CHAPTER III
When Hardcastle had opened the door to Causleen and her father, and had thrown his gun and brace of partridge down on the long-settle in the hall, his hardness left him. These two were guests, whatever chance had driven them to the bleak roads where pedlars chaffered for a livelihood.
He brought them into a great, cosy room, aglow with its fire of pine-logs and fragrant with the smouldering peats that burned below. Causleen glanced about, with a woman’s quickness to see all—the candles in their sconces, bringing mellow lights to birth on bees’-waxed panels—the orderly array of muskets, swords and pistols on the walls—and, over these, a pike with the red-rust on it of blood shed long ago.
Donald saw the pike only. “That was rieved from Scotland once,” he said.
“No. It went north to Flodden, and returned to its own homestead.”
Fire kindled in the pedlar’s syes. “Scots’ blood on it?” he challenged, the years slipping from him like a garment.
“Scots’ blood—but it’s been drying for the length of ten generations. Flodden was a fair fight, as my folk passed the tale down—a fight between the North-born folk. The Southrons came by land and sea; but it was the Logie Men that ran in at the edge of dusk, and settled that good battle.”
“Jaimie the King was slain that day.”
“Aye, he died well. There’s none in Logie Dale but knows that he died well. We have the tale from our fathers.”
The pedlar rose, though every bone in his body was aching for rest long-denied. “Come, Causleen,” he said. “We’ve no traffic with folk who slew the king at Flodden.”
There was nothing whimsical to Hardcastle in this passion that had survived the centuries. One of his own tenants—a hale farmer-man of seventy—climbed to the moor-top every morning of his life, to learn if the Scots came marching south, though raids of that sort were no more by this time than food for winter gossip by the hearth. Quarrels lived to a great age here in Yorkshire, as on the far side of the Border; for their roots bit deep into strong, ancient soils.
“What is amiss with you, pedlar?” he asked, looking down on these wayfarers who had come to his gate—by chance, it seemed. In their faces he read tenacity, strength to endure, something valiant and at war with exile. “It was a fair and a bonnie fight, I tell you, and I’d have been proud to have been on either side that day.”
“That may be,” said Donald restively; “but it’s no house for us to lodge in. Your welcome was cold at best—we’ll have none of it.”
He gathered dignity into his aching body, and had neared the door when a clatter of wooden pattens sounded down the passage, and Rebecca swept into the room like a gale from the north.
“Come talk to Geordie Wiseman, Master,” she broke in, without leave asked or granted. “He’s in the kitchen, roaring for strong ale.”
“No great news, that. Geordie was born with that sort of roar.”
“Aye, but I’d have you come. He says the Lost People have left an arrow on his gate, same as they’ve done on yours.”
Again Causleen saw little, grey wrinkles creep about Hardcastle’s battered face, saw him recover with stubborn strength.
“I’ll come,” he said, after a moment’s silence, “if only to tell him it’s nothing to make a cry about.”
When he reached the kitchen, a tough, thick-set farmer was standing by the hearth, his hair drabbled with the sweat of abject dread, his knees shaking.
“They’ve put the token on us, Wiseman,” said the Master. “It had to come, and better soon than late.”
“What need had it to come? Three of the Wilderness Men asked tribute. Well, we’ve payed it for many a year, and the roads have been easy for us.”
“A Hardcastle never payed it—and a Hardcastle never will.”
“You can do what you like with your own skin; but I tell you, plain man to man, you’d no right to bring all your tenants into this. Better have given those three all you had in your pockets than us be murdered in our beds.”
“As well have given them my soul.”
“Your soul?” sneered Wiseman, chill with fear.
“Just that. If I’d bartered it to the Lost Folk, there’d have been the end of pride for me. And the end of pride is hell.”
“Then it’s hell either way, it seems; for you’ve brought it close to one and all of those who farm under you. You didn’t stop to think of that when they asked tribute?”
“I didn’t think at all, Wiseman. I just saw the three lousy rogues, straddling the road in front of me, and I hit them, true and hard.”
“You had your frolic—and soon they’ll be having theirs. You’ve no wife to think of, Master.”
“No,” said Hardcastle, recalling sharply the might-have-been that had ended long since.
“I’ve a wife and children myself, like many another they’ll have lain the token on. If your time at the pinfold came again, you’d remember it meant war about Logie-side?”
