silence, "and in hot blood I swore never to ease my fingers of the
sword-hilt until the reckoning was paid. Can we lie soft in wedlock,
girl, when every dawn will rouse me to the feud? Can we lock arms and
kiss, when slain men come from their graves to curse the treachery?"
"Thou art thou, Ned, and I am I. Can kinship alter that?"
"Ay, can it," he cried bitterly, for her stubbornness angered him when
he looked for help from her at this hottest of the fight. "The one part
of me is sick for thee, Mistress Janet, while the other loathes
thee--ay, loathes thee--because thou art a Ratcliffe.--There, child,
forgive me! 'Tis no fault of thine, God knows, and my tongue slips into
unmeant cruelties----"
She turned her back on him and leaned her forehead against the stone
that had brought many a maid to her undoing or her happiness. Back and
forth went her thought; she would not acknowledge how real his struggle
was, but told herself that he had flouted her for sake of an idle fancy,
that she could never win back what she had given him just now. She
looked up at last, and glanced at Shameless Wayne.
"Hast not left me yet?" she said. "'Tis scarce seemly, is't, to pry
upon my shame?"
Anger he could have met, but not this tearless sorrow. If Janet could
cast kinship to the winds, was he to show himself a laggard? He sprang
toward her; and she, seeing his sternness gone, waited and held her
breath, not knowing what she feared or what she hoped. And then he
stopped, suddenly, as if a hand had clutched at him to hold him back;
and without a word he turned and left her.
She watched him go, her arms clasped tight about the stone; and for
awhile her heart went empty of all feeling. So quiet the moor was that
she could hear the rustle of an eagle, sweeping far overhead toward
Conie Crag Ravine, with a lamb in its talons plucked from some outlying
upland field. A moor-fowl splashed through the reeds that fringed the
marsh to left of her. The peewits wheeled everlastingly in dropping
circles, showing white breasts to the sunlight at every backward turn.
There was a vague, wandering sound that threaded through all the
others--the gnome-like cries and gurgles of water running underground
through straitened channels.
She thought of the frail figure which she had lately seen go up the
brink-fields, and she asked herself, was she less lonely than mad-witted
Mistress Wayne? A storm of passionate self-pity swept over her at the
thought; and after that the calm of hopelessness.
Slowly as her passion waned, the girl understood that there was more
than an idle lad's caprice underlying all that Shameless Wayne had said.
It was no lover's quarrel, this, to be righted at the next tryst. Her
folk were the aggressors in this new-born feud; but they were still her
folk, and feelings that she scarce realised as yet could cloud her love,
she knew, as already they had clouded Wayne's. She glanced at the
kirk-stone again and shivered; it had spoken her false when it bade her
count all things less than love, and the folk who had whispered soft
secrets here--man to maid, and maid to man--were they not dead and
buried long since, and their love along with them?
Her pride weakened, too, and she remembered that she had come here to
warn Ned of the danger with which the Lean Man's malice threatened him.
Full of pity for herself she had been; but now the pity was all his, as
she looked down the winding sheep-track, and told herself that though he
humbled her afresh, she would seek speech of him once more and tell him
of the Lean Man's purpose. But Wayne was already out of sight and
hearing, and she knew that to follow him was useless.
Scarce knowing where she went, she set off wearily across the heath.
The moor's harshness was friendly to her mood, and she wandered on and
on until, by the time she reached the Wildwater gates again, the sun was
sinking into gloaming mist.
Her grandfather was standing by the well-spring in the courtyard as she
entered. His back was toward her, and he failed to mark her light step
on the flagstones. A vague foreboding seized the girl; creeping closer,
she saw the Lean Man stoop to rinse his hands in the clear stream, and a
low cry escaped her as she saw that the water reddened as it ran between
his fingers.
Nicholas swung round with a frown, and clapped a hand to the breast of
his tightly-buttoned coat.
"What art doing here, lass?" he said roughly.
"I--I have been walking----"
"What, so soon after I bade thee keep so close to home?" said Nicholas,
wiping his hands furtively on the lappel of his coat.
She answered nothing for awhile. Then, "How went the hunting?" she
asked, with a sudden glance at him.
"Bonnily. I've brought home better flesh, Janet, than Wildwater has
seen this score years."
Her forboding took clear shape. Had he met Shameless Wayne on his way
home from the kirk-stone? What was it that the Lean Man guarded so
carefully at his breast? At all costs she must learn if Ned were safe.
