Читать книгу Storm - Henry James Halliwell Sutcliffe - Страница 10

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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. But you were 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.”