getten all th' morning to waste on thee an' thy peats? There's nowt
like wenches for hindering wark; an' time's like milk--tha cannot pick
it up again when 'tis spilled."
"Well, tha canst win forrard," said the Sexton's wife. "There's nobody
hindering thee, is there?"
While Hiram settled to the work of unloading the peats and storing them
in the roomy cellar that underlay Nanny's cottage, Mistress Wayne was
wandering up and down the churchyard in search of Sexton Witherlee. The
Sexton came out of his tool-house presently, and his eyes were
exceedingly friendly as they fell on the little figure moving through
the snowflakes.
"What, Mistress!" he cried. "Ye're noan flaired o' wind an' weather,
seemingly."
"Good-morrow, Sexton. I've brought thee the first of the primroses,"
said Mistress Wayne, drawing a tiny bunch of half-opened buds from under
her cloak.
"Now, that's varry kindly o' ye, Mistress, varry kindly," murmured
Witherlee, laying the flowers in his open palm. "By th' Heart, but 'tis
a queer world these little chaps hes oppened on to; thowt it war spring,
they did, wi' winds as soft as butter--an' then, just as they've getten
nicely unwrapped, like, th' winter is dahn on 'em again wi' a snarl.
Ay, ay, th winter is allus carred behind some corner, like a cat wi' a
mouse, ready to pounce on sich frail things as these." He glanced from
the primroses to Mistress Wayne, as if she and they came under the one
head of frailty.
"They were better gathered, Sexton; I found them in a sheltered nook of
the Marsh garden--but oh, 'twas cold even there--they were better
gathered, were they not?"
"To be sure, to be sure. We're all better gathered nor standing on our
stems, as these quiet bodies under sod could tell ye if they'd getten
tongues.--Theer, Mistress! Ye're shaking like a reed. Come ye wi' me
under th' Parsonage yonder, if ye mun bide a bit; 'tis out o' th' wind."
"Oh, yes, 'tis warmer here--much warmer," she said, seating herself on a
flat tombstone that stood against the wall and making a pretty motion to
the Sexton that he should sit beside her.
The snow fell sparsely out of the blue, and the sun was bright; but
overhead the peewits wheeled in narrowing circles, and prophecy of storm
was in their cries.
"Tell me," began Mistress Wayne, after a long silence. "The folk
sleeping here--if they had tongues, thou said'st, Sexton; have they not,
then? I thought--" she stopped, and lifted two puzzled eyes to his.
The Sexton's face grew wrapt, and his voice came dreamily. "Ye
thowt--nay, ye knew--that they could frame to talk as weel as me an' ye?
An' so they can, Mistress. Hark to th' peewits up aboon us! There's a
dead maid's sperrit wakes i' each o' yon drear birds. White breasts
they've getten, for maidenhood, an' black cloaks i' sign o' sorrow
niver-ending."
The little woman shivered and put her hand more closely into his. "The
dead are rested, Sexton? Is't not so?" she whispered.
"Well, men sleep sound, body an' sperrit, i' a general way, an' so do
wedded women: 'tis the lassies who died afore wedlock, wanting it that
cannot rest; ay, poor bairns, they like as they hunger an' thirst for
what they lacked, an' nowt 'ull do for 'em. See ye, Mistress! How th'
teewits wheel an' wheel, niver resting. An' hark ye! There's Mary
Mother's own wild sorrow i' their screams."
Mistress Wayne watched the birds glance white and black across the
sun-rays. A score of them there might be, but each followed its own
path, lonely, untiring, inconsolable. A strange light came into the
little woman's eyes, and after it a cloud of tears; like the voice of
fellow-captives, in life's prison-house, the plover's cry struck home to
her, disentangling memory from phantasy. Still as the graveyard stones
she sat, and the Sexton, stealing a glance at her, knew that this woman
stood, like himself, on the thin edge of life, seeing both worlds yet
finding a resting-place in neither.
"Will they never find peace, those white-breasted ghosts up yonder?" she
whispered. "Is there no God to take pity on them? Sexton, is there no
God in Heaven?"
