and their crabbed round of life. The world-old loneliness, the tragic
stillness that was half a sob, were full of intimate speech for her;
when the storm-winds whistled, they piped a welcome measure; there was
no hour of dark or day out here on the heath that showed her aught but
homelike linkliness. The little people of the moor she knew, too, as
she knew her own face reflected in a wayside pool--the plump-bodied
spiders, the starveling moor-tits, the haunt of snipe and curlew, eagle
and hawk and moor-fowl. Scarce a day passed but she read some
well-thumbed page of this Book of Life, till now she had learned by
heart the two lessons which the wide hill-spaces teach their
children--superstition and a rare singleness of passion. The Ratcliffe
men-folk lusted after the feud, and their hate was single-minded; Janet,
with a man's vigour in her blood and only a maid's way of outlet, had
never learned of sun or wind or tempest, that the plain force of passion
was created only to be checked. Shame, and halting by the way, were her
woman's birthright; but these had lacked a foster-mother, and the
resistless teaching of the solitude had made her love for Wayne of Marsh
a swift, and terrible, and god-like thing.
Yet her clear outlook upon life had been dulled of late. The moor had
still the same unalterable counsel for her, but at Wildwater there had
been such constant talk of feud, such a quiet surety on the Lean Man's
part that no Ratcliffe could ever stoop to friendship with a Wayne, that
insensibly the girl had faltered a little in her purpose. Had Shameless
Wayne been of her mind, she would have cared naught for what her folk
said; but he, too, had been against her, and, while he angered and
perplexed her, he forced her to believe that the blood spilt between the
houses would leave its stain forever.
But that was changed now: the bargain made by the Lean Man that morning
had killed, once for all, the narrower love of kin; the danger that was
coming so near to Wayne of Marsh made her free to be as she would with
him--for with it all she knew that, spite of Wayne's would-be coldness,
his heart was very surely hers.
She moved to the kirk-stone, and lifted her hands against its
weather-wrinkled face, and bared her heart to this living bulk of stone
which had learned, century in and century out, the changeless fashion of
men's impulses. She had no wild passion now for Shameless Wayne; that
was subdued by a fierce and over-mastering mother-love--a love that saw
his danger and yearned to snatch him from it at any cost, a love that
knew neither pride nor shade of doubt.
"Thank God, I have no father to Wildwater, nor brother," she murmured,
"for I would have taken against them, too, for his sake.--They are so
sure of me, grandfather, and Red Ratcliffe, and all of them; I will
trick them to tell me all their plans; and each time they come back with
empty saddles I will be glad." Her voice deepened. "Ay, I will be
glad!" she cried.
Little by little her heaviness slipped off from her. It had been hard
to wait idly, expecting each hour to bring her news of Wayne's
discomfiture; but now there was work for her to do, and she would strive
at every turn to cross her kinsfolk's plans. With a lighter heart than
she had known for many a day, she took her farewell of the kirk-stone
and swung out across the moor until she reached the lane, soft now with
budding thorn-bushes, which led past Wynyates.
And all the way her mind was busy with the long debt that Marsh House
owed to Wildwater. The Ratcliffes had been first to strike; they had
used treachery, when the Waynes scomed guile of any sort; they were
bringing all their heavy weight of odds to bear against this solitary
foe who would not move a hair's-breadth from their path. Well, she must
use guile, since Wayne of Marsh would not, and she would save him in his
own despite.
"I am no Ratcliffe," she cried, turning into the Wildwater bridle track.
"I am a Wayne, with less wilful pride than they, and twice their wit to
get them out of danger."
The stone which bounded the Ratcliffe lands on the side toward Ling Crag
stood on the right hand of her road. Her eyes fell on it absently, and
she would have passed it by, but something lying on it caught her
glance--something that showed white against the rain-soaked blackness of
the stone. She drew near, and for a moment sickened, for the man's hand
that lay there was meant for hardier eyes than hers.
