think he will the devil keep young Wayne of Marsh, for he'll need some
such sort of aid.--Who is yond lubberly farm-hind, climbing up the wall
this side the road? His slouch is woundily familiar." Like his son, the
Lean Man had felt the sting of Nanny's words, though he was minded to
make light of it; and no better proof of his humour was needed than the
quick ill-tempered eye he had for trifles.
"It looks like Hiram Hey--one of Wayne's folk, and a pesty fellow with
his tongue. We've found him more than once cutting peats from the
Wildwater land, and more than once we've fallen foul of him."
"Have ye?" said Nicholas quietly. "Well, he did us a service there, may
be; and the more peats they coane at Marsh, the better 'twill be for us
to-night.--Come, lad; 'tis gallop now, and a truce to that old wife's
foolery."
Hiram Hey, meanwhile, was going his leisurely way, glancing curiously at
the Lean Man as he went by, but not guessing that he was furnishing him
with food for talk. He slouched along the pasture-fields stopping at
every other step to watch the sport of heifers, to note a broken piece
of walling, or to berate some luckless farm-lad whom he found at play.
"I wodn't call it a fair day, for we've not done wi' 't yet," he
murmured. "Nay, I wodn't call it a fair day, an' that's Gospel, till I
see how it behaves itseln. We mud varry weel hev snow afore it wears to
neet, or else thunner--or both, likely."
He leaned over a three-barred gate and eyed the long furrows climbing to
the hill-crest--sleek furrows, with dust lying grey on the sun-side of
the upturned sods. And while he lazied there, a milking-song came clear
and crisp from over the wall that hid the High meadow from him.
"That's Martha," he cried, brightening on the sudden. "She sings like
ony bird, does th' lass. What should she be doing, I wonder, so far
fro' Marsh on a working-day?"
His step had an unwonted briskness in it, his carriage was almost
jaunty, as he moved along the wall-side to the stile at the corner. A
milk-pail was showing now above the top step of the stile, with a
cherry-ripe face and trim, short skirted figure under it. Martha halted
on seeing Hiram Hey, and set two round, brown arms to the pail, and
lifted it down to the wall; then leaned with one hand on it while she
dropped a saucy curtsey.
"It's warm," ventured Hiram, picking up a stone from the grass and
throwing it aside.
"Warm? I should reckon it is. Tha'd say so if tha'd carried this pail
a-top o' thy head for a mile an' better.--But, Lord, we munnot complain,
for 'tis a day i' five-score, this, an' warm as midsummer."
"Thee bide a bittock, as I telled young Maister this morn. 'Spring's
come again, Hiram,' says he to me. 'Mebbe,' says I, 'but when a man's
lived to my years he learns to believe owt o' th' weather--save gooid
sense.' That's what I said, for sure."
"Tha'rt not so thrang as or'nary, seemingly?" said Martha, after a
pause.
Hiram glanced at her, as if suspecting mockery. "Nay, I'm allus
thrang," he answered, shaking his head in mournful fashion. "I've heard
folk say I do nowt just because they've seen me hands-i'-pocket time an'
time; but when ye're maister-hand at a farm, there's head-work to be
done as weel as body-work."
"To be sure--an' 'tis fearful hard, is head-work."
"Ay, I oft say to shepherd Jose that th' humbler your station i' this
life, th' fewer frets ye hev."
"I feel fair pitiful for thee, Hiram," said Martha, glancing softly at
him across the pail, "when I see what worries tha hes to put up wi'."
Hiram came a step nearer. "Tha mud weel pity me, lass. 'Tis grand to be
sich chaps as Jose--all body, i' a way o' speaking, an' no head-piece
worth naming to come 'twixt victuals an' their appetites.--Martha, lass,
I've oft wondered how tha came to be born a wench."
"Would'st hev hed me born a lad?"
"Nay, begow! but tha's getten so mich sense; that's what I mean. It
fair caps me--as if I'd fund apples growing on a thistle-top."
Martha had a keen answer on her tongue-tip, but she held it back; for
the lads were beginning to pass her by, and it was time she had a
goodman. "It's a lot for thee to say, Hiram, is that," she murmured,
dropping her eyes. "I iver thowt there war maid i' Marshcotes could
come nigh to what _tha_ looks for i' a wench."
