pathway. Shameless Wayne, his cousin Rolf and two others carried the
coffin at shoulder height. In front walked the Parson, his white hair
ruffled by the breeze; behind them followed a score of kinsmen, the Long
Waynes of Cranshaw over-topping all the others by a head; and behind
these again walked a line of farm-men and of women-servants.
"Good sakes, they've getten swords an' pistols!" muttered one of the
onlookers, as the crowd made a clear lane to the kirk-porch.
"By th' Heart, who iver heard tell o' folk coming armed to a burying!"
cried another. "There mun be summat more going forrard nor we've ony
notion on. Look at Shameless Wayne! God keep me an' mine fro' seeing
sich mortal anguish i' a lad's face again! He looks fair mad wi'
grief."
"He's getten cause. Hast noan heard that he war droughen while Nanny
Witherlee war ringing for his father? Nay, he's a slow-to-blush un, an'
proper, an' I wonder he's getten grace enough to come sober to th'
grave.--Stand back, childer! Willun't ye be telled? Or mun ye bide i'
th' gate till they bury ye wi' th' coffin?"
The children shrank back, curiosity killed by fright, and the bearers
moved slowly up the path until the grey church hid them. Tongues were
loosened again, and Jonas Feather, coming up with the information he had
gleaned from the farmer from Wildwater way, was beset by a clamorous
knot of folk.
"Ay, I war sure there war summat out o' th' ordinary--see'd th Ryecollar
Ratcliffes crossing th' moor, tha says, Jonas?--Well, I mind th' owd
days, but there war nowt so outrageous as this shows like to be--theer,
hod thy whisht! They're coming fro' th' kirk."
Again a lane was formed, from the porch to the vault where Sexton
Witherlee was waiting with his ropes. The wind was at peace, and its
soft stir among the budding leaves mingled with song of redbreast and
love-pipe of the throstles. A faint odour of lavender crept upward from
the vault, suggesting quiet and fragrant hopes for better days to come.
Yet the hush that settled over the watching crowd had little rest in it,
and it was plain by their laboured breathing, as the coffin was lowered
by the creaking ropes, that none looked for a peaceful end to a burial
that counted sword and pistol as mourners.
Amongst his kin, grouped thirty strong about the vault with set faces
and hands on sword-hilts, Shameless Wayne stood noticeable; for his head
was bent and the tears streamed down his cheeks unheeded. Not until now
had the lad reckoned the full total of his past misdoings, nor known how
shame can eat the manhood out of bravery.
"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes," said the Parson, in the ringing voice
that seemed a challenge to grim Death himself.
But another than Death took up the challenge. Swift out of the moor a
cry of "Ratcliffe, Ratcliffe!" answered him, and the crowd gave back on
the sudden, leaving the thirty-and-one Waynes to turn face about,
whipping their swords free of the scabbards. Down through the
wicket-gate trooped a score of Ratcliffes, yelling their name-cry as
they came. A moment they halted, for they had looked to find the Waynes
unarmed; but the Lean Man cursed them forward.
Shameless Wayne looked up at the first cry; his pale face went ruddy,
his eyes lit up. It was a welcome intrusion, this, on the sour trend of
his thoughts, and he, who had shown most womanish among them, was now
the leader of them all.
"A Wayne! In at them, lads! A Wayne, a Wayne!" he called, and leaped
at the Lean Man, and sliced his left ear level with the cheek.
Old Nicholas groaned with pain, then forced a laugh and lifted his big
two-handled sword above the head of Wayne of Marsh. But the Waynes came
pushing upward from behind, and their leader was thrust against a
gravestone on the left hand of the path, while a kinsman took the Lean
Man's blow on his own uplifted blade. And after that Wayne mixed with
Ratcliffe, and Ratcliffe closed with Wayne, all up and down between the
graves, till there was no grass-green footway 'twixt the headstones but
was rubbed black under the shifting feet of swordsmen. The crowd fell
back for fear, or moved a few steps forward for awe according as the
fight swept toward them or away. One against one, or one against two,
it was, from the church porch to the field-wall, from the moor-wicket to
the Bull; there was no space for a massed fight, and each man sought his
special foe and followed him in and out until church-wall, or upreared
cross, or spiked hedge of thorn, stopped pursuer and pursued and left no
issue but the sword.
