out across th' moor," Witherlee was saying. "They're deepish down, but
time an' time, when I'm nearing th' bottom of a grave, I can hear 'em
curse an' cry at me, for they like as they cannot bide mortal men to
come anigh 'em."
"Art thou never afraid of them, Sexton?" asked Mistress Wayne, her wide,
questioning eyes on his.
"Nay, I niver get ony harm, as I knaw on, fro' th' little chaps,--though
I do shiver whiles, for their curses is summat flairsome to hearken to.
Howsiver, curses break no bones, as th' saying is, so I just let 'em
clicker, an' I win forrard wi' my digging."
The little woman shivered. "They are cruel, these Brown Folk. They
snatch children from the cradle, and carry them down and down, deep
under the peat, to work the gold for them. I like the slim ghosties
better. Sexton, talk to me of them,--the ghosts of those who lie asleep
here; thou hast seen such often?"
"Ay," said the Sexton softly. "I've learned th' feel an' th' speech an'
th' throb o' th' kirkyard, Mistress, till I'm friends wi' ivery sleeper
of 'em all. Lord Christ, how sweet it is to sit here on a summer's eve,
wi' th' moon new-risen ower kirk an' graves--to feel this feckless body
o' mine crumple an' shrink, while th' inward fire grows fierce, and
bright, and steady. 'Tis then th' ghosties come and slip their thin
hands into mine; for th' naked souls o' men are friendly, and 'tis only
our lumpish shroud of clay that frights th' sperrits from us. Ay,
there's scant room, I'm thinking, for us poor mortals, what wi' Brown
Folk below, an' White Folk up aboon."
"Once thou said'st 'twas only the unwed lassies walked. Is it so,
Sexton?"
"Nay, there's men-folk, too. I say to myseln, small wonder that th'
ghosties stir up and down, time an' time, when them as lig under sod
fall to thinking o' th' unquiet things that hev happened just aboon
their heads. Look ye, Mistress, how black yond kirk-tower looks at us;
'twas there a Wayne fought, in an older day, agen Anthony Ratcliffe wi'
five other Ratcliffes to back him--fought wi' his back to th'
tower-wall, and killed four out o' th' six that made agen him, an' sore
wounded Anthony an' another. Ay, an' ye mind how Shameless Wayne took
toll a while back i' this same spot? An' how Dick Ratcliffe paid his
reckoning on th' vault-stone yonder?"
Mistress Wayne shrank from the Sexton as if he had struck her. "Dick
Ratcliffe--Dick--what should I know of him?" she murmured. Again the
still intensity of face, as she sought the key to that dim past of hers.
But the Sexton was deep in his own reverie; he was thinking, not of the
woman to whom Dick Ratcliffe had given an unclean love, but of the new
feud that had come to gladden these latter days.
"Is not th' place like to be restless, wi' sich as these lying
bedfellows?" he went on, nodding his head in greeting at the lettered
stones. "Ay, restless as I am restless, heving followed my trade,
through sun an' gloaming an' mid-winter midnight, amang th' wild folk
that niver found peace till they came on their last journey to
Marshcotes kirkyard.--Theer, theer, Mistress!" he broke off, as the
little woman's cry broke sharply into his musings and half awoke him.
"I flair ye, but ye need think nowt on 't; an owd chap mun hev his spell
o' dithering in an' out amang th' fierce owd tales that tangle and trip
up th' one t' other. Yet I praise God that, after all these weak new
days, young Wayne o' Marsh hes shown th' owd stuff a-working."
"Sexton, Sexton!" The woman's eyes, fixed on the vault-stone below,
were sane now, and her voice not like at all to the childish pipe which
Witherlee had grown to love. "I have tried so hard to understand--and
now I know--and would God I could forget again."
Witherlee made as if to put an arm about her, so wishful of comfort she
seemed; but he withdrew, feeling that her grief was over-terrible for
such rough consolation as he had to offer. Instead, he filled his pipe
and lit it, and waited till she found more to tell him.