"Where did you kill the quarry?" she whispered, and longed to take back
the question for fear of the answer she might get.
"Where? Why, on Cranshaw Rigg--'tis on the Long Wayne's land, thou'lt
call to mind," chuckled the Lean Man.
"Then--then 'twas not Wayne of Marsh?"
He glanced at her curiously; but it was plain that he shared none of Red
Ratcliffe's suspicion touching her tenderness for Wayne.
"Nay, it was not Wayne of Marsh--for the reason that, seek as I would, I
could not find the lad," he answered, as he turned to go indoors.
"'Tis not Ned after all," murmured Janet. "Thank God he kept the tryst
with me."
*CHAPTER VI*
*THE BROWN DOG'S STEP*
Marsh House lay lower than Wildwater, and it had a softer look with it,
though built much after the same pattern so far as roominess and stout
building went. The trees grew big about it and a pleasant orchard ran
from the garden to the chattering stream; yet was it ghostly, in a quiet
fashion of its own, and not all its trees and sheltered garden-nooks
could rob it of a certain eeriness, scarce felt but not to be gainsaid.
On either hand the gateway two balls of stone had lately topped the
uprights; but one of these had fallen and lay unheeded in the
courtyard--a quiet and moss-grown mourner, so it seemed, for the lost
pride of the Waynes of Marsh. Behind the house, leading up to the
sloping shoulder of the moor, ran a narrow, grass-grown way, scarce wide
enough to let a horseman through and lined on either hand by grassy
banks and lichened walls of sandstone; they called it Barguest lane, and
the Spectre Hound who was at once the terror of the moorside and the
guardian spirit of the Waynes, was said to roam up and down between the
moor and Marsh House whenever trouble was blowing in the wind.
And true it was that at certain times--oftenest when the air was still,
and dusk of late evening or dark of night brooded quiet over house and
garden--a wild music would sweep down the lane, not crisp and
sharp-defined, but softened like the echo of a hound's baying far away.
The hardier folk were wont to laugh at Barguest, with a backward turn of
the head to make sure he was not close behind them, and these vowed that
the Brown Dog of Marsh was no more than the voice of the stream which
ran in a straitened channel underneath the road; water had strange
tricks of mimicry, they said, when it swept through hollow places, and
the deep elfin note that haunted Barguest lane was own brother to many a
bubbling cry and groan that they had hearkened to amongst the
stream-ways of the moor. And this son of talk was well enough when
treacle posset was simmering on some tap-room hearth; but abroad, and
especially if gloaming-tide surprised them within hail of old Marsh
House, they found no logic apt enough to meet their terror of the
Spectre Hound. As for the Waynes, there were some among them who
pretended to disclaim their guardian Dog; yet there was not one who
would oust tradition from his veins--not one who failed to loosen his
sword-blade in the scabbard if any told him that Barguest had lately
given tongue.
The spirit of the homestead was strong on Shameless Wayne to-night, as
he sat alone in the hall, watching the dead and thinking his own
remorseful thoughts. All that was left of his father rested, gaunt and
still, on the bier in the centre of the hall, where it was laid out in
state with candles burning low at head and feet. Mistress Nell and the
serving-wenches were all in the back part of the house; the lads had not
returned from hawking in the lowland pastures; the last of the day's
visitors had bidden the corpse farewell and had gone home again, leaving
the new master of Marsh House to watch the closed eyes of his
forerunner.
A ray of fading sunlight crept across the hall and rested on the dead
man's face, which showed white as the cere-cloth that bound his jaws.
"Father, father!" he cried, laying one hand on the waxen cheek. "Do you
know what chanced yesternight? Do you know that I, who should have
carried the quarrel, sat drinking your honour and my own away?--God, I
could see each Wayne of them all look askance at me to-day, as they came
and stood beside you here. And each man was saying to himself, 'There
is none of the old breed left at Marsh.' They were right, father--and
sometimes, when the candle-shadows play about your face, I seem to see
you laughing at thought of Shameless Wayne--laughing to know him for
your son."
The sunlight moved from the bier, and up the oak-panelled walls and
backward along the ceiling-beams until it vanished outright. Dusk came
filtering through the lattices. A low stir of bees sounded from the
garden, where corydalis and white arabis had newly opened to the spring.
