"I'll try—ay, I'll try.""Then get thee gone, and make the message curt as if it were a sword-thrust."Hiram had scarce taken the field-track to Marshcotes, when again the clatter of hoofs came down Barguest Lane—hoof-beats, and the ring of many voices. Wayne could hear his Cousin Rolf's voice loud above the rest, and he ran into hall for one last word with Janet before the coming of his folk denied him further speech of her.He found her sitting by the window, her hands lying idle in her lap as she watched the promise of a moon scarce risen steal through the dimness of the summer's night."What art thinking, Janet?" he asked."Thinking? Why, that the doubts were all on thy side once—and now they seem all on mine. I, too, have kin to wrong, Ned, and when I think of meeting the Lean Man with guile——""He has cared well for thee," said Wayne bitterly. "Small wonder thou think'st kindly of him.""Ah, but thou know'st naught of the kindly side of him. He has loved me as if—there, Ned! I would not have it otherwise, and I'll not vex thee with the aftermath of self-disdain there'll be."They could hear the horsemen massing in the courtyard without. They glanced toward the door, then at each other, and Wayne drew the girl closer to him."Once more, Janet—wilt let us ride up to Wildwater, and carry it by storm?" he cried."Nay! Bring thy folk into hall here, and bide—bide, Ned, I tell thee; 'tis wit, not swords, to-night.—Go! They are knocking at the door. Tell me where the parlour lies, dear lad, and I'll wait there till Nell comes back to take my place.""To take thy place?" echoed Wayne, and tried still to hold her, though the knocking from without grew more peremptory.But she slipped from him, and crossed to the further door, and found Nanny Witherlee standing on the threshold. It was plain from the little old woman's face that she had watched the scene, and she made way for Janet with a half curtsey that had a world of mockery in it. The girl went by without a word; but her cheeks tingled with a shame she could not hide. If such as Nanny Witherlee could cry out on her love for Wayne, how would she fare with his own kinsfolk?"So, Maister—'tis sweet an' hot, belike," said Nanny, meeting Wayne's eyes across the hall. "Ay, but 'tis a downhill road, for all that, and an unchancy."Wayne answered nothing, but went to the great main door and flung it wide, letting in a stream of light from the moon new risen over Worm's Hill. A trampling crowd of horses, backed by wide-shouldered fellows, filled the courtyard. Griff's voice could be heard, shrill and clear, and Wayne of Cranshaw was stooping to batter on the oak again just as his cousin opened to him."We're ready, Ned. Why dost hold back, lad, and keep us shivering here?" cried Rolf."Because there's to be no attack just yet. Get down from saddle, friends, and drink a measure with me here in hall."CHAPTER XXIIIHOW WAYNE KEPT FAITHNell Wayne, prisoned close in the little room at Wildwater which looked out from its narrow, cobwebbed window upon the waste of Ling Crag Moor, watched the sun lower hour by hour—watched him change from white to yellow, from yellow to full sunset red—watched the heath grow gloaming-dim and lighten again at the bidding of the white-faced moon. But still her captors made no sign, and still she was racked with fear lest each moment should bring Ned on a forlorn hope of rescue. The very nearness of the moor, with its far-reaching air of freedom, seemed but an added mockery; yet every now and then she turned anew to the window, and rubbed it freer each time of dust and cobwebs, and looked out eagerly in search of the help that would not come. From time to time she wondered what had chanced to the girl who had made her such fair promises of deliverance; and then she told herself that Janet, after all, had been but mocking her."'Tis sharp," she murmured, fingering the dagger which Janet had left with her. "There'll be time, it may be, for two fair strokes—one in Red Ratcliffe's heart and another in my own. Love of the Virgin, do I care so much for life, when all's said? The days have not run so smooth of late that I covet more of them."A bat, fluttering unclean out of the pregnant night, swept against the window-pane, startling the girl out of her musings. For a moment it hovered there, and the moonlight showed her its dark wings, its evil head and twinkling, star-bright eyes."'Tis a vampire," she whispered, crossing herself. "They say the pool breeds such. What if it should break through——"She lost her fanciful terror and turned sharply to the door; for the Lean Man's voice mingled with Red Ratcliffe's in the passage without, and her brother's name was on their lips."I tell you, sir, Wayne loves the girl," said Red Ratcliffe testily; "he had liefer do himself a wanton hurt than Janet, and 'tis a fool's bargain to let Nell Wayne go in exchange for her.""And I tell thee, puppy, that thou know'st little of Wayne nowadays. We've killed his courtesy, and there's naught he'll stick at—naught. I said he would find a way out—I said 'twas useless striving——""And useless it is like to be if we meet him always in this spirit.""Fool! We have met him all ways—with light hearts and with heavy, with force and guile, with many men and few—Give me the key!" he broke off roughly. "This girl goes scatheless—and for her safer conduct I'll take her down myself to Marsh."Nell caught her breath as she listened to the voices, raised high in dispute, which spoke to her of safety. Was she mazed with the long confinement, or were the voices real?"Then you are willing, sir, to accept so curt and uncivil a message as Wayne sent hither?" went on Red Ratcliffe, sullenly. "You are willing to give them cause for boasting—ay, and to put your own life in their hands by going to Marsh? The messenger we sent returns not—will Wayne do less to you?""The messenger is not slain that we know of; he may be drinking in some wayside tavern, for unless he were a very fool his horsemanship would carry him free of Wayne after he had shouted his message, as I bade him, from the lane.""Well, he comes not back. And you, sir? Is your life of such little moment to us——""Thou'rt a babe," broke in the Lean Man. "Some things a Wayne will do for the feud's sake, and some he could not do. He has promised safe conduct, and if I go down with the lass, I shall return in safety. The Waynes—plague rot them!—keep faith, whatever else they do or leave undone."At a loss still to comprehend the meaning of it, Nell was conscious of a flush of pride. Even their foes, it seemed, gave her folk credit for scrupulous observance of their word—ay, the Lean Man admitted it, steeped as he was in subtlety and lies. But how came this about? Had Janet, in trying to save her been captured by Shameless Wayne? It must be so. A quick thought came to her then, that Ned could not love the girl so madly, after all, if he were willing to make her a cat's-paw with which to outwit his adversaries.She was still turning the thought over, well pleased with it, when the voices in the passage ceased disputing; the key grated in the lock, and the door moved slowly open."Come with me, Mistress Wayne; there's a horse ready saddled to take you down to Marsh," said the Lean Man."Sir, am I free? Or is this a fresh trick, to make my case seem harder for a sight of freedom?""'Tis no trick. Come, Mistress! Time slips by, and there's one awaiting me at Marsh who's worth fifty such as thou."His gruffness pleased her, for it rang true; and so, without question or demur, she followed him down the passage and out into the courtyard. He lifted her to the saddle, mounted the big bay that always carried him, and together they rode out in silence across the moor. The moon glanced silver-black across the heather; the gullies were full of whispering winds, alive with the sob and fret of running water; and more than once the Lean Man shivered, as if the night's quiet eeriness weighed heavy on his fears."How comes all this?" asked Nell, as they drew near to Barguest Lane."Ask your folk that, Mistress. A message came through one of my hinds that Janet was held at Marsh; your safety was matched 'gainst hers; it is no good-will of mine that has brought you hither.—Yonder is Marsh," he broke off, pointing down the hill. "Lord God, how I hate the fair, quiet look of it!""We are honoured by such hate, sir," said Nell.—"Have a care! The road is sadly over-full of stones," she added, as the bay horse stumbled badly.The dead Ratcliffe had been taken indoors, and neither Nicholas nor his companion had leisure to note the signs of bloodshed that lay this side the closed gate of the courtyard."A Ratcliffe! A Ratcliffe!" yelled the Lean Man, with a thought that the old cry would bring them quickly to the gate.And soon, indeed, there was a rush of feet across the courtyard, a rattle of swords snatched hastily from the scabbard, the hum of many voices."Peste! The whole swarm has settled in the Marsh hive," muttered Nicholas, glancing doubtfully at Nell. "Was I a fool, then, to trust to the Wayne honour?""No man has ever repented such folly, sir. If you raise the feud-cry to win peaceable entry, can you grumble that they come out armed to welcome you?"He hesitated, wondering whether to take Nell's bridle and make a dash for safety. But the gates were flung wide open before he could turn, and Shameless Wayne stood bareheaded in the moonlight, a score of his folk behind him. Wayne stopped on seeing the Lean Man alone with Nell, and his sword, half-lifted, fell trailing to the ground."Do you come in peace?" he asked."I come in peace," answered the Lean Man bitterly. "Give me your captive, Wayne of Marsh, and take your sister.""Was this your doing, Nicholas Ratcliffe?" went on the other. "Was it you who carried Mistress Nell to Wildwater?"Nicholas found a sour pleasure in assuming a credit that was not rightly his. "'Twas my doing," he answered hardily. And the Waynes, seeing him stand fearless before the score of them, sent up a low murmur of applause."Then mark well the oath I swear. By the Brown Dog, I'll hunt you day and night, and night and day, till I force combat from you. Get ye gone, lean thief, lest I break faith and fall upon you now.""And if Ned fails, then I'll take on the hunt," cried Rolf Wayne of Cranshaw, stepping forward.The Lean Man cast a scared glance across the courtyard at mention of the Dog. He could see the wide doorway of the house, dark in the mellow moonlight, and he recalled the hour when he had ridden down to fix the badge of feud above the threshold and had unwittingly crossed Barguest as he drove home the nail. A deadly faintness seized him; but the hated folk were watching him, and he forced the weakness off."Hunt when ye will, and where ye will; I shall be ready," he answered, and led Nell's horse with great show of ceremony into the yard, and put the bridle into her brother's hand.—"Now, sir, make good your own half of the bargain."A shadow crossed Wayne's face, as he turned and moved silently toward the house. Nell would have entered with him, but he checked her roughly."I have a word for Mistress Janet's ear," he said.On a sudden the meaning of her unlooked-for escape grew clear to her. Janet had gone of her own free-will to Marsh, and it needed but a glance at Ned's face to tell her what had followed the girl's coming. The joy of freedom, her gladness in returning to the home she had scarce looked to see again, died out; she was supplanted, and by one whom it was dishonour for a Wayne to touch.Janet was not in hall, but Wayne found her, after a hurried search, standing at the garden-door, plucking the roses that grew above her head and tearing them to pieces one by one."Thou—must go, Janet," he said, touching her on the arm."Yes," she answered dully."The Lean man is at the gate; he has brought Nell with him.""Yes, Ned.""God, lass, howdareI let thee out of sight!" he cried, his studied coldness breaking down.Something of the devil that is in every woman prompted the girl to tempt him. He had mastered her, and even yet she grudged it him; there would be a sort of reprisal in trying his strength to the utmost."Keep me, Ned," she whispered. "Keep me, dear, and think no shame to break faith with a Ratcliffe.—Hark, Ned, how soft the garden-breezes are—and the roses; are they not heavy on the air? Let's wander down among them, and talk of the days to come."Her heart failed her as she saw his agony. He did not glance at her, nor speak, but stood looking straight before him as he put honour in the balance and marvelled that it weighed so light."Is that thy wish, girl?" he asked hoarsely."Nay, 'tis neither thy wish nor mine," she cried with a troubled laugh. "Forgive me, Ned; I—I tempted thee for wantonness. There! Bid me farewell, dear; 'tis idle to make the parting harder."As they gained the hall he stopped, and held his arms wide for her. "Once again, Janet—thy master," he muttered."My master—to the end, dear lad. There shall none take thy place, however ill it fares with me; and when need comes, I'll send for thee.