the Friendly Inn, and had encountered Red Ratcliffe as she led her horse round to stable.
"Dost ride from Marsh?" he sneered, blocking the stable-door.
"From seeing a better man than thou? Nay. I have no dealings with Wayne of Marsh."
"Thou'lt have no chance of such dealings by and by."
"Indeed?" Lifting her brows a little, but disdaining to ask his leave to pass the door. "Indeed, Ratcliffe the Red? I thought—it might have been but fancy—that somehow thou didst shirk talk with Wayne of Marsh?"
"The Lean Man does—but there's younger blood than his to carry on the feud. We're sick of waiting for the call that never comes, and soon we mean to show Nicholas that what he has not wit to compass, we can."
"So eager to clinch the bargain?" she mocked. "Should I make thee a good wife, think'st thou?—There, take him to stall thyself," she added, putting the bridle into his hand. "Iknowthou canst stable a horse, if thou hast scant knowledge of how to woo a maid."
"'Tis a knowledge I may gather by and by—and thou shall teach me," he answered, meeting her eye with more than his accustomed boldness.
CHAPTER XIX
HOW WAYNE KEPT THE PINFOLD
The marshland beyond Robin Hood's Well was noisy this morning with the shouts of men, the sharp, impatient bark of dogs, the shrill bleating of sheep. A warm, lush-hearted day of June it was, with a yellow sun rising clear of the flaked strips of cloud that hung about the middle blue of heaven, and a low wind shaking the budding heather-tips and wrinkling the surface of standing pools; just such a day as fitted a sheep-washing, for wind and sun together would be quick to dry the fleeces.
The washing-pools stood a few yards away from the stream that ran through Goblin Ghyll, and were no more than deepish holes dug out of the peat, bottomed and walled with sandstone blocks and rendered water-tight in a measure by lumps of marl worked in between the fissures of the stones. A narrow channel, fitted with a sluice-gate at the upper end, connected the streamway with the pools. On the right hand of each pool was a walled enclosure, into which the flocks were driven from the moor; on the left, a similar pinfold received the sheep as they were washed, and kept them penned there until each batch was ready to be driven off by its own shepherd.
Altogether, what with vigour of the sun-rays, and leisurely haste of loose-limbed shepherd folk, and brisk to-and-froing of excited dogs, the scene was a stirring one, contrasting strangely with the eerie hush which was wont to hang over this land of marsh and peat. Hiram Hey was there, his old heart warmed by the abuse, commands and ridicule which he dispensed with a free tongue to all comers. Jose the shepherd was there, with a kindly eye and a word in season for each particular member of his flock. There were other shepherds, too, from outlying portions of the Wayne lands, and thick-thewed farm-lads, and youngsters no more than elbow-high who, under pretence of helping to collect the flocks from off the moor, tried sorely the tempers of the blunt-headed, sagacious sheep-dogs, whose manoeuvres were thrice out of four times defeated by the interference.
"Well, Hiram, hast getten owt to say agen th' weather?" said Jose, splashing into the pool.
Hiram grasped the first of the ewes securely by its fleece, and half pushed, half pulled it to the brink. "Owt to say agen th' weather? I should think I hev!" he cried.
"I thowt as mich, lad. Trust thee to hev thy grumbles, choose what," panted the other, as he took the sheep bodily into his arms and plunged it under water.
"'Tis varry weel for ye poor herding folk to thank th' Lord for all this power of sun. But us as hes likelier wark—tilling, tha knaws, an' sich like—it fair breaks a body's heart, that it does. There's yond Low Meadow war bahn to yield th' bonniest crop o' hay iver tha set een on, if we'd nobbut hed a sup o' rain; an' now 'tis brown as a penny-piece—ay, fair dried i' th' sap, it is. But ye poor, shammocky sheep-drivers think there's nowt save ewes an' tups i' th' world."
"Poor, are we, say'st 'a?" snapped the shepherd who was working alongside Jose in the pool.
"Ay, poor as rattens," answered Hiram. "I allus did say a sheep war th' gaumless-est thing 'at iver went on four legs."