And still Wayne sat on, listening to the thousand voiceless rumours that
creep up and down an empty house.
"I cannot wipe out the stain, father," he went on, in a quieter voice;
"but I will do all that is left to me--I'll pluck Janet out of my
heart--and there shall none say, for all my shamelessness, that I let
the land go backward, though in old days you'll remember there was no
love spilt 'twixt me and farming matters. But the Wayne lands were
always better-tilled than any in the moorside, and 'twould hurt you,
father, if I let them grow foul and poor of crop.--Yet, for all that,
'tis easier to swear to hunt out every Ratcliffe from this to
Lancashire," he added, with a whimsical straightforwardness which showed
that a sense of fellowship with the dead had come to him through long
watching by the bier.
And then he let his thoughts drift idly and was near to falling into a
doze when he was called to his feet by a tapping at the window. He
crossed the floor and the light scarce sufficed to show him his
step-mother's face pressed close against the glass.
"Open to me, Ned, open to me," she was crying.
He went to the narrow door that led into the garden and opened it; and
Mistress Wayne clung tight to him while he took her to the
hearth--keeping her fast in talk the while, lest she should see what lay
in the middle of the hall.
"You are cold, little bairn," he said, using the same half-tender,
half-scornful name he had given her at the vault-stone yesternight.
"Yes, cold and weary, Ned--so weary! All night I wandered up and down
the moor, seeking somebody--but I never found him--and the wind came,
and the rain--and all about the moor were prying eyes--and strange birds
called out of the darkness, and strange beasts answered them----"
"Well, never heed them. Haply 'twas Shameless Wayne you sought, and he
will see that none does you hurt."
She put her face close to his and looked at him fixedly in the deepening
gloom. A shaft of flame struck out at her from the hearth and showed a
would-be alertness in the babyish eyes. "Yes, yes," she whispered. "I
thought it was a lover I was seeking, a lover who had strong arms and
tender words--but I was wrong--'twas thee I sought, Ned, all through the
weary night--and I want nothing now that I have found thee--and--Ned,
wilt keep the ghosties off?"
"Every one, little bairn.--Now, see how stained your gown is with--with
rain. I shall not love you at all if you do not run and change it
before you come with me to supper."
"Not love me!" she repeated, with a look of doubt.--"Why, then, I'll
change my gown thrice every day, because you are kind to me. No one
else is kind to me, Ned. The wind buffets me, and rude men turn me
forth of doors whenever I cross a threshold--save Sexton Witherlee, who
was wondrous kind to me last night. All afternoon, Ned, I wandered
about Marsh before I dared come in--I feared you would scowl at me, like
the redmen of Wildwater." She turned, and in a moment she was clapping
her hands for glee. "Look, look, Ned! Pretty candles--see'st thou how
the shadows go playing hide-and-find-me up the walls?"
"They're bad shadows; have naught to do with them," said Shameless
Wayne, turning her face to the hearth again and wondering to find what
care he had for this frail woman's malady.
But she slipped from his hands, and ran forward to the bier, and was
reaching out for one of the candles when its light showed her the pale
face of Wayne of Marsh. The sight did not frighten her at all; but she
stood mute and still, as if she were trying to understand in dim fashion
that once this man had been her husband.
"Would he answer if I spoke to him? No, I think he would not; he looks
too stern," Wayne heard her murmur. "I've seen that face--in dreams,
long, long ago, it must have been. Perhaps he was my lover--strange
that I should seek him all about the moor, when he was lying so quietly
here."
"Come away, little bairn. He has no word for you," said her step-son,
wearily.
Mistress Wayne halted a moment, then stooped and kissed the dead man's
lips. And then she laughed daintily and rubbed her mouth with one
forefinger. "Why does he not care!" she lisped. "His lips are cold as
a beggar's welcome, Ned--we'll none of him, will we, thou and I?"
The door behind them opened and Nell Wayne came slowly across the floor
until she stood within arm's reach of her step-mother. Scorn was in the
girl's face, and a hatred not to be appeased.
"What brings this woman here?" she asked.
Mistress Wayne crept close to her protector. "All are cruel except
thou, Ned. Keep her from me--she will turn me out into the cold again."
"Ay, Mistress--to starve of cold and want, if I had my way," said Nell.
Shameless Wayne put one arm about the pleading woman and turned upon his
sister hotly. "Canst not see how it is with her?" he cried. "They say
that men are hard, but God knows ye women make us seem soft-hearted by
the contrast."
