Читать книгу Shameless Wayne - Sutcliffe Halliwell - Страница 9

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The Sexton's wife was afraid of no man that stepped; but ghosts, and fairies, and the mad folk who shared communion with the spirits, touched a bare nerve of dread. And so she stopped midway down the graveyard path, and turned, and went back to where Mistress Wayne was cowering above her lover's body. It was not that the Sexton's wife had any wish to help this woman, who had smirched the honour of the Waynes, but that she feared the disaster which refusal of such help might bring.

"She's fairy-kist," she muttered for the twentieth time, looking down at the frail figure. "God or the devil looks to such, they say an' I mun do th' best for her, I reckon."

"Ay, 'tis cold, 'tis bitter cold, and Dick will surely never come," said Mistress Wayne, getting to her feet and glancing fearfully across the kirkyard.

"Not to-night, Mistress. Ye'd best wend home wi' me, an' search for him to-morn," put in the Sexton's wife.

Mistress Wayne did not answer for awhile; she was watching the moonlight glance freakish, cold and wan, from out the purple-yellow of the clouds—was listening to the curlew-wail that thrilled across the stark, dim moor. And, slowly, as she stood there, the closed door of her mind seemed to swing back a little, letting the sense of outward things creep in. It was a dream, then, that Dick was coming to take her safe into shelter of the valleys; this was the moor that closed her in—the moor, whose face had frightened her, whose storms had chilled her to the bone, through all the brief months of her wedlock with Wayne of Marsh. She gazed and gazed into the moon-dusk, with still face and rounded, panic-stricken eyes; and from the dusk strange shapes stole out and mouthed at her.

This for a long moment—and then she ran like a scared child to the little old woman's arms, and hid her face, and entreated protection from that wilderness which had grown a live, malignant presence to her.

"Give me house-walls about me—give me light, and warmth—Mary Mother, hark how the night-birds wail, and scream, and mock me," she cried, with sobs between each panting plea.

The Sexton's wife, not understanding how any one should fear the moor to which she had lived bedfellow these five-and-sixty years, was yet quick to snatch the opportunity. It would never do to leave this witless body to the night-rain and the cold, and who knew how soon she might fall again upon her lover's body and again refuse to quit the spot?

"Come wi' me," she muttered, putting an arm about Mistress Wayne and hurrying her across the gravestones.

"Where wilt take me?" cried the other, half halting on the sudden. "Not—not to Marsh House, where Wayne lies and haunts me with that still look of reproach?"

"Not to Marsh, Mistress—nay, not to Marsh. See ye, 'tis but a step, and there'll be a handful o' fire for ye—an' walls to keep th' cold out——"

"Then, we'll hurry, will we not? Quick, quick! The shadows are laughing at us—and the owl on the church steeple yonder hoots loud in mockery. Oh, let us hurry, hurry!"

"Well, then, we're here. Whisht, Mistress, for there's naught ye need to fear," cried Nanny, halting at the door of the cottage which stood just across the road.

The Sexton, Luke Witherlee, was smoking his pipe in the ingle-nook and hugging the last embers of the peat-fire. A thin, small-bodied man, with parchment cheeks, crow's-footed, and a weakish mouth, and eyes that were oddly compact of fire and dreaminess. He glanced up as the goodwife entered, and let his pipe fall on the hearthstone when he saw what manner of guest she had brought back with her.

"Nay, Luke, muffle thy tongue, an' axe no questions," said Nanny, in a tone that showed who was master of the Sexton's household. "This poor body wants a lodging, an' so we mun lie hard, me an' thee, for this one neet. What, ye're minded to make friends, are ye, Mistress?" she broke off, surprised to see her guest, after a doubtful glance at Witherlee, go up to him and lay her slim hand in his own earth-crusted palm.

"An' welcome to ye, Mistress," said the Sexton quietly. "We've nowt so mich to gi'e—but sich as 'tis, 'tis yourn."

Mistress Wayne forgot her terror now that the stout walls of the cottage shut out the whimpering goblins of the moor. She sat her down by the Sexton's side, and looked into his face, and saw a something there—something friendly, quiet and tender—which soothed her mood. And he, for his part, seemed full at home with her, though he fought shy at most times of the gently-born.

"Good-hap," muttered Nanny, "to think there should be fellowship 'twixt Witherlee and her! Well, I allus did say Witherlee war ower full o' dreams to be a proper man, an' happen they understand one t' other, being both on th' edge o' t' other world, i' a way o' speaking."

Nanny stood open-mouthed awhile, regarding the strange pair; then hobbled to the three-cornered cupboard that stood in the far corner of the kitchen, and reached down cheese and butter and a loaf of oaten bread. To and fro she went, restless and alert as when she sat in the belfry-tower and sent Wayne's death-dirge shuddering out across the moor. Mistress Wayne was talking with the Sexton now—childish talk, that simmed the old man's eyes a little—and Nanny as she went from cupboard to table and back again, laying the rude supper, kept glancing at them with a wonderment that was half disdain.

"Will ye be pleased to sup, Mistress," she said, when all was ready. "Th' fare is like yond moor that frights ye so, rough and wholesome; but I doubt ye're sadly faint for lack o' belly-timber, and poor meat is better nor none at all, they say."

Mistress Wayne shook her head, with a bairn's impatience, and tightened her hold of the Sexton's hand. "I'm not hungry, I thank thee—not hungry at all," she murmured.

But Nanny would take no denial, and at length she coaxed her visitor to break her fast.

"That's likelier," growled the little old woman, as she threw fresh peats on the fire. "Victuals is a rare stay-by when sorrow's to be met. Now, Mistress, warm yourseln a bit, an' then I'll see ye safe between sheets."

The peat-warmth, following her long exposure to the wind, set Mistress Wayne a-nodding; and the Sexton, seeing how closely sleep had bound her in his web, took her in his arms with a strength of gentleness that was all his own, and carried her to the bed-chamber above, and left her safe in Nanny's care.

"She slumbers like a year-old babby," said Nanny, coming down again, by and by.

"Oh, ay? Well, she looked fair worn out ai' weariness. What ails her?" answered Witherlee, filling his pipe afresh and watching Nanny's shadow go creeping up the wall as she stepped in front of the rushlight burning on the table.

"Tha's heard nowt, I'm thinking, o' what chanced i' th' kirkyard?"

