CHAPTER XXHOW THEY WAITED AT THE BOUNDARY-STONERed Ratcliffe, and the two who had come through the fight with him, checked their headlong gallop when at last the pursuit died far in their wake. Their shoulders were bunched forward, their heads downcast; and not till the surly pile of Wildwater showed half a league from them across the moor did they break silence."There'll be a queer welcome for us from the Lean Man," said one."Ay, he'll shake off his palsy when we come to him with the tale of four men left behind us," answered Red Ratcliffe gloomily. "Lord, how his lip will curl! And his eyes will prick one like a sword-point, cold and bright and grey. And he'll flay our tempers raw with gibes.""Still, there's but one of the four killed outright; and when those boggart-shielded Waynes have left, we can return to help the wounded. They'll not butcher them, think'st thou?""Nay," sneered the third; "'tis part of their foul pride to play the woman after victory. Like as not they'll set them on some grassy hillock, with a wall to shield the sun from them, and give them drink, and nurse them into health against the next fight.""Nay, a month ago they would have done as much; but now? I doubt it," said Red Ratcliffe. "We've roughened Wayne at last, and I never knew what flint there was under his courteous softness till I crossed blades with him just now.""And yond four lads have had their first taste of blood. I've known boys do at such times what hardened men would shrink from.""Well, they will kill the wounded, or they will not. 'Tis done by this time, and we can have no say in it," put in Red Ratcliffe. "Od's life, lads, I relish the look of Wildwater less the nearer we approach it," he added, reining in his horse."What brought the lads up? Had they winded our approach, or was it just the old Wayne luck?" said one of his comrades, halting likewise. "Marry, there'll be an empty house at Marsh. What if we ride down before the Master's coming and fire the dwelling from roof to cellar?"Red Ratcliffe glanced quickly at him. "There's time for it, if we ride at once," he muttered; "and something we must do for shame's sake.""There'll be his sister there," said another, with a laugh; "trim Mistress Nell, who gives us such open scorn whenever we cross her path. She shall take scorn for scorn, full measure, if I get within reach of her mouth. Come, lads, let's do it! Burn them out, and carry the girl to Wildwater."A craftiness crept into Red Ratcliffe's face—a craftiness that showed him an apt pupil of the Lean Man's. "We'll waste no time on burning, lest Wayne and his cursed Dog come back while yet we're gathering fuel," he broke in. "But we'll ride down and snatch the girl, and take her up to Wildwater. Ay, and we'll lay no rough hand on her till Wayne has learned her capture."They nodded eagerly. "We shall save our credit yet. By the Heart, not Nicholas himself could have hatched a bonnier plot," they cried."Ay, the game is ours," went on Red Ratcliffe slowly, as they turned and rode at the trot for Marsh. "Those four ill-gotten youngsters have saved him, he thinks—but he shall find that they have killed him twice over by leaving Marsh unguarded.—The fool shall die once in his body and once in the pride that's meat and bread to him. Hark ye! We'll send down word that his sister is held at Wildwater, and he will come galloping up and batter at the gates, all in his hot way, with never a care of danger. We'll take him alive, and bring our dainty Mistress Nell into the room where he lies bound—and there's a sure way then, methinks, of racking his brain to madness before we pay him, wound for wound, for what he's done to us."His fellows drew back a little for a moment; the cool, stark devilry of the plot shamed even them, who had dwelt with the Lean Man and never hitherto found cause to blush. Then the thought of their defeat returned on them, and their hearts hardened, and they offered no word of protest or denial.From time to time, as they rode, the leader of the enterprise laughed quietly; from time to time he thought of some fresh subtlety whereby Wayne's anguish would be sharpened; but not until they had covered half the road to Marsh did he break silence. A little figure of a woman, with corn-bright hair and delicate, round face, was standing in the roadway, shading her eyes to look across the moor."'Tis the mad woman they keep at Marsh," said Red Ratcliffe lightly. "We aimed once before at the Wayne honour through their women. The omen speeds our journey."Mistress Wayne started as they came up with her, and turned to fly, but saw the folly of it. Keeping her place, she eyed them with the watchful, mute entreaty of a bird held fast within the fowler's net. Something in her helplessness suggested to Red Ratcliffe that he might find a use for her; the weak, to his mind, were fashioned by a kindly Providence to fetch and carry for the strong, and haply this mad creature might aid him to get Nell Wayne to Wildwater. Turning the fancy over in his mind, he stopped to question her."Well, pretty light-of-love? What wast gazing at so earnestly when we came up?" he asked.She answered quietly, with a touch of frightened dignity in her voice. "I heard the sound of cries and shouting far across the heath awhile since, and I feared there was trouble to my friends.""A right fear, too. Therehasbeen trouble, and your friends have just learned a bloody lesson from us, Mistress," said Red Ratcliffe, for mere zest in seeing her wince."Oh, sir, they are not slain? Tell me that they are safe.—Nell was right," she went on, talking fast as if to herself; "she would send her brothers to help him at the washing-pools instead of hawking.—Why did we let him ride alone so near to Wildwater?—They reached the pools too late.—Ah, God! and the one friend I had is gone." Again she turned her eyes full on Red Ratcliffe. "Is he dead, sir?" she asked wearily.A sudden thought came to him. "Not dead, Mistress, but dying fast," he answered. "Thou know'st the boundary-stone over yonder, where once he laid a Ratcliffe hand in mockery? Well, we met him there not long since as he rode to the sheep-washing, and I thrust him through the side.—Peace, woman! Thou may'st help him yet to a little ease before he dies.""Yes, yes, I will go to him. At the boundary-stone, you said——""'Tis not thou he cries for, but his sister. See ye, we're hard folk, and take a hard vengeance, but now that Wayne has paid his price we do not grudge him such a light request—and were, indeed, riding down to bid his sister come to him."She passed a hand across her eyes, while Ratcliffe's fellows glanced at him with frank amazement."'Twas Nell, not I, he asked for?" she said. "Are you sure, sir, that my name did not pass his lips?""Sure, quite sure. Pish! We've taken trouble enough, and now we'll leave thee to it. Go thyself if it pleases thee—but thou'lt rob the dying of his last wish if thou dost not hurry straight to Marsh and bring his sister to the boundary-stone."She halted a moment, then went with slow steps down the highway. And he who rode on Ratcliffe's left turned questioningly to him."What fool's game is this?" he asked."Nay, 'tis a wise man's game, thou dullard. I tell thee, Wayne may come straight home to Marsh, and meet us; we'll run no hazard that can be escaped. Nay, by God! This little want-wit will do our work for us, and bring Mistress Nell three parts of the way without our lifting hand or foot—and think how that will lighten one of our saddle-cruppers. We have Wayne safe, I tell thee, and we'll risk naught."Mistress Wayne was out of sight now, carrying a heart that was heavier for the knowledge that Ned had no thought of her in his last hour. A strange jealousy had wakened in her; why should it be Nell, not she, who was to soothe him at the last? She had loved him, surely, better than any friend he had—and now it was Nell, Nell only, whom he wanted. Well, she would bring her.Not for the first time did this frail woman wonder bitterly why she had been doomed to return to her right mind; yet never, amid all the remorse that had followed her awakening, had she felt one half the numbing sense of loneliness that went with her now."He is gone," she repeated for the twentieth time, as she went over Worm's Hill, and down Barguest Lane, and in at the Marsh gateway.Hiram Hey, meanwhile, had returned from pursuit of the Ratcliffe farm-folk to find that his betters likewise had given up the chase as hopeless. The four lads, indeed, would have ridden to the gates of Wildwater had not Shameless Wayne compelled them to turn back; and now they were gathered round the washing pool, chattering like magpies, while the yokels straggled back in twos and threes, and the dogs returned to their masters with frolic in one eye and shamed expectancy of rebuke in the other. The moor was dotted white with sheep, some standing in bewildered groups, some browsing on the butter-grass that grew at the fringes of the bogs. Wayne of Marsh was eyeing his brothers with a fatherly sort of care, seeking for wounds on them before he dressed his own."What, not a scratch on you?" he asked in wonder.Griff bared his left arm with ill-concealed pride and showed a deepish cut. "'Tis no more than a scratch, Ned. I took it from Red Ratcliffe," he laughed.And then his brothers, not to be outdone, showed many a trivial scar, which they had gleaned amid the give-and-take of blows."Thank God, it is no worse," said Wayne huskily. "I should never have found heart, lads, to go back to Nell if one among you had been lost.—There! Wash them in the stream, and dust them well with peat—and, faith, I'll join you, for my own hurts begin to prick."The streamway all about the pools was fouled by the trampling of dogs and sheep, of farm-men and rough-ridden horses, and the brothers moved further up the stream to find clean water for their wounds. As they passed the far side of the pinfold, their eyes fell upon the fallen Ratcliffes, unheeded until now in the turmoil. One was dead, his skull splintered by a hoof-stroke; the other three lay with their faces to the pitiless sun, and groaned.Wayne was harder than of yore; yet he could not let them lie there in their agony until the sun, festering their wounds, had made them ready for the corbie-crows already circling overhead. He stood awhile, looking down on them; and one, less crippled than his fellows, rose on his elbow and spat on him."Let me kill him, Ned—let me kill him!" cried Griff, in a voice that was like a man's for depth.Ned glanced at this youngster's face, and he remembered what his own blood-lust had been when he fought his first great battle in Marshcotes kirkyard, and bade them roof three fallen Ratcliffes over with the vault-stone. For it was as Red Ratcliffe had said; the fight was hot still in this lad, and he shrank from naught.Wayne set a hand on Griff's shoulder and forced him toward the stream. "Ay, lad, I know," he said quietly; "but thou'lt think better of it in awhile.—Set these rogues under shade of yonder bank," he broke off, turning to the shepherds; "take their daggers from them first, for they have a shrewd way of repaying kindness; and then look ye to their hurts.""We've hed a fullish day, Maister, I reckon," said Hiram Hey, going up the stream beside them and standing with his arms behind his back while he watched the brothers bind each other's wounds."Ay," said the Master grimly, "and 'twill be work till sundown, Hiram, if we're to make up for time lost."Hiram opened his mouth wide. "What? Ye mean to get forrard wi' th' sheep-weshing? At after what we've gone through?"Wayne nodded. "The lads here have come to learn how farm-work goes," he said; "and would'st thou teach them only how to idle through a summer's afternoon?""Nay, it beats me. Nay, your father war nowt, just now at all, to what ye are," murmured Hiram, scratching his rough head.—"Isn't it a tempting o' Providence, like, to wark i'stead o' giving praise that ye've come safe through all?" he added, under a happy inspiration.Wayne laughed. "Work is praise, Hiram, as thou told'st me once, I mind, when I was idling as a lad. See how thy old lessons stick to me." He turned to Jose the shepherd. "Get yond Wildwater sheep gathered," he said; "they'll stray back to their own pastures if thou'rt not quick with them. And when the day's work is over, bring them to the Low Farm, and we'll put a Wayne owning-mark on their backs—for, by the Rood, I think we've won them fairly.""Lord, Lord, I may be no drinker—but I could sup two quarts of ale, an' niver tak two breaths," said Hiram Hey forlornly.Again Wayne laughed as he clapped him on the back. "Come to Marsh, Hiram—and all of you—at supper-time to-night; and ye shall have old October till ye swim, to drink to these stiff lads who plucked us out of trouble.""That's sense—ay, he talks sense at last, does th' Maister," murmured Hiram. Then, bethinking him that it would never do, for his credit's sake, to show himself in anything more backward than the Master, he began forthwith to rate the farm-hands with something of his old-time vigour.And soon the pinfolds on either hand were full again of bleating sheep, and Jose and his brother shepherds were scrubbing hard in each of the two pools, and a chance passer-by could not have told, save for broken faces here and there, that a half-hour since these leisurely moving folk had been fighting hand-to-hand for the honour of their house.And so it chanced that Wayne, who might have been saved many a heart-ache had he ridden straight home to Marsh, as any man less obstinate would have done, was still at the washing-pool when his step-mother got back to Marsh. She had found Nell at the spinning-wheel, and had told her tale; and the girl had sat motionless for awhile, her head bowed over the yellow flax, her hands clenched tight together."You are our evil angel, Mistress," she said, looking up at last. "Since first you set foot on our threshold, disaster has followed on disaster. But for you father would be alive—""Nell, spare me! Do I not know, do I not know?"But Nell was pitiless. The news so rudely broken to her had brought a twelvemonth's hidden bitterness to the front, and she would not check it. "But for you the feud would have slept itself away—but for you Ned would be sitting at table yonder.—Mistress, how dared you come first to tell me of it?