"Nor I nawther," said Hiram gravely. "I've said to myseln time an' agen
that if I war to keep good company till th' end o' my days, I'd hev to
live wi' myseln."
"It wod take a good un to be mate to thee."
Hiram half lifted his foot to the bottom step of the stile, then
withdrew it. "Go slow, lad," he murmured. "If tha taks it at this
flairsome speed, where wilt be by to-morn?"
"I wod tak a varry good un," repeated Martha.
But Hiram had taken fright on the sudden. "I seed th' Lean Man go
through Marshcotes a while back," he said, with would-be carelessness.
"Oh, ay? Th' Ratcliffes seem to be up an' about this morn, for I passed
Red Ratcliffe i' th' meadow not five minites sin'. Sakes, but he's an
ill-favoured un, is Red Ratcliffe! He war for gi'eing me a kiss an' a
hug just now, but I let him feel th' wrong side o' my hand i'stead.--An'
what did th' Lean Man look like, Hiram, after his fighting o' t' other
day?"
"Nay, I niver stopped to axe; but I noticed he looked queerish where he
took yond sword-cut a two-week come yesterday. I'm none for praising
th' young Maister, not I, seeing he's shameless by name an' shameless by
natur--but I take it kindly of him that he sliced th' Lean Man's ear off
clean as a tummit-top. There's none i' th' moorside but wishes his head
had followed."
"Now whisht, Hiram!" cried Martha. "It's a two-week come yesterday sin'
they fought i' th' kirkyard, but I'm sick yet wheniver I call to mind
how they came home to Marsh that morn. Th' burial-board war all spread,
an' I war agate wi' drawing a jug of October when Nanny Witherlee comes
running into th' pantry, as white as a hailstone, an' 'Martha,' say she,
'there'll be a sorry mess on th' hall-floor--an' us to have spent so
mich beeswax on't,' says she. 'Why, what's agate?' I says. 'Th' Waynes
is back for th' burying-feast,' says Nanny, 'an' they've brought some
gaping wounds, my sakes, to sit at meat wi' 'em.'"
"I warrant they did," assented Hiram, "for I see'd 'em myseln."
"Well, I runs a-tip-toe then to th' hall door, an' I screamed out to see
th' Waynes standing there. A score or so there mud be, all drinking as
if they'd sweated like brocks at grasscutting; an' there war a queer
silence among 'em; an' some war binding arms an' legs, an' th' floor, I
tell thee, war more slippy under a body's feet nor ony beeswax
warranted."
"Th' Maister went through it without a scratch, for all that, though
they say he fought twice for ivery one o' t' others. Ay, his father war
like that when th' owd quarrel war agate--allus i' th' front, yet niver
taking so mich as a skin-prick till th' time came for him to dee."
"How long ago war that, Hiram? I've heard tell o' th' owd feud, but it
mun hev been a long while back."
"Longer nor ye can call to mind, lass. 'Twas a sight o' years back,
afore tha wert born or thought of."
Another soft glance from Martha. "I shouldn't hev thought _tha'd_ hev
remembered it so weel, Hiram," she murmured. "Tha talks as if tha wert
owd enough to be a girt-grandfather to sich a little un as me."
Hiram saw his error. "Nay, I'm youngish still, Martha," he put in
hastily, with a tell-tale pulling of his hat over the widening patch of
forehead that showed beneath the brim. "'Tis hard thinking that thins a
body's thatch, an' when I call to mind what a power o' sense I've
learned sin' being a lad, I wonder I'm not as bald as a moor-tit's egg.
Well, tha mud find younger men nor me, but----"
"I set no store by youngness, Hiram. I allus did say a wise head war
th' best thing a man could hev."
"Begow, but tha'rt a shrewd un, Martha, as weel as a bonnie un!" cried
Hiram, and checked himself. "Yond's a tidy slice o' land," he said,
nodding at the dusty furrows in front of them.
But Martha knew her own mind. "I'd liefer talk about thee, Hiram, that
I wod," she said. "Land's theer ony day we want to look at it!"