Awed she was, but curious too, as she drew near to the stone, wondering
what this token, which her grandfather had often told her of, was doing
here on the Wildwater land. And then she saw that beside the hand five
words were scrawled untidily in chalk. "From Wayne to
Ratcliffe--greeting," ran the message.
Janet, bewildered, read and re-read the words, and then their meaning
flashed across her mind. Last night they had attacked Shameless Wayne,
and he had routed them; and afterward he had cut off the right hand of
him whose horse had come back riderless to Wildwater, and had answered
the Lean Man after his own fashion. A dauntlessness there was about the
message, a disregard of odds, that suited the girl's temper.
"I need not fear for Wayne of Marsh," she said, her eyes brightening.
"If he means to hunt the hunters--why, Our Lady fights for all such
gallant fools--Yet, shall I leave it there?"
She eyed the token doubtfully and seemed minded to remove it, lest the
Lean Man's hate should be fanned to a hotter flame. But something
checked her--a touch of Wayne's own recklessness, perhaps, and her
new-found faith that victory would be with him in the long run. She
turned about, leaving the hand there under the naked sky, and made for
home. Almost eager she was to reach Wildwater; she was returning now,
not to kinsmen whose battles were her own, but to foes--Waynes' foes and
hers--who would tell her the last detail of their plots.
A half-mile nearer Wildwater she chanced on Red Ratcliffe, striding
through the heather with a merlin hawk on his wrist, and a brace of
hares slung by a leathern thong about his shoulders.
"I've sought thee all the morning," he said, standing across her path.
His face was lowering, and she saw that there was mischief in it.
"Hadst better seek hares, and conies, and the like," she answered,
pointing to his spoil. "That swells the larder--but, well-away, what
use is there in seeking one who's tired of mocking thee?"
"Because there's a touchstone, cousin, that turns mockery to something
kindlier."
"To love, thou mean'st?" she laughed disdainfully. "Come to me in a
likelier hour, Red Ratcliffe. Shall I love thee more because thou didst
run away last night? Shall I be sorry for thee, taking the poor excuse
thou gavest for thy cowardice. Thou said'st amiss this morning--the
boggart sits, not on Wayne's shoulder, but on thine; and his name is
panic."
"Art strangely free with Wayne's name," he sneered. "A man, to look at
thee, would think the past night's work had pleased thee well."
"It pleases me at all times to hear of one man fighting three, and
daunting them. Wilt ever give me that sort of pleasure, think'st thou?"
Red Ratcliffe was silent for awhile; then, "What dost find to say,
Janet, when thou meet'st Shameless Wayne by stealth?" he asked, with a
sudden glance at her.
She coloured hotly, and paled again. If he knew what she had thought to
be a secret from all at Wildwater, her chance of helping Wayne of Marsh
was slight.
"It wears an ugly look," he went on. "Come, I am kin to thee, and have
a right to guard thy honour. Wilt tell me what has passed between this
rake-the-moon and thee, or must I whisper in the Lean Man's ear how his
darling wantons up and down the country-side?"
She would not stoop to plead with him, in whatever jeopardy she might
be. "Thou canst tell as much as pleases thee," she flashed, "and I will
amend thy story afterward; and if ever thou darest to block my way
again----"
Red Ratcliffe had unhooded his hawk too soon, and he made a clumsy
effort to atone for the false cast. "Stay, girl! I did not mean to say
aught to anger thee. Promise to wed me before the corn is ripe, and
I'll keep a still tongue."
"Promise to wed thee?" said Janet, turning her back on him. "I've
promised it already, when thou canst prove thyself a better man than
Shameless Wayne. But before the corn is ripe? Nay, I think 'twill be
later in the year."
He watched her move a pace or two away. "I'll ask thee once more, when
we get back to Wildwater," he said surlily; "and by that time, I fancy,
thou'lt have given thought to what the Lean Man's anger is."
He was falling into step beside her, but she would none of him. "Go
over the rise yonder," she said, "and it may be thou wilt find something
there to give _thee_ food for thought."
"I had liefer walk beside thee, sweet, than follow any All-Fool's
chase."