—Nay, hold your tears, for pity's sake; they'll bring no lives back."The girl rose, and would have gone out, but her step-mother stood in front of her, lifting up her hands in piteous entreaty."Nell, I want—I want to go with you; I loved him, too, and I think he'll be glad to see me at the last—if—if he's not dead by this.""Youwant to go with me? My faith, I'll seek other company, or go alone," flashed Nell, and left her there.Mistress Wayne had found a certain fluttering courage nowadays; see Ned she would and claim a farewell from him, without leave from Nell. The girl would not share her company; but the road was free to her—the road that led to the Wildwater boundary-stone. She waited only for a moment, then followed Nell whose figure she could see boldly outlined against the sweep of still, blue sky that lay across the top of Barguest Lane."I have brought disaster to them; yes, 'tis very true," she mused all along the bare white road.The girl had far outstripped her by this time; but she caught sight of her again, a long mile ahead, as Nell topped the hill at whose feet the boundary-stone was set. Full of eagerness to know the worst, Mistress Wayne quickened pace, though her feet ached and her head throbbed painfully. It seemed this ling-bordered stretch of road would never end.She gained the hill-top where she had last seen Nell, and glanced down in terror-stricken search of the body lying in the hollow; but naught met her eyes, save an empty road winding into empty space. Nor did a nearer view dispel the mystery: the boundary-stone stood gaunt, flat-topped and black, in the hot sunlight; the sand of the roadway was disordered as if a plunging horse had scattered it with hoof-play; but that was all.Where was Ned? He lay beside the boundary-stone, those evil folk from Wildwater had told her. Yet there was no blood upon the ground, nor the least sign to tell her that a man had been done to death here. Nell, too, was gone, completely as if the road had yielded, bog-like, to her tread and closed about her. Only the sad cries of moor-birds broke the stillness—these, and the far-off echo of horse-hoofs pounding over a stony track.Mistress Wayne sat her down at the roadside, among the budding heather. A great faintness stole over her; she felt her new-found hold on life slipping from her grasp. What had chanced to Wayne? Where was Nell? Was this some fresh delusion, nursed by the sun-heat and her hurried walk? She could not tell—only, she knew that the grey line of road was circling round her, that the sky seemed closing in."I—brought—disaster," she murmured, and let her head fall back among the heather.CHAPTER XXIWHAT CHANCED AT WILDWATERThe Lean Man was sunning himself in the garden at Wildwater, and Janet, sitting beside him, wondered afresh to see the dumb air he had, as of one who had crept from the trampling life of men and had no thought to return to it."The old trouble has left you, sir, to-day. Is it not so?" she said gently, chafing his cold hands in hers."Ay, it has left me, girl, for a little while. But the sun has no warmth in it, and the bees' hum sounds dead and hollow. Look ye, Janet, this is not summer at all; 'tis like an old man stammering love-vows and wondering why they sound so cold.—Are our folk hunting to-day?""Some of them have gone to wash the sheep. They said they would be home betimes, but the afternoon wears on.""If I were young again, lass! Sorrow of women, if only I were young again!" broke in the Lean Man. "To hunt the fox, and see the sheep come white and bleating from the pool, and feel the old gladness in it all." He fell back moodily into his seat. "A man has his day," he muttered, "and mine is over."He raised his eyes languidly as the garden gate opened and Red Ratcliffe and his two companions came laughing through."We've news, sir, for you," cried Red Ratcliffe.The Lean Man looked them up and down, and smiled with something of his old keenness, as he saw the stains of fight on them. "Ay, I can believe it," he said. "Bonnie news, I fancy, of Wayne and of those who thought to crush him when Nicholas Ratcliffe had failed. A wounded bridle-arm, a matter of two bloody cheek-cuts, and thy right thigh, lad, dripping through the cloth. Ye make a gallant band.""'Tis true, sir, he worsted us in fight," said Red Ratcliffe, sulkily.The blood came back to Janet's face. "Again he shows the stronger hand," she murmured. "Who says that Wayne of Marsh is unfit to have a maid's heart in keeping?""He worsted you," said the Lean Man to his grandsons; "is that why ye came with laughter in your throats, and mouths a-grin as if a man had ploughed a furrow 'cross them?""Nay, but because we used our wits when swords failed us, and trapped Wayne's sister; she is in the house now, safe under lock and key."The Lean Man roused himself. "A good stroke, lads!" he cried, slapping his thigh. "She's in the house, ye say? Then take me to her.""You had best go armed to talk with her," laughed he whose cheek was cut; "shame will out, sir, and I took these wounds, not from Wayne, but from the she-devil I carried hither on my crupper.""Good lass!" chuckled old Nicholas. "I like that sort of temper. She carries a dagger, then, to help keep up the feud?""She snatched my own from its sheath, and pricked me twice before I guessed her purpose. And all because I stooped my face to kiss her.""'Tis just what thou'd'st have done, Janet; eh, lass? Methinks thou'lt pair with this hot wench from Marsh," said the Lean Man, laying a jesting hand on the girl's shoulder."We shall pair ill, I fear," she answered coldly,—"as for the dagger-stroke—I should have aimed nearer the heart, grandfather," she added, glancing hardily at Red Ratcliffe."Thy aim for a man's heart is always very sure," her cousin answered, meeting her glance good-humouredly."Tut-tut! Thou'rt indifferent clumsy as a wooer, lad—but, by the Lord, thou hast a head for scheming. What, then? We've got the lass, and Wayne will follow.""That was my thought, sir. We'll let him bide awhile—till sundown, say—and then, just as his anxiousness on Mistress Nell's behalf is getting past bearing, we will send word that she is here, with a broad hint or so of what will chance to her before the dawn——""Ay, ay," broke in the Lean Man, "and he'll come, if I know him, as if his horse were shod with wind; and I'll brace my stiffened sinews once again; and an old sore shall be cured for good and all.""Will the Brown Dog carry its master through this pass, think ye?" cried Red Ratcliffe boastfully.The Lean Man's eagerness died swift as it had come. His hard lips shrank into senile curves. The dulness of a great terror clouded his hawk-bright eyes."The Dog? The Dog?" he mumbled, at the end of a long silence. "Ay, thou fool, 'twill conquer as aforetime. Useless, useless, I tell thee! The girl is here—well, he will find a way to rescue her.""But, sir, this is folly! What can he do with a score men waiting here for him?""What he did at Dead Lad's Rigg—what he did to-day at the sheep-washing—what he and his cursed hound would do, if ye, and I, and fifty times our numbers, fenced him round with steel.""Go, cousins. Grandfather is—is faint again. The fit will pass if ye leave him to it," said Janet, jealous always lest they should guess the secret which only she and Nicholas shared.The younger men glanced meaningly one at the other as they moved off. "Old brains breed maggots," muttered one."And so will Wayne before the month is old," answered Red Ratcliffe brutally, turning for a last malicious glance at Janet.He saw that the girl was following him with fearless, inscrutable eyes. A shadow of doubt crossed his triumph, and he cursed the boastfulness that had led him to tell his plans so openly in hearing of one who was well affected toward Shameless Wayne.The Lean Man sat on, his head between his hands, his feet working shiftlessly among the last year's leaves that still cumbered the neglected garden. "Not by skill of sword, nor yet by guile," he was saying, over and over. "We must go with the stream now—'tis useless striving—yet, by the Red Heart, I shall turn nightly in my grave if Wayne goes quick above ground after I am dead."Janet crept softly over the strip of lawn without rousing him, and went through the wicket that opened on the pasture-fields. Nell Wayne was here, then, and in peril—Mistress Nell, who had railed on her as a light woman because she had gained the love of Shameless Wayne, who had flouted her as if she were mud beneath her feet. A savage joy burned in the girl's heart for a moment; but after it there came the memory of Red Ratcliffe's words; and it seemed a poor thing to humble Nell if Wayne were to pay a better price for it. Could she do naught to help him?She smiled in self-derision. The last time she had sought to help Wayne, she had all but compassed his undoing. Yet how could she rest idle, knowing what was to come? As of old, she turned to the moor for help, and walked the heather feverishly; and not till the sun was lowering fast toward Dead Lad's Rigg did she return to Wildwater.Nicholas and Red Ratcliffe were in hall together, the younger man full of talk, the other taciturn and hopeless."The messenger has gone, sir," Red Ratcliffe was saying; "Wayne will be here before long—rouse yourself, for we're growing to lose heart at sight of you.""Give me the key of the room where Mistress Nell is prisoned. I want to speak with her," said Janet, coming boldly up to them."A likely request, cousin! The key lies safe in my pocket, and there 'twill stay.""When Janet asks aught, thou'lt give it her, thou cross-mannered whelp," put in the Lean Man sharply. A lack of courtesy toward his chosen one could rouse him even yet.Red Ratcliffe hesitated, then gave way to the old habit of obedience; but, as Janet took the key and crossed to the passage leading to Nell's prison, he followed her."I'll stay this side the door while thou hast speech of her," he said, with an ugly smile."As it pleases thee," she answered, opening the door and closing it behind her.She had meant to set the captive free, at any hazard to herself; but she was prepared to find her scheme thwarted in some such way, and she had a likelier plan ready framed against the failure of the first. It was not needful now to have speech at all of Nell; but lest suspicion should fall more darkly on her than it need she must go in.The room was low and small, lighted by a single narrow window that showed a sweep of purpling moor. Nell Wayne was sitting at the casement, her eyes fixed hungrily on the freedom that was almost within touch of her hand; she sprang to her feet as the door opened, and turned at bay; and when she saw who stood before her the fierceness deepened in her eyes and straight-set figure.For a moment they stood and looked at one another; and no Wayne had ever crossed sword more hotly with a Ratcliffe than these two women of either house crossed glances. For theirs was no chance feud, bred by a quarrel as to precedence in sheep-washing; it was the age-old feud that lies heart-deep between woman and woman, the feud that hisses into flame whenever love for the one man blows on the smouldering fire."You come to mock me, doubtless," said Nell at last."Thatwould be to mock my own pride, Mistress. I came with quite other thoughts.""I am honoured that the lady of the house sees fit—in a late hour, perchance—to give welcome to her guest.""Lower your voice, I beg. There's a pair of sharp ears at the door, and what I have to say will not bear listening to.—Hark ye, Mistress! I am going to pluck you out of this, and quickly.""How, you? I do not understand—I——""Nay, 'tis for no love of you I do it, but because they mean to use you as a lure to bring your brother up to Wildwater."Nell lost a little of her upright carriage. "Is that why they brought me here?" she asked slowly."For that—and with a thought of their own pleasure, doubtless, afterward. Shall I save your brother, Mistress, or will it defile him to owe safety to such as me?"Nell turned to the window again, and did not answer for a space. Then, "Go," she whispered faintly—"but I would God it had been any one but you.""AndIwould God I might save him alone, leaving you to nurse your pride in a cold lap. But fate is hard, Mistress, and compels us to travel over the same bridge; 'twould be well to hold your skirts, lest I touch them by the way.""Go, go! Say I wronged you—say anything, so only you keep Ned out of danger."Despite herself, Janet could not but mark how little this girl thought of her own safety, how much of the brother who, at worst, had only life to lose. "I shall have to leave you here awhile. Have you no fear?" she asked."None, save that Ned will knock at the gates while you stand dallying here."Janet turned to the door, then faced about, her bitterness craving a last word. "Remember, whether I lose or win, that 'twas all for Ned I did it. I would have seen you shamed, and gladdened at it."Some hidden softness slipped into the other's voice. She had endured suspense and misery, and now that help had come she weakened at the thought of peril. "Nay," she whispered, "you are a woman as I am, Mistress, and you know, as I know, how frail is the casket in which we keep our jewels. For love of her that bore you, you could never have looked on gladly and seen——"Janet glanced curiously at her. "You are right," she flashed, taking a dagger from her breast. "Mistress, I would have fought for you, had blows been needful. Take this, and if any troubles you while I'm away—why, you know how to use it. Only, strike for the heart next time, if you are wise."Red Ratcliffe was walking up and down the passage when she came out. He took the key from her, turned the lock sharply, and scanned her face for some hint of what had passed. For again he was puzzled, as he had been once before when he had suspected Janet's good-faith and had found it justified. Listen as he would, he had not been able to gather the drift of what passed between the girls; yet their voices, low and strained, did not sound like those of friends who talked of each other's safety."Well?" he said, putting the key into his pocket and laying a rough hand on Janet as she tried to pass him."My answer is to grandfather, sir. What I have said or not said is for wiser ears than thine."He laughed as a fresh thought came to him. "Gad, Janet, I see it now! This proud wench of Marsh disdained thee as a brother's wife, and thou didst take the chance to turn the tables on her. By the Heart, I believe thou'rt glad we brought her here."Janet hung her head, as if for shame of being found out. "Suppose I am?" she murmured.—"Yet, cousin, I had liefer thou hadst guessed naught of it.""Trick a weasel, and then look to hoodwink Red Ratcliffe," cried the other, pleased with his own discernment.