"My courtesy takes no account of such as ye," he answered bluntly.
"Think awhile!" went on the other gently. "These pools were made for
Waynes and Ratcliffes both in the days before there was bad blood
between us. 'Tis our right as well as yours to use it when we will."
"And when we will. First come, first served.--Come, lads, ye're
loitering, and half the sheep are yet unwashed," he broke off, turning
to the farm-men.
Red Ratcliffe's face darkened. "The old wives say, Wayne of Marsh, that
the first feud sprang up at this very spot, because it chanced that the
Marsh and the Wildwater ewes came on the same day to the washing. I
would have no lad's blood on my hands, for my part, so bear the old tale
in mind, and give us room."
Wayne had his sword loose all this time, and his eyes, even when they
seemed to rove, were never far from Red Ratcliffe's movements. "Your
talk, sir, wearies me," he said. "Ye mean to strike, seven against
one.--Well, strike! I'm waiting for you, with a thought of what chanced
once in Marshcotes kirkyard to keep my blood warm."
The Ratcliffes were daunted a little by the downright, sturdy fashion of
the man; and for a moment they hung back, remembering how Wayne of Marsh
had met them time and again with witchcraft and with resistless
swordplay. One looked at another, seeking denial of the folly which
could credit Wayne with power to match the seven of them.
"Where is the Lean Man to-day? 'Tis strange he comes not to the
sheep-washing," said Wayne of Marsh, as still they halted.
"He would not trouble," snarled Red Ratcliffe. "'Twas butchery, he
said, for a man of his years to fight with such a callow strippling."
Wayne smiled with maddening coolness. "That is a lie, Ratcliffe the
Red. He dared not come. The last I saw of him, he was riding
hard--with my sword-point all but in his back. Well? Am I to wait till
nightfall for you, or are ye, too, minded to turn tail?"
Stung by the taunt, Red Ratcliffe spurred forward on the sudden, and his
comrades followed with a yell; and even sour Hiram Hey sent up a
half-shamed prayer that the Master might come through this desperate
pass with safety. Hiram, as a practical man and one who dealt chiefly
with what he could see and handle, was wont to use prayer as the last
resource of all; and his furtive appeal was witness that he saw no hope
of rescue--no hope of respite, even--for his Master.
But Jose the shepherd had not been idle during that brief pause between
Wayne's challenge and the onset of the Ratcliffes. He had watched
Hiram's attempt to send a warning down the slope; and while the storm
grew ripe for breaking, he bethought him that there were those about
Wayne of Marsh who might yet serve him at a pinch. To one hand of the
Ratcliffes were the ewes, ten-score or so, which they had brought to
give colour to their quarrel; about the shepherd's knees were his two
dogs, the canniest brutes in the moorside. A few calls from Jose, in a
tongue that they had learned in puppyhood, a sly pointing of his finger
at the Ratcliffe sheep, and the dogs rushed in among the huddled,
bleating mass. The sheep were for making off across the moor, but Jose
the shepherd shouted clear above the feud-cries of the Ratcliffes, and
worked his dogs as surely as if this were no more than the usual
business of the day; in a moment the flock was headed, turned, driven
straight across the strip of moor that lay between Wayne and his
adversaries.
Quickly done it was, and featly; and just as the Ratcliffes swept on to
the attack, the ewes ran pell-mell in between their horses' feet. The
dogs, wild with their sport, followed after and snapped, now at the
sheep, now at the legs of the bewildered horses. Two of the Wildwater
folk were unhorsed forthwith; three others were all but out of saddle,
and needed all their wits to keep their beasts in hand; and Shameless
Wayne, watching the turmoil from the hillock where he stood firm to meet
the onset, laughed grimly as he jerked the curb hard down upon his own
beast's jaw.
"I thowt 'twould unsettle 'em a bittock," murmured Jose the shepherd,
stroking his chin contentedly while he watched the ewes driven further
down the hill, leaving clear room between his Master and the rearing
horses of the Ratcliffes.
"Dang me, why didn't I think on 't myseln!" cried Hiram Hey. "It war
plain as dayleet, an' yond owd fooil Jose 'ull mak a lot of his
cleverness when next he goes speering after Martha. Ay, I know
him!--That's th' style, Maister!" he broke off, with a sudden, rousing
shout. "In at 'em, an' skift 'em afore they've fund their seats again."
