nor would he have ceased the unhurried swing of leg and arm-muscle, that
does so much in a Marshcotes working-day, until dinner or the advent of
another gossip gave him fit excuse for resting. But with the young
master close behind--come here, doubtless, to spy on him--the case was
altered; and there was stubbornness writ plain in every outstanding knob
of the old man's body as he fell into the most easiful attitude that
long experience could suggest.
"Well, Hiram, how goes the work?" said Shameless Wayne, stopping at the
fence.
Hiram glanced carelessly at the young master, then fell to lengthy
contemplation of the sky. "Better nor like," he said at last, "seeing
I've nobbut my own wits to guide me, now th' owd Maister is goan."
"The new master knows a sight less than the old one did, Hiram."
"Ye're right, I reckon."
"But he's willing to learn, and means to."
"Oh, ay? I've heard that ye can train a sapling, but not at after it's
grown to a tree."
"The same old Hiram Hey! Bitter as a dried sloe," growled Shameless
Wayne.
"Sloes is wholesome, choose what; an' I addle too little brass to keep
me owt but dry--let alone that I'm no drinker by habit."
The master winced at this last home-thrust, then squared his jaw
obstinately. "Hard words plough no fields, Hiram--no, nor lime them
either, as is plain to be seen. Thou'rt a week behind with this field."
Hiram glanced edgeways at him, not understanding that two could use his
own rough weapons. "A week behind, am I, Maister? An' how should ye
come to know whether I'm forrard or behind wi' farm wark?"
Wayne's face softened for a moment. "Because the last word I heard from
father was touching this same field--and by that token, Hiram, I'll see
that thou gett'st it limed, and sown, and bearing its crop, all in good
season, if I have to whip thee up and down the furrows."
His sister laid a hand on his sleeve. "Hush, Ned!" she whispered.
"Thou'lt win scant labour from such as Hiram, unless thou bearest a
kindlier tongue."
Yet Shameless Wayne, who was counted light of head and judgment, saw
more sides to the matter than prudent Mistress Nell; the temper of the
moor folk was an open book to him, and he knew that if he were to be
master henceforth he must begin as such, or any after-kindness he might
show would count for folly with Hiram and his kind.
Hiram Hey was looking steadily at the master now, a hard wonder
tempering his obstinacy a little. And so they eyed each other, until
the older man's glance faltered, and recovered and fell again to the
white spots of lime that littered the peat-mould at his feet.
"Now," said Wayne, "thou hast got thy cart full, Hiram. Give yond
chestnut of thine a taste of thy hand, and we'll see if thou hast
learned yet to spread a field."
"Hev I learned to spread a field? Me that hes sarved at Marsh, man an'
boy, these forty years!" cried Hiram, open-mouthed now.
"Thou hast done good service, too, for father gave his word to that; but
whether thou canst spread limed peat--why, that is to be seen yet."
Not a word spoke Hiram, but gave the chestnut one resounding smack with
the flat of his hand and fell to work as soberly, as leisurely, as if he
had not just been given the hardest nut to crack that ever had come his
way. All across the field, as he followed the cart and swung wide
spades-full right and left, he was puzzling to find some explanation of
this new humour of Shameless Wayne's; but he returned to the heap as
wise as he left it, and began stolidly to refill the cart without once
looking at the master.
"Nay, I'm beat wi' him," he muttered. "What it means is noan for me to
say--but I warrant ony change i' Shameless Wayne is for th' war----"
"Put that sort of work into it, Hiram, and we shall see a good crop
yet," called the master drily, and linked his arm through Nell's to help
her down the slope.
They had not gone a score yards, and Hiram Hey was still wondering at
his powerlessness to give Shameless Wayne "a piece of his mind," when a
horseman passed at a foot-pace along the bridle-track above. Beside him
walked another horse--a rough-coated bay, that carried a man's body
swung across its back. Carelessly fastened the body was, and every now
and then, as the nag slipped and stumbled up the rocky slope, the dead
man's arms, his head and high-booted legs, made quick nods of protest,
as if the journey liked him little.
"Christ guide us, what is this?" cried Nell, aghast at the drear
spectacle. And then she looked closer at the on-coming rider, and lost
her mawkishness upon the sudden. "'Tis one of the Ratcliffes of
Wildwater," she said, with the same passionate tremour in her voice that
Nanny Witherlee had heard last night up in the belfry-tower.
"Ay, by his red thatch," muttered Shameless Wayne--"and now he turns his
face this way, 'tis he they call Red Ratcliffe--the meanest hound of
them all, save him who lies across the saddle-crupper yonder."
"Why, canst see who 'tis?" Nell whispered.