—But, Ned, thou'lt promise to do naught rash? Move slowly—and wait till I can come to thee with the best chance of safety."She slipped from his grasp and ran quickly out, brushing against Nell Wayne as she crossed to the gate."Good even to you, Mistress. Shall I offer thanks for the night's work you've done?" said Nell."I should accept none," answered the other, in the same hard voice.The Waynes opened their ranks to let her pass through, and one offered her a hand to mount by; and just as they were starting, Shameless Wayne came to the Lean Man's crupper, a brimming flagon in his hands."You came in peace, and I'll not have it said you lacked any of the usages of peace," said Wayne, holding the flagon up."My faith, you traffic in niceties!" muttered the Lean Man. "'Tis the first wine-cup any of your house has offered me these score years past.""And 'twill be the last, belike, for another score; so drink deep, sir, while you have the chance."Nicholas turned the flagon upside down with sudden spleen, and watched the stones darken as the wine splashed on to them. "When I drink out of your cup, Wayne of Marsh," he said, "I shall lack wine more than ever I lacked it yet."They set off, he and Janet, and once only the girl turned for a last look at Wayne.He watched them ride over the crest of Barguest Lane, and his lips moved to the instinctive cry, "Come back, come back!" And when his kinsfolk presently began to talk of riding home, since there would be no further need of them for that night at least, he did not urge them stay and pledge Nell's safe return. He wished to be alone with the madness that had fallen on him, wished to take counsel how to rive Janet once for all from Wildwater, and marry her, and hold her in despite of his folk and her own.He stood idly in the courtyard while they got to horse, and Nell, seeing him apart from the rest, came to his side."So thou hast let all else go—all save Janet?" she said."Ay, I have let all else go," he answered; "and if thou canst say aught against it, Nell, after she has plucked thee out of certain ruin—why, thou'rt less than my thoughts of thee.""'Tis carrying thankfulness a far way, Ned.—And what of our kin? Will they smile on the match, think ye?""They may smile or frown, as best pleases them."She was about to break into some hot speech, but he checked her. "Sleep on it, Nell; 'tis wiser. There are things said in heat sometimes that can never be forgot.—Well, Rolf, hast come to say thy farewells to Nell? Od's life, I'll make no third at any such parting of maid and man.""Stay, lad, for I've come to tell thy sister that I'll have no more delays," said Wayne of Cranshaw, "and thou'lt add thy voice to mine, I fancy. Am I to wait and wait for thee, Nell, until every Ratcliffe of them all comes down to carry thee off?"He had expected the old tale of duties that must keep her yet awhile at Marsh. But she offered no excuse, as she came and put her hand in his."There's no place for me now at Marsh," she said; "I'll go with thee, Rolf, at thy own good time.""No place for thee at Marsh?" he echoed."None. Ned is to marry Mistress Ratcliffe by and by, and——""Is this true, Ned?" said Wayne of Cranshaw sharply."It is true that I've plighted troth with Mistress Ratcliffe; it is false that there is no place for Nell at Marsh," said Shameless Wayne, and turned on his heel.But that one glance of Rolf's had given him a foretaste of what lay ahead. Nell was implacable; his kin would be implacable; her own folk would do their best to thwart the match."They say a Wayne of Marsh loves alway to stand alone," he muttered, as he returned to hall. "Well, I care not who's against me now."He glanced at the moonlight streaming through the latticed windows, and thought of how Janet had lain there in his arms while they snatched a moment's grace from feud. Then, restless still, he crossed to the garden-door, from over which the roses were dropping white petals in the lap of a slow-stirring breeze. It was here that Janet had stood with the moon-softness in her eyes and had tempted him to sell his honour. He pictured her going up to the moor—up and further up—nearer to the red folk of Wildwater; and the strength which had saved his pride seemed wildest folly now.Through the garden he went, now harking back to what had passed, now fancying new perils that might be lying in wait for Janet. The kitchen door was open as he drew near; through it he could see the rushlights flickering on the faces of the shepherds as they ate with greedy relish or lifted brimming pewters to their frothy lips.At another time there would have been song and jest; shepherd Jose would have been to the fore with tales of yesteryear; the women would have laughed more loudly and kept sharper tongues for over-pressing swains. But to-night their merriment was soured by what had gone before it; and, though the Mistress had come back safe to Marsh, they could not forget how nearly she had been dishonoured.At another time, too, Wayne would have gone amongst them to drink his due measure of October and set the glees a-going; but his heart was not in it, and he held aloof. Leaning idly against the garden-wall, he watched them at their meat, and let their talk drift past him while he asked himself, again and again, what end they would find, Janet and he, to their wind-wild wooing.Now and then he pushed the matter from him and turned, for lack of better company, to listen to the gossip of his farm-folk. He heard each detail of the morning's fight described, repeated, and described again, till he wearied of it and half turned to go indoors again. Yet still he dallied."Wheer's th' Maister, like? I could right weel like to set een on him," said Jose the shepherd, breaking a long silence."Ay, a feast's no feast at all without th' Maister comes to drink his share," cried one of the younger men.—"What, Hiram, mun I pass thee th' jug again? For one that's no drinker tha frames as weel as iver I see'd a man."Hiram filled his pewter and all but emptied it before he spoke."He'll noan show hisseln this side o' th' door to-neet, willun't th' Maister," he said slowly. "He's getten summat softer to think on nor sich poor folk as ye an' me."Wayne flushed under the moonlight and muttered a low oath; but he would not move away, for the whim took him to hear the worst these yokels had to say."Oh, ay?" put in one of the wenches. "What dost mean, Hiram? Tha'rt allus so darksome i' thy speech.""What should I mean? We knaw by this time, I reckon, what hes chanced. D'ye think snod Mistress Ratcliffe came an' swopped herseln just out o' love for Mistress Nell? Not she; 'twas for love o' Maister hisseln, if I know owt.""Tha'rt bitter, Hiram," cried Martha. "An' thee to hev fought for him nobbut a few hours gone by!"Hiram spoke in a tone which Martha had heard more than once before—a grave, troubled voice that had a certain dignity of its own. "I'm bitter, lass, an' tha says right," he went on. "He shaped like a man, did th' Maister, up at th' weshing-pools, an' I warmed to him. But what then? Nanny Witherlee telled me, just afore she gat her back to Marshcotes, that she'd crossed to th' hall a while sin', an' fund th' pair on 'em—nay, it fair roughens me to think on 't.""Well, an' let 'em do as they've a mind to, poor folk, says I," put in Martha. "She's no Ratcliffe, isn't Mistress Janet, not at th' heart of her.""She carries th' name, choose what, an' that's enough to mak most on us hod our nostrils tight. Well, he war born shameless, an' shameless he's like to dee.""I doan't believe it!" cried shepherd Jose, striking his pewter on the table. "That's an owd tale o' thine an' Nanny's, Hiram, but I'm ower fond o' th' Maister myseln to think he'd do owt so shameless-crazy as wed a Ratcliffe. Ay, tha should bite thy tongue off for whispering sich a thing."Again Wayne lifted his head and looked straight in through the doorway, himself unseen across the moonlit strip of yard which stood between the garden and the kitchen. Hiram's wryness was no more to him than the thistle-burrs which waited for him during any of his usual walks about the fields; but the shepherd's plain kindliness toward him, the shepherd's quiet assurance that there could be naught 'twixt Janet and himself, touched him to the quick. In vain he mocked himself for hearkening to what such folk as these could find to say of him; he stayed stone-still, his arms upon the rounded garden-wall, and heard them wear the matter threadbare with their talk. And there was not one—save Martha—who augured less than disaster from the match."Good hap, my very dogs will turn next and look askance at me," muttered Wayne.But still he did not move, for he had plumbed the bottom depth of weariness to-night, and it was easier to stay hearkening to distasteful gossip than to turn to the ill company of his own thoughts. Work had succeeded fight and loss of blood; and close after these had followed his anxiety on Nell's behalf, his sudden yielding to the passion that had dogged his path all through the uphill months; then had come the struggle with his honour, the victory that was worse than defeat, and, last of all, the chill glances of those who were his nearest kin. Aged as he had grown of late, his youth was slow to die outright, and the quick ebb and flow of passion had left him weak to bend to the touch of his surroundings; and the chatter of these farm-folk, who condemned him in such frank, straightforward terms, seemed the last straw added to his burden.They left talking of him by and by, as the ale began to warm them and frolic pressed for outlet. Little by little the Master lost his own cares in watching their rustic comedy played out; from time to time he smiled; and once, when Martha encouraged shepherd Jose too patently at the expense of Hiram, he laughed outright. Heretofore Wayne had been friendly with his servants in his own proud way; but to-night it was borne in upon him how like their betters, after all, were these rough-speeched folk. The same jealousies were theirs, the same under-fret of passion, veiled by banter or rude coquetry; and they, too, reared a score of stumbling-blocks, feigned or real, about the path of wedlock.The night was wearing late meanwhile, and the farm-folk got to their feet at length and shuffled out by twos and threes—some to return to outlying farms or shepherds' huts far up the moor, others to less distant farms. Martha came to the gate to give them a God-speed, with Hiram Hey beside her, and it was long before the last shout of farewell died echoing up the moor.Perhaps it was the ale he had drunk; perhaps it was Martha's flouting of him throughout the evening in favour of shepherd Jose; but for one cause or the other Hiram showed less than his wonted hesitation as he drew nearer to her in the moonlit yard. Their faces were turned sideways to the Master, and neither noted his quiet figure leaning against the wall."Martha, 'tis a drear house, this, I'm thinking," said Hiram."Ay, but it's all the roof I've getten.""'Tis as full o' dead men's ghosts as it can hod, an' nobbut to-neet there war one more ligged quiet beside th' gate, as if th' owd place fare went hungering for bloodshed an' sudden death.""Well, Hiram?"He pointed down the fields to where, in a snug-sheltered hollow, the gable-end of his own farm climbed up into the moon-mists."Yond's a likelier spot, an' quieter, for a wench," he said."Sakes, Hiram! Tha'rt noan so backard-like i' coming forrard, when all's said."Hiram was quiet for a space, and the Master could see a laughable air of doubt steal into his face as he ruffled the frill of hair that framed his smooth-shaved chin."An' then," put in Martha softly, "there's even a quieter spot nor yond that mud varry weel be mine for th' axing."Hiram Hey ceased doubting. "What, dost mean that owd fooil Jose wod like to tak thee to th' wind-riven barn he calls a house?""Summat o' th' sort, Hiram—ay, he'd be fain, wod shepherd Jose. An' if th' house be i' a wildish spot—well, 'tis farther out o' harm's way.""That sattles it. Wilt wed me afore th' corn ripens, lass, an' come to yond snug bigging dahn i' th' hollow?""I reckon I will, lad. Why didst not axe me plain afore?"Then Hiram kissed her, under the left ear; and the Master, forgetting that they did not count upon a listener, laughed outright. Martha turned, with cheeks aflame like the peonies newly-opened in the garden place behind her; and Hiram lost his calmness for the moment."Thou dost well, Hiram," said the Master drily. "Love while thou canst, for thou'd'st better make the most of what few years are left thee."Hiram took the stroke staunchly, knowing it was the return-thrust for many a home-blow he had given Wayne."An' so I bed, Maister," he answered, not shifting a muscle of his face—"by wedding one that counts no red folk i' her family."The Lean Man and Janet had been riding slowly home while Wayne sat listening to the shepherds' gossip; and as they went up Barguest Lane Nicholas had bent toward his grand-daughter with more than his wonted tenderness."Janet, girl, 'tis good to know thou'rt safe again," he said. "What would Wildwater be without thee?"She did not answer, but turned her head away a little; and so they rode on in silence until they reached the open moor. The old man shivered then, and glanced behind with the quick gesture she had learned to know."I had forgotten it," he muttered.