“I would,” said Hardcastle, as if a clean, lusty wind blew through him, driving out all dread—“and hit the three men true and hard again. Now, listen to me. I’ve brought you all into this trouble, and I’ll see you through it. Take my word as bond for that. You’re needing ale, Rebecca tells me.”
“A flood of it, just to get my balance straight.”
“You can have it by and by. Ale is food for men, but poison to this cry-baby fit that’s taken you.”
Geordie Wiseman shifted from foot to foot, and glowered at the Master. “We’re not all made of boulder-stone and whipcord. It would come easy to you to face the devil and his witch-hounds—but I’m a usual man, like most of my neighbours.”
“They’ve put the token on us, Geordie.”
“Aye, yammer at it. To be sure they have, and you fancy it a merry-making.”
“Listen to me. There’ll be merry-making by and by; but we’ve to mow a long swathe before then. I’m sick and weary of the Wilderness Folk—sick of the toll they’re levying on white-blooded men.”
“My blood’s red enough, Hardcastle of Logie. If you doubt it—why, here’s my coat off, and off goes yours.”
“That’s the spirit,” laughed Hardcastle. “You’re readier for what I have to tell you than you were awhile since.”
“Aye,” mocked Rebecca from the doorway—“readier than he was just now, when he rived the door of my kitchen wide, and stepped in with a face made of tallow. ‘We’ll all be murdered in our beds,’ says he. ‘Not me for one,’ says I. ‘I’ll be murdered standing, if at all—giving as good as I get while it lasts.’ That’s what I said to Geordie—and now he’s prancing up and down like a turkey-cock, with his coat half-off.”
Wiseman’s wrath against the Master found a new channel. “As for you, Rebecca, it’s plain you know less than a child what the token means, left on a man’s gate.”
“I know as much as my mother taught me, when I was knee-high. There’s little I need to learn about the Lost Folk.”
“And you’re blithe, are you, because the Master fought with three, and left them to stir up their blessed hornets’ nest?”
“Blithe, if you put it that way—though it’s a queer kind of joy. It’s time these wastrels were hunted out, like rats about a stable. They breed like rats, too, and soon they’ll be eating us out of house and home.”
“In league with the Master, as you always were.”
“Yes, Geordie. He’s man enough to hunt the Lost Folk from their burrows.”
And now a queer thing happened. The Master and Geordie crossed themselves by stealth, not knowing why. The Lost Folk had been a running sore about the country-side in far-off Catholic times, and no man can deny his ancestors.
“Popish mummery,” snapped Rebecca, and crossed herself as she spoke without knowing it.
There came a sudden, lusty knocking at the door, and Brant the shepherd followed his knock, bringing the strong, sweet tang of the uplands with him.
“Naught to be scared of, Geordie,” said Rebecca. “You fancied three hundred Wilderness Men were tramping in—or was it a thousand?”
Brant glanced at Wiseman with kindly tolerance. “You wear a scared look on your face, Geordie.”
“Haven’t you heard what’s gathering round us all?”
“I hear little up yonder, thanks be, save crying of the ewes, and stillness, and the wind. They’re better gossips than your village-folk down hereabouts.”
Rebecca had an old fondness for the shepherd, and the ale that Wiseman had clamoured for in vain was brought.
“It’s cold up yonder on the heights,” she said, filling a wide mug for him. “Dark and lonesome, too, after sundown, with ghosty Brown Men of the Heather and what not flitting by you. Butyouwere never one to come with your knees a-wobble.”
“Meaning me?” said Geordie.
“Meaning you, or any other man that thinks he’s fitted with his proper cap.”
“What’s it all about, Master?” asked Brant. “Is Geordie just in his cups, with his tale of what’s gathering round us?”
“Half in and half out. He’s himself most days of the week,” said Hardcastle dryly. “There’s trouble brewing, though, as he says. An arrow-head was left on my gate last night, and on Geordie’s. It will come to yours when they’ve time to get up to your cottage on Gaunt Fell.”
“Let it come,” said Brant, his face hard and bright on the sudden. “I’ve wanted that for many a year.”
“You would,” Rebecca nodded. “I’ve heard you speak time and again in this same kitchen of their sheep-stealing tricks. Theft of a sheep to you is almost like what murder is to other folk.”
