Marsh House standing for three hundred years, and I seek no better."
"Then thou'lt not be warned?"
"I shall ride to Bents Farm on Thursday, as I had in mind to."
"And wilt thou take none with thee?"
"I meant to take none, and I'll not shift from my path by a
hair's-breadth."
"Fool, fool!" she cried, casting about for some fresh turn of pleading
that might weigh with him. "It is told now--I cannot recall my warning,
Ned; at least make such use thou canst of it."
"Hast lived so long with the storms, Janet," said he, smiling gravely,
"that thou hast learnt naught of Fate? What will be, will be, girl, and
if I'm to die by a Ratcliffe blade in three days' time--why, 'tis
settled; if not, thy warning still goes for naught."
Stung by his disdain, she ceased pleading, and allowed her own right
pride to have its say. "So be it; but I would have thee know this
before I leave thee. There's somewhat hangs on the taking of thy
life--somewhat that touches my welfare nearly."
"What is't?" he asked, eyeing her curiously.
"'Twould not advantage thee to know.--And so farewell, Ned, and God give
thee a better wit."
Shameless Wayne had no struggle now with his love for this slim,
passionate girl; with the first hint of battle his mind had swung back
to what had been all in all to him since he swore above his father's
body never to rest until the Ratcliffes had paid their price. She was a
Ratcliffe, and she had dared to bid him slink out of touch of danger;
and the good-bye that had seemed agony not long ago, was easy now, as he
watched her go up the brink-field without a thought to call her back for
one last hopeless word--the word for lack of which her step went heavy
up the slope.
"I can do naught for him," she murmured, not turning as she topped the
rise. "Is there one other as fond as he in the whole world, to see a
plain pitfall and ride hot-foot over it?"
She cared not a whit for what the Lean Man might have in store for her.
She would make a straight confession to him and thereafter face him
without dread--nay, with a sort of gladness, since his first hot impulse
might earn her a release from that terrible bargain which had pledged
her to the slayer of Wayne of Marsh. Then she fell into a storm of
anger against Wayne, that his stubbornness had forbidden him to save
himself and her; and after that a sense of utter loneliness came over
her, and she lay down in the heather and sobbed without restraint.
But neither tears nor anger stayed with her for long, and her courage
came slowly back after she had picked up her basket again and turned her
face to Wildwater. Wayne of Marsh showed helpless as a child, and the
old instinct to protect him gained on her. His strength of arm was
nothing unless he had some friend to match the guile against which his
uprightness was powerless. What could she do?
Her thoughts ran quickly now. She was full of feints as the peewits
that had lately tried to decoy her from their nests. For her own sake
she would have been glad to let the Lean Man know all; but there was Ned
to think of, and by some means she must hide the truth. Her eyes
brightened on the sudden, and she moved with a brisker step.
"I told Red Ratcliffe I would fight him," she cried eagerly, "and may be
I shall worst him yet.--But to lie?--Ned, Ned, I'm glad thou dost not
guess how deep my love for thee has gone. _To lie_? Well, 'twill be
nearly truth if told for his sake. He goes on Thursday, does he, to
Bents Farm? Well, there's three days 'twixt now and then."
*CHAPTER XV*
*MOTHER-WIT*
The Lean Man and Red Ratcliffe were standing in the courtyard at
Wildwater, and Nicholas was regarding his grandson with cold
displeasure.
"Thy tale hangs ill together, lad," he said, "and I'll not believe a
word of it till Janet has told me her side of the matter. What, one of
our breed go meeting one of _them_ by stealth? By the Heart, if thou
hast let jealousy----"
"But, sir, I saw them; they were as close as I am to you, and his words
were honeyed if his low voice and earnest look were aught to go by."
"Well, there's no more to be said. 'Tis beyond belief, and I had rather
saddle thee with a lie than Janet with such wantonness.--Peste! Where
is the girl? She should be back by now, unless her search has taken her
further afield than a handful of plovers' eggs is worth."
"Haply she is with Wayne of Marsh, sir," said the other softly.
The Lean Man pointed through the open gate. "Is she, then?" he snarled.
"The next time thou dost hazard a guess of that sort, be sure the maid
is not in sight already. Now, lad, I'll front thee with her straight,
and we'll plumb the bottom of this matter."
Janet saw them while she was two-score yards away, and her heart sank
for the moment. Her plan seemed harder of fulfilment now that she was
all but face to face with the Lean Man. But she carried herself
bravely, and crossed the open with a firm step, and held her basket out
to Nicholas with a curtsey.
