right," she went on, talking fast as if to herself; "she would send her
brothers to help him at the washing-pools instead of hawking.--Why did
we let him ride alone so near to Wildwater?--They reached the pools too
late.--Ah, God! and the one friend I had is gone." Again she turned her
eyes full on Red Ratcliffe. "Is he dead, sir?" she asked wearily.
A sudden thought came to him. "Not dead, Mistress, but dying fast," he
answered. "Thou know'st the boundary-stone over yonder, where once he
laid a Ratcliffe hand in mockery? Well, we met him there not long since
as he rode to the sheep-washing, and I thrust him through the
side.--Peace, woman! Thou may'st help him yet to a little ease before
he dies."
"Yes, yes, I will go to him. At the boundary-stone, you said----"
"'Tis not thou he cries for, but his sister. See ye, we're hard folk,
and take a hard vengeance, but now that Wayne has paid his price we do
not grudge him such a light request--and were, indeed, riding down to
bid his sister come to him."
She passed a hand across her eyes, while Ratcliffe's fellows glanced at
him with frank amazement.
"'Twas Nell, not I, he asked for?" she said. "Are you sure, sir, that
my name did not pass his lips?"
"Sure, quite sure. Pish! We've taken trouble enough, and now we'll
leave thee to it. Go thyself if it pleases thee--but thou'lt rob the
dying of his last wish if thou dost not hurry straight to Marsh and
bring his sister to the boundary-stone."
She halted a moment, then went with slow steps down the highway. And he
who rode on Ratcliffe's left turned questioningly to him.
"What fool's game is this?" he asked.
"Nay, 'tis a wise man's game, thou dullard. I tell thee, Wayne may come
straight home to Marsh, and meet us; we'll run no hazard that can be
escaped. Nay, by God! This little want-wit will do our work for us, and
bring Mistress Nell three parts of the way without our lifting hand or
foot--and think how that will lighten one of our saddle-cruppers. We
have Wayne safe, I tell thee, and we'll risk naught."
Mistress Wayne was out of sight now, carrying a heart that was heavier
for the knowledge that Ned had no thought of her in his last hour. A
strange jealousy had wakened in her; why should it be Nell, not she, who
was to soothe him at the last? She had loved him, surely, better than
any friend he had--and now it was Nell, Nell only, whom he wanted. Well,
she would bring her.
Not for the first time did this frail woman wonder bitterly why she had
been doomed to return to her right mind; yet never, amid all the remorse
that had followed her awakening, had she felt one half the numbing sense
of loneliness that went with her now.
"He is gone," she repeated for the twentieth time, as she went over
Worm's Hill, and down Barguest Lane, and in at the Marsh gateway.
Hiram Hey, meanwhile, had returned from pursuit of the Ratcliffe
farm-folk to find that his betters likewise had given up the chase as
hopeless. The four lads, indeed, would have ridden to the gates of
Wildwater had not Shameless Wayne compelled them to turn back; and now
they were gathered round the washing pool, chattering like magpies,
while the yokels straggled back in twos and threes, and the dogs
returned to their masters with frolic in one eye and shamed expectancy
of rebuke in the other. The moor was dotted white with sheep, some
standing in bewildered groups, some browsing on the butter-grass that
grew at the fringes of the bogs. Wayne of Marsh was eyeing his brothers
with a fatherly sort of care, seeking for wounds on them before he
dressed his own.
"What, not a scratch on you?" he asked in wonder.
Griff bared his left arm with ill-concealed pride and showed a deepish
cut. "'Tis no more than a scratch, Ned. I took it from Red Ratcliffe,"
he laughed.
And then his brothers, not to be outdone, showed many a trivial scar,
which they had gleaned amid the give-and-take of blows.
"Thank God, it is no worse," said Wayne huskily. "I should never have
found heart, lads, to go back to Nell if one among you had been
lost.--There! Wash them in the stream, and dust them well with
peat--and, faith, I'll join you, for my own hurts begin to prick."
The streamway all about the pools was fouled by the trampling of dogs
and sheep, of farm-men and rough-ridden horses, and the brothers moved
further up the stream to find clean water for their wounds. As they
passed the far side of the pinfold, their eyes fell upon the fallen
Ratcliffes, unheeded until now in the turmoil. One was dead, his skull
splintered by a hoof-stroke; the other three lay with their faces to the
pitiless sun, and groaned.
Wayne was harder than of yore; yet he could not let them lie there in
their agony until the sun, festering their wounds, had made them ready
for the corbie-crows already circling overhead. He stood awhile,
looking down on them; and one, less crippled than his fellows, rose on
his elbow and spat on him.