—"Didst hear aught in the wind, Janet?""I heard a moor-bird calling, sir, and the rustle of dry heather-stalks.""Naught else? No sound, say, of a hound baying down the lane?""There's a farm-dog barking at the moon; that is all."He straightened in the saddle. "To be sure! When a fool is old, he's past praying for, eh, girl? Yet—is yond brown shadow going to fare to Wildwater with us?""So long as there's a moon to cast it, sir."Another silence, while a mile of heath slipped underneath their hoofs."They bade me keep Nell Wayne, and let thee take thy chance," said Nicholas presently. "Think of it, Janet! To wake in the morning and have no slip of sunshine like thyself to come down to.""Grandfather, it—it hurts me to hear you praise me so.""Why, what ails thee? Cannot I praise the one thing on God's earth that I love, without hurting thee?"Yes, she must tell him all. All the way up it had been borne in on her that she would let the deceit go no further. She owed no less than frankness to him, and he should have it, though afterward he struck her to the ground. They were alone with the sky and the wind; the hour, the dim-lying spaces of the moor, encouraged confidence. She had chosen her road—but at least she would start fair on it, honest as the man who had her love in keeping. Quietly, without shrinking or appeal, she told him all—how she used to meet Shameless Wayne by stealth, how she had given him warning, how, lastly, she had to-night ridden down to Marsh and surrendered herself into Wayne's hands.The Lean Man was very quiet when she had finished, and not till they were skirting the dull ooze of Wildwater pool did he break silence. "I had rather have shovelled the earth above thy dead body, girl," he said, checking his horse at the brink.She watched his face working fantastically as he stared into the water. Mechanically she traced the scars of fire, the lump of discoloured flesh that marked where his right ear had been shorn level with the cheek; and she told herself that Wayne of Marsh was answerable for both. His anger, gathering slowly, was terrible to meet."What is't to thee that my heart is broken?" he went on. "I could set finger and thumb to thy throat, girl, but would that heal my own hurts? The care I've given thee, the constant thought—womanish thought—the way I shamed myself by opening to thee all my secret fears." He laughed drily. "Barguest? Methinks thou hast killed him, lass, with a worse sickness. Hark ye! This shall not be. I've sap in my veins yet, and I'll cheat thee of thy lover before I die.""Sir, is this the love you have for me? What has Wayne ever done that you should not cry 'peace' and let our marriage staunch the feud?""What has he done? He has fooled me, beaten me in fight, robbed me of more than life. Is that naught, or must I fawn on him and thank him for good service rendered in wedding Janet Ratcliffe? Thou hast heard of Sad Man's Luck, girl? It comes to those who have lost all, and it nerves them to strange deeds."He moved forward, Janet following; and as they waited for the gates to be thrown open, he gave the low, hard laugh which never yet had boded good to man or woman."The luck has veered at last," he said quietly. "Wayne will begin to fear for himself, now that he has thee to unman him. His pluck will get tied to thy apron, lass, and he will quaver a little in his sword-strokes—what, did I say thou hadst broken my heart? I lied. Thou hast put new heart in me."CHAPTER XXIVHOW THE LEAN MAN FOUGHT WITH SHAMELESS WAYNESexton Witherlee moved unsubstantial among his graves, stopping here to pull up a tuft of weed and there to rub a sprig of lavender or rosemary between his shrivelled fingers. He looked old beyond belief, and the afternoon sun, hot in a sweltering sky, traced crow's feet of sadness across his cheeks, and in among the sunken hollows underneath his eyes."What's amiss wi' me?" he murmured. "Here hev I been gay as a throstle all through this God-sent-weather—going about my business wi' a quiet sort o' pleasure i' seeing this little garden-place look so green, like, an' trim-fashioned—so green an' trim—an' now, all i' a minute, I'm sick-like an' sorry. Ay, I could cry like any bairn, an' niver a reason for 't, save it be this thunner-weather that's coming up fro' ower Dead Lad's Rigg.—Well, I mun hev a bit of a smoke, an' see what that 'ull do for me."He lit his pipe, then fetched a broom from the tool-house and began to sweep the path of the leaves which had fallen, curled and brown, during the long spell of drought. But he desisted soon and sat him down on the nearest grave-stone."Nay, I've sweated ower long at helping th' living to bury their dead out o' mind, till now there's no lovesome sight, nor sound, nor smell of sweetbriar, say—but what it leads my crazy thoughts to th' one bourne—th' one bourne—an' that's a blackish hole, measuring six feet by length an' three by breadth. Lord God, I'm stalled, fair stalled! Hevn't I toiled enough at life? An' th' Lord God knaws how fain I am to be ligging flesh to earth myseln."He sat silent for a long while, and his favourite robin came and perched on his shoulder, asking him to dig up its evening meal; but Witherlee paid no heed to the bird."I reckon it's a sight o' little Mistress Wayne I'm sickening for," he went on presently. "When she war fairy-kist, she niver let day pass without heving her bit of a crack wi' th' Sexton; but now she's fund her wits again—why, she hesn't mich need o' th' likes o' me, seemingly. Eh, but I wod like to hear her butter-soft voice again! There's peace in 't, somehow, to my thinking.""Oh, tha'rt theer, art 'a?" put in Nanny's voice at his elbow."Begow, tha made me jump! What is't, Nanny?""Nay, I nobbut came for a two-three sprigs o' rosemary. It grows rare an' sweet i' th' kirkyard here, I call to mind, an' Mistress Nell, 'at I've nursed fro' a babby, is bahn to be wed to-morn to Wayne o' Cranshaw—sakes, how th' days run by!—an' she'll be wanting rosemary to wear ower her heart i' sign o' maidenhood. Well, I'd like to see one who's more a maid, or bonnier, i' all th' parish—an' I'll thank thee, Witherlee, to stir thy legs a bit for fear they'll stiffen for want o' use. What mak o' use is a gooidman, if he willun't stir hisseln to pluck a two-three herbs?"The Sexton rose with his old habit of obedience, and went to the corner where the rosemary grew, and brought her both hands full."'Tis queer, I've often thowt," he said; "we all knaw what mak o' soil grows under foot here—yet out on 't come th' sweetest herbs i' Marshcotes. An' that's a true pictur o' life, as I've fund it through three-score year an' ten.""What's tha knaw about life?" snapped Nanny. "Death is more i' thy way, an' tha'll be a wise man, Witherlee, sooin as tha comes to join th' ghosties.—Not but what there's sense for once i' what tha says. Sweetness grows i' muck, an' ye can't get beyond that; an' if onybody thinks to say it isn't so, let 'em look at Shameless Wayne, an' set him beside what he war afore th' feud broke out.""Ay, he's better for th' fighting," put in Witherlee, with something of his wonted zest."Fighting? I reckon nowt on 't. All moil, an' mess, an' litter—gaping wounds that drip on to th' floors just when ye've bee's-waxed 'em—women crying their een out, an' lossing so mich time, ower them 'at's goan—'tis mucky soil, I tell thee, Luke. An' yet, begow, it hes bred summat into Shameless Wayne that he niver hed afore.""They say him an' th' Lean Man is hunting one t' other fro' morn to neet, but allus seem to tak different roads. What's come to th' Lean Man, Nanny? He war daunted a while back, an' now he's keen as ony lad again!""Tha doesn't knaw Barguest's ways as I knaw 'em, lad. Th' Dog, when he's haunted a man nigh out of his senses, hods off for a bit, for sport, like, an' maks him 'at he's marked think th' sickness is all owered wi'—an' then, when he's thinking o' summat else entirely, up th' Brown Beast leaps, snarling fit to mak his blood run cold.—Ay, it's true th' Lean Man is hunting this day, for I met him riding into Marshcotes not a half-hour sin', wi' his een on both sides o' th' road at once, an' his hand set tight on his sword-heft.""Did he say owt to thee, Nanny? He's noan just friendly to thee, an'——""He said nowt to me," broke in Nanny, "but I said a deal to him. I asked if Barguest's hide war as rough, an' his teeth as sharp, as when he fought th' owd feud for th' Waynes. An' he seemed fit to strike me first of all; an' then he sickened; an' at after that he rode forrard, saying nowt nawther one way nor t' other. Well, he minds how his father died, an' his father's father; an' he'll be crazy again by fall o' neet, if I knaw owt. It's th' Dog-days, an' all, an' th' month when dogs run mad is Barguest's holiday, I've noticed.""Tha mud weel say it's th' Dog-days," said Witherlee, pointing to the moor above. "We shall hev sich a storm as nawther thee nor me hev seen th' like on, Nanny, sin' we war wedded."From the moor-edge an angry haze was beating up against the wind, and the sun, a round ball that seemed dropping from the steel-blue of the sky above it, was cruel with the earth. Everywhere peatland and tillage-soil—the very graveyard earth—opened parched mouths and cried for drink. But still the sun shone, and only the slow-moving haze told of the rain to come."Ay, it 'ull be a staunch un," said Nanny. "Tha'd best come indoors, Witherlee, afore it breaks—for when it does break, buckets willun't hod th' drops, an' tha'll be drenched i' crossing th' kirkyard.—Why, there's Mistress Wayne. If iver I see'd a body choose unlikely times, it's yond little bit o' sugar an' spice."Witherlee glanced eagerly down the graveyard path. "Now, that's strange," he murmured. "I war nobbut saying afore tha comed, Nanny, that I hedn't bed speech of her this mony a day—an' here she comes. Eh, but she's a sight for sore een, is th' bonnie bairn!"Nanny's half-religious awe of Mistress Wayne was disappearing now that she had come to her right mind again. "Nay," she grumbled, "I reckon nowt so mich on her. She war bahn to do a deal for th' Maister, so I thowt; but what's comed on 't? Nowt, save 'at she carried a fond tale to Mistress Nell a while back, an' all but brought her into ruin.—Now, lad, art minded to get out o' th' wet that's coming?""Nay, I'll step indoors by an' by, for I'm fain of a crack wi' th' little Mistress at all times."Nanny glanced shrewdly at her husband; something in his voice—a weariness that was at once helpless and resigned—brought an unwonted pity for him to the front. Impatient she was with him at most times; but under all her fretfulness there was a sure remembrance of the days that had been."Luke," she said, laying a hand on his sleeve, "tha'rt nobbut poorly, I fear me. Stop for a word wi' Mistress Wayne, if needs must, but don't stand cracking till tha'rt wet to th' bone.""Nay, I'll noan stay long, lass—noan stay long," he murmured.Nanny moved down toward her cottage, and the Sexton, sighing contentedly, gave a good-day to Mistress Wayne while yet she was half up the path."Ye've not been nigh me lately, Mistress," he murmured, making room for her on the grave-stone which had grown to be their wonted seat."I have been restless, Sexton, and my walks have taken me far a-field. But to-day I'm tired, and full of fancies, and I thought 'twould be pleasant to sit beside thee here and talk.""To be sure, to be sure. Ye're looking poorly-like, an' all; it 'ull be this heavy weather, for I feel that low i' sperrits myseln——""'Tis more than the weather," she interrupted, turning her grave child's eyes on his. "The mists begin to come down again, Sexton, as they did when my lover was killed yonder on the vault-stone. Sometimes I can see men and women as thou see'st them; and then a mist steals over them, and they are only shadows, and the ghosts creep out of the moor, moving real among the unreal men and women.""That's nobbut th' second-sight," said Witherlee gently. "I've getten it, an' ye've getten it, Mistress, an' we've to pay our price for 't. But it's nowt to fret yourseln about.""Not when I hear Barguest—Barguest creeping pad-footed down the lane? Sexton, I've heard him every night of late—just at dusk he comes, and if I pay no heed he presses like a cold wind against my skirts. Does it mean trouble for Wayne of Marsh, think'st thou?""Hev ye set een on th' Dog?" asked Witherlee sharply."Nay, I have but heard him, and felt his touch.""Then there's danger near Wayne o' Marsh, but nowt no more nor what he'll come through. 