Читать книгу Shameless Wayne - Sutcliffe Halliwell - Страница 7

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Dick Ratcliffe passed through the kirkyard-gate, with Wayne's wife of Marsh clinging close to his arm.

"Need we have crossed the graveyard?" said the woman, stopping with one hand on the gate. Dainty of figure she was, with a face all milk and roses; and her tongue lisped baby-fashion, refusing the round speech of the uplands.

"Ay, need we!" cried Ratcliffe, half surlily. "How know we that the feud-call has not gone round, to carry the Waynes on the old trail of vengeance? As 'tis, we have driven it over late, thanks to thy doublings, Margaret. Come, yond passing-bell should warn thee how the time slips by."

But she kept a tight hold on the gate, and looked down the wet path toward where the Wayne vault-stone stared blue and cold at the cold moon. "'Tis uncanny," she whispered, shivering. "Know'st thou 'tis his bell, Dick, that rings for our journey? I dare not pass the vault down yonder—-it stares at me, as if I had killed him—Dick, 'twas not I that killed him—why should the stone look up and curse me.

"Pish! Art unstrung, Meg. The vault-stone is as dead—as Wayne of Marsh. Come away, I tell thee; I can hear the rattle of harness-gear, and the chaise will be waiting tor us at the tavern doorway. I sent a horseman to Saxilton for it two hours agone, and it must be here by now."

Mistress Wayne left clinging to the gate; but still she could not move forward. "I dread it so! The storm, and the wildness, and—and the graves. Dick, 'tis too good to be true that we should win free of this cruel moor! Ever since I came here, I have feared and hated it—and now its arms are closing round me—I can feel them, Dick, as if they had bone and muscle——"

Ratcliffe of Wildwater laughed noisily, for his own spirits were yielding to the touch of time and circumstance, and he strove to lighten them. "Shalt never see the moor again, sweetheart, nor I either. 'Tis Saxilton first, and after that a swift ride to some nook of the valleys where they have never heard of Waynes and feud."

"Will they be long in driving us to Saxilton?"

"Nay, for the road is good and the cattle good. What a baby 'tis to tremble so, just when we are free."

A few steps forward she made, then stopped and seemed like to fall. "I dare not pass the vault," she whispered.

He put his arm about her roughly and forced her lagging feet down the path. "The vault cannot kill," he growled, "but there are those waiting across the moor who carry more than women's fancies in their hands. Will thy fears be less, thou fool, if I am set on by a half score of the Waynes and killed before thy eyes?"

Weak as a bog-reed to catch the infection of each new wind, she bent to his own fear, and hurried on, and all but forgot the vault that stared at her from the corner of the path where the broken yew-trees shivered in the wind.

"Would we were safe in Saxilton," she wailed. "Hurry! Oh, let us hurry—they will take thee, Dick——"

She stopped on the sudden, for a brawny figure stood at the bend of the path, blocking the way. Mistress Wayne shrank back behind her lover, and her step-daughter crept further under the yew shadows, watching Dick Ratcliffe's face go drawn and grey.

"Good-even, Ratcliffe of Wildwater. Whither away?" said Rolf Wayne, with bitter gaiety.

"To a place that is free of Waynes, God curse them," answered Ratcliffe, striving to put a bold face on the matter.

"That is a true word, I warrant, for Hell holds none of our breed.—See you, Ratcliffe the thief, I could have killed you like an adder, as you slew a better man awhile since; but, being a Wayne, I have a trick of asking for fair fight. Ye may win to Saxilton, ye two, but 'twill be at the sword's point."

Dick Ratcliffe eyed his enemy this way and that, seeking occasion for a foul blow; but none showed itself, for Wayne's sword was bare to the wind, and his eye never wandered from the other's face.

"When I fear you, you shall know of it," said Ratcliffe, drawing his own blade, grudgingly.

"Come to yond vault-stone, then, for 'tis a right merry spot for such a fight as ours. You know whose body it will cover before the moon is old? What, faltering, Ratcliffe?"

"Not I; but the time fits ill, and 'tis cold for Mistress Wayne here."

"Your thoughts were ever kind toward women, but Mistress Wayne must wait one little moment longer. Not faltering? Well, then, I wronged you; 'twas your backward glance that put me in mind of a driven hare."