"Nay, I've heard nowt. I've been dozing, like, by th' ingle, an' niver a sound I heard save th' death-bell tha wen ringing for Wayne o' Marsh. Ay, it seemed i' tune wi' my thowts, did th' bell, for I war thinking o' th' owd feud 'twixt Wayne an' Ratcliffe. 'Tis mony a year sin' that war staunched, lass, but I can see 'em fight fair as if 'twere yesterday."

"Trust thee to doze! I wonder whiles what thou hast to show for thyseln, Luke Witherlee, that I do, while th' wife is ringing her arm off," snapped Nanny, her temper sharpened by the long day's work and sorrow.

"Show for myseln?" said he, with a sort of weary patience. "Nowt—save that I can plank a grave better nor ony Sexton fro' this to Lancashire. An' that's summat i' these times, for we shall see what we shall see now Wayne o' Marsh is killed. Ay, for sure; there'll be need of a good grave-digger i' Marshcotes parish.—What's been agate, like, i' th' kirkyard? I knew there war summat bahn to happen for I heard th' death-watch as plain as noonday."

"Why, Dick Ratcliffe war for carrying off yond little Mistress Wayne—her as sleeps so shameless-peaceful aboon stairs—an' Rolf Wayne o' Cranshaw met them fair i' th' kirkyard."

The Sexton roused himself, and his eyes lost their dreaminess.

"Did they fight, lass?" he cried.

"Hark to him! Give him a hint o' blood-letting, an' he's as wick as ony scoprel."

"It's i' th' blood, lass, and 'twill out at th' first taste o' blows," said Witherlee, with a shamefaced glance at his wife. "I'm not mich of a man myseln, but I aye loved a fight, an' that's plain truth."

"Well, tha'd hev seen one, I reckon, if tha'd been where Wayne o' Cranshaw war to-neet," retorted Nanny grimly. "I missed it myseln, for I war ringing th' bell; but when I came out into th' graveyard, there war Dick Ratcliffe stretched on th' vault-stone, an' Mistress Wayne greeting aboon his body. An' a rare job I had, my sakes, to get her safe within doors."

"They fought at th' vault-stone, did they?" murmured Witherlee. "Where did they stand, Nanny? An' who strake first? An' how did t'other counter?" His voice, smooth and gentle, was ill in keeping with the brightness of his eyes, the restless movement of his hands.

"How should I tell thee? I see'd nowt o' th' fight, being thrang wi' other wark."

"That's a pity, now. I allus like to hev th' ins an' outs of a fight fixed fair i' my head, so I can go ower it all again when sitting by th' hearthstone o' nights. Well, well, we shall see summat, lass, afore so varry long."

The little old woman twisted her mouth askew. "Luke," said she, "tha'rt at thy owd tricks again. Tha breeds visions an' such-like stuff as fast as a cat breeds kitlings, an' they run all on th' days when Waynes killed Ratcliffes at ivery crossroad, when ivery fair day war like a pig-killing."

"There's sorrow goes wi' fighting, an' there's mony a gooid life spilt," said the Sexton, "but 'tis sweet for a man's stomach, for all that, an' th' lads grow up likelier for 't. Look at yond Shameless Wayne, now—wod he be th' racketty ride-th'-moo'in he is if he hed to carry his life i' his hand fro' morn to neet?"

"He'd hev no life to carry, most like," retorted Nanny. "He'd do wi' mending, would th' lad; but there's a mony other men-folk i' like case, an' I could do wi' all on ye better if ye war made all ower again. An' I'll thank ye, Witherlee, to say nowt agen Shameless Wayne i' my hearing, for I'll listen to nowt but gooid of him. There's more i' him, let me tell thee, nor thee or onybody hes found out yet."

The Sexton set flint to steel and lit his pipe afresh; and a smile lurked fugitive about his mouth. "Well, if there's owt behind his shamelessness, he'll hev his chance o' showing it," he said. "Th' feud 'ull be up, Nanny, by and by. Last neet Dick Ratcliffe war killed—that's to mak even deaths on one side an' on t' other. To-morn likely or th' next day after, another Wayne 'ull be fund stretched stark by some roadside; an' that 'ull be Nicholas Ratcliffe's way o' saying, 'Come on, lad's, an' fight it out.' Ay, I've seen th' feud get agate afore this, an' I know th' way on 't."

"Then tha should think shame to let thy een brighten so. If tha'd seen th' face o' yond lass o' Waynes, when she came up to me while I war ringing i' th' belfry-tower a while back—if tha'd seen th' poor bairn's eyes wild for lack o' th' tears that wouldn't come—tha'd sing to a different tune, Luke Witherlee, that tha wod, about this sword-fighting an' pistoling. Nay, I've no patience wi' thee. Lig thee down on th' settle, Luke, an' get to sleep. I've a long day afore me to-morn."

The little old woman settled herself as comfortably as might be in her rocking-chair, turning her back on Witherlee, and shutting her eyes in token that she had said her last word for the night. But the Sexton still sat on, his pipe-bowl in the hollow of one hand, his eyes upon the grey-red ashes of the peats. Old and gnarled his body was, and shrunken his face; but he was thinking of the fights to come and the heart of him was lusty as a boy's.

Only once did Nanny break the silence. "I cannot thoyle to thin' o' th' way yond little body aboon stairs is sleeping," she said, half rousing herself. "She's no light sins to carry, an' wakefulness wod hev shown a likelier sperrit."

"Live an' let live, lass," said Witherlee gently; "an' when Mistress Wayne hes fund her wits again, 'twill be time to cry out on her for her sins."

"Tha'rt ower tender for this rough world. I allus telled thee so," murmured the little old woman.

Soon she was breathing in the sharp, stifled fashion that told the Sexton she was hard asleep. And he, too, began to nod, with softer thoughts than fight to give him company—thoughts of the frail woman who had claimed his hospitality, the little fairy-kist wanton who seemed so full in sympathy with his dreamings.

"Good or bad, God keep the little body," he whispered in his sleep.