"The dead cannot speak, or father yonder would up and cry shame on her,"
the girl answered, covering the pair of them with a disdainful glance.
"Nay, thou'rt wronging him. Had she been whole of mind, he might have
done--but 'twas never father's way to double any blow that fell upon a
woman."
"She shall not stay here! 'Tis pollution," cried Nell.
"And I say the poor bairn shall bide here so long as she lacks a home;
and _I_ am master here, not thou."
His sister stared open-eyed at him. Since last night he had been
contrite to the verge of womanishness; but now he showed a sterner
glimpse of the Wayne temper than she had looked for in him. She felt
wronged and baffled, and for her life could not keep back the stinging
answer.
"Ay, thou art master," she said slowly, "and thou beginnest well--first
to let another fight for thee, and then to welcome the betrayer with
open arms. Small wonder that they call thee Shameless Wayne."
For a breathing-space she thought he would have struck her. But this
lad, who until yesterday had never seen need to check his lightest whim,
was learning a hard lesson well. He struggled with his pride awhile, and
crushed it; and when he spoke his voice was quiet and sad.
"Nell," he said, "'tis no fit place for brawling, and thou art right in
what thou say'st of me. But Mistress Wayne shall bide, and not if all
our kin cry out on me, will I go back on what I promised."
"I am cold again, and very hungry. Send yond girl away," wailed the
little woman.
"Does naught soften thee, lass?" said Wayne, glancing from his sister to
the shrinking figure that held so closely fast to him.
"Naught," Nell answered, hard and cold. "The years will pass, and
sorrows age, may be--but I shall never lose my hate of her."
"Yet think," he went on patiently. "She cleaves to me, Nell, and thou
know'st how the fairy-kist bring luck to those they favour. 'Tis a good
omen for the long fight that's coming."
"If pity does not move me, will a country proverb, think'st thou? Have
thy way, Ned, since there's none to stay thee--but at the least take thy
new friend from the death-room. Thou'lt see father turn and writhe if
she stay longer by him, and 'tis my turn to watch the bier."
"Let's begone, little bairn. Haply thou'lt know here to find thy
wearing-stuff if I take thee to the old room above," said Shameless
Wayne, leading his step-mother to the door.
But Nell was fevered, and would not brook such prompt obedience to her
wish. "Where are the lads?" she asked. "Frolicking, belike, when sober
sitting within-doors would better have fitted the occasion."
Shameless Wayne turned on the threshold. "I sent them hawking," he
answered, the new firmness gaining in his voice. "There's one claim of
the dead, lass, and another of the living; and 'tis better they should
brace their muscle for the days to come than sit moping over what is
past."
"He grows masterful already. The shame has slipped clean off from him,"
murmured Nell, as she took a pair of snuffers from the mantel and
trimmed the death-candles.
Yet Ned had not killed his shame. He was but battling with it, and the
effort to show something like a man, in his own eyes at least, rendered
his mood at once strangely tender and strangely savage. But he could
find naught save tenderness for Mistress Wayne, as they climbed the wide
stairway hand-in-hand and went in at the door of what had been his
father's bed-chamber--his father's and that of the little woman by his
side. She was no longer an unfaithful wife; she was a child, bewildered
in the midst of enemies, and she had no friend but him.
Mistress Wayne stood in the middle of the room, fearful a little and
asking a mute question of her step-son.
"This shall be thy room. Nay, there's naught to fear!" he said. "Peep
into the drawers yonder by and by, and thou'lt find pretty clothes to
wear; but thou'rt tired now, and must lie down on the bed. So! Now
I'll cover thee snugly up, and bring thee meat. I doubt thou need'st
it, bairn."
She was passive in his hands, and fell to crooning happily while he drew
a great rug of badgerskin across her. "'Tis pleasant to have friends,
and to be warm," she murmured.
"Unless I hasten, thou'lt be asleep before I bring thee supper!" he
cried. "Rest quiet, and be sure I'll keep the boggarts from the door."
He went quietly down again, feeling his own troubles lighter for this
fresh claim upon his sympathies; nor did he doubt the dead man's view of
it, since there was scarce man or woman on the moor who did not hold
that madness cancelled all back-reckonings.
"I will see what is to be found in the kitchen; haply the half of a
moor-cock would tempt her appetite," he thought, as he turned down the
passage.