"I've heard tell on Him," said Witherlee slowly, "but I niver hed speech
nor sign fro' Him. Th' slim ghosts I knaw, an' th' solid look o'
grave-planking I knaw--but I'm dim, Mistress, dim, when ye axe me of owt
else. Nay, I've heard th' teewits fret iver sin' I war out o' th'
cradle, an' they're fretting still; an' when there comes a fresh Sexton
to Marshcotes--I'll be th' first to mak him sweat at grave-digging,
likely--why, there'll be teewits wheeling still aboon his head."
Her eyes were lifted piteously to his. "'Tis that keeps them
sleeping--to die before wedlock, and never to feel a bairn's mouth soft
against their own. I shall be one of them soon, Sexton--very soon; it
was to have been my wedding-day--" she passed a hand across her
forehead, striving to pick up the thread that seemed for ever slipping
from her grasp.
"Happen--happen there's a God hid somewhere," said Witherlee, in the
tone of one who tells a fairy-story to a child. "I reckon, if there be,
He'll look thy way, Mistress, afore so long. Tak heart, an'--"
The clue was coming nearer to her. "Nay, there's no God up there,
Sexton," she broke in. "I left Him--years ago, surely--down in the
sweet valley-lands. There were woods, and streams, and kine knee-deep
among the swaying grasses; and the winds were warm, Sexton, and God was
very kind. I was happy then, I think--but some one came and took me
away--nay, it has gone again!" She paused and looked wistfully across
the hills.
"I've heard o' th' Low Country," murmured Witherlee. "They say there's
more warmth an' ease dahn there, but th' fowk is nobbut frail-like wi'
it all, I fancy. Ay, an' I war telled, by one 'at hed been i' them
furrin parts an' come back to Marshcotes, that th' meadow-grass there,
for all it grows so thick, is rank an' noan so sweet as our hard-won
crops up here. Well, well, there's some mun live lower nor Marshcotes,
just as there's some mun carry weakly bodies their lives through."
Mistress Wayne did not hear him. Her eyes were still on the field
climbing far-off to the sky, with their black walls and the white lines
of snow that lay on the windward side of them. "It was like that,
Sexton, when first I came here," she went on presently, pointing with
her finger. "Naught but black walls, and white drifts of snow, and
drear houses that seemed to scowl at you each time you crossed the
threshold. And the people were all so rough and hard, and fierce--they
frightened me--Sexton, shall I never again get down to the meadows and
the nightingales and the sweetbriar hedges under which the violets
grow?"
"To be sure ye will, sooin as th' weather 'ull let ye travel," said
Witherlee kindly.--"An' now ye've stayed still long enough, Mistress,
an' th' snaw is coming dahn i' earnest this time. Mebbe ye'll step
inside wi' me till it's owered wi', an' Nanny shall mak ye a sup o'
summat warm."
Hiram Hey, meanwhile, had just finished stacking Nanny's peats for her,
and was beginning to back his horse down the narrow lane, when there
came such a fury of wind and snow together that he was fain to shelter
in the doorway.
"Look out o' window, Nanny," he cried, "for ye'll noan see th' like
again for a week o' years. Sun an' wind--an' th' dust so thick among
th' snowflakes 'at it turns 'em grey. By th' Heart, I nobbut once see'd
dust an' snaw so thick together, an' that war a score year back, on th'
varry day when th' Ratcliffes first set on th' Waynes as they war riding
back fro' Saxilton market. Ay, 'tis a sign as sure as I stand here wi'
th' wind cutting me to th' bone."
"April snow," muttered Bet the slattern. "They say it means drear
happenings."
"'Tis a fearsome sight, whativer it bodes," said Nanny, peeping from
under Hiram's arm.--"Here's Witherlee been driven home by it, an' it
taks a lot to skift him, I tell ye. What, an' he's bringing th' little
fairy-kist un, an' all? Well, she's paid a stiffish price, poor bairn,
an' it's noan for me to grudge her shelter."