Sexton Witherlee found his youth again as he stood just under shelter of
the porch, and watched, and rubbed his shrivelled hands together. The
old stuff worked in him, and he, who had seen Wayne fight with Ratcliffe
more than once, thanked God that the sweetest moil of all had been kept
to lighten his last steps to the grave. His eyes went from group to
group, from thrust to nimble parry, until the kirkyard held naught for
him save the dancing shimmer of grey steel. The cries redoubled, and
"Ratcliffe" went in the teeth of "Wayne" all down the pathway of the
breeze; yet the Sexton knew, from the snarl that underlay each Ratcliffe
voice, from the crisp fury of the Wayne-cry, that the Wildwater folk
were going down like windle-straws before their foes. The Ratcliffes
took to their pistols then, and hid behind gravestones, and sent red
streaks of flame across the mist of whirling steel; but they had no time
to reload, and hurry steered their bullets for the most part amiss, and
the Waynes, disdaining powder at all times, hunted them from their cover
like rats from out a barley-mow. Above all shouts, of onset or of
mortal anguish, a lad's voice struck clear into the blue belly of the
sky.
"No quarter, Waynes! In at them, and rip from heel to crown!"
Sexton Witherlee moved forward from his porch. "Yond war Shameless
Wayne's voice. God, but he's getten th' fighting-fever as hot as iver I
see'd a man tak it. Th' Lean Man 'ull carry a sore head back to
Wildwater, I'm thinking--if he's spared.--There th' lad is! Sakes, but
he's getten his hands as full as they'll hod, an' no mistak!" he broke
off, straining his eyes toward the half-filled strip of graveyard
beneath the Parsonage which he was wont to call his "bit o' garden."
But Nicholas Ratcliffe was ever prudent in his hottest fury, and he saw
that the fight was all against his folk. The long night of anguish was
over for Wayne's son of Marsh, and the rebound from it had filled his
veins with something more like the light fires that played across the
boglands than with slow-moving blood; his pace was the wind's pace, and
the fury of his onset put life into the sword-arms of each Wayne that
heard his lusty battle-cry. Back and further back the Ratcliffes
shrank, till the Lean Man's voice was heard, bidding them retreat
fighting to the moor-gate and then escape as best they could.
"No quarter!" came Shameless Wayne's trumpet-note, as he chased them to
the nearest wicket.
But pursuit could go no further, for the pursuers were all on foot and a
moment saw the Ratcliffes mounted on the horses which they had tethered
to the graveyard hedge. Shameless Wayne plucked out his pistol then,
and laughed as a yell from one of the retreating redheads followed his
quick pulling of the trigger. Then he turned back sharply, for the
sound of running feet came up the path; re-entering by the wicket, he
was met full by three Ratcliffes, left behind by their fellows in the
wild rush for safety.
Wayne never halted, but drove down on them, his sword uplifted; and
they, three to one, fell back in panic almost on to the points of the
upcoming Waynes.
"Hold off! They're mine," cried Shameless Wayne, waving his folk aside.
Up and down he chased them, and up and down they ran, doubling behind
gravestones or running hare-footed across open ground; for this lad,
whom they had laughed at as a drunkard and a fool, seemed godlike in his
fury. The Waynes held every outlet, and all watched the grim chase
silently. And then Shameless Wayne's opportunity came; the three were
running altogether now, and one tripped up the other, and Wayne was
scarce a sword's length from them.
"I have them--" he began, and lifted his right arm.