Wry humour came to Hardcastle. “What luck had you with Storm yesterday, after I left you up at Weathersett? Did you find the four-legged thief?”
“Not I,” growled Brant. “He’s just a slip of devildom, ravening up and down the pastures. There are times when I fancy he’s more than a sheep-dog that’s tasted flesh instead of guarding it—times when he seems to be Old Nick himself. Foxes at lambing-time? They’re honest, set side by side with Storm.”
“For all that, I’m finding a soft spot in my heart for the rogue.”
Brant took a long draught of ale, wiped the froth from his mouth, and set down his pewter mug. “Are you, Master? Then harden it. A sheep-slayer goes cursed from the minute he gets from his lair at dawn till daylight ends.”
“Yet you can’t take Storm. He’s hunted from the four quarters of the sky, day in, day out, and wins through. That’s the sort of dog I like—and the sort of man.”
Passion, with Brant, had the stillness of deep pools. His voice lost little of its quietness; but a hard note sounded in it. “It’s hard to tell what ewes mean to a shepherd. They’re like children, you might say. Happen it comes from mothering ’em from the day they first stand up on their four wambly legs—newborn and bleating at their dams. Happen it comes of tending ’em later on—blizzards and drifts and what all—comes of sleeping and waking for ’em. I couldn’t tell all that goes to the hate of a sheep-killer. But I know what every shepherd feels for every outlaw dog.”
“Just so,” said Hardcastle. “It’s for that reason I’m all for Storm—the lad with never a friend in the country-side.”
“It’s easy for you to lose a sheep here and there. What does it count if a few odd ewes are ravaged? Just a few pounds missing from your plenty. For me, it stands for murdered bairns—bairns I’ve reared and guarded better than their scant-wit mothers could.”
“There are good sheep-tenders in the Dale, but none quite like you. You do it all, Brant—the damned, lonely fight against Logie weather, and foot-rot, and marauders of all kinds—do it for love of silly sheep that to me are so much fleece and mutton.”
“They’re my life to me,” said the shepherd, “and I’m still wondering why you side with Storm. Best of his kind, he was once—knew how to round them up the pastures like a marvel. Then he fell from grace, as you might say, and he’s a hunted dog from this to Weathersett.”
“Aye, and you and all of mine will know soon what that sort of hunting means. I’ve a fellow-feeling for old Storm.”
Hardcastle turned his head sharply. He was still standing just inside the kitchen door, and behind him was the long passage that led into the hall. At the far end of the passage was a place under the stairway, half room, half cupboard, where logs and peats had been stored in earlier times. It held a fugitive now—a fugitive who was beating against the worm-eaten door in search of freedom.
“There’s queer noises in the house,” stuttered Geordie Wiseman. “I told you what would come of saying no to the Lost Folk.”
The shepherd had taken a second draught of ale. That, and the cosy warmth, ripened the dry humour that was never far to seek. “Queer noises in your head, more like. If I’d slaked thirst as you’ve done Geordie—all day long, and every day—I would be hearing smith-hammers—but they’d be ringing in my own headpiece.”
Down the passage came a running whine, that only Hardcastle and Wiseman heard. The Master stood silent, but Geordie began to bubble like a child lost in the dark.
“And now Barguest’s come. D’ye hear him whining? I warned you what would come of it.”
“Oh, be quit of your moonshine,” growled Brant. “Such as you breed fears like maggots. What we’re up against is enough for sober folk, without your doldrum fancies.”
It was well for Logie and all its tenantry that Storm, as he came down the passage, heard Brant’s voice, and checked his joy in liberty. Hardcastle felt a rough pressure at his knee, and, looking down, saw the sheep-thief’s grizzled snout pushed out an inch or two into the lamplight. His hand went down, to cover even that from the shepherd’s keen, revengeful eyes. Storm’s nose was hot and dry, his body quivering; for he always pictured Brant these days as carrying a gun.
Hardcastle backed into the doorway, keeping the dog behind him. “Whatever comes, Brant, the Logie Men will fight the Wilderness.”
“They have to, thanks be,” said the shepherd fervently. “You’ve made that sure and safe.”
“He has,” whined Geordie Wiseman, “without asking leave of Logie Men. Let him be murdered, says I, if he fancies that sort of pastime—but what have I done?”