"It is no fool's errand, I tell thee. Thou know'st the boundary-stone
this side Ling Crag? I passed it just now, and saw a present waiting
for thee on the top of it."
He stopped, glancing first at Janet, then down the bridle-track. "A
present?" he cried. "What sort of gift should any one leave for the
first passer-by to steal?"
"'Tis a curious gift, and one not likely to be stolen," she said. "What
is it? Nay, but a gift grows less if one tells of it beforehand and
I'll spoil no pleasure for thee."
A sudden fear, the echo of his late panic, touched Red Ratcliffe.
"Is--is it Wayne of Marsh who waits there with the present?" he asked,
and bit his lips soon as the tell-tale thought was out.
"When Wayne of Marsh wants thee, he will not wait," she said. "Go, sir,
and have no fear at all of him whom thou hast sworn to kill before the
corn is ripe."
*CHAPTER XIII*
*APRIL SNOW*
After a fortnight's softness, with mist winds and child-like
trustfulness of breaking apple-blossom, the season had swung back to
winter. North to Northwest the wind blew, and its touch was like a
stab. The sun, shining day-long out of blue skies, seemed rather a
mocking comrade of the wind, for his warmth in shaded corners served
only to set a keener edge to the blast that lay in waiting at the next
turn. Fields and roads were parched once more, and the dust lay thick
as June.
Even Bet Earnshaw, the idle-bones and by-word of Marshcotes village, had
been moved to do a spell of work this morning, by way of driving some
sort of warmth into her veins; but habit had proved too strong for her,
and toward noon she slipped into the Sexton's cottage next door to learn
the current gossip from Nanny Witherlee. The wind was at its coldest up
the narrow lane that ran between the graveyard and the cottages, and Bet
was fain to throw her brown cotton apron over her head as she ran across
the few yards that separated door from door. She found Nanny standing
at the table, her sleeves rolled up to her elbow and a delf bowl in
front of her.
"Well, Nanny, making dumplings?" she said, lifting a corner of her apron
and showing a true slattern's face, big, red and empty of the least line
of care.
Nanny looked up, still moving her hands briskly among the contents of
the bowl. "Ay, we're allus making summat, us mortals--awther food for
our bellies or food for th' daisies ower yonder. Step in, Bet, an' for
th' Lord's sake shut yond door to."
"Nay, I'm noan for stopping. There's a lot to be done i' a house, but I
war that perished I thowt I'd run across, like, an' see if I could find
onybody else as cowd as myseln; there's comfort i' that, I've found.
Begow, Nanny, 'tis a wonder we're all alive."
"I reckon it is. That's one o' God's miracles, I says, seeing we're
tossed fro' winter to summer an' back again, all while th' clock is
striking twelve. They tell me there war th' keenest frost last neet
we've hed for a twelvemonth."
"'Tis cruel, cruel," said Bet, moving with her usual zigzag
shiftlessness toward the settle and spreading her hands out to the fire.
"I war fair capped to see thy man Witherlee crossing to the kirkyard a
while back. He's too bone-thin, is Witherlee, to stand up agen a wind
like this."
"Ay, he's getten a peffing cough that ye could hear fro' this to
Lancashire, but he willun't be telled. He like as he cannot bide still
onywhere out o' touch wi' his graves.--How's yond bairn o' thine, Bet?"
"She's nobbut poorly. Th' wind hes nipped her fair as if it hed set
finger an' thumb to her innards. Eh, but I fear for th' little un, that
I do!"
"What does th' leech say, like?"
"What does leeches say? She mud get weel again, an' she mud dee. As if
I couldn't hev telled him as mich myseln. I allus did say there war no
brass so easy addled as what them leeches put i' their breeches
pockets."
Nanny turned from her baking-bowl. "Leeches is nobbut mortal, same as
me an' thee. How should they be ony mak o' use? But there's healing
goes wi' them as is fairy-kist, and axe Mistress Wayne to come an touch
th' bairn--she'll do more nor all th' leeches 'at iver swopped big words
for brass."