"There's folk more gaumless goes on two," put in Jose; "an' tha's getten a lob-sided view o' sheep, Hiram Hey; tha's all for beasts, an' hosses, an' pigs, an' tha willun't see 'at sheep are that full o' sense——"
The shepherd got no further with his speech; for the ewe which was being pushed toward the brink took a wild leap on the sudden, and landed fair into his arms before he had got his feet well planted on the bottom; and sheep and man went under the grey greasiness that covered the surface of the pool.
"Ay, they're sensible chaps, is sheep," said Hiram drily, while he watched the shepherd rub the water out of eyes and hair. "A beast now—nay, I'm thinking a calf wod hev hed more wit nor that."
"Well, an' wodn't tha knock dahn ony chap that framed to souse thee?" retorted Jose, undaunted still. "'Tis nobbut one more proof o' their sperrit.—Theer, lass, theer! Jose noan wants to wrangle wi' thee—theer, my bonnie—" His voice dropped into inarticulate murmurs as he took a fresh hold of the sheep and fell to rubbing her wool with a long arm and a knotty.
"Will th' young Maister be coming up, think ye?" asked a farm-hand by and by.
"He will that, if I knaw him," said Hiram grimly. "He telled me last forenooin he war coming to see 'at ye all kept to it.—Now, lads, will ye frame, or mun I come an' skift ye wi' my foot? I niver see'd sich a shammocky, loose-set lot o' folk i' all my days. Tom o' Thorntop, get them ewes penned, dost hear? Seems tha'd like to keep me ut laking all th' day while tha maks shift to stir thyseln."
The work went steadily forward, and soon the pinfolds on the far side of each of the two pools were all but full of ewes, shivering in their snowy fleeces. Neither did jest and banter flag, nor the gruff oaths of the shepherds as they gathered their flocks together under Hiram's wide-reaching eye.
"We mun hev a bit o' dinner i' a while," said Jose at last; "I'm as dry as a peck o' hay-seeds."
"I'll warrant," growled Hiram, and for sheer contrariness went off to see that a new flock was penned ready for the washing.
He gave a glance at the sun as he turned, and another across the sweep of peatland. "Begow, but it's bahn to be a warm un, is th' day, afore we've done wi' it," he muttered. "Th' heat-waves fair dance again ower Wildwater way. An' yond grass i' th' Low Meadow 'ull be drying as if ye'd clapped it i' an oven.—What, there's more coming to wesh sheep, is there? They'll hev to bide, I'm thinking, for a tidy while."
"What's agate ower yonder, Hiram?" called one of the shepherds. "Tha's getten thy een on summat, by th' look on ye."
"There's a big lot o' sheep coming, though they're ower far off for me to tell who belongs 'em," said Hiram, shading his eyes with both hands.
Two or three left work and crowded about him. The flock came nearer, followed by a press of men on foot and men on horseback.
"By th' Heart!" cried one. "They're Wildwater sheep, yond; I can see th' red owning-mark on their backs."
"Ay. Lonks they are, if my een's gooid for owt," said Hiram.
No man looked at his neighbour, and none spoke of those who rode behind the sheep, though the red-headed horsemen, sword on thigh, were twice as plain to be seen as the breed of sheep they brought to washing. Silently Hiram and his fellows returned to work; silently the Ratcliffes rode forward to the pinfold walls, while their farm-folk followed with the sheep.
Red Ratcliffe peered over the wall-top of the nearer pin-fold, and affected vast surprise at sight of the busy stir within. "What is this, lads?" he cried, turning to his kinsfolk.
"'Twould seem there's more than one has marked how fair a washing day it is," answered another, showing a like surprise. "They're not content with one pool, either, but must use them both."
"Whose sheep should they be, think ye? They're sadly lean, once they are rubbed free of dirt," went on Red Ratcliffe, who seemed to be the leader of the band.
"Nay, if there's aught poor in breed, father it on a Wayne," said the other.
Red Ratcliffe fixed his eyes on Hiram Hey, who was watching the pool with that daft air of simplicity which was his staunchest weapon in times of peril.
"We want to wash our sheep," said Ratcliffe.