"Ay--thou say'st him last with a sword-blade through his heart."
The horseman had reined in at a stone's-throw from them. "I carried news
to Wildwater this morning," he said, glancing from Nell Wayne to her
brother.
"Good news or bad, Red Ratcliffe?" answered Wayne in an even voice.
"Why, good. They clapped hands up yonder when I told them what
Shameless Wayne was doing while his cousin fought for him."
The lad reddened, but he would show no other sign of hurt. "There are
two chances come to every man in his lifetime," he said slowly, "and I
have lost but one. Get off your horse, and we'll talk with a weapon
that comes handier than the tongue."
Ratcliffe looked down the rough slope of the moor, thinking to ride in
at his enemy and strike at vantage; but the ground was full of bog-holes
and no horse could cross with safety. "Nay," he answered; "when I fight
with you, Wayne of Marsh, there shall be no girl to come between the
fight--nor a farm-hind to help thee with his spade."
"You need not fear them, sir," laughed Wayne--"though, now I think of
it, old Hiram yonder would be a better match for such bravery as yours."
The other winced, but would not be goaded into fight; and there he
showed himself a Ratcliffe--for his race was wont to measure pride by
opportunity, and when they fought they did it with cool reckoning of the
odds in favour of them.
"Wilt try the issue with my sister, then, if Hiram seems too good for
thee?" mocked Wayne. "She can grip a sword-hilt on occasion, and----"
"She may have need to by and by," snapped Red Ratcliffe, pointing to the
dead man with the hand which held the bridle of the second horse. "This
morning I carried news to the Lean Man, and now I am bearing proof of
it--and weighty proof, 'od rot me, as I found when lifting him to
saddle. An eye for an eye, Wayne of Marsh--fare ye well, and remember
that an old tree we know of will bear red blossoms by and by."
Wayne made a few steps up the slope, but the horseman was already rising
to the trot and pursuit was useless. "Come, Nell," he said; "blows would
come easiest, but it seems I've to learn patience all in one hard
lesson."
Hiram Hey whetted his hands, soon as he was alone again, and began to
fill his cart. And many a slow thought ripened as he worked, though he
gave voice to none until Jose the shepherd returned from carrying his
lamb to the home farm, and rested his arms as before on the fence, and
gave Hiram the "Well?" which prefaced every interval of gossip.
"Begow, but I've learned summat, Jose, sin' tha wert here," said Hiram
slowly.
"That's a lot for thee to say, lad. I've thowt, time an' time, 'at ye'd
getten nowt left to learn," responded the other, with lazy irony.
"Well, 'tis a rum world, an' thick wi' surprises, for me as for ony
other man. Who'd hev thowt, Jose, 'at th' young Maister 'ud up an' gi'e
me a talking-to, fair as if he war his father, an' me set to liming a
field for th' first time?--I tell thee, I war so capped I hedn't a
blessed word to answer him wi'--though I've thowt of a dozen sin' he
left."
"Didn't I tell thee?" cried the shepherd, cackling softly and stroking
his shaven upper lip. "Didn't I tell thee, Hiram? Eh, lad, I haven't
lived to three-score an' three without knowing a sour cherry fro' a
sweet."
"Thou'rt ower fond o' th' young Maister; tha allus wert, Jose. What's
he getten to show for hisseln?" grumbled Hiram.
"Measure him by his doings, an' he's nowt; but peep at th' innards o'
th' lad, an' tha'll find summat different-like. He war a wick un fro'
being a babby, war Shameless Wayne, an' wick tha'll find him, Hiram, if
fancy leads him to meddle wi' th' farming."
"Theer, I niver reckoned mich o' thy head-piece, Jose; 'twar nobbut th'
suddenness of it that capped me so, an' next time I warrant he'll sing
to a different tune. He war right, though, about this field, an' 'tis
owing to thee, Jose, 'at I'm late wi' 't, coming ivery half-hour as tha
dost to break me off th' wark. 'Tis weel to be a shepherd, I allus did
say."
"Well, then, I'll swop jobs; I'll tak thine, lad, if tha'll tak mine.
Begow, but to say 'at I'm idle i' lambing-time-- Theer I'll be wending;
'twill noan do mich gooid to listen to such fly-by-sky talk of yond."
Hiram let him move a little away; then, "Didst see Red Ratcliffe go
riding by to Wildwater a while back?" he called.
"Nay, I war off th' road. Hes he passed, like, while th' Maister war
here?" said the shepherd, answering tamely to the lure and resuming his
old easiful attitude against the fence.