But the open vault yawned under them before their brute terror showed
where this second danger lay. They reeled at the edge and half
recovered, then dropped to the paved floor beneath, where the coffin lay
where Witherlee had dropped it at the first onset.
Shameless Wayne, mad with the swift onset and the crash of blows, stood
laughing at the edge and beckoned to two of his folk. "Roof them over,
and let them rot there," he cried, kicking the ringed vault-stone with
his foot.
The crowd shrank back, and even his own people were affrighted by the
wild command. None knew--none guessed, save Sexton Witherlee, watching
from the porch--what fury of despair, and shame, and bitterness, had
gone to the making of this brute mood of the lad's. Nor was he in case
to wonder at himself; for the one moment he wished naught in heaven or
earth save to see the flat stone ring down on those who would have done
honest men to death by treachery.
"Why do ye draw back, ye fools?" he cried. "Is it a time for
maidishness, or do ye want----"
"Stay, lad! Thou'lt think better of it in a while," said Rolf Wayne of
Cranshaw, touching him on the shoulder.
While he halted, glowering from his folk to the stone, and from the
stone to the Ratcliffes who lay, maimed and dumb with terror, over his
father's coffin, a frail little body, robed all in white, stepped
quietly to his side.
"'Tis my wedding-day, Ned," she said piteously, "and all the folk have
come to mock at me, pretending 'tis a burial. What art doing here?
Surely thou'lt come to church and help me find my lover there. Thou
hast ever been kind to me when others mocked."
Shameless Wayne was silent for a space; and then, he knew not why, his
mood swung round, and grief rushed thick to eyes and throat. He took
the shivering woman by the hand, and turned, and led her down the path.
"Come home, little bairn; 'tis over late to see thee wed to-day, but by
and by we'll see to it," he said.
She went with him quietly, her face brightening as she clung close to
his arm. And all the folk crossed themselves, and held their peace, and
watched the strange pair go out at the churchyard gate.
"What's to be done with these?" said Wayne of Cranshaw, after a long
silence, pointing to the vault.
"They shall not foul a Wayne vault, at any rate," said a kinsman. "Poor
hounds! See how they tremble--they're scarce worth the killing. Up
with them, lads, and if they can stand at all, we'll set them free to
cross to Wildwater."
"Ay, I warrant ye will," murmured Sexton Witherlee, who had moved to the
grave-side. "But would the Ratcliffes have done the like to ye in such
a case?--Well--pity comes wi' gooid breeding, I reckon, an' 'tis noan
for us poorer sort to teach ye better--but these three may live to
plague ye yet."
All were gone at last--all save Parson and Sexton, who stood and looked,
one at the other first, and afterward across the kirkyard. The sun was
silver under grey rain-clouds now; a wet drift of mist came with the
westward wind; no throstle sang, but the peewits came wheeling,
wheeling, crying, crying, from across the moor, and far up above a
sentinel vulture flapped wings and watched the unburied dead who lay
with their faces to the rain.
The Sexton had been round the graveyard once again. His battle-glee had
left him, and a soft light was in his face as he leaned against a
headstone and watched the Parson, who stood as he had left him, his head
bent in prayer.
"'Tis a drear day's work, Witherlee," said the Parson, lifting his eyes
at last.
"A drear day's wark, Parson--but sweet as honey while it lasted. Praise
God there's nobbut one Wayne killed--one o' th' Hill House lot, he is,
an' he ligs up by th' wicket yonder. An' praise God, says I, 'at
there'll three Ratcliffes niver trouble Marshcotes wi' their tricks
again; one of 'em is stretched at th' wall-side there, an' another under
th' Parsonage.--I see'd th' stroke that cleft yond last--cleft him fair
like a hazel-nut."
The Parson eyed his Sexton gravely, and would have spoken; but
Witherlee's soft-moving voice crossed his own before the first word was
well out.