"Well, now, there's summat i' that," he answered, with a shade of
uneasiness in his voice. "Where hast been, like, for th' milk, lass?
'Tisn't every day I find thee stirring so far fro' Marsh."
"I've been to th' High Farm, for sure. What wi' milk for th' new-weaned
calves, an' for churning, an' what not, we shouldn't hev hed a sup i'
th' house down at Marsh if I hadn't come a-borrowing."
"There's waste somewhere, I'm thinking," said Hiram sadly. "Th' roan
cow war niver fuller i' milk nor now, an' yond little dappled beast I
bought off Tom o' Dick's o' Windytop is yielding grandly. Nay, nay,
there's waste at Marsh! I said how 'twould be when young Maister took
hod o' th' reins."
"Waste, is there? I'd like thee to hev a week or two at managing,
Hiram; tha'd see how far a score quarts o' milk 'ull go, wi' four
growing lads an' th' Maister, an' all ye lubbering farm-folk to feed.
But theer! Men niver can thoyle to see owt go i' housekeeping; an' I'll
be bidding thee good-day, Hiram, as tha's getten no likelier sort o'
talk nor that."
She made pretence to lift her pail from the top of the stile, and Hiram
so far forgot his caution as to put a hand on her dimpled arm.
"Sakes, lass, I wodn't hev thee go!" he cried.
"Then don't thee talk about waste and sich-like foolishness; I thowt
tha'd more sense, Hiram, that I did. Nawther is young Maister what tha
thinks him, let me tell thee; he's stiffening like a good un an' there's
them as says he's getten th' whip-hand o' Hiram Hey already."
"Stiffening, is he?" cried Hiram, whom the jibe stung more keenly
because he could not but admit the truth of it. "Well, there's room an'
to spare, for he hes as slack a back as iver I clapped een on. But if
tha thinks he can best Hiram Hey, Sunday or week-day----"
He stopped and shaded his eyes with both hands as he looked more keenly
up the fields. Two figures had topped the crest--one a girl's, the
other a man's, loose-built and of a swinging carriage.
"Nay, _I_ niver said I thowt as mich," said Martha demurely, not heeding
the direction of Hiram's glance. "'Twas shepherd Jose said it yestereen
when he stepped down to th' house wi' th' week's lamb."
"What, Jose!" cried the other, with an angry cackle. "He niver had a
mind aboon sheep, hedn't Jose, an' sheep is poor wastrels when all's
said. So tha lets an owd chap like yond come whispering i' thy ear,
dost 'a, Martha?"
"An' who's to say nay to me, I should like to know?" Her voice was
combative, but she leaned a little toward Hiram as she spoke, and he all
but took the last dire step of all.
Very foolish showed Hiram, as he stood looking at the maid, with caution
in one eye and in the other a frank admiration of the comeliness which
showed so wholesome and so fresh amid the greenery of field and
hedgerow. And all the while he was murmuring, "Go slow, lad, go slow, I
tell thee," and his lips were moving shiftlessly to the refrain.
"Thou'rt tongue-tied, Hiram. Who's to say nay to me, I axed thee?"
laughed Martha.
Hiram rocked the milk pail gently with one hand, and stared up the
new-ploughed furrows of the field ahead of him. "Thy own good sense,
lass, should say thee nay," he answered guardedly. "Them as tends
sheep, an' nowt but sheep, gets witless as an owd bell-wether; an' if I
war a lass I'd as lief wed a turnip on a besom-stick as shepherd Jose."
"If tha wert a lass, Hiram, tha'd die i' spinsterhood, I'm thinking."
Martha's attack was spirited, but she sighed a little as she noted
Hiram's far-away regard; his thoughts were with the land, she fancied,
when she fain would have brought them nearer home. Yet, as it chanced
Hiram Hey was not thinking of farm-matters at the moment; Martha had her
back to the ploughed field, and she could not see that the two figures
which had lately topped the rise were coming down the field-side toward
the stile. And it was plain now to Hiram that one was Janet Ratcliffe,
the other Wayne of Marsh.
"It's queer, is th' way o' things," said Martha presently, loth to go
her ways, yet too impatient and too womanly to stand there with no word
spoken.