—"Where art going, Janet?" he broke off, as she turned to the side-door leading to the fields."Where I list, cousin, without leave asked of thee or granted.""Nay, but I think thou'lt not go out of doors! To hate the sister is one thing—but thou'lt foil us with the brother if once we let thee out of doors."She thought of slipping past him first, but his bulk filled three parts of the narrow passage; so, curbing her tongue, she made him a little curtsey."Thou dost honour me to think I take sides against my folk," she said. "As it chances, I care not so much, after all, to go out, and grandfather will need me. Have I thy permission to go into hall and seek him?""One day I'll cut out that little tongue of thine, Janet, and clean it of its mockery. Go and welcome—and may the Lean Man have joy of thee."He followed her a pace or two, remembering that there were more doors than one which opened on the moor; then stopped with a shrug. He was no match, he knew, for Janet and her grandfather together, and if the girl were bent on going out, she was sure of winning the old man's consent. Besides, Nell Wayne was here, and it would take more than Janet's beauty, if he knew aught, more than her wit and quick resourcefulness, to keep Wayne of Marsh from galloping to the rescue.Janet found the Lean Man half-sitting, half-lying on the lang-settle, his eyes closed, his head resting in the hollow of one arm. She came and leant over the high back of the settle, and watched him with infinite sadness in her eyes. She knew the meaning of these spells of daytime sleep which were more akin to stupors than to healthy slumber; he had passed a night of terror, wrestling hour by hour with the Brown Dog of Marsh, and now weariness had followed, giving him uneasy dreams in place of fevered wakefulness."The Dog—flames of the Pit, he holds me—beat him off, there! Cannot ye see I'm helpless—beat him off, I say—his teeth are in my throat," muttered Nicholas, with closed eyes and tight-clenched lips."Grandfather, would I could cleave to you, in loyalty as in love," whispered the girl, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "What can I do, sir?" she went on hurriedly, as if he were awake to hear her. "I loathe myself for going—I should loathe myself if I stayed. Cannot I save Wayne without wronging you? See, sir, you'll gain nothing by his death—bid me go and snatch him from these red folk who are not worthy to be kin to you.""Wayne will win free—mustwin free—there's naught can pierce that armour," said the Lean Man, stirring in his sleep again.The girl's face brightened. This chance repetition of the thought that ever lay uppermost in the old man's mind was no chance to her, but an omen. "Wayne must win free," she echoed, changing the whole meaning of the words by a skilful turn of voice. "Wayne must win free. He has said it, and I will obey."Crossing the noisy boards on tip-toe, she opened the main-door, sped through it, and was lost amid the flaming sunset glory of the heath."Lost, all lost. God of the lightning and the storm, will you not strike Wayne dead for me?" cried the Lean Man, and woke, and gazed about him wonderingly.CHAPTER XXIIAND WHAT CHANCED AT MARSHAll afternoon the Marsh farm-hands had laboured at the sheep-washing, after their brisk skirmish with the Ratcliffes. There had been but one break in the work, and that was when Shameless Wayne and all his folk crossed to the nearest farm to stay their hunger. Nor would Wayne leave them afterward, though there was little need of him once the work had started again in good earnest. It pleased his mood to share and share alike, despite his wounds, with the unwilling labour he had forced from them; and the sun was going down redly and the rushes whispering their evening dirge when he set off for Marsh."Mind that ye bring the Ratcliffe sheep with you; I'd not lose them for the world," he said at parting, and rode light-hearted down the slope, the lads beside him, with a thought that home and a full meal and the sight of women's faces would be passing good.The hall at Marsh was empty when he went in, after leaving his brothers to put the horses into stable. Man-like, he felt aggrieved that there was none to give him welcome, when he had looked forward to such greeting throughout the journey home. Where was Nell? Or, failing her, surely his step-mother should be at hand somewhere. He went to the garden in search of them, but that was empty too; so he crossed to the kitchen, where he found Martha busy with preparation of the evening meal."Where is the Mistress? I can find her nowhere," he said, leaning against the doorway.Martha looked up from the joint that was turning on the spit, and settled herself into an easiful attitude that suggested a hope of gossip."Nay, I cannot tell ye, Maister," she answered. "I've been wondering myseln, for I've niver set een on her sin' afternooin. Mary telled me 'at Mistress Wayne came in, looking gaumless-like an' flaired, an' a two-three minutes at after Mistress Nell went out wi' her. But nawther one nor t' other hes comed back that I knaw on."Wayne nodded curtly to Martha and turned on his heel, cutting short her expectation of a pleasant round of doubt and fear and surmise."I would they were safe back again," he muttered. "Nell must be fey, to go wandering abroad at this late hour."A brisk step sounded behind him, as Nanny Witherlee entered by the outer door of the kitchen and hobbled across the rush-strewn flag-stones."Good-even, Maister. Is there owt wrang at Marsh?" said the Sexton's wife."Why, Nanny, what dost thou here?" cried Wayne. "Lord, nurse, thou wear'st thy eerie look, as if thou wert ringing God-speed to a dead man's soul. What ails thee to cross from Marshcotes after sundown?""Nay, I've heard th' wind sobbing all th' day, like a bairn that's lost on th' moor; an' th' wind niver cries like yond save it hes getten gooid cause. So, says I, at after Witherlee an' me hed hed our bit o' supper, I'll step dahn to Marsh, says I, for I cannot bide a minute longer without knawing what's agate."Wayne kept well in the shadow of the passage, for he shrank from letting Nanny see the marks he carried of the late fight—shrank, too, from showing how prone he was to-night to catch the infection of her ghostly speech. This bent old woman, with her sharp tongue, her outspokenness, her queer, familiar talk of other-worldly things, had never lost her hold upon the Master; she was still the nurse who lang syne had sent him shivering to bed with her tales of wind-speech and of water-speech, of the Dog, and the Sorrowful Woman, and the shrouded shapes that stalked at midnight over kirkyard graves. He had been no more than vaguely troubled hitherto by Nell's absence; but now he feared the worst, for he had never known the Sexton's wife make prophecy of dole for naught.Nanny stood looking at him all this while—trying to read his face, but baulked by the shadows that clustered thick beyond the fringe of candle-light."Well, Maister?" she said softly, as still he did not speak."Well, nurse? Dost think I'm still unbreeked, and ready as of old to shiver at thy tales?""Then there's nowt wrang at Marsh?""What should be wrong?""If all goes weel, why do ye stand so quiet there, Maister? An' why do ye hide your face when Nanny talks to ye?"Wayne forced a laugh as he moved down the passage. "Hunger puts strange fancies in a man," he said, "and 'tis long since I had bite or sup."Nanny did not follow him, but turned to Martha, who had listened with dismay to all that passed."Proud—allus proud," she said. "He niver wod own to feeling flaired, wodn't th' Maister. But I tell thee, lass, there's bahn to be sich happenings as nawther thee nor me hes seen th' like on.""We've hed happenings enough, Nanny—Lord save us fro' owt but peace, say I.""Lord save us, says th' wench! As if there war Lord to hearken save th' God that fills th' storm's belly wi' thunder an' wi' leetning. Cannot tha hear, Martha, lass? 'Tis throb, throb—an' ivery cranny o' th' owd walls hes getten a voice to-neet.—Hark ye! Th' Maister hes gone out into th' courtyard! An' there's Wayne o' Cranshaw's rough-edged voice. Th' storm is gathering fast, I warrant."Shameless Wayne, meanwhile, wandering out of doors to see if there were any sign of Nell's return, had found his cousin in the courtyard. Rolf had just ridden over from Cranshaw, and the four lads stood round his horse in an eager knot, telling him of the day's exploits and making off-hand mention of their wounds."Why, Ned, has the day borne hardly on thee? Thou look'st out of heart," cried Rolf, as Shameless Wayne came slowly across the courtyard.Wayne tried to shake off his forebodings. "Nay, 'tis not the day's work troubles me," he said. "We trounced them bonnily, Rolf, and these four rascals would have chased them to the Pit had I not held them in. Griff yonder will be a better swordsman than his teacher before the year is out.""Thou'rt wounded deepish, by the look of thee. Ned, I'd give a twelvemonth of my life to have fought beside thee at the washing-pools."Shameless Wayne laughed soberly. "'Twas worth as much.—There, Rolf! Thou'lt have thy chance, I fancy, by and by.""Then there's to be another battle?" cried Griff eagerly."Likely, thou man of blood," said Shameless Wayne, with a would-be lightness that sounded strangely heavy to Rolf's ears."What troubles thee?" he asked. "'Tis naught to do with the Ratcliffes, thou say'st?""With the Ratcliffes? I'm not so sure, lad. Nell has not come home since dinner, nor Mistress Wayne.—Ah, there's the little bairn at last; haply she can tell us what mad scamper Nell is bent on."Mistress Wayne was walking down the lane as if she could scarce trail one foot behind the other; but she glanced up as she came through the gate, and her weariness left her on the sudden. One startled cry she gave at sight of her step-son, and then she ran to him with outstretched hands."Well, what is it, bairn?" he asked."They said thou wast dying, Ned, and I never thought to doubt them. Tell me it is no dream; thou'rt living, dear—yes, yes, thy grasp feels warm and real. Ah, God be thanked!""They said. Who troubled to tell lies to thee?" cried Wayne, sore perplexed."Three of the Ratcliffes who met me on the moor."Wayne of Cranshaw looked at his cousin. "Trickery," he muttered."Ay, there's trickery somewhere.—Tell us more, bairn, about this ill-timed meeting."Little by little they drew the whole tale from Mistress Wayne—how they had bidden her bring Nell to the boundary-stone, how Nell had gone, she following; how she had seen her last on the hill-top, and then had found an empty road."I swooned, Ned, then," she finished, "and lay so for a long while. And when I came out of it I had no strength to move at first, and I thought the journey down to Marsh would never end.""I am riding to Wildwater, Ned. Who comes with me?" said Wayne of Cranshaw brusquely."All of us," broke in the four lads, with a gaiety ill-matching the occasion."Nay, youngsters, ye've done enough for the one day," said Shameless Wayne.—"Let's start forthwith, then, Rolf, and rattle their cursed house about their ears.""What, two against them all?" cried the little woman, aghast. "Ned, 'twould be throwing thy life away—ride up to Hill House and to Cranshaw first, and get thy folk about thee.""Mistress Wayne is right," said Rolf, after a pause. "We shall but throw our lives away if we go up alone—and what will chance then to Nell?"Still Wayne would not yield; the speed of his last battle was in his veins still, and he could not brook delay. And while they stood there, halting between the two courses, a red-headed horseman came at a wary trot down Barguest Lane. The summer dusk was enough to show that he glanced guardedly from side to side and kept a light hold of the reins as if to turn at the first hint of danger. Seeing the gate fast closed, however, he drew rein at the far side of it and peered over into the courtyard. He glanced at the men's belts first, and saw that they were empty of pistols; then turned his horse in readiness for flight."God's life the fool is venturesome," muttered Wayne. "What should he want at Marsh?""I've a message for thee, Wayne of Marsh," cried the horseman, still fingering the reins uneasily and striving to cover his mistrust with a laugh. For he had liked this mission ill, and only the Lean Man's command had forced him to it."A message, have ye?" said Wayne. "Your news is known already. Ride back, you lean-ribbed hound, before we whip you on the road."The horseman gathered confidence a little from the closed gate. "Soft, fool Wayne! We hold your sister safe at Wildwater, and the Lean Man, of his courtesy, bade me ride down and ensure you a fair night's rest by telling you what we mean to do with her. She will lie soft to-night——"The red-head, even while the taunt was on his lips, pulled sharply at the curb. But Wayne of Cranshaw was overquick for him. With a cry that rang up every hollow of the fields, Rolf set his horse at the gate, and landed at the rider's side, and dropped him from the saddle before he guessed that there was danger.Rolf steadied his horse, then was silent for awhile as he wiped his blade with unhurried carefulness."Dost see the plot, Ned?" he asked grimly, with another glance at the fallen horseman."Nay, I see only that Nell is in peril all this while—and that the Ratcliffes had need to rid them of a fool, since they sent him here to meet so plain a death.""He came, this same fool, to taunt thee into going to Wildwater, if I can read the matter—came to make sure that we should do just what thou wast so hot to do just now.