Mistress Wayne ran forward and threw her arms about her lover. "Don't fight, Dick; he will kill thee, kill thee," she pleaded. "I want to get away from this ghostly place—it frightens me, I tell thee, and Saxilton is a far journey, and the night wears late. Dick, I will not let thee fight."

"Ay, Mistress, he will fight, since there is no chance of escape left him. You will fight, Ratcliffe of Wildwater, will you not?"

Nell Wayne, standing in the shadows, grew furious with impatience; nor could she understand why Rolf kept his temper in such grim check, unless it were that Ratcliffe needed to be whipped into the duel.

"You will fight?" repeated Wayne, anger fretting at his voice.

"To the death, curse you," muttered Ratcliffe, and moved slowly up toward the stone.

"That is well. You are a better man than you showed yourself once in the Marsh orchard—and Mistress Wayne here has cause to be proud of a lover who does not run away a second time, leaving her to meet the danger."

Mistress Wayne glanced desperately from side to side in search of aid, and her eyes fell on Nell's figure, standing half out of the yew shadows now.

"God pity us! 'Tis Nell," she cried.

The girl came out from the shadows and stood at her stepmother's side. "Could you not wait for one whole day?" said she. "You are very quick to make your pleasures sure. Father scarce cold, and your lover's blade scarce wiped—truly, you loved my father well!"

"'Twas not my fault—I—child, your hands hurt me—how dare you treat me so?" stammered Mistress Wayne. For the girl, passion-driven for the moment, had gripped the dainty light-of-love by the shoulders and nigh riven the breath out of her.

"How dare I?" she flashed. "Keep quiet, Mistress, lest I dwell over-much on the wrong you did to father."

"But, Helen, I am your mother. Let me go, child; let me go, I say. They shall not fight."

"Mother, say you? Mother sleeps under the stone yonder. The world has been hard to me, Mistress, but it never made you kith of mine."

Mistress Wayne began to whimper, and Nell, losing her hold with a sort of hard disdain, fixed her eyes on the swordsmen, standing on the vault-stone and eyeing each other steadfastly, their sword-blades catching blue-grey glances from the moon. For Wayne of Cranshaw had been moving backward all the while, not daring to turn his face from Dick Ratcliffe lest a foul thrust in the back should end the matter. Yet Ratcliffe still held off, nor would he plant his forefoot squarely in position; and Nell, fearful lest he should refuse combat at the eleventh hour, and knowing that Rolf would never strike down a man except in fight, so taunted and stung and whipped the laggard with her tongue that his heart grew bold with fury.

The old slyness of his race was with Ratcliffe still; he made a feint of withdrawing altogether from the stone, then leaped at Wayne with a mighty cry. But Wayne was ready for the stroke, and he warded off the down-sweeping blade which bade fair to split his skull in two; his adversary reeled backward, driven by the return force of his own wild blow, and Rolf had but to strike where it pleased him to settle the issue once and for all.

But Wayne of Cranshaw misliked cold butchery, and Ratcliffe's debt was over-heavy to allow of such prompt settlement. He waited, point to ground, until the other had gained his balance; and then he made at him; and the fight waxed grim and hot. The wind sank low to a murmur; the vaultstone, shining wet, reflected their every movement, of body and of bared right arm. There was none of the nicety of fence; parry and cut it was, cut and parry, till the light danced off like water from their blades, till the women's ears were tingling with the music of live steel. And all the while the minute bell kept thundering its message across the kirkyard and over the rolling moor above; it rang for Wayne of Marsh, and it hovered between the sword-cuts that were to settle whether Wayne of Cranshaw gave his kinsman a peaceful shroud.

Wayne's wife was all a-tremble, like a foolish aspen tree; now this she murmured, and now that, until she was like to kill her lover, woman's fashion, by sheer interference of her tongue. But Wayne's daughter stood with a face of scorn, saying no word, making no motion—watching, always watching, with certainty that Rolf would end the struggle soon. At another time she would have feared for Rolf; but to-night was the dead man's, and she was deaf to love or fear or pity. Nay, the very justice of the cause seemed to have determined the issue before the fight began.

