is not set plain enough, that thou should'st go smoke-blinded on to a
Ratcliffe sword-point? We must try the side door leading to the
orchard."
But Nell was downstairs by this time, with Mistress Wayne close behind
her. "Ned, the kitchen-door's a-blaze, and the orchard door," she
gasped--"and see--the oak is beginning to crack yonder, for all its
thickness."
Shameless Wayne threw off his cousin's grasp, and drew the staples and
turned the cumbrous key. The sweat stood on his forehead, and iron and
wood alike were blistering to the touch. He jerked the door wide open,
and over the threshold a live, glowing bank of peats fell dumbly on to
the floor-boards. He strove to cross into the open, but could not; and
athwart the red-blue reek he saw the Lean Man's eyes fixed steadfastly
on his.
"God's mercy, this is what Barguest came to tell thee of," said Mistress
Wayne, standing ghost-like and strangely undismayed in the lurid light.
"What, thou saw'st him!" cried Nell, her eyes widening with a terror no
power of will could stifle. "Ned, keep back! Keep back, I say!-- Ah!"
as he tried to cross the flames and fell back half-blinded--"thanks to
Our Lady that they lit so hot a fire."
The four lads, meanwhile, hidden in their corner of the courtyard, had
watched the scene with sick dismay--had heard Ned unbar the door--had
seen the Lean Man draw nearer, his bare blade reddened by the fire--had
heard him laugh and mutter like a ghoul as he waited till the heat
dwindled enough to let Shameless Wayne come through to him. This way
and that Griff looked about him, seeking a weapon and finding none, his
brain rocking with the thought of all that rested on his shoulders; and
then his eyes brightened, and he stepped unheard amid the hissing of the
flames, to where the smooth, round stone lay that had lately capped the
right pillar of the gateway. A moment more and he was behind the Lean
Man; he lifted the stone as high as unformed arms would let him, and
hurled it full between Nicholas Ratcliffe's shoulderblades, and dropped
him face foremost on to the flaming threshold.
"A Wayne! A Wayne!" he cried, and after him his three brothers took up
the ringing call.
The Lean Man put his hand out as he fell, and twisted with a speed
incredible till he was free of the flames; and then he scrambled to his
feet somehow, and tottered forward.
"On to him, lads," cried Griff, and would have closed with him, but
Nicholas rallied, and picked up his fallen sword, and moved backward to
the gateway, swinging the steel wide before him. The lads gave back a
pace or two, but he dared not stop to pay them for their night's work;
his eyes were dimming, and his right hand loosening on the hilt, and he
knew that his course was run if Shameless Wayne should cross the
threshold before he found a hiding-place. Griff watched him go, his
fingers itching all anew for his unfleshed sword; and just as Nicholas
staggered through the gate, the two Ratcliffes who had kept ward at the
other doors came running round the corner of the house, ready to close
with those who had given the cry. "A Wayne, a Wayne!" They found four
lads against them, standing unarmed, and straight, and fearless
altogether, in the crimson glow.
"Why, what's this?" said Red Ratcliffe, half halting. "Have these
sickling babes driven old Nicholas off?"
"Ay," answered Griff, not budging by one backward step; "and would drive
you off, too, ye Ratcliffe redheads, if we had any weapon to our hands."
Red Ratcliffe rapped out an oath and made headlong at the lad. And
Shameless Wayne, seeing all this from across the gathering flames,
leaped wide across the threshold, and landed on the outskirts of the
fire, and cut Red Ratcliffe's blade upward in the nick of time. The
other Ratcliffe drove in at him, then, and turned his blade in turn, and
the fight waxed swift and keen for one half-moment; then Wayne got
shrewdly home, and dropped his man close under the house-wall; and Red
Ratcliffe, waiting for no second stroke, had turned and flashed through
the gateway toward the moor before Wayne had guessed his purpose.
Shameless Wayne made as if to pursue; but the crackling of the flames
behind warned him that there must be no delay if Marsh were to be saved.
"To the mistals, lads. Bring buckets and fill them at the well-spring!"
he cried.
Griff and others needed no second bidding, but ran with him across the
courtyard and pushed open the mistal-doors. The cows were lying quiet in
their stalls; the place was fragrant with their breath, and every now
and then there sounded a faint rattling through the gloom as one or
other fidgetted sleepily on her chain. Shameless Wayne, dark as it was,
knew where to lay hands on the feeding-buckets that were stored here in
readiness for the coming summer; and soon he and Griff, and the three
youngsters, were dashing water over the blazing threshold of the main
door as fast as they could cross to the well and back again. Nell,
meanwhile, once she had seen her brother safe through the fire and safe
through the quick fight that followed, had found heart again.