—God, Ned!She shall lie soft to-night—how the foul words stick——""Ned, is there no end to it—no end to it?" broke in Mistress Wayne, clinging tight to his hand and keeping her eyes away from the body lying in the roadway just without."Get thee within-doors, bairn; 'tis no fit place for thee.""Not unless thou'lt come, too. Ned, I'll not have thee ride to Wildwater—keep within shelter while thou canst——"But her step-son shook off her hand. "Rolf," he said, coming to the gate and trying to read the other's face, "wilt come with me now to Wildwater?"Wayne of Cranshaw straightened himself in the saddle and gathered the reins with a firmer grip. "Nay, for we'll make sure—we'll go neither by ones nor twos, but take our whole force with us. Hast had supper, Ned? No? Well, thou need'st it if thou'rt to fight a second time to-day; so let the lads go fetch our kin from Hill House. I'll ride to Cranshaw for my folk, and we'll all fare up together.""Nay, we'll not wait—" began Ned.But Rolf was already on his road to Cranshaw, and Shameless Wayne, knowing that any other plan was madness, curbed his hot mood as best he might. He would have ridden to Hill House himself, but the lads pleaded so hard to go, and he had such crying need for food to brace him for the coming struggle, that he agreed at last."Be off, then, lads," he said. "'Tis a short ride, with no danger by the way, if ye'll promise not to turn aside for any sort of frolic."They scampered off to the stables to re-saddle their horses; and Wayne, as he watched them go, sighed for the boyish heedlessness which had been his not a twelvemonth ago. Griff's thoughts were all of danger, the thrill and rush of battle; and his sister's capture, it was plain, was no more to him than a fresh fight, in which the Ratcliffes would again go down before them."Ay, if it meant no more!" mused Shameless Wayne, and turned as his step-mother came timidly to his side."Come in to supper, dear. Thou need'st it, as Wayne of Cranshaw said," she pleaded, threading her arm through his and coaxing him indoors.The board was ready spread; but the brave show of pewter, the meats and pasties and piled heaps of haverbread, served only to make the wide, empty hall look drearier, and Wayne would not glance at the slender, high-backed chair which marked Nell's wonted seat at table.Hunger was killed in him; but he forced himself to eat, since food meant strength to fight Nell's battle by and by. And while he ate, the little woman sat close beside him, watching his every movement, and wishful, so it seemed, to speak of something that lay near her heart."Ned," she whispered, finding courage at last, "it was I who sent Nell across the moor to-day; and what she said to me was true—I have brought nothing but disaster on your house since first I came to Marsh. The man who lies outside there, Ned—the man whom your cousin slew—I was feared just now, seeing him dead. But need I be? God knows I would fain lie where he lies now, for then—then, dear, I should bring no more trouble upon those I love. Naught but disaster I've brought——""That is not true, bairn," said Wayne gently. "Many a time thou hast brought rest to me when none else could—no, not Nell herself.—Ay, once thou gav'st me hope that there was no such crying shame in loving awry," he added, with sudden bitterness. "What of thy wisdom now, bairn? Shall I woo Mistress Janet while I help tear Wildwater stone from stone?""It was no fault of hers, dear. How if she sorrows for Nell as much as thou, or I, or any of us?"But Wayne would not listen. "How the time crawls!" he muttered, as he pushed his plate away and rose impatiently. "Surely they are here by now. Hark! was not that the courtyard-gate? I left it unbarred against their coming. Didst hear it opened?""Ay, I heard it opened—and there's a footstep on the paving-stones.""Bairn, help me to buckle my sword-belt on again. I know there's luck goes where thy hand has rested."She helped him eagerly. "It is not all disaster that I bring, then? Thanks for that word, Ned; I needed it," she murmured, chafing her baby fingers against the stiff buckle.She was still striving with it, and Ned was stooping to help her, when the main door opened, and Janet Ratcliffe stood slender on the threshold, not laughing, but with an odd merriment lurking in her eyes and about her resolute mouth."I have come to our dearest enemy. Make me your captive, Wayne of Marsh," she said.He sprang back as if she had been less warmly flesh and blood; but Mistress Wayne smiled in her pleased child's fashion as she crept out of sight among the shadows at the far end of the hall."You have chosen your time well, Mistress, if a jest is in your mind," said Wayne."Nothing further, sir. Your sister is in dire peril; would less have brought me to one who has spurned my warnings oft aforetime?"He waited, frowning, till she should tell him more."Men's wits move like the snail does, methinks," she cried. "Am I less dear at Wildwater than Nell at Marsh? Send up to the Lean Man, sir, and say what dread things you will do to me, and see if he will not exchange his prisoner for yours."Wayne looked hard at her, doubtful still and bewildered by the heedless devilry of her plan. "You have risked much for the honour of my house," he said slowly."Nay, for the honour of a woman who had little deserved the infamy they planned for her.""But 'tis out of reason! You run too great a hazard, Mistress.—See, our plans are laid, and already the Cranshaw and the Hill House Waynes are on the road hither. Go back while you have time, Mistress.""I shall not go back, sir, for I know how hopeless are your plans. They have guarded Wildwater securely against attack; and even if you seemed like to force an entry they would make sure—how shall I tell thee, Ned?" she broke off, lapsing to the old familiar speech and turning her eyes shamefacedly from his."They would make sure of Nell's dishonour. That is thy meaning, Janet? God's life, that is a true word. Yet—when they learn that this capture was all thy doing, not mine, thou'lt have a rough welcome home to Wildwater?""There is always danger for me there," she said, her voice deepening; "but that should not vex thee, surely, Wayne of Marsh?"Shameless Wayne glanced neither back nor forward now. It seemed as if some hidden chord, frayed by the months of self-denial, had snapped on the sudden; her fearless strength, her man's power to frame a swift stroke of daring and to carry it through, her woman's fierce, unheeding tenderness—all these he understood at last—understood, too, that his love for her, nurtured in rough soil and inclement weather, had come to a hardier growth than pride. Before, he had lacked her, felt the keen need of possession; but now he loved her, and watched the old barriers crumble into unmeaning dust."Janet," he said quietly, not moving nearer to her yet, "dost think I care naught what chances to thee?""'Twould seem so, Ned. Twice I have told thee of the bargain made between the Lean Man and my cousins——""Nay, only hinted at it. What was this bargain, Janet?"Lower still her voice dropped. "That I should be given to the one who slew thee," she said.She glanced once at him, and for the first time since leaving Wildwater she felt a touch of fear. For Shameless Wayne had given a cry—a cry such as she had never hearkened to, so deep it was, so brutish in its rage against those who had agreed to this foul bargain. He sprang to her side—she could feel his arms close masterful about her—and then, with some strange instinct of defence, she forced herself away."Not that, Ned," she cried. "Is it a fit hour for—for softness?—And see, thou'rt wounded, Ned—and I've had no time to tell thee——"A dozen feints of speech she would have tried to keep him at arm's-length, but Wayne would none of them."There's one wound, lass, of thy own giving, that matters more than all the rest," he said."Hush! I'll not listen. There's work to be done—'twill not wait—it is no fit hour, I tell thee."The last flush of gloaming stained the dark oak walls, the spears and trophies of the chase that hung on them; it lighted, too, the girl's straight figure and bent head, as she shrank against the window—shrank from Wayne, and from the knowledge that her will was broken once for all. Ay, she was conquered, she who had lived her own life heretofore; what if she could hide it from him? Was it too late to escape into the free wilderness where she was mistress of her thoughts and secrets? It had been easy once, when they had met, boy and girl, to pass light love-vows at the kirk-stone; but this was giving all to him, and her pride rebelled, ashamed of its own powerlessness.But Wayne was not to be held in check. He wooed like a storm-wind, and like a reed she bent to him."It is a fit hour," he cried—"and what is to be done will wait, child, till thou hast told me—" He stopped, and lifted her face till she was forced to meet his glance."Told thee what, Ned?" she asked, not knowing whether her unwillingness were real or feigned."That thou'rt mine altogether—that thy thoughts are mine, and thy body, and thy pride—ay, that I've mastered thee."Wayne kept her face tight prisoned. She could feel his touch gain fierceness; his voice had a note in it not to be gainsaid."Ned, I will not say it—will not—" she faltered.And then on the sudden she put both arms about his neck, and laid her face to his, and, "Thou art my master—my master, God be thanked," she whispered.The good-nights of birds came sleepily from the dim garden; there was a stir of laggard bees among the flowers; and pride of summer reigned for its little spell with these storm-driven children of the moor. And frail Mistress Wayne, who had watched, mute and unheeded, from the shadows that seemed scarce more unsubstantial than herself, went out and left them to it.So for a space; and then a new sound was born of this restless, haunted night. Far off from Barguest Lane there came a shouting of gruff voices, and the sparrows in the eaves awoke to chirp a fitful protest.Janet turned in Ned's arms and glanced toward the door. "What is't, Ned?" she whispered."The Waynes are here," he cried—"and I'll take a lighter heart to Wildwater, Janet, for knowing——""But, Ned, thou didst promise not to go," she cried."Ay, but I've learned that from thee which makes me doubly set on going. Dost think I could let thee return now to the Lean Man's care?""Yes, yes! I tell thee, there's no danger but what I have faced before, and can meet again.""We were over-happy just now, girl; fate grudges that. Thou shalt not go, I say.""There! I knew 'twas folly to name theemaster. Hark how thou usest the whip at the first chance! Is every wish of mine to be thwarted now, to prove thy sovereignty?""Nay, for it's sure. But when I hear thee ask to fight my battles——""Whose else should I fight, dear lad?" she broke in, with pretty wilfulness. "See, 'tis the first thing I've asked of thee, and I will not take denial. Ride to Wildwater, thou and thy friends, and ye place Nell in peril, as I told thee. Send word that I am here, and she will be brought safely down to Marsh. Ned, try the plan at least! And if it fails, I'll let thee——""But what of Nell meanwhile? Each moment lost——""I left her my own dagger, and she has given proof already that she can use it. But there's no fear for her, unless ye drive my folk to bay."The noise without grew louder, and Wayne moved slowly to the door. How could he let Janet go? Yet how could he place Nell in greater jeopardy than need be? It was a hard knot to unravel, but the dogged self-denial of the past months stood him in good stead now."Thou shalt go," he said, and went out into the courtyard, wondering how best to send a message up to Wildwater.The Waynes had not come yet, however. The shouting he had heard was from the farm-hands, returning in gay spirits to the supper he had promised them. But their jollity had met with a sudden check. The moon was rising over Worm's Hill, and by its light the men were stealing awed glances at the Ratcliffe whom Wayne of Cranshaw had left lying by the gate."Nay, begow!" Hiram Hey was saying. "If this doan't beat all. First we mun sheep-wesh; then we mun fight; an' at after that we mun wesh an' wesh till our bodies is squeezed dry o' sweat. An' then, just as we think all's done, th' Maister mun needs go killing fair on th' Marsh door-stuns. We'll hev to whistle for yond supper, lads, ye mark my words.""Not for long, Hiram," said Wayne lightly. He was anxious to keep Nell's capture secret from all these chattering folk as long as might be.Hiram, no whit abashed to find the Master standing so unexpectedly at his elbow, thrust his hands still deeper into his pockets."Well, I'm hoping not," he said, in his slow way; "for I'm that droughty I scarce know how to bide. Wark's wark, Maister, I've hed as mich fighting as iver I can thoyle i' th' one day.""Get to the kitchen, all of you, and tell the maids I sent you," cried the Maister, disregarding Hiram's snarls."An' th' ale, Maister? October, ye said, if I call to mind—there's no weaker-bodied ale could fill th' hoil I've getten i' my innards.""Broach a fresh barrel, then," snapped Wayne, "and put thy mouth to the bung-hole if it pleases thee.""I wonder," said Hiram shrewdly to himself as he slouched off at the head of his fellows. "Th' Maister hes a queerish look, I'm thinking—trouble i' th' forefront of his een, an' behind it a rare gladsomeness. There's a lass in 't, mebbe—his face hes niver caught that fly-by-sky brightness sin' he used to come fro' coorting Mistress Ratcliffe i' his owd wild days."Shameless Wayne looked up the road to see if his kinsfolk were in sight; then at the retreating backs of the farm-men."Hiram! I want a word with thee," he called, following a sudden thought."I'll warrant. What did I say?" growled Hiram to himself, as he retraced his steps. "Lord, I wish th' lad's back hed niver stiffened, that I do; it's wark an' nowt but wark sin' he took hod.""Canst keep a still tongue when 'tis needful?" said Wayne abruptly."As weel as most, Maister.""The Mistress is taken by the Ratcliffes—taken while we were at the washing-pools."Hiram did not answer for awhile. "Oh, ay? Then we mun get her back again," he said at last, not showing a trace of his concern."AndIhave snatched the Lean Man's grand-daughter in return.""Now I knaw!" murmured the other. "I said no less wod set that light i' his een.—Well, Maister, an' what are ye bahn to do wi' th' wench, now ye've getten her?""I'm going to send her safe to her folk when they bring back Mistress Nell; and I want thee, Hiram, to get word taken somehow up to Wildwater. Thou know'st where to find one of their farm-hands, maybe, or——""Ay, that I do; for we fell in wi' one as we war coming dahn th' loin a while back, an' a rare laugh we hed at him. We sent a word ourselns by him to Wildwater, to axe when they'd like next to wesh sheep alongside th' Wayne lads. Let's see, now—he war wending Marshcotes way, an' it's owt to nowt 'at he's i' th' Bull tavern this varry minute.""I'll ride across, then, and see him; thank thee for the news, Hiram," said the Master briskly."Leave that to me, Maister. Kind to kind, an' th' gentry is poor hands at trafficking wi' sich as us. I'll say more to yond chap i' five minutes nor ye'd say i' a twelvemonth—an' he'll tak a straight tale, too, if I knaw owt. What's he to say, like?""That we hold Mistress Janet. That if my sister is not here by midnight, we'll pay coin for coin. That they can trust our honour better than we can trust theirs, and the moment Mistress Nell sets foot on the Marsh threshold, my prisoner shall go free likewise. Canst carry all that, Hiram?"
CHAPTER XX
HOW THEY WAITED AT THE BOUNDARY-STONE
Red Ratcliffe, and the two who had come through the fight with him, checked their headlong gallop when at last the pursuit died far in their wake. Their shoulders were bunched forward, their heads downcast; and not till the surly pile of Wildwater showed half a league from them across the moor did they break silence.
"There'll be a queer welcome for us from the Lean Man," said one.
"Ay, he'll shake off his palsy when we come to him with the tale of four men left behind us," answered Red Ratcliffe gloomily. "Lord, how his lip will curl! And his eyes will prick one like a sword-point, cold and bright and grey. And he'll flay our tempers raw with gibes."
