Hawkhill Bog wi' wheat; that war all I hed i' mind. Soil's soil, choose
how ye tak it, an' ye cannot alter th' natur on 't. Theer! My thowts
do run on farming till I've getten no room seemingly for owt else; an' I
niver axed ye how ye came by this red coxcomb o' yourn."
Wayne glanced over Hiram's question as he put his foot in the stirrup.
He read the old fellow's meaning clear enough, and it angered him that
his love for Janet should be hinted at under cover of this slow
farming-talk.
"Soil's soil, Hiram," he said, "and I had as lief sow corn on yond stone
wall as look for any crop of kindliness from that dried heart of thine."
"Begow, he knows nowt about me an' Martha," chuckled Hiram, as his
Master rode down the highway. "My heart's as soft as butter nowadays;
but I wodn't let young Maister guess it.--Martha, now. I believe i'
going slow, an' that's gospel, but I'm getting flaired she'll slip me.
There's shepherd Jose, th' owd fooil, dangling at her apron-strings, an'
I'd be main sorry to see a lass like Martha so senseless as to wed him
just for spite.--Well, Martha's noan a Ratcliffe, thanks be, an' that's
more nor th' Maister can say o' yond leetsome wench fro' Wildwater.
She'll bring him trouble yet, as sure as I shall mow th' Low Meadow by
and by."
*CHAPTER XVII*
*THE DOG-DREAD*
A soft wind was fluttering from the edge of dark. The moon lay like a
silver sickle over Dead Lad's Rigg, watching the fading banners of the
sunset go down beneath the dark red-purple of the heath. No bird piped,
save the ever-moaning curlew; the reeds whispered one to another,
nodding their sleepy heads together; the voice of waters distant and of
waters near at hand sobbed drearily. Over all was the masterful silence
of the sky, that dread and mighty stillness of the star-spaces where the
hill-gods stretched tired limbs and slumbered. Full of infinite sweets
was the breeze, and the scent of heather mingled with the damp,
heart-saddening odour of marsh-weeds and of bog-mosses.
The Lean Man, prone in the heather with his eyes on the dying sunset,
felt every subtle influence of the hour. His life's grand failure had
been compassed, the first and last deep terror had laid its grip on him;
the wide moor, which had spoken of freedom once, was narrowed now to a
prison, whose walls of sky were creeping close and closer in upon him.
Man-like, he clothed his own dead passions--his love of fight, his
pitiless lust for vengeance--with all the majesty of larger nature;
man-like, he thought the moor's face darkened for his own tragedy, that
even the curlews thrilled with something of his own intimate and
tearless sorrow. What was this ghoul that had come, naught out of
nothingness, and chilled the life-blood in him? It was a phantom, yet a
hard reality--a thing of unclean vapours, yet stronger than if it had
plied a giant's sword with more than a giant's strength of arm.
Near must all men come, once in their lifetime, to that deep horror of
brain and heart when they stand, less and greater than their manhood, at
the gulf-edge which lies between them and the space that fathered them.
The Lean Man was peering over the gulf to-night, and the soul of him was
naked to the moor-wind. No groan, no little muttered protest escaped
him; for throat and lips were powerless, and the body that they served
stood far off from Nicholas Ratcliffe.
"The night wears late, grandfather. Will you not come home to
Wildwater?" said a low voice at his side.
He did not hear till the words had been twice repeated; then, starting
as if a rude hand had wakened him from sleep, he began to moisten dry
lips with a tongue as dry.
"Janet, what brings thee here?" he said hoarsely.
"Care for you, sir. You have been out of health, and I feared to leave
you so late on the moor lest sickness----"
He laughed brokenly. "Sickness--ay. I have been--not well. 'Twas
rightly spoken, girl."
His mood changed presently. The nearness of this girl, who alone had
touched his heart to deep and selfless love; the drear sympathy of the
gloaming heath; the swift and over-powering need of fellowship; all made
for the confession which he had kept close locked these many days.
"Sit thee down beside me, Janet. Thou'lt take no hurt from the warm
night. There, lass. And let me put an arm about thee--so. God's life,
how real thou art, after the boggart-company I've kept of late."
Her cheeks burned at thought of the poor requital she had given his
love; but she would not remember Wayne of Marsh, and she waited, her
grey eyes pitiful on his, until he should find words to ease his
trouble.
"We'll start far back, Janet," he said, slowly, "in the old days before
my father, or his father's father before him, had seen the light.
Ratcliffes were at feud then with Waynes, and both were busy sowing the
crop which generation after generation was to reap. The tale is old to
thee, but thou'lt not grudge to hear it all again?"