“Naught that I can rightly call to mind,” said the shepherd pensively. “There’s a tale that you were caught working once, between one barley-brew and the next—but you must have been younger then.”
Hardcastle was glad of Rebecca’s cackle of laughter, of Brant’s absorption in his jest. He nodded a good-night, closed the kitchen door, and dragged Storm by his collar down the passage. The cupboard under the stair showed open to the lamplight. The door, with its broken lock, creaked fitfully as the draught swung it to and fro.
“You fool, to leave safe quarters,” said the Master savagely.
Storm feared his wrath, but not as he feared Brant’s. He was with a friend, and knew it. Quietly, without fuss or protest, he got into his lair, turned three times according to ancient ritual of his breed, and settled into wary sleep.
“Storm,” said the Master.
Two brown, faithful eyes opened, asking what was needed.
“It’s no holiday to shelter a broken dog. I’m quit of you if you stir or whine till Brant has gone.”
Storm understood. Bred in close intercourse with men, he had their speech. The brown eyes met Hardcastle’s, loyal in answer, and the Master closed the door on him, knowing there was no need of the broken lock.
For the first time, since going to answer for his own part in the coming warfare, he remembered Pedlar Donald and his girl. The candles were burnt half down as he went into the big room, but the fire glowed warm and ruddy on the pike that once had gone to Flodden. There was an odd silence in the room, and Causleen knelt by the long-settle, where Donald stretched like a man dead and out of mind.
“What is it?” he asked sharply.
Causleen rose and faced him. Proud, even in bitter grief. “We are not welcome here,” she said.
“I gave you shelter.”
“Yes, grudgingly. We do not care for that—but now we have no choice.”
Hardcastle crossed to the long-settle and stood looking down on Donald; and Causleen’s eyes softened a little as she met his glance.
“The end of the journey?” he asked, with rough sympathy.
“I fear it. His heart beats, but it is fluttering out. Just after you went his strength left him, and he stumbled to the settle.”
Two owls were hunting mice in Logie Wood. Their cries sounded loud and ghostly through the silence. A restless breeze was plucking at the windows.
“Oh, let the tears come,” said Hardcastle impatiently, “You’ve need of ease.”
CHAPTER IV
Hardcastle had got to bed somewhere near midnight. There had been a farm-lad riding for the doctor, the galloping return of both, the verdict that Donald, with care, might live for a week or two. Old Rebecca had scolded life and destiny, but had managed with great deftness to make the pedlar warm and easy on the long-settle, with blankets under and over him. She had insisted, too, on sharing the watch with Causleen, after telling the Master there was nothing for a feckless mule to do by way of help.
“You ordered early breakfast. Best take a wink or two o’ sleep while you’ve got the chance.”
And now Hardcastle was seeking sleep, and finding little. When he dozed, it was to go in dreams through things suffered at the Lost Folks’ hands long since, told and re-told till superstition had given them a bigger terror than their due. When he woke, it was to remember that he and his stood alone against them.
He counted his household in the waking hours. Indoors was Rebecca, and Roy, the old retriever—and out across his acres tenants who numbered a score, all told. Some of these had five sons, some three or less, and not all of them up-grown. And among them were a few of Geordie Wiseman’s kidney, whiners and pay-for-safety folk at any price.
Then his mind roamed out to the crumpled, limestone wastes that stretched from Drumly Ghyll to grey Weathersett—the land where the Lost Folk had their dwelling, in a village bare to every wind of devilry that blew. They were stealthy, pitiless, spawn of the creeping things that hunt by night.
He would doze again, and nightmares led him into the caves he had explored in boyhood, because forbidden by the father who knew their peril. Once he had all but been caught there by a Wilderness Man, and had returned with a glow of adventure in his heart.
When he woke to restless tossing from one side to another, adventure loomed close ahead; but it had no glow about it. He recalled Geordie Wiseman’s complaint that he brought trouble to many a hearth beside his own. It was true, and doubt took hold of him. What right had he to bring others into an affair so stark and hard to face?
He got up at last, weary of the phantoms that creep about a sleepless bed. Below-stairs he could hear Rebecca scolding and coaxing a lazy fire to burn; and when he came down a half-hour later, he heard still the murmur of coaxing and scolding, though she was at war with rashers crinkling on the fire. It was a heartening note—this chiding tongue of Rebecca’s, the grey, hard woman who kept his house spotless-clean, and cooked and laboured for him as if she loved the work. She was rough and loyal, reared in the older days.