"Still, there's but one of the four killed outright; and when those boggart-shielded Waynes have left, we can return to help the wounded. They'll not butcher them, think'st thou?"
"Nay," sneered the third; "'tis part of their foul pride to play the woman after victory. Like as not they'll set them on some grassy hillock, with a wall to shield the sun from them, and give them drink, and nurse them into health against the next fight."
"Nay, a month ago they would have done as much; but now? I doubt it," said Red Ratcliffe. "We've roughened Wayne at last, and I never knew what flint there was under his courteous softness till I crossed blades with him just now."
"And yond four lads have had their first taste of blood. I've known boys do at such times what hardened men would shrink from."
"Well, they will kill the wounded, or they will not. 'Tis done by this time, and we can have no say in it," put in Red Ratcliffe. "Od's life, lads, I relish the look of Wildwater less the nearer we approach it," he added, reining in his horse.
"What brought the lads up? Had they winded our approach, or was it just the old Wayne luck?" said one of his comrades, halting likewise. "Marry, there'll be an empty house at Marsh. What if we ride down before the Master's coming and fire the dwelling from roof to cellar?"
Red Ratcliffe glanced quickly at him. "There's time for it, if we ride at once," he muttered; "and something we must do for shame's sake."
"There'll be his sister there," said another, with a laugh; "trim Mistress Nell, who gives us such open scorn whenever we cross her path. She shall take scorn for scorn, full measure, if I get within reach of her mouth. Come, lads, let's do it! Burn them out, and carry the girl to Wildwater."
A craftiness crept into Red Ratcliffe's face—a craftiness that showed him an apt pupil of the Lean Man's. "We'll waste no time on burning, lest Wayne and his cursed Dog come back while yet we're gathering fuel," he broke in. "But we'll ride down and snatch the girl, and take her up to Wildwater. Ay, and we'll lay no rough hand on her till Wayne has learned her capture."
They nodded eagerly. "We shall save our credit yet. By the Heart, not Nicholas himself could have hatched a bonnier plot," they cried.
"Ay, the game is ours," went on Red Ratcliffe slowly, as they turned and rode at the trot for Marsh. "Those four ill-gotten youngsters have saved him, he thinks—but he shall find that they have killed him twice over by leaving Marsh unguarded.—The fool shall die once in his body and once in the pride that's meat and bread to him. Hark ye! We'll send down word that his sister is held at Wildwater, and he will come galloping up and batter at the gates, all in his hot way, with never a care of danger. We'll take him alive, and bring our dainty Mistress Nell into the room where he lies bound—and there's a sure way then, methinks, of racking his brain to madness before we pay him, wound for wound, for what he's done to us."
His fellows drew back a little for a moment; the cool, stark devilry of the plot shamed even them, who had dwelt with the Lean Man and never hitherto found cause to blush. Then the thought of their defeat returned on them, and their hearts hardened, and they offered no word of protest or denial.
From time to time, as they rode, the leader of the enterprise laughed quietly; from time to time he thought of some fresh subtlety whereby Wayne's anguish would be sharpened; but not until they had covered half the road to Marsh did he break silence. A little figure of a woman, with corn-bright hair and delicate, round face, was standing in the roadway, shading her eyes to look across the moor.
"'Tis the mad woman they keep at Marsh," said Red Ratcliffe lightly. "We aimed once before at the Wayne honour through their women. The omen speeds our journey."
Mistress Wayne started as they came up with her, and turned to fly, but saw the folly of it. Keeping her place, she eyed them with the watchful, mute entreaty of a bird held fast within the fowler's net. Something in her helplessness suggested to Red Ratcliffe that he might find a use for her; the weak, to his mind, were fashioned by a kindly Providence to fetch and carry for the strong, and haply this mad creature might aid him to get Nell Wayne to Wildwater. Turning the fancy over in his mind, he stopped to question her.
"Well, pretty light-of-love? What wast gazing at so earnestly when we came up?" he asked.
She answered quietly, with a touch of frightened dignity in her voice. "I heard the sound of cries and shouting far across the heath awhile since, and I feared there was trouble to my friends."
"A right fear, too. Therehasbeen trouble, and your friends have just learned a bloody lesson from us, Mistress," said Red Ratcliffe, for mere zest in seeing her wince.
"Oh, sir, they are not slain? Tell me that they are safe.—Nell was right," she went on, talking fast as if to herself; "she would send her brothers to help him at the washing-pools instead of hawking.—Why did we let him ride alone so near to Wildwater?—They reached the pools too late.—Ah, God! and the one friend I had is gone." Again she turned her eyes full on Red Ratcliffe. "Is he dead, sir?" she asked wearily.
A sudden thought came to him. "Not dead, Mistress, but dying fast," he answered. "Thou know'st the boundary-stone over yonder, where once he laid a Ratcliffe hand in mockery? Well, we met him there not long since as he rode to the sheep-washing, and I thrust him through the side.—Peace, woman! Thou may'st help him yet to a little ease before he dies."
"Yes, yes, I will go to him. At the boundary-stone, you said——"
"'Tis not thou he cries for, but his sister. See ye, we're hard folk, and take a hard vengeance, but now that Wayne has paid his price we do not grudge him such a light request—and were, indeed, riding down to bid his sister come to him."
She passed a hand across her eyes, while Ratcliffe's fellows glanced at him with frank amazement.
"'Twas Nell, not I, he asked for?" she said. "Are you sure, sir, that my name did not pass his lips?"
"Sure, quite sure. Pish! We've taken trouble enough, and now we'll leave thee to it. Go thyself if it pleases thee—but thou'lt rob the dying of his last wish if thou dost not hurry straight to Marsh and bring his sister to the boundary-stone."
She halted a moment, then went with slow steps down the highway. And he who rode on Ratcliffe's left turned questioningly to him.
"What fool's game is this?" he asked.
"Nay, 'tis a wise man's game, thou dullard. I tell thee, Wayne may come straight home to Marsh, and meet us; we'll run no hazard that can be escaped. Nay, by God! This little want-wit will do our work for us, and bring Mistress Nell three parts of the way without our lifting hand or foot—and think how that will lighten one of our saddle-cruppers. We have Wayne safe, I tell thee, and we'll risk naught."
Mistress Wayne was out of sight now, carrying a heart that was heavier for the knowledge that Ned had no thought of her in his last hour. A strange jealousy had wakened in her; why should it be Nell, not she, who was to soothe him at the last? She had loved him, surely, better than any friend he had—and now it was Nell, Nell only, whom he wanted. Well, she would bring her.
Not for the first time did this frail woman wonder bitterly why she had been doomed to return to her right mind; yet never, amid all the remorse that had followed her awakening, had she felt one half the numbing sense of loneliness that went with her now.
"He is gone," she repeated for the twentieth time, as she went over Worm's Hill, and down Barguest Lane, and in at the Marsh gateway.
Hiram Hey, meanwhile, had returned from pursuit of the Ratcliffe farm-folk to find that his betters likewise had given up the chase as hopeless. The four lads, indeed, would have ridden to the gates of Wildwater had not Shameless Wayne compelled them to turn back; and now they were gathered round the washing pool, chattering like magpies, while the yokels straggled back in twos and threes, and the dogs returned to their masters with frolic in one eye and shamed expectancy of rebuke in the other. The moor was dotted white with sheep, some standing in bewildered groups, some browsing on the butter-grass that grew at the fringes of the bogs. Wayne of Marsh was eyeing his brothers with a fatherly sort of care, seeking for wounds on them before he dressed his own.
"What, not a scratch on you?" he asked in wonder.
Griff bared his left arm with ill-concealed pride and showed a deepish cut. "'Tis no more than a scratch, Ned. I took it from Red Ratcliffe," he laughed.
And then his brothers, not to be outdone, showed many a trivial scar, which they had gleaned amid the give-and-take of blows.
"Thank God, it is no worse," said Wayne huskily. "I should never have found heart, lads, to go back to Nell if one among you had been lost.—There! Wash them in the stream, and dust them well with peat—and, faith, I'll join you, for my own hurts begin to prick."
The streamway all about the pools was fouled by the trampling of dogs and sheep, of farm-men and rough-ridden horses, and the brothers moved further up the stream to find clean water for their wounds. As they passed the far side of the pinfold, their eyes fell upon the fallen Ratcliffes, unheeded until now in the turmoil. One was dead, his skull splintered by a hoof-stroke; the other three lay with their faces to the pitiless sun, and groaned.
Wayne was harder than of yore; yet he could not let them lie there in their agony until the sun, festering their wounds, had made them ready for the corbie-crows already circling overhead. He stood awhile, looking down on them; and one, less crippled than his fellows, rose on his elbow and spat on him.
"Let me kill him, Ned—let me kill him!" cried Griff, in a voice that was like a man's for depth.
Ned glanced at this youngster's face, and he remembered what his own blood-lust had been when he fought his first great battle in Marshcotes kirkyard, and bade them roof three fallen Ratcliffes over with the vault-stone. For it was as Red Ratcliffe had said; the fight was hot still in this lad, and he shrank from naught.
Wayne set a hand on Griff's shoulder and forced him toward the stream. "Ay, lad, I know," he said quietly; "but thou'lt think better of it in awhile.—Set these rogues under shade of yonder bank," he broke off, turning to the shepherds; "take their daggers from them first, for they have a shrewd way of repaying kindness; and then look ye to their hurts."
"We've hed a fullish day, Maister, I reckon," said Hiram Hey, going up the stream beside them and standing with his arms behind his back while he watched the brothers bind each other's wounds.
"Ay," said the Master grimly, "and 'twill be work till sundown, Hiram, if we're to make up for time lost."
Hiram opened his mouth wide. "What? Ye mean to get forrard wi' th' sheep-weshing? At after what we've gone through?"
Wayne nodded. "The lads here have come to learn how farm-work goes," he said; "and would'st thou teach them only how to idle through a summer's afternoon?"
"Nay, it beats me. Nay, your father war nowt, just now at all, to what ye are," murmured Hiram, scratching his rough head.—"Isn't it a tempting o' Providence, like, to wark i'stead o' giving praise that ye've come safe through all?" he added, under a happy inspiration.
Wayne laughed. "Work is praise, Hiram, as thou told'st me once, I mind, when I was idling as a lad. See how thy old lessons stick to me." He turned to Jose the shepherd. "Get yond Wildwater sheep gathered," he said; "they'll stray back to their own pastures if thou'rt not quick with them. And when the day's work is over, bring them to the Low Farm, and we'll put a Wayne owning-mark on their backs—for, by the Rood, I think we've won them fairly."
"Lord, Lord, I may be no drinker—but I could sup two quarts of ale, an' niver tak two breaths," said Hiram Hey forlornly.
Again Wayne laughed as he clapped him on the back. "Come to Marsh, Hiram—and all of you—at supper-time to-night; and ye shall have old October till ye swim, to drink to these stiff lads who plucked us out of trouble."
"That's sense—ay, he talks sense at last, does th' Maister," murmured Hiram. Then, bethinking him that it would never do, for his credit's sake, to show himself in anything more backward than the Master, he began forthwith to rate the farm-hands with something of his old-time vigour.
And soon the pinfolds on either hand were full again of bleating sheep, and Jose and his brother shepherds were scrubbing hard in each of the two pools, and a chance passer-by could not have told, save for broken faces here and there, that a half-hour since these leisurely moving folk had been fighting hand-to-hand for the honour of their house.
And so it chanced that Wayne, who might have been saved many a heart-ache had he ridden straight home to Marsh, as any man less obstinate would have done, was still at the washing-pool when his step-mother got back to Marsh. She had found Nell at the spinning-wheel, and had told her tale; and the girl had sat motionless for awhile, her head bowed over the yellow flax, her hands clenched tight together.
"You are our evil angel, Mistress," she said, looking up at last. "Since first you set foot on our threshold, disaster has followed on disaster. But for you father would be alive—"
"Nell, spare me! Do I not know, do I not know?"
But Nell was pitiless. The news so rudely broken to her had brought a twelvemonth's hidden bitterness to the front, and she would not check it. "But for you the feud would have slept itself away—but for you Ned would be sitting at table yonder.—Mistress, how dared you come first to tell me of it?—Nay, hold your tears, for pity's sake; they'll bring no lives back."
The girl rose, and would have gone out, but her step-mother stood in front of her, lifting up her hands in piteous entreaty.
"Nell, I want—I want to go with you; I loved him, too, and I think he'll be glad to see me at the last—if—if he's not dead by this."
"Youwant to go with me? My faith, I'll seek other company, or go alone," flashed Nell, and left her there.
Mistress Wayne had found a certain fluttering courage nowadays; see Ned she would and claim a farewell from him, without leave from Nell. The girl would not share her company; but the road was free to her—the road that led to the Wildwater boundary-stone. She waited only for a moment, then followed Nell whose figure she could see boldly outlined against the sweep of still, blue sky that lay across the top of Barguest Lane.
"I have brought disaster to them; yes, 'tis very true," she mused all along the bare white road.