"Here are the eggs, sir. Have I not done well?" she said.
"Put them down, girl," said Nicholas, and paused, afraid to ask the
question which might kill his love for her.
Janet was quick to take advantage of his hesitation. "I've done more
than rob the peewits this morning, grandfather," she went on, with a
glance at Red Ratcliffe. "Whom did I meet, think ye, above the Hill
House waterfall?"
A foreboding seized the younger man; for her glance said plainly that
she had no fear of what he might have told his grandfather.
"Whom, lass? Come, tell me quick," said Nicholas.
"Why, Shameless Wayne--and learned somewhat from him which he little
thought might prove of service to you."
"Shameless Wayne? What led thee to Shameless Wayne?" cried Nicholas.
"Nay, what led _him_ to talk to me? 'Tis not the first time, either.
Not long ago, as I was crossing the fields this side of Marshcotes, he
stopped me by the way, and made much of some little acquaintance which
once there was between us."
Nicholas shot a glance of triumph at Red Ratcliffe, and one of doubt at
Janet. "Thou should'st have passed him by," he said.
"What can a maid do, grandfather, when the man is headstrong and she is
out of call of help? He"--she lifted her brows disdainfully,--"he dared
to make hot love to me that day; and again this morning as I was
gathering eggs, he----"
The Lean Man fetched an oath. "So the lad is not content, 'twould
seem," he muttered; "it is not enough to kill three of us and to flaunt
my son's hand in the public view, but he must--see, child, he means thee
no good by this, and I was right when I bade thee keep to home awhile."
"But, a murrain on 't, the girl was willing!" cried Red Ratcliffe,
aghast to find the Lean Man's anger diverted so swiftly from Janet to
Wayne of Marsh. "What didst say to me this morning, Janet, when I met
thee on the moor?"
"What I say to thee now, cousin--that thou'rt the meanest of all my kin,
and the one least likely to catch any woman's fancy--that thou may'st
threaten, and bully, and play the tale-bearer, and yet not win me in the
end."
"'Tis plain to see I bred thee, lass," laughed Nicholas, putting a
kindly hand on her shoulder.--"As for thee, Red Ratcliffe, I gave thee
free leave to say thy say to Janet, but not to force her will."
"Then, sir, you would liefer see her wedded to Wayne of Marsh than to
me?" broke in the other hotly. "They call _him_ Shameless, but by the
Mass this girl would hold the title with better credit. See how she
stands there, with an open front and a clear eye, and all the while she
knows----"
"Sir, my cousin has gone through it all before," said Janet, deftly
taking up the talk as Red Ratcliffe paused for very anger. "I said nay
to him this morning; and he turned and snarled on me, vowing he would
tell you how I met Shameless Wayne willingly by stealth. Has he done
so, or was he still finding wit enough to carry the tale through when I
came up?"
"I said the tale went lame," muttered Nicholas; "ay, I knew there could
be naught in 't."
"Did he tell you, sir," went on Janet merrily, "did he tell you that
Wayne of Marsh was whispering love-tales in my ear, and that I was
listening with greedy relish? He threatened so to do; because,
forsooth, he had asked me a plain question, and my answer liked him
little."
Red Ratcliffe had made many a useless effort to claim a hearing, but he
could see by the Lean Man's face that the tide was running all against
him.
"He thought I should be feared of you, grandfather!" cried Janet,
laughing softly. "He thought I should not dare to come with a straight
tale to you as he came with a crooked."
Nicholas, eager beforehand to keep his trust in the girl unshaken, let
his last doubts fall off from him. "Thou wast right, child, to trust
me," he said. "This fool here got his word in first, and if thou hadst
not told me of thy meeting with Wayne before ever I twitted thee with
it--why, I might well have believed that which would have gone nigh to
break my heart."
For a moment the girl's eyes clouded and she could not look him in the
face. He was so kind to her, so ready to take her part at all times;
and she was rewarding his trust in sorry fashion. But that passed as
she remembered the Lean Man's cruelty, his guile, his resolve to do
Shameless Wayne to death by any sort of treachery. Was it a time to
stand on scruples, when she was fighting, not for her own life, but for
another's? Again her mother-love for Wayne swept over her, touching her
fancy with a sense of fine issues that were to be compassed, here and
now, by her own unaided wit.
"I said, sir, that I was powerless to keep Wayne of Marsh from walking
with me," she went on, her voice gaining depth and subtlety as she made
forward with the tale that had been shaping itself in her mind all
through the long walk home from Hill House; "but I could at the least
make him pay for his ill manners in curious coin. _He_ to dare offer
marriage to a Ratcliffe! My cheeks were red with shame, as if another
man had offered less than marriage; but I would not let him see it. I
lured him on, I played with him, I learned all that he had done, or was
doing, or was about to do."