'Tis when th' Brown Dog shows hisseln 'at he doubts his power to save th' Maister—he like as he seeks human help then, an' it's time for all as wish well to Marsh to be up an' doing.—Begow, but we'd better be seeking shelter, Mistress."She followed his glance, and shivered at that look of earth and heaven which they called in Marshcotes the scowl of God. To the west, whence the wind was gathering strength, the sky was a dull, blue-green; from the east a tight-drawn curtain of cloud moved nearer to the sun, which shone with dimmed light and heat unbearable. Light drifts of cloud trailed like brown smoke between earth and sky. The whole wide land was still, save for quick breaths of suffocation which stirred the summer dust and whipped up the leaves untimely fallen."I am frightened, Sexton. Let us go," murmured Mistress Wayne."All day I've watched it creeping up," said Witherlee, regarding with rapt eyes the eastern sky. "There's storms as come quick, an' go as lightly—but this un hes nursed its rage a whole long day, an' when it bursts, 'twill be like Heaven tumbling into Hell-pit fire. Ay, I've seen one sich storm, an' it bred bloodshed. See ye, Mistress, th' first rain-drops fall! An' th' streams that are dry this minute 'ull race bank-top high afore an hour is spent. An' them as seeks for tokens need seek no farther."Beyond the kirkyard hedge a horseman passed, fast riding at the trot."What did I tell ye!" cried the Sexton. "Th' storm an' th' Lean Man ride together, an' th' streams that war empty shall be filled.""He must be hastening from the rain. See, Sexton, he rides as if pursued."Witherlee remembered Nanny's meeting with Nicholas. "It may be th' rain he's hastening fro'—or it may be summat 'at ye've heard whining, Mistress, when dusk is settling over Barguest Lane," he said.For a while he stood there, nursing his visions and heedless of the gathering drops; then, seeing how Mistress Wayne was shivering, he came back to workaday matters."Come ye wi' me, Mistress," he cried. "Th' drops is falling like crown-pieces.—Good sakes, there's another horseman skifting out of th' wet, or intul 't; who mud it be, like?"Shameless Wayne, riding up the field-side that ran from the Bull tavern to the moor, looked over and saw his step-mother standing beside the Sexton in the kirkyard."The clouds blow up against the wind. There'll be thunder, Witherlee," said Wayne, and would have passed on."Well, there's one gooid thing 'ull come on 't, ony way," answered the Sexton. "Th' Lean Man o' Wildwater is like to get wet to th' bone afore he wins across th' moor. An' ye can niver tell but what a wetting may tak a man off—I've knawn mony a——"Wayne swung his horse round sharply. "The Lean Man! Hast seen him, then?" he cried."Not ten minutes agone. He crossed up aboon there at a gooidish trot.""What, by the moor-track?""Nay, his face war set for th' Ling Crag road; he war hurrying, an' wanted better foot-hold for his horse, I reckon, nor th' peat 'ud gi'e him."Mistress Wayne was at the wall-side now. "Ned, thou'lt not ride after him?" she pleaded. "'Tis Nell's wedding-day to-morrow—she'll think it a drear omen."But Wayne was already gathering the reins more firmly into his hand. "Nell will want a wedding-gift, little bairn—and, by the Red Heart, I'll bring her one of the choicest.—Sexton, shall I overtake him before he gets within hail of Wildwater?""Wi' that mare's belly betwixt your legs, Maister, ye'd catch him six times ower."Wayne stopped for no more, but touched the mare once with his heels and swung up the field and round the bend of the Ling Crag road. The Sexton looked after him and nodded soberly; and it was strange to see his old eyes brighten, as if at the grave-edge he were turning back to see this one last fight."There's more nor one storm brewing; I said as mich," he muttered, and hobbled to the wicket to see the flying trail of dust and rain that marked the rider's headlong course.The wind rose on the sudden. The rain-drops fell by twos now where lately they had fallen singly. A far rumble of thunder crept dull through the leaden sky-wrack."Gallop, thou laggard, gallop!" muttered Wayne to his mare, as Ling Crag village swirled by and the rough track to Wildwater stretched clear ahead.The village folk came out of their houses as he passed, but they were slow of foot, and all that they reaped for their trouble was the fast-dying beat of horse-hoofs down the wind."Wayne, 'tis Shameless Wayne. Who but him carries Judgment-fire i' his hoss's heels?" they said.Past Blackshaw Hall and through the Conie Crag ravine swept Wayne the Shameless; past the three wells of Robin Hood and Little John and Will Scarlett, and up into the naked moor. The land lay flat to the sky up here, and through the thickening rain-sheets Wayne could see his enemy's lean figure rising and falling to the trot of his lean bay horse. Soon the track crept timorous round the bog, and under foot the water splashed and creamed; but still Wayne plied his mare with tongue and spur. The thunder-throb grew nearer, and muttered all along the murky sky-edge and down the dun moor-fastnesses. Earth and sky, bog and peat and cloud-wrack, were wakeful and at war; the starveling moor-birds fled on down-drooping wings, and from the under-deeps the Brown Folk chattered restlessly.Wayne's heart was lifted to the storm's pitch as he rode. Ahead was the man who had made a shameful bargain touching Janet, the man who had perilled his sister's honour and warred with malice unceasing against his house. There was but a quarter-mile between them—and now but ten-score yards—yet Wildwater lay over yonder slope."Dost crawl, I tell thee, just when I need thy speed. Gallop, thou fool!" he muttered, then rose in the stirrups and raised a cry that might have roused the slumber of dead men in Marshcotes kirkyard.The Lean Man checked when he heard the cry, and looked behind; and Wayne lessened by the half the distance between horse and mare."Who calls?" yelled Nicholas Ratcliffe."Wayne of Marsh. Who else? There are old debts between us, Ratcliffe the Lean.""On both sides, Wayne the Shameless," cried Nicholas, and turned the big bay's head, and rode straight at his man with heavy sword uplifted.Between them, while they neared each other, a zag of lightning flashed to earth, and Wayne's cry as he galloped to the shock was drowned in a wild roar of thunder. He took the Lean Man's stroke, and jerked his own sword back; but the mare shied with terror, and his return blow aimed wide, grazing the Lean Man's saddle-pommel as it fell."Thou aimest ill, lad. I thought a sword sat better in thy hand," laughed Nicholas, as Wayne brought his mare round once more to the attack.The Lean Man had found his youth again, and in his heart, too, the storm-wind was singing shrill. Fear of the Dog slipped from him. He warmed to the old joy of hardened muscles and of crafty hand."'Tis thou and I now, thou bantling," he cried, plucking the curb as his beast reared its fore-feet to the sweltering sky. "Does the Dog fear the storm, that it comes not up with thee to fight?"A second flash shot through the rain-sheets, and another roar snapped up the Lean Man's words. Try as their riders would the horses refused obedience to the bit, for each flash and each new burst of thunder whetted the keen edge of their terror. Three times Wayne brought round the mare and strove to force her to the shock; and three times she swerved out of sword's-reach."God's life, shall we never get to blows!" roared the Lean Man. "Down, lad, and we'll fight it out on foot."There was no gully of the moor now but hid a rolling thunder-growl. The streams raced foaming between their dripping banks, and all across the sky ran sinuous lines of blue-red fire, the harbingers of lightning-blasts to come or the aftermath of flashes spent.Yet neither Wayne nor the Lean Man knew if it were foul weather or fair, save that the rain dimmed their sight a little; for each saw his dearest enemy across the narrow, sword-swept space between them that stood for the whole world. And now one gained the advantage, and now the other, while still they shifted back and forth, treading into great foot-holes the soaked bed of peat on which they stood.Above, the greater battle—the shock of hurrying clouds close-ranked against each other, the shriek and whistle of the wind, the down-descending sweat of combat. Below, the lesser battle, with smitten steel for lightning, and hard-won breaths for wind and thunder, and rage as fierce, and monstrous, and unheeding, as any that smote the moor-face raw from yellow east to smouldering, ruddy west."I have thee, Wayne!" yelled Nicholas, as he cut down the other's guard and aimed at his left side."Nay," answered Wayne, and leaped aside so swiftly that the stroke scarce drew blood.A keener flash ripped up the belly of the sky as they fell to again, a nearer harshness crackled in the thunder's throat; but naught served to quench the fury of the onset. Like men from the Sky-God's loins they fought, and their faces glowed and dripped.But Wayne was forcing the battle now, and step by step the Lean Man was falling back for weariness. Harder and harder he pressed on him; there was a moment's pauseless whirr of cut and parry, and it was done. Shameless Wayne, seeing his chance, sprang up on tip-toe and lifted his blade high for the last bone-splittering stroke that is dear to a swordsman's heart as life itself.And then a strange thing chanced, and a terrible. As his sword was half-way on the upward sweep, Wayne saw, through a blinding lightning-flash, the Lean Man's blade shrink crumpling into a twisted rope of steel and the Lean Man's arm fall like a stone to his side. He checked himself, with a strain that nigh wrenched the muscles of his back in sunder, and lowered his weapon, and cursed like one gone mad because the sky had opened to rob him of his blow."Your tale is told, Lean Ratcliffe," he said. "Had the storm so few marks for sport that it must needs rob me in the nick of vengeance?"The Lean Man tried to move his stricken arm, and his face showed ghostly-grey through the rain sheets while he mowed and mumbled at his impotence. But the old light shone quenchless in his weasel eyes, as he slid his left hand toward his belt, and clutched his dagger, and stumbled forward with the point aimed true for the other's breast. But Wayne had never taken his eyes from him and he warded the stroke in time."'Tis an old device of your folk, and one I know," cried the younger man. "Your game is played out, lean thief of Wildwater—God pity me that I lack your own strength to kill a stricken man.""Curse thee, curse thee!" groaned Nicholas. "Is that not an old Wayne device likewise? Ay, and a mean device, when we would liefer take steel at your hands than quarter. Kill me, thou fool, least it be said I begged quarter of a Wayne."Wayne eyed him gloomily. "Cease prating! I cannot kill you, and I cannot leave you to die among these howling moor-sprites. Can you sit in the saddle if I lift you to 't?—Peste, though, the horses have taken to their heals. Can you frame to walk, then?"The Lean Man made a few steps forward, then stopped and seemed to stumble. "Give me thy hand, Wayne, as far as Wildwater gates. I am weak, and cannot walk alone," he mumbled. "There shall none of my folk do thee hurt—I swear it by the Mass."Wayne saw through the trick, for he knew from those few forward steps that, though his enemy's sword-arm was sapless as a rotten twig, his legs were firm to carry him. A touch of grim approval crossed his hate. This Lean Man had a grandeur of his own; maimed, defeated, worn with the fiercest battle he had ever fought in his long life of combat, he could yet keep heart to the last and frame a quick stroke of guile when all weapons else had failed him."Featly attempted!" cried Wayne of Marsh. "How your folk would swarm about me when you got me to the gates! And in what strange fashion they would keep me safe from hurt. Nay, Lean Man, I know the way the hair curls on the Ratcliffe breed of hound."The old man was silent, weaving a hundred useless subtleties. And then an exceeding bitter cry escaped him. "God curse thee, youngster! The Dog fights for thee—my very children fight for thee—and now the sky opens to snatch thee out of hurt.""Nay," answered Wayne, gravely, "for the blow was mine, and you know it."And so they parted. And the storm howled ravening over the tortured waste.
"I'll try—ay, I'll try."
"Then get thee gone, and make the message curt as if it were a sword-thrust."
Hiram had scarce taken the field-track to Marshcotes, when again the clatter of hoofs came down Barguest Lane—hoof-beats, and the ring of many voices. Wayne could hear his Cousin Rolf's voice loud above the rest, and he ran into hall for one last word with Janet before the coming of his folk denied him further speech of her.