"Let me kill him, Ned--let me kill him!" cried Griff, in a voice that
was like a man's for depth.
Ned glanced at this youngster's face, and he remembered what his own
blood-lust had been when he fought his first great battle in Marshcotes
kirkyard, and bade them roof three fallen Ratcliffes over with the
vault-stone. For it was as Red Ratcliffe had said; the fight was hot
still in this lad, and he shrank from naught.
Wayne set a hand on Griff's shoulder and forced him toward the stream.
"Ay, lad, I know," he said quietly; "but thou'lt think better of it in
awhile.--Set these rogues under shade of yonder bank," he broke off,
turning to the shepherds; "take their daggers from them first, for they
have a shrewd way of repaying kindness; and then look ye to their
hurts."
"We've hed a fullish day, Maister, I reckon," said Hiram Hey, going up
the stream beside them and standing with his arms behind his back while
he watched the brothers bind each other's wounds.
"Ay," said the Master grimly, "and 'twill be work till sundown, Hiram,
if we're to make up for time lost."
Hiram opened his mouth wide. "What? Ye mean to get forrard wi' th'
sheep-weshing? At after what we've gone through?"
Wayne nodded. "The lads here have come to learn how farm-work goes," he
said; "and would'st thou teach them only how to idle through a summer's
afternoon?"
"Nay, it beats me. Nay, your father war nowt, just now at all, to what
ye are," murmured Hiram, scratching his rough head.--"Isn't it a
tempting o' Providence, like, to wark i'stead o' giving praise that
ye've come safe through all?" he added, under a happy inspiration.
Wayne laughed. "Work is praise, Hiram, as thou told'st me once, I mind,
when I was idling as a lad. See how thy old lessons stick to me." He
turned to Jose the shepherd. "Get yond Wildwater sheep gathered," he
said; "they'll stray back to their own pastures if thou'rt not quick
with them. And when the day's work is over, bring them to the Low Farm,
and we'll put a Wayne owning-mark on their backs--for, by the Rood, I
think we've won them fairly."
"Lord, Lord, I may be no drinker--but I could sup two quarts of ale, an'
niver tak two breaths," said Hiram Hey forlornly.
Again Wayne laughed as he clapped him on the back. "Come to Marsh,
Hiram--and all of you--at supper-time to-night; and ye shall have old
October till ye swim, to drink to these stiff lads who plucked us out of
trouble."
"That's sense--ay, he talks sense at last, does th' Maister," murmured
Hiram. Then, bethinking him that it would never do, for his credit's
sake, to show himself in anything more backward than the Master, he
began forthwith to rate the farm-hands with something of his old-time
vigour.
And soon the pinfolds on either hand were full again of bleating sheep,
and Jose and his brother shepherds were scrubbing hard in each of the
two pools, and a chance passer-by could not have told, save for broken
faces here and there, that a half-hour since these leisurely moving folk
had been fighting hand-to-hand for the honour of their house.
And so it chanced that Wayne, who might have been saved many a
heart-ache had he ridden straight home to Marsh, as any man less
obstinate would have done, was still at the washing-pool when his
step-mother got back to Marsh. She had found Nell at the
spinning-wheel, and had told her tale; and the girl had sat motionless
for awhile, her head bowed over the yellow flax, her hands clenched
tight together.
"You are our evil angel, Mistress," she said, looking up at last.
"Since first you set foot on our threshold, disaster has followed on
disaster. But for you father would be alive--"
"Nell, spare me! Do I not know, do I not know?"
But Nell was pitiless. The news so rudely broken to her had brought a
twelvemonth's hidden bitterness to the front, and she would not check
it. "But for you the feud would have slept itself away--but for you Ned
would be sitting at table yonder.--Mistress, how dared you come first to
tell me of it?--Nay, hold your tears, for pity's sake; they'll bring no
lives back."
The girl rose, and would have gone out, but her step-mother stood in
front of her, lifting up her hands in piteous entreaty.
"Nell, I want--I want to go with you; I loved him, too, and I think
he'll be glad to see me at the last--if--if he's not dead by this."
"_You_ want to go with me? My faith, I'll seek other company, or go
alone," flashed Nell, and left her there.
Mistress Wayne had found a certain fluttering courage nowadays; see Ned
she would and claim a farewell from him, without leave from Nell. The
girl would not share her company; but the road was free to her--the road
that led to the Wildwater boundary-stone. She waited only for a moment,
then followed Nell whose figure she could see boldly outlined against
the sweep of still, blue sky that lay across the top of Barguest Lane.
"I have brought disaster to them; yes, 'tis very true," she mused all
along the bare white road.