"God rest thee, lass!" cried the Lean Man, with a boisterous laugh.
"Who says thou'rt more or less than a very Ratcliffe? Thou didst lead
the poor fool on, then, with a trail of honey? By the Dog, I never
loved thee half as well as now.--What, Ratcliffe the Red, thou lookest
moody! The old man was not fond enough to stomach any wild tale thou
didst bring to him?--Well, girl, what didst learn from Wayne?"
"That he was going to Bents Farm, to see that some repairs were rightly
done."
"Ay, it tallies," murmured Nicholas.--"Go on, Janet; we knew as much as
that."
"But did you know, sir, that Wayne had somehow learned your purpose? He
was to have gone on Thursday----"
"Did he tell thee that, or was it I?" broke in Red Ratcliffe. "Hark ye,
grandfather! I let slip to her this morning the tale of what we meant
to do, and she uses it now for her own ends."
"Peace, sirrah! I have a long account to square with thee, and a quiet
tongue may keep thee from adding to the reckoning. Didst let the tale
slip? The more fool thou, when I had bidden thee speak of it to no man.
Haply 'twas from thee that Wayne of Marsh learned what we have in mind?"
"It matters little, as it chances, whether Wayne knows or not," said
Janet. "He will go on Friday, sir, at noon, instead of on Thursday; for
he told me as much, laughing to think how easily he could outwit you."
"Haply the last laugh will be mine," said Nicholas grimly. "Didst learn
how many of his folk he meant to bring with him? Being warned, he will
not go alone, I warrant."
"Nay, he professed to be a match for any four of you," answered the
girl, a spice of the Ratcliffe devilry leading her to garnish her story
with needless detail, "but for prudence sake, he said, he would take
some two or three with him."
"A match for any four?" muttered the Lean Man. "I'll keep that word in
mind when Wayne fares up to Bents. Ay, by the Rood I will let none but
myself cross swords with him. Three of my folk I'll take, to equal his,
and none shall say that Wayne of Marsh fought against odds when he was
slain on the road to Bents Farm."
Janet shuddered to hear her grandfather talk of Wayne's death, as of a
fact already well accomplished; glancing at the Lean Man's height and
wiry frame, remembering the skill he had in wielding that dread
two-handled sword of his, she felt that Wayne of Marsh, for all his
lusty youth, would find a match in Nicholas Ratcliffe. And then she
laughed her fears away; for was she not sending the slayers on the
veriest Jack-o'-lanthorn errand that ever led men into the bogs?
"Take the men with you, sir, for Wayne can be tricky as yourself," she
said gravely. "By Our Lady, I think he'll not fare back again from
Bents to Marsh."
"Hast a shrewd head on thy pretty shoulders. Gad, yes, thou'rt crafty!
Who is't thou callest to mind, girl? Some one out of the musty Book
that Parson reads from on the Sabbath. Delilah, was it not, who fooled
the long-haired fighter and clipped his locks for him as if he were a
sheep at shearing-time?"
"And he could not fight at all, sir, after the shearing was done. 'Tis
a good fable," laughed Janet.
"Ay, but how if she is clipping a Ratcliffe poll the while, and fools us
into thinking that Wayne's locks, not ours, are underneath the shears?"
snapped Red Ratcliffe.
The Lean Man, good-humoured almost now that his quarry was well in view,
turned and looked his grandson up and down. "It would take a clever
lass, methinks, to clip that rusty head of thine; as well reap a
stubble-field for corn," he sneered.--"There! The work speeds merrily,
and a little jest suffices for a big laugh. Janet, come draw me a
measure of wine, and we'll pledge thy mother-wit."
He moved across the courtyard, and Red Ratcliffe, stepping to Janet's
side, laid a hand on her cloak. "I asked this morn who fathered thee,"
he whispered. "Well, now I know. The devil got thee, and thou'lt not
shame him. The game is thine so far--but by the Lord I'll make thee
smart when fortune shifts her favours."
"What, dost not believe my story?" she answered, with demure wonder.
"Well, go on Thursday, then, if thou doubtest----"
"Nay. He will not go to Bents Farm on Thursday, for thou hast warned
him; nor will he go on Friday, since thou tellest us so glibly the place
and hour. But we'll wait each day for him until he comes."
"The Lean Man will not wait with you, save on the Friday."