Silence crept shadowy from the corners of the room—the silence, compact of rustling undersounds, that seems full of tragedies half lost yet unforgotten. The little sounds grew big, the big ones thunderous. The eight-day clock on the right hand of the chimney-piece ticked weightily, with grave disregard of everything save Time's slow passing. Nanny's harsh breathing crossed her goodman's softer snore. And now a rat floundered in the rafters overhead; and now the spiders in the walls began their clear and eerie ticking—tick-tick, tick-tick, like the swinging of an elfin pendulum. Once in a while an owl hooted, or the long-drawn wailing of a peewit sounded from the moor without. The night, in this cottage-kitchen, was endless, ghoulish and unrestful; and the slumbering folk on chair and settle served but to heighten the unrestfulness.

Witherlee turned in his sleep, and lifted his eyelids for a moment, and heard the spiders ticking in the wall. "Yond is th' death-tick," he muttered drowsily. "Lord save us, there'll be blows afore th' moon wears old."

Again the fret of little sounds fell over the cottage—over the living-room, and over the bed-chamber above where Mistress Wayne was tricking a brief spell of sleep from fate. But her sleep was neither so lasting nor so light as Nanny Witherlee had named it, and dawn was scarce greying over the moor-reaches when she waked.

Full of a sense of disaster, confused and rudderless, she rose and went to the window and looked out across the graves. And the dawn was a pitiful thing, that came to touch her sorrows into life. Where was she? And why should the grave stones, set toward the brightening East, show red as blood? She could not tell—only, that some one was waiting to carry her far from these dreadful places of the moor. Someone was waiting for her—that was the one surety she had. But where?

She smiled on the sudden, and clapped her slender, blue-veined hands together. "Why, yes," she lisped, "'tis Dick Ratcliffe who waits for me—strange that I cannot see him in the graveyard. We should have met there, he and I." She stopped and knit her little brows. "Dick lives at Wildwater," she went on slowly. "How if I seek him out, and reproach him that he did not wait? Yes, yes, I'll go to Wildwater—we have far to go to-day, and I must hurry."

She picked up her wearing-gear and eyed it questioningly; then donned it quickly, stole down the stair, and stood, finger on lip, regarding the Sexton and his wife.

"If they should waken, they would never let me go," she murmured. "I must tread softly—very softly."

"'Tis th' death-tick, an' there'll be fight afore th' new moon's in her cradle," muttered the Sexton in his sleep.

Mistress Wayne, startled by his voice, ran fast across the floor, and lifted the latch, and went out into the gathering dawn. A moment only she halted in the lane, then turned to her right hand and went up toward the moor with hurried steps. She must reach Wildwater—and Wildwater, she knew lay somewhere up among the moors.

Up and up she went, past naked pasture-land and lank, rough-furrowed fields. She passed a shepherd tending the ewes which had lambed in the inclement weather—one of the Marsh shepherds, who wondered sorely to see his late master's wife come up the moors in such guise and at such an hour.

"I want to get to Wildwater; some one is waiting for me there, and we have far to go, and I cannot find the way," she said, drawing near to the shepherd, yet keeping a watchful eye on him, and ready, like some wild thing of the moor, to take flight at the first hint of danger.

The shepherd eyed her queerly. "Ye want Wildwater, Mistress? Well, 'tis a fairish step fro' here to there—though yond bridle-track will land ye straight to th' door-stun, if ye follow it far enough. Are ye forced to wend thither, if I mud axe a plain question?"

"Oh, yes, I have a friend there who waits my coming. He'll be angry if I fail him."

"'Tis no good house to visit," said the shepherd, scratching his head in dire perplexity. "Have a thowt, Mistress, o' them that live theer."

"My lover dwells there. Is not that enough?" she answered gravely, and went her way.

Up and up, till she gained the wildest of the moor, where eagles nested and the goshawk soared. Up and up, until she stood beside Wildwater Pool, and looked across its stagnant waters, and saw the long house of the Ratcliffes frown beetle-browed upon her from amid the waste of ling. And half she feared; and half she gladdened, thinking what welcome her lover held in store for her; but when she neared the gate and felt the swart defiance of the house, she halted.

Between Ling Crag and Bouldsworth Hill it stood, this house of the Wildwater Ratcliffes. Above it were the wind-swept wastes of heath; below, the lean acres which bygone Ratcliffes had wrested from the clutches of the moor. Yet the dip of the hills sheltered it a little and the garden was trim-kept adding, if need were, the last touch of desolation to the homestead. A rambling house, shouldering roughly at the one end a group of laithes and mistals; above the narrow latticed windows the eaves hung sullenly, and the stone porch without the door offered at the best a cold welcome, and at the worst defiance. Over the porch was a motto, deep chiselled in the blackened stone.

"We hate, we strike," said the house to the outside world, and the motto, though it matched well the temper of each generation of the Waynes, suited none of the stock so well as old Nicholas Ratcliffe, known through the moorside as the Lean Man of Wildwater.

Below the wan strip of intake, an upland tarn showed its sullen, unreflecting face to the sky. Nor curlew nor moor-fowl was ever known to haunt the rushes that fringed Wildwater Pool, no fish ever rose from its waters; and men said that God had cursed the pool, since a winter's night, nigh on a hundred years agone, when a Ratcliffe had tempted a Wayne to sup with him in amity and had thereafter thrown his body to the waters. But Nicholas Ratcliffe loved the tarn, as he loved the storms that broke over the naked hills and the wild deeds that had made his fathers a terror and a scourge; and the sons and grandsons who grew up about him he trained to the rough logic of tradition. Brave the Lean Man was, and crafty as a stoat; wiry of body, lank-jawed of face; and the hair stood up from his crown a rusty grey, like stubble when the first frost has nipped it.

Old Nicholas sat in the hall this morning, in the carved oaken chair that stood over against the lang-settle. Robert, his eldest-born, sat opposite, and three other of the grandsons were at table still, finishing a breakfast of mutton-pasty and ham and oaten-bread, washed down with nut-brown ale. For the hall, running a quarter the length of the house and all its width, was the chief living chamber, where the indoors business of the day was gone through; a cool and pleasant chamber in summer heat, but in winter the winds piped through and through it, driving the women-folk for warmth to the more cosy parlour. The Lean Man had been cradled in cold winds, and it pleased him to see as little as might be of the women; for women were rather a cumbrous necessity than a joy to Nicholas Ratcliffe. "Thy son should be safe off with Mistress Wayne by now," said Nicholas to his eldest-born.

"Likely. 'Tis all the lad is good for, curse him! Dick was ever the weakling of the breed."