"Now, Parson, I can see by th' face on ye that ye wod liefer I read a
sarmon nor a frolic i' all this; an' so I do, when I can frame to gi'e
my mind to 't. 'Tis noan th' bloodshed itseln 'at pleasures me--for I'm
soft wi' pity when I come to see 'em lying cold--but th' blows, Parson!
Th' swing o' well-fed thews, an' th' dancing flicker o' live steel, an'
a man standing up to death wi' belly-deep laughter i' his throat! I may
be wrang, mind ye--there's few as isn't time an' time--but I wod gi'e
five years o' life to watch this moil all ower again, and to see
Shameless Wayne show how the old breed strikes."
"Vanity, Witherlee--all is vanity, save prayer, and chastening of man's
pride. Hast pity for the dead, thou say'st? Ay, but that should sober
thy zest in what went before."
"Yet th' pity is war nor t' other, being foolish altogether," said the
Sexton reflectively, "for I allus did say 'at there's greener grass, an'
sweeter, grows ower a dead man's grave nor under his living feet. But
there's a winding-sheet for all, so we munnot complain."
"Soften thy heart, for God's mercy's sake, before the end overtakes
thee. Art hard, Witherlee, hard, with never a hope beyond the grave."
"We'll noan' fratch, Parson," said Witherlee slowly. "Ye've learned all
fro' Heaven and Hell; but I've learned fro' gooid, strong soil--what me
an' ye came fro', an' what we mun go back to i' th' end. It sticks,
does kneaded earth, an' when ye've lived husband-to-wife wi' 't i' a
manner o' speaking, ye get to look no forrarder."
The Parson sighed. It was but an old argument with a drear new setting.
"Earth holds earth--but it cannot hold the soul," he said, wearily a
little, and as if foredoomed to plead in vain.
"That's as may be," said Witherlee, in the low, even voice that had
likewise been taught him by his trade. "I niver hed no dealings, so to
say, wi' th' soul; I've knawn buryings but no risings--save when th'
ghosties stir up an' down among th' graves, as they will do time an'
time. An' th' ghosts 'ud seem to hev won no further off nor Marshcotes
kirkyard."
"Art full of vain superstition, Witherlee. The soul thou doubtest; but
ghosts, in which no God-fearing man need believe----"
"Theer!" said Witherlee patiently. "I allus said there niver wod be any
sort of argreement 'twixt me an' ye, though we jog on together. Ye live
nigh th' kirkyard, Parson, but ye doan't live _in_ it, as I've done--ye
hevn't learned th' _feel_ of a graveyard, or ye'd niver say nay to th'
soft-footed ghosties. Why, only last back-end, I mind, I see'd----"
The Parson shivered. "I am sick, Witherlee, with all that has chanced,
and my knees are weak under me. I will bid thee good-day, and wish thee
a softer heart," he said, moving up the pathway.
"Good-day to ye, Parson. I fear I'm ower owd to mend--but I trust ye'll
be no war for this day's moil."
The Sexton watched him go, a weak and bent old figure, until the
Parsonage gate closed behind him. Then he sat him down, and filled a
pipe, and forgot to feel for his tinder-box as the memories of the day
came back to him. The rain was dropping, and the wind was gathering
chill.
"Begow, 'tis still an' lonesome, at after all th' racket," he murmured.
"Poor Parson! He wodn't gladden a pulse-beat, I'll warrant, if all th'
lads i' Marshcotes fell to fighting. Well, there's men like that, just
as there's men 'at cannot stomach honest liquor--an' Lord help both
sorts, say I.--Well, I mun mak th' most o' th' quiet, for they'll come
for yond bodies by an' by.--By th' Heart, how Shameless Wayne cut an'
hacked! He'll be a long thorn an' a sharp i' Nicholas Ratcliffe's side,
will th' lad. Eh' how he clipped th' Lean Man's ear! God rest him!"