An ugly scrowl crossed the other's face. "The Lean Man ages fast; we
must learn to strike while he is hanging on every lying word of thine,"
he said, and left her.
Janet halted on the threshold before following Nicholas indoors.
"Ay, even such as he can call me liar," she muttered, looking out across
the heath as if for guidance. "Sorrow of women, why must we always
stoop to feints and trickeries? Why cannot we fight as men fight----"
The peewits were wheeling over the sky-rimmed moor, and Janet, watching
them, bethought her once again how they had used the self-same trickery
to save their unhatched young. Instinctively she felt their world was
hers, their teaching hers, and what was right for the wild things of the
heath was right for her.
"And I have saved Wayne of Marsh. God be thanked for it," she cried
with sudden fervour, and went to bring the Lean Man the cup which was to
pledge her mother-wit.
*CHAPTER XVI*
*HOW WAYNE OF MARSH RODE UP TO BENTS*
The sun was nearing the top of his climb, and his rays were kindly with
Mistress Wayne as she sat by the waterside in Hazel Dene and filled her
lap with flowers and green lush grasses. Here a clump of primroses
nestled close to the water's edge, and there a hazel-bush waved its
catkins finger-like over the peat-brown water, dusting the wavelets with
finest saffron pollen. Above, in the sloping fields, lambs bleated
after the wethers, and kine chewed lazily the cud of sweet new grass.
All was tender frolic, as if a month ago no snow had filled the hollows
of the trees where now were nests, as if no bitter wind had whistled
downward from the moor, chilling the bud within its sheath and the sap
in well-turned limbs of ash and oak.
Mistress Wayne ceased playing with her flowers, and fell to dreaming.
She was the one still thing among all the quivering eagerness of leaves
and water, birds and hovering flies and glancing fish. For the storms
that had chilled and frightened her were over, and with the spring her
mind seemed to be loosing, one by one, its winter bonds. Old memories
stirred in her and clamoured for release; new desires awakened, and with
them a fresh load of doubts and fears; she sat, helpless and inert, and
strove with all her might to unravel the threads which one night's
tragedy had tangled.
"Ah, it is sweet--sweet," she murmured. "I was a child once--a
child--and they gave me love--both hands they gave me full of love--and
it was always spring, I think, with warmth like this and song of birds.
But I'm old now; older than anybody knows, and sad. I think it is
because I did some one a great wrong. What was it? Down in the
meadows, when he came and tried to kill me with his hard grey eyes--the
eyes that stared at me afterward from the bier. Nay, he could not
forgive me, even in death--I think he knew that I had never loved him."
For a moment longer she struggled with memory; then her face grew empty
as of old, and she picked up her flowers and fell to talking babe-talk
to them. But her witless moods held lighter sway nowadays; reason was
coming slowly back, and day by day her mind returned more often from
childishness into the piteous strife of sanity. She got to her feet
soon, and threw the flowers from her, and looked with troubled eyes
toward Marshcotes.
"I might go and find Sexton Witherlee," she said, halting with one
finger on her lip; "he is so wise, and he may tell me what I want to
learn. Yes, I must find the Sexton."
A crackling of twigs came from up the Dene, and turning affrightedly she
saw Shameless Wayne striding along the narrow path.
"Why, little bairn, what art doing here?" he cried, as she ran to him
with hands outstretched in welcome.
"Thinking, Ned--always thinking. I want to remember--oh, I want to
remember--but the thoughts will never stay still enough for me to put my
hand on them. I have been trying to catch the little fish in the stream
yonder, and it was just the same; they stayed till I had all but caught
them, and then they glanced and flickered, flickered and glanced, until
I could not see them for the splashes which they made."
"Bide awhile, bairn," he said kindly; "thy thoughts will come tame to
hand one day, never fear."
"Art going home, Ned?" she said, after a silence. "I was crossing to
Marshcotes kirkyard, but if thou'lt come into the fields with me, and
talk, I'll ask naught better."
"I'm going to Marsh, but only to get to saddle and be off again. Better
talk to the Sexton this morning, and I'll walk with thee after
dinner.--Nay! Never look so downcast. 'Tis only that there's work to be
done up at Bents Farm, and I shall scarce get there and back as 'tis by
dinner-time."
Again the puzzled look, which told that she was doubtful lest this
returning memory of hers were leading her astray. "I thought, Ned--I
thought thou hadst gone there yesterday? Well-away, the days slip past,
and sometimes I forget to count them; was it not Thursday yesterday--and
Friday today--and what comes after?" Her eyes filled with tears. "It is
so hard, dear, to forget and to know that all the world is pitying me."