"I should think he did. An' he stops, does Ratcliffe, an' mocks th'
Maister; an' he up an' says, 'Come thee dahn and fight, lad,' says he,
meaning th' Maister. But Ratcliffe war flayed--ay, he war flayed--I'm
noan saying th' lad didn't show hisseln summat like a man."
The shepherd was silent for awhile. "I tell thee what it is, Hiram," he
said presently; "them Ratcliffes hes been thrang this mony a week wi'
their plots an' their mucky plans. There's niver a neet goes by now,
when we meet at th' tavern, Wildwater hands an' Marsh, but they mak a
joke o' Shameless Wayne--an' no rough honest jokes, mind ye, but sour
uns----"
"I should like to hear 'em!" snapped Hiram. "I'm noan gi'en to liquor,
Jose, as tha knaws; but I've a mind to look in at th' tavern this varry
neet, th' first I hear oppen his mouth agen th' young Maister--" he
stopped and looked once down the path that Shameless Wayne had taken.
"We shall fratch, me an' ye, lad," he said, as he settled to his work
again.
"Ay," chuckled Jose, turning away. "An' he'll best thee ivery time. So
I'll say good-afternoon, Hiram, an' we'll pray there'll be no more
lamb-storms this side o' th' summer."
"We shall fratch," repeated Hiram Hey, and shouted a "gee-yup," to the
chestnut.
But the Master was thinking of weightier matters even than his fratching
with Hiram Hey. Nell and he had stopped at the parting of the ways this
side of Marsh House, and he had glanced queerly at her as he said
farewell.
"Where art going, Ned?" she asked.
He paused awhile before replying; then, "I have a tryst to keep with
Janet Ratcliffe," he said, in a tone that challenged opposition.
"A tryst to keep?" echoed Nell, lifting her brows. "How long is't, Ned,
since thou told'st me that was over and done with once for all?"
"I told thee truth. The tryst was made when we were free to be
lovers,--if we would--but now--dost think I'm minded to forget the blow
that sent father where he is?"
"Break tryst, Ned?" she pleaded eagerly. "'Tis unsafe, I tell thee,
and----"
"And thou fearest a pair of hazel eyes will cloud all else for me?" he
finished. "Get home to Marsh, lass--and think something better of my
manhood."
"She'll conquer him again," Nell muttered after he had left her. "He is
mad to keep troth with any Ratcliffe. Well-away, why must Ned always run
so close a race with dishonour?"
*CHAPTER V*
*A LOVE-TRYST*
After seeing Mistress Wayne safe into her road and after meeting Red
Ratcliffe by the way, Janet made all speed back to Wildwater, lest her
grandfather should miss her from the dinner-table. She turned once
again as she reached the wicket-gate; and again she looked along the
path by which Red Ratcliffe was crossing the moor to Marshcotes.
"Christ, how I hate him!" she repeated, and put a hand upon the latch,
and went quickly up the garden-path.
A haunch of mutton, just taken from the turn-spit, was hissing on the
kitchen table as she passed through, and she had scarce time to doff her
cloak and smooth her hair a little where the wind had played the ruffler
with it, before Nicholas Ratcliffe's voice came from the dining-hall.
"Where's Janet? Od's life, these wenches are always late for
trencher-service," he cried.
"Nay, for I'm here with the meat, grandfather," said Janet slipping into
the place at the old man's side which was hers more by favour than by
right.
"Where hast been, girl?" he asked sharply.
"I wearied of spinning and went out into the fields in search of
appetite."
"Well, have a care. The times are going to change soon, and 'twill be
well for all Ratcliffe women-folk to keep close to home."
"For fear of Waynes?" cried a lad from the table-foot, mockingly. "I
thought, sir, we knew that they were courteous to foolery with all
women. Have you not told us as much a score times?"
"Besides, I could not hug the threshold from morn till night; I should
die for lack of wind and weather," put in the girl, with a touch of
wilfulness that never came amiss to old Nicholas from his favourite one.
"There's truth in that; and I should ill like to see thee go white of
cheek, Janet, like yond fool-woman who came to talk with me just now.
Have a care, is all I say--and if a Wayne say aight to thee at any
time----"
"I do not fear any Wayne that steps," said she, her eyes on her plate,
and her thoughts on a certain spot of the moors where she had promised
to keep tryst with Shameless Wayne that very afternoon.
The Lean Man fell into moodiness presently. From time to time he
glanced at Robert, his eldest-born, and nodded; and from time to time he
gave a laugh that was half a snarl; and Janet, watching his humour
narrowly, lost even the pretence of high spirits which she had brought
to meat. Her grandfather was planning mischief, as surely as a hawk
meant death when it hung motionless above a cowering wild fowl; and the
mischief would aim at Shameless Wayne; and she would have more than a
love-errand to take her to the moors this afternoon.