Hiram lifted his head. "Oh, ay? Well, we shall noan keep ye long—say till six o' th' afternooin," he answered, and resumed his contemplation of the pool.
"Six of the afternoon? 'Tis easy to be seen, sirrah, that thou hast a taste for jesting," said Red Ratcliffe.
"We've scant time for jests, Maister, an' I'm telling ye plain truth. Ay, we'll be done by six o' th' clock, for sure—or mebbe a two-three minutes afore, if these feckless shepherds 'ull bestir theirselns. Jose, what dost tha think?"
"Think?" echoed Jose, rubbing hard and fast at the fleece of an old bell-wether. "Well, mebbe we shall win through by half-after five—but there's niver no telling."
Red Ratcliffe curbed his temper; for he had known many moor folk in his time, and this trick of "shamming gaumless" was no new one to him. He changed his key accordingly, seeing that his own rough banter would stand no chance against Hiram's subtler wit.
"Clear the pens of yond murrain-rotted ewes; we've some whole-bodied sheep to wash," he said peremptorily.
"Clear th' pens?" said Hiram, scratching his head. "Well, we're framing to clear 'em, fast as iver we can. An' as for th' ewes—there's been no murrain among Wayne sheep these five year past."
"Cease fooling, thou lousy dotard! Dost think we've come all the way from Wildwater only to go back again because we find a handful of yokels, belonging to God-know-whom, fouling the water of the pond?"
"Honest muck fouls no pools, an' I thowt onybody wod hev knawn we belonged to Wayne o' Marsh. Ay, for ye allowed as mich a while back—seeing, I warrant, what well-set-up chaps we war."
"Begow, that's th' first we've heard on 't fro' owd Hiram," muttered Jose the shepherd, chuckling soberly as he dipped another ewe.
"Ay," went on Hiram placidly, "there's none denies 'at th' Wayne farm-folk can best ony others i' th' moorside."
"Tha lees, Hiram Hey! Man for man, ye're childer to us as warks at Wildwater," cried one of the Ratcliffe yokels, gathering courage from the armed force about him.
"Settle that quarrel as best pleases you," cried Red Ratcliffe sharply; "meanwhile 'tis work, not talk, and if yonder pool is not cleared by the time I've counted ten—well, there'll be more than sheep dipped in it."
Hiram looked at him with a puzzled air. "Theer!" he said. "Th' gentry mun allus hev their little jests, an' I'll laugh wi' th' best, Maister Ratcliffe, when I find myseln a thowt less thrang. But orders is orders, th' world ower, an' when young Maister says 'at a thing's getten to be done, it's getten to be done."
"Where is your Master?" snapped the other. "'Tis a poor farmer lies abed while his hinds play."
Hiram's glance was a quick one this time, quenched under his rough grey eyebrows as soon as given. "So ye thowt he'd be here this morn?" he said. "Nay, he's noan a lie-abed, isn't th' Maister, but he's getten summat else to do."
"Has he? And what might that be?" said Red Ratcliffe softly.
"Shall I tell him?" muttered Hiram, half audibly. Then, after a pause of seeming doubt, "He's cutting grass i' th' Low Meadow," he said.
"Cutting grass at this time of year?"
"Ay, for sure. Wildwater land ligs cold, an' ye're late wi' crops up yonder; but th' grass lower dahn is running so to seed that it war no use letting it bide a day longer. It 'ull be poor hay as 'tis, an' all along o' this unchristian weather."
"So he'll not come to the sheep-washing?" broke in Red Ratcliffe, with a glance at his fellows.
"I've telled ye so," said Hiram, "an' telling ye twice willun't better a straight tale."
"I'm thinking Hiram hes a soft spot i' his heart for young Maister; I've niver knawn him tell so thick a lee afore," muttered shepherd Jose, as he went forward with his work.
Red Ratcliffe, looking down the streamway and wondering whether it were worth while to insist on his claim to the pool, laughed suddenly and jerked his bridle-hand in the direction of a horseman who had turned the bend of the track below and jumped the stream.
"Shameless Wayne will come to the washing after all," he said, and waited, stiff and quiet in the saddle, till Wayne of Marsh should cross the half-mile that intervened.