"Aye, but there's a use for weaklings, when all is said," chuckled the old man. "They fear dishonour worse than aught that can chance to them, these Waynes, and when first I learned that Dick was playing kiss-i'-the-dark with yon milk-faced wife of Wayne's, I gave him rope enough to strangle the Marsh pride."

"He starts well!" laughed one of the youngsters from the breakfast board.

"He starts well," said the Lean Man. "First to make a cuckold of the husband, and then to run him through—he's half a Ratcliffe, this shiftless Dick-o'-lanthorn, after all."

"Why did you let him go with the wench, father?" put in Robert. "Dick can wield a sword if he's forced to it, and scabbards will need to be empty in a while."

"Pish! We can spare one arm, I warrant, and 'twas sweet to cry Wayne's wife up and down the country-side for what she is. The lad will wed her soon as they get free of Marshcotes, she thinks—but I know different; and 'twill eat the heart out of the Waynes to know—what, Janet! Thou look'st scared as a moor-tit," he broke off, as a trim lassie came in through the parlour door and stood at the elbow of his chair.

Janet Ratcliffe, the youngest of all the Wildwater clan, was the only one among them who could touch the old man's heart; some said it was because she was the comeliest of the women, and others vowed it was that her raven hair had caught her grandfather's fancy by contrast with the ruddy colouring and freckled cheeks that nearly every other Ratcliffe in the moorside boasted. But sure it was that whenever the Lean Man's brittle temper had to be tried, Janet was sent as tale-bearer.

"There's one would speak with you, grandfather," said the girl, coming to the elbow of his chair.

"Then bid him enter. Any man can come into Wildwater—'tis for us to say whether we let them out again."

"Nay, but 'tis a—a woman, sir. I found her wandering up and down the garden, plucking the daisies and singing to herself."

"By the Lord, we do not have so queer a guest every day! Let her come in, Janet, and we'll give her the bottoms of the ale-flagons if her song be a good one."

"But, sir—she bears a name that is not welcome here—and she talks so wildly that I fear her wits are gone."

"What name?" snarled the old man.

"She is wife to Wayne of Marsh—and her clothes are dripping—and she speaks all in riddles——"

Nicholas laughed grimly. "Bring her to me," he said—"though, 'tis no new thing, my faith, to talk to a Wayne who is scant of wit."

"There's something untoward in this," muttered Robert. "What should she want at Wildwater, if Dick's plans had not miscarried?"

"Why, he grew weary of her, belike, 'twixt here and Saxilton, and set her down by the wayside. Thou know'st the lad's fancies—they go as fast as they come in that addle-pate of his. By the Heart, what have we here?" Old Nicholas stopped, and pointed to the doorway; and the lads who were at breakfast let fall their knives with a clatter on the board.

And in truth Mistress Wayne was a wild and sorry spectacle enough, and one to hold a man in doubt whether he should shrink from her or laugh outright. "Where is the Lean Man of Wildwater? I want a word with him," she said, and looked blankly round the hall.

Nicholas Ratcliffe smiled cruelly upon her, and, "Mistress," said he, "I fear the last night's storm has used you ill. I am the Lean Man you ask for. What would you?"

She carried a half-dozen daisies in her hand, plucked from the Wildwater garden, and these she held out to Nicholas with a pretty air of confidence. "I was weaving daisy-chains—red daisies, that grew out of a great vault-stone—and while I wove them my lover fell asleep."

"'Twas a poor lover to sleep at such a time. I'd none of him were I as fair as you," said Nicholas, with the same air of mock-courtesy.

"And the rain came down—red, like the daisies—and spread and spread over the stone—and dripped and dripped on to Wayne's cold forehead as he lay below——"

"They've not buried him yet, Mistress," laughed one of the youngsters.

"Oh, but they have, sir!" she answered, turning her great blue eyes on him. "They put him on to one of those little shelves that Sexton Witherlee showed me once—and then they covered him with a flat stone, with rings on it, because they knew that was the only way to hold him back from haunting me. But he doesn't heed the stone, and I want Dick—I want my lover, who is so big and strong, to wake and stand between Wayne's ghost and me."

Nicholas Ratcliffe watched every pitiful turn of speech and gesture, and laughed to himself as he drew her on. "So your lover sleeps, Mistress?" he said, softly.

"Yes, amongst the red daisies. And I could not wake him, though I tried my hardest. And, oh, sir, will you tell him that we shall never be in time, never be in time, unless he does not soon bestir himself?"

"I'll tell him, never fear. Robert, what dost make of it? Is't not as I told thee, a night's wandering among the bogs has turned her wits?"

"There's more in it; what is this tale of blood?" muttered Robert. "God, yes, and her bosom is stained with something of a deeper dye than rain."

"The wind moaned so in the heather, all the long night," wailed the woman, "and I was cold, and hungry, and sadly frightened. Why will he not wake? Two little corpse-candles are fluttering over the marsh—how they shine, like the dead man's eyes! There was Wayne lying there at Marsh, and they said they had closed his eyes—but I knew, I knew! His eyes burned—and wherever I moved they followed me—sir, will you not bid my lover wake?"

She turned from the old man suddenly, her wandering fancy caught by the beat of horse-hoofs up the road. "That is the post-chaise, come to carry us to Saxilton," she said.

"To be sure," cried Nicholas. "The chaise is to carry you and Dick to Saxilton. When will you be wedded, Mistress?"

"Oh, soon, very soon. And then, I think, I shall not fear Wayne of Marsh at all—his ghost cannot come between man and wife, can it? See, see!" she cried, running to the window. "A horse! But there's no post-chaise with it—how is that?"

The rider dismounted at the door and entered; and his likeness to Nicholas of the weasel face was plainer now than it had been when he talked with the Sexton in Marshcotes graveyard. Mistress Wayne ran up to him and put both hands on his shoulders, and laughed a little, roguishly.

"Did not my lover bid you bring a chaise?" she said.

Red Ratcliffe stared at her. "Your lover?—Ah, now I know you, Mistress. Well, no, he gave me no commands, for the best of reasons."

"I know," she said carelessly, moving to the window again. "He sleeps, and 'tis unkind of him when there is so great need for haste. Well-away, but I must keep watch at the window, or the chaise will pass us by."

"Dick was slain yesternight, grandfather," said the horseman, with a keen glance at Nicholas.

"Slain, was he?" snarled the Lean Man, "whose hand went to the slaying?"