They rested so for a long while, with only the song of birds and the
moan of a rainy breeze to break the silence. Then,
"I see it all, Sexton," she said quietly--"the evening when Wayne of
Marsh, my husband, found me with my lover in the orchard--Wayne's
death--the flight with Dick Ratcliffe of Wildwater. We gained the
wicket up above there--we could hear the harness rattling of the chaise
that was to carry us to safety--and then--" She stopped and hid her
face awhile.
"'Tis ower an' done wi' long sin'," murmured the Sexton; "ower an' done
wi,' Mistress."
"'Twill never be over and done with. Dick was killed--but I--I was not
given death, only a merciful little spell of sleep."
"Nay, I wish th' poor body wod cry her een out," thought the Sexton,
watching the bright eyes and tragic face. "I niver held wi' a crying
woman myseln, but I could thoyle tears better nor this stark, dry grief
o' hers."
But Mistress Wayne was far from tears as yet. A great load was on her
heart, crushing the misery inward; it was long before she could shake
off the least part of it, but at last--after the Sexton had waited with
a patience that was all his own--she crept nearer to him, and laid a
hand on his, and began to talk with a quiet and settled gravity.
"I was not at all to blame, Sexton," she said. "I think, if he knew
all, even dead Wayne of Marsh might look with pity on me. I was so
young when he brought me out of the sweet, warm South up into these
dreary mountain-tops--so young, and the folk here were so harsh, and I
hated them when they mocked me for my foreign ways. Wayne was kind, so
far as he knew how to be, but I feared him--feared his sternness, and
his hard dark face. The storms that only brought him ruder health were
killing me, and the wind at nights, as it moaned about the
chimney-stacks, was like a dirge. And Nell could not forgive me for
coming a second wife to Marsh. I had no friend at all, save Shameless
Wayne; they despised him as a drunkard and a reveller, but I never had
aught but kindness and goodwill from him. Sexton, was it not hard----"
Witherlee did not answer. His glance, roving to the far side of the
graveyard, had fallen on his goodwife, who was nearing him with a brisk,
decided step; and he, who feared no ghost that ever walked light-footed
through the grasses, shrank from the tongue which was wont to fall like
a flail on him.
"Ay, I said how 'twould be!" cried Nanny, while still a score yards off.
"Frittering thy time away, while th' wife is wearing herseln bone-thin
for thee. Here th' dinner hes been cooked this half-hour, an' th'
dumplings as cold as Christmas, an' I allus did say th' most worritsome
trick a man could hev war coming late to his victuals."
"I'm coming, fast as legs 'ull tak me," said Witherlee, scrambling to
his feet. "An' as for th' dumplings--I'd as lief hev 'em cold as warm;
it's all one when they've gone down a body's throat."
"Hearken to him! All one, says he--he'll be telling me next there's
nowt to choose 'twixt to-day an' yesterday. Is't all one whether
_tha_'rt warm, or cold as one o' yond coffin-chaps under sod?--Ay, an'
now there's Earnshaw coming. Well, well, if him an' thee once get
together, there'll nowt less than a thunderstorm skift ye, an' that I'll
warrant."
Earnshaw, coming up from the Bull tavern, met them as they turned the
corner of the pathway. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets, and
he wore his usual air of shiftless cheeriness.
"Blowing rain, I fancy," said Earnshaw, standing square across the path.
"Blowing fiddlesticks," snapped Nanny, who was in one of her worst
fratching moods. "Get out o' th' gate, Earnshaw, an' let busier folk
pass by. It's weel to be thee, or Witherlee here--nowt to do save put
hands i' pockets, an' tak 'em out again."
"Nay, now, tha'rt allus so bustling, Nanny. Tak life at a fair, easy
pace, say I, an' ye'll noan need Witherlee's pick an' shovel this side
o' three-score years an' ten. Hast heard th' news, like?"
The Sexton's wife could not resist that simple query. "News? What's
agate?" she said, half turning about.