As he passed the room where Donald lay, he heard the pedlar chattering quietly, and went through the half-open door. Causleen’s dark head was pillowed on the horse-blanket covering Donald. The sleep of dire exhaustion had found her as she knelt by the settle, and even Hardcastle, roughened long since against any lure of women, was moved to grudging pity. She was so slender, so helpless, and her loosened hair lay round her like a cloud of burnished night.
Then he glanced again at Donald. The pedlar’s eyes were open, and he talked of glens—talked of Glencoe, and Bannockburn and far Culloden, of misty sorrows that for ever drenched the hills he loved. Again Hardcastle was stirred—not by pity now, but by shame. If this ancient man, his body crumpling into death, could live so bravely with the long-done battles, counting these heartsease and gain, what had the younger sort to do with fear?
Donald did not see him standing there, for his eyes were intent on wider scenes than this cramped room afforded him. To Hardcastle, as he listened, a wider country opened, too. The pedlar’s body had forsaken him so utterly that heart and mind were free to roam at large. The very throb of Scottish battle-strength seemed gathered into this room at Logie—the skirl of pipes, the sobbing of women as their dead were brought home on their shields—the harsh challenge of men facing treachery in many hidden glens.
It seemed to Hardcastle that the pedlar was sharing five centuries of battle. So he was, maybe, for a man’s dead come close when he nears the borderland, to welcome him across the little gap between them.
Donald lingered awhile with the feud fights of the clans, with the big battles and the small; but ever he returned to the tale of how Jaimie the King went down in splendour when the last, swirling fight at Flodden closed about him.
Then the pedlar’s restless glance fell on the pike nailed above the mantel, and stayed there awhile, and roamed to the big man looking down at him. For the first time he saw Hardcastle, and came sharply from the glens of mist.
“Small wonder I dreamed of Flodden and the king. There’s a pike yonder with Scots’ blood on it. What could there be but haunted sleep in such a room?”
He strove to rise, but all of him from waist to feet refused his bidding. It was terrible, piteous, to see the struggle of a proud man anxious to be gone from a house at enmity with his so long ago.
“I thank you for the lodging,” he murmured, courteous to the last; “but we must go. Causleen, child, where are you? The mists are gathering over Ben Crummart, and winds are sobbing in the glens. We must be going.”
Through the sleep of exhaustion Causleen heard the call. She was on her feet in a moment, laying the pedlar’s head back and soothing him to quiet. The quickness of it, the eagerness that gave all and at once to this wayworn vagabond, brought a rough wonder to Hardcastle. But then she was a woman, and no doubt there was trickery of some kind under this show of great affection.
He longed to go, but could not. If Donald were to die now and here, he must not leave one slim girl to face the trouble, full of guile though she might be. He watched her put a hand on the old man’s heart, and wrap the blankets round him; and still he could not go.
When she turned and saw him there, shame and pride took fire together. She glanced at the hair which ran loosened to her knees, and hated him for the surprise. She glanced, too, as Donald had done, at the pike above the mantel; her voice was cold and hard.
“We shall not trouble you for long.”
A great anger flamed in Hardcastle. “Am I such a churl as that?”
“You were a churl last night.”
“How should I know he was an ailing man? There’d have been no doubt of your welcome then.”
“In our country all benighted guests are welcome; but you’re a harsher folk in Yorkshire.”
He glanced again at Donald. “Shall I send Rebecca to you?”
“There is no need.”
The Master turned without a word. She chose to be at war with him, and he was content enough; better that than the pity she had roused. When a man began to pity any woman, he had one foot already in the marshes.
He had reached the door, and was closing it behind him, when she recalled him. “You, too, were ill last night. Have you recovered?”
“I’m in rude health, now as then.”
“Fear is a sickness.”
Hardcastle glowered down at her, and Causleen learned in that moment what the strength of his blow would have meant if she had carried a man’s shape.
“It may be. I never had much traffic with it.”
“Until yesterday. We brought the token, and I watched grey fear come to the Master of Logie as he touched it.”