"One of the Long Waynes of Cranshaw met him in the kirkyard and ran a sword through him. I had it just now from a farm-hand as I rode across the moor, and I turned back to tell you of it. Shameless Wayne was drinking at the time, they tell me."

"Well, we can spare fool Dick, my grandson, though I say it, and 'twill give us the chance of feud we've hungered for these years past. And Shameless Wayne was drinking, was he? He lost his chance of fighting his father's quarrel? That's bonnie news, lad, and news to be spread far and wide about the moor. 'Twill damp their pride, I warrant."

"And the feud will be up again," growled Red Ratcliffe, with a glance at Janet.

"Ay, they all but cut us off once, these Waynes, but kindness bade them let us breed; and now our turn has come; and Marsh House, that used to grow so thick with them, holds only four tender lads and a half-man who sinks his wits deeper every day in the wine-barrel. By the Heart, we shall live healthier at Wildwater when yonder sword is fleshed again and the moor is cleared of Waynes!"

He pointed to a great two-handled sword that hung above the mantel—a weapon, too heavy for these lighter-armed days, which had hung idle since the quarrel between Wayne and Ratcliffe was last healed.

Janet, who had been listening pale and woe-begone from the door, went still of face when Shameless Wayne was spoken of. "Poor Ned! He will take it hard," she murmured.

Again Red Ratcliffe glanced at her. "Till the moor is cleaned of Waynes," he echoed.

"Cleaned?" echoed the mad woman, turning from the window suddenly and facing the Lean Man. "Nay, 'twill never be cleaned, for it dripped down, right down to the vault-floor underneath."

Nicholas, weary of mocking her, pointed a forefinger at the door. "Get ye gone, Mistress; there is neither room nor welcome for you here," he said.

"But, sir," began Janet, "she is beside her wits; it were shame——"

"Peace, child! If ever I hear one of my house pleading for a Wayne, by God, they shall feel the rough side of my hand."

Mistress Wayne stood halting in childish perplexity. "What would you, sir? I cannot go till Dick wakes up. What if he woke and found that I had gone?"

"We'd send him after you," snapped Nicholas, "for ye were the fittest couple ever I set eyes on. Go, baby, and wander up and down the moor, and tell all the folk you meet how you robbed Wayne of Marsh of honour."

"Wayne of Marsh?" she whispered, glancing over her shoulder and into every corner of the room. "Is he here, then? Here, too, when I thought I had got away from those great, staring eyes of his!"

"He's close behind you, Mistress. Run, lest he hold you by the throat!" laughed one of the youngsters, throwing wide the door for her.

A panic seized her, and without word or backward glance she ran out into the courtyard. Janet made as if to follow, for pity's sake, but the Lean Man called her back peremptorily.

"Does he not know," murmured the girl, "that 'tis madness to deal harshly with the fairy-kist? And she so pitiful, too, poor weakling."

"I go a-hunting, lads, soon as dinner is off the board," said Nicholas, stretching his legs before the peats.

Janet forgot her care of Mistress Wayne; for she knew that tone of the Lean Man's, and mistrusted it.

"Do we ride with you, father?" asked Robert from across the hearth.

"Not one of you. By the Dog, do ye think I would let any younger man rob me of the first blow? Ride in when that is struck, and welcome—but pest take whichever of you tries to tap Wayne blood before to-morrow."

"And what of the dead man, sir?" put in Red Ratcliffe. "Dick's body lies in the Bull tavern at Marshcotes, so they told me."

"Go thou to Marshcotes, lad, and see that he's brought up to Wildwater. Ay, ride off at once; 'tis unmeet that even the weakling of our folk should lie stark within a wayside tavern."

"And there'll be the grave to see to," said Red Ratcliffe, getting to his feet.

"More than one, haply," laughed the Lean Man. "They say that Sextons love to see a Ratcliffe go a-hunting, and——"

He stopped, remembering Janet, and stole a glance at her. "There, lass," he said, with rough tenderness, "'tis men's talk, this, and it whitens thy bonnie cheek. Go to thy spinning-wheel till dinner-time."

"We are short of flax, grandfather. I—I—I cannot spin," she faltered, not moving from the elbow of his chair. For his threats touched Shameless Wayne, and she was loth to go out of ear-shot while he was in mood to tell them what his purpose was.

"Go, child," he said curtly, pointing to the parlour door.

She went reluctantly, and Red Ratcliffe followed her a moment later, on pretext of fetching some matter that was needful to his ride to Marshcotes.

"So, Janet, thou didst want to hear the Lean Man's purpose?" he said, closing the door behind him and leaning carelessly against its panels.

"Whatever I wished or did not wish, cousin, I lacked no speech of thine," she answered, turning her head away.

"Neither dost thou lack flax, though thou wast ready to swear as much awhile since," said Red Ratcliffe drily, pointing to where her spinning-wheel stood in the window-niche, the flax hanging loose on the distaff.

She crossed impatiently to the door, and would have left him, but he checked her with a rough laugh.

"Wast over eager, cousin, to hear the Lean Man's purpose toward Wayne of Marsh," he said. "Say, is it true—what they whisper up and down the country-side—that thou wert friendly to this Wayne the Shameless?"

"And if I were, sir, what is't to thee?" she flashed, turning round to him.

"What is't to me? Shall I tell thee again, girl, that I've sworn to wed thee?"

"And shall I answer again that I will wed thee when apple-trees grow——?"

"The Lean Man has bidden me prosper with my suit."

"I shall persuade him otherwise."

"Wilt thou?" he snarled. "Even if I tell him what gossip has to say of thee and Shameless Wayne?"

Her face took that firmness that mention of Wayne's name never failed to bring there. "Thou darest not tell him," she said; "for then thou would'st be sure I would never look thy way again."

The shaft aimed true, for Red Ratcliffe's passion for his cousin had grown to fever-heat during these latter days. Finding no answer, he watched her go out by the door that led to the garden; and then he turned on his heel and passed through the hall, meaning to saddle his horse forthwith and ride down to Marshcotes on his errand.

"The Lean Man is right," he muttered, as he went out. "'Tis time that this Wayne of Marsh was out of harm's way."

His hand was already on the door-latch when old Nicholas himself, still seated by the hearth, detained him, though a while since he had bidden him make all speed to Marshcotes.