"Why, th' Wildwater farm-lads is getting past all. There's no day goes
by now, so Hiram Hey telled me, but what they come to words or blows wi'
th' Marsh lot. It means summat: like master, like man, an' I warrant
they've ta'en example fro' th' Lean Man hisseln. What mak o' chance
lies Shameless Wayne, that's what I want to knaw?"
"Tha wert up at Wildwater thyseln awhile back?" said the Sexton, still
with one eye on his wife.
"Ay, for sure. I war in an' amang 'em while I war doing yond walling
job for th' Lean Man; an' they war allus clevering then about what th'
Ratcliffes war bahn to do, an' allus striving to pick a quarrel wi' ony
o' th' Marsh lads 'at came handy. I tak no sides myseln----"
"I'll warrant tha doesn't. He'd nearly as lief wark as fight, wod
slack-back Earnshaw," put in Nanny.
"Well," cried Witherlee, "yond lad at Marsh is making as grand a fight
as ony Wayne that's gone afore him, an' we're all fain, I reckon, to see
him win i' th' end.--What say ye, Mistress?" he broke off, turning to
the little woman who sat apart, hearkening to their gossip but taking no
share in it.
"He will win, Sexton," she answered quietly. "Dost doubt it?"
Nanny softened for a moment, as she, too, glanced at Mistress Wayne.
"Not wi' ye beside him. By th' Heart, Mistress, but I'd be flaired for
Shameless Wayne if he'd no friend sich as ye to keep him fro' ill hap."
"Nay, I can do naught--save sit with hands in lap sometimes, and read
the future, and see Ned moving safe through bloodshed and through glint
of swords."
"Do nowt?" echoed the Sexton's wife. "Ye said as mich when Bet Earnshaw
axed ye to go an' touch her bairn. Did ye do nowt that day, Mistress,
or is it thanks to ye that th' little un mended fro' th' minute ye set
hand on her?"
"'Tis something that goes out of me--I know not what," murmured the
little woman. "It is strange, is it not, that such as I should have the
gift of healing when wise men have failed?"
"Book-learning never cured a cough, as they say i' Marshcotes," put in
Nanny.--"Who's that at th' moor-gate? Why, if it isn't Mistress
Ratcliffe herseln! My sakes, it's a full kirkyard this morn. What mud
she be after, think ye? She's hitching her horse to th' gate-post, mark
ye--an' now she's coming down wi' that long, lad-like stride o' hers, as
if she war varry full o' some business.--I'd rarely like to know what
brings her so far afield."
Janet stopped on seeing the chattering group of rustics, with Mistress
Wayne sitting quiet and motionless behind them; then, finding that
Earnshaw was among the gossips, the girl went down to him. The Sexton's
wife eyed her narrowly as she approached, and nodded her head with a
gesture which said, more plainly than words could have done, that beauty
and a free carriage were dust in the balance when weighed against the
damning fact that she was born a Ratcliffe.
"Earnshaw, I want thee to come and doctor that roan mare of mine," said
Janet.
"Doan't axe him to do owt he could call wark, Mistress," cried Nanny,
missing no opportunity to gibe. "Call it laking, an' he'll come like a
hare; but reckon it's wark, an' ye may whistle a twelve-month for him."
"Thee hod thy whisht, Nanny," Earnshaw interposed. "If there's a horse
to be physicked, Mistress Ratcliffe hes come to th' right man, choose
who hears me say 't."
"There's them as says tha wert born i' a stable, Earnshaw, an' I can
weel believe it; bred an' born, I reckon, for tha'd walk further to see
a horse nor to sup a quart of ale--an' that's saying a deal. Now,
Witherlee, art coming, or shall I hev to sweep thee indoors wi' a
besom?"
Nanny, her temper no wise improved on learning that Janet's errand
promised so little mystery, carried off Witherlee without more ado.
Earnshaw could find no good excuse to linger after he had discussed the
roan mare's ailments with Janet; and he, too, passed up the graveyard
and out at the top gate. The girl was about to follow him and ride home
again, when Mistress Wayne called to her.