"I war mista'en, seemingly. Th' Maister mun hev crossed straight fro' th' grass-cutting," said Hiram, putting a bold face on it to hide a sinking heart.
The old man turned his back on the Ratcliffes, and his face to the upcoming horseman, whose head was thrust low upon his shoulders as if some gloomy trend of thought were dulling him to all sights and sounds of this fair June day.
"I framed weel, an' I could do no more," he said to himself; "but sakes, why couldn't he hev bided a while longer? Th' Ratcliffes 'ud hev been off to th' Low Meadow i' a twinkling, if I knaw owt.—What's to be done, like? He's a wick un to fight, is th' Maister, but there's seven o' these clever Dicks fro' Wildwater, an' that's longish odds."
Hiram stood for awhile, puzzled and ill-at-ease, watching his master draw slowly nearer to the pools; and then his face brightened on the sudden as he shuffled across to where two shepherd lads were talking affrightedly together.
"Set your dogs on a two-three sheep, an' drive 'em downhill, an' reckon to follow 'em," he whispered. "Then ye'll meet Maister—an' a word i' his lug may save him fro' a deal. An' waste no time, for there's none to be lessen."
The lads, catching the spirit of it, had already got their dogs to work when Red Ratcliffe's voice brought them to a sudden halt; for Ratcliffe, mistrusting fellows of Hiram's kidney, had marked his whispering and guessed its purpose.
"Come back, ye farm louts!" he cried, and turned to Hiram with a sneer. "Art fullish of wit, thou think'st? Dost mind how once before we matched wits, thou and I?"
"I mind," said Hiram. "'Twas when I told ye where th' Marsh peats war stored—but ye didn't burn mich wi' 'em, Maister, if I call to mind."
Red Ratcliffe laughed at the retort; for his eyes were on the horseman down below, and his mood was almost playful now that his prey seemed like to come so tame to hand.
"I'm flaired for th' Maister this time, that I am," muttered Hiram, as he, too, glanced down the slope; "but being flaired niver saved onybody fro' a bull's horns, as th' saying is, so I mun just bide still an' keep my een oppen."
The Ratcliffes passed a smile and a jest one to the other as they saw Shameless Wayne draw near and marked the heavy gloom that rested on him; for it pleased them that the man they loathed should have bitterness for his portion during the few moments he had yet to live.
Wayne did not glance up the moor until he had ridden within ten-score yards of them. He half drew rein on seeing the seven red-headed horsemen waiting for him on the hill-crest; and Red Ratcliffe, thinking he meant to turn about, was just calling his kinsmen to pursue when he saw Wayne drive home his spurs and ride straight up to meet them.
"Bide where ye are," said Red Ratcliffe then. "He's courteous as ever, this fool of Marsh, and would not trouble us to gallop after him."
"'Tis like him; he war allus obstinate as death, an' wod be if th' Lord o' Hell stood up agen him," groaned Jose the shepherd, as he left the water and joined the knot of farm-folk who stood aloof, expectant, and doubtful for their own safety and the Master's.
"I give you good-day, Wayne of Marsh," called Red Ratcliffe.
"I shall fare neither better nor worse for the same. What would you?" answered Wayne, halting at thrice a sword's-length from the group.
"Why, we would wash our sheep, and yonder rough-tongued hind of thine refused us. So, said I, as I saw you riding up the slope, 'We'll ask the Master's leave, and of his courtesy he'll grant it.'"
Shameless Wayne would never stoop to the Ratcliffe frippery of speech. "My courtesy takes no account of such as ye," he answered bluntly.
"Think awhile!" went on the other gently. "These pools were made for Waynes and Ratcliffes both in the days before there was bad blood between us. 'Tis our right as well as yours to use it when we will."
"And when we will. First come, first served.—Come, lads, ye're loitering, and half the sheep are yet unwashed," he broke off, turning to the farm-men.
Red Ratcliffe's face darkened. "The old wives say, Wayne of Marsh, that the first feud sprang up at this very spot, because it chanced that the Marsh and the Wildwater ewes came on the same day to the washing. I would have no lad's blood on my hands, for my part, so bear the old tale in mind, and give us room."