He found her sitting by the window, her hands lying idle in her lap as she watched the promise of a moon scarce risen steal through the dimness of the summer's night.
"What art thinking, Janet?" he asked.
"Thinking? Why, that the doubts were all on thy side once—and now they seem all on mine. I, too, have kin to wrong, Ned, and when I think of meeting the Lean Man with guile——"
"He has cared well for thee," said Wayne bitterly. "Small wonder thou think'st kindly of him."
"Ah, but thou know'st naught of the kindly side of him. He has loved me as if—there, Ned! I would not have it otherwise, and I'll not vex thee with the aftermath of self-disdain there'll be."
They could hear the horsemen massing in the courtyard without. They glanced toward the door, then at each other, and Wayne drew the girl closer to him.
"Once more, Janet—wilt let us ride up to Wildwater, and carry it by storm?" he cried.
"Nay! Bring thy folk into hall here, and bide—bide, Ned, I tell thee; 'tis wit, not swords, to-night.—Go! They are knocking at the door. Tell me where the parlour lies, dear lad, and I'll wait there till Nell comes back to take my place."
"To take thy place?" echoed Wayne, and tried still to hold her, though the knocking from without grew more peremptory.
But she slipped from him, and crossed to the further door, and found Nanny Witherlee standing on the threshold. It was plain from the little old woman's face that she had watched the scene, and she made way for Janet with a half curtsey that had a world of mockery in it. The girl went by without a word; but her cheeks tingled with a shame she could not hide. If such as Nanny Witherlee could cry out on her love for Wayne, how would she fare with his own kinsfolk?
"So, Maister—'tis sweet an' hot, belike," said Nanny, meeting Wayne's eyes across the hall. "Ay, but 'tis a downhill road, for all that, and an unchancy."
Wayne answered nothing, but went to the great main door and flung it wide, letting in a stream of light from the moon new risen over Worm's Hill. A trampling crowd of horses, backed by wide-shouldered fellows, filled the courtyard. Griff's voice could be heard, shrill and clear, and Wayne of Cranshaw was stooping to batter on the oak again just as his cousin opened to him.
"We're ready, Ned. Why dost hold back, lad, and keep us shivering here?" cried Rolf.
"Because there's to be no attack just yet. Get down from saddle, friends, and drink a measure with me here in hall."
CHAPTER XXIII
HOW WAYNE KEPT FAITH
Nell Wayne, prisoned close in the little room at Wildwater which looked out from its narrow, cobwebbed window upon the waste of Ling Crag Moor, watched the sun lower hour by hour—watched him change from white to yellow, from yellow to full sunset red—watched the heath grow gloaming-dim and lighten again at the bidding of the white-faced moon. But still her captors made no sign, and still she was racked with fear lest each moment should bring Ned on a forlorn hope of rescue. The very nearness of the moor, with its far-reaching air of freedom, seemed but an added mockery; yet every now and then she turned anew to the window, and rubbed it freer each time of dust and cobwebs, and looked out eagerly in search of the help that would not come. From time to time she wondered what had chanced to the girl who had made her such fair promises of deliverance; and then she told herself that Janet, after all, had been but mocking her.
"'Tis sharp," she murmured, fingering the dagger which Janet had left with her. "There'll be time, it may be, for two fair strokes—one in Red Ratcliffe's heart and another in my own. Love of the Virgin, do I care so much for life, when all's said? The days have not run so smooth of late that I covet more of them."
A bat, fluttering unclean out of the pregnant night, swept against the window-pane, startling the girl out of her musings. For a moment it hovered there, and the moonlight showed her its dark wings, its evil head and twinkling, star-bright eyes.
"'Tis a vampire," she whispered, crossing herself. "They say the pool breeds such. What if it should break through——"
She lost her fanciful terror and turned sharply to the door; for the Lean Man's voice mingled with Red Ratcliffe's in the passage without, and her brother's name was on their lips.
"I tell you, sir, Wayne loves the girl," said Red Ratcliffe testily; "he had liefer do himself a wanton hurt than Janet, and 'tis a fool's bargain to let Nell Wayne go in exchange for her."
"And I tell thee, puppy, that thou know'st little of Wayne nowadays. We've killed his courtesy, and there's naught he'll stick at—naught. I said he would find a way out—I said 'twas useless striving——"
"And useless it is like to be if we meet him always in this spirit."
"Fool! We have met him all ways—with light hearts and with heavy, with force and guile, with many men and few—Give me the key!" he broke off roughly. "This girl goes scatheless—and for her safer conduct I'll take her down myself to Marsh."
Nell caught her breath as she listened to the voices, raised high in dispute, which spoke to her of safety. Was she mazed with the long confinement, or were the voices real?
"Then you are willing, sir, to accept so curt and uncivil a message as Wayne sent hither?" went on Red Ratcliffe, sullenly. "You are willing to give them cause for boasting—ay, and to put your own life in their hands by going to Marsh? The messenger we sent returns not—will Wayne do less to you?"
"The messenger is not slain that we know of; he may be drinking in some wayside tavern, for unless he were a very fool his horsemanship would carry him free of Wayne after he had shouted his message, as I bade him, from the lane."
"Well, he comes not back. And you, sir? Is your life of such little moment to us——"
"Thou'rt a babe," broke in the Lean Man. "Some things a Wayne will do for the feud's sake, and some he could not do. He has promised safe conduct, and if I go down with the lass, I shall return in safety. The Waynes—plague rot them!—keep faith, whatever else they do or leave undone."
At a loss still to comprehend the meaning of it, Nell was conscious of a flush of pride. Even their foes, it seemed, gave her folk credit for scrupulous observance of their word—ay, the Lean Man admitted it, steeped as he was in subtlety and lies. But how came this about? Had Janet, in trying to save her been captured by Shameless Wayne? It must be so. A quick thought came to her then, that Ned could not love the girl so madly, after all, if he were willing to make her a cat's-paw with which to outwit his adversaries.
She was still turning the thought over, well pleased with it, when the voices in the passage ceased disputing; the key grated in the lock, and the door moved slowly open.
"Come with me, Mistress Wayne; there's a horse ready saddled to take you down to Marsh," said the Lean Man.
"Sir, am I free? Or is this a fresh trick, to make my case seem harder for a sight of freedom?"
"'Tis no trick. Come, Mistress! Time slips by, and there's one awaiting me at Marsh who's worth fifty such as thou."
His gruffness pleased her, for it rang true; and so, without question or demur, she followed him down the passage and out into the courtyard. He lifted her to the saddle, mounted the big bay that always carried him, and together they rode out in silence across the moor. The moon glanced silver-black across the heather; the gullies were full of whispering winds, alive with the sob and fret of running water; and more than once the Lean Man shivered, as if the night's quiet eeriness weighed heavy on his fears.
"How comes all this?" asked Nell, as they drew near to Barguest Lane.
"Ask your folk that, Mistress. A message came through one of my hinds that Janet was held at Marsh; your safety was matched 'gainst hers; it is no good-will of mine that has brought you hither.—Yonder is Marsh," he broke off, pointing down the hill. "Lord God, how I hate the fair, quiet look of it!"
"We are honoured by such hate, sir," said Nell.—"Have a care! The road is sadly over-full of stones," she added, as the bay horse stumbled badly.
The dead Ratcliffe had been taken indoors, and neither Nicholas nor his companion had leisure to note the signs of bloodshed that lay this side the closed gate of the courtyard.
"A Ratcliffe! A Ratcliffe!" yelled the Lean Man, with a thought that the old cry would bring them quickly to the gate.
And soon, indeed, there was a rush of feet across the courtyard, a rattle of swords snatched hastily from the scabbard, the hum of many voices.
"Peste! The whole swarm has settled in the Marsh hive," muttered Nicholas, glancing doubtfully at Nell. "Was I a fool, then, to trust to the Wayne honour?"
"No man has ever repented such folly, sir. If you raise the feud-cry to win peaceable entry, can you grumble that they come out armed to welcome you?"
He hesitated, wondering whether to take Nell's bridle and make a dash for safety. But the gates were flung wide open before he could turn, and Shameless Wayne stood bareheaded in the moonlight, a score of his folk behind him. Wayne stopped on seeing the Lean Man alone with Nell, and his sword, half-lifted, fell trailing to the ground.
"Do you come in peace?" he asked.
"I come in peace," answered the Lean Man bitterly. "Give me your captive, Wayne of Marsh, and take your sister."
"Was this your doing, Nicholas Ratcliffe?" went on the other. "Was it you who carried Mistress Nell to Wildwater?"
Nicholas found a sour pleasure in assuming a credit that was not rightly his. "'Twas my doing," he answered hardily. And the Waynes, seeing him stand fearless before the score of them, sent up a low murmur of applause.
"Then mark well the oath I swear. By the Brown Dog, I'll hunt you day and night, and night and day, till I force combat from you. Get ye gone, lean thief, lest I break faith and fall upon you now."
"And if Ned fails, then I'll take on the hunt," cried Rolf Wayne of Cranshaw, stepping forward.
The Lean Man cast a scared glance across the courtyard at mention of the Dog. He could see the wide doorway of the house, dark in the mellow moonlight, and he recalled the hour when he had ridden down to fix the badge of feud above the threshold and had unwittingly crossed Barguest as he drove home the nail. A deadly faintness seized him; but the hated folk were watching him, and he forced the weakness off.
"Hunt when ye will, and where ye will; I shall be ready," he answered, and led Nell's horse with great show of ceremony into the yard, and put the bridle into her brother's hand.—"Now, sir, make good your own half of the bargain."
A shadow crossed Wayne's face, as he turned and moved silently toward the house. Nell would have entered with him, but he checked her roughly.
"I have a word for Mistress Janet's ear," he said.
On a sudden the meaning of her unlooked-for escape grew clear to her. Janet had gone of her own free-will to Marsh, and it needed but a glance at Ned's face to tell her what had followed the girl's coming. The joy of freedom, her gladness in returning to the home she had scarce looked to see again, died out; she was supplanted, and by one whom it was dishonour for a Wayne to touch.
Janet was not in hall, but Wayne found her, after a hurried search, standing at the garden-door, plucking the roses that grew above her head and tearing them to pieces one by one.
"Thou—must go, Janet," he said, touching her on the arm.
"Yes," she answered dully.
"The Lean man is at the gate; he has brought Nell with him."
"Yes, Ned."
"God, lass, howdareI let thee out of sight!" he cried, his studied coldness breaking down.
Something of the devil that is in every woman prompted the girl to tempt him. He had mastered her, and even yet she grudged it him; there would be a sort of reprisal in trying his strength to the utmost.
"Keep me, Ned," she whispered. "Keep me, dear, and think no shame to break faith with a Ratcliffe.—Hark, Ned, how soft the garden-breezes are—and the roses; are they not heavy on the air? Let's wander down among them, and talk of the days to come."
Her heart failed her as she saw his agony. He did not glance at her, nor speak, but stood looking straight before him as he put honour in the balance and marvelled that it weighed so light.
"Is that thy wish, girl?" he asked hoarsely.
"Nay, 'tis neither thy wish nor mine," she cried with a troubled laugh. "Forgive me, Ned; I—I tempted thee for wantonness. There! Bid me farewell, dear; 'tis idle to make the parting harder."
As they gained the hall he stopped, and held his arms wide for her. "Once again, Janet—thy master," he muttered.
"My master—to the end, dear lad. There shall none take thy place, however ill it fares with me; and when need comes, I'll send for thee.—But, Ned, thou'lt promise to do naught rash? Move slowly—and wait till I can come to thee with the best chance of safety."
She slipped from his grasp and ran quickly out, brushing against Nell Wayne as she crossed to the gate.
"Good even to you, Mistress. Shall I offer thanks for the night's work you've done?" said Nell.
"I should accept none," answered the other, in the same hard voice.