"Well, I've thowt on 't mony a time sin' yesterday; but I feared she'd
tak it amiss, like, if I axed her. I war aye chary a' th' gentlefolk
whether they've getten full wits or none at all."
"I've no call to speak a gooid word for Mistress Wayne, seeing what she
did to th' owd Maister; but I will say this, Bet--she's getten no mucky
pride about her now. She's that friendly wi' Witherlee they mud hev
shared th' same porridge-bowl sin' being babbies, an' I warrant she'll
heal that bairn o' thine as sooin as axe her."
"I'll tak thy word for 't, Nanny, that I will; an' th' first chance I
get, I'll slip me dahn to Marsh."
"That's like thee!" cried the other sharply. "Th' first chance tha
gets! Niver thinking th' little un may dee while tha'rt standing
havy-cavy 'twixt will an' willun't.--There's somebody coming up th'
loin. Now who mud it be, I wonder?"
Nanny's table stood just underneath the window, lest she should miss any
detail of the life that passed her door. She craned her neck forward as
the rumble of a cart came up the lane, and Bet the slattern ran to peep
behind her shoulder.
"Why, if there isn't Hiram Hey!" cried the Sexton's wife, as the cart
pulled up at the door and Hiram's knobby face, pinched now and tightened
by the cold, peered in through the dusty glass.
"By th' Heart, his face looks foul enough to break th' window-panes.
Eh, eh, he's a rum un, is Hiram. They say i' Marshcotes there's nobbut
one can match thee, Nanny, an' that's Hiram Hey."
"They'll say owt i' Marshcotes. What should he be stopping here for,
think'st 'a, Bet?"
Hiram ceased peering in at the window and opened the door as guardedly
as if he feared an ambush.
"I've brought thee some peats fro' Marsh," he said, letting a stream of
cold air in with him.
"Ay, an' tha's brought a mort o' cold air, an' all," cried Nanny.
"Well, th' peats 'ull cure that, willun't they?" retorted Hiram.
Nanny went to the cart and turned over the topmost sods; for in
Marshcotes they always looked a gift horse in the mouth. "I allus did
say th' young Maister war more thowtful-like nor ony lad I've happened
on afore. I war dahn at Marsh yestreen, an' I chanced to say summat
about being short o' peats----"
"If nobbut shows his want o' sense," growled Hiram. "We shall be short
afore we've done wi' this mucky weather. Just like th' Maister, just!
Th' Ratcliffes came a two-week sin', an' wasted th' fuel summat fearful
by piling it agen th' doors; an' so, thinks th' Maister, when th' shed
is nigh empty he cannot find a better time to go scattering peats all up
an' dahn th' moorside."
"They say it war Hiram Hey hisseln that telled Red Ratcliffe where to
find th' peats," put in the Sexton's wife.
"Begow, who telled thee, Nanny? I thowt I'd kept a close mouth on 't."
"Well, news goes wi' th' wind, as they say, an' it's all ower th' parish
by now how wise Hiram war fooled by a Ratcliffe."
Hiram moved to the door. "Dang it, I wish folk hed as mich to do as me,
an' then they'd hev no time for gossip," he growled.--"Where mun I stack
thy peats, Nanny?"
"I' th' cellar-hole, for sure. Where else?--But tha'd mebbe like a sup
o' home-brewed, Hiram, afore tha unloads 'em?"
"I doan't care so mich if I do. I'm nowt at drinking myseln, but
there's a time for all things, an' 'tis a body's plain duty to keep th'
cowd out on a day like this. Gi'e us hod o' them tatie-sacks, Nanny;
it'll be th' death o' yond owd hoss if he's left wi' niver a coat to his
back."
Hiram was never gentle save with horses; but he covered the thick thewed
beast as carefully as if it were an ailing good-wife.
"Tha daft owd fooil!" he muttered with rough tenderness. "'Twould niver
do to let thee catch Browntitus, wod it, now?"
"'Tis nowt whether we catch th' 'Titus, seemingly," cried Nanny from
within. "I'll get thee thy sup of ale this minute, lad, if tha'll
nobbut shut th' door to."