The girl had far outstripped her by this time; but she caught sight of
her again, a long mile ahead, as Nell topped the hill at whose feet the
boundary-stone was set. Full of eagerness to know the worst, Mistress
Wayne quickened pace, though her feet ached and her head throbbed
painfully. It seemed this ling-bordered stretch of road would never end.
She gained the hill-top where she had last seen Nell, and glanced down
in terror-stricken search of the body lying in the hollow; but naught
met her eyes, save an empty road winding into empty space. Nor did a
nearer view dispel the mystery: the boundary-stone stood gaunt,
flat-topped and black, in the hot sunlight; the sand of the roadway was
disordered as if a plunging horse had scattered it with hoof-play; but
that was all.
Where was Ned? He lay beside the boundary-stone, those evil folk from
Wildwater had told her. Yet there was no blood upon the ground, nor the
least sign to tell her that a man had been done to death here. Nell,
too, was gone, completely as if the road had yielded, bog-like, to her
tread and closed about her. Only the sad cries of moor-birds broke the
stillness--these, and the far-off echo of horse-hoofs pounding over a
stony track.
Mistress Wayne sat her down at the roadside, among the budding heather.
A great faintness stole over her; she felt her new-found hold on life
slipping from her grasp. What had chanced to Wayne? Where was Nell?
Was this some fresh delusion, nursed by the sun-heat and her hurried
walk? She could not tell--only, she knew that the grey line of road was
circling round her, that the sky seemed closing in.
"I--brought--disaster," she murmured, and let her head fall back among
the heather.
*CHAPTER XXI*
*WHAT CHANCED AT WILDWATER*
The Lean Man was sunning himself in the garden at Wildwater, and Janet,
sitting beside him, wondered afresh to see the dumb air he had, as of
one who had crept from the trampling life of men and had no thought to
return to it.
"The old trouble has left you, sir, to-day. Is it not so?" she said
gently, chafing his cold hands in hers.
"Ay, it has left me, girl, for a little while. But the sun has no
warmth in it, and the bees' hum sounds dead and hollow. Look ye, Janet,
this is not summer at all; 'tis like an old man stammering love-vows and
wondering why they sound so cold.--Are our folk hunting to-day?"
"Some of them have gone to wash the sheep. They said they would be home
betimes, but the afternoon wears on."
"If I were young again, lass! Sorrow of women, if only I were young
again!" broke in the Lean Man. "To hunt the fox, and see the sheep come
white and bleating from the pool, and feel the old gladness in it all."
He fell back moodily into his seat. "A man has his day," he muttered,
"and mine is over."
He raised his eyes languidly as the garden gate opened and Red Ratcliffe
and his two companions came laughing through.
"We've news, sir, for you," cried Red Ratcliffe.
The Lean Man looked them up and down, and smiled with something of his
old keenness, as he saw the stains of fight on them. "Ay, I can believe
it," he said. "Bonnie news, I fancy, of Wayne and of those who thought
to crush him when Nicholas Ratcliffe had failed. A wounded bridle-arm,
a matter of two bloody cheek-cuts, and thy right thigh, lad, dripping
through the cloth. Ye make a gallant band."
"'Tis true, sir, he worsted us in fight," said Red Ratcliffe, sulkily.
The blood came back to Janet's face. "Again he shows the stronger
hand," she murmured. "Who says that Wayne of Marsh is unfit to have a
maid's heart in keeping?"
"He worsted you," said the Lean Man to his grandsons; "is that why ye
came with laughter in your throats, and mouths a-grin as if a man had
ploughed a furrow 'cross them?"
"Nay, but because we used our wits when swords failed us, and trapped
Wayne's sister; she is in the house now, safe under lock and key."
The Lean Man roused himself. "A good stroke, lads!" he cried, slapping
his thigh. "She's in the house, ye say? Then take me to her."
"You had best go armed to talk with her," laughed he whose cheek was
cut; "shame will out, sir, and I took these wounds, not from Wayne, but
from the she-devil I carried hither on my crupper."
"Good lass!" chuckled old Nicholas. "I like that sort of temper. She
carries a dagger, then, to help keep up the feud?"
"She snatched my own from its sheath, and pricked me twice before I
guessed her purpose. And all because I stooped my face to kiss her."
"'Tis just what thou'd'st have done, Janet; eh, lass? Methinks thou'lt
pair with this hot wench from Marsh," said the Lean Man, laying a
jesting hand on the girl's shoulder.
"We shall pair ill, I fear," she answered coldly,--"as for the
dagger-stroke--I should have aimed nearer the heart, grandfather," she
added, glancing hardily at Red Ratcliffe.