*CHAPTER IX*
*A MOORSIDE COURTSHIP*
The last week of March had seen rain, snow and hail; had felt the wind
shift from brisk North to snarling Southeast, and from warm,
rain-weighted South to an Easterly gale such as nipped the veins in a
man's body and daunted the over-hasty green of elderberry and lifted the
wet from ploughed fields as speedily as if a July sun had scorched them.
From day to day--nay from hour to hour--the farm men had not known
whether they would shiver at the hardest work or sweat with the easiest;
the moist, untimely heat of one day would plant rheumatism snugly in
their joints, and the bitter coldness of the next would weld it in.
Nature was dead at heart, it seemed, and whether she showed a dry eye or
a tearful, her face wore the dull greyness of despair, as if her thews
were too stiffened and too lean with age to rouse themselves for the old
labour of bringing buds to leaf, and kine to calving.
And now on a sudden all was changed. The wind blew honest from the
West, and even in shadowed corners it kept no knife in waiting for man
and beast. The sun shone splendid out of a white-flecked, pearly sky.
In the lower lands, blackbird and thrush, starling and wren and linnet,
broke into one mighty chorus; and on the moors the grouse called less
complainingly one to the other, the larks were boisterous, the eagles
showed braver plumage to the sun, the very moor-tits added a twittering
sort of gaiety to the day. A lusty, upstanding, joyous day, which
brought old folk to their doors, to ask each other if there were not
some churlish sport of March hid under all this bravery--which set the
youngsters thinking of their sweethearts, and brought the sheep to
lambing in many an upland pasture scarce free'd of winter snow.
But the Lean Man had no eye for the beauty of the day, as he rode
through Marshcotes street with Robert, his eldest-born, on the
bridle-hand of him. For old Nicholas was thinking how Shameless Wayne,
the lad whom he had laughed at and despised, had lately driven the
Ratcliffes to hopeless flight. Both horsemen were fully armed, with
swords on thigh and pistols in their holsters; and, as they rode, they
kept a sharp regard to right and left, lest any of the Waynes should be
hidden in ambush. Time and time the Lean Man clapped a hand to his left
ear, as if by habit, and his face was no good sight to see as he felt
the rounded lump which marked where Wayne's sword-cut--a fortnight old
by now--was healing tardily.
"Could we but meet the lad alone in Marshcotes street here," he muttered
to his eldest-born.
"Ay, but fortune is no friend to us just now," growled Robert; "and
there are those who say he'd match the two of us."
"There are those who say that hawks breed cuckoos. Art thou weakening,
Robert, too, because he has won the first poor skirmish?"
"Not I. If I find him in the road, I'll have at him--but meanwhile I am
free to think my own thoughts."
"Well, and what are thy thoughts, sirrah?"
"That there's witchery in his sword-arm. I saw him fight in the
graveyard, and he was something 'twixt man and devil; ay, he fought as
if he had the cursed Dog of Marsh to back him."
The Lean Man gave a laugh--a laugh with little surety in it. "Thou'rt a
maid, Robert, to fall soft at such a baby-tale as that," he sneered.
"Yet you have heard of the Dog, sir, and now and then you own to a half
belief in him," said Robert, meeting the other's glance fairly. "We
have had proof of it aforetime, and--see the woman yonder," he broke
off, "moving at us from the corner of the lane. What ails her?"
They had passed the Bull tavern and were nearing the spot where the lane
that led to Witherlee's cottage ran into the Ling Crag highway. The
Lean Man turning his head impatiently as Robert spoke and following the
direction of his finger, saw that the Sexton's wife was standing at the
roadside. Nanny was looking through and through him, and the smile on
her dry old lips was scarcely one of welcome. At another time Nicholas
would have paid no heed to her; but to-day a small thing had power to
touch his spleen, and he pulled up sharp in the middle of the roadway.
"I'm called Nicholas Ratcliffe, woman, as perchance thou hast
forgotten," he said, leaning toward her and half lifting his hairy fist;
"and when I see folk mocking me, I am prone to ask them why."
