than one which opened on the moor; then stopped with a shrug. He was no
match, he knew, for Janet and her grandfather together, and if the girl
were bent on going out, she was sure of winning the old man's consent.
Besides, Nell Wayne was here, and it would take more than Janet's
beauty, if he knew aught, more than her wit and quick resourcefulness,
to keep Wayne of Marsh from galloping to the rescue.
Janet found the Lean Man half-sitting, half-lying on the lang-settle,
his eyes closed, his head resting in the hollow of one arm. She came
and leant over the high back of the settle, and watched him with
infinite sadness in her eyes. She knew the meaning of these spells of
daytime sleep which were more akin to stupors than to healthy slumber;
he had passed a night of terror, wrestling hour by hour with the Brown
Dog of Marsh, and now weariness had followed, giving him uneasy dreams
in place of fevered wakefulness.
"The Dog--flames of the Pit, he holds me--beat him off, there! Cannot
ye see I'm helpless--beat him off, I say--his teeth are in my throat,"
muttered Nicholas, with closed eyes and tight-clenched lips.
"Grandfather, would I could cleave to you, in loyalty as in love,"
whispered the girl, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "What can I do,
sir?" she went on hurriedly, as if he were awake to hear her. "I loathe
myself for going--I should loathe myself if I stayed. Cannot I save
Wayne without wronging you? See, sir, you'll gain nothing by his
death--bid me go and snatch him from these red folk who are not worthy
to be kin to you."
"Wayne will win free--_must_ win free--there's naught can pierce that
armour," said the Lean Man, stirring in his sleep again.
The girl's face brightened. This chance repetition of the thought that
ever lay uppermost in the old man's mind was no chance to her, but an
omen. "Wayne must win free," she echoed, changing the whole meaning of
the words by a skilful turn of voice. "Wayne must win free. He has
said it, and I will obey."
Crossing the noisy boards on tip-toe, she opened the main-door, sped
through it, and was lost amid the flaming sunset glory of the heath.
"Lost, all lost. God of the lightning and the storm, will you not
strike Wayne dead for me?" cried the Lean Man, and woke, and gazed about
him wonderingly.
*CHAPTER XXII*
*AND WHAT CHANCED AT MARSH*
All afternoon the Marsh farm-hands had laboured at the sheep-washing,
after their brisk skirmish with the Ratcliffes. There had been but one
break in the work, and that was when Shameless Wayne and all his folk
crossed to the nearest farm to stay their hunger. Nor would Wayne leave
them afterward, though there was little need of him once the work had
started again in good earnest. It pleased his mood to share and share
alike, despite his wounds, with the unwilling labour he had forced from
them; and the sun was going down redly and the rushes whispering their
evening dirge when he set off for Marsh.
"Mind that ye bring the Ratcliffe sheep with you; I'd not lose them for
the world," he said at parting, and rode light-hearted down the slope,
the lads beside him, with a thought that home and a full meal and the
sight of women's faces would be passing good.
The hall at Marsh was empty when he went in, after leaving his brothers
to put the horses into stable. Man-like, he felt aggrieved that there
was none to give him welcome, when he had looked forward to such
greeting throughout the journey home. Where was Nell? Or, failing her,
surely his step-mother should be at hand somewhere. He went to the
garden in search of them, but that was empty too; so he crossed to the
kitchen, where he found Martha busy with preparation of the evening
meal.
"Where is the Mistress? I can find her nowhere," he said, leaning
against the doorway.
Martha looked up from the joint that was turning on the spit, and
settled herself into an easiful attitude that suggested a hope of
gossip.
"Nay, I cannot tell ye, Maister," she answered. "I've been wondering
myseln, for I've niver set een on her sin' afternooin. Mary telled me
'at Mistress Wayne came in, looking gaumless-like an' flaired, an' a
two-three minutes at after Mistress Nell went out wi' her. But nawther
one nor t' other hes comed back that I knaw on."
Wayne nodded curtly to Martha and turned on his heel, cutting short her
expectation of a pleasant round of doubt and fear and surmise.
"I would they were safe back again," he muttered. "Nell must be fey, to
go wandering abroad at this late hour."
A brisk step sounded behind him, as Nanny Witherlee entered by the outer
door of the kitchen and hobbled across the rush-strewn flag-stones.
"Good-even, Maister. Is there owt wrang at Marsh?" said the Sexton's
wife.
"Why, Nanny, what dost thou here?" cried Wayne. "Lord, nurse, thou
wear'st thy eerie look, as if thou wert ringing God-speed to a dead
man's soul. What ails thee to cross from Marshcotes after sundown?"
"Nay, I've heard th' wind sobbing all th' day, like a bairn that's lost
on th' moor; an' th' wind niver cries like yond save it hes getten gooid
cause. So, says I, at after Witherlee an' me hed hed our bit o' supper,
I'll step dahn to Marsh, says I, for I cannot bide a minute longer
without knawing what's agate."