Dinner over, old Nicholas called for his horse and buckled his
sword-belt on.
"Come, wish me God-speed," he laughed, threading his arm through
Janet's.
Janet shrank from him a little, but he was too intent on the matter in
hand to notice aight amiss with her. "Wish him God-speed," she thought.
"On such an errand? Nay but I'll give God thanks that I made a tryst
with Shameless Wayne--the Lean Man will scarce know where to look for
him."
"Come, Janet, hast no word? See the black mare, how eager she is to be
off. She winds the scent of chase, I doubt."
The girl was silent until her grandfather had gathered the reins into
his hand. "Where--where do you ride, sir?" she stammered.
The big bay horse--lean as its master, and every whit as tough--was
pawing the courtyard stones impatiently. Old Nicholas swung to saddle,
and looked down grimly, at his granddaughter. "A-hunting, as I told
thee," he said. "What meat shall I bring back to the Wildwater larder?"
"What you please, sir, so long as it be well come by," she answered,
looking him hardily between the eyes.
"It shall be well come by, lass," said the Lean Man, and cantered over
the hill-crest.
Not staying to fetch cloak and hood, Janet struck slant-wise across the
moor soon as her grandfather was out of sight. Troubles were crowding
thick on her. This morning there had been Red Ratcliffe's threats, now
there were the Lean Man's. Both aimed against Shameless Wayne, she
guessed, for of old their hate had been deeper against the Waynes of
Marsh than against any other of their kin. Above the moor-edge a little
cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, seemed to have come up--the cloud of
feud, which one day, the girl knew, would grow to a red thunder-track
that covered the whole sky. Yet her step grew freer, her eyes
brightened, as she went out and out across the moor, over the gaunt,
waste land of peat and bog and green marsh grasses; for the friendship
of heath went with her, and each step further into the heart of the
solitude was a step toward him. This morning she had been downcast, and
even the moor had failed to give her its wonted cheer; but now that
dangers thickened she braced herself to meet them, with a courage that
was almost gaiety. What if the Lean Man had gone hunting Shameless
Wayne? He would not find him, for he was coming to meet her on the moor
here--he was at the tryst this moment, may be--and the road he would
take from Marsh was contrary altogether from that followed by her
grandfather.
The bog stretched wide before her now, and she had to skirt the nearer
edge of it, stepping with cautious foot from tuft to tuft of ling.
There was many a dead man lay among the stagnant ooze to left of her;
but the cruelty of the heath had no terror for the girl--it was but one
quality among the many which had endeared the heath to her. Men's
cruelty was mean, with squalor in it, but the larger pitilessness of
Nature was understandable to this child of the stormwinds and the rain.
Little by little, as she walked, her mind went over all that had passed
between herself and Shameless Wayne since first he set a lover's eyes on
her and blurted out his headstrong passion. That was a twelvemonth
back, and ever since she had been half betrothed to him--not pledging
herself outright, but gleaning a swift joy from meetings that would have
brought the Lean Man's vengeance on her had he once surprised a tryst.
Sometimes she had been tender with the lad, but oftener she had taunted
him with his wild doings up and down the moorside; and all the while she
had not guessed how close a hold he was taking of her, nor that his very
wildness matched what the moor-storms taught her to look for in a man.
It had needed a touch of peril, a sense that life for once was buffeting
Careless Wayne, to rouse the woman in her; and now the peril was at
hand, and the boy-and-girl love of yesterday showed vague and empty on
the sudden.
For a moment she halted at the bog-verge and looked across the heath.
The solitude was splendid from edge to edge of the blue-bellied
sky--such solitude as dwarfed her pride and made her heart like a little
child's for simpleness. Moor-birds were clamorous up above her head, and
not a half-league off the black pile of Wynyates Kirk upreared itself, a
temple in the wilderness. From marsh to kirk, from wind-ruffled heath
to peewits wheeling white-and-black across the sun-rays, the girl's eyes
wandered. Proud, she had been, shy with the fierceness of all untamed
creatures, and liberty had seemed, till yesterday, a dearer thing than
any fool-man's tenderness. But danger had come to Shameless Wayne,
danger would sit at meat and walk abroad and sleep with him till he or
the Lean Man went under sod; and, knowing this, she knew, too, that
liberty had ceased to be a gift worth asking for.