"Ah, 'tis sweet, 'tis sweet!" whispered the girl, and caught her breath as Wayne's sword-edge sliced a crimson pathway down the other's cheek.

Shameless Wayne, meanwhile, had finished his spell of drinking at the tavern just below. His step was unsteady and his eyes red-ripe with liquor as he moved down the passage with intent to cross the moor to Marsh. Jonas Feather, the host, came out of his kitchen on hearing the lad's step, and put a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Mun I saddle your mare, Maister Wayne?" he said.

"God, I'd clean forgotten the mare!" laughed Shameless Wayne.

"Did I ride hither, Jonas the fool? Well, then I'll not ride home again; rot me if I don't cross the moor afoot, to steady me. There's no horse like a man's own legs, when the world spins round and round him."

"Best bide here, an' wend home to-morn—ay, ye'd best bide here," said Jonas, with a line of perplexity across his big red forehead.

"What, to swell thy bill? Go to, thou crafty rogue—they'll be naming thee kin to the Ratcliffes of Wildwater soon, if thou goest playing fox-tricks with thy neighbours."

"Your bill wi' me is lang enow as 'tis, Maister, an' a full belly craves no meat," the host retorted drily. "Willun't ye hearken to what I tried to tell ye when first ye came here to-neet? Willun't ye be telled 'at your father ligs as cold as Wildwater Pool, wi' a Ratcliffe sword-cut i' his back? 'Tis noan decent 'at one i' your upside down frame o' body should go to a house o' death, bawling a thieves' song, likely, by way o' burying dirge."

Shameless Wayne thrust both hands deep into his pockets, and leaned against the wall, and laughed till the tears ran down his comely face. "Wilt never let the jest be, Jonas?" he stammered. "Because I've not been home these days past, and am returning thither full to the brim, thou think'st to scare me with a tale like yond?—And all the folk in the parlour are leagued with thee, thou ruffian," he went on, with a drunkard's cunning in his eyes. "When I first came in, they set their faces grim as Death's fiddle-head, and nudged each the other, and muttered, 'Ay, ay,' like mourners at a lyke-wake, when thou said'st that the old man was dead."

"Willun't ye be telled?" cried Jonas, groaning at his own impotence to drive the truth home. "Willun't ye fettle up your wits this once, an' hearken to one 'at hes a care for th' Waynes o' Marsh?"

"Naught will strengthen me till I have slept off thy liquor, Jonas—unless 'twere the chill look of the kirkyard as I pass through," said Shameless Wayne, blundering merrily down the passage.

"For th' love o' God, lad, bide where ye are this neet!" cried Jonas. But his guest was already out on the cobblestones that fronted the inn doorway.

Shameless Wayne came to a sudden halt as he gained the lower gate of the graveyard. For the minute bell, driving its deep note through the fumes that hugged his brain, carried a plainer message to the lad than any words of Jonas Feather had done.

"There's somebody dead," he muttered, staring vaguely at the belfry-tower. "Is't—is't father? Did yond old fool talk plain truth, when all the while I thought he jested?" he went on after a moment's pause. And then he tried to laugh, and swaggered up the path, and vowed that the bell was leagued with Jonas in this daft effort to make a laughing stock of him throughout the moorside.

But another sound greeted him from the far side of the yew-trees—the clash of steel, and the hungry, breathless cries of men who were fighting to the topmost of their strength. His step grew soberer; he turned the bend in the path noiselessly, and saw what was doing on the vault-stone. He stood stock-still, and his face was smooth and empty while the wine fumes cleared enough to let him understand the meaning of all this.

And then the meaning took him full, and the anguish in his eyes was strange and terrible to see.

Ratcliffe of Wildwater, meanwhile, maddened by the swordcut that had slit his cheek, made a sudden onslaught on his foe; and Rolf escaped the blade by a bare half-inch; and Ratcliffe stumbled once again, pressed by his own idle blow. Mistress Wayne sprang forward, eager to save the craven who had snared her fancy; but Nell gripped her by the arms, and forced her back, and whispered, "Strike!" But neither of the women had leisure to mark that a loose-limbed lad, with a face as old as sorrow, and a hand that played never-restingly with his sword hilt, had swelled the number of those who watched the fight.