The Waynes opened their ranks to let her pass through, and one offered her a hand to mount by; and just as they were starting, Shameless Wayne came to the Lean Man's crupper, a brimming flagon in his hands.
"You came in peace, and I'll not have it said you lacked any of the usages of peace," said Wayne, holding the flagon up.
"My faith, you traffic in niceties!" muttered the Lean Man. "'Tis the first wine-cup any of your house has offered me these score years past."
"And 'twill be the last, belike, for another score; so drink deep, sir, while you have the chance."
Nicholas turned the flagon upside down with sudden spleen, and watched the stones darken as the wine splashed on to them. "When I drink out of your cup, Wayne of Marsh," he said, "I shall lack wine more than ever I lacked it yet."
They set off, he and Janet, and once only the girl turned for a last look at Wayne.
He watched them ride over the crest of Barguest Lane, and his lips moved to the instinctive cry, "Come back, come back!" And when his kinsfolk presently began to talk of riding home, since there would be no further need of them for that night at least, he did not urge them stay and pledge Nell's safe return. He wished to be alone with the madness that had fallen on him, wished to take counsel how to rive Janet once for all from Wildwater, and marry her, and hold her in despite of his folk and her own.
He stood idly in the courtyard while they got to horse, and Nell, seeing him apart from the rest, came to his side.
"So thou hast let all else go—all save Janet?" she said.
"Ay, I have let all else go," he answered; "and if thou canst say aught against it, Nell, after she has plucked thee out of certain ruin—why, thou'rt less than my thoughts of thee."
"'Tis carrying thankfulness a far way, Ned.—And what of our kin? Will they smile on the match, think ye?"
"They may smile or frown, as best pleases them."
She was about to break into some hot speech, but he checked her. "Sleep on it, Nell; 'tis wiser. There are things said in heat sometimes that can never be forgot.—Well, Rolf, hast come to say thy farewells to Nell? Od's life, I'll make no third at any such parting of maid and man."
"Stay, lad, for I've come to tell thy sister that I'll have no more delays," said Wayne of Cranshaw, "and thou'lt add thy voice to mine, I fancy. Am I to wait and wait for thee, Nell, until every Ratcliffe of them all comes down to carry thee off?"
He had expected the old tale of duties that must keep her yet awhile at Marsh. But she offered no excuse, as she came and put her hand in his.
"There's no place for me now at Marsh," she said; "I'll go with thee, Rolf, at thy own good time."
"No place for thee at Marsh?" he echoed.
"None. Ned is to marry Mistress Ratcliffe by and by, and——"
"Is this true, Ned?" said Wayne of Cranshaw sharply.
"It is true that I've plighted troth with Mistress Ratcliffe; it is false that there is no place for Nell at Marsh," said Shameless Wayne, and turned on his heel.
But that one glance of Rolf's had given him a foretaste of what lay ahead. Nell was implacable; his kin would be implacable; her own folk would do their best to thwart the match.
"They say a Wayne of Marsh loves alway to stand alone," he muttered, as he returned to hall. "Well, I care not who's against me now."
He glanced at the moonlight streaming through the latticed windows, and thought of how Janet had lain there in his arms while they snatched a moment's grace from feud. Then, restless still, he crossed to the garden-door, from over which the roses were dropping white petals in the lap of a slow-stirring breeze. It was here that Janet had stood with the moon-softness in her eyes and had tempted him to sell his honour. He pictured her going up to the moor—up and further up—nearer to the red folk of Wildwater; and the strength which had saved his pride seemed wildest folly now.
Through the garden he went, now harking back to what had passed, now fancying new perils that might be lying in wait for Janet. The kitchen door was open as he drew near; through it he could see the rushlights flickering on the faces of the shepherds as they ate with greedy relish or lifted brimming pewters to their frothy lips.
At another time there would have been song and jest; shepherd Jose would have been to the fore with tales of yesteryear; the women would have laughed more loudly and kept sharper tongues for over-pressing swains. But to-night their merriment was soured by what had gone before it; and, though the Mistress had come back safe to Marsh, they could not forget how nearly she had been dishonoured.
At another time, too, Wayne would have gone amongst them to drink his due measure of October and set the glees a-going; but his heart was not in it, and he held aloof. Leaning idly against the garden-wall, he watched them at their meat, and let their talk drift past him while he asked himself, again and again, what end they would find, Janet and he, to their wind-wild wooing.
Now and then he pushed the matter from him and turned, for lack of better company, to listen to the gossip of his farm-folk. He heard each detail of the morning's fight described, repeated, and described again, till he wearied of it and half turned to go indoors again. Yet still he dallied.
"Wheer's th' Maister, like? I could right weel like to set een on him," said Jose the shepherd, breaking a long silence.
"Ay, a feast's no feast at all without th' Maister comes to drink his share," cried one of the younger men.—"What, Hiram, mun I pass thee th' jug again? For one that's no drinker tha frames as weel as iver I see'd a man."
Hiram filled his pewter and all but emptied it before he spoke.
"He'll noan show hisseln this side o' th' door to-neet, willun't th' Maister," he said slowly. "He's getten summat softer to think on nor sich poor folk as ye an' me."
Wayne flushed under the moonlight and muttered a low oath; but he would not move away, for the whim took him to hear the worst these yokels had to say.
"Oh, ay?" put in one of the wenches. "What dost mean, Hiram? Tha'rt allus so darksome i' thy speech."
"What should I mean? We knaw by this time, I reckon, what hes chanced. D'ye think snod Mistress Ratcliffe came an' swopped herseln just out o' love for Mistress Nell? Not she; 'twas for love o' Maister hisseln, if I know owt."
"Tha'rt bitter, Hiram," cried Martha. "An' thee to hev fought for him nobbut a few hours gone by!"
Hiram spoke in a tone which Martha had heard more than once before—a grave, troubled voice that had a certain dignity of its own. "I'm bitter, lass, an' tha says right," he went on. "He shaped like a man, did th' Maister, up at th' weshing-pools, an' I warmed to him. But what then? Nanny Witherlee telled me, just afore she gat her back to Marshcotes, that she'd crossed to th' hall a while sin', an' fund th' pair on 'em—nay, it fair roughens me to think on 't."
"Well, an' let 'em do as they've a mind to, poor folk, says I," put in Martha. "She's no Ratcliffe, isn't Mistress Janet, not at th' heart of her."
"She carries th' name, choose what, an' that's enough to mak most on us hod our nostrils tight. Well, he war born shameless, an' shameless he's like to dee."
"I doan't believe it!" cried shepherd Jose, striking his pewter on the table. "That's an owd tale o' thine an' Nanny's, Hiram, but I'm ower fond o' th' Maister myseln to think he'd do owt so shameless-crazy as wed a Ratcliffe. Ay, tha should bite thy tongue off for whispering sich a thing."
Again Wayne lifted his head and looked straight in through the doorway, himself unseen across the moonlit strip of yard which stood between the garden and the kitchen. Hiram's wryness was no more to him than the thistle-burrs which waited for him during any of his usual walks about the fields; but the shepherd's plain kindliness toward him, the shepherd's quiet assurance that there could be naught 'twixt Janet and himself, touched him to the quick. In vain he mocked himself for hearkening to what such folk as these could find to say of him; he stayed stone-still, his arms upon the rounded garden-wall, and heard them wear the matter threadbare with their talk. And there was not one—save Martha—who augured less than disaster from the match.
"Good hap, my very dogs will turn next and look askance at me," muttered Wayne.
But still he did not move, for he had plumbed the bottom depth of weariness to-night, and it was easier to stay hearkening to distasteful gossip than to turn to the ill company of his own thoughts. Work had succeeded fight and loss of blood; and close after these had followed his anxiety on Nell's behalf, his sudden yielding to the passion that had dogged his path all through the uphill months; then had come the struggle with his honour, the victory that was worse than defeat, and, last of all, the chill glances of those who were his nearest kin. Aged as he had grown of late, his youth was slow to die outright, and the quick ebb and flow of passion had left him weak to bend to the touch of his surroundings; and the chatter of these farm-folk, who condemned him in such frank, straightforward terms, seemed the last straw added to his burden.
They left talking of him by and by, as the ale began to warm them and frolic pressed for outlet. Little by little the Master lost his own cares in watching their rustic comedy played out; from time to time he smiled; and once, when Martha encouraged shepherd Jose too patently at the expense of Hiram, he laughed outright. Heretofore Wayne had been friendly with his servants in his own proud way; but to-night it was borne in upon him how like their betters, after all, were these rough-speeched folk. The same jealousies were theirs, the same under-fret of passion, veiled by banter or rude coquetry; and they, too, reared a score of stumbling-blocks, feigned or real, about the path of wedlock.
The night was wearing late meanwhile, and the farm-folk got to their feet at length and shuffled out by twos and threes—some to return to outlying farms or shepherds' huts far up the moor, others to less distant farms. Martha came to the gate to give them a God-speed, with Hiram Hey beside her, and it was long before the last shout of farewell died echoing up the moor.
Perhaps it was the ale he had drunk; perhaps it was Martha's flouting of him throughout the evening in favour of shepherd Jose; but for one cause or the other Hiram showed less than his wonted hesitation as he drew nearer to her in the moonlit yard. Their faces were turned sideways to the Master, and neither noted his quiet figure leaning against the wall.
"Martha, 'tis a drear house, this, I'm thinking," said Hiram.
"Ay, but it's all the roof I've getten."
"'Tis as full o' dead men's ghosts as it can hod, an' nobbut to-neet there war one more ligged quiet beside th' gate, as if th' owd place fare went hungering for bloodshed an' sudden death."
"Well, Hiram?"
He pointed down the fields to where, in a snug-sheltered hollow, the gable-end of his own farm climbed up into the moon-mists.
"Yond's a likelier spot, an' quieter, for a wench," he said.
"Sakes, Hiram! Tha'rt noan so backard-like i' coming forrard, when all's said."
Hiram was quiet for a space, and the Master could see a laughable air of doubt steal into his face as he ruffled the frill of hair that framed his smooth-shaved chin.
"An' then," put in Martha softly, "there's even a quieter spot nor yond that mud varry weel be mine for th' axing."
Hiram Hey ceased doubting. "What, dost mean that owd fooil Jose wod like to tak thee to th' wind-riven barn he calls a house?"
"Summat o' th' sort, Hiram—ay, he'd be fain, wod shepherd Jose. An' if th' house be i' a wildish spot—well, 'tis farther out o' harm's way."
"That sattles it. Wilt wed me afore th' corn ripens, lass, an' come to yond snug bigging dahn i' th' hollow?"
"I reckon I will, lad. Why didst not axe me plain afore?"
Then Hiram kissed her, under the left ear; and the Master, forgetting that they did not count upon a listener, laughed outright. Martha turned, with cheeks aflame like the peonies newly-opened in the garden place behind her; and Hiram lost his calmness for the moment.
"Thou dost well, Hiram," said the Master drily. "Love while thou canst, for thou'd'st better make the most of what few years are left thee."
Hiram took the stroke staunchly, knowing it was the return-thrust for many a home-blow he had given Wayne.
"An' so I bed, Maister," he answered, not shifting a muscle of his face—"by wedding one that counts no red folk i' her family."
The Lean Man and Janet had been riding slowly home while Wayne sat listening to the shepherds' gossip; and as they went up Barguest Lane Nicholas had bent toward his grand-daughter with more than his wonted tenderness.
"Janet, girl, 'tis good to know thou'rt safe again," he said. "What would Wildwater be without thee?"
She did not answer, but turned her head away a little; and so they rode on in silence until they reached the open moor. The old man shivered then, and glanced behind with the quick gesture she had learned to know.
"I had forgotten it," he muttered.—"Didst hear aught in the wind, Janet?"
"I heard a moor-bird calling, sir, and the rustle of dry heather-stalks."