Scarce understanding yet, she turned from the bog-side with a sigh that
was half-impatient, and crossed to the kirk which was land-mark and
trysting-place in one. They counted the square-towered church at
Marshcotes old; yet it was young compared with this rounded pile of
stones which was sacred to the oldest-born of all religions. Hither the
hill-lassies came on Mickaelmas Eve to ask if they would be wedded
before the year was out, and to glean from the silent stone an answer
prompted of desire; here, too, sweethearts half confessed found wit to
tell each other what many a summer's field-walk after milking had failed
to render clear, and grown men, who had come in jest, had stayed to
wonder at the power the old place had to stir a laggard tongue. This
Wynyates Kirk, at which Pagan mothers had once worshipped lustily,
seemed still to have its message for the moor folk; and the way of a man
with a maid, which it had watched for generations out of mind, showed
constantly the same.
The compulsion of the past was strong on Janet, as she stood under
shadow of the rounded stone and strained her eyes toward the track which
should be leading Shameless Wayne to her. She had lived with the wind
for comrade and the voices of the heath for bed-fellows; there had been
none to keep her mind from Nature's lesson to its children, and here,
with the ghosts of long-dead love vows plaining from the heather that
hugged the kirk-stone foot, her heart went out once and for all to
Shameless Wayne. The spirit of the place quickened in her, telling her
that neither kinship nor any reek of feud could come between herself and
Wayne; for love was real up here, while pride of family went fluttering
like a thistle-seed down the rude pathway of the wind.
"He's a laggard--a laggard!" she cried. "Ah, if he knew what I am
keeping from him----"
She stopped, and the wind grew colder, so it seemed. How if the Lean
Man had changed his path? How if he had met Wayne by the way and given
him that which would render him a laggard till the Trump of Doom? Again
she strained her eyes across the peat, and far down the moor she saw a
sturdy, loose-limbed figure stride up toward her.
Nearer and nearer the figure came, and the girl laughed low to herself.
Standing with one arm on the stone, she looked down at Shameless Wayne
and waited. And many a dark matter came clear to her in that moment, as
she marked the lines of trouble in his face; nor could she tell which
was the stronger--the shyness that knowledge of her self-surrender
brought, or the fierce, protective impulse that bade her fight his
troubles for him.
"So you've kept tryst, Janet? I scarce looked for it," he said gravely.
"Is it my wont, Ned, to break tryst?" she answered.
"Nay, but last night has changed all--for you and me."
His coldness jarred on her, after her late eagerness toward him.
"Art chill as this rainy sky, Ned," she said. "Is't because I have
looked askance at thee of late that thou giv'st me you for the old
_thou_ of friendship?"
"Nay, but because the friendship is frost-nipped, Janet."
She was silent for a while, fighting the maidish battle of pride with
tenderness. "That need not be," she said at last. "Was I not like to
hold off, Ned, when thou wast so sure of me that thou could'st play the
wilding up and down the country-side? So sure of me that, thrice out of
four times, a wine-flagon showed more tempting company than I? But
thou'rt altered, Ned--I saw it in thy face as thou camest up the
moor--and----"
"Hold, lass!" he cried, gripping her arm. "I'll trick no secrets from
thee now. Know'st thou I let another fight for me in Marshcotes
kirkyard?"
"I heard as much a while back. And what said I to my heart about it,
think'st thou?"
"That it matched well with Shameless Wayne."
"That it matched ill with what I would have the man I love to be--Ned,
Ned, 'tis I am shameless, for I cannot see thy trouble and keep
confession back. It was well enough to flout thee in old days, when
thou hadst little need of me--but now--hast never a use for me, dear?"
The world had rolled back from Janet. Her folk were straw in the
balance, the brewing quarrel was naught. They were alone, Shameless
Wayne and she, with only the quiet, far-reaching moor to watch them; and
love was a greater thing by far to her woman's eyes, than any hate of
feud could be. Wayne reeled for a moment under a like impulse: he had
come here to say farewell to Janet, expecting a little sorrow from her
and no more, and she had met him with every tender wildness, of voice
and eyes and roundly-moving bosom, that ever set a lad's hot pulses
beating. Life was to be an uphill fight henceforth for Shameless Wayne;
but here by the kirk-stone, with the peewits shrilling overhead and the
low wind whistling in the heather, he was facing the hardest fight of
all. Slowly the colour deepened in the girl's face as the moments
passed, and still he made no answer and a touch of anger was in her
shame, as she sought vainly for the meaning of his mood.
"Lass, why could'st not hold it back? Why could'st not?" he cried
hoarsely. "Listen, Janet, there has that chanced at Marsh since
yestermorn which has set the Pit of Hell 'twixt thee and me."
"What chanced at Marsh was none of thy doing, nor of mine," she broke
in, and would have said more, but the look of Wayne's face, with the
tragic lines set deep about his brow and under his eyes, daunted her.