"I've a word for thy ear, lad," said the Lean Man. "Come sit beside me and tell me whether 'tis well planned or no."

For a half hour they sat there, the young rogue and the old, their lean faces and red heads pressed close together. And now the Lean Man let a chuckle escape, and again Red Ratcliffe would fetch a crack of laughter.

"By the Mass, sir, your wits keep sharp!" cried the younger, raising his voice on the sudden. "The plan goes bonnily as wedding bells. First, to go hunting——"

"Hush, fool, there's Janet in the room behind," snapped the Lean Man; "and she has less liking for sword-music than her bravery warrants."

"Janet is out of hearing. I saw her go down the garden-path just now."

"Well, 'tis time thou wast off and about this business. Bring back Dick's body, and forget not to ply old Witherlee with questions when thou'rt seeing him about the grave. He's a poor fool, is Sexton Witherlee, and he'll tell thee all we want to know as soft as butter."

Janet, soon as her cousin was gone, slipped out into the garden—budding with spring leafage, yet cold for all that with memory of the storm just over-past—and sought the lane that led up to the pasture-fields. This wooing of Red Ratcliffe's was growing irksome to her, backed as it was by the Lean Man's favour; nor had she guessed till now that any shared the secret of her love for Shameless Wayne. Yet for all her own troubles, she found leisure to think kindly of the mad woman, who had come in such piteous plight to Wildwater and had been turned away by so rude a storm of jests and harshness. Where was Mistress Wayne now, she wondered?

Shading her eyes against the sunlight, which was fitful, chill and dazzling, she looked for the frail woman. At first she could see nothing save the bare green of scanty herbage, the swart lines of wall, the dark, straight hollows running up the fields to mark where the plough had once on a time furrowed the hard face of the land. Then she made out a little figure, moving up toward where the topmost field curved nakedly across the steel-blue sky.

A great compassion held the girl as she watched Mistress Wayne clamber up the hill and turn at the summit and move along the sky-edge, her frailty showing pitilessly clear against the empty space behind her. The wrath of God held no place in the calculations of the Ratcliffes; but Janet had learned awe of the self-same storm-winds that had taught cruelty to her folk, and she trembled now to think that they had turned a want-wit—one of God's own people, according to the moorside superstition—into the heart of the pathless and bog-riddled heath.

"Come back!" she cried, running up the fields. "Come back! You cannot cross the marshes out beyond there!"

Mistress Wayne looked down after the cry had been twice repeated, and stopped a moment; then hurried forward faster than before. Janet quickened pace, fear gaining on her lest the other should be lost to view. The flying figure above moved with a lagging step now, and Janet overtook her at the wall-side which divided moor and field.

"You will not take me back, not take me back?" pleaded Mistress Wayne, shrinking close against the wall.

"I would see you safe to the lower ground, Mistress. Where would you go?"

The kindliness in Janet's voice wrought a sudden change in Mistress Wayne. She forgot her dread of the eyes which had haunted her throughout the night, and awoke to a keen sense of her present misery. "I will go home," she said—"home to Marsh House. I am faint, and very hungry. They gave me milk and a piece of oaten bread at a farmstead on the moor, but that is a long, long while ago—longer than I could tell you—is the way far to Marsh?"

"Not far," said Janet, and then, not knowing how else to find her a place of shelter, she took the little woman by the hand and led her down the moor until they reached the rough brack, cut from the solid peat and flanked on either hand by clumps of bilberry, which led to Marshcotes; and further toward Marsh House she would have gone with her, had not a glance at the sun told her that she could scarce get back to Wildwater before the dinner-hour.

"The road lies straight to Marshcotes," she said, stopping and pointing down the highway.

"Will you not come all the way with me?" pleaded Mistress Wayne, nestling closer to the girl's side.

"I cannot, Mistress. Grandfather may have lacked me as 'tis, and I dare not overstay the dinner-hour, lest he should guess what errand has brought me out of doors."

"No," said the other, simply, "he would not like thee to go gathering red-eyed daisies from the stone— Why, now, I know my way," she broke off, a light of recognition stealing into her empty face. "Yonder is Withens on the hill, and over there is Marshcotes; and there's a field-path, is there not, that takes me out of the high-road down to Marsh—an odd little path, all full of rounded pebbles, that creeps down the hill so craftily because it fears the steepness? Oh, yes, I know the way to Marsh."

"Fare ye well," said Janet, softly, with the tears close behind her voice. "Go home to Marsh, Mistress, and God give you friends there."

She watched the little figure move down the road, stopping here and there to pluck a spray of rusted heather or a half-opened wild flower from the banks on either hand, until the shoulder of the peat-rise hid her. Fierce in hatred or in love was Janet, like all her folk, and her pity for Mistress Wayne had grown already to a sort of hard defiance of those who could wrong so frail a creature.

"'Tis such as Red Ratcliffe who think it sport to mock the weaklings," she said, turning sharp about for Wildwater. "He would be very brave, I doubt, were he to meet yond little body on the moor—had she no men folk with her."

But Red Ratcliffe came too late to cross Mistress Wayne's path, though he was riding out of the Wildwater gates at the moment, bent on seeing to the disposal of the body which lay in the Marshcotes tavern. As Janet was half toward home, he passed her at the gallop, but an ugly smile was all his greeting and he went by without once slackening pace. The girl misliked his silence; it was his way to bluster with her at each new opportunity, and a score of shapeless fears went with her as she hurried back to bear her grandfather company at dinner. What was old Nicholas planning when he had sent her out of hall this morning? Bloodshed and unrest were in the air; the whole wide moor seemed throbbing with an undernote of tumult, and Shameless Wayne had but the one life to lose. But the one life to lose—the thought maddened her. Real danger, danger that stood before her in the road and spoke its purpose plainly, she could meet unflinchingly; but the perils that waited on Wayne's steps were formless and unnumbered. She would not think of them, and to ease her mind she turned again to thoughts of Red Ratcliffe, his mad passion, his cruelty and unruliness.

"Christ, how I hate him—how I hate him!" she cried between set teeth, as she passed through the Wildwater gates.

Red Ratcliffe, meanwhile, was riding hot and fast. His cousin's scorn, of which he had had full measure earlier in the day, flicked him on the raw all down the road to Marshcotes; and his thoughts dwelt less on the brother for whom he was going to order a grave than on the fierce, quick-witted lass whom he had sworn to wed. He was in no good mood, accordingly, when he reached Marshcotes and drew rein at the Sexton's door.