"Did I not bid you call me if one more arm were needed?" she cried, with
a touch of her old spirit. "See, Rolf, the floor is smouldering now,
and the panels are starting from the wall. We must get through the
kitchen-door and fetch water from the well behind.--What, has the fire
roused thee at last, Martha? Come with us--and thou, Mary."
The maids, who had crept down in fearful expectation of what might meet
them below-stairs, followed cheerfully when they found no worse enemy
than fire to meet. The kitchen-door fell inward as they reached it, but
there was little danger on this side, for floor and walls were of stone,
and the peats could find no fuel. Wayne of Cranshaw stamped out the
embers, and they all ran, a bucket in either hand to the well that stood
just outside the door, and thence back to the hall; and while those in
the courtyard rained water on the one side of the flames, Wayne of
Cranshaw and the women-folk on the other side kept down the smouldering
fire that threatened every moment to set the hall ablaze from roof to
rafters. For a fierce half-hour they worked, Nell bearing her full
share of the toil, until the last angry eye of fire was quenched.
"Begow, if last week's wind hed been fly-be-skying up an' dahn, there'd
hev been little left o' Marsh; 'tis a mercy th' neet war so still," said
Martha, standing in her wonted easiful attitude and looking through the
gaping doorway.
"A mercy, say'st 'a?" snapped Mary, whose eyes were on the spears and
swords that lined the walls. "A mercy, when there'll be all yond steel
to rub bright again to-morn? Sakes, I wodn't hev thowt th' smoke could
hev so streaked an' fouled 'em--an' 'twas only yestreen I scoured 'em,
too. Well, let them thank th' Lord as thank can, but for me I'll hod my
whisht."
Shameless Wayne was likewise looking at the blackened walls, and Rolf
saw that same light in his eyes that had been there when he stood at the
vault-edge, and bade them bury alive the fallen Ratcliffes. Nell, too,
was watching him, and she, who had never before feared him, knew now
that there were deeps and under-deeps in her brother's nature which she
had yet to plumb.
"What art thinking, Ned?" she asked, laying a timid hand on his sleeve.
"Thinking?" he said slowly. "I'm thinking that Marsh was all but
blotted out--and I am learning how I loved the place. Keep guard awhile
here, Rolf. I have an errand that will take me to the moors."
"Lad, thou'rt fay!" cried Wayne of Cranshaw, as his cousin moved toward
the door. "Dost mean to seek the Lean Man out?"
Shameless Wayne turned and smiled in curious fashion. "Nay, only to
leave a message for him on the road 'twixt this and Wildwater."
"Oh, Ned, I know what 'tis!" cried his sister, with sudden intuition.
"For God's sake, dear, leave that to the Ratcliffes; it is not--not
seemly to tamper with the dead." She pointed across the black remnants
of the peats that strewed the threshold, and shuddered knowing what lay
so close against the house-wall there.
Wayne flashed round on her, and the four lads, listening awe-struck from
the far-end of the hall, shrank further back to hear the clear
bitterness of voice he had.
"All shall be seemly henceforth--all, I say! I'll hunt the Lean Man as
he hunts me--ay, and his tokens shall be mine. Hark ye, Nell! We're
over soft, we Waynes-- Come here, lads," he broke off, beckoning to his
brothers.
Griff came and stood before him, the others following slowly. "Yes,
Ned?" he asked, breaking a hard silence.
"Ye were fools to stand up to Red Ratcliffe as I saw you do to-night.
They would never do the like."
"Was't not well done, then?" said the lad, the corners of his mouth
drooping.
Wayne laughed exceeding softly. "Ay, 'twas done as I would have you do
it. God rest you, youngsters, and when your turn comes to hold the
weapons--strike deep and swift."
He was gone without another word, and Nell looked at Wayne of Cranshaw
in search of guidance.
Rolf shook his head. "As well dam Hazel Beck with straws as stop Ned
when the black mood is on him," he said.
They heard him stop just outside the door, then clank across the
courtyard; and soon the sound of hoof-beats was dying down the chill
breeze that rustled from the moors.
Too sick at heart to listen to her cousin's rough words of comfort, Nell
wandered up and down the house disconsolately, till at the last her walk
brought her to the side-passage leading to the orchard. They had
forgotten this third point of attack in their eagerness to save the
hall; but here, too, though the door had fallen in, the bare walls and
flagged passage had given no hold to the flames, which were burning
themselves out harmlessly. Yet the girl went pale as her eyes fell on
what the flickering light showed her at the far end of the passage, and
she moved forward like one who strives to throw off an evil dream.