Her rancour was less for herself than for the slight put on Donald, sick and old, who in his prime had known the glow of candlelight on a well-ordered table, the ruby in the wine of life. And now her father lay there, a pensioner on the bounty of this dour host—lay dying, with the Flodden pike sneering at him overhead, and all the room packed with ghosts of men who had boasted through the generations of what they had done aforetime to the Scots.
“Your Highland men have never known fear?” asked Hardcastle.
She faced him, slender and straight, her dark hair like a glory about her tattered pedlar’s clothes. “Only its name,” she said, with the same quiet mockery—“and that they had from the Southrons.”
“Then God help them for no more than beasts of the field. What courage could they learn, unless they came to grips with fear?”
Causleen remembered many journeys, with fortune at its worst and only the pedlar’s voice to rouse her from the depths. “Fear is a good whetstone, child,” he would say. “It breaks poor metal, but sharpens steel.” And now Hardcastle was giving her the same rough gospel.
“When did you learn so much?” she asked, half-defiant still.
“Last night—no longer since than that—while I thought of all the uproar I’d brought to Logie-side.”
He glanced once more at Donald, then turned and went down the passage. Rebecca was bustling into the sunlit breakfast-room with a tray that held many tempting odours for a hungry man. She fussed pleasantly about the Master’s needs, as of old, but with a new solicitude.
“Storm-cocks were crying round Logie all the night,” she said, breaking the silence at last—“or else I dreamed they were.”
“You dreamed it, likely. This weather’s not for breaking yet.”
“Maybe not—but the Lost Folks’ weather is.”
“It had to break,” said Hardcastle.
Again the silence fell between them—the silence that was more ultimate than speech. None knew better than these two the staunchness that would be asked for by and by, when the Wilderness loosed its spite against them, and only a few were left to stand against the pestilence that would sweep over Logie-side—the pestilence of dread.
“Donald is sinking fast, by the look of him,” said the Master presently.
“He’ll not quit the house till he dies. Not a doubt o’ that; but he may sink very gradual. I’ve seen such cases.”
“It was as well I didn’t turn him away last night. He’d not have got far, poor devil.”
“As well maybe,” grumbled Rebecca, “though I’ve no stomach for tending him and the dark-eyed hussie for weeks on end. We’ve lived to ourselves till now, and I never relished foreigners.”
“They’re under my roof.”
“Oh, they’ll be looked after, Master. And, to be sure, it’s as ill to slight the pedlar-sort as it is to kill a spider. Lucky they are, both o’ the tribes, if you treat ’em kindly.”
“Lucky?” said Hardcastle, getting up from table. “Donald found the token for me, if that spells luck.”
“It does. We’ll be rid of the Wilderness scum at last.”
“At last—and may it be a long last,” snapped the Master.
He had forgotten Storm the sheep-slayer—as he was forgetting many things in this new day of strife—until he passed the cupboard where he had housed the culprit over-night.
Storm was not there. He had watched for this moment, after the house-doors were opened, and had gone away to the hills by stealth. Hardcastle laughed soberly. One guest the less under his roof was one load taken from his shoulders; and the pack promised to be heavy by and by.
His own dog, Roy, was waiting for him in the hall—a big retriever, his coat sleek and gold-red as October on the brackens. His nut-brown eyes danced as he saw the gun under Hardcastle’s arm, and clouded when the Master checked him.
“As far as the gate, lad. There’s only you to guard Logie, and the Wilderness Folk are out at last.”
A sharp regret came to Hardcastle as he shut the gate on Roy, a sense almost of foreboding. It did not seem good to be separate at such a time, from a friend of ten years’ standing.
“Guard,” he said. “The Lost Folk are out, I tell you.”
Roy whimpered as he reared across the closed gate and licked Hardcastle’s face. He was getting near to old age, as dogs count life; but the lure of a gun renewed his youth at all times.
Hardcastle turned as he went down Logie-lane. The dog had his forepaws on the gate still, and he barked a friendly, dolorous farewell. “Guard, lad,” said the Master, “the Lost Folk are out, I tell you.”
His errand lay over Logie Brigg, and up into the wooded roadway that climbed steeply to Langerton. Beyond Langerton were the Wilderness Folk, who were out against him to a man—lurking close at hand, maybe, in twos or threes. Hardcastle paid no heed. He had gone through the sweat of fear last night, and to-day sunrise was with him after that long battle. Dread, rooted generations deep, had been fought and thrown in the space of a night, he fancied.
