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.
*CHAPTER IV*
*ON BOG-HOLE BRINK*
The sun was wearing noonward as Shameless Wayne and his sister came out
of the Marsh House gates and turned up the pasture-fields that led them
to the moor. It was the same morning that had seen the mad woman steal
out from Nanny's cottage in search of the rude welcome awaiting her at
Wildwater; but to Nell Wayne it seemed that yesterday was pushed far
back into the past. Her visit to the belfry, her lust for vengeance,
the quick answer to her prayers that had been given, amid rain-murk and
the crash of swords, upon the very stone that was to cover Wayne of
Marsh--these seemed all far off to the girl this morning, as if another
than she had lived through the tempest of last night's passion. Behind
them, in the Marsh hall, lay her father, still as when she had left him
before the fight; and something of the stillness of the end was in the
girl's face, too, as she kept pace with her brother's slow-moving steps.
"There's no rest for me, Nell, indoors yonder," said the lad, turning
troubled eyes to the old house.
"Nor for me, nor for any of us, so long as father lies there. Ned, 'tis
cruel that we cannot bury our dead clean out of sight soon as the breath
has left them. All afternoon our kinsfolk will come, and whisper and
pray above the body, and go away--I can see the whole sad ceremony--and
we must be there, Ned--and 'twill be bitter hard to remember that the
Wayne pride bids neither man nor woman of us show a tearful front to
death."
He laughed, bitterly a little and very sadly. "The Wayne pride, Nell!
Did not that die with father, think'st thou? Or hast forgotten what thou
said'st to me last night at the vault-side?"
The late stress of grief and fight, had left the girl soft of heart; and
Ned had ever held a sure place in her love. "Let that go by, dear," she
said. "I was distraught, and my tongue went wandering in my own
despite."
"Yet thy tongue spoke truth, lass. I shall never be aught but Shameless
Wayne henceforth, thou said'st."
"Nay, 'twas but a half truth," she said, eagerly. "There's life before
thee, Ned, and swift deeds----"
He put a firm hand on her shoulder and forced her to look him in the
face. "Nell, I was drinking in the Bull tavern while the bell tolled
for father from the kirk-tower. Say, didst think I _knew_ what had
chanced at Marsh?"
Again the old note of reproof sounded in Nell's voice. "I told Nanny
Witherlee that thou didst not know, and I tried hard to think it,
Ned--but how could it be? The gossips at the Bull must have told thee
for whom the bell was ringing, for the news had long since spread
through Marsh cotes."
"They did tell me," began Shameless Wayne.
"Ah, God!" murmured Nell, confessing how she had clung to the last shred
of doubt.
"And I thought they lied. I thought, Nell--'twas the fool drink in
me--that Jonas and his cronies were minded to have the laugh of me by
this lame tale of how Wayne of Marsh had come by his end. Think, lass!
When there was no feud, and naught to give colour to a Ratcliffe
sword-stroke--how could a head three-parts gone in liquor believe it
true?"
She, too, stopped and sought his eyes. "Ned, thou hast lived wild, but
one thing I have never known thee do--thou dost not lie to save thy good
repute. Wilt swear to me that thou knew'st naught of what had
happened?"
"By the Dog, or by any oath that holds a man," he said, and she knew
that he spoke plain truth.
"Why, then, 'twas thy ill fortune, dear, and we'll look clear ahead,
thou and I."
"Yet the shame of it will cling, Nell. Wherever my name is spoken,
there will some one throw mud at it. Whenever I see one man talking
with his fellow, and mark how sudden a silence falls on them at my
approach, I shall know that they were sneering at Shameless Wayne, who
sat heels on table while his father's soul wailed up and down the
moorside crying for vengeance. The Ratcliffes will taunt me with it by
and by."
"And the taunt will stiffen thy arm, and blows will wipe out word," she
cried, her voice clear and strong again.--"Dear, we have no smooth path
to follow, but I give God thanks that 'twas drink, not thou, that played
the renegade last night. It would have darkened all my love for thee,
Ned, to know thee what I feared--ay, though I had fought it down with
all my strength."
Again he laughed mirthlessly. "Art so sure that I shall live sober
henceforth?" he said.