Crouched above the smouldering wreckage, her hands spread white and slim
to the glow, was Mistress Wayne; and she was crooning happily some
ballad learned in childhood. She looked up as Nell approached, and
smiled, and rubbed her hands gently to and fro across each other.
"Barguest was cold, poor beastie, so he lit a fire to warm himself.
Is't not a pretty sight?" she said.
Nell bent to her ear. "What of Ned?" she asked. Her voice was
tremulous, beseeching, for she knew that such as these had power to read
the future. "What of Ned? Will he come back safe to-night?" she
repeated.
"Safe? Why, yes--he's kind to me; how should he come to harm?"
*CHAPTER XII*
*HOW THEY FARED BACK TO WILDWATER*
Red Ratcliffe, soon as he had gained the moor, made for the shallow
dingle where they had left the horses on their way to Marsh. He found
his grandfather standing with one foot in the stirrup, striving vainly
to leap to saddle; and he saw that the Lean Man's face was scarred with
fire, and his hands red-raw on the reins.
"It has been a hard night for us," said the younger man. The words came
dully, with terror unconcealed in them.
Nicholas let his foot trail idly from the stirrup, and stumbled as he
faced about; but his eye was hawk-like as ever, and his tone as harsh.
"A hard night--ay. There's a long reckoning now 'gainst Shameless
Wayne. How comes it that thou rid'st alone?"
"Wayne leaped through the fire and cut Robert down; and I----"
"Fled, I warrant. What, could ye not meet him two to one?"
"There's witchcraft in it," muttered the other sullenly. "Didst see him
fight that day in the kirkyard? Well, last night it was the same; he
sweeps two blows in for every one of ours, and his steel zags down like
lightning before a man's eye can teach his hand to parry. I tell you,
some boggart fights for the Waynes of Marsh, and always has done."
The Lean Man nodded quietly. "Ay, is there--for I've seen the
boggart.--There, fool, don't stand gaping at me like a farm-hind at a
fair! Help me to saddle, for I am--" he paused, and forced a laugh--"I
am weary a little with the ride from Wildwater to Marsh. And lead the
chestnut by the bridle; we must find him a fresh master, 'twould seem."
Red Ratcliffe helped him up, marvelling to find that Nicholas, who was
wont to be active as the best of them, had no spring in his body, no
knee-grip when at last his feet were in the stirrups. He stole many a
glance at the old man's face as they rode up the moor, and marked a
change in it--a palpable change, which he could not understand, but
which added a new dread to the heaviness that was already weighing on
him.
"Robert is dead, I take it?" said Nicholas, as they passed the
square-topped stone that marked one boundary of the Wildwater lands.
"Dead? Ay, for the lad cleft his skull in two clean halves."
Robert was the Lean Man's eldest-born; but if he had any touch of
fatherly sorrow for the dead, he would not show it. "'Tis a pity," was
all he said; "he had the best hand of all you younger breed.--The miles
crawl past, lad, and the thirst of Hell is on me; get thee down and fill
thy hat in the stream yonder."
Red Ratcliffe brought the water, and the old man stooped eagerly to it,
then glanced behind him on the sudden and stifled a low groan.
"What is't?" cried his grandson. "See, sir, the water's trickling
through; there'll be none left unless you drink."
"I--I thought--" stammered Nicholas, and pulled himself together with an
effort. "'Twas only a fresh dizziness. There! Fill up again; the water
will clear my wits, belike."
He drank greedily, and his knees were firmer on the saddle-flaps when
they rode on. "I'll fight the pair of them, God rot them," he mumbled,
slipping clumsily to ground as they gained the door of Wildwater.
Janet, hearing them ride under her chamber window, woke from a troubled
sleep and ran to open the casement. All day her grandfather had worn
the air of grim gaiety which she had learned to fear, and the lateness
of his home-coming told her which way his errand had lain.
"They have made a night-attack," she murmured, fumbling blindly with the
window-fastening. "And what of Shameless Wayne? If--if aught has
chanced to him----"
She wrenched the window open and peered down into the courtyard. The
moon, dropping toward the high land that stretched from Wildwater to the
four corners of the sky, gave light enough to show her Nicholas and
close behind him Red Ratcliffe with the bridle of a riderless horse in
his right hand. These were her folk; but the girl's heart leaped at
sight of the empty saddle, at the slowness of the Lean Man's movements,
for these things told her that defeat had ridden home across the moor
with them.