"Come hither, Mistress. I have somewhat to say to thee," she cried,
motioning the girl to the seat beside her.
Janet, who had last seen her, a wind-driven waif, come wailing into the
Wildwater hall, was startled by the change in her--by the wild grief in
her blue eyes, and the resolution in her baby face. Without a word she
took the proffered seat, wondering what Mistress Wayne could find to say
to her.
"I saw you come in at the wicket, and I knew you," said the other
presently. "It is so strange, girl; all has come back to me in a wave,
and I remember faces--dead faces, some of them; and some again are
living, and beautiful like yours. I want to talk with you of Ned--him
they call Shameless Wayne."
Janet glanced at her in surprise. A faint colour crept over her brow.
"You--you know, then?" she murmured.
"Yes, I know. Often--in the days when I could only half understand--Ned
talked of you to me; and I recall now that, before the troubles came,
you used to meet him up by the kirk-stone. Dear, I cannot let you both
go into the pitiless marshes, as I have done. He loves you----"
"Ay, a little less than he loves his pride," said Janet bitterly.
"Some day he will love you more." She clutched the girl's arm eagerly.
"None knows but I how bitter the struggle has been for him. He is mad,
mad, to let good love slip from him while he grasps at shadows. _I_ had
a man's love once, girl, and I threw it aside, and--God pity all who let
the gift go by."
Tears were crowding thick to the eyes of Mistress Wayne--warm,
heart-healing tears which had been denied her until now. A sudden
compassion seized Janet, and under the pity a gladness that Wayne of
Marsh had found the struggle bitter as she could have wished it.
"He loves me, say you? Say it again, Mistress; 'tis the pleasantest
speech I've heard these long days past," cried the girl.
"He is wearying for you--wearying for you. Hark ye, dear! I cannot let
you drift apart. Come with me back to Marsh, and I'll make all smooth
between you--ay, though Ned strives with all his might against us."
Janet smiled and shook her head. "That is a little more, methinks, than
the most love-sick maid would do. Bring him to me, and I will welcome
him----"
"Nay, life is so short, so very short. See, I'm but a child yet, and
impatient, and all my heart is set on giving Ned his happiness, because
he cared for me when there was none else to befriend me. I'm sure
'twill all come right: Ned has gone riding up the moor, but he'll be
home by now, and we can----"
"Up the moor, say ye?" cried Janet, with sudden misgiving. "Which road
took he, Mistress?"
"To Bents Farm, I think he said. He was to have gone yesterday, but was
hindered."
Janet sprang to her feet and stood looking down on Mistress Wayne.
This, then, was the end of her wise scheme; this was the fruit of all
her care for him. And in her recklessness she had bidden the Lean Man
take three other Ratcliffes to meet him by the way.
"What is't?" asked Mistress Wayne, wonderingly.
"What is't?" cried Janet, with a hard laugh. "Naught, Mistress--save
that I've murdered one who was dearer to me than my own body."
Turning, she ran up the path, and out at the wicket, and tugged at her
horse's bridle, which she had fastened to the gate-post, so hard that it
broke between her hands. And fast as they galloped across the moor,
toward Bents Farm, the pace seemed sluggish when measured by her
thoughts. Was it too late? Was Wayne already lying face to sky, with
lids close-shut over the eyes that would see neither sky nor moor again?
Nay, it should not be, it must not be.
_Gallop_. She would ride into the thick of them, and somehow pluck him
from between their blades; they dared not strike a woman, one of their
own kin, and while she held them off Wayne might compass his escape.
Yet she knew it was too late, and again the picture came before her,
clear in its every detail, of the quiet body and the upturned face that
would be lying somewhere on this same road to Bents. Each turn of the
way was a hell to her, because of what might lie beyond, each turning
safely past was heaven. _Gallop_. There was yet time.