"Not that tale to-night, grandfather--any tale save that," pleaded the
girl.
But Nicholas did not hear her. "The tale," he went on, "is of how one
Anthony Ratcliffe, dwelling at Wildwater, rode down to Marsh to slay
Rupert Wayne. He found there only Wayne's young wife, and asked where
her goodman was. She would not answer; so Anthony Ratcliffe bade his men
heat a sword-blade in the fire till it was white, and had the lady of
Marsh stripped mother-naked, and marked a broad red scar all down her
body between each question and each refusal of an answer. But she would
not tell where Wayne had gone--not till she heard the steel hiss for the
fifth time on her tender flesh. And then she told that he was riding
home over Ludworth Slack; and they left her dying of her wounds."
"Hush, grandfather! I cannot bear it. Hark to the rushes yonder--and
the curlews--they've heard your tale, methinks."
"'Tis grim, lass, but what I have to tell thee is grimmer still, so bide
in patience. They got to horse again, Anthony Ratcliffe and his men,
and they met Wayne of Marsh on the road, riding home with his favourite
hound for company. They made at him, and the hound sprang straight and
true at Anthony's throat"--the Lean Man halted a moment and wiped the
sweat-drops from his forehead--"and nipped the life out of him. One of
his folk thrust a spear then through the dog's heart, and the rest fell
upon Wayne of Marsh and slew him."
Janet thought of another Wayne of Marsh who had lately been met in just
such a fashion up by Dead Lad's Rigg. "Go on, grandfather," she
whispered, in an awe-stricken voice.
"Mark well the end of the old tale, girl. A company of Wayne's
kinsfolk, riding near to Ludworth Slack soon after the Ratcliffes had
set off again for home, heard a hound's baying from across the moor;
they followed and the baying went on before them till they reached the
spot where Wayne lay dead--and beside him Anthony Ratcliffe, with
teeth-marks at his throat--and, a little way off, Wayne's hound, fast
stiffening."
The girl had heard the tale not once nor twice before; but it came with
a new force to-night, for every mention of the hound brought a spasm of
mortal anguish to the Lean Man's face, and in a flash she guessed his
secret.
"The hound was dead, mark ye," went on Nicholas, as if compelled to
dwell on details that he loathed; "yet the baying never ceased. No
round and honest bay it was, but ghostly, wild and long-drawn-out; and
it would not let them stay there, but took them on and on until they saw
the Ratcliffes far up ahead of them, climbing the hill toward Wildwater.
They galloped with a will then, and overtook them at a score yards from
the courtyard gate, and left but one alive, who won into safety after
desperate hazard."
The moon was silver-gold now and her rays fell coldly on the Lean Man's
head, on his twitching mouth and haunted eyes. The curlews never rested
from complaint, and the note of many waters seemed, to the girl's
strained fancy, the voice of the hound who had bayed, long centuries
ago, on Ludworth Slack.
"The one left alive took on the Wildwater line," said Nicholas, after a
long pause; "but he had the Dog-dread till he died, and his children had
it after him, and his children's children. For he, too, had heard the
dead hound baying up the moor, and its note was branded on his heart."
"And that is Barguest, grandfather," said Janet, creeping closer to him.
"That, lass, is Barguest. That is why the Marsh folk take _Wayne and
the Dog_ for their cry. The hound that slew old Anthony has dwelt with
the Waynes ever since; no peril comes nigh them, but he must warn them
of it: and sometimes he--" The Lean Man stopped, and put a hand to his
throat, and glanced at the fingers as if he looked for blood on them.
She gathered a little courage from his lack of it. "The tale is old as
yonder hills, and Barguest walks in legends only. Is it not so?" she
said, but with a tremour in her voice.
"I said as much, Janet, for nigh on three-score years. I cast out the
old dead fears, and laughed at the Waynes and their guardian hound--and
thou see'st to what I have come at last. It began when I nailed the
hand above the Marsh doorway; when Nanny Witherlee--God curse her--told
me I had crossed Barguest on the threshold. Still I laughed, though she
has the second-sight, they say; but the fear even then ran chill through
me. Thou know'st the rest, girl--how I have fought it, and cast it off,
and been conquered in the end. But none knows--not even thou, dear
lass--what sweat of terror has dripped from me by nights."
"I have guessed," she answered softly, "and have grieved for you more
than ever I told you of."