"Ay, am I! Dost think I've seen but the one side of thee through all
these years? Thou wast alway better than thyself, Ned, and needed only
a rough blow to bring thee to thy senses."
He interrupted her, impatiently. "We're growing womanish, and I had
harder matters to talk of with thee. I'm four-and-twenty, Nell, and I
have thee and four half-grown lads to fend for."
"What, then? Are the Marsh lands so poor that we need cry for every
penny spent, like cottage-folk?" said Nell, her old pride peeping out.
"I had a wakeful night, lass, and things came home to me. A good farmer
drives the work forward, and says little about it, and onlookers are apt
to forget what fathering the land needs if 'tis to butter any bread."
"But there's Hiram Hey. He has worked at Marsh ever since I remember
aught, and surely he will look to everything?"
"Ay, if he has a shrewd hand ever on his shoulder; but if the master
plays at work, Hiram will play, too, with the best, soon as the old
habit wears----"
Nell could not keep back a smile. "As well set beggars on horseback,
Ned, as put thee to farming. Hadst never patience for it, nor liking."
"Liking? Good faith, I loathe the sight of tillage tools, and the
greasy stench of sheep, and the slow rearing of crops for every storm to
play the wanton with. But must is must, Nell, lass, and naught will
alter it.--Look at Marshcotes kirk yonder?" he broke off, pointing over
the moor as they gained the hill-crest. "It is broad day now, and 'tis
hard to understand how lately there was fight beneath yond grey old
tower."
Nell shuddered. "Was it a dream, think'st thou, after all? Just a
dream, Ned, born of the moon-rays and the wildness of the night?"
"'Twas no dream, lass, for I carry the marks of it.--God's pity, what
can have chanced to Mistress Wayne, I wonder? I left her on the vault
last night, after pleading with her vainly to return with me to Marsh;
and half toward home I turned again, shamed at the thought of leaving
her in such a plight--and she was gone."
"Thou didst plead with her to come back to Marsh?" said Nell, her face
hardening. "What place has she at Marsh?"
"The place that any homeless bairn might claim there; and, by the Heart,
I'll find her if I can and give her shelter. Fool that I was to leave
her there last night! She may have wandered to her death among the
moors."
"And I for one would gladden to hear of it," cried the girl. "She
brought father to where he is; she made our honour light through all the
country-side; 'tis treachery to the dead to pity her."
"We'll not fall out, Nell, thou and I; there are quarrels enough to
fight through as it is," said Wayne steadily. "Wilt come to Bog-hole
brink with me? The last words ever I heard from father was about yond
field; next after thee, I think he doted most on the lean fields he had
rescued from the heather, and 'twould please him if we could whisper in
his ear at home-going that the work was speeding."
His sister glanced curiously at him, scarce crediting the change that
one night's agony had wrought in this careless lad, nor knowing whether
his tenderness or his purposeful, quiet talk of ways and means were more
to be wondered at. "Is't safe, Ned?" she asked. "The road to Wildwater
crosses over beyond Bog-hole brink, and Nicholas Ratcliffe has a pair of
hawk's eyes in his weasel face."
"'Twill be as safe now as ever it will; and who knows but a chance may
come to square last night's account?"
She turned and walked beside him up the fields; and, after they had
crossed the stile that opened on the moor, she broke silence for the
first time. "Ned, what of Janet Ratcliffe?" she said suddenly.
Wayne flushed, and paled again; but his voice was quiet when he spoke.
"I have thought that over, too--and--love sickens when it crosses
kinship, Nell."
Overjoyed and sorry in a breath, she gave him one of those brief,
half-ashamed caresses that rarely passed between them. "Art right,
dear," she said--"but God knows what it has meant to thee."
"And I know, lass--and that is all we'll say about it. After all, 'twas
hot and sweet enough--but father would have cursed me had he lived to
know; and old Nicholas would liefer have drowned Janet in Wildwater Pool
than see her wedded to a Wayne. Even thou, lass, didst rail on me when
I told thee how it was between us; and thou'rt a woman.--See Bog-hole
brink up yonder; that should be Hiram's figure stooping to the spade."