Hiram did as he was bidden, and came and leaned over the lang-settle
while he watched Nanny draw the ale from the barrel standing against the
dresser. "If this fine spring weather 'ull nobbut skift afore, say th'
back-end o' July," he went on, "we may hev crops enough to keep us wick.
But I doubt it--ay, I doubt it."
And then, having shot his bolt at the old enemy, he settled himself
placidly enough to his mug of home-brewed.
"Well, tha'll be well fund i' peats, Nanny," said Bet the slattern
presently.
"It's varry thowtful, like, o' th' Maister," repeated the Sexton's wife,
with another glance at the waiting cart.
"Ay, he's thowtful," put in Hiram grimly. "What dost think he did last
week? I war so pinched wi' th' cowd, an' th' rheumatiz hed getten hod
o' me so, what wi' sweating i' th' sun an' shivering at after i' th'
wind, 'at I left a bit o' ploughing i' one o' th' high-fields. But,
hoity-toity, that wodn't do for this keen young Maister, that didn't
knaw oats fro' wheat a six-month sin'. I war up an' about th' next day;
an' when I gets to th' field, thinking I'd look round a bit afore
fetching th' plough, what should I find but th' Maister hisseln
ploughing----"
"My sakes!" cried Nanny, lifting her floury hands. "They mud weel say i'
Marshcotes that summat hes come to th' lad. Did he drive a straight
furrow, like?"
"Well, he did," Hiram admitted grudgingly. "Eh, but I war mad! He
nobbut looked at me once, an' he said niver a word, but went up an' dahn
th' furrows, up an' dahn, till I could hev clouted him i' th' lugs.
That's his way lately; he willun't rate me, or say 'at he wants this
doing or wants that--he just taks hod hisseln, an' shames me into doing
twice th' wark I did for his father."
"Where did he learn it all? He studied nowt save th' inside of a
pewter-pot afore th' trouble began," said Betsy.
"That's what worrits me. I mind that as a lad he war all about th'
fields, doing a bit here an' a bit there for sport when th' fancy took
him; but he mun be a wick un to frame as he does at jobs nowadays.
That's where 'tis; I think nowt on him, I allus hev said, an' he's no
business to go farming like an owd hand."
"He's sticking at Marsh, seemingly, spite of all I've dinned at him to
go to Cranshaw, where his cousins wod be glad to gi'e him shelter," said
Nanny.
Hiram chuckled. "Well, if he stood up agen thy nattering, he mun be a
staunch un. An' I will say this for th' lad--he's showing th' right
sperrit there. There's none at Marsh but wod hev thowt less on him if
he'd turned tail, choose what's to come."
"There's none at Marsh wi' a feather-weight o' wit, then," returned
Nanny briskly. "Warn't it enough 'at they nigh burned th' house
dahn----"
"A miss is as gooid as a mile. Ye may tak my word for 't, we'll see th'
Waynes come a-top when th' moil is sattled. Th' young uns, Maister Griff
an' t' others, is stiffening fine, an' all."
"I've heard as mich," said Bet. "They like as they saved th' owd place
t' other neet, so I war telled."
"Eh, it war worth a load o' clover to hear how yond lad picked up one o'
th' gate-stuns an' skifted th' Lean Man wi' 't. I war i' th' courtyard
next morn, an' Shameless Wayne taks th' ball i' his hands an' turns it
ower; an' I never see'd ony chap look so pleased-like an' proud as he
looks at me. 'Hiram,' says he, ''tis a tidy weight to lift, this. I
warrant yond lad couldn't do it again in a cool moment.' ''Tis a pity
he hedn't a bit more strength,' says I, 'an' then he'd hev bruk th' Lean
Man his backbone,' I says.--Well, tis a two-week sin' an' better, an'
we've heard nowt no more fro' Wildwater. They got a bellyful that neet,
I'm thinking."
"Ye can think too sooin, as th' saying is," put in Nanny. "Th' Lean Man
is like them crawly hundred-legs 'at ye find i' th' walls--th' more bits
ye cut him into, th' more bits there is to wriggle--each wi' bits o'
legs of its own, an' all, to carry it into mischief."