The Sexton's wife, hearing the sound of horse-hoofs on the road without, hobbled to the window and thrust her face between the plants that lined the sill. Her eyes went hard and her mouth turned downward as she saw who was her visitor. She was in no better mood, indeed, than Red Ratcliffe himself; for she had been up betimes after her long ringing of the death-bell, and the hundred-and-one bits of housework she had got through had not been lightened by the discovery of Mistress Wayne's flight. It was no welcome hospitality that she had given to Wayne's faithless wife; but it was hospitality for all that, and it troubled the old woman no little that her guest should have wandered, none knew whither. So tart her mood was, indeed, that the Sexton had long since been driven forth of doors by the goodwife's tongue, and had taken refuge in the graveyard which was working-ground and home in one to the gentle man of dreams.

"Is Witherlee in the house?" cried Ratcliffe, catching sight of Nanny's face between the window-plants.

The little old woman came to the door and stood there, arms akimbo. "He isn't," she answered, looking steadfastly at the horse's ears.

"Then where is he? I must have a word with him before I go back to Wildwater."

"Where is he? Where ony honest man is like to be—following his trade." Nanny misliked all Ratcliffes, and she never troubled to hide her feelings from gentle or simple.

"By the Mass, thou'rt shorter of tongue than any woman I've set eyes on yet. Drop thy fooling, woman, for there has news come to Wildwater which sets a keen edge on my temper."

"Ay, marry? Then try th' edge on me—for I'm reckoned hard, and hev blunted more men's tempers nor ye can count years. Witherlee's i' th' kirkyard, if that's what ye're axing. Mebbe ye've met th' Brown Dog on your way across th' moor, an' he's warned ye to be beforehand, like, wi' ordering your grave?"

Ratcliffe scowled as he turned his horse's head. "Recall now that the Sexton's wife is friendly to the Waynes, and makes a boast of it," he said, glancing sharply at her.

A quick retort came to Nanny's tongue, and she hungered to out with it; but, being a prudent body even where the most unruly of her members was in case, answered quietly, "When gentlefolks come to blows," she said, "sich as me an' Witherlee are quiet, an' tak our pickings, an' if we choose sides at all, we lean toward them as gi'es us th' most butter to our bread."

"Stick to that creed, Nanny," said the other, with a rough laugh over his shoulder. "For 'tis apt to go hard at times with friends of the Waynes, and if we caught thee crossing the scent after the hunt was well up—well, thou hast heard of our kind ways with enemies."

Red Ratcliffe had no sooner disappeared among the graves that stood at the far side of the road, after hitching his horse's bridle to the wicket, than Nanny's neighbour ran in from next door—a big-faced, big-boned woman, who went through life with a keen regard for everybody's business but her own.

"Begow, there's summat agate, an' proper!" cried the big-faced woman, filling the doorway with her breadth. "He war that sharp wi' thee, Nanny, I niver could hev believed. What ailed him to gi'e the yond bit o' warning—an' thee nobbut a bit o' dirt under his feet at most times?"

Nanny eyed her visitor askance, distrusting her for a slattern, yet not sorry for a chance of gossip. "He hes heard tell, I fancy, how mony an' mony a year back I helped th' Waynes o' Marsh to slip fro' th' Ratcliffes' sword-points. An', an' there's more nor one of th' better sort that hes learned to fear Nanny's tongue, an' th' sharp een she has for seeing fox-tricks. Yond Ratcliffe is like as two peas to what th' Lean Man used to be i' his young days—red hair an' all."

"There's red hair an' there's red hair," put in the other, weightily. "Same as there's cheese an' cheese; but there's one sort o' red thatch that niver yet spelt owt but foxiness an' double-dealing."

"That's true, for I've noticed it myseln. Black hair for honest, says I, an' red for a man that'll do owt."

"Leet hair, thin blood—that's what I war telled. Ay, sure, ye can niver trust yond sort o' thatch; an' all th' Ratcliffes hev it, saving Mistress Janet."

"Mistress Janet's is black as sloes, an' she hes a staunch heart of her own to match," broke in Nanny, who rarely stopped to praise. "But then she might be a Wayne, an' I've allus wondered how she came to be born of a Ratcliffe stock. Eh, but I wonder aht yond chap is saying to Witherlee! My man hes getten a closish tongue, Lord be thanked, or he mud easy say summat that wod stick i' Ratcliffe's gizzard."

The Sexton had been pottering up and down the graveyard all this while. And now he had sat him down on the edge of a grave, and filled his pipe and fallen into one of the musing fits which were the chief joy of his life. He was out of place in the world of living men and women, was Witherlee, and he knew it; but here he was at home, and the folk underground were full in sympathy with the dour, clear-sighted philosophy which pick and spade had taught him.

"There's comfort i' a bit o' bacca—though, Lord knows, 'twill be all one, bacca or no bacca, by and by," he muttered, pulling out his tinder-box. "We brought nowt into th' world, an' we tak nowt out, as Parson says at buryings—no, not so mich as an old clay pipe to keep us warm under sod."

His pipe well going, he let his eyes rove through the thin trail of smoke until they rested on the vault of the Waynes of Marsh. A shadowy smile wrinkled his mouth; he was thinking of what had chanced here not twelve hours agone, and piecing the fight together, stroke by stroke, as he would have it be if it were to be fought out again.

"So thou'rt here, Witherlee! Peste, man, thou sittest so grey and still that I mistook thee for one of thy own gravestones," said Ratcliffe's voice at his elbow.

The Sexton came slowly out of his dreams. "Good-day to ye, Maister. Th' wind blows warm at after last neet's bluster," he said.

"It will blow cold again—after what was done here last night," answered Ratcliffe sourly. "Thou hast heard, I take it, that my brother was done to death here? I am come to bid thee dig a grave for him, the burying will be on Monday, likely."

"'Tis an ill-starred day for a burial, but dead men cannot be choosers. Oh, ay, I'll get th' grave digged reet enough."

"There'll be more work for thee before long," went on Ratcliffe, angered by the air of quiet aloofness which Witherlee assumed when he had scant liking for a man. "There's a saying that a Ratcliffe does not love to sleep alone, and we must find him a bedfellow."