Hiram Hey, indeed, had been busy since early morning at the brink, as
befitted the oldest farm-hand of the Waynes. Death might have put an end
to the old man's activity, but it was no part of the Marshcotes creed
that farming matters should be set aside for even a day because the
owner of the land awaited burial. There was always a fresh master to
take the old one's place, but the right season for a tillage-job, if
once it was let slip by, did not return again. It was high time that
this bit of field, intaken from the heather during the open days of
winter, should be prepared for its seed-crop of black oats; and Hiram
was working, with his wonted easiful swing of arm and downright
leisurely tread, at the square heap of peat and lime that stood at the
upper corner of the field. His spade, at each downward stroke showed the
naked side of the heap, where the alternate layers of black bog-peat and
white lime, each a twelve-inch deep or so, climbed one above the other
to half a tall man's height; and peat and lime mingled in a grey-black
dust as he swung spadeful after spadeful in the waiting cart.
"He'll noan be pleased, willun't th' Maister, 'at he's been called to a
better world afore he's seen this field rear its first crop o' oats,"
muttered Hiram. "Nay, it do seem fair outrageous, like, to wark as he's
done to break up a plaguey slice o' land, an' then to dee fair as all's
getten ship-shape. A better world he's goan to? I'm hoping as
mich--for it 'ud tak him all his time to find a war."
"What art laking at, Hiram?" came a voice from behind.
Hiram put a few more spades-full into his cart before troubling to turn
round; then he planted his spade in the ground, firmly and with
deliberation, and leaned on it; and last of all he lifted his eyes to
the newcomer's face. "Oh, it's thee, is't, Jose? Well?" he said.
"Well?" answered Jose, the same shepherd who earlier in the morning had
directed Mistress Wayne to Wildwater.
Neither broke the silence for awhile, for they were fast friends. "Been
shepherding like?" ventured Hiram Hey at length.
"Ay. 'Twar a lamb-storm last neet, an' proper, an' I've lossen a
two-three ewes through 't already, not to mention lambs. I doubt this
lambkin 'ull niver thrive," answered Jose, leaning over the fence and
holding a four-days' lamb toward Hiram.
"I doubt it willun't," responded the other, with a critical glance at
the thin body and drooping hind-quarters.
"Its mother war carred by th' side on 't, dead as Job, when I gat up to
th' Heights this morn, and th' little chap war bleating fair like ony
babby. Well, I mun tak it to th' home-farm, an' they'll mebbe rear 't
by th' hearthstun.--What's agate wi' thee, Hiram, lad? Tha looks as if
tha'd dropped a crown-piece and picked up a ha' penny."
"I war thinking o' th' owd Maister, who ligs below yonder at Marsh. He
war a grand un, an' proper. I warrant th' young un 'ull noan be a patch
on him."
"That's as th' Lord sends," said the shepherd, shifting the lamb a
little to ease his arms; "though why th' new should allus be war nor th'
owd, beats me. Tha niver will see th' hopeful side of ony matter,
Hiram--no, not if they paid thee for 't. I mind, an' all, that ye hed
hard words to say o' him that's goan while he war wick an'
aboon-ground."
"Well, that's nobbut right. If ye cannot speak gooid of a man when he's
dead, an' noan liable to be puffed up wi' pride at hearing on 't, when
can ye let a soft word out, says I?"
"There's a way o' looking at iverything, I allus did say; an' I've knawn
a kindly word i' season do more for th' living nor all th' praise i' th'
world can iver advantage th' dead."
"Nay," said Hiram, taking up his spade and resting both hands on the
top, "nay, I war reared on hard words an' haver-bread, an' they both of
'em stiffen a chap, to my thinking. I doan't knaw that owt iver comed
o' buttering your tongue."
"Tha doesn't knaw? Then that's why I'm telling ye. There's th' young
Maister, now--him 'at they call Shameless, though I reckon he's cured o'
that sin' last neet. He's a chap ye can no way drive, is't Shameless
Wayne, but I've knawn him, even i' his owd wild days, go soft i' a
minute if ye tried to lead i' stead o' driving him."
"I doubt th' chap. Whin-bushes carry no cherries, Jose."