The girl had far outstripped her by this time; but she caught sight of her again, a long mile ahead, as Nell topped the hill at whose feet the boundary-stone was set. Full of eagerness to know the worst, Mistress Wayne quickened pace, though her feet ached and her head throbbed painfully. It seemed this ling-bordered stretch of road would never end.
She gained the hill-top where she had last seen Nell, and glanced down in terror-stricken search of the body lying in the hollow; but naught met her eyes, save an empty road winding into empty space. Nor did a nearer view dispel the mystery: the boundary-stone stood gaunt, flat-topped and black, in the hot sunlight; the sand of the roadway was disordered as if a plunging horse had scattered it with hoof-play; but that was all.
Where was Ned? He lay beside the boundary-stone, those evil folk from Wildwater had told her. Yet there was no blood upon the ground, nor the least sign to tell her that a man had been done to death here. Nell, too, was gone, completely as if the road had yielded, bog-like, to her tread and closed about her. Only the sad cries of moor-birds broke the stillness—these, and the far-off echo of horse-hoofs pounding over a stony track.
Mistress Wayne sat her down at the roadside, among the budding heather. A great faintness stole over her; she felt her new-found hold on life slipping from her grasp. What had chanced to Wayne? Where was Nell? Was this some fresh delusion, nursed by the sun-heat and her hurried walk? She could not tell—only, she knew that the grey line of road was circling round her, that the sky seemed closing in.
"I—brought—disaster," she murmured, and let her head fall back among the heather.
CHAPTER XXI
WHAT CHANCED AT WILDWATER
The Lean Man was sunning himself in the garden at Wildwater, and Janet, sitting beside him, wondered afresh to see the dumb air he had, as of one who had crept from the trampling life of men and had no thought to return to it.
"The old trouble has left you, sir, to-day. Is it not so?" she said gently, chafing his cold hands in hers.
"Ay, it has left me, girl, for a little while. But the sun has no warmth in it, and the bees' hum sounds dead and hollow. Look ye, Janet, this is not summer at all; 'tis like an old man stammering love-vows and wondering why they sound so cold.—Are our folk hunting to-day?"
"Some of them have gone to wash the sheep. They said they would be home betimes, but the afternoon wears on."
"If I were young again, lass! Sorrow of women, if only I were young again!" broke in the Lean Man. "To hunt the fox, and see the sheep come white and bleating from the pool, and feel the old gladness in it all." He fell back moodily into his seat. "A man has his day," he muttered, "and mine is over."
He raised his eyes languidly as the garden gate opened and Red Ratcliffe and his two companions came laughing through.
"We've news, sir, for you," cried Red Ratcliffe.
The Lean Man looked them up and down, and smiled with something of his old keenness, as he saw the stains of fight on them. "Ay, I can believe it," he said. "Bonnie news, I fancy, of Wayne and of those who thought to crush him when Nicholas Ratcliffe had failed. A wounded bridle-arm, a matter of two bloody cheek-cuts, and thy right thigh, lad, dripping through the cloth. Ye make a gallant band."
"'Tis true, sir, he worsted us in fight," said Red Ratcliffe, sulkily.
The blood came back to Janet's face. "Again he shows the stronger hand," she murmured. "Who says that Wayne of Marsh is unfit to have a maid's heart in keeping?"
"He worsted you," said the Lean Man to his grandsons; "is that why ye came with laughter in your throats, and mouths a-grin as if a man had ploughed a furrow 'cross them?"
"Nay, but because we used our wits when swords failed us, and trapped Wayne's sister; she is in the house now, safe under lock and key."
The Lean Man roused himself. "A good stroke, lads!" he cried, slapping his thigh. "She's in the house, ye say? Then take me to her."
"You had best go armed to talk with her," laughed he whose cheek was cut; "shame will out, sir, and I took these wounds, not from Wayne, but from the she-devil I carried hither on my crupper."
"Good lass!" chuckled old Nicholas. "I like that sort of temper. She carries a dagger, then, to help keep up the feud?"
"She snatched my own from its sheath, and pricked me twice before I guessed her purpose. And all because I stooped my face to kiss her."
"'Tis just what thou'd'st have done, Janet; eh, lass? Methinks thou'lt pair with this hot wench from Marsh," said the Lean Man, laying a jesting hand on the girl's shoulder.
"We shall pair ill, I fear," she answered coldly,—"as for the dagger-stroke—I should have aimed nearer the heart, grandfather," she added, glancing hardily at Red Ratcliffe.
"Thy aim for a man's heart is always very sure," her cousin answered, meeting her glance good-humouredly.
"Tut-tut! Thou'rt indifferent clumsy as a wooer, lad—but, by the Lord, thou hast a head for scheming. What, then? We've got the lass, and Wayne will follow."
"That was my thought, sir. We'll let him bide awhile—till sundown, say—and then, just as his anxiousness on Mistress Nell's behalf is getting past bearing, we will send word that she is here, with a broad hint or so of what will chance to her before the dawn——"
"Ay, ay," broke in the Lean Man, "and he'll come, if I know him, as if his horse were shod with wind; and I'll brace my stiffened sinews once again; and an old sore shall be cured for good and all."
"Will the Brown Dog carry its master through this pass, think ye?" cried Red Ratcliffe boastfully.
The Lean Man's eagerness died swift as it had come. His hard lips shrank into senile curves. The dulness of a great terror clouded his hawk-bright eyes.
"The Dog? The Dog?" he mumbled, at the end of a long silence. "Ay, thou fool, 'twill conquer as aforetime. Useless, useless, I tell thee! The girl is here—well, he will find a way to rescue her."
"But, sir, this is folly! What can he do with a score men waiting here for him?"
"What he did at Dead Lad's Rigg—what he did to-day at the sheep-washing—what he and his cursed hound would do, if ye, and I, and fifty times our numbers, fenced him round with steel."
"Go, cousins. Grandfather is—is faint again. The fit will pass if ye leave him to it," said Janet, jealous always lest they should guess the secret which only she and Nicholas shared.
The younger men glanced meaningly one at the other as they moved off. "Old brains breed maggots," muttered one.
"And so will Wayne before the month is old," answered Red Ratcliffe brutally, turning for a last malicious glance at Janet.
He saw that the girl was following him with fearless, inscrutable eyes. A shadow of doubt crossed his triumph, and he cursed the boastfulness that had led him to tell his plans so openly in hearing of one who was well affected toward Shameless Wayne.
The Lean Man sat on, his head between his hands, his feet working shiftlessly among the last year's leaves that still cumbered the neglected garden. "Not by skill of sword, nor yet by guile," he was saying, over and over. "We must go with the stream now—'tis useless striving—yet, by the Red Heart, I shall turn nightly in my grave if Wayne goes quick above ground after I am dead."
Janet crept softly over the strip of lawn without rousing him, and went through the wicket that opened on the pasture-fields. Nell Wayne was here, then, and in peril—Mistress Nell, who had railed on her as a light woman because she had gained the love of Shameless Wayne, who had flouted her as if she were mud beneath her feet. A savage joy burned in the girl's heart for a moment; but after it there came the memory of Red Ratcliffe's words; and it seemed a poor thing to humble Nell if Wayne were to pay a better price for it. Could she do naught to help him?
She smiled in self-derision. The last time she had sought to help Wayne, she had all but compassed his undoing. Yet how could she rest idle, knowing what was to come? As of old, she turned to the moor for help, and walked the heather feverishly; and not till the sun was lowering fast toward Dead Lad's Rigg did she return to Wildwater.
Nicholas and Red Ratcliffe were in hall together, the younger man full of talk, the other taciturn and hopeless.
"The messenger has gone, sir," Red Ratcliffe was saying; "Wayne will be here before long—rouse yourself, for we're growing to lose heart at sight of you."
"Give me the key of the room where Mistress Nell is prisoned. I want to speak with her," said Janet, coming boldly up to them.
"A likely request, cousin! The key lies safe in my pocket, and there 'twill stay."
"When Janet asks aught, thou'lt give it her, thou cross-mannered whelp," put in the Lean Man sharply. A lack of courtesy toward his chosen one could rouse him even yet.
Red Ratcliffe hesitated, then gave way to the old habit of obedience; but, as Janet took the key and crossed to the passage leading to Nell's prison, he followed her.
"I'll stay this side the door while thou hast speech of her," he said, with an ugly smile.
"As it pleases thee," she answered, opening the door and closing it behind her.
She had meant to set the captive free, at any hazard to herself; but she was prepared to find her scheme thwarted in some such way, and she had a likelier plan ready framed against the failure of the first. It was not needful now to have speech at all of Nell; but lest suspicion should fall more darkly on her than it need she must go in.
The room was low and small, lighted by a single narrow window that showed a sweep of purpling moor. Nell Wayne was sitting at the casement, her eyes fixed hungrily on the freedom that was almost within touch of her hand; she sprang to her feet as the door opened, and turned at bay; and when she saw who stood before her the fierceness deepened in her eyes and straight-set figure.
For a moment they stood and looked at one another; and no Wayne had ever crossed sword more hotly with a Ratcliffe than these two women of either house crossed glances. For theirs was no chance feud, bred by a quarrel as to precedence in sheep-washing; it was the age-old feud that lies heart-deep between woman and woman, the feud that hisses into flame whenever love for the one man blows on the smouldering fire.
"You come to mock me, doubtless," said Nell at last.
"Thatwould be to mock my own pride, Mistress. I came with quite other thoughts."
"I am honoured that the lady of the house sees fit—in a late hour, perchance—to give welcome to her guest."
"Lower your voice, I beg. There's a pair of sharp ears at the door, and what I have to say will not bear listening to.—Hark ye, Mistress! I am going to pluck you out of this, and quickly."
"How, you? I do not understand—I——"
"Nay, 'tis for no love of you I do it, but because they mean to use you as a lure to bring your brother up to Wildwater."
Nell lost a little of her upright carriage. "Is that why they brought me here?" she asked slowly.
"For that—and with a thought of their own pleasure, doubtless, afterward. Shall I save your brother, Mistress, or will it defile him to owe safety to such as me?"
Nell turned to the window again, and did not answer for a space. Then, "Go," she whispered faintly—"but I would God it had been any one but you."
"AndIwould God I might save him alone, leaving you to nurse your pride in a cold lap. But fate is hard, Mistress, and compels us to travel over the same bridge; 'twould be well to hold your skirts, lest I touch them by the way."
"Go, go! Say I wronged you—say anything, so only you keep Ned out of danger."
Despite herself, Janet could not but mark how little this girl thought of her own safety, how much of the brother who, at worst, had only life to lose. "I shall have to leave you here awhile. Have you no fear?" she asked.
"None, save that Ned will knock at the gates while you stand dallying here."
Janet turned to the door, then faced about, her bitterness craving a last word. "Remember, whether I lose or win, that 'twas all for Ned I did it. I would have seen you shamed, and gladdened at it."
Some hidden softness slipped into the other's voice. She had endured suspense and misery, and now that help had come she weakened at the thought of peril. "Nay," she whispered, "you are a woman as I am, Mistress, and you know, as I know, how frail is the casket in which we keep our jewels. For love of her that bore you, you could never have looked on gladly and seen——"
Janet glanced curiously at her. "You are right," she flashed, taking a dagger from her breast. "Mistress, I would have fought for you, had blows been needful. Take this, and if any troubles you while I'm away—why, you know how to use it. Only, strike for the heart next time, if you are wise."
Red Ratcliffe was walking up and down the passage when she came out. He took the key from her, turned the lock sharply, and scanned her face for some hint of what had passed. For again he was puzzled, as he had been once before when he had suspected Janet's good-faith and had found it justified. Listen as he would, he had not been able to gather the drift of what passed between the girls; yet their voices, low and strained, did not sound like those of friends who talked of each other's safety.
"Well?" he said, putting the key into his pocket and laying a rough hand on Janet as she tried to pass him.
"My answer is to grandfather, sir. What I have said or not said is for wiser ears than thine."
He laughed as a fresh thought came to him. "Gad, Janet, I see it now! This proud wench of Marsh disdained thee as a brother's wife, and thou didst take the chance to turn the tables on her. By the Heart, I believe thou'rt glad we brought her here."
Janet hung her head, as if for shame of being found out. "Suppose I am?" she murmured.—"Yet, cousin, I had liefer thou hadst guessed naught of it."
"Trick a weasel, and then look to hoodwink Red Ratcliffe," cried the other, pleased with his own discernment.—"Where art going, Janet?" he broke off, as she turned to the side-door leading to the fields.
"Where I list, cousin, without leave asked of thee or granted."
"Nay, but I think thou'lt not go out of doors! To hate the sister is one thing—but thou'lt foil us with the brother if once we let thee out of doors."
She thought of slipping past him first, but his bulk filled three parts of the narrow passage; so, curbing her tongue, she made him a little curtsey.
"Thou dost honour me to think I take sides against my folk," she said. "As it chances, I care not so much, after all, to go out, and grandfather will need me. Have I thy permission to go into hall and seek him?"
"One day I'll cut out that little tongue of thine, Janet, and clean it of its mockery. Go and welcome—and may the Lean Man have joy of thee."