"Thy aim for a man's heart is always very sure," her cousin answered,
meeting her glance good-humouredly.
"Tut-tut! Thou'rt indifferent clumsy as a wooer, lad--but, by the Lord,
thou hast a head for scheming. What, then? We've got the lass, and
Wayne will follow."
"That was my thought, sir. We'll let him bide awhile--till sundown,
say--and then, just as his anxiousness on Mistress Nell's behalf is
getting past bearing, we will send word that she is here, with a broad
hint or so of what will chance to her before the dawn----"
"Ay, ay," broke in the Lean Man, "and he'll come, if I know him, as if
his horse were shod with wind; and I'll brace my stiffened sinews once
again; and an old sore shall be cured for good and all."
"Will the Brown Dog carry its master through this pass, think ye?" cried
Red Ratcliffe boastfully.
The Lean Man's eagerness died swift as it had come. His hard lips
shrank into senile curves. The dulness of a great terror clouded his
hawk-bright eyes.
"The Dog? The Dog?" he mumbled, at the end of a long silence. "Ay,
thou fool, 'twill conquer as aforetime. Useless, useless, I tell thee!
The girl is here--well, he will find a way to rescue her."
"But, sir, this is folly! What can he do with a score men waiting here
for him?"
"What he did at Dead Lad's Rigg--what he did to-day at the
sheep-washing--what he and his cursed hound would do, if ye, and I, and
fifty times our numbers, fenced him round with steel."
"Go, cousins. Grandfather is--is faint again. The fit will pass if ye
leave him to it," said Janet, jealous always lest they should guess the
secret which only she and Nicholas shared.
The younger men glanced meaningly one at the other as they moved off.
"Old brains breed maggots," muttered one.
"And so will Wayne before the month is old," answered Red Ratcliffe
brutally, turning for a last malicious glance at Janet.
He saw that the girl was following him with fearless, inscrutable eyes.
A shadow of doubt crossed his triumph, and he cursed the boastfulness
that had led him to tell his plans so openly in hearing of one who was
well affected toward Shameless Wayne.
The Lean Man sat on, his head between his hands, his feet working
shiftlessly among the last year's leaves that still cumbered the
neglected garden. "Not by skill of sword, nor yet by guile," he was
saying, over and over. "We must go with the stream now--'tis useless
striving--yet, by the Red Heart, I shall turn nightly in my grave if
Wayne goes quick above ground after I am dead."
Janet crept softly over the strip of lawn without rousing him, and went
through the wicket that opened on the pasture-fields. Nell Wayne was
here, then, and in peril--Mistress Nell, who had railed on her as a
light woman because she had gained the love of Shameless Wayne, who had
flouted her as if she were mud beneath her feet. A savage joy burned in
the girl's heart for a moment; but after it there came the memory of Red
Ratcliffe's words; and it seemed a poor thing to humble Nell if Wayne
were to pay a better price for it. Could she do naught to help him?
She smiled in self-derision. The last time she had sought to help
Wayne, she had all but compassed his undoing. Yet how could she rest
idle, knowing what was to come? As of old, she turned to the moor for
help, and walked the heather feverishly; and not till the sun was
lowering fast toward Dead Lad's Rigg did she return to Wildwater.
Nicholas and Red Ratcliffe were in hall together, the younger man full
of talk, the other taciturn and hopeless.
"The messenger has gone, sir," Red Ratcliffe was saying; "Wayne will be
here before long--rouse yourself, for we're growing to lose heart at
sight of you."
"Give me the key of the room where Mistress Nell is prisoned. I want to
speak with her," said Janet, coming boldly up to them.
"A likely request, cousin! The key lies safe in my pocket, and there
'twill stay."
"When Janet asks aught, thou'lt give it her, thou cross-mannered whelp,"
put in the Lean Man sharply. A lack of courtesy toward his chosen one
could rouse him even yet.
Red Ratcliffe hesitated, then gave way to the old habit of obedience;
but, as Janet took the key and crossed to the passage leading to Nell's
prison, he followed her.
"I'll stay this side the door while thou hast speech of her," he said,
with an ugly smile.
"As it pleases thee," she answered, opening the door and closing it
behind her.
She had meant to set the captive free, at any hazard to herself; but she
was prepared to find her scheme thwarted in some such way, and she had a
likelier plan ready framed against the failure of the first. It was not
needful now to have speech at all of Nell; but lest suspicion should
fall more darkly on her than it need she must go in.
The room was low and small, lighted by a single narrow window that
showed a sweep of purpling moor. Nell Wayne was sitting at the
casement, her eyes fixed hungrily on the freedom that was almost within
touch of her hand; she sprang to her feet as the door opened, and turned
at bay; and when she saw who stood before her the fierceness deepened in
her eyes and straight-set figure.