"Ay, but they say he wears a daunted look," put in the slattern,
stirring the peats with her foot. "Jonas Feather at th' Bull see'd him
riding through Marshcotes awhile back, an' he niver stayed for a
wet-your-whistle--just rode wi' slouched shoulders, an' a sort o'
looseness i' his knees, an' ivery now an' then a speedy backard look
ower his shoulders, as if----"
Nanny turned suddenly, a queer smile pinching her thin old face. "As if
th' Dog war after him," she finished. "I knew how 'twould be--ay, I
knew."
"Well, I niver see'd Barguest myseln, an' I doan't fancy I iver shall,"
said Hiram drily. "But there's a change come to th' Lean Man, for sure,
an' iverybody is beginning to tak notice o' 't. Sometimes he's his old
self, an' sometimes he fair dithers--an' by that token he's i'
Marshcotes this morn, for I catched a sight of his back as I cam up th'
hill."
"I may hev my own opinion o' th' Lean Man," broke in Bet Earnshaw, "but
my man Earnshaw hes part work fro' Wildwater this winter, an' there'll
mebbe be another spell i' store for him, now 'at there's so mich walling
to be done on th' new intaken land."
"Earnshaw get work? Why, whativer would he do wi' 't, if he got it?"
cried Hiram, with well-feigned amazement. "He'd drop it, I'm thinking,
same as if 'twere a ferret, for fear it 'ud bite him."
"Now, Hiram--" began Bet.
But Hiram looked at her with large and fatherly contempt over the edge
of his pewter, and his low deep voice vanquished the other's thinner
note. "Well, th' young Maister is weel out o' what chanced to-neet at
Marsh," he went on. "Yond bother all came of his marlaking wi' a
Ratcliffe wench, an' I said to myseln afore iver th' Ratcliffes come.
'There'll be a judgment follow on sich light ways,' I says."
"A bonnie un tha art to talk," said Nanny. "What's this about thee an'
Martha?"
Hiram fidgetted from one foot to the other. "What should there be?" he
said.
"Nay, that's for thee to say. It's all ower Marshcotes 'at tha'rt
looking after her; an' some says she willun't hev thee, being keen set
on shepherd Jose."
"Owd fooil! She's niver looked twice his way--no, nor will do while
Hiram Hey stands i' th' forefront of her een."
"Oh, so there's summat in 't, then?" said Nanny sharply.
Hiram, driven to bay, scratched his thinning crown and muttered that he
was "allus backard i' coming forrard."
"Begow, there's little Mistress Wayne!" cried Nanny on the sudden as her
busy eyes caught sight of a cloaked figure going past her window to the
graveyard. "What a day for th' likes o' her to be out o' doors.
There's snow coming up wi' th' wind, an' fond as she is to hev her bit
of a crack wi' Witherlee, she mud better hev stopped i' th' house
to-day. It'll save thee going to Marsh, howsiver, Bet; tha can axe her
what tha wants, an' nowt no more about it."
"Tha'rt right, Nanny. I'll watch for her coming back--she willun't be
long, I warrant, on sich a day as this. They say she spends a lot o'
time i' th' kirkyard, poor soul."
"Ay, Witherlee an' her is birds of a feather--fuller o' dreams nor life,
an' i' touch, so to say, wi' th' ghosties. He tells her tales by th'
hour together o' what he's seen i' th' kirkyard; an' she listens like a
bairn, saying a word now an' then, but mostly sitting dumb-like wi' her
een fixed on his face."
Hiram went to the door and watched Mistress Wayne go through the
graveyard wicket; then shook his head soberly. "A man has little left to
believe in when he gets to my years," he said, "an' ghosts an' sich like
is nowt i' my way; but 'tis gooid for th' young Maister 'at yond poor
soul cleaves like a lapdog to him--they bring luck, there's no denying
it, to them as they tak a fancy to."
"They bring luck, an' they bring healing," said the Sexton's wife with a
glance at her neighbour.