He followed her a pace or two, remembering that there were more doors than one which opened on the moor; then stopped with a shrug. He was no match, he knew, for Janet and her grandfather together, and if the girl were bent on going out, she was sure of winning the old man's consent. Besides, Nell Wayne was here, and it would take more than Janet's beauty, if he knew aught, more than her wit and quick resourcefulness, to keep Wayne of Marsh from galloping to the rescue.
Janet found the Lean Man half-sitting, half-lying on the lang-settle, his eyes closed, his head resting in the hollow of one arm. She came and leant over the high back of the settle, and watched him with infinite sadness in her eyes. She knew the meaning of these spells of daytime sleep which were more akin to stupors than to healthy slumber; he had passed a night of terror, wrestling hour by hour with the Brown Dog of Marsh, and now weariness had followed, giving him uneasy dreams in place of fevered wakefulness.
"The Dog—flames of the Pit, he holds me—beat him off, there! Cannot ye see I'm helpless—beat him off, I say—his teeth are in my throat," muttered Nicholas, with closed eyes and tight-clenched lips.
"Grandfather, would I could cleave to you, in loyalty as in love," whispered the girl, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "What can I do, sir?" she went on hurriedly, as if he were awake to hear her. "I loathe myself for going—I should loathe myself if I stayed. Cannot I save Wayne without wronging you? See, sir, you'll gain nothing by his death—bid me go and snatch him from these red folk who are not worthy to be kin to you."
"Wayne will win free—mustwin free—there's naught can pierce that armour," said the Lean Man, stirring in his sleep again.
The girl's face brightened. This chance repetition of the thought that ever lay uppermost in the old man's mind was no chance to her, but an omen. "Wayne must win free," she echoed, changing the whole meaning of the words by a skilful turn of voice. "Wayne must win free. He has said it, and I will obey."
Crossing the noisy boards on tip-toe, she opened the main-door, sped through it, and was lost amid the flaming sunset glory of the heath.
"Lost, all lost. God of the lightning and the storm, will you not strike Wayne dead for me?" cried the Lean Man, and woke, and gazed about him wonderingly.
CHAPTER XXII
AND WHAT CHANCED AT MARSH
All afternoon the Marsh farm-hands had laboured at the sheep-washing, after their brisk skirmish with the Ratcliffes. There had been but one break in the work, and that was when Shameless Wayne and all his folk crossed to the nearest farm to stay their hunger. Nor would Wayne leave them afterward, though there was little need of him once the work had started again in good earnest. It pleased his mood to share and share alike, despite his wounds, with the unwilling labour he had forced from them; and the sun was going down redly and the rushes whispering their evening dirge when he set off for Marsh.
"Mind that ye bring the Ratcliffe sheep with you; I'd not lose them for the world," he said at parting, and rode light-hearted down the slope, the lads beside him, with a thought that home and a full meal and the sight of women's faces would be passing good.
The hall at Marsh was empty when he went in, after leaving his brothers to put the horses into stable. Man-like, he felt aggrieved that there was none to give him welcome, when he had looked forward to such greeting throughout the journey home. Where was Nell? Or, failing her, surely his step-mother should be at hand somewhere. He went to the garden in search of them, but that was empty too; so he crossed to the kitchen, where he found Martha busy with preparation of the evening meal.
"Where is the Mistress? I can find her nowhere," he said, leaning against the doorway.
Martha looked up from the joint that was turning on the spit, and settled herself into an easiful attitude that suggested a hope of gossip.
"Nay, I cannot tell ye, Maister," she answered. "I've been wondering myseln, for I've niver set een on her sin' afternooin. Mary telled me 'at Mistress Wayne came in, looking gaumless-like an' flaired, an' a two-three minutes at after Mistress Nell went out wi' her. But nawther one nor t' other hes comed back that I knaw on."
Wayne nodded curtly to Martha and turned on his heel, cutting short her expectation of a pleasant round of doubt and fear and surmise.
"I would they were safe back again," he muttered. "Nell must be fey, to go wandering abroad at this late hour."
A brisk step sounded behind him, as Nanny Witherlee entered by the outer door of the kitchen and hobbled across the rush-strewn flag-stones.
"Good-even, Maister. Is there owt wrang at Marsh?" said the Sexton's wife.
"Why, Nanny, what dost thou here?" cried Wayne. "Lord, nurse, thou wear'st thy eerie look, as if thou wert ringing God-speed to a dead man's soul. What ails thee to cross from Marshcotes after sundown?"
"Nay, I've heard th' wind sobbing all th' day, like a bairn that's lost on th' moor; an' th' wind niver cries like yond save it hes getten gooid cause. So, says I, at after Witherlee an' me hed hed our bit o' supper, I'll step dahn to Marsh, says I, for I cannot bide a minute longer without knawing what's agate."
Wayne kept well in the shadow of the passage, for he shrank from letting Nanny see the marks he carried of the late fight—shrank, too, from showing how prone he was to-night to catch the infection of her ghostly speech. This bent old woman, with her sharp tongue, her outspokenness, her queer, familiar talk of other-worldly things, had never lost her hold upon the Master; she was still the nurse who lang syne had sent him shivering to bed with her tales of wind-speech and of water-speech, of the Dog, and the Sorrowful Woman, and the shrouded shapes that stalked at midnight over kirkyard graves. He had been no more than vaguely troubled hitherto by Nell's absence; but now he feared the worst, for he had never known the Sexton's wife make prophecy of dole for naught.
Nanny stood looking at him all this while—trying to read his face, but baulked by the shadows that clustered thick beyond the fringe of candle-light.
"Well, Maister?" she said softly, as still he did not speak.
"Well, nurse? Dost think I'm still unbreeked, and ready as of old to shiver at thy tales?"
"Then there's nowt wrang at Marsh?"
"What should be wrong?"
"If all goes weel, why do ye stand so quiet there, Maister? An' why do ye hide your face when Nanny talks to ye?"
Wayne forced a laugh as he moved down the passage. "Hunger puts strange fancies in a man," he said, "and 'tis long since I had bite or sup."
Nanny did not follow him, but turned to Martha, who had listened with dismay to all that passed.
"Proud—allus proud," she said. "He niver wod own to feeling flaired, wodn't th' Maister. But I tell thee, lass, there's bahn to be sich happenings as nawther thee nor me hes seen th' like on."
"We've hed happenings enough, Nanny—Lord save us fro' owt but peace, say I."
"Lord save us, says th' wench! As if there war Lord to hearken save th' God that fills th' storm's belly wi' thunder an' wi' leetning. Cannot tha hear, Martha, lass? 'Tis throb, throb—an' ivery cranny o' th' owd walls hes getten a voice to-neet.—Hark ye! Th' Maister hes gone out into th' courtyard! An' there's Wayne o' Cranshaw's rough-edged voice. Th' storm is gathering fast, I warrant."
Shameless Wayne, meanwhile, wandering out of doors to see if there were any sign of Nell's return, had found his cousin in the courtyard. Rolf had just ridden over from Cranshaw, and the four lads stood round his horse in an eager knot, telling him of the day's exploits and making off-hand mention of their wounds.
"Why, Ned, has the day borne hardly on thee? Thou look'st out of heart," cried Rolf, as Shameless Wayne came slowly across the courtyard.
Wayne tried to shake off his forebodings. "Nay, 'tis not the day's work troubles me," he said. "We trounced them bonnily, Rolf, and these four rascals would have chased them to the Pit had I not held them in. Griff yonder will be a better swordsman than his teacher before the year is out."
"Thou'rt wounded deepish, by the look of thee. Ned, I'd give a twelvemonth of my life to have fought beside thee at the washing-pools."
Shameless Wayne laughed soberly. "'Twas worth as much.—There, Rolf! Thou'lt have thy chance, I fancy, by and by."
"Then there's to be another battle?" cried Griff eagerly.
"Likely, thou man of blood," said Shameless Wayne, with a would-be lightness that sounded strangely heavy to Rolf's ears.
"What troubles thee?" he asked. "'Tis naught to do with the Ratcliffes, thou say'st?"
"With the Ratcliffes? I'm not so sure, lad. Nell has not come home since dinner, nor Mistress Wayne.—Ah, there's the little bairn at last; haply she can tell us what mad scamper Nell is bent on."
Mistress Wayne was walking down the lane as if she could scarce trail one foot behind the other; but she glanced up as she came through the gate, and her weariness left her on the sudden. One startled cry she gave at sight of her step-son, and then she ran to him with outstretched hands.
"Well, what is it, bairn?" he asked.
"They said thou wast dying, Ned, and I never thought to doubt them. Tell me it is no dream; thou'rt living, dear—yes, yes, thy grasp feels warm and real. Ah, God be thanked!"
"They said. Who troubled to tell lies to thee?" cried Wayne, sore perplexed.
"Three of the Ratcliffes who met me on the moor."
Wayne of Cranshaw looked at his cousin. "Trickery," he muttered.
"Ay, there's trickery somewhere.—Tell us more, bairn, about this ill-timed meeting."
Little by little they drew the whole tale from Mistress Wayne—how they had bidden her bring Nell to the boundary-stone, how Nell had gone, she following; how she had seen her last on the hill-top, and then had found an empty road.
"I swooned, Ned, then," she finished, "and lay so for a long while. And when I came out of it I had no strength to move at first, and I thought the journey down to Marsh would never end."
"I am riding to Wildwater, Ned. Who comes with me?" said Wayne of Cranshaw brusquely.
"All of us," broke in the four lads, with a gaiety ill-matching the occasion.
"Nay, youngsters, ye've done enough for the one day," said Shameless Wayne.—"Let's start forthwith, then, Rolf, and rattle their cursed house about their ears."
"What, two against them all?" cried the little woman, aghast. "Ned, 'twould be throwing thy life away—ride up to Hill House and to Cranshaw first, and get thy folk about thee."
"Mistress Wayne is right," said Rolf, after a pause. "We shall but throw our lives away if we go up alone—and what will chance then to Nell?"
Still Wayne would not yield; the speed of his last battle was in his veins still, and he could not brook delay. And while they stood there, halting between the two courses, a red-headed horseman came at a wary trot down Barguest Lane. The summer dusk was enough to show that he glanced guardedly from side to side and kept a light hold of the reins as if to turn at the first hint of danger. Seeing the gate fast closed, however, he drew rein at the far side of it and peered over into the courtyard. He glanced at the men's belts first, and saw that they were empty of pistols; then turned his horse in readiness for flight.
"God's life the fool is venturesome," muttered Wayne. "What should he want at Marsh?"
"I've a message for thee, Wayne of Marsh," cried the horseman, still fingering the reins uneasily and striving to cover his mistrust with a laugh. For he had liked this mission ill, and only the Lean Man's command had forced him to it.
"A message, have ye?" said Wayne. "Your news is known already. Ride back, you lean-ribbed hound, before we whip you on the road."
The horseman gathered confidence a little from the closed gate. "Soft, fool Wayne! We hold your sister safe at Wildwater, and the Lean Man, of his courtesy, bade me ride down and ensure you a fair night's rest by telling you what we mean to do with her. She will lie soft to-night——"
The red-head, even while the taunt was on his lips, pulled sharply at the curb. But Wayne of Cranshaw was overquick for him. With a cry that rang up every hollow of the fields, Rolf set his horse at the gate, and landed at the rider's side, and dropped him from the saddle before he guessed that there was danger.
Rolf steadied his horse, then was silent for awhile as he wiped his blade with unhurried carefulness.
"Dost see the plot, Ned?" he asked grimly, with another glance at the fallen horseman.
"Nay, I see only that Nell is in peril all this while—and that the Ratcliffes had need to rid them of a fool, since they sent him here to meet so plain a death."
"He came, this same fool, to taunt thee into going to Wildwater, if I can read the matter—came to make sure that we should do just what thou wast so hot to do just now.—God, Ned!She shall lie soft to-night—how the foul words stick——"
"Ned, is there no end to it—no end to it?" broke in Mistress Wayne, clinging tight to his hand and keeping her eyes away from the body lying in the roadway just without.
"Get thee within-doors, bairn; 'tis no fit place for thee."
"Not unless thou'lt come, too. Ned, I'll not have thee ride to Wildwater—keep within shelter while thou canst——"
But her step-son shook off her hand. "Rolf," he said, coming to the gate and trying to read the other's face, "wilt come with me now to Wildwater?"
Wayne of Cranshaw straightened himself in the saddle and gathered the reins with a firmer grip. "Nay, for we'll make sure—we'll go neither by ones nor twos, but take our whole force with us. Hast had supper, Ned? No? Well, thou need'st it if thou'rt to fight a second time to-day; so let the lads go fetch our kin from Hill House. I'll ride to Cranshaw for my folk, and we'll all fare up together."
"Nay, we'll not wait—" began Ned.
But Rolf was already on his road to Cranshaw, and Shameless Wayne, knowing that any other plan was madness, curbed his hot mood as best he might. He would have ridden to Hill House himself, but the lads pleaded so hard to go, and he had such crying need for food to brace him for the coming struggle, that he agreed at last.
"Be off, then, lads," he said. "'Tis a short ride, with no danger by the way, if ye'll promise not to turn aside for any sort of frolic."