Wayne had seen his chance, and taken it; and now he was riding full tilt
at the enemy, over the pair of fallen horsemen. Red Ratcliffe cut at him
in passing, and missed; the rest were overbusy with their horses to do
more than raise a clumsy guard; Wayne galloped clean through them,
swirling his blade to the right hand and the left, and in a
breathing-space, so it seemed to Hiram and the shepherd, the free moor
and safety lay before him.
"Now, God be thanked, he's through, is th' lad!" cried Hiram. "Lord
Harry, he swoops an' scampers fair like a storm-wind out o' th' North."
But Wayne would not take the plain road of flight; partly his blood was
up, and partly he feared for the safety of his farm-hinds if he left
them to play the scapegoat to these red-headed gentry. He wheeled
about, and the discomfited horsemen, seeing him bear down a second time,
were mute with wonder. But their fury was keen sharpened now; they
glanced at the two fallen riders, trampled beneath Wayne's hoofs; they
heard one of their comrades cursing at a wound that Wayne had given him
as he rode through; a moment only they halted for surprise, and then,
with a deafening yell of _Ratcliffe!_ they closed in a ring about him.
"Five to one now. Come, the odds lessen fast," cried Wayne, as he
pulled up and seemed to wait their onset.
But he knew that flight was hopeless if he let the full company attack
him front and rear. One glance he snatched at the open moor behind, and
one at the walled enclosure where the sheep had lately been herded for
the washing.
"God's life, I'll trick them yet," he muttered, and reined sharp about,
outwitting them, and rode hard as hoofs could kick up the peat toward
the shelter of the walls.
"Is he a Jack-o'-Lanthorn, this fool from Marsh?" growled Red Ratcliffe,
foiled a second time.
He thought that Wayne was trusting to his horsemanship, that he would
double and retreat and glance sideways each time they made at him in
force, hoping to get a blow in as occasion offered. But Wayne of Marsh
had no such idle play in mind; he was seeking only for sure ground on
which to stand and meet them one by one. He had marked the opening in
the pinfold through which the sheep were driven, and he knew that, if he
could once gain the wall, the battle would narrow to a run of single
contests.
They saw his aim too late; and as Red Ratcliffe swerved and swooped on
him, Wayne backed his horse with its flanks inside the pinfold. He had
four stout walls behind him now; the uprights of the gateway were no
more than saddle-high, and above them he had free space for arm and
sword-swing. It was one against five still--but each of the five must
wait his turn, and each must fare alone against the blade which, to the
Ratcliffe fancy, was a live, malignant thing in the hand of this
witch-guarded lad of Marsh.
Again the red-heads fell back, while the Marsh farm-folk, roused by the
Master's pluck, sent up a ringing cheer. And Shameless Wayne, who had
chafed under long weeks of farming, laughed merrily to feel his
sword-hilt grafted to his hot right hand again, to know that he had cut
off retreat and that five skilled swordsmen were at hand to give him
battle.
"God rest you, sirs. Wayne and the Dog are waiting," he cried, and
laughed anew to mark how they shrank from the old battle-cry.
But Red Ratcliffe, seeing his brave scheme like to go the way of other
schemes as promising, lost doubts and shrinking on the sudden. Man to
man, he was Wayne's equal, and this time he would settle old
scores--would go back to the Lean Man with his tale, and claim Janet as
the fruit of victory. A thought of the girl's beauty ran across his
mind, a swift, unholy sense that it would be sweeter to take her thus,
unwilling and by force, than if she had consented to his wooing; and the
thought steadied heart and nerve, while it lent him fierce new strength.
No cry he gave, but made straight at Wayne and cut across his
head-guard. Wayne shot his blade up, withdrew it, and thrust keenly
forward; and Ratcliffe parried; and after that the fight ran hot and
swift.
Steel met steel; the blades hissed, and purred, and shivered; up and
down, in and out, the blue-grey lightning ran. The men's breath came
hard, their eyes were red with prophecy of blood; their faces, that in
peace showed many a subtle difference of breeding and of courtesy, were
strangely like now, set to a strained fierceness, the veins upstanding
tight as knotted whipcord. Sons of the naked Adam, they fought with
gladdening fury; and the naked beast in them rose up and snarled between
clenched, gleaming teeth. Their very horses--that are full as men of
niceties overlaid by breeding--went back to their old savagery, and bit
one at the other, and added their shrill cries to the men's raucous
belly-breaths.
The farm-folk held their breath and watched. The Ratcliffes, clustered
in a little knot, followed each steel-ripple, each cut and counter-cut,
and forgot for the moment to take sides from very love of swordsmanship.