Hiram, after a curt nod to Witherlee, went to his horse's head.
"There'll be enough to fill Nanny's kitchen without me, I'm thinking,"
he muttered; "an' I niver could bide so many women all dickering
together--nay, begow, I'd liefer hev snow an' dust an' all th' winds i'
th' sky."
A horseman came trotting round the bend of the street, and shouted to
Hiram to cease backing his horse and leave him room to pass. But the
farm-man could be as deaf as a stone when it suited his purpose; he had
seen the rust-grey head and lean body of the horseman, and he kept on
his way, backing the cart more slowly than was needful until he gained
the open high-road.
The Lean Man was holding his big bay horse on the curb and scarce could
keep him in. "Art deaf, fellow?" he snapped, swinging the butt of his
riding whip toward the other's head.
Hiram went quietly to the other side of his horse and looked across at
the Lean Man of Wildwater. "My hearing is noan what it war, Maister.
War it ye shouting to me up th' loin?"
"Ay, was it. Dost think I'm minded on such a day as this, to stand
shivering at the lane-end while thou block'st the way?--So, 'tis thou,
is it?" he broke off, with a sharper glance at Hiram. "I thought that
slouch of thine was woundily familiar. Art minded to boast of the great
store of peats ye have at Marsh, as thou didst not long since to my
grandson?"
Hiram winced, for it was bitter to him still to think how easily Red
Ratcliffe had outwitted him, and Nanny's late banter had rubbed an old
wound raw. "We've fewer peats, Maister," he said slowly--"but th' owd
house stands, I've noticed. Ay, 'tis proof agen fire an' sword, they
say."
Old Nicholas could make nothing of the farm-man's stolid front.
"Cherish that belief, and teach it to thy Master," he said.
"Nay, he needs no teaching. He knaws, weel as I can tell him, that a
Brown Dog ligs on th' threshold, an'----"
The Lean Man loosed the curb on a sudden and rode into the snowstorm
that blew dusty up the lane.
"I thowt he wodn't stay to hear no more," said Hiram to his horse. "Get
on, old lad, an' if we find Shameless Wayne at Marsh, we'll tell him
what we said to Nicholas Weasel-toppin. He's flaired is th' Lean
Man--flaired."
Bet the slattern had moved to the cottage-door soon as she saw Mistress
Wayne come through the churchyard gate with Witherlee.
"There's summat I want to axe of ye, Mistress," she said, twisting an
apron-corner in her feckless hands. "I've getten a little un as is like
to dee o' th' Brown Titus, an' I thowt mebbe ye'd step in next door here
an' gi'e th' bairn a touch o' your hand--they like as they pike up, so
to say, when they feel a softer hand on 'em nor us that wark for our
bread hev getten."
The same half-troubled, half-eager look came into Mistress Wayne's face
as when she had lately talked with the Sexton of children and the
childless women. Cold as she was, and anxious for the warmth of the
peat fire which showed through Nanny's open door, she turned on the
threshold.
"If 'twill comfort the child, I'll come with thee and gladly," she said.
"Ay, an' ye'll cure her, Mistress," put in Witherlee, with quiet
assurance.
"Why do all the folk come running to me, Sexton, when their friends are
sick?" asked Mistress Wayne. "I am so weak and can do nothing for them,
and yet--" She stopped and clutched the old man. "Look who rides toward
us!" she cried, shrinking behind Bet's bulky figure. "His face is
scarred as if hot iron had played across it, and he lacks an ear. I
know him, Sexton; he was cruel to me once--but where? 'Tis long ago,
and I forget."
"Th' Lean Man, begow!" muttered Nanny. "Hiram said he war i'
Marshcotes, but I niver thowt he'd foul my door-stun wi' his face.--Ay,
he looks daunted a bit; he's not half th' man he war a two-week sin',"
she added, eyeing the horseman narrowly and not guessing that Hiram Hey
himself had added his straw to the sum of the Lean Man's burden.