"Naught else? No sound, say, of a hound baying down the lane?"
"There's a farm-dog barking at the moon; that is all."
He straightened in the saddle. "To be sure! When a fool is old, he's past praying for, eh, girl? Yet—is yond brown shadow going to fare to Wildwater with us?"
"So long as there's a moon to cast it, sir."
Another silence, while a mile of heath slipped underneath their hoofs.
"They bade me keep Nell Wayne, and let thee take thy chance," said Nicholas presently. "Think of it, Janet! To wake in the morning and have no slip of sunshine like thyself to come down to."
"Grandfather, it—it hurts me to hear you praise me so."
"Why, what ails thee? Cannot I praise the one thing on God's earth that I love, without hurting thee?"
Yes, she must tell him all. All the way up it had been borne in on her that she would let the deceit go no further. She owed no less than frankness to him, and he should have it, though afterward he struck her to the ground. They were alone with the sky and the wind; the hour, the dim-lying spaces of the moor, encouraged confidence. She had chosen her road—but at least she would start fair on it, honest as the man who had her love in keeping. Quietly, without shrinking or appeal, she told him all—how she used to meet Shameless Wayne by stealth, how she had given him warning, how, lastly, she had to-night ridden down to Marsh and surrendered herself into Wayne's hands.
The Lean Man was very quiet when she had finished, and not till they were skirting the dull ooze of Wildwater pool did he break silence. "I had rather have shovelled the earth above thy dead body, girl," he said, checking his horse at the brink.
She watched his face working fantastically as he stared into the water. Mechanically she traced the scars of fire, the lump of discoloured flesh that marked where his right ear had been shorn level with the cheek; and she told herself that Wayne of Marsh was answerable for both. His anger, gathering slowly, was terrible to meet.
"What is't to thee that my heart is broken?" he went on. "I could set finger and thumb to thy throat, girl, but would that heal my own hurts? The care I've given thee, the constant thought—womanish thought—the way I shamed myself by opening to thee all my secret fears." He laughed drily. "Barguest? Methinks thou hast killed him, lass, with a worse sickness. Hark ye! This shall not be. I've sap in my veins yet, and I'll cheat thee of thy lover before I die."
"Sir, is this the love you have for me? What has Wayne ever done that you should not cry 'peace' and let our marriage staunch the feud?"
"What has he done? He has fooled me, beaten me in fight, robbed me of more than life. Is that naught, or must I fawn on him and thank him for good service rendered in wedding Janet Ratcliffe? Thou hast heard of Sad Man's Luck, girl? It comes to those who have lost all, and it nerves them to strange deeds."
He moved forward, Janet following; and as they waited for the gates to be thrown open, he gave the low, hard laugh which never yet had boded good to man or woman.
"The luck has veered at last," he said quietly. "Wayne will begin to fear for himself, now that he has thee to unman him. His pluck will get tied to thy apron, lass, and he will quaver a little in his sword-strokes—what, did I say thou hadst broken my heart? I lied. Thou hast put new heart in me."
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW THE LEAN MAN FOUGHT WITH SHAMELESS WAYNE
Sexton Witherlee moved unsubstantial among his graves, stopping here to pull up a tuft of weed and there to rub a sprig of lavender or rosemary between his shrivelled fingers. He looked old beyond belief, and the afternoon sun, hot in a sweltering sky, traced crow's feet of sadness across his cheeks, and in among the sunken hollows underneath his eyes.
"What's amiss wi' me?" he murmured. "Here hev I been gay as a throstle all through this God-sent-weather—going about my business wi' a quiet sort o' pleasure i' seeing this little garden-place look so green, like, an' trim-fashioned—so green an' trim—an' now, all i' a minute, I'm sick-like an' sorry. Ay, I could cry like any bairn, an' niver a reason for 't, save it be this thunner-weather that's coming up fro' ower Dead Lad's Rigg.—Well, I mun hev a bit of a smoke, an' see what that 'ull do for me."
He lit his pipe, then fetched a broom from the tool-house and began to sweep the path of the leaves which had fallen, curled and brown, during the long spell of drought. But he desisted soon and sat him down on the nearest grave-stone.
"Nay, I've sweated ower long at helping th' living to bury their dead out o' mind, till now there's no lovesome sight, nor sound, nor smell of sweetbriar, say—but what it leads my crazy thoughts to th' one bourne—th' one bourne—an' that's a blackish hole, measuring six feet by length an' three by breadth. Lord God, I'm stalled, fair stalled! Hevn't I toiled enough at life? An' th' Lord God knaws how fain I am to be ligging flesh to earth myseln."
He sat silent for a long while, and his favourite robin came and perched on his shoulder, asking him to dig up its evening meal; but Witherlee paid no heed to the bird.
"I reckon it's a sight o' little Mistress Wayne I'm sickening for," he went on presently. "When she war fairy-kist, she niver let day pass without heving her bit of a crack wi' th' Sexton; but now she's fund her wits again—why, she hesn't mich need o' th' likes o' me, seemingly. Eh, but I wod like to hear her butter-soft voice again! There's peace in 't, somehow, to my thinking."
"Oh, tha'rt theer, art 'a?" put in Nanny's voice at his elbow.
"Begow, tha made me jump! What is't, Nanny?"
"Nay, I nobbut came for a two-three sprigs o' rosemary. It grows rare an' sweet i' th' kirkyard here, I call to mind, an' Mistress Nell, 'at I've nursed fro' a babby, is bahn to be wed to-morn to Wayne o' Cranshaw—sakes, how th' days run by!—an' she'll be wanting rosemary to wear ower her heart i' sign o' maidenhood. Well, I'd like to see one who's more a maid, or bonnier, i' all th' parish—an' I'll thank thee, Witherlee, to stir thy legs a bit for fear they'll stiffen for want o' use. What mak o' use is a gooidman, if he willun't stir hisseln to pluck a two-three herbs?"
The Sexton rose with his old habit of obedience, and went to the corner where the rosemary grew, and brought her both hands full.
"'Tis queer, I've often thowt," he said; "we all knaw what mak o' soil grows under foot here—yet out on 't come th' sweetest herbs i' Marshcotes. An' that's a true pictur o' life, as I've fund it through three-score year an' ten."
"What's tha knaw about life?" snapped Nanny. "Death is more i' thy way, an' tha'll be a wise man, Witherlee, sooin as tha comes to join th' ghosties.—Not but what there's sense for once i' what tha says. Sweetness grows i' muck, an' ye can't get beyond that; an' if onybody thinks to say it isn't so, let 'em look at Shameless Wayne, an' set him beside what he war afore th' feud broke out."
"Ay, he's better for th' fighting," put in Witherlee, with something of his wonted zest.
"Fighting? I reckon nowt on 't. All moil, an' mess, an' litter—gaping wounds that drip on to th' floors just when ye've bee's-waxed 'em—women crying their een out, an' lossing so mich time, ower them 'at's goan—'tis mucky soil, I tell thee, Luke. An' yet, begow, it hes bred summat into Shameless Wayne that he niver hed afore."
"They say him an' th' Lean Man is hunting one t' other fro' morn to neet, but allus seem to tak different roads. What's come to th' Lean Man, Nanny? He war daunted a while back, an' now he's keen as ony lad again!"
"Tha doesn't knaw Barguest's ways as I knaw 'em, lad. Th' Dog, when he's haunted a man nigh out of his senses, hods off for a bit, for sport, like, an' maks him 'at he's marked think th' sickness is all owered wi'—an' then, when he's thinking o' summat else entirely, up th' Brown Beast leaps, snarling fit to mak his blood run cold.—Ay, it's true th' Lean Man is hunting this day, for I met him riding into Marshcotes not a half-hour sin', wi' his een on both sides o' th' road at once, an' his hand set tight on his sword-heft."
"Did he say owt to thee, Nanny? He's noan just friendly to thee, an'——"
"He said nowt to me," broke in Nanny, "but I said a deal to him. I asked if Barguest's hide war as rough, an' his teeth as sharp, as when he fought th' owd feud for th' Waynes. An' he seemed fit to strike me first of all; an' then he sickened; an' at after that he rode forrard, saying nowt nawther one way nor t' other. Well, he minds how his father died, an' his father's father; an' he'll be crazy again by fall o' neet, if I knaw owt. It's th' Dog-days, an' all, an' th' month when dogs run mad is Barguest's holiday, I've noticed."
"Tha mud weel say it's th' Dog-days," said Witherlee, pointing to the moor above. "We shall hev sich a storm as nawther thee nor me hev seen th' like on, Nanny, sin' we war wedded."
From the moor-edge an angry haze was beating up against the wind, and the sun, a round ball that seemed dropping from the steel-blue of the sky above it, was cruel with the earth. Everywhere peatland and tillage-soil—the very graveyard earth—opened parched mouths and cried for drink. But still the sun shone, and only the slow-moving haze told of the rain to come.
"Ay, it 'ull be a staunch un," said Nanny. "Tha'd best come indoors, Witherlee, afore it breaks—for when it does break, buckets willun't hod th' drops, an' tha'll be drenched i' crossing th' kirkyard.—Why, there's Mistress Wayne. If iver I see'd a body choose unlikely times, it's yond little bit o' sugar an' spice."
Witherlee glanced eagerly down the graveyard path. "Now, that's strange," he murmured. "I war nobbut saying afore tha comed, Nanny, that I hedn't bed speech of her this mony a day—an' here she comes. Eh, but she's a sight for sore een, is th' bonnie bairn!"
Nanny's half-religious awe of Mistress Wayne was disappearing now that she had come to her right mind again. "Nay," she grumbled, "I reckon nowt so mich on her. She war bahn to do a deal for th' Maister, so I thowt; but what's comed on 't? Nowt, save 'at she carried a fond tale to Mistress Nell a while back, an' all but brought her into ruin.—Now, lad, art minded to get out o' th' wet that's coming?"
"Nay, I'll step indoors by an' by, for I'm fain of a crack wi' th' little Mistress at all times."
Nanny glanced shrewdly at her husband; something in his voice—a weariness that was at once helpless and resigned—brought an unwonted pity for him to the front. Impatient she was with him at most times; but under all her fretfulness there was a sure remembrance of the days that had been.
"Luke," she said, laying a hand on his sleeve, "tha'rt nobbut poorly, I fear me. Stop for a word wi' Mistress Wayne, if needs must, but don't stand cracking till tha'rt wet to th' bone."
"Nay, I'll noan stay long, lass—noan stay long," he murmured.
Nanny moved down toward her cottage, and the Sexton, sighing contentedly, gave a good-day to Mistress Wayne while yet she was half up the path.
"Ye've not been nigh me lately, Mistress," he murmured, making room for her on the grave-stone which had grown to be their wonted seat.
"I have been restless, Sexton, and my walks have taken me far a-field. But to-day I'm tired, and full of fancies, and I thought 'twould be pleasant to sit beside thee here and talk."
"To be sure, to be sure. Ye're looking poorly-like, an' all; it 'ull be this heavy weather, for I feel that low i' sperrits myseln——"
"'Tis more than the weather," she interrupted, turning her grave child's eyes on his. "The mists begin to come down again, Sexton, as they did when my lover was killed yonder on the vault-stone. Sometimes I can see men and women as thou see'st them; and then a mist steals over them, and they are only shadows, and the ghosts creep out of the moor, moving real among the unreal men and women."
"That's nobbut th' second-sight," said Witherlee gently. "I've getten it, an' ye've getten it, Mistress, an' we've to pay our price for 't. But it's nowt to fret yourseln about."
"Not when I hear Barguest—Barguest creeping pad-footed down the lane? Sexton, I've heard him every night of late—just at dusk he comes, and if I pay no heed he presses like a cold wind against my skirts. Does it mean trouble for Wayne of Marsh, think'st thou?"