He was met by his four brothers, just returned from hawking. Their faces
were flushed and their sturdy bodies panting with the hard run home.
"We've had rare sport, Ned! Rare sport!" cried the eldest, a lad of
sixteen. And then, remembering who lay not far away, cold forever to
sport of hawk or hound, he dropped his head shamefacedly.
"It has taken you far, I warrant; for the sun has been down this
half-hour past."
"Ay, for at the end of all we fell to flying at magpies down the
hedgerows toward Heathley, and yond unbacked eyes of mine at which thou
jestest trussed seven. Peep in the kitchen, Ned, and see what game we
took. We carried the goshawk, too, and she struck a hare up by
Wildwater----"
"What! Ye have been near Wildwater?" cried Shameless Wayne, his face
darkening on the sudden.
"Ay, 'twas in one of the Lean Man's fields we struck the hare--and, Ned,
we saw such a queer sight up yonder. Just as I was going to cast at a
snipe, Ralph here whispered that the Lean Man himself was coming."
"So we hid in the heather," put in Ralph eagerly, "and he passed as
close to us, Ned, as thou stand'st to me. He had a great cut across his
cheek, and his hands were red, and we could hear him laughing to himself
in a way that made us feared."
"When the Lean Man's hands are red, and his throat holds laughter, it
means but the one thing," muttered Shameless Wayne. "He has killed his
man--God pity one of our kin!--and the feud is out before we looked for
it. They'll let the burying get done with--even a Ratcliffe never did
less than that; and then 'twill be fast and merry."
"Tush! We were not feared," cried Griff, the eldest. "We could have
caught him, Ned, the four of us, if we had had swords to our hands."
Shameless Wayne laughed quietly. "Ye will learn soon to buckle your
sword-belts on whenever ye move abroad," he said. "Listen to me, lads.
A house with a dead man in it is no healthy place, and so I bade you go
out hawking this morning, and kept what I had to tell you until night.
Ye've heard of the old feud of Wayne and Ratcliffe?"
"Ay, have we!" said Griff. "Such tales old Nanny Witherlee used to tell
us of----"
"Well, 'twill be out again, belike, soon as your father is buried. The
Ratcliffes will kill us whenever they get a chance, and we shall kill a
Ratcliffe whenever he shows himself within sword-hail. And ye must take
your share of it if ye wish to keep whole skins. Griff, thou canst play
a shrewdish blade even now; and what ye lack, the four of you, I'll
teach you by and by."
"Hawking will show tame after this," cried Griff, his eyes brightening.
"Shall I meet the Lean Man one day, think'st thou, Ned?"
"If God spares thee, lad. But no more frolics yet awhile on the Lean
Man's land. Ye must keep close to home, and I will teach you cut and
thrust until your arms are stiffened."
"Was it a Ratcliffe who killed father?" asked Ralph suddenly. They had
no understanding of death, as yet, these youngsters; its sorrow glanced
off from them, too vague and dark to oust their lads' relish of a fight.
"Ay--and a Wayne who slew the murderer yesternight."
"Why, then, 'twas thou!" cried Griff. "Old Nanny told us that the
eldest-born must always fight the father's enemy. Where didst thrust
him, Ned?"
Shameless Wayne grew hot, and the blood flushed red to brow and cheeks.
"Go seek your suppers, lads," he said, turning on his heel.
Going to the kitchen, still bent on finding some dainty that would tempt
his step-mother, he found Nanny Witherlee, the Sexton's wife, talking
hard and fast to one of the maids.
"Th' young Maister 'ull noan deny it me, I tell thee," Nanny was saying.
"Then ask him, Nanny, and he'll tell thee quickly whether or not he will
deny thee," said Shameless Wayne from the doorway.
"Sakes, Maister! I war that thrang wi' spache--though 'tis noan a habit
o' mine--that I niver heard your step. I've comed up fro' Marshcotes to
axe a bit of a kindness, like."
"Thou'lt win it, likely, for I'm in a softish mood," said Wayne, half
sneering at himself.
"'Tis that ye'll let me watch th' owd Maister th' neet-time through. I
knawed him when he war a young un, an' I knawed him when he wedded th'
first wife, an' I nursed ye all fro' babbies. 'Twould be kindly, like,
to let me sit by him this last neet of all."
"That was to be my care, Nanny. Dost want me to let a second chance
slip by of honouring father?"