"When I mock ye, Maister, ye're free to strike me, an' not afore,"
answered Nanny. Her tone was quiet almost to contemptuousness; and the
smile that had lately rested on her lips was hiding now behind her
shrewd black eyes.
Nicholas looked at her, a touch of approval in his glance; accustomed as
he was to browbeat all who met him, this dried-up little body's
unconcern in face of threats half tickled and half angered him.
"Hark to her, Robert!" he cried. "Free to strike her, am I? Gad, yes,
and with no permission asked, I warrant!"
"An' as for mocking ye," went on Nanny, disregarding his interruption,
"what need hev I to step 'twixt ye an' Barguest?"
The Lean Man was accounted hardier than most; yet he started at Nanny's
mention of the Dog, following so abruptly on Robert's talk of a moment
ago. "Barguest. What has he to do with me?" he cried.
"What hed he to do wi' your folk i' times past? Enough an' to spare, I
should reckon. Do ye forget, Nicholas Ratcliffe, how one o' your breed
crossed Barguest once on t' threshold of Marsh House? Do ye mind what
chanced to him at after?"
Nanny's quiet assurance had in it a quality that daunted the Lean Man.
Had she grown fiery in denunciation of his sins toward the Waynes--as in
her hotter moments she was wont to do--had she drawn wild pictures of
the doom awaiting those who crossed the Dog, Nicholas would have knocked
her to the roadway and passed on. But her faith was unwavering; she had
no doubt at all that the Lean Man had compassed his own end, and voice
and gesture both were such as to convince a man against his will.
He stared at her, a growing terror in his face. "'Tis an old tale,
woman, and one we scarce credit nowadays," he stammered.--"Robert, tell
her she's a fool--a rank, stark-witted fool--and I a bigger fool to
hearken to her."
But Robert was in no case to bolster up his father's dreads. He turned
to Nanny sharply. "Where does all this carry us?" he said. "Dost thou
mean that one of us has lately crossed the Dog?"
"Ay, marry. What else should I mean?" said the little old woman.
"'Tis a child's tale--a child's tale, I say," broke in Nicholas.
"Well, ye shall try the truth of it by an' by--for ye crossed th' Dog,
Nicholas Ratcliffe, when ye came down to nail your token to th' Marsh
doorway. I war watching by th' dead man, an' I heard Barguest come
whimper-whimper down th' lane; an' then he scratted like a wild thing at
th' panels; an' after that he ligged him down on the door-stun."
Nanny paused a moment, watching how the Lean Man took it.
"Ay, and then?" said Nicholas. He would fain have sounded merry, but
his voice came dry and harsh.
"Then a man came riding up o' horseback, an' leaped to ground, an'
reached ower th' Brown Dog to nail a man's hand to th' door. An' _ye_
war th' horseman, Nicholas Ratcliffe."
Once only the Lean Man glanced at her; then set spurs to his great bay
horse and clattered up the street, his son following close behind. At
the end of half-a-mile they slackened pace, as if by joint consent; but
neither sought the other's eyes.
"What ails thee, fool?" said Nicholas to his eldest-born.
"Naught, sir--'twas not I who fled from a crook-backed beldame," sneered
the other.
The Lean Man turned on him, glad of an excuse for bluster. "Thou dar'st
to say I fled?" he cried. "Thou, who wast sucking at the breast while I
grew old in fight?--There, lad! 'Twas a madness in the blood that fell
on us just now. What's Barguest that he should spoil a bonnie plan? Are
we not sending Wayne to his last home to-night?"
"We have planned as much," said Robert slowly, "but----"
"Ay, but--and 'but' again in thy teeth. We have him, I tell thee--Red
Ratcliffe should be somewhere hereabouts by now, learning what I have
sent him out to learn."
"We can learn all that, and yet not use the knowledge right," said
Robert sullenly. Even yet he could see Nanny's face, could hear her
voice, and he was angered by the fear they bred in him.