Twice Shameless Wayne made as if to join the fray, and twice he held back, while Ratcliffe recovered in the nick of time and warded desperately—while Rolf's blade pried in and out, seeking a place to strike.

"Oh God, that I could claim the right!" muttered the lad, half drawing his sword again.

"Nell, save him! Your lover will listen to you—the night wears late and dreary—we want to reach Saxilton," pleaded Mistress Wayne.

Not a word spoke the girl. Not a word spoke the wind, shuddering into the corners of the graveyard for dread. But the laboured breathing of the men sounded loud as a cry almost in the quiet place. Ratcliffe, for all his coward's heart, was a cunning swordsman enough when need compelled, and now, his first panic lost, he was settling to a steadier effort.

"Remember!" cried the girl, as she saw her cousin give back a pace.

Wayne of Cranshaw regained his lost ground, and swung his blade up to the blue-black sky; there was a rough jag of steel, the clatter of a sword on the hollow vault-stone, a groan from Ratcliffe of Wildwater?

"Save him, Nell!" wailed Mistress Wayne, like a child repeating a lesson learned by rote.

"Save him? See—see—he strikes—drive home, Rolf!—A brave stroke!"

Wayne of Marsh was righted now, and his kinsman wiped his blade at leisure on his coat-sleeve. Nell came to him and drew down his rough head and kissed him on the mouth; the little wisp of a woman knelt by her lover's side, and tried to stop the blood with a dainty cambric kerchief, and talked to Ratcliffe of Wildwater as if her word were greater than God's own, to bring a dead man back to life.

A deep voice broke in upon them. "Remember was the word thou said'st, Nell," cried Shameless Wayne. "Christ knows there will be no forgetfulness for me."

Nell Wayne looked at her brother for awhile, not knowing what her thoughts were toward him. And then she shrank from him with plain disgust. Up in the belfry yonder she had pleaded excuses for Shameless Wayne when another talked his good name away; but she had no pity for him now.

"Thou com'st in a late hour, Ned," she said coldly.

"I come in a late hour, lass," he answered, still in the same deep voice that was older than his years; "and they will noise it up and down that Wayne's son of Marsh sat drinking with clowns in a wayside tavern while another robbed him of the feud. Well, the long years lie behind, and neither thou nor I can better them."

A shaft of pity touched the girl. "I loved thee once, Ned—why could'st not—nay, 'tis behind thee, as thou say'st, and—and thou'lt never be aught but Shameless Wayne henceforth."

The frail woman looked up from handling her lover's body, and there was witless curiosity in her face. "Who is't stands there, and who has robbed him?" she asked. Then with a little laugh, "Why, 'tis Ned—to think I should not know my own step-son.—Ned, come hither! Your sister is cruel, and she has well-nigh killed me with those slender hands of hers—but you will be kinder, Ned, and I want you to staunch the bleeding—see how the vault-stone reddens—hurry, dear, for if the blood once drips into the vault, the stain can never be washed out—never, never be washed out."

"You are right, Mistress," said Shameless Wayne, smiling queerly at her from across the stone. "Though one kills every other Ratcliffe that fouls the air, the stain will never be washed clean."

Wayne of Cranshaw put a kindly hand on him. "Take heart, lad," he muttered. "The next blow shall be thine, and the next after that—and there's no man in Marshcotes or Ling Crag that dares call thee coward."

"But all may name me fool," finished the lad quietly;—"Take Nell home, Rolf. She'll suffer thy company better than mine just now."

But Nell was strung to the storm's pitch still. "'Tis not done yet!" she cried. "I thought that one life would pay—and what is Dick Ratcliffe now? Is that thankless lump of clay to square the reckoning, dross for gold? Nay, there is more to be done. Listen, Rolf! We will send round the feud-call, and rouse our kinsfolk."

"Ay, will we—but not to-night, dear lass."

"To-night! Rolf! It must be to-night. No quarter said father with his last breath, and God forgive me if I rest before the whole tale is told."

"Nay! 'Tis home and a quiet pillow for thee. Come, Nell! Thou know'st thy strength will scarce carry thee to Marsh."

Still she refused, though she was shivering as with ague. "No quarter. Wilt not swear it, Rolf?"

