CHAPTER XXVI
The weather broke that year in the middle of the hay-harvest, and Hardcastle, riding with Causleen to see what the past night’s rain had done with the biggest of the upland meadows, knew that his men could not get busy with it yet, though the sun shone hot from a quiet and fleecy sky.
So they gave themselves a holiday, and rode by many a heather lane till they came at last to the moor-crest guarded by Pengables’ rocks.
A soft wind blew. Over the striding fells shadow and sunlight chased each other like big children let loose for play. They looked across to Weathersett, grim even in this tender summer-time. And presently, against their will, they glanced down at the hollow where Garsykes once had stood.
The sunlight was merciless with the foul, unkempt horror of this dead village that festered in its grave. The ravens and the crows had taken their toll long since of what lay in the street, and had gone to richer hunting-grounds. No sound came from the fire-swept, broken walls that leaned against each other like drunkards tottering in a wild embrace.
It was Causleen who broke the silence. “It will lie like that for ever, Dick,” she said, with a shudder. “They call it the plague-pit already, and none dare enter.”
Hardcastle roused himself from some harsh unrest. There was an end of Garsykes, that had troubled Logie-side for centuries out of mind. Yet he was not content.
“I planned to take our Logie Men, and make an end,” he answered moodily. “There was the night when Murgatroyd found us snow-bound in the hut. If only for taking your name on their filthy tongues, I wish it had been mine to kill and burn.”
“You must not—Dick, you must not think of it,” she pleaded, her voice awed and shaken. “Is it not enough—all that lies there? And you are safe.”
Still in a black mood, his glance wandered to the hollow of the fells where Nita’s cottage sent up a tranquil stream of smoke.
“Shesurvives,” he said grimly. “When first the rumour spread that she had taken the plague and come through it, I fancied they had seen a ghost. Few take it and live on.”
Causleen shivered. The day’s warmth, the joy of their wedded lives—the news that had trembled on her lips as they drew rein on top of swart Pengables and the thought of what these wide-flung acres meant to Hardcastle—all went by. It was as if they stepped together from eager sunlight into a pine-wood where the breeze blew chill and shrewish and there was darkness overhead.
“How dare she stay so near—how dare she, Dick, with Garsykes festering below? Has she no wit to understand that ghosts of the dead will creep up to her cottage-door? She was their evil spirit.”
“Let her be,” broke in Hardcastle. “She goes abroad with her face hidden when she sells her baskets these days. They say her wits are gone.”
“Pray God they are,” said Causleen, bitter with remembrance of the day when Nita had named her light-of-love and wanton. “She needs forgetfulness.”
They rode down the fells together, man and wife; but cold was on them, as if Garsykes still had power to spin webs of dread about their feet. All that had been gathered close—the slow months, while the Lost Folk were doing their worst with Logie—the stealthy peril of the caves, and their winning through into moonlit liberty of Drumly Ghyll—and, after that, the plague and fire that had swept Garsykes into a death that could not sleep.
Causleen longed to give her man the news she had for him, and could not, though their horses whinnied from sheer joy of the sunlight and the roving breeze that blew from everywhere, packed with lane-side sweets of elder-bloom and honeysuckle.
As they rounded the corner of the road, where it turned sharply down to Crooning Water, they saw a shrouded figure sitting on the grey parapet. The slender fingers, browned by sun and wind, were nimble at the basket-weaving, as of old, and Nita was singing as she worked—singing one of the eerie ballads handed down in Garsykes to keep warm their hate of Logie.
They drew rein, Hardcastle and Causleen, appalled by this venom that had survived her recovery from the plague—survived the havoc of a village left derelict till time ended.
The basket-weaver ceased her song. She drew the hood down from her face, and laughed with dreadful mockery.
And now they saw what the plague had done with her. Her body was lissome as of old, her eyes full of nameless witchery; but the shrunken face was grey and livid—a dread, unsightly face best hidden from all passers-by.
“My beauty’s gone, Hardcastle of Logie,” she said, defiant to the last, “and there’s no Garsykes left. But I still sell baskets up the Dale.”
“Oh, come away,” pleaded Causleen. “Dick, come away.”
Hardcastle sat there in saddle for a moment, with sharp recollection of other days, when Nita’s face was a mask of eager beauty, tempting men. Then without a word he rode on, Causleen beside him.
Again the chill was on them, as if they had plunged into a pine-wood where no free air could roam or wildflowers grow.
“She still sells baskets up the Dale,” said Causleen, awed and troubled. “You heard her, Dick? It was a threat.”
They had come to Logie Brigg, and drew rein there, listening to Wharfe River as she lapped and played about the grey arches underneath. And suddenly, as if the river sent up a message to him in plain words, Hardcastle knew that he was home at last.
“An idle threat,” he said, his voice buoyant and secure. “Garsykes is ended at long last.”
They went together up the steep, winding road, ablaze with sunlight and choired by singing birds, and came to the gate of many memories. Twice the Garsykes token had been laid on the topmost bar. Rebecca had trysted her dead lover here, every night through forty weary years. And remembrance of this tryst gave Causleen heart to speak at last.
“Logie and the lands are so much to you,” she said, the words tripping over one another in their haste—“and Rebecca could never be done with mourning that——”
“Yes, wife? She was always good at the doldrums.”
“That Logie had no heir—and, Dick——”
A great light came into Hardcastle’s face. From under lowered eyelids she watched it glow and deepen like dawn above Pengables Hill. He was older and younger both, and his voice a conqueror’s.
“Now Logie’s doubly safe,” he said.
From the grey-boled sycamores above them, Logie’s guardian rooks rose in a great, chattering cloud. They and their fore-elders had nested here for generations out of mind; and it seemed as if they, too, understood.
THE END
JOHN LONG, LTD., PUBLISHERS, LONDON, ENGLAND, 1925Printed in Great Britain at the Athenæum Printing Works, Redhill
JOHN LONG, LTD., PUBLISHERS, LONDON, ENGLAND, 1925
Printed in Great Britain at the Athenæum Printing Works, Redhill
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.
Page numbers have been removed due to a non-page layout.
A cover was created for this ebook which is placed in the public domain.
Some pages of advertising from the publisher were excluded from the ebook edition.