"Well, tha wert allus hard on th' lad; but there's marrow i' him, ye
mark my words. An' we shall see what he's made on, choose what, now
he's getten th' farm on his hands.--Sakes, what is't, Hiram?" he broke
off, as a slim figure of a woman, wild-eyed and mud-bedraggled, came
down the moor and stood on the far side of the fence watching them in
questioning fashion.
"Why, by th' Heart,'tis Mistress Wayne!" cried Hiram. "Begow, I thowt it
war a boggart! What mud she be after, think'st 'a, Jose?"
"Nay, I know not--save that she passed me many an hour agone, as I war
looking after th' sheep, an' axed th' road to Wildwater. I thowt that
she war fairy-kist, and now I'm sure on 't."
"Ay, she's fairy-kist, for sure; ye need only see her een to be sure o'
that. Tak that lamb o' thine to her, Jose; I've known mony a sickness
dumb and human, cured by a touch o' such poor bodies."
They glanced at Mistress Wayne, expecting speech from her; but she said
naught--only stood idly watching them, as if she had some question in
her mind and feared to ask it. Surprised he was, and awe-struck, by this
second advent of a figure at once so eerie and so pitiful, the shepherd
was not minded to lose so plain a chance of profit. The lamb was sick,
and he knew as well as Hiram did what healing these mad folk carried in
their touch. Eager to thrust his burden against the little woman's
hand, he moved up toward the fence; but she took fright at his
abruptness, and turned, and raced fleet-footed up the slope.
The shepherd watched her disappear among the furrows of the heath, then
looked at Hiram. "What dost mak on 't', lad?" he asked.
"Nay, how should I tell?" said Hiram sourly. "'Twould seem yond skinful
o' kiss-me-quick ways--who war niver fit, as I've said mony a time, to
be wife to Wayne o' Marsh--has paid a bonnie price for her frolic wi'
Dick Ratcliffe o' Wildwater-- Lord save us, though," he added, "I mun
say no ill o' th' wench, now that she is as she is, for 'tis crixy work
to cross sich, so they say."
"She's talked o' seeking her lover up at Wildwater," put in the other,
in an awed voice. "Did she find him, I wonder? 'Tis fearful strange,
lad Hiram, whichiver way a body looks at it."
"Tha's heard nowt, I'm thinking, of how this same Dick Ratcliffe, that
she calls her lover, war killed last neet i' Marshcotes graveyard?"
"What, killed? Think o' that now! An' th' little body trapesing all up
and down th' moor, seeking him and reckoning he war up yonder at
Wildwater House. Where didst learn it, Hiram?"
Hiram took his spade in hand again and thrust it into the lime--with no
immediate intention of resuming work, but as a signal that by and by he
would have given his tongue as much work as was good for it. "Where
should I learn it, save at Nanny Witherlee's? I war dahn at Marshcotes
this morn, an' says I to myseln, 'Jose, lad,' says I, 'if there's owt
fresh about this bad business o' th' Maister's, Nanny 'll know on 't.'
An' I war right, for sure; there's niver a mousehole i' ony house but
Nanny hes a peep through 't."
"Ay, she knows whether ye've getten feathers or flocks i' your bedding,
does Nanny," Hiram agreed, as he patted the heap with the flat of his
spade.
"She hed been ringing th' death-bell, seemingly, and when she came out
into th' kirkyard-- Now, look yonder, Hiram! We're seeing a sect o'
company up here this blessed day, for here's th' young Maister hisseln,
an' Mistress Nell wi' him. Eh, but they've getten owd faces on young
shoulders, hes th' pair on 'em. I'll be wending up to th' farm, lad,
wi' this lambkin, for I war aye softish about meeting troubled
faces--they do may my een watter so."
The shepherd made off hurriedly along the crest of the field, his eyes
turned steadfastly from the path which Shameless Wayne and his sister
were climbing; and Hiram watched him sourily.
"Tha'rt right, Jose, when tha names thyseln softish," he growled.
"Sakes, if we're bahn to fret ourselns about iverybody's aches an'
pains, where mun we stop? Lord be thanked 'at He's gi'en me a heart
like a lump o' bog-oak--hard, an' knobby, an' well-soaked i' brine. So
th' young Maister's coming i' gooid time, is he, to lord it ower his
farm folk? Well, let him come, says I; he'll noan skift me by an inch,
willun't th' lad."