"Oh, ay? Well, things war niver owt but queer," answered Hiram,
startled out of his abstraction.
"I war thinking o' th' bloody fight i' th' kirkyard. No more nor a
two-week back it war, Hiram, an' here we all are, cooking an' weshing
an' churning i' th' owd way, when we'd looked for fearsome doings all up
an' down th' moorside."
"A wench would look for 'em; but I could hev telled thee different if
tha'd axed me," said Hiram complacently. "Look at yond puffs o' dust
that come ivery two-three minutes over th' furrows--dost think even
Shameless Wayne could let a seed-time sich as this go by, while he war
agate wi' fighting? Nay, nor th' Ratcliffes nawther. We mun all live
by th' land, gentle an' simple, an' afore awther Wayne or Ratcliffes can
afford to marlake, they'll hev to addle belly-timber."
"There'll nowt o' more come on 't then? Th' Lean Man has been fearful
quiet of late, an' there's them as thinks th' fight i' th' graveyard has
daunted him for good an' all."
"Daunted him, has it?" rejoined Hiram grimly. "Thee bide till th' oats
is sown, an' th' hay won in, an' then tha'll see summat. Th' Lean Man
is quiet like, tha says? Well, I've known him quiet afore, an' I've
known him busy--an' of th' two I'd liefer see him thrang."
"Tha'r a good un to flair folk, Hiram! Why would'st liefer see him
thrang?"
"Why? Because when a Ratcliffe says nowt to nobody, but wends abroad
wi' a smug face an' watchful een, same as I've seen 'em do lately, ye
may be varry sure he's fashioning slier devil's tricks nor iver.--Red
Ratcliffe met thee just now, did he, Martha?"
"I telled thee as mich--he warn't so slow as some folk, Hiram, for he'd
no sooner clapped een on me nor he had an arm about my waist."
Again Hiram wavered, and again whispered caution to himself. "He showed
some mak o' sense there, Martha--but that's not what I war axing thee.
What war he doing, like, when tha first comed up wi' him?"
"Nowt, nobbut mooning up an' down, as if i' search o' somebody."
"Well, he war on Wayne land to start wi', an' that wears a queerish
look."
"Sakes, young Maister is nowhere near, I'm hoping!" cried Martha. "Red
Ratcliffe carried his pistols, an' a shot from behind a wall wod suit
him better nor a stand-up fight."
She still had her back to the ploughed field, and Hiram smiled in sour
fashion to think how very near the master was, and what company he was
keeping at the moment.
"Thou'rt fearful jealous for th' young Maister," he said. "I'm thinking
there's truth i' what they say i' Marshcotes--that Shameless Wayne allus
gets th' soft side of a maid."
"An' should do, seeing he's what he is!"
"Well, I wodn't be a bit surprised if he _war_ i' th' fields this morn.
He's farmed for a week, hes th' Maister, an' he knows so mich about it
now that he mun be here, theer an' iverywhere, watching that us younger
hands do matters right."
"Tha can mock as tha likes, Hiram Hey, but he'll teach thee summat afore
he's done wi' thee. Poor lad, though, I'm fair pitiful for him! He
niver rests save when he's abed, an' not oft then, for I can hear him
stirring mony a neet at after he'd earned his sleep."
"Thinking of his sins, I reckon," growled Hiram.
"Well, there's some I know that hasn't mouse-pluck enough for sinning.
Besides, that's owered wi'. He's stiffening right enough--yet mony's
the time I wish him back to th' owd careless days. He niver hes a gay
word for us wenches now, an' to see him wi' his brothers ye mud weel
think he war a score year older nor he's ony call to be."
Hiram had waited for this moment, chuckling at the overthrow in store
for Martha's championship of the master. "Stiffening, is he?" he said,
pointing up the field and drawing his lips into a thin curve. "He may
be--but he's framing badly for a start."
Martha, turning sharp about, saw the two figures come slowly down the
wall-side toward the stile. Wayne's head was bent low to Mistress
Janet's, as if he were pleading some urgent cause, and neither seemed to
guess that they were watched.
"Well?" said Martha defiantly. "There's nowt wrong i' that, is there?