"I swear it here, Nell, by any vow that binds a man—and by the same token I swear to carry thee to-night by force to Marsh, if so thou wilt not come of thy own free will. Are the Ratcliffes salt-and-snow, that they should melt away before the dawn?"

"Wilt not help me, Ned?" broke in Mistress Wayne. Her baby-voice was soft and pleading as she turned to her step-son. "The stain is spreading—I dare not let it run to the edge—there is a little crack down one side of the stone, and the blood will never be wiped off if once it drips on to the vault-floor."

The lad did not answer Mistress Wayne's wanderings this time; and his sister, glancing round at him with the old impulse of resentment, saw that Shameless Wayne was sobbing as men sob once only in their learning of life's lesson. Over-strained Nell was already, and the fierceness died clean out of her. She crept to her brother's side, and pulled his hands down from before his face, and "Ned," said she, "would God I could forgive thee."

He pointed up the path with a gesture that Wayne of Cranshaw understood. "I'll follow you in a while—leave me to it," he said.

"Poor lad! He'll take it hardly, I fear," said Rolf, as he and Nell went through the graveyard wicket and out into the moor, where the hail nestled white beneath the heather and the far hills touched the cloud-banks.

Shameless Wayne stood looking down at his step-mother, who still sat fondling her lover's body. There was no hatred of her in his face, though yesterday he would have railed upon her for a wanton; nay, there was a sort of pity in his glance, when at last he drew near to her and touched her arm.

"Life has been over-strong for you, eh, little bairn?" he said. "Well, we're both dishonoured, so there's none need grumble if I take you with me; shalt never lack shelter while Marsh House has a roof."

"Oh, I cannot come," said Mistress Wayne; "I have to get to Saxilton before dawn—I am waiting till the wound is healed and the blood stops dripping, dripping—oh, no, I shall not come with you—what would Dick say if he woke and found me gone?"

Entreaty the lad tried, and rough command; but naught would move her, and when at last he tried to carry her from the spot by force, she cried so that for pity's sake he had to let her be.

"Well, there's enough to be seen to as 'tis; may be she will come home of herself if I leave her to it," he muttered, and went quickly down to the tavern-door.

Jonas Feather was standing on the threshold, his head bent toward the graveyard. "What, Maister, is't you— What, lad, ye're sobered!" he cried, as Shameless Wayne pushed past him.

"Ay, I found somewhat up yonder that was like to sober me. I'm going to saddle the mare, Jonas—she will be needed soon, I fancy."

"Sit ye dahn, Maister, sit ye dahn. I'll see to th' mare.—There's been a fight, I'm thinking? I could hev liked to see't, that I could, but they'll tell ye what once chanced to a man 'at crossed a Wayne an' Ratcliffe at sich a time—an' I'm fain of a whole skin myseln."

But Shameless Wayne was down the passage and out into the stable-yard behind. Jonas looked after him, and shook his head.

"I nobbut once see'd drink so leave a chap all i' a minute," he said, "an' it takes a bigger shock nor sich a young 'un as yond hes shoulder-width to stand. There's ill days i' store for th' lad, I sadly fear."

At the stroke of twelve, the Sexton's wife came down the belfry steps. Her right foot was numb with tolling the bell, and her fingers ached with the knitting; yet she had no thought of such matters as she stepped out into the moonlit burial place, for she was wondering how Nell Wayne had fared at Wildwater.

"Her father's lass—ay, ivery bone of her," she muttered. "Hes she killed him by now—hes she struck——"

The sound of a cradle-song, chanted in a sweet, low voice, came from above. The little old woman stopped her mumbling, and shuffled up the path, and came to where Mistress Wayne sat, with her lover's head on her lap and one baby hand pressed close against his breast.

Nanny touched her on the shoulder. "A death for a death," said she; "yet, not with all your tears to help, will Dick Ratcliffe be a fit exchange for th' Maister. 'Twill need a score sich as him, or ye, to pay th' price."

"He is sleeping. Hush! You will waken him, and 'tis early yet to start for Saxilton," said Mistress Wayne, lifting her childish face.

The little old woman quailed, and crossed herself, as she saw the light in the other's eyes. "She's fairy-kist! God save us," she muttered, as she hobbled down the path.