And then Wayne knocked the other's blade high up in air, and would have
had him through the breast had Red Ratcliffe not jerked his left hand on
the curb and dragged his horse round into safety. Wayne could not
pursue, even had he been minded to leave his shelter, for another
Ratcliffe was on him now, offering fight as stubborn as the first.
"My breath will fail," thought Wayne, and redoubled the swiftness of his
blows, and cut his man deep through the rib-bones.
But there were three left yet, and Red Ratcliffe, smarting under his
defeat, had brought guile to help him where force had failed. While the
sword-din began afresh, and again Wayne settled to the desperate
conflict, Red Ratcliffe got to ground, picked up the sword that had been
ripped from out his grasp, and crept softly to the far edge of the
pinfold.
"'Tis child's play, after all," he thought. "Lord, how the rogue
fights, with never a thought that he can be taken in the rear."
Wayne--forcing the battle with all his might, lest breath should
fail--could get no nearer to his man as yet; and meanwhile Red Ratcliffe
had gained the wall behind him and was throwing one leg over.
"He cannot keep it up, can't th' lad," murmured Hiram Hey. "Sakes, I've
a mind to run in myseln an' do summat--though I mun be crazy to think on
't.--Hallo, what's agate wi' Red Ratcliffe? He looks pleased-like, an'
he's getten off his horse. Oh, that's it, is't? Well, I can do a bit
o' summat, happen, after all."
Hiram moved briskly up to the pinfold and reached the hinder wall just
as Red Ratcliffe was climbing over it; he set a pair of arms about his
middle, as he had done to one of the Wildwater farm-folk not long ago,
and put his muscle into the lift, and brought his enemy with a thud on
to the peat five yards away.
"Fair play's a jewel ye've niver learned th' price on at Wildwater," he
said quietly. "Ye war for sticking th' Maister i' th' back, as ye could
no way meet him i' front? Well, there's two opinions about ivery
matter, an' mine's th' reet un this time, I'm thinking. 'Twar a
Providence, it war, that yond hind o' thine came in to th' Friendly
tavern yesterneet; he braced me fine for hoicking feather-weights ower
my shoulder, like."
The shepherds looked at Hiram, and then at Red Ratcliffe, who was
lifting himself in dazed sort to a sitting posture; it was plain they
needed but the one word to close round and stamp the life out of this
treacherous hound who could aim to strike from behind when Wayne had
proved his match in open fight. But Hiram had an old grievance to
straighten--a grievance that had rankled ever since Red Ratcliffe
interrupted his courtship on a long-dead day of spring--and he paid no
heed to his comrades' meaning glances.
"So, Maister; ye fooiled me once on a time, as ye called to mind just
now--an' now I've fooiled ye," said Hiram, stroking his frill of beard
and watching Red Ratcliffe's lowering face.
"And, by Wayne's cursed Dog, the third time shall pay for all," snapped
the other, making a second effort to stand upright.
"Mebbe, but I'm fain to hev squared th' reckoning, choose what comes.
Ay, it war grand, warn't it, to get Hiram Hey to tell ye how mich ling
an' bracken there war at Marsh, an' th' varry spot it war stored in? Ye
went home fetching a rare crack o' laughter, I'll be bound, an' ye came
that varry neet to mak use o' what I telled ye. What, ye're dizzy sick?
An' I'm laughing. An' that's how th' world allus wags wi' them as
thinks to best Hiram Hey."
Red Ratcliffe shook off his dizziness, and snatched a dagger from his
belt. "Thou foul-mouthed sot, I'll teach thee to set thyself against
thy betters," he cried.
Hiram stood, sturdy and stiff; he knew there was little chance for him,
but still he hoped to come to grips with his assailant and crush his
ribs in before he could compass a clean stroke with the dagger. He
feared the upshot not at all, and even as he waited he smiled in his old
sour fashion to think that he had settled his own private cause of
quarrel with Red Ratcliffe. The wind, freshening from the west, brought
up a sound of shouting with it; but Hiram had no eyes for what was
chancing on the far side of the pinfold.
"Begow, I shall niver be wedded now to Martha," he thought; "a chap
_can_ go too slow, 'twould seem. Ay, well, I shall be saved a power o'
worry, doubtless, an' wedlock's noan all cakes an' ale, they say. But,
lord, I'd right weel hev liked to try it for myseln."
The fight at the pinfold was waxing keener all the while; but Shameless
Wayne was hard-pressed now, and the first twinges of arm-tiredness were
cramping his strokes a little. Yet his laugh rang deep as ever, and the
sweetness of each stroke was doubled, since each must be near his last.