Wayne had his sword loose all this time, and his eyes, even when they seemed to rove, were never far from Red Ratcliffe's movements. "Your talk, sir, wearies me," he said. "Ye mean to strike, seven against one.—Well, strike! I'm waiting for you, with a thought of what chanced once in Marshcotes kirkyard to keep my blood warm."
The Ratcliffes were daunted a little by the downright, sturdy fashion of the man; and for a moment they hung back, remembering how Wayne of Marsh had met them time and again with witchcraft and with resistless swordplay. One looked at another, seeking denial of the folly which could credit Wayne with power to match the seven of them.
"Where is the Lean Man to-day? 'Tis strange he comes not to the sheep-washing," said Wayne of Marsh, as still they halted.
"He would not trouble," snarled Red Ratcliffe. "'Twas butchery, he said, for a man of his years to fight with such a callow strippling."
Wayne smiled with maddening coolness. "That is a lie, Ratcliffe the Red. He dared not come. The last I saw of him, he was riding hard—with my sword-point all but in his back. Well? Am I to wait till nightfall for you, or are ye, too, minded to turn tail?"
Stung by the taunt, Red Ratcliffe spurred forward on the sudden, and his comrades followed with a yell; and even sour Hiram Hey sent up a half-shamed prayer that the Master might come through this desperate pass with safety. Hiram, as a practical man and one who dealt chiefly with what he could see and handle, was wont to use prayer as the last resource of all; and his furtive appeal was witness that he saw no hope of rescue—no hope of respite, even—for his Master.
But Jose the shepherd had not been idle during that brief pause between Wayne's challenge and the onset of the Ratcliffes. He had watched Hiram's attempt to send a warning down the slope; and while the storm grew ripe for breaking, he bethought him that there were those about Wayne of Marsh who might yet serve him at a pinch. To one hand of the Ratcliffes were the ewes, ten-score or so, which they had brought to give colour to their quarrel; about the shepherd's knees were his two dogs, the canniest brutes in the moorside. A few calls from Jose, in a tongue that they had learned in puppyhood, a sly pointing of his finger at the Ratcliffe sheep, and the dogs rushed in among the huddled, bleating mass. The sheep were for making off across the moor, but Jose the shepherd shouted clear above the feud-cries of the Ratcliffes, and worked his dogs as surely as if this were no more than the usual business of the day; in a moment the flock was headed, turned, driven straight across the strip of moor that lay between Wayne and his adversaries.
Quickly done it was, and featly; and just as the Ratcliffes swept on to the attack, the ewes ran pell-mell in between their horses' feet. The dogs, wild with their sport, followed after and snapped, now at the sheep, now at the legs of the bewildered horses. Two of the Wildwater folk were unhorsed forthwith; three others were all but out of saddle, and needed all their wits to keep their beasts in hand; and Shameless Wayne, watching the turmoil from the hillock where he stood firm to meet the onset, laughed grimly as he jerked the curb hard down upon his own beast's jaw.
"I thowt 'twould unsettle 'em a bittock," murmured Jose the shepherd, stroking his chin contentedly while he watched the ewes driven further down the hill, leaving clear room between his Master and the rearing horses of the Ratcliffes.
"Dang me, why didn't I think on 't myseln!" cried Hiram Hey. "It war plain as dayleet, an' yond owd fooil Jose 'ull mak a lot of his cleverness when next he goes speering after Martha. Ay, I know him!—That's th' style, Maister!" he broke off, with a sudden, rousing shout. "In at 'em, an' skift 'em afore they've fund their seats again."
Wayne had seen his chance, and taken it; and now he was riding full tilt at the enemy, over the pair of fallen horsemen. Red Ratcliffe cut at him in passing, and missed; the rest were overbusy with their horses to do more than raise a clumsy guard; Wayne galloped clean through them, swirling his blade to the right hand and the left, and in a breathing-space, so it seemed to Hiram and the shepherd, the free moor and safety lay before him.