"Well, there's room for a two or three—'specially i' th' Ratcliffe slice o' ground," said the Sexton, waving his hand toward the half-dilled space that underlay the Parsonage.

"Thy jests are dry, old Witherlee," snapped the other.

"Nay, I war none jesting. Cannot ye see that there's room and to spare? Oh, ay, I'll be fain to fill up my bit of a garden yonder—and thankee for th' custom."

Ratcliffe shifted from foot to foot, as if in doubt whether it were worth his while to pick a quarrel with the want-wit fellow; then, thinking better of it, he turned as if to leave.

"One spot is as good as another, I take it?" he said. "And haply thy work will lie nearer the yew-trees here, where the Wayne vault hugs tha causeway. By-the-bye, Sexton, when do they bury Wayne of Marsh?" he asked, with a sly carelessness that was not lost on Witherlee.

"To-morn."

"About noon, will it be?"

"About nooin," answered the Sexton. "Ye'll let th' burying go forrard peaceable-like?" he added, after a pause. His face looked dreamy as ever, nor could an onlooker have guessed that he was eyeing the other narrowly.

Ratcliffe started at the plain question, then laughed. "Of course. Are we wild beasts, thou fool, to stand between any man and decent burial? Look ye, Witherlee, thou hast a dreamer's privilege to ask odd questions, or I would have cracked thee on the mouth for that. What is't to thee whether we do this or that?"

"It's a deal to me," said Witherlee, an odd dignity stiffening his shrivelled body. "There's a place for everything, Maister Ratcliffe, an' all goes i' this world, not by what's done, but by th' place where it's done. If I meet ye on th' oppen high-road, I'll mebbe touch my hat to ye, an' axe no better; if I'm i' th' house, I'll tak a lot o' talk fro' th' wife an' say nowt, for a house is th' woman's, not th' man's; but here i' th' kirkyard I'm my own midden, i' a way o' speaking, and I'll stand interference fro' no man—no, not fro' Parson hisseln, for he's getten th' kirk, an' that's his place. So now ye know, Maister, why I axe if ye'll let th' burying get safely owered wi' afore ye fight—I couldn't thoyle to see outrageous doings amang my quiet folk here; they've addled their rest, poor soul and 'twould be no way seemly to disturb them."

"Thou'rt a thought witless, Sexton, as I've often heard folk say," laughed Ratcliffe.

"Well, I keep different company fro' most folk, and so am like to be a bit queer i' my ways. Have your joke, Maister, an' welcome, so long as ye'll let my work at th' vault here go peaceable to-morn."

"'Twas only thy daft fancy bade thee fear aught else. Put this coin in thy pocket, Witherlee, and let it remind thee there's a grave to be digged come Monday."

"Thankee, an' good-day. I'll none forget th' grave," said Witherlee, holding the coin gingerly between a thumb and forefinger.

"Have they a spare horse at the Bull, think'st thou? I'm going to the tavern now to take the body up to Wildwater, and dead men weigh over-heavy to be carried like maids across one's saddle-crupper."

"Ye'll borrow a horse off Jonas Feather; he bought a fresh one nobbut last week end, I called to mind," said Witherlee. "Lord save us," he added to himself, "to hear him talk so of a corpse that's kin to him! To laugh because his own brother weighs heavier for being dead—nay, they're a mucky breed, these Ratcliffes, an' that's as plain as the kirk-steeply."

The Sexton followed Red Ratcliffe with his eyes as he went down the pathway leading to the tavern; and then he glanced again at the coin in his palm.

"I dursn't say him noy, for fear he'd know how sour he turns me wi' yond weasel-face o' hisn," he went on; "but I don't like th' colour of his brass, for all that, and I'd liefer be without it. What mun I do wi' 't, for it'll fair burn a hole i' my pocket?" His face brightened, and he crossed the graveyard briskly. "I'll tak it to th' wife, that I will," he said; "mebbe she'll tell me what's best to do wi' it."

"Well, did Red Ratcliffe find thee?" asked Nanny, soon as the Sexton showed his face indoors.

"So he's been here, and all, has he?"

"Ay, he came seeking thee—and he threatened what he'd do if he catched me meddling wi' what no way concerned me. Well, happen there's more concerns me nor Red Ratcliffe has any notion of. Was it just about th' grave he wanted thee, or was there more behind it?"

"There war," said Witherlee, rubbing his hands together. "He came to see about th' grave right enough—but he came most of all to axe me when Wayne o' Marsh war to be buried. He puts his question careless-like, as if he didn't fash hisseln to know one way or t' other; so I put a question to him i' my turn—daft-like, so he shouldn't guess th' why of—and I could tell by his way o' answering that they mean to swoop down on th' Waynes to-morn while they're agate wi' th' burying."

"That's so, is't?" said Nanny, with a quick glance at her husband. "I war minded to slip down to Marsh before, but now I shall let nowt stand i' th' gate. They're ower gentle, i' a proud way o' their own, is th' Waynes, and they'll niver think sich a thing could be as blows at burying-time."

"Ay," assented Witherlee, "these well-bred folk is like childer when they've getten foul tricks to deal wi', and they need one o' th' commoner sort to look after 'em."

"I should think they do!—Well, sit thee dahn, Witherlee, or tha'll get no dinner to-day, that tha willun't. Sakes! But I'm bothered still about yond little Mistress Wayne; hast heard owt of her?"

"Nowt. I talked to Hiram Hey as he went up to th' land this morn, but they'd seen nowt of her at Marsh. Porr bairn! I doubt she's come to harm." He wandered restlessly about the kitchen awhile; then, remembering the coin in his palm, he put it down on the extreme edge of the dresser. "I've getten a crown-piece, lass. What mun I do wi' 't?" he said.

"Do? Gi'e it to me, for sure, if tha's no use for't. Sakes, he talks as if a crown-piece was addled ivery day o' th' week."

"Ay, but it war Red Ratcliffe gav it me, an' tha knaws what ill money breeds."

Nanny made straight for the dresser, putting her goodman to one side with a firm hand. "I know what lack o' money breeds, Luke Witherlee," she said, as she dropped the coin in her apron pocket. "'Tis nawther right nor kindly to load a harmless bit o' silver ai' th' sins o' him that owned it, an' I've known good childer come fro' ill parents."

"Not oft," said Witherlee, and fell to on the oven-cake which Nanny had just set down before him.