She neared the dip of Hoylus Slack and heard the sound of hoof-beats in
the hollow. It was done, then; the strain was over, and there was no
room for hope. Was this Red Ratcliffe, come to bear news to Marsh that
its Master was dead? If so, she would gallop her horse against his, and
snatch for his weapon as they fell together. The horseman was half up
the hill now, and a great cry broke from her as she saw the blunt,
rugged face with the kerchief tied across the brow. Pulling her beast
back almost on to his haunches, she stood and waited till the horseman
topped the rise and came to a sudden halt at sight of her.
"Ned, Ned, art safe?" she cried, reining in close beside him.
Wayne of Marsh eyed her soberly. "Safe? Ay. Wilt sorrow or be glad of
it, Mistress Janet?"
"Cease mockery!" she pleaded. "See, I would think shame to confess it
at another time, but all the way from Marshcotes I have sickened at
thought of--God's pity, Ned, what might have chanced!"
"Well, enough has chanced, I fancy, for one morning's work. If a ripped
forehead, that scarce will let me see for bleeding through the
kerchief----"
"Stoop, Ned. Thou hast tied it ill, and my fingers are better at the
work."
She was glad of the least labour she could do for him; he might be
churlish, he might accept her service as if it were a penance, but he
was safe, and free to treat her as he would. Shrinking a little when the
bandage was loosened, she glanced at the wound and noted its discoloured
look.
"Bide awhile," she said, slipping to the ground. "Thou'lt have trouble
with it, Ned, unless I lay fresh peat on it to drive out the bad
humours."
"'Twill heal of itself; I would not trouble thee," he muttered. It was
a nice, bewildering point of honour to Wayne of Marsh, this acceptance
of aid from Ratcliffe hands, and he spoke with scant civility.
But Janet was back already with a handful of the warm red mould, and she
bade him get down from saddle that she might the better fasten on the
bandage.
"Now tell me. How didst come through it, Ned?" she asked, tying a
second knot in the kerchief.
"That is what I cannot tell thee. They met me, four of them, where the
road is narrow up by Dead Lad's Rigg."
"Ay, four of them. God give me shame," murmured Janet.
"I heard the Lean Man bid them stand aside and leave us to it, and after
that I knew no more till he and I were lunging each at the other. He
knocked my sword up at the last, and lifted his own blade to strike----"
"Yes, yes, go on. What then, Ned?"
"Nay, I told thee I could give no right answer. Just as I had given all
up--with a thought, it may be, of one who had been forbidden--the Lean
Man's arm dropped to his side, and he sprang back in the saddle, all but
unseating himself."
"But, Ned, I cannot credit it. Didst thou make no movement to drive him
back?"
"None, for 'twas all done in a flash, and he might have split my skull
in two if he had brought down that great blade of his."
"Was there naught, then, to occasion it?"
"Naught that I could see, yet he backed as if the fiend were at his
throat. His own folk were no less puzzled than I, but his terror ran
out to them and held them; and when I made at him afresh not one rode
forward."
"Didst--didst not kill him?" she said. Any but the Lean Man he might
slay, but her grandfather--nay, she could not brook that when faced so
suddenly with the chance of it.
"I did not," answered Wayne grimly--"for the reason that he fled."
Again she stared at him. "_Fled_? Grandfather fled, say'st thou?"
"Did I not say that there was Ratcliffe pride in thee? Ay, plain in thy
voice, and in thy little faith that the Lean Man could flee. Yet so it
is, Janet; and I made after him almost to the gates of Wildwater; and if
his had not been the better horse----"
"Then whence came this ugly gash of thine? 'Tis all a puzzle, Ned, and
my late fear for thee has dulled my wits, I think."
"Why, his folk came after me in half-hearted fashion, and I had to ride
through the three of them when I turned back for Wildwater. I took this
cut in passing, and he who gave it me will go lame for the rest of a
short life; and then they, too, made off, daunted by the old man's
panic, and I was left to wonder what goblin had come between Nicholas
Ratcliffe's blade and me."