Nicholas, seeing the women grouped round the door, drew rein and snapped
his words out as he always did when talking to the country-folk--a habit
that had earned him a good half of their ill-concealed dislike.
"Where is thy man Earnshaw? I want him," he said, frowning down on Bet.
"Earnshaw, Maister? I'm sure I cannot tell ye. He's hed no wark these
two weeks past, an' happen he gets into loosish ways when----"
"Well, tell him from me that we're short of hands for the walling beyond
Wildwater, and the sooner he can come with a stiff back to the work, the
better I shall be suited. If he knows of half-a-dozen other stout
fellows, he can bring them with him." He was turning away when his eyes
fell on little Mistress Wayne, shrinking close behind Bet Earnshaw.
"Oh, is it you, Mistress?" he cried. "What brings you out of doors on
such a day? Marry, the wind will mistake you for a bit of thistle-down
unless you have a care."
"I--I am going to heal a sick child," stammered Mistress Wayne. Still
she could not remember when she had last seen this grim-faced man, nor
in what way he had shown her cruelty; but instinctively she feared that
he would do her some fresh hurt.
Nicholas laughed mightily. "By the Mass, so there's healing in your
touch? Would I had known that the other night, when your kin at Marsh
planted these pretty love-tokens on my face." He pointed to the
scarce-healed scars. "Come, now, that should bolster the Wayne pride--to
have a wise woman in the family to set against a foolish master."
The Sexton's wife dared not look at him, lest he should see how she
itched to set her hands about his throat; but her voice confessed as
much. "'Tis easy to scoff, Maister, when ye've no clouds across your
sun, an' there's a mony doubts nowadays. Ay, there's them as doubts
Barguest even--afore he's crossed their path." She shot a sideways
glance at him, and saw that she had aimed true.
"He has never crossed mine, woman, so I'll be on the doubting side yet
awhile," he answered, after a silence.
"Well, ye'll know best; but ye've crossed Barguest, if he's noan crossed
ye, an' they say it's mich like wedlock, is crossing th' Brown Dog--him
an' ye till death do ye part. But theer! I've telled ye as mich afore,
an' happen I'm full o' fancies, for ye say ye've niver seen him sin'
that neet."
Nicholas Ratcliffe wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of
his sleeve, and gave one quick glance behind him. Whichever way he
turned, it seemed he could not rid him of these folk who talked of
Barguest.
"Devil take thee!" he cried. "There's no such thing--and if there were
I'd fight him with a dozen Waynes to back him. Get to your healing,
Mistress Wayne; you are fit company for Nanny Witherlee."
Mistress Wayne eyed him doubtfully. "No such thing as Barguest?" she
said gravely. "Sir, I have seen him--just before the fires were lit
about the Marsh doorways, it was, and I was in the garden with Ned, and
the Brown Dog came and fawned on him,--his coat was shaggy--brown
against Ned's clothes. And he whimpered so; and I think it was because
he was cold and in trouble that he lit a fire to warm himself."
The Lean Man's anger melted; something awesome there was about this
woman's quiet recountal that compelled belief. "You--you saw him?" he
whispered. Then his old spirit quelled the rising terror, and he
gripped the saddle afresh with his knees. "Tell him from me then, since
you're friendly to him," he sneered, jerking the snaffle, "tell him that
Nicholas Ratcliffe fears neither ghost nor man, and if Barguest cares to
visit him at Wildwater--" The rest was drowned by the clatter of his
horse's feet as he galloped down the lane.
"Neither ghost nor man?" echoed Nanny. "Ye're th' far side o' th'
truth, there, Maister. I niver heard that ye feared man born o'
woman--but ony one can see that Barguest hes getten his teeth in."
"Sakes, 'tis fearsome talk; I wish tha'd hod thy whisht, Nanny, that I
do," twittered Bet Earnshaw.
But Nanny was no bustling housewife now, with a ready hand for whatever
was to be done and a ready tongue to answer any speech; she was the same
dream-eyed woman who had rung the bell for Wayne of Marsh, who had
watched Wayne's body the night through and listened to the speech of
other worlds.