"Hev ye set een on th' Dog?" asked Witherlee sharply.
"Nay, I have but heard him, and felt his touch."
"Then there's danger near Wayne o' Marsh, but nowt no more nor what he'll come through. 'Tis when th' Brown Dog shows hisseln 'at he doubts his power to save th' Maister—he like as he seeks human help then, an' it's time for all as wish well to Marsh to be up an' doing.—Begow, but we'd better be seeking shelter, Mistress."
She followed his glance, and shivered at that look of earth and heaven which they called in Marshcotes the scowl of God. To the west, whence the wind was gathering strength, the sky was a dull, blue-green; from the east a tight-drawn curtain of cloud moved nearer to the sun, which shone with dimmed light and heat unbearable. Light drifts of cloud trailed like brown smoke between earth and sky. The whole wide land was still, save for quick breaths of suffocation which stirred the summer dust and whipped up the leaves untimely fallen.
"I am frightened, Sexton. Let us go," murmured Mistress Wayne.
"All day I've watched it creeping up," said Witherlee, regarding with rapt eyes the eastern sky. "There's storms as come quick, an' go as lightly—but this un hes nursed its rage a whole long day, an' when it bursts, 'twill be like Heaven tumbling into Hell-pit fire. Ay, I've seen one sich storm, an' it bred bloodshed. See ye, Mistress, th' first rain-drops fall! An' th' streams that are dry this minute 'ull race bank-top high afore an hour is spent. An' them as seeks for tokens need seek no farther."
Beyond the kirkyard hedge a horseman passed, fast riding at the trot.
"What did I tell ye!" cried the Sexton. "Th' storm an' th' Lean Man ride together, an' th' streams that war empty shall be filled."
"He must be hastening from the rain. See, Sexton, he rides as if pursued."
Witherlee remembered Nanny's meeting with Nicholas. "It may be th' rain he's hastening fro'—or it may be summat 'at ye've heard whining, Mistress, when dusk is settling over Barguest Lane," he said.
For a while he stood there, nursing his visions and heedless of the gathering drops; then, seeing how Mistress Wayne was shivering, he came back to workaday matters.
"Come ye wi' me, Mistress," he cried. "Th' drops is falling like crown-pieces.—Good sakes, there's another horseman skifting out of th' wet, or intul 't; who mud it be, like?"
Shameless Wayne, riding up the field-side that ran from the Bull tavern to the moor, looked over and saw his step-mother standing beside the Sexton in the kirkyard.
"The clouds blow up against the wind. There'll be thunder, Witherlee," said Wayne, and would have passed on.
"Well, there's one gooid thing 'ull come on 't, ony way," answered the Sexton. "Th' Lean Man o' Wildwater is like to get wet to th' bone afore he wins across th' moor. An' ye can niver tell but what a wetting may tak a man off—I've knawn mony a——"
Wayne swung his horse round sharply. "The Lean Man! Hast seen him, then?" he cried.
"Not ten minutes agone. He crossed up aboon there at a gooidish trot."
"What, by the moor-track?"
"Nay, his face war set for th' Ling Crag road; he war hurrying, an' wanted better foot-hold for his horse, I reckon, nor th' peat 'ud gi'e him."
Mistress Wayne was at the wall-side now. "Ned, thou'lt not ride after him?" she pleaded. "'Tis Nell's wedding-day to-morrow—she'll think it a drear omen."
But Wayne was already gathering the reins more firmly into his hand. "Nell will want a wedding-gift, little bairn—and, by the Red Heart, I'll bring her one of the choicest.—Sexton, shall I overtake him before he gets within hail of Wildwater?"
"Wi' that mare's belly betwixt your legs, Maister, ye'd catch him six times ower."
Wayne stopped for no more, but touched the mare once with his heels and swung up the field and round the bend of the Ling Crag road. The Sexton looked after him and nodded soberly; and it was strange to see his old eyes brighten, as if at the grave-edge he were turning back to see this one last fight.
"There's more nor one storm brewing; I said as mich," he muttered, and hobbled to the wicket to see the flying trail of dust and rain that marked the rider's headlong course.
The wind rose on the sudden. The rain-drops fell by twos now where lately they had fallen singly. A far rumble of thunder crept dull through the leaden sky-wrack.
"Gallop, thou laggard, gallop!" muttered Wayne to his mare, as Ling Crag village swirled by and the rough track to Wildwater stretched clear ahead.
The village folk came out of their houses as he passed, but they were slow of foot, and all that they reaped for their trouble was the fast-dying beat of horse-hoofs down the wind.
"Wayne, 'tis Shameless Wayne. Who but him carries Judgment-fire i' his hoss's heels?" they said.
Past Blackshaw Hall and through the Conie Crag ravine swept Wayne the Shameless; past the three wells of Robin Hood and Little John and Will Scarlett, and up into the naked moor. The land lay flat to the sky up here, and through the thickening rain-sheets Wayne could see his enemy's lean figure rising and falling to the trot of his lean bay horse. Soon the track crept timorous round the bog, and under foot the water splashed and creamed; but still Wayne plied his mare with tongue and spur. The thunder-throb grew nearer, and muttered all along the murky sky-edge and down the dun moor-fastnesses. Earth and sky, bog and peat and cloud-wrack, were wakeful and at war; the starveling moor-birds fled on down-drooping wings, and from the under-deeps the Brown Folk chattered restlessly.
Wayne's heart was lifted to the storm's pitch as he rode. Ahead was the man who had made a shameful bargain touching Janet, the man who had perilled his sister's honour and warred with malice unceasing against his house. There was but a quarter-mile between them—and now but ten-score yards—yet Wildwater lay over yonder slope.
"Dost crawl, I tell thee, just when I need thy speed. Gallop, thou fool!" he muttered, then rose in the stirrups and raised a cry that might have roused the slumber of dead men in Marshcotes kirkyard.
The Lean Man checked when he heard the cry, and looked behind; and Wayne lessened by the half the distance between horse and mare.
"Who calls?" yelled Nicholas Ratcliffe.
"Wayne of Marsh. Who else? There are old debts between us, Ratcliffe the Lean."
"On both sides, Wayne the Shameless," cried Nicholas, and turned the big bay's head, and rode straight at his man with heavy sword uplifted.
Between them, while they neared each other, a zag of lightning flashed to earth, and Wayne's cry as he galloped to the shock was drowned in a wild roar of thunder. He took the Lean Man's stroke, and jerked his own sword back; but the mare shied with terror, and his return blow aimed wide, grazing the Lean Man's saddle-pommel as it fell.
"Thou aimest ill, lad. I thought a sword sat better in thy hand," laughed Nicholas, as Wayne brought his mare round once more to the attack.
The Lean Man had found his youth again, and in his heart, too, the storm-wind was singing shrill. Fear of the Dog slipped from him. He warmed to the old joy of hardened muscles and of crafty hand.
"'Tis thou and I now, thou bantling," he cried, plucking the curb as his beast reared its fore-feet to the sweltering sky. "Does the Dog fear the storm, that it comes not up with thee to fight?"
A second flash shot through the rain-sheets, and another roar snapped up the Lean Man's words. Try as their riders would the horses refused obedience to the bit, for each flash and each new burst of thunder whetted the keen edge of their terror. Three times Wayne brought round the mare and strove to force her to the shock; and three times she swerved out of sword's-reach.
"God's life, shall we never get to blows!" roared the Lean Man. "Down, lad, and we'll fight it out on foot."
There was no gully of the moor now but hid a rolling thunder-growl. The streams raced foaming between their dripping banks, and all across the sky ran sinuous lines of blue-red fire, the harbingers of lightning-blasts to come or the aftermath of flashes spent.
Yet neither Wayne nor the Lean Man knew if it were foul weather or fair, save that the rain dimmed their sight a little; for each saw his dearest enemy across the narrow, sword-swept space between them that stood for the whole world. And now one gained the advantage, and now the other, while still they shifted back and forth, treading into great foot-holes the soaked bed of peat on which they stood.
Above, the greater battle—the shock of hurrying clouds close-ranked against each other, the shriek and whistle of the wind, the down-descending sweat of combat. Below, the lesser battle, with smitten steel for lightning, and hard-won breaths for wind and thunder, and rage as fierce, and monstrous, and unheeding, as any that smote the moor-face raw from yellow east to smouldering, ruddy west.
"I have thee, Wayne!" yelled Nicholas, as he cut down the other's guard and aimed at his left side.
"Nay," answered Wayne, and leaped aside so swiftly that the stroke scarce drew blood.
A keener flash ripped up the belly of the sky as they fell to again, a nearer harshness crackled in the thunder's throat; but naught served to quench the fury of the onset. Like men from the Sky-God's loins they fought, and their faces glowed and dripped.
But Wayne was forcing the battle now, and step by step the Lean Man was falling back for weariness. Harder and harder he pressed on him; there was a moment's pauseless whirr of cut and parry, and it was done. Shameless Wayne, seeing his chance, sprang up on tip-toe and lifted his blade high for the last bone-splittering stroke that is dear to a swordsman's heart as life itself.
And then a strange thing chanced, and a terrible. As his sword was half-way on the upward sweep, Wayne saw, through a blinding lightning-flash, the Lean Man's blade shrink crumpling into a twisted rope of steel and the Lean Man's arm fall like a stone to his side. He checked himself, with a strain that nigh wrenched the muscles of his back in sunder, and lowered his weapon, and cursed like one gone mad because the sky had opened to rob him of his blow.
"Your tale is told, Lean Ratcliffe," he said. "Had the storm so few marks for sport that it must needs rob me in the nick of vengeance?"
The Lean Man tried to move his stricken arm, and his face showed ghostly-grey through the rain sheets while he mowed and mumbled at his impotence. But the old light shone quenchless in his weasel eyes, as he slid his left hand toward his belt, and clutched his dagger, and stumbled forward with the point aimed true for the other's breast. But Wayne had never taken his eyes from him and he warded the stroke in time.
"'Tis an old device of your folk, and one I know," cried the younger man. "Your game is played out, lean thief of Wildwater—God pity me that I lack your own strength to kill a stricken man."
"Curse thee, curse thee!" groaned Nicholas. "Is that not an old Wayne device likewise? Ay, and a mean device, when we would liefer take steel at your hands than quarter. Kill me, thou fool, least it be said I begged quarter of a Wayne."
Wayne eyed him gloomily. "Cease prating! I cannot kill you, and I cannot leave you to die among these howling moor-sprites. Can you sit in the saddle if I lift you to 't?—Peste, though, the horses have taken to their heals. Can you frame to walk, then?"
The Lean Man made a few steps forward, then stopped and seemed to stumble. "Give me thy hand, Wayne, as far as Wildwater gates. I am weak, and cannot walk alone," he mumbled. "There shall none of my folk do thee hurt—I swear it by the Mass."
Wayne saw through the trick, for he knew from those few forward steps that, though his enemy's sword-arm was sapless as a rotten twig, his legs were firm to carry him. A touch of grim approval crossed his hate. This Lean Man had a grandeur of his own; maimed, defeated, worn with the fiercest battle he had ever fought in his long life of combat, he could yet keep heart to the last and frame a quick stroke of guile when all weapons else had failed him.
"Featly attempted!" cried Wayne of Marsh. "How your folk would swarm about me when you got me to the gates! And in what strange fashion they would keep me safe from hurt. Nay, Lean Man, I know the way the hair curls on the Ratcliffe breed of hound."
The old man was silent, weaving a hundred useless subtleties. And then an exceeding bitter cry escaped him. "God curse thee, youngster! The Dog fights for thee—my very children fight for thee—and now the sky opens to snatch thee out of hurt."
"Nay," answered Wayne, gravely, "for the blow was mine, and you know it."
And so they parted. And the storm howled ravening over the tortured waste.