He was quiet for a space; then rose and began to walk up and down the
heather; and after that he dropped sullenly again to Janet's side. "Not
long since I met Shameless Wayne on Dead Lad's Rigg, and fought with
him," he went on. "I all but had him--my blade was lifted high to
strike--and then--out of the empty moor a great brown hound leaped up at
me. His jaws were running crimson froth, and his teeth shone white as
sun on snow, and he bayed--once--and then he had me by the throat."
"Sir, 'twas your fancy! I tell you, it was fancy," cried Janet wildly.
"Did Wayne see it, or Red Ratcliffe, or----"
"None saw it save I. Dost mind the tale of how my father died, Janet?
For dread of the Dog. 'Tis the eldest-born that sees it always, and
none beside.--Hark ye, he's baying across the marshland yonder! Fly,
girl--fly, I tell thee, lest he set his seal on thee in passing."
She stifled her own dread and pleaded with him--quietly, sanely, with
the tender forcefulness that only her kind can compass. He grew quieter
by and by, and set himself with something of his old force of will to
tell the tale to its end.
"I shall never shake it off again, Janet," he said. "Each day it has a
new sort of dread in waiting for me. Sometimes I am athirst and dare
not drink--the sound of water is frenzy to my wits----"
"Have any of the Wildwater dogs turned on you of late?" she asked, with
a sudden glance at him.
"Nay, lass! There's no key to the trouble there."
"Are you sure, sir? You recall how one of the farm-dogs ran mad a year
ago, and a farm-hand, trying to kill him, was bitten on the arm--and
again on the hand as he tried to snatch a hair as a cure against the
mad-sickness? He, too feared water----"
"Ay, and died of a sickness of the body, plain to be felt and known.
But what of me, girl? 'Tis a mind-sickness, this--a dumb,
soft-stepping, noiseless thing that flees if one stands up to it, only
to come back, and snarl, and grin, the moment the heart fails for
weariness. Come, we'll get us home, Janet. It has eased me a little to
tell thee of it--haply thou'lt help me make a last big fight."
"God willing, sir," she murmured, as she turned to walk beside him.
Once only he broke silence on the way to Wildwater. Stopping, he bared
his throat to the moonlight, and bade her look well at it, and watched
with anxious eyes as she obeyed.
"Canst--canst see the teeth-marks there?" he whispered.
"'Tis smooth, sir, without a scratch on 't."
"Pass thy hand over--lightly. I can feel the deep wound burn and
sting--surely thy fingers can feel the pit."
"There is no wound, grandfather--no wound at all."
He drew his breath again, and laughed, and, "Tell me again, dear lass,"
he said, "that it is fancy--naught but fancy."
"It is altogether fancy," she answered.
"Art tricking me?" he said with sudden suspicion. "Let me see thy
fingers, lass--the fingers that touched my throat."
She held her hand out to him. "There's no stain on them, sir. Have I
not told you?" she cried, striving to keep the terror from her voice as
best she could.
"Why, no," he whispered; "no stain at all. And yet----"
And after that they spoke no word until Wildwater gates showed dark in
front of them.
*CHAPTER XVIII*
*THE FEUD-WIND FRESHENS*
It was high summer now on Marshcotes Moor. Everywhere the farm-folk
were full of the busy idleness which comes when ploughing and sowing are
over and the crops are not yet ready for the scythe or sickle. The lads
found time to go a-courting in shaded lanes or up by the grey old
kirk-stone; their elders did much leaning over three-barred gates, with
snuff between a thumb and forefinger, while they talked of hay-harvest,
of the swelling of corn-husks in the ear, of the feud which had been so
hot in the spring and which now seemed like to die for want of fuel.
For a strange thing had chanced at Wildwater. The Lean Man, once
dauntless, had grown full of some unnamed terror; and, though his arm
seemed strong as ever and his body full of vigour, his brain was sapless
and inert. His folk came to him with fresh plans for slaying Wayne of
Marsh; and he turned a haunted eye on them, and said that naught could
kill the lad. The cloud which had hung over Marsh House had settled now
on Wildwater, and even the hot youngsters were chilled by a sense of
doom. If the Lean Man had given up hope, they said, what chance had
they of snaring Shameless Wayne?
And so the days went on, and the feud slumbered, and Janet was torn
between sorrow for her grandfather and gladness that his malady left
Wayne free from ambush or attack. Each day, indeed, seemed to bring
fresh trouble in its train; for Red Ratcliffe, dumbfounded as he had
been when their errand to Bents Farm had proved no wild-goose chase, was
yet distrustful of his cousin. She had spoken a true word that day, and
they had met Wayne; but there was some devilry hid under it, and haply
she knew enough of the Black Art which had saved her lover to be sure no
harm could come to him. Laugh at superstition as he might, Red
Ratcliffe had not been cradled in the winds and reared among the grim
wastes of heath for naught; he and his fellows were slow to acknowledge
witchcraft and the boggarts that stepped in moorside tales, but the
seed, once planted, found a rich soil and a deep in which to come to
leaf. Little by little he was growing to believe that Janet was the
cause of each discomfiture at Wayne's hands; and, while he let no chance
pass of railing on her for a witch, he uttered many a scarce-veiled
threat that soon he would throw all to the winds and hold her without
leave of the Lean Man or the Parson.