"Now, God be thanked, he's through, is th' lad!" cried Hiram. "Lord Harry, he swoops an' scampers fair like a storm-wind out o' th' North."
But Wayne would not take the plain road of flight; partly his blood was up, and partly he feared for the safety of his farm-hinds if he left them to play the scapegoat to these red-headed gentry. He wheeled about, and the discomfited horsemen, seeing him bear down a second time, were mute with wonder. But their fury was keen sharpened now; they glanced at the two fallen riders, trampled beneath Wayne's hoofs; they heard one of their comrades cursing at a wound that Wayne had given him as he rode through; a moment only they halted for surprise, and then, with a deafening yell ofRatcliffe!they closed in a ring about him.
"Five to one now. Come, the odds lessen fast," cried Wayne, as he pulled up and seemed to wait their onset.
But he knew that flight was hopeless if he let the full company attack him front and rear. One glance he snatched at the open moor behind, and one at the walled enclosure where the sheep had lately been herded for the washing.
"God's life, I'll trick them yet," he muttered, and reined sharp about, outwitting them, and rode hard as hoofs could kick up the peat toward the shelter of the walls.
"Is he a Jack-o'-Lanthorn, this fool from Marsh?" growled Red Ratcliffe, foiled a second time.
He thought that Wayne was trusting to his horsemanship, that he would double and retreat and glance sideways each time they made at him in force, hoping to get a blow in as occasion offered. But Wayne of Marsh had no such idle play in mind; he was seeking only for sure ground on which to stand and meet them one by one. He had marked the opening in the pinfold through which the sheep were driven, and he knew that, if he could once gain the wall, the battle would narrow to a run of single contests.
They saw his aim too late; and as Red Ratcliffe swerved and swooped on him, Wayne backed his horse with its flanks inside the pinfold. He had four stout walls behind him now; the uprights of the gateway were no more than saddle-high, and above them he had free space for arm and sword-swing. It was one against five still—but each of the five must wait his turn, and each must fare alone against the blade which, to the Ratcliffe fancy, was a live, malignant thing in the hand of this witch-guarded lad of Marsh.
Again the red-heads fell back, while the Marsh farm-folk, roused by the Master's pluck, sent up a ringing cheer. And Shameless Wayne, who had chafed under long weeks of farming, laughed merrily to feel his sword-hilt grafted to his hot right hand again, to know that he had cut off retreat and that five skilled swordsmen were at hand to give him battle.
"God rest you, sirs. Wayne and the Dog are waiting," he cried, and laughed anew to mark how they shrank from the old battle-cry.
But Red Ratcliffe, seeing his brave scheme like to go the way of other schemes as promising, lost doubts and shrinking on the sudden. Man to man, he was Wayne's equal, and this time he would settle old scores—would go back to the Lean Man with his tale, and claim Janet as the fruit of victory. A thought of the girl's beauty ran across his mind, a swift, unholy sense that it would be sweeter to take her thus, unwilling and by force, than if she had consented to his wooing; and the thought steadied heart and nerve, while it lent him fierce new strength. No cry he gave, but made straight at Wayne and cut across his head-guard. Wayne shot his blade up, withdrew it, and thrust keenly forward; and Ratcliffe parried; and after that the fight ran hot and swift.
Steel met steel; the blades hissed, and purred, and shivered; up and down, in and out, the blue-grey lightning ran. The men's breath came hard, their eyes were red with prophecy of blood; their faces, that in peace showed many a subtle difference of breeding and of courtesy, were strangely like now, set to a strained fierceness, the veins upstanding tight as knotted whipcord. Sons of the naked Adam, they fought with gladdening fury; and the naked beast in them rose up and snarled between clenched, gleaming teeth. Their very horses—that are full as men of niceties overlaid by breeding—went back to their old savagery, and bit one at the other, and added their shrill cries to the men's raucous belly-breaths.
The farm-folk held their breath and watched. The Ratcliffes, clustered in a little knot, followed each steel-ripple, each cut and counter-cut, and forgot for the moment to take sides from very love of swordsmanship. And then Wayne knocked the other's blade high up in air, and would have had him through the breast had Red Ratcliffe not jerked his left hand on the curb and dragged his horse round into safety. Wayne could not pursue, even had he been minded to leave his shelter, for another Ratcliffe was on him now, offering fight as stubborn as the first.