I've known he war soft on Mistress Ratcliffe iver sin' last spring."
Hiram stared at her, aghast that she could look so lightly on a grievous
matter; and when he spoke there was honest anger in his voice, distinct
from his usual carping tone.
"Nowt wrong?" he said slowly. "What, when a Wayne goes courting a
Ratcliffe? I can't picture owt wronger, ony way, seeing what has come
between 'em lately an' aforetime."
"Hoity-toity! That's been Mistress Nell's way o' looking at it--but
'tisn't mine. Look at 'em, Hiram, an' say if they don't mak a bonnie
couple."
"What's bonniness to do wi' 't? They're a bad stock, root an' branch,
is th' Ratcliffes, an' it 'ull be a sore day for Marsh when th' Maister
brings sich as yond to th' owd house. Besides, he has sworn to kill her
folk."
"Well, ye cannot cut young hearts i' two wi' kinship, an' that's what
I'm telling thee. Mistress Ratcliffe hes nawther father nor brother
living, an' them she dwells wi' up at Wildwater are nowt so near to her
but what a good lad's love is nearer."
"Hod thy whisht, lass!" cried Hiram on the sudden. "Th' Maister is
looking this way at last. Begow, but he mun hev had summat deep to say
to her, or he'd have seen us afore this."
Shameless Wayne reddened on seeing the occupants of the stile, and
whispered to Janet, and the two of them turned quickly about, taking a
cross-line back toward the moor.
"Flaired to be spoken to by honest folk," said Hiram.
"Flaired o' thy sour face, more like," snapped Martha.
Hiram was about to make one of his slow, exasperating responses when he
clutched Martha by the arm and again pointed over the stile--not up the
ploughed field this time, but across the pasture-land abutting on it.
"We shall know by an' by what Red Ratcliffe has in mind," he muttered;
"dost see him yonder, Martha, crossing th' pasture? Ay, an' now he's
following 'em up th' wallside."
"So he is. There's no mistaking that red thatch o' hisn--'twill set th'
sun afire one bonnie day, I'm thinking. Does he mean to do th' Maister
a hurt, think ye, Hiram?"
Hiram stretched himself with the air of a man who has work to do. "He's
too far off yet for a pistol-shot; but he's quickening pace a bit, an'
Lord knows what he's bent on. I reckon I'll just clamber ower th' wall
here, Martha, an' wend down t' other side, and get a word wi' him as if
'twar chance like."
"Tak care o' thyseln, Hiram. There are some of us wod ill like to see
harm come to thee."
But Hiram was deaf to blandishments. He had gone far enough for one
morning, and, all else apart, he was no whit sorry to slip out of
temptation's way.
"There's no telling when a Ratcliffe is about," he said, putting one leg
over the low wall, "an' th' Maister is so throttle-deep i' foolishness
just now that he's ripe-ready to fall into ony snare that's laid for
him. Begow, Martha, but I don't know what th' world wod come to if
there war no Hiram Hey to straighten it now and again!"
Martha sighed for the interrupted wooing as she lifted her pail from the
stile. Hiram Hey moved surely, it might be, but life seemed short for
such masterly painstaking slowness.
"It's war nor driving pigs to market, is getting Hiram to speak plain,"
she said to herself, setting off for home.--"Tha'll be back to thy
dinner, Hiram?" she added over her shoulder.
"For sure I will. There's more nor dinner to tempt me down to Marsh,"
he cried, his rashness gaining on him now that he stood on the far side
of the wall.
On no point save wedlock, however, did Hiram fail to know his purpose.
He might have much to say about the young Master, but he had no mind to
see harm come to him; and so he moved with a steady swing across the
field, then turned sharp and crossed to the wall behind which Red
Ratcliffe was creeping at a point some ten-score yards from the stile.
He stopped then and leaned a pair of careless arms over the wall and
looked everywhere but at the object of his manoeuvres, whose progress he
had guessed to a nicety.
"Why, is't ye, Maister Ratcliffe?" he cried, letting his eyes fall at
last on the tall, lean figure that stood not two yards away on the far
side of the wall.