"He has been strange of late--ever since the night when he came down to
burn thee out of Marsh. Some illness has taken him; it was the fire
that did it, may be, when he fell face foremost into it."
They stood awhile, neither breaking the strained silence. Then Janet
touched the bandage lightly, and smoothed it a little over the
close-cropped hair, and, "Ned," she whispered, "thou said'st something
just now. _With a thought of one who had been forbidden_. Who was it,
Ned?"
Very grave he was; not rough now, nor uncivil, but sad with the sadness
that old hatreds, formed before his birth, had woven for him.
"Who should it be but thou, Janet? I told myself in that one moment how
well I loved thee--and I was glad. And then some strange thing warded
death from me--and, see, the feud stands gaunt as ever between us two."
The reaction from her late dread was stealing over Janet fast, and with
it there came the memory of how she had brought him into this desperate
hazard, from which a miracle alone had saved him.
"Ned," she cried, "who bade the Lean Man take three of his folk against
thee, think'st thou? Who told them thou would'st ride to Bents Farm
to-day?"
"Red Ratcliffe, at a venture."
"Nay, it was I. Thinking to keep thee safe, I said thou would'st go to
Bents to-day instead of yestermorn. So thy wound, Ned, was all of my
giving, and--why dost not hate me for it?" she finished, with a passion
that ended in a storm of tears.
Wayne set both arms about her then, and strove to comfort her; angry he
had seen her, and scornful, but this sudden grief, so little like her,
and so unexpected, loosed all the harshness that he was wont to set
between them as a barrier when they met.
"Nay, Janet, never cry because of what might have chanced and did not,"
he whispered. "'Twas no fault of thine, lass, that I went to Bents
to-day."
A sour face showed over the wall that bounded the left hand of the
highway, and presently a pair of wide shoulders followed as Hiram Hey
began to climb over into the road.
"What in the Dog's name art doing here, Hiram?" cried his Master,
starting guiltily away from Mistress Janet.
"Nay, I like as I hed to look after some beasts i' th' High Pasture.
'Tis fine weather, Maister--but a thowt past mating-time, I should hev
said."
"Thy ears are big, Hiram, but my hands will cover them."
"Now, look ye! It hes been a failing o' mine wi' th' gentry iver sin' I
war a lad; I may speak as civil as ye please, an' I get looks as black
as Marshcotes steeple. An' all th' while I war nobbut thinking o' two
fond stock-doves that I fund nesting a three-week late up i' Little
John's wood."
Janet waited for no more, but beckoned Wayne to lift her to the saddle
and touched the roan mare with her whip.
"Is there danger for thee at Wildwater?" he whispered, clutching her
bridle. "If there be--I tell thee I'll not let thee go."
"Danger? Nay, if thou hadst failed to go to Bents, there might have
been; but now they'll think I warned them in good faith."
"But what of the bargain, Janet? The last time we met thou told'st me
of some bargain, made by the Lean Man, which touched thy welfare."
She paused, eager to toll him all; but a second glance showed her that
he was in no fit state just now to have more troubles thrust on him.
Even the effort of lifting her to saddle had blanched his face; the
cloth was reddening, too, about his forehead, and he swayed a little as
he held her rein. She must find a better time to tell him; for if he
learned what that grim bargain was which pledged her to his murderer, he
would run headlong against her folk, weak as he was, and find himself
outmatched.
"The bargain was of little consequence," she said. "There was a price
named for my hand--but such a price as none at Wildwater, I think, will
ever claim. There, Ned! Let go my bridle, for that hind of yours is
watching all we do."
Still he was not satisfied; but his hand slackened for a moment on the
rein, and Janet started forward at the trot. Once she turned, at the
bend of the road, and waved to him; and then the moor seemed emptied of
its sunlight on the sudden.
Wayne stood looking up the highway long after she had gone, and turned
at last to find Hiram's quiet grey eyes upon him.
"Well, Hiram? What art thinking of?" he said, with something between
wrath and grudging laughter in his voice.