For a moment they stood and looked at one another; and no Wayne had ever
crossed sword more hotly with a Ratcliffe than these two women of either
house crossed glances. For theirs was no chance feud, bred by a quarrel
as to precedence in sheep-washing; it was the age-old feud that lies
heart-deep between woman and woman, the feud that hisses into flame
whenever love for the one man blows on the smouldering fire.
"You come to mock me, doubtless," said Nell at last.
"_That_ would be to mock my own pride, Mistress. I came with quite
other thoughts."
"I am honoured that the lady of the house sees fit--in a late hour,
perchance--to give welcome to her guest."
"Lower your voice, I beg. There's a pair of sharp ears at the door, and
what I have to say will not bear listening to.--Hark ye, Mistress! I am
going to pluck you out of this, and quickly."
"How, you? I do not understand--I----"
"Nay, 'tis for no love of you I do it, but because they mean to use you
as a lure to bring your brother up to Wildwater."
Nell lost a little of her upright carriage. "Is that why they brought
me here?" she asked slowly.
"For that--and with a thought of their own pleasure, doubtless,
afterward. Shall I save your brother, Mistress, or will it defile him
to owe safety to such as me?"
Nell turned to the window again, and did not answer for a space. Then,
"Go," she whispered faintly--"but I would God it had been any one but
you."
"And _I_ would God I might save him alone, leaving you to nurse your
pride in a cold lap. But fate is hard, Mistress, and compels us to
travel over the same bridge; 'twould be well to hold your skirts, lest I
touch them by the way."
"Go, go! Say I wronged you--say anything, so only you keep Ned out of
danger."
Despite herself, Janet could not but mark how little this girl thought
of her own safety, how much of the brother who, at worst, had only life
to lose. "I shall have to leave you here awhile. Have you no fear?"
she asked.
"None, save that Ned will knock at the gates while you stand dallying
here."
Janet turned to the door, then faced about, her bitterness craving a
last word. "Remember, whether I lose or win, that 'twas all for Ned I
did it. I would have seen you shamed, and gladdened at it."
Some hidden softness slipped into the other's voice. She had endured
suspense and misery, and now that help had come she weakened at the
thought of peril. "Nay," she whispered, "you are a woman as I am,
Mistress, and you know, as I know, how frail is the casket in which we
keep our jewels. For love of her that bore you, you could never have
looked on gladly and seen----"
Janet glanced curiously at her. "You are right," she flashed, taking a
dagger from her breast. "Mistress, I would have fought for you, had
blows been needful. Take this, and if any troubles you while I'm
away--why, you know how to use it. Only, strike for the heart next
time, if you are wise."
Red Ratcliffe was walking up and down the passage when she came out. He
took the key from her, turned the lock sharply, and scanned her face for
some hint of what had passed. For again he was puzzled, as he had been
once before when he had suspected Janet's good-faith and had found it
justified. Listen as he would, he had not been able to gather the drift
of what passed between the girls; yet their voices, low and strained,
did not sound like those of friends who talked of each other's safety.
"Well?" he said, putting the key into his pocket and laying a rough hand
on Janet as she tried to pass him.
"My answer is to grandfather, sir. What I have said or not said is for
wiser ears than thine."
He laughed as a fresh thought came to him. "Gad, Janet, I see it now!
This proud wench of Marsh disdained thee as a brother's wife, and thou
didst take the chance to turn the tables on her. By the Heart, I
believe thou'rt glad we brought her here."
Janet hung her head, as if for shame of being found out. "Suppose I am?"
she murmured.--"Yet, cousin, I had liefer thou hadst guessed naught of
it."
"Trick a weasel, and then look to hoodwink Red Ratcliffe," cried the
other, pleased with his own discernment.--"Where art going, Janet?" he
broke off, as she turned to the side-door leading to the fields.
"Where I list, cousin, without leave asked of thee or granted."
"Nay, but I think thou'lt not go out of doors! To hate the sister is
one thing--but thou'lt foil us with the brother if once we let thee out
of doors."
She thought of slipping past him first, but his bulk filled three parts
of the narrow passage; so, curbing her tongue, she made him a little
curtsey.
"Thou dost honour me to think I take sides against my folk," she said.
"As it chances, I care not so much, after all, to go out, and
grandfather will need me. Have I thy permission to go into hall and
seek him?"
"One day I'll cut out that little tongue of thine, Janet, and clean it
of its mockery. Go and welcome--and may the Lean Man have joy of thee."