Ratcliffe glanced at him, but could not guess whether Hiram's stolid
face hid any deeper thought than an idle wish to chatter. "'Tis I,
plain enough," he growled.
"Nay, doan't fly at me--on a grand day like this, an' all. I thowt mebbe
ye'd stepped on to th' Marsh land just to pick up a two-three wrinkles
about farming. 'Tis not oft we're favoured wi' a sight o' ye down
here."
"Dost think I need come here to learn any point of tillage?" laughed the
other angrily.
"Well, I thowt it showed good sense i' ye. We're a tidy lot at Marsh,
so folk say, an' I'm none blaming ye at Wildwater, ye understand for
knawing a bit less about farming nor us. Your land's high, for one
thing, an' lean as a scraped flint--I warrant it does your een good to
see sich lovesome furrows as them, ye're walking ower."
"If speech can earn thee a cracked crown, thou'lt not long go whole of
head," snapped Ratcliffe, beginning to move forward.
"Theer, theer! Th' gentry's allus so hot when a plain man strives to
talk pleasant like to 'em. But it's live an' let live, I allus did say,
an' sich fair spring weather as this hes a trick o' setting my tongue
wagging." A sly glance at the other's back told him that Red Ratcliffe
must be fetched up sharp if he were to be prevented from following Wayne
of Marsh and Janet. "It sets other folk's tongues agate, too,
seemingly," he added, glancing toward the hill-crest over which his
Master and the girl were disappearing; "they mak a fine couple, doan't
they, Maister, him an' Mistress Ratcliffe?"
Ratcliffe faced about. "Palsy take thee!" he cried. "Art thou a fool,
only, Hiram Hey, or dost think to jest with thy betters?"
"Nay, I'm nobbut a fool, I reckon," said Hiram, shaking his head
mournfully. "I can't say owt to please ye, 'twould seem, choose what,
so I'd better hod my whisht. When I see a bonnie lass, an' th' finest
lad i' th' moorside beside her--why, I thowt it could do no harm just to
speak on 't, like."
"The finest lad in the moorside?" sneered Ratcliffe. "Since when did
Wayne the Shameless earn his new title?"
"What, ye've not heard his praises then? I may hev my own
opinion--ivery man hes a right to that--but Marshcotes an' Ling Crag can
find nowt too good to say about him nowadays. Oh, ay, they all grant
'at th' Wayne land is th' best on th' moor, an' ots Maister th' handiest
chap wi' sword or farming-tools. 'Tis sad, for sure, that there's such
bad blood 'twixt ye an' th' Waynes; but this courtship 'ull mebbe cure
it.--Nay, now, doan't be so hasty! I speak according to my lights; they
may be poor uns, as Blind Tom o' Trawdon says, but they're all I've
getten to go by."
Not a muscle of Hiram's face told how he was enjoying this skirmish with
his enemy; only an added watchfulness of eye told that he half expected
the other to strike him. His Master was out of sight now, and there was
so much gained, whatever chanced to himself. But Ratcliffe lost his
anger on the sudden, and turned to Hiram with something near to
good-nature in his tone.
"Well, thou'rt dry, Hiram, with a shrewd wit of thy own, but I warn thee
for thy own sake not to couple any Wayne with Mistress Ratcliffe in thy
gossip.--Ay, and that calls another thing to mind; they say ye Wayne
folk cut peats on the Wildwater land last summer, and ever since I've
been seeking a chance to tell thee we'll have no more of that."
Hiram, wondering what lay under this change of front, answered slowly.
"We're no thiefs, Maister; an' if our peat beds lie foot-to-heel wi'
yourn, is that to say we'd ower-step th' boundary? Besides, we've no
call to; our side o' th' bed yields better peats----"
"Well, I judge by what I'm told, and our farm-folk told us further that
ye had carted some of their own peats as they lay up-ended for the
drying."
"Begow, that's a likely tale!" cried Hiram, roused at last. "When we
worked noon an' neet for a week, cutting an' drying an' carting, to be
telled we----"
"There! Thou'rt honest, Hiram, and I'll take thy word for it," laughed
Ratcliffe. "So the peats have lasted, have they? Ours are all but done
after this cursed winter."