They scampered off to the stables to re-saddle their horses; and Wayne, as he watched them go, sighed for the boyish heedlessness which had been his not a twelvemonth ago. Griff's thoughts were all of danger, the thrill and rush of battle; and his sister's capture, it was plain, was no more to him than a fresh fight, in which the Ratcliffes would again go down before them.
"Ay, if it meant no more!" mused Shameless Wayne, and turned as his step-mother came timidly to his side.
"Come in to supper, dear. Thou need'st it, as Wayne of Cranshaw said," she pleaded, threading her arm through his and coaxing him indoors.
The board was ready spread; but the brave show of pewter, the meats and pasties and piled heaps of haverbread, served only to make the wide, empty hall look drearier, and Wayne would not glance at the slender, high-backed chair which marked Nell's wonted seat at table.
Hunger was killed in him; but he forced himself to eat, since food meant strength to fight Nell's battle by and by. And while he ate, the little woman sat close beside him, watching his every movement, and wishful, so it seemed, to speak of something that lay near her heart.
"Ned," she whispered, finding courage at last, "it was I who sent Nell across the moor to-day; and what she said to me was true—I have brought nothing but disaster on your house since first I came to Marsh. The man who lies outside there, Ned—the man whom your cousin slew—I was feared just now, seeing him dead. But need I be? God knows I would fain lie where he lies now, for then—then, dear, I should bring no more trouble upon those I love. Naught but disaster I've brought——"
"That is not true, bairn," said Wayne gently. "Many a time thou hast brought rest to me when none else could—no, not Nell herself.—Ay, once thou gav'st me hope that there was no such crying shame in loving awry," he added, with sudden bitterness. "What of thy wisdom now, bairn? Shall I woo Mistress Janet while I help tear Wildwater stone from stone?"
"It was no fault of hers, dear. How if she sorrows for Nell as much as thou, or I, or any of us?"
But Wayne would not listen. "How the time crawls!" he muttered, as he pushed his plate away and rose impatiently. "Surely they are here by now. Hark! was not that the courtyard-gate? I left it unbarred against their coming. Didst hear it opened?"
"Ay, I heard it opened—and there's a footstep on the paving-stones."
"Bairn, help me to buckle my sword-belt on again. I know there's luck goes where thy hand has rested."
She helped him eagerly. "It is not all disaster that I bring, then? Thanks for that word, Ned; I needed it," she murmured, chafing her baby fingers against the stiff buckle.
She was still striving with it, and Ned was stooping to help her, when the main door opened, and Janet Ratcliffe stood slender on the threshold, not laughing, but with an odd merriment lurking in her eyes and about her resolute mouth.
"I have come to our dearest enemy. Make me your captive, Wayne of Marsh," she said.
He sprang back as if she had been less warmly flesh and blood; but Mistress Wayne smiled in her pleased child's fashion as she crept out of sight among the shadows at the far end of the hall.
"You have chosen your time well, Mistress, if a jest is in your mind," said Wayne.
"Nothing further, sir. Your sister is in dire peril; would less have brought me to one who has spurned my warnings oft aforetime?"
He waited, frowning, till she should tell him more.
"Men's wits move like the snail does, methinks," she cried. "Am I less dear at Wildwater than Nell at Marsh? Send up to the Lean Man, sir, and say what dread things you will do to me, and see if he will not exchange his prisoner for yours."
Wayne looked hard at her, doubtful still and bewildered by the heedless devilry of her plan. "You have risked much for the honour of my house," he said slowly.
"Nay, for the honour of a woman who had little deserved the infamy they planned for her."
"But 'tis out of reason! You run too great a hazard, Mistress.—See, our plans are laid, and already the Cranshaw and the Hill House Waynes are on the road hither. Go back while you have time, Mistress."
"I shall not go back, sir, for I know how hopeless are your plans. They have guarded Wildwater securely against attack; and even if you seemed like to force an entry they would make sure—how shall I tell thee, Ned?" she broke off, lapsing to the old familiar speech and turning her eyes shamefacedly from his.
"They would make sure of Nell's dishonour. That is thy meaning, Janet? God's life, that is a true word. Yet—when they learn that this capture was all thy doing, not mine, thou'lt have a rough welcome home to Wildwater?"
"There is always danger for me there," she said, her voice deepening; "but that should not vex thee, surely, Wayne of Marsh?"
Shameless Wayne glanced neither back nor forward now. It seemed as if some hidden chord, frayed by the months of self-denial, had snapped on the sudden; her fearless strength, her man's power to frame a swift stroke of daring and to carry it through, her woman's fierce, unheeding tenderness—all these he understood at last—understood, too, that his love for her, nurtured in rough soil and inclement weather, had come to a hardier growth than pride. Before, he had lacked her, felt the keen need of possession; but now he loved her, and watched the old barriers crumble into unmeaning dust.
"Janet," he said quietly, not moving nearer to her yet, "dost think I care naught what chances to thee?"
"'Twould seem so, Ned. Twice I have told thee of the bargain made between the Lean Man and my cousins——"
"Nay, only hinted at it. What was this bargain, Janet?"
Lower still her voice dropped. "That I should be given to the one who slew thee," she said.
She glanced once at him, and for the first time since leaving Wildwater she felt a touch of fear. For Shameless Wayne had given a cry—a cry such as she had never hearkened to, so deep it was, so brutish in its rage against those who had agreed to this foul bargain. He sprang to her side—she could feel his arms close masterful about her—and then, with some strange instinct of defence, she forced herself away.
"Not that, Ned," she cried. "Is it a fit hour for—for softness?—And see, thou'rt wounded, Ned—and I've had no time to tell thee——"
A dozen feints of speech she would have tried to keep him at arm's-length, but Wayne would none of them.
"There's one wound, lass, of thy own giving, that matters more than all the rest," he said.
"Hush! I'll not listen. There's work to be done—'twill not wait—it is no fit hour, I tell thee."
The last flush of gloaming stained the dark oak walls, the spears and trophies of the chase that hung on them; it lighted, too, the girl's straight figure and bent head, as she shrank against the window—shrank from Wayne, and from the knowledge that her will was broken once for all. Ay, she was conquered, she who had lived her own life heretofore; what if she could hide it from him? Was it too late to escape into the free wilderness where she was mistress of her thoughts and secrets? It had been easy once, when they had met, boy and girl, to pass light love-vows at the kirk-stone; but this was giving all to him, and her pride rebelled, ashamed of its own powerlessness.
But Wayne was not to be held in check. He wooed like a storm-wind, and like a reed she bent to him.
"It is a fit hour," he cried—"and what is to be done will wait, child, till thou hast told me—" He stopped, and lifted her face till she was forced to meet his glance.
"Told thee what, Ned?" she asked, not knowing whether her unwillingness were real or feigned.
"That thou'rt mine altogether—that thy thoughts are mine, and thy body, and thy pride—ay, that I've mastered thee."
Wayne kept her face tight prisoned. She could feel his touch gain fierceness; his voice had a note in it not to be gainsaid.
"Ned, I will not say it—will not—" she faltered.
And then on the sudden she put both arms about his neck, and laid her face to his, and, "Thou art my master—my master, God be thanked," she whispered.
The good-nights of birds came sleepily from the dim garden; there was a stir of laggard bees among the flowers; and pride of summer reigned for its little spell with these storm-driven children of the moor. And frail Mistress Wayne, who had watched, mute and unheeded, from the shadows that seemed scarce more unsubstantial than herself, went out and left them to it.
So for a space; and then a new sound was born of this restless, haunted night. Far off from Barguest Lane there came a shouting of gruff voices, and the sparrows in the eaves awoke to chirp a fitful protest.
Janet turned in Ned's arms and glanced toward the door. "What is't, Ned?" she whispered.
"The Waynes are here," he cried—"and I'll take a lighter heart to Wildwater, Janet, for knowing——"
"But, Ned, thou didst promise not to go," she cried.
"Ay, but I've learned that from thee which makes me doubly set on going. Dost think I could let thee return now to the Lean Man's care?"
"Yes, yes! I tell thee, there's no danger but what I have faced before, and can meet again."
"We were over-happy just now, girl; fate grudges that. Thou shalt not go, I say."
"There! I knew 'twas folly to name theemaster. Hark how thou usest the whip at the first chance! Is every wish of mine to be thwarted now, to prove thy sovereignty?"
"Nay, for it's sure. But when I hear thee ask to fight my battles——"
"Whose else should I fight, dear lad?" she broke in, with pretty wilfulness. "See, 'tis the first thing I've asked of thee, and I will not take denial. Ride to Wildwater, thou and thy friends, and ye place Nell in peril, as I told thee. Send word that I am here, and she will be brought safely down to Marsh. Ned, try the plan at least! And if it fails, I'll let thee——"
"But what of Nell meanwhile? Each moment lost——"
"I left her my own dagger, and she has given proof already that she can use it. But there's no fear for her, unless ye drive my folk to bay."
The noise without grew louder, and Wayne moved slowly to the door. How could he let Janet go? Yet how could he place Nell in greater jeopardy than need be? It was a hard knot to unravel, but the dogged self-denial of the past months stood him in good stead now.
"Thou shalt go," he said, and went out into the courtyard, wondering how best to send a message up to Wildwater.
The Waynes had not come yet, however. The shouting he had heard was from the farm-hands, returning in gay spirits to the supper he had promised them. But their jollity had met with a sudden check. The moon was rising over Worm's Hill, and by its light the men were stealing awed glances at the Ratcliffe whom Wayne of Cranshaw had left lying by the gate.
"Nay, begow!" Hiram Hey was saying. "If this doan't beat all. First we mun sheep-wesh; then we mun fight; an' at after that we mun wesh an' wesh till our bodies is squeezed dry o' sweat. An' then, just as we think all's done, th' Maister mun needs go killing fair on th' Marsh door-stuns. We'll hev to whistle for yond supper, lads, ye mark my words."
"Not for long, Hiram," said Wayne lightly. He was anxious to keep Nell's capture secret from all these chattering folk as long as might be.
Hiram, no whit abashed to find the Master standing so unexpectedly at his elbow, thrust his hands still deeper into his pockets.
"Well, I'm hoping not," he said, in his slow way; "for I'm that droughty I scarce know how to bide. Wark's wark, Maister, I've hed as mich fighting as iver I can thoyle i' th' one day."
"Get to the kitchen, all of you, and tell the maids I sent you," cried the Maister, disregarding Hiram's snarls.
"An' th' ale, Maister? October, ye said, if I call to mind—there's no weaker-bodied ale could fill th' hoil I've getten i' my innards."
"Broach a fresh barrel, then," snapped Wayne, "and put thy mouth to the bung-hole if it pleases thee."
"I wonder," said Hiram shrewdly to himself as he slouched off at the head of his fellows. "Th' Maister hes a queerish look, I'm thinking—trouble i' th' forefront of his een, an' behind it a rare gladsomeness. There's a lass in 't, mebbe—his face hes niver caught that fly-by-sky brightness sin' he used to come fro' coorting Mistress Ratcliffe i' his owd wild days."
Shameless Wayne looked up the road to see if his kinsfolk were in sight; then at the retreating backs of the farm-men.
"Hiram! I want a word with thee," he called, following a sudden thought.
"I'll warrant. What did I say?" growled Hiram to himself, as he retraced his steps. "Lord, I wish th' lad's back hed niver stiffened, that I do; it's wark an' nowt but wark sin' he took hod."
"Canst keep a still tongue when 'tis needful?" said Wayne abruptly.
"As weel as most, Maister."
"The Mistress is taken by the Ratcliffes—taken while we were at the washing-pools."
Hiram did not answer for awhile. "Oh, ay? Then we mun get her back again," he said at last, not showing a trace of his concern.
"AndIhave snatched the Lean Man's grand-daughter in return."
"Now I knaw!" murmured the other. "I said no less wod set that light i' his een.—Well, Maister, an' what are ye bahn to do wi' th' wench, now ye've getten her?"
"I'm going to send her safe to her folk when they bring back Mistress Nell; and I want thee, Hiram, to get word taken somehow up to Wildwater. Thou know'st where to find one of their farm-hands, maybe, or——"
"Ay, that I do; for we fell in wi' one as we war coming dahn th' loin a while back, an' a rare laugh we hed at him. We sent a word ourselns by him to Wildwater, to axe when they'd like next to wesh sheep alongside th' Wayne lads. Let's see, now—he war wending Marshcotes way, an' it's owt to nowt 'at he's i' th' Bull tavern this varry minute."
"I'll ride across, then, and see him; thank thee for the news, Hiram," said the Master briskly.
"Leave that to me, Maister. Kind to kind, an' th' gentry is poor hands at trafficking wi' sich as us. I'll say more to yond chap i' five minutes nor ye'd say i' a twelvemonth—an' he'll tak a straight tale, too, if I knaw owt. What's he to say, like?"
"That we hold Mistress Janet. That if my sister is not here by midnight, we'll pay coin for coin. That they can trust our honour better than we can trust theirs, and the moment Mistress Nell sets foot on the Marsh threshold, my prisoner shall go free likewise. Canst carry all that, Hiram?"