At the bend of the road where it strode, over Crooning Water, a quiet, slender woman sat on the copestone of the bridge. She had a pile of picked willow-stems at her right hand, and was busy with a half-made basket lying in her lap. In all the Dale there was no more sequestered nook than this, none richer with the peace and mellowed glory of October. Crooning Water, escaped not long since from the prison-house of Drumly Ghyll—its rocks steep and dark and terrible—raced down with a bubbling song of liberty, and halted to play round the whirlpool delved by waters that had gone before and were one by now with the distant seas. A place of sanctuary, like an old kirk ready with its welcome for young, honest love.
The woman on the bridge glanced up at Hardcastle’s approach, and into her eyes there leaped God knows what of devilry, appeal, regret. And he, for his part, stood looking at her with a wonder that for a moment was a boy’s wonder, till he shut the gates on what had been.
“Still basket-weaving, Nita?” he asked gravely.
“And still weaving spells about the men of Logie-side.”
She was provocative, inscrutable, as of old, this girl-woman whose grey eyes and flower-like face were all in keeping with the russet autumn peace.
“About all but one,” said Hardcastle.
“And that one’s here with me. He’s here with me where we met first. Do you remember?”
Hardcastle remembered, in savage earnest. She had not changed in these five years, so far as slender beauty went, and the nameless charm that drew men to her—drew all men except one.
“I was a dreamer then—and younger.”
“It’s good to dream at times. I weave a good deal of dream-stuff into my baskets as I make them—and wonder what happens when a simple lass up-dale sets her arm under the handle. Queer thoughts will come to her.”
“They will,” said the Master, rough and stubborn—“but the thoughts will be good for your trade.Never put all your eggs into one basket, for fear the withies break.So they’ll buy two, when next you come.”
“You’ll never forgive?” said Nita Langrish, her voice soft as Crooning Water’s where it lapped the archway of the bridge below them.
“I’ve done better, Nita—I’ve forgotten.”
She glanced up to learn if it was true. He stood there unyielding, utterly remote; and a great longing came to Nita to chain and hold this man who had put her out of his life.
“You wanted me for your wife once. Is it too late, Hardcastle of Logie?”
He looked down at her in frank astonishment.
“Are last year’s nests too late?”
“I was a fool. Perhaps five years have taught me to be wise. And you’re harsh these days. Is it love of me that’s hardening you?”
“No, God be thanked. It’s love of hardness for its own sake.”
She let him go the length of the bridge and a little beyond, then called him back.
“You’re hardy, to come so near the Wilderness Folk, after what we’ve left on your gate.”
In spite of his boast not long ago, Hardcastle remembered how he had once cared for this bonnie slip of devildom, the sleepless nights he had gone through in that far-off time.
“Put what you will on my gate,” he said, “except those slim hands of yours.”
“Was it not enough to meet three of our men,” she asked, with dangerous quiet, “and send them bleeding home?”
“It was good while it lasted.”
“Yet you want me, too, for enemy.”
“You’re of the Wilderness these days, Nita.”
“Was I, a moment since? You would laugh if I told you what I was weaving into my baskets, before you came and spoiled it all.”
Hardcastle’s face was grim as the nether-millstone. “I’m past your sort of guile, Nita. No woman takes me twice in the same net.”
“But was it guile? Suppose, as I threaded the withies in and out, I was thinking of Logie—and its Master?”
“And of twenty other men, no doubt.”
He had struck home at last. She got to her feet, shaken by a storm of passion. “Fancies are no crime. I’d have lost every man in the dale for sake of Hardcastle of Logie—aye, and have burned their houses at a word from him.”
Hardcastle felt a touch of her old, bewildering power, but recovered sharply. “You had me at call once, and tore that dream to tatters.”
“You were too much at call. I’m of the sort that wearies unless a man’s escaping me.”
“You’re frank,” said Hardcastle, shrugging his wide shoulders. “It seems a long way off, Nita—the time when you would come and make a day hell or heaven for me. You chose your road.”
Now she had lost him; she recalled with bitter clearness the way of her playing with him long since, because he was so big and yet so downright drowned in love. All the might-have-been turned to venom, though she had caged her temper and was smiling in quiet mockery.
“Yes,” she said—“as you chose your road yesterday. The Wilderness Men you taunted me with just now—I keep them at bay by promising favours to one and another, and by giving none. When danger gets too close, I set them at each other’s throats—for your sake, until now.”