"My breath will fail," thought Wayne, and redoubled the swiftness of his blows, and cut his man deep through the rib-bones.
But there were three left yet, and Red Ratcliffe, smarting under his defeat, had brought guile to help him where force had failed. While the sword-din began afresh, and again Wayne settled to the desperate conflict, Red Ratcliffe got to ground, picked up the sword that had been ripped from out his grasp, and crept softly to the far edge of the pinfold.
"'Tis child's play, after all," he thought. "Lord, how the rogue fights, with never a thought that he can be taken in the rear."
Wayne—forcing the battle with all his might, lest breath should fail—could get no nearer to his man as yet; and meanwhile Red Ratcliffe had gained the wall behind him and was throwing one leg over.
"He cannot keep it up, can't th' lad," murmured Hiram Hey. "Sakes, I've a mind to run in myseln an' do summat—though I mun be crazy to think on 't.—Hallo, what's agate wi' Red Ratcliffe? He looks pleased-like, an' he's getten off his horse. Oh, that's it, is't? Well, I can do a bit o' summat, happen, after all."
Hiram moved briskly up to the pinfold and reached the hinder wall just as Red Ratcliffe was climbing over it; he set a pair of arms about his middle, as he had done to one of the Wildwater farm-folk not long ago, and put his muscle into the lift, and brought his enemy with a thud on to the peat five yards away.
"Fair play's a jewel ye've niver learned th' price on at Wildwater," he said quietly. "Ye war for sticking th' Maister i' th' back, as ye could no way meet him i' front? Well, there's two opinions about ivery matter, an' mine's th' reet un this time, I'm thinking. 'Twar a Providence, it war, that yond hind o' thine came in to th' Friendly tavern yesterneet; he braced me fine for hoicking feather-weights ower my shoulder, like."
The shepherds looked at Hiram, and then at Red Ratcliffe, who was lifting himself in dazed sort to a sitting posture; it was plain they needed but the one word to close round and stamp the life out of this treacherous hound who could aim to strike from behind when Wayne had proved his match in open fight. But Hiram had an old grievance to straighten—a grievance that had rankled ever since Red Ratcliffe interrupted his courtship on a long-dead day of spring—and he paid no heed to his comrades' meaning glances.
"So, Maister; ye fooiled me once on a time, as ye called to mind just now—an' now I've fooiled ye," said Hiram, stroking his frill of beard and watching Red Ratcliffe's lowering face.
"And, by Wayne's cursed Dog, the third time shall pay for all," snapped the other, making a second effort to stand upright.
"Mebbe, but I'm fain to hev squared th' reckoning, choose what comes. Ay, it war grand, warn't it, to get Hiram Hey to tell ye how mich ling an' bracken there war at Marsh, an' th' varry spot it war stored in? Ye went home fetching a rare crack o' laughter, I'll be bound, an' ye came that varry neet to mak use o' what I telled ye. What, ye're dizzy sick? An' I'm laughing. An' that's how th' world allus wags wi' them as thinks to best Hiram Hey."
Red Ratcliffe shook off his dizziness, and snatched a dagger from his belt. "Thou foul-mouthed sot, I'll teach thee to set thyself against thy betters," he cried.
Hiram stood, sturdy and stiff; he knew there was little chance for him, but still he hoped to come to grips with his assailant and crush his ribs in before he could compass a clean stroke with the dagger. He feared the upshot not at all, and even as he waited he smiled in his old sour fashion to think that he had settled his own private cause of quarrel with Red Ratcliffe. The wind, freshening from the west, brought up a sound of shouting with it; but Hiram had no eyes for what was chancing on the far side of the pinfold.
"Begow, I shall niver be wedded now to Martha," he thought; "a chapcango too slow, 'twould seem. Ay, well, I shall be saved a power o' worry, doubtless, an' wedlock's noan all cakes an' ale, they say. But, lord, I'd right weel hev liked to try it for myseln."