One thought only held him, and that was a thought of pride--pride that
he would die in the mid-day open, righting the old Wayne battle.
"He gives, he gives!" cried one of the two horsemen who were left to
take their turn.
"Does he give?" panted Wayne, and made the quick cross-cut, following a
straight lunge, which his father had taught him long ago.
The stroke told, and his opponent's bridle-arm dropped heavy to his
side; but still he fought on, and still his comrades watched, eager to
take his place the moment he fell back. Then Wayne was touched on the
neck, and again on the side, just as Red Ratcliffe roused himself to
leap on Hiram Hey.
Shameless Wayne in front, and Hiram, with whom he had waged many a
stubborn contest, on the far side of the pinfold--it seemed that master
and man would go out of life together, each dauntless, each proud in his
own hard way, each ready, doubtless, to turn on the further shore of
Death and take up some interrupted quarrel touching farm-matters--yet
each dying because he had stayed to save the other when flight had been
full easy.
Shepherd Jose, not caring to see such matters as he knew must follow,
turned a pair of dim eyes down the slope, and started, and clutched his
neighbour by the arm.
"In time--by th' Heart, in time!" he cried.
As if in answer to him, a swift, clear shout came up the moor, over the
sun-bright sweep of ling.
"_Wayne and the Dog_. Hold to it, Ned! Hold to it."
Wayne knew the boyish voices, and his heart leaped, but he dared not let
his eyes wander until the cry had been thrice repeated, until his
adversary had given back for dread of the new foe. Red Ratcliffe, at
the same moment, stopped half toward Hiram Hey, turning his eyes on the
upcoming horsemen; then he raced for his horse, and sprang to saddle,
and joined his hesitating band of comrades.
"Begow, that's a let-off, an' proper," said Hiram Hey, scarce
comprehending yet that he was safe.
For a moment a silence as of night held the Ratcliffes, while they
watched the four Wayne lads charge gaily up the slope, plucking their
swords free of the scabbard as they rode.
"On to them; they'll break at the first onset," muttered Red Ratcliffe,
and galloped down to meet them.
For the first time Shameless Wayne's heart grew soft and his nerve weak.
They were over young, these lads who had been left to his care, to fight
with grown men; what if one of them were slain in saving the life he had
gladly given up a while since? But that passed; breathing again, he
felt new strength in his arm, and as he crashed headlong in at the rear
of the down-sweeping band, he swore that this thing should not be.
"Wayne and the Dog!" cried Griff, as he made at the foremost Ratcliffe.
"Wayne and the Dog!" roared Ned from the rear, and cleft the nearest
Ratcliffe through the skull. And even as he wrenched his blade free, he
laughed to mark with what elderly and sober glee these youngsters waged
their maiden battle.
Front and rear the Ratcliffes were taken. Confused, hard pressed on
every side, their blows grew wilder and more flurried. But still they
held to it, and Wayne's four brothers had cause to thank the hard,
monotonous hours they had spent in learning tricks of fence.
All was changed on the sudden. There had been quick breathing of
striving swordsmen, and quiet, deep breaths of silent watchers--a quiet
which Hiram Hey's conflict at the far side of the pinfold had scarce
ruffled. But now it seemed as if Bedlam had let loose a second strife
of tongues. The farm-men, maddened by the sight of blows, ran in at one
another and fought for Wildwater or for Marsh. The dogs played
Merry-Andrew with the sheep, and scattered them wide across the moor,
and still pursued them. Cries of men, bleating of bewildered ewes, wild
barking of dogs a-holydaying--and then, clear above all, Griff's shrill
cry, "They flee, they free!"--and after that three flying horsemen
steering a zig-zag course through sheep and dogs and wrestling
farm-folk.
And over all was the splendour of the mid-day sun, the wind among the
ling, the deep, unalterable silence that lies forever at the moor's
heart, whether men live or die, whether they fight or drink in peace
together. Only the plover heeded the swift fight, and screamed their
plaudits to the victors.
*CHAPTER XX*
*HOW THEY WAITED AT THE BOUNDARY-STONE*
Red Ratcliffe, and the two who had come through the fight with him,
checked their headlong gallop when at last the pursuit died far in their
wake. Their shoulders were bunched forward, their heads downcast; and
not till the surly pile of Wildwater showed half a league from them
across the moor did they break silence.
"There'll be a queer welcome for us from the Lean Man," said one.
"Ay, he'll shake off his palsy when we come to him with the tale of four
men left behind us," answered Red Ratcliffe gloomily. "Lord, how his
lip will curl! And his eyes will prick one like a sword-point, cold and
bright and grey. And he'll flay our tempers raw with gibes."