"Mistress, ye've getten th' second-sight," she said softly, putting an
arm about Mistress Wayne. "God rest ye, for ye'll stand 'twixt
Shameless Wayne and trouble one day. Mistress Nell has done it, an' I've
done it, an' so will ye, sooin or late; an' yourn 'ull be th' greatest
help of all, for ye've seen th' Dog, while we've nobbut heard th' patter
of his feet."
*CHAPTER XIV*
*HOW WAYNE AND RATCLIFFE MET AT HAZEL BRIGG*
The days had gone heavily for Janet since the Lean Man made his bargain
with the Ratcliffe men-folk. Fear for Shameless Wayne mingled with the
dread that she would be forced into hasty wedlock with one of her
cousins; and each day that passed brought nearer home to her the grim
irony which had set Wayne's life as the price of her own hand. Then,
too, she had no trust in Red Ratcliffe, now that he knew her secret, and
scarce a day passed but he pressed his suit home with threats of telling
all to old Nicholas Ratcliffe.
Trouble, indeed, seemed closing in on Wildwater during those bitter days
of sun and snow and northeast winds, which, if they had dealt hardly
with the low-lying lands, had swept over these upland wastes with swift
and pitiless ferocity. The Lean Man was failing, body and mind, in some
strange way which the girl could not understand: for a day or two he
would be hard and keen as ever, and then, suddenly as if he had been
stricken by some unseen blade, the life would go out of him, and he
would watch his own shadow fearfully, shunning the eyes of his kin until
the fit had passed. Janet was fond of her grandfather, so far as she
could reconcile such fondness with her love for Shameless Wayne, and it
added the last touch of disquiet to see him under the spell of what she
could not but name witchcraft. Once he had come home from
Marshcotes--the same day it was which had brought him across Mistress
Wayne's path as she went to heal Bet Earnshaw's child--and his eyes had
met Janet's with a dumb appeal for sympathy. He had all but made
confession to her then touching this spell which lay upon him; but the
mood had passed, as others had passed before it, and the days wore on,
from storm to calm, from calm to full break of spring, without a word
from him that could give her any clue to the nature of his sickness.
This morning, as they sat at breakfast, Nicholas was in gay spirits and
very full of what must be done here and done there about the land.
"Spring's here at last, and we must make the most of it, lads," he
cried. "Did Earnshaw bring any men with him to do the walling?"
"Ay, sir, he brought six as shiftless as himself," laughed Red
Ratcliffe.
"Well, there's a cure for shiftlessness, and I'll ride that way this
morning.--Janet, 'tis a twelve-month and a day since we had plovers'
eggs for breakfast, and they'll be breeding now. Thou art fond of
wandering abroad to no purpose; wilt take as kindly to it if I bid thee
carry a basket on thy arm?"
"Just as kindly, grandfather," said Janet, well pleased to see him in a
mood so cheery; "and if my old cunning serves me, I'll bring you home a
well-filled basket."
"I'll warrant thou wilt, though it takes a nimble wit to match the
tricksy mother-birds.--By the Heart, this springtime gets even into old
blood, methinks; let's be off, lads, for we've wasted enough of a grand
morning, and there's a deal to be got through before nightfall."
"Both here and on Wayne's farm. Ay, 'tis a busy time for the moorside,"
said Red Ratcliffe, glancing at Nicholas as they rose from table.
The Lean Man frowned him down, but Janet had caught the glance, and she
misliked her cousin's tone. She welcomed Red Ratcliffe, accordingly,
with less than her wonted coldness when he followed her into the
courtyard a short while afterward, for she was bent on learning what lay
behind his talk of Wayne's farm.
"Thou'rt quick to set off, cousin," he said. "Tell me, do the plovers
nest at Marsh House, that thou showest so eager to seek their eggs?"
"I know little of Marsh House, sir, and my way lies contrary across the
moor."
"Why, then, thou wilt be glad of a companion. Say, shall I come with
thee, pretty Janet?"
