Читать книгу Storm - Henry James Halliwell Sutcliffe - Страница 6

Table of Contents

For a mile or so after leaving Brant the glow of victory stayed with Hardcastle; and after that he thought that his feet began to tire. Soon he knew it was his heart that was tiring, and his spirit. Already fear was weaving unclean spells about him. What had his nurse told of the Lost Folk when they put their token on a man? What had ancient farmers told him? He was no longer his own master but thrall to terrors bred in the womb of generations.

Fancy began to play strange tricks. Hardened to life and weather he might be; but he was no match for the unseen hordes of fear that came about him. The sweat broke out on Hardcastle, fighting longer odds than three men against one. It was only shame of his fear that got some sort of manhood into him, and a rough courage that was friendless and utterly alone. He learned then what Brant had meant when he spoke of dread, cold as east wind with snow behind it.

“Aye,” growled Hardcastle, “but Brant has his dog with him for comfort, and I’ve none.”

He forgot that Brant’s dog had taken lately to unlawful ways, till at a corner of the road he came face to face with Storm himself—an outlaw, every inch and line of him, standing at bay. His hide was matted and uncouth, for pursuit had given him little time to tend himself. His teeth were bared, and every man his foe.

They stood there for a moment, not knowing that the whole Dale’s safety might rest on what came of this chance meeting.

“Storm,” said Hardcastle, “I’ve no fear of your teeth, my lad.”

The culprit only growled, till Hardcastle came to him and patted his tousled head. Then he yielded a little to old liking for this man who seemed honest, with no snare in wait for him.

“Best come home with me to Logie. Brant has a gun in his hand out yonder, and he’s seeking you.”

Storm glanced about him with restless eyes that looked for peril, and then sought Hardcastle’s face again. If he had not learned the trick of human speech, he knew its meaning. He was asked to get into shelter of a decent homestead, after weeks of vagabond roaming. His limbs were full of aches, caught in the marshes when he lay hidden from foes too many for him. He was wearied-out, and there were good meals to be had at Logie, as he had learned in the prosperous times when Brant used to take him to the Master’s kitchen. But he was afraid of houses these days.

“Come,” said Hardcastle, with sharp command.

The sheep-slayer answered his bidding, and together they went down and up to the autumn land till they reached Logie Brigg. Its arch stretched wide and slender over the peat-brown waters of Wharfe River—the bridge that Clifford of Skipton had crossed long ago on his way to Flodden Field.

The Master of Logie could never cross the bridge but he halted for remembrance of what it meant to him—that old dream of Clifford, hale at sixty, going into unknown hardship across the Border. The Hardcastle of that day, with his men, had joined the march, and won renown; and to this last descendant of the race there was staunch, abiding glamour in the recollection. Hard, embittered, working grimly forward day by day, two beacon-lights showed through the gloom—love of Wharfe River, and memory of Clifford jangling over-bridge with singing Dalesmen.

He had no joy of these to-day, strive as he might to capture the song of Logie Brigg. Courage had taken the horsemen and the footmen over, in the brave days gone. Now he was here—a Hardcastle last of them all—eating into mind and heart—fear of the Lost Folk he despised. He had given too much to the battle at Mathison’s pinfold and the back-rush of it left him weak and spent. The Lost Folk would strike soon or late—strike from behind—and it would be a dreary waiting time.

“Storm,” he said, “there’s not a penny to choose between us. We’re both of us outlawed, and we fear every creak of a tree-branch.”

The sheep-stealer would not have it so. He had the dog’s instinct for what went homeward over Logie Brigg, unheard by Hardcastle—tramp of the feet of Flodden Men, returning to the house of Logie now it was in peril. He turned to see them pass; a great company. Then he drew closer still to Hardcastle, and licked his hands, and tried to lick his face.

“You’re a dreamer, lad,” said Hardcastle. “How can all be well—with that behind us? There’s Brant with a gun for you—and for me the Wilderness.”

Storm only came the closer. On the high fells he had learned the tracks of innocence and duty. In the lowlands he had garnered stealthy knowledge of many ways of hide-and-seek. Through clean days and muddy he had kept one gift safe.

They fell silent on the Brigg, these two. Wharfe River lapped against the sturdy arches she had tried, time and again, to batter down at flood-time. They heard rooks calling from peaceful sycamores, the cry of a plover not gone south as yet, the song of a farm-lad up the fields.

All this might be with him to the end of his days, thought Hardcastle. But it was likelier that all would go, before the Wilderness had done with him.

“We’d best be jogging,” he said, turning up hill, Storm close as a thistle-burr beside him.

Hardcastle was aware of the magic of this steep, winding roadway, faring up to his own gate between the woods of Logie. Wise, silent beeches reddened to their fall of leaf. A chestnut flung its crimson challenge to the death-in-winter soon to come. The sycamores were sending little clouds of leaves as playthings for the breeze. Over all, and through all, was the quick reek of autumn and the smell of wood-fires lazing up from Logie’s hearths.

Hardcastle was aware of it all, as of something that had stirred him once, in his wooing days, when a lass had painted all the country-side for him. That was far off, a memory bitten-down and ended. He was here with Storm, with thoughts of what the Lost Folk could do to him and his. The battle up-fell had put its marks on him. He was hungry and needing wine at his elbow.

For all that, when they passed through Logie’s gate and his old retriever growled at Storm—when the two of them were for each other’s throats, mad with sudden jealousy—Hardcastle took them by their collars, and shook them till they whimpered.

“There’s going to be war outside,” he said; “but, by God, I’ll have peace among my own.”