As for Shameless Wayne, he had ceased to wonder that no fresh attack was
made on him. He would die when Fate ordained, and nothing could alter
that; but the farm-work, meanwhile, at which he laboured as
distastefully and keenly as of old, was going grandly forward, and not
sour Hiram Hey himself could say that the land had gone backward since
he took the charge of it. Janet had been right when she named pride his
strongest passion; and even his love for her, self-thwarted, could not
rob him of a certain sober joy in raising crops in face of Ratcliffe
sword-points and the keen-toothed winds. It was all uphill nowadays for
Wayne of Marsh; and each new difficulty overcome gave him hard and sure
content such as no wild frolic of his earlier days had brought.
Yet the summer bore hardly on him when he thought of Janet. No
farm-hind but was free to couple with his mate; only the Master, it
seemed, was doomed to go lonely through these spendthrift days of sun
and warm south winds and ripening meadow-grass.
"Art gloomy, Ned, of late. Is it because the Ratcliffes scruple to come
down and fight with thee?" said his sister, as they sat in hall one
evening and watched the stir of bees among the roses that clambered up
the window-panes.
"Nay, for I am always fighting one of them--and never more than after a
week's idleness."
Her voice grew cold. "'Tis time thou didst turn from that--and time
Marsh had a mistress. Are there no maids, save one, about the
moorside?"
"None for me, nor ever will be. Besides, Marsh has its mistress;
thou'rt not going to leave us, Nell?"
"By and by I must. Rolf is getting out of hand, and will take the old
excuse no longer. Faith, I begin to think he loves me very dearly, for
every day he thwarts me more and more."
"Thy place is with him, after all, and I'm a fool to think to keep thee
here forever.--Where are the lads, Nell? Hunting still, I'll warrant."
"Ay. They are restless since they fought the Lean Man; each morning
they seem to start earlier for the chase, and sundown rarely sees them
home again."
"Well, it is making men of them. They are learning a shrewd turn of
fence, too, and when their time comes they will know how to parry
Ratcliffe cuts.--We wash the sheep to-morrow, Nell; wilt ride with me
and watch the scene? If a red sunset be aught to go by, we shall have a
cloudless day."
"To-morrow I cannot. 'Tis churning-day, Ned, and the butter is always
streaked when I leave those want-wit maids alone with it."
"It is better that thou should'st not go," said Wayne, after a pause.
"I was a fool to speak of it, Nell, for the washing-pools lie over close
to Wildwater, and 'twould be unsafe for women-folk."
"Unsafe?" she echoed, with a quick glance at him. "Then 'tis unsafe for
thee, Ned, and I'll not have thee go to the washing at all."
"That is folly, lass. I have a sword, and I carry less risks than a
maid would.--A rare holiday the men would have, my faith, if I left them
to wash the sheep at their own good pleasure."
"Take the lads with thee, then, if thou must go."
"I promised them they should go hawking until dinner-time, and after
that they must come up; but why spoil a morning's pastime for them?"
"The old tales fret at times," she answered gravely, "and to-night I'm
sad a little, Ned, like thee. The washing-pools lie near to Wildwater,
as thou say'st, and thou know'st how Waynes and Ratcliffes first fell
out."
"Tut! If I give heed to women's fancies, when shall I find an hour to
move abroad in? The Ratcliffes have got their fill for a good while to
come, and they'll keep well on the far side of the pools, I warrant.
What, Mistress? Thy wanderings have brought thee supperless indoors,"
he broke off, as his step-mother opened the door softly and set down a
basket of marsh-marigolds among the dishes and platters that cumbered
the great dining-table.
Nell rose with no word of greeting and left them; and Mistress Wayne,
glancing in troubled fashion after her, crossed to the window and leaned
against it.
"I had better have stayed as I was, Ned," she said, smiling gravely.
"Nell was growing kind--but that has passed now I have found my wits
again."
He winced; for he knew that he, too, had felt less kindliness toward her
since her helplessness had gone. Looking at her now, frail against the
mullioned casement, he could not but remember that it was she, in her
right mind as she was now, who had fouled the good fame of his house.