The fight at the pinfold was waxing keener all the while; but Shameless Wayne was hard-pressed now, and the first twinges of arm-tiredness were cramping his strokes a little. Yet his laugh rang deep as ever, and the sweetness of each stroke was doubled, since each must be near his last. One thought only held him, and that was a thought of pride—pride that he would die in the mid-day open, righting the old Wayne battle.
"He gives, he gives!" cried one of the two horsemen who were left to take their turn.
"Does he give?" panted Wayne, and made the quick cross-cut, following a straight lunge, which his father had taught him long ago.
The stroke told, and his opponent's bridle-arm dropped heavy to his side; but still he fought on, and still his comrades watched, eager to take his place the moment he fell back. Then Wayne was touched on the neck, and again on the side, just as Red Ratcliffe roused himself to leap on Hiram Hey.
Shameless Wayne in front, and Hiram, with whom he had waged many a stubborn contest, on the far side of the pinfold—it seemed that master and man would go out of life together, each dauntless, each proud in his own hard way, each ready, doubtless, to turn on the further shore of Death and take up some interrupted quarrel touching farm-matters—yet each dying because he had stayed to save the other when flight had been full easy.
Shepherd Jose, not caring to see such matters as he knew must follow, turned a pair of dim eyes down the slope, and started, and clutched his neighbour by the arm.
"In time—by th' Heart, in time!" he cried.
As if in answer to him, a swift, clear shout came up the moor, over the sun-bright sweep of ling.
"Wayne and the Dog. Hold to it, Ned! Hold to it."
Wayne knew the boyish voices, and his heart leaped, but he dared not let his eyes wander until the cry had been thrice repeated, until his adversary had given back for dread of the new foe. Red Ratcliffe, at the same moment, stopped half toward Hiram Hey, turning his eyes on the upcoming horsemen; then he raced for his horse, and sprang to saddle, and joined his hesitating band of comrades.
"Begow, that's a let-off, an' proper," said Hiram Hey, scarce comprehending yet that he was safe.
For a moment a silence as of night held the Ratcliffes, while they watched the four Wayne lads charge gaily up the slope, plucking their swords free of the scabbard as they rode.
"On to them; they'll break at the first onset," muttered Red Ratcliffe, and galloped down to meet them.
For the first time Shameless Wayne's heart grew soft and his nerve weak. They were over young, these lads who had been left to his care, to fight with grown men; what if one of them were slain in saving the life he had gladly given up a while since? But that passed; breathing again, he felt new strength in his arm, and as he crashed headlong in at the rear of the down-sweeping band, he swore that this thing should not be.
"Wayne and the Dog!" cried Griff, as he made at the foremost Ratcliffe.
"Wayne and the Dog!" roared Ned from the rear, and cleft the nearest Ratcliffe through the skull. And even as he wrenched his blade free, he laughed to mark with what elderly and sober glee these youngsters waged their maiden battle.
Front and rear the Ratcliffes were taken. Confused, hard pressed on every side, their blows grew wilder and more flurried. But still they held to it, and Wayne's four brothers had cause to thank the hard, monotonous hours they had spent in learning tricks of fence.
All was changed on the sudden. There had been quick breathing of striving swordsmen, and quiet, deep breaths of silent watchers—a quiet which Hiram Hey's conflict at the far side of the pinfold had scarce ruffled. But now it seemed as if Bedlam had let loose a second strife of tongues. The farm-men, maddened by the sight of blows, ran in at one another and fought for Wildwater or for Marsh. The dogs played Merry-Andrew with the sheep, and scattered them wide across the moor, and still pursued them. Cries of men, bleating of bewildered ewes, wild barking of dogs a-holydaying—and then, clear above all, Griff's shrill cry, "They flee, they free!"—and after that three flying horsemen steering a zig-zag course through sheep and dogs and wrestling farm-folk.
And over all was the splendour of the mid-day sun, the wind among the ling, the deep, unalterable silence that lies forever at the moor's heart, whether men live or die, whether they fight or drink in peace together. Only the plover heeded the swift fight, and screamed their plaudits to the victors.