"Still, there's but one of the four killed outright; and when those
boggart-shielded Waynes have left, we can return to help the wounded.
They'll not butcher them, think'st thou?"
"Nay," sneered the third; "'tis part of their foul pride to play the
woman after victory. Like as not they'll set them on some grassy
hillock, with a wall to shield the sun from them, and give them drink,
and nurse them into health against the next fight."
"Nay, a month ago they would have done as much; but now? I doubt it,"
said Red Ratcliffe. "We've roughened Wayne at last, and I never knew
what flint there was under his courteous softness till I crossed blades
with him just now."
"And yond four lads have had their first taste of blood. I've known boys
do at such times what hardened men would shrink from."
"Well, they will kill the wounded, or they will not. 'Tis done by this
time, and we can have no say in it," put in Red Ratcliffe. "Od's life,
lads, I relish the look of Wildwater less the nearer we approach it," he
added, reining in his horse.
"What brought the lads up? Had they winded our approach, or was it just
the old Wayne luck?" said one of his comrades, halting likewise.
"Marry, there'll be an empty house at Marsh. What if we ride down
before the Master's coming and fire the dwelling from roof to cellar?"
Red Ratcliffe glanced quickly at him. "There's time for it, if we ride
at once," he muttered; "and something we must do for shame's sake."
"There'll be his sister there," said another, with a laugh; "trim
Mistress Nell, who gives us such open scorn whenever we cross her path.
She shall take scorn for scorn, full measure, if I get within reach of
her mouth. Come, lads, let's do it! Burn them out, and carry the girl
to Wildwater."
A craftiness crept into Red Ratcliffe's face--a craftiness that showed
him an apt pupil of the Lean Man's. "We'll waste no time on burning,
lest Wayne and his cursed Dog come back while yet we're gathering fuel,"
he broke in. "But we'll ride down and snatch the girl, and take her up
to Wildwater. Ay, and we'll lay no rough hand on her till Wayne has
learned her capture."
They nodded eagerly. "We shall save our credit yet. By the Heart, not
Nicholas himself could have hatched a bonnier plot," they cried.
"Ay, the game is ours," went on Red Ratcliffe slowly, as they turned and
rode at the trot for Marsh. "Those four ill-gotten youngsters have
saved him, he thinks--but he shall find that they have killed him twice
over by leaving Marsh unguarded.--The fool shall die once in his body
and once in the pride that's meat and bread to him. Hark ye! We'll
send down word that his sister is held at Wildwater, and he will come
galloping up and batter at the gates, all in his hot way, with never a
care of danger. We'll take him alive, and bring our dainty Mistress
Nell into the room where he lies bound--and there's a sure way then,
methinks, of racking his brain to madness before we pay him, wound for
wound, for what he's done to us."
His fellows drew back a little for a moment; the cool, stark devilry of
the plot shamed even them, who had dwelt with the Lean Man and never
hitherto found cause to blush. Then the thought of their defeat returned
on them, and their hearts hardened, and they offered no word of protest
or denial.
From time to time, as they rode, the leader of the enterprise laughed
quietly; from time to time he thought of some fresh subtlety whereby
Wayne's anguish would be sharpened; but not until they had covered half
the road to Marsh did he break silence. A little figure of a woman,
with corn-bright hair and delicate, round face, was standing in the
roadway, shading her eyes to look across the moor.
"'Tis the mad woman they keep at Marsh," said Red Ratcliffe lightly.
"We aimed once before at the Wayne honour through their women. The omen
speeds our journey."
Mistress Wayne started as they came up with her, and turned to fly, but
saw the folly of it. Keeping her place, she eyed them with the
watchful, mute entreaty of a bird held fast within the fowler's net.
Something in her helplessness suggested to Red Ratcliffe that he might
find a use for her; the weak, to his mind, were fashioned by a kindly
Providence to fetch and carry for the strong, and haply this mad
creature might aid him to get Nell Wayne to Wildwater. Turning the
fancy over in his mind, he stopped to question her.
"Well, pretty light-of-love? What wast gazing at so earnestly when we
came up?" he asked.
She answered quietly, with a touch of frightened dignity in her voice.
"I heard the sound of cries and shouting far across the heath awhile
since, and I feared there was trouble to my friends."
"A right fear, too. There _has_ been trouble, and your friends have
just learned a bloody lesson from us, Mistress," said Red Ratcliffe, for
mere zest in seeing her wince.