Nicholas, hearing the creak of the casement above, glanced sharply up.
"Is't thou, Janet?" he called.
"Ay, grandfather. Have ye--have ye been a-hunting again?"
He fetched a hollow laugh. "Ay, down by Marsh; but the fox slipped
cover before we were aware."
She found her courage then, and answered crisply, following the old
metaphor. At all hazards she must make them think that her hatred
against Wayne of Marsh was equal to their own. "The trickiest fox
breaks cover once too oft; ye'll catch him yet," she laughed--"whose
saddle goes empty of a rider?"
"Thy Uncle Robert's. Get thee to bed, lass, and use thy woman's trick
of prayer."
"To what end shall I use it, sir?" she asked softly. It was easy to
play her part of Ratcliffe, now that she knew how things had gone at
Marsh.
"Why, to the end of vengeance." The Lean Man's voice rang thin and high
with sudden passion. "Pray to the Fiend, girl, or to Our Lady, or to
the first that bends an ear to thee--pray that the Waynes----"
He stopped, and Janet saw him shrink as if a shrewd wind had nipped him
unawares. And then, without a word, he led his horse across the yard.
Janet still lingered at the casement, watching the moonlight fade away
among the grey hollows of the moor. "I will pray," she murmured--"pray
that the Waynes may win a rightful quarrel--pray that love may one day
conquer kinship, and----"
"Janet!"
She looked down at Red Ratcliffe, standing close to the wall with face
upturned to her window. "What is't?" she said coldly.
"Thou know'st as well as I. The times are perilous, and when a man
loves he cannot wait.--Listen, Janet! I'm sick with longing for thee."
"The wind blows cold. Canst find no time more fitting for
love-idleness?" she said, and shut the casement with a snap.
Red Ratcliffe halted a moment, for the night's work, unmanning him, had
loosed his hotter impulses. Panic had held him, and after that dull
fear; and now the brute in him rose up.
"Come back, thou wanton!" he cried, so loudly that Nicholas heard him
from across the yard.
"Dost think I can wait all night while thou stand'st bleating under a
lass's chamber-window?" roared the Lean Man. "Come, fool, and help me
stable this nag of mine."
Red Ratcliffe moved away, sullenly, with a bridle in either hand, and
found his grandfather leaning heavily against the door-post of the
stable.
"Thou'lt have to groom the three of them," said Nicholas, in a failing
voice. "That cursed fire has--has tapped my strength a little." He
stood upright with a plain effort, and frowned on his grandson, and,
"Lad," he said, "what wast saying to Janet just now? I gave thee free
leave to win her if thou could'st--but, by the Living Heart, there shall
none force her inclination."
"Ay, shall there," muttered the younger man, as he watched Nicholas turn
on his heel and falter toward the house. "Red Ratcliffe shall force her
inclination, when she hears how much he knows of her meetings with
Shameless Wayne; were the Lean Man once to guess, he'd set finger and
thumb to Janet's throat, I think, and crush the life out of her, though
she's dear as his sword-hand to him.--Peste! How he staggers in the
doorway. What if he has got his death-blow down there at Marsh? 'Twill
be an ill hour for us when we go leaderless.--The devil's in the wind
to-night; it seems to whistle a burial-song," he broke off, gloomily
setting himself to rub down the horses.
But the Lean Man, as if bent on refuting his grandson's fears, was down
betimes on the morrow. His face and hands were not good to see now that
daylight showed each scar on them; but he had regained the most part of
his strength, and he ate like one who sees long life before him.
"Where's Janet?" he asked, when breakfast was half through. "Oh, there
thou art, child. What ails thee to come down so late, when thou know'st
I need thee as a sauce to every meal?"
All through the night her pity had been for those at Marsh;
but now, as her eyes met and shrank from the Lean Man's scars, as she
heard the tenderness of voice which none but she could win from him, the
girl came and laid a compassionate hand on his shoulder. "I slept all
amiss, sir," she said, "through--through troubling for what chanced last
night."
"Well, sit thee down, girl, and never trouble thy head again about so
small a matter.--Small? Nay!" he cried with his old power of voice as
he glanced round the board. "See these scars, lads--don't fear to take
a straight look at them. We're loosening our hold on the Wayne-hate, and
these should stiffen you. A scar for a scar; and he that kills
Shameless Wayne, by trickery or open fight, shall----"
He paused, searching for some reward that should seem great enough and
Red Ratcliffe broke suddenly into the talk.
"Shall have Janet there in marriage," he cried.