"If it pleases thee," she answered.
He sought for mockery in her face, but, finding a half encouragement
there, he fell into step beside her. Then, not understanding the slant
ways of women, he must needs think that all was his for the asking, if
only he put a bold front on it.
"Janet," he said, "I knew thou'd'st weary of this feather-headed rogue
from Marsh. Put thy hand in mine and say 'yea' to a plain question, and
I'll think no more of jealousy."
"Many thanks, cousin. Thou wooest, methinks, as a ploughboy would.
_Whoa_, he cries to his team, or _gee-up_, and being used to have his
horses obey him, he thinks women have as little wit."
"He holds the whip, girl, as I do, and so is sure of them. Hark ye, I'm
tired of this, and I will have thy answer. Flout me again, and I tell
the Lean Man what I know."
Her anger, never quiet when Red Ratcliffe was at her elbow, broke into
sudden flame. "Tell him, and have done with it. I care not," she
cried, forgetting that she had meant to wheedle him into telling her
what she wished to know.
"Hast never seen the Lean Man's anger, that thou talk'st so glibly of
it? Pish! Thou'rt a child. If I were so much as to hint that
Shameless Wayne met thee by stealth, grandfather would--kill thee, I
think."
"That is true, cousin, he would go near to kill me," she said, standing
straight and proud with her eyes on his. "And why should I fear that at
his hands which I would compass myself rather than be wife to such as
thou?"
"Who fathered thee, I wonder?" he sneered. "No Ratcliffe, I'll wager,
or thou would'st have died of shame long since to let one of the Wayne
hounds foul thee with his touch."
"Wayne of Marsh, cousin, is a better fighter, and of a more cleanly
courtesy than thou," said she, with a hard laugh. "No wonder the thought
of him is bitter--the carrion crow likes not the eagle, does it?"
He turned on her, his hand uplifted, but she eluded him. And then he let
slip, in the heat of jealousy what prudence would have checked.
"The carrion-crow, for all that, will be bosom comrade to him before
long," he cried. "'Twas pleasant to see the Lean Man so full of
cheeriness? But what did it mean, girl? Why, that he saw a way to snare
thy fool of Marsh."
For a moment she faltered; but her pride in Wayne of Marsh, which was
comrade always to her love for him, steadied her fear of coming evil.
"Ye have hatched plans aforetime," she answered quietly--"at the burial
in Marshcotes kirkyard, and when ye got fire to help cold steel at
Marsh. And Red Ratcliffe, if I recall, fled each time that Wayne showed
a sword-point to him."
His freckled, wind-raw face was ill to look upon, and in among his
speech the wildest curses of the hillside slipped and stumbled. "I fled
from the Brown Boggart, not from Wayne--but the Dog will sleep one day,
and then 'twill be my turn, man to man.--Ay, I'll tell thee just what is
afoot, and thou shall have that to give thee courage when the Lean Man
rails at thee. Suppose Wayne has a farm called Bents close up to
Wildwater? Suppose old Nicholas, passing yester-even, saw that the
storms had riven half the roof-slates off, and twitted the farmer with
Wayne's slovenliness?"
"'Twould not be like grandfather to pass without such raillery. Ay,
sir, go on."
Janet was watching him narrowly, letting his unclean oaths drift past
her, and hearkening only to what lay under them. And he, eager to wound
her at any cost, went blindly on.
"Suppose the farmer, all in the way of those who have dealings with the
young Master just as Hiram Hey did when I tried the same trick on him,
and telling Nicholas that Shameless Wayne himself was coming up this
week to see to the mending of the roof?"
"On what day does he come?" asked Janet softly.
"I'll tell thee that after we've met him on the road--and, as thou'rt
kindly toward him, I'll bring thee back some pretty love-token. What
shall it be, Janet--a drabbled lock of hair, or----"
"They name thee cruel, cousin--but I think thou hast been very kind just
now," she interposed.
"God's faith, art witless altogether?" he cried, dumbfounded by her
hardiness.