“For my sake?”
“Men know so little.” Her glance met his in search of weakness or relenting, and found none. “So now I shall set them all atyourthroat, Hardcastle of Logie, and they’ll bring blithe hearts to the game. You know what follows the token left on a gate? There comes a shaft out of nowhere, aimed at Logie. Then a spell of quiet, and after that another shaft. You’ve heard the way of the Lost Folk?”
“I have,” said the Master, his head lifted sharply. “And now the Lost Folk are to learn the way of Logie.”
Nita warmed to the change in this man who had been easy going once, a slave to her whims. And with the warmth came a new bitterness that she had lost one who could show this spirit, walking alone as he did so near the Wilderness that soon would be eating into his courage like a cancer.
“You’ve a gun under your arm,” she said. “That’s for fear, I take it.”
“No. It’s for a chance shot at partridge on the way to Michael Draycott’s. He fancies he’s a day or two from death, and wants his will made out.”
“Men do fancy that, if they’ve the toothache or their little finger smarts. And of course you’re a magistrate these days.” The grey eyes enticed and mocked him. “I had forgotten. I was back, somehow, in the times when we roamed Logie Woods together.”
“They’re gone,” said the Master—“dead and mouldered out of sight by now.”
“Are you a man at all, or just an oak-tree going on two feet about Logie-side?”
“A man?” echoed Hardcastle, with a quiet laugh. “That’s in the proving.”
With that he went up the road, and turned in at the gate that opened on Michael Draycott’s pastures. Nita thought he would glance back once at least, drawn by old allegiance. She would have forgiven him much for the glance; but he went up the slope and out of sight, cocking the hammers of his gun. He was thinking already of partridge, not of the random days behind.
She seated herself again on the parapet and took up her basket-work; and none could have guessed, seeing her tranquil beauty, what thoughts she was weaving now into the plaited withies. Crooning Water lapped and gurgled. A curlew was plaining across the fells, and from some wayside tree a starling was mimicking his note. No other sound broke the fragrant peace till the scrunch of feet sounded down the highway and a stocky, undersized man swung round the bend. He stopped on seeing Nita and touched his cap with rough deference. Bonnie, a temptress who flouted and smiled on them by turns, Nita had a strange hold on the regard of the Wilderness Men, though few of their women were of like mind. The men held her in honour, too; and this was due, maybe, to the knowledge that more than once she had set them an example of cold-blooded savagery that none could equal.
“I met him of Logie up Draycott’s pasture,” said the man, a still look in his beady eyes. “Walked as if he owned all from this to hell hereafter. ‘Got a gun with you. You’re wise,’ says I; ‘but why do you go sporting without a dog?’ and Hardcastle laughs. ‘The dog’s guarding Logie from such as you.’ ‘Then you’re wise again,’ says I, ‘for Logie will ask for a lot of guarding by and by.’ ”
“Is he a fool altogether?” asked Nita, glancing up from her basket.
“I wouldn’t say that—not by a long way.”
“It looks like it. He’s chosen to rouse the Wilderness round him, like a hive of bees. There can only be one end to that.”
“That’s true enough; but the ending mayn’t be this year or next. Fight sinks the fool in Hardcastle. That’s what our three Broken Men said when they came from the pinfold yesterday, and all the women laughing at them.”
“Afraid of him already, are you?”
“I’m not myself. A darkish night, and me with just enough light to see where to crack his skull—and Hardcastle riding the lonely roads he’s fond of——”
“All in good time.” Nita’s voice was clear as a throstle’s, her fingers busy with the willows. “Before an end comes to him that way, Jake, we’ll strike elsewhere.”
“If you choose. You’re wiser than the rest of us put together.”
“We’ll maim before we kill. Hardcastle is a fool altogether, I tell you so. He cares for his own, when wise folk care for themselves.”
“There’s few enough he cares for these days, I should have said.”
“So he cares deeper for the few. There’s one close friend the Master has—and this is what you’ll do, Jake.”
Then she told her mind to him; and he gaped in admiring wonder for a while, till she bade him get about his business of the day. And after that, in the hollow’s tranquil silence, she threaded her withies in and out as she sat on the bridge—the bridge where Hardcastle had seen her first.