"Tush, bairn! Thou canst remember nigh as well as any of us now. And
thou'rt right about Bents Farm; I should have gone there yestermorn, but
was prevented. There! Find out yond friendly Sexton of thine, and show
him how this fair spring weather is warming thee back to memory."
"Thou'lt not forget to walk with me after dinner?" she said.
"Not I.--The stream's over-wide for thee, is't? Well, that is soon
reckoned with."
Laughing, he picked her up and leaped across the babbling water; then
set her down, and turned to wave farewell as he swung round the corner
of the path.
"Half her wits have come home from wandering. What when they return
altogether?" he muttered. "Nay, she had better be as the bairns are.
Our wits do naught for us save teach us that life rings cracked and
hollow as a broken bell.--I could swear the sun moves at racing-speed,"
he broke off, glancing toward the south. "'Twas well I told them to set
dinner back a full two hours."
The Lean Man, standing in the Wildwater courtyard, was likewise looking
toward the south, as he rated three of his kinsfolk into the saddle.
"Ye lie-abed, hounds!" he roared. "Does Wayne of Marsh come riding to
meet us every day, that ye mean to let noon go by? Up with the
stirrup-cup, Janet, and I'll drain it once again to an errand that is
all of thy making."
"'Tis scarce past the time for wild geese, sir," put in Red Ratcliffe
drily, "and Janet knew it, methinks, when she sent us on this chase."
"Marry, why should'st doubt Wayne's coming?" snapped Nicholas. "But
thou wast so from thy birth, lad, so I'll not rate thee for thy
clownishness."
"I doubt for reasons that I'll tell you afterward," said the other,
nettled by his comrades' laughter.
"What, when I return with Wayne's head at my saddle-flap?"
"If mares build nests, and lay gold eggs in them, we shall bring back
Wayne's head to-day," growled Red Ratcliffe, and pricked his horse
forward out of reach of further gibes.
"The young cockerels crow while the old birds fill their crops," laughed
Nicholas. "Forward, lads, and mind well that none is to lay hand on
Shameless Wayne till I have done with him."
Janet watched them move up into the moor, their figures, riding one
behind the other, dark against the white, wind-hurried clouds.
"A fair journey, sirs!" she cried, soon as they were out of eyeshot. "A
fair journey, and fair tempers when ye come back from slaying Wayne of
Marsh."
Dangers were waiting in plenty for Ned, she knew; but it was enough that
he was safe from the peril of the moment, and her heart sang blithely as
she told herself that, but for her aid, the Lean Man would have gone to
meet him yesterday--and would have found him. What she should say when
they returned from their bootless errand, she knew not, nor whether her
grandfather would suspect the truth of all the tale she had told him
when he found one flaw in it. It did not matter; some way she would
coax him back to good humour, as she had done four days ago.
Restless in her gaiety, which had a certain fierceness in it, she
wandered up and down the house, and out into the garden, and thence to
the stables in search of her favourite roan mare. The roan had been
ailing lately, and this morning she turned a sadly lack-lustre eye on
Janet in answer to the girl's caresses.
"'Tis time a leech looked to thee," said Janet, stroking the beast's
muzzle. "Yet it is thankless of thee, when all is said, after the pains
I've taken. I all but lost the fingers of one hand awhile since in
giving thee a ball, and thou'rt not a whit the better for it. Well, we
must see if Earnshaw, yond idle rogue from Marshcotes, can do thee any
good; he's cunning at horse-physic, so they say."
Glad of the excuse for a scamper, but finding none of the farm-hands
about the yard, she saddled the mare that stood in the next stall, led
her to the horsing-steps that stood this side the gateway, and soon was
galloping over the heather as if the chestnut had no knees to be broken,
nor she a neck to lose. And half the way her thoughts were of the
Ratcliffes, riding to meet a foe who would not come; and half the way
she thought of Wayne's splendid doggedness, when she had met him at
Hazel Brigg, and he had turned a deaf ear to her warning.
Mistress Wayne, meanwhile, had found the Sexton at work on a new grave
and had enticed him to the flat stone which had grown to be their seat
on all occasions when they foregathered for a chat. Thinner than ever
was the Sexton, as if the past winter had dried the little flesh that
had once made shift to clothe his bones; his eyes were dreamier, but the
old kindliness was in them as they rested on this frail comrade who
listened with such goodwill to all his thrice-told tales of fight and
fairies, of Barguest and the Brown Folk.