"Ay, and _thou_ hast a touch of her aloofness, too," she went on. "I
can read it in thy face, Ned.--Listen. I've had in mind to tell thee
something these days past, but have never found the words for it. I
wronged thy father--but not as deeply as thou think'st. Ned! Canst not
think what it meant to me--the dreariness, the cold, the hardness of
this moorland life? And when Dick Ratcliffe came, and promised to take
me out of it----"
"See, Mistress, there's naught to be gained by going over the old
ground," he interrupted harshly.
"But, Ned, there is much to be gained. Am I so rich in friends that I
can let one as staunch as thou go lightly? Thou'rt midway between hate
and love of me, I know, and if--Ned, if I were to tell thee I was less
to blame--" She stopped and eyed him wistfully.
It was not in Shameless Wayne to resist this sort of pleading from one
who had shared with him the bitter months of disfavour and remorse.
They had been comrades in adversity, he and she; and was he to turn on
her now because she could no longer claim pity for her witlessness?
"Thou need'st tell me naught, little bairn," he said.
"Ah, but I need! I was dying, Ned--dying for lack of warmth. And Dick
Ratcliffe promised to take me into shelter; and I clutched at the chance
greedily, as a prisoner would if one came and offered him liberty. But
the wrong that Wayne fancied of me, when he found us in the orchard, I
had never thought to do--never, dear. I was a child, and loved
Ratcliffe because he showed me a way out of trouble; and I meant to go
away with him because--how shall I tell thee, so as to make thee credit
it? I had not a thought of--Ned, I was not wicked, only tired--tired,
till I had no eyes to see the straight road, nor heart to follow it. I
was hungering for warmth; the ghosts were so busy all about Marsh House,
and I wanted the happy valleys, out of reach of the curlew-cries and the
shuddering midnight winds."
Wayne put an arm about her. "It was worth telling, bairn," he said
quietly, "and father would lie quieter if he knew that his honour had
not gone so far astray."
"Thou'lt still keep a friend to me?" she whispered.
The gloom settled more heavily upon his face. "Thou talk'st as if I
were thy judge," he said. "'Twas only in seeming thou didst the worst
wrong to father--but what of me? Did I look so carefully to his honour?
Or was it his own eldest-born who darkened his last days, who made his
name a by-word up and down the country-side, who drank while a kinsman
fought the vengeance-fight for him? Not if I work to my life's end to
wipe off the stain, will it come clean."
"'Tis cleansed already, Ned, twice over cleansed--and there's one
waiting who will give thee thanks for it. I met her not long since in
the kirkyard, and I never saw love so plain on a maid's face." Her
voice was eager, and the words came fast, as if she had given long
thought to the matter.
"Mistress Ratcliffe, thou mean'st?" said Wayne, after a silence. "What
ails thee, bairn, to be so hot for this unlikely wedding?"
"Because she is straight and strong, and full of care for thee; because,
when an ill chance led me once to Wildwater, it was she who took pity on
me and showed me a safe road to Marsh. Ned, she is the one wife in the
world for thee; why wilt thou cling to the old troubles?"
He shook his head. "The troubles are new that stand 'twixt Janet and
myself--and any day may bring forth more of them."
"Thy folk will be her folk, if thou'lt take her," she broke in eagerly.
"She lives among rough men--there's danger every hour for her."
Mistress Wayne had struck the right note at last. Half willing as he
was to be convinced, and imbued with the sense that the fairy-kist could
give no wrong advice, he would yet have held obstinately to his old
path. But he took fire at the suggestion that there was danger to the
girl at Wildwater. Now and then a passing fear of it had crossed his own
self-poised outlook on the situation; but a hint of it from another
roused all his smouldering jealousy and passion.
"Danger? Of what?" he cried.
But Mistress Wayne had no time to answer; for the door opened on the
sudden and the four lads came tumbling into hall, piling the fruits of
their long day's sport in a heap against the wall.
"A rare day we've had, Ned!" cried Griff. "Ay, we're late for supper,
but thou'lt not grudge it when thou see'st how many other suppers we've
brought home to larder."
Wayne looked at the heap of grouse and snipe, conies and hares and
moor-cock. "Well, fall to, lads," he laughed, "and I'll save my
scolding till ye're primed against it.--Are ye still bent on hawking
to-morrow, after this full day's sport?"
"Ay, are we!" cried Griff. "We're but the keener set to have another
day of it."
"Then go; but mind ye come straight up to the washing-pool after dinner.
'Tis time ye learned the ways of farming."