Nicholas looked hard at him, and then at Janet, and pondered awhile.
The girl's face was white, but she kept her trouble bravely from the old
man's glance.
"'Tis well for all maids to have an arm about them now," said Nicholas
slowly. "And thou hast played contrips long enough, Janet, with these
clumsy-wooing cousins of thine.--Well, so be it. Shameless Wayne is
more than the roystering lad we thought him, and if any of you can show
wit and strength enough to trap him--why, Janet will have made the best
choice among you."
"Is that a bargain, sir?" said Red Ratcliffe, stretching his hand across
the board.
The Lean Man took his hand and laughed grimly. "A bargain--but I doubt
old Nicholas will be the first among you, now as aforetime. What then,
Janet? What if I win my own prize? Why, lass, I'll let none wed thee,
but thou shalt play the daughter to me to the end."
All laughed at the grim banter, save Janet, sitting white and cold at
her grandfather's side. Once she glanced at Red Ratcliffe, who strove
hardily to meet her scorn; and then something of the Lean Man's spirit
came to her.
"That shall be a bargain, sir," said she, with a low laugh. "If any
kills Shameless Wayne, he shall wed me--but by'r Lady, I think the
marriage will not be this year, nor next."
Nicholas half minded to rail at her, thought better of it. "'Twill be
within the month, or my word goes for naught; but thou dost well, girl,
to mock at them. See Red Ratcliffe glowering at thee there; yet last
night he dared not look the Master of Marsh between the eyes."
"I'll look any man between the eyes,--but not when a boggart sits upon
his shoulder and strikes for him," growled Red Ratcliffe.
The Lean Man shivered, as if the hall were draughtier than its wont, and
rose abruptly. "Come, there's a long day's work to be got through," he
said.
All was bustle for awhile, until the men had set out on their usual
business of farming or of bringing game home for the larder. The women,
after they had gone, stayed to chatter of this and that, and then they,
too, went about their work--to the spinning-wheel, the dairy or the
kitchen. But Janet, who had always lived apart from the common run of
life at Wildwater, stood idly at the wide northward window of the hall,
and looked out on the greening waste of moor. "Was not the feud bad
enough?" she murmured. "Was there too little stood between Shameless
Wayne and me, but this must be added to the rest? God's pity, but they
could not have struck at me more cruelly, and Red Ratcliffe knew it when
he made the bargain. _To be wedded to him who kills Shameless Wayne_."
She lifted her head suddenly, and it was strange to mark how once again
the Lean Man's hardiness showed plainly in her face.
"Nay, but it needs two for any bargain," she cried, and cold steel, even
in a maid's hand, can always right a quarrel.
Yet she was full of dread for Shameless Wayne. What chance had he, with
the Lean Man's craft and all the strength of Wildwater against him? He
would not budge from Marsh, folk said, and he had but four weak lads to
help him there. And she could do nothing. Instinctively she looked to
the moor for help--the moor, that had been friend and playmate to her
through her score years of life. Flat to the cloud-streaked sky it
stretched, and the bending heather-tops seemed moving toward her with
kindly invitation. Reaching down her cloak from behind the door, she
hurried out and turned her back on Wildwater, with its surly stretch of
intake, its blackened, frowning gables, its guardian pool. Little by
little her step grew firmer; the sky and the wind were close about her,
and the fret begotten of house walls slackened with each mile that took
her further away from men.
At Marsh there were hills above and sloping fields below; but here the
dingle-furrowed flat of bog and peat and heather ended only with the
sky--the sky, whose grey and amber cloudlets seemed but an added acreage
to the great moor's vastness. Far off the Craven Hills--Sharpas, and
Rombald's Moor, and the dark stretch of Rylstone Fell--showed flat as
the cloudland and the heath, and the valleys in between were levelled by
the mist that filled them up. Only the kirk-stone near at hand, and
further the round breast of Bouldsworth Hill, stood naked out of the
wilderness, and served, like pigmies at a giant's knee, to show the
majesty against which they upreared their littleness. A lark soared
mote-like in the middle blue, but his song came frail and reedy through
the silence; the noise of many waters rose muffled from their jagged
streamways, aping a thousand voices of the Heath-Brown Folk who lived
beneath the marshes and the heather. The toil of goblin hammers,
working day-long at the gold hid underground was to be heard, the tinkle
of the Brown Folk's laughter when they danced, the sobbing fury of their
cries as a human foot pressed over-heavily above their peat-roofed
dwellings. And sometimes, too, a drear baying came with the wind across
the moor, and told that Barguest was speeding on his death-errand.