Wayne kept well in the shadow of the passage, for he shrank from letting
Nanny see the marks he carried of the late fight--shrank, too, from
showing how prone he was to-night to catch the infection of her ghostly
speech. This bent old woman, with her sharp tongue, her outspokenness,
her queer, familiar talk of other-worldly things, had never lost her
hold upon the Master; she was still the nurse who lang syne had sent him
shivering to bed with her tales of wind-speech and of water-speech, of
the Dog, and the Sorrowful Woman, and the shrouded shapes that stalked
at midnight over kirkyard graves. He had been no more than vaguely
troubled hitherto by Nell's absence; but now he feared the worst, for he
had never known the Sexton's wife make prophecy of dole for naught.
Nanny stood looking at him all this while--trying to read his face, but
baulked by the shadows that clustered thick beyond the fringe of
candle-light.
"Well, Maister?" she said softly, as still he did not speak.
"Well, nurse? Dost think I'm still unbreeked, and ready as of old to
shiver at thy tales?"
"Then there's nowt wrang at Marsh?"
"What should be wrong?"
"If all goes weel, why do ye stand so quiet there, Maister? An' why do
ye hide your face when Nanny talks to ye?"
Wayne forced a laugh as he moved down the passage. "Hunger puts strange
fancies in a man," he said, "and 'tis long since I had bite or sup."
Nanny did not follow him, but turned to Martha, who had listened with
dismay to all that passed.
"Proud--allus proud," she said. "He niver wod own to feeling flaired,
wodn't th' Maister. But I tell thee, lass, there's bahn to be sich
happenings as nawther thee nor me hes seen th' like on."
"We've hed happenings enough, Nanny--Lord save us fro' owt but peace,
say I."
"Lord save us, says th' wench! As if there war Lord to hearken save th'
God that fills th' storm's belly wi' thunder an' wi' leetning. Cannot
tha hear, Martha, lass? 'Tis throb, throb--an' ivery cranny o' th' owd
walls hes getten a voice to-neet.--Hark ye! Th' Maister hes gone out
into th' courtyard! An' there's Wayne o' Cranshaw's rough-edged voice.
Th' storm is gathering fast, I warrant."
Shameless Wayne, meanwhile, wandering out of doors to see if there were
any sign of Nell's return, had found his cousin in the courtyard. Rolf
had just ridden over from Cranshaw, and the four lads stood round his
horse in an eager knot, telling him of the day's exploits and making
off-hand mention of their wounds.
"Why, Ned, has the day borne hardly on thee? Thou look'st out of
heart," cried Rolf, as Shameless Wayne came slowly across the courtyard.
Wayne tried to shake off his forebodings. "Nay, 'tis not the day's work
troubles me," he said. "We trounced them bonnily, Rolf, and these four
rascals would have chased them to the Pit had I not held them in. Griff
yonder will be a better swordsman than his teacher before the year is
out."
"Thou'rt wounded deepish, by the look of thee. Ned, I'd give a
twelvemonth of my life to have fought beside thee at the washing-pools."
Shameless Wayne laughed soberly. "'Twas worth as much.--There, Rolf!
Thou'lt have thy chance, I fancy, by and by."
"Then there's to be another battle?" cried Griff eagerly.
"Likely, thou man of blood," said Shameless Wayne, with a would-be
lightness that sounded strangely heavy to Rolf's ears.
"What troubles thee?" he asked. "'Tis naught to do with the Ratcliffes,
thou say'st?"
"With the Ratcliffes? I'm not so sure, lad. Nell has not come home
since dinner, nor Mistress Wayne.--Ah, there's the little bairn at last;
haply she can tell us what mad scamper Nell is bent on."
Mistress Wayne was walking down the lane as if she could scarce trail
one foot behind the other; but she glanced up as she came through the
gate, and her weariness left her on the sudden. One startled cry she
gave at sight of her step-son, and then she ran to him with outstretched
hands.
"Well, what is it, bairn?" he asked.
"They said thou wast dying, Ned, and I never thought to doubt them.
Tell me it is no dream; thou'rt living, dear--yes, yes, thy grasp feels
warm and real. Ah, God be thanked!"
"_They said_. Who troubled to tell lies to thee?" cried Wayne, sore
perplexed.
"Three of the Ratcliffes who met me on the moor."
Wayne of Cranshaw looked at his cousin. "Trickery," he muttered.
"Ay, there's trickery somewhere.--Tell us more, bairn, about this
ill-timed meeting."
Little by little they drew the whole tale from Mistress Wayne--how they
had bidden her bring Nell to the boundary-stone, how Nell had gone, she
following; how she had seen her last on the hill-top, and then had found
an empty road.
"I swooned, Ned, then," she finished, "and lay so for a long while. And
when I came out of it I had no strength to move at first, and I thought
the journey down to Marsh would never end."
"I am riding to Wildwater, Ned. Who comes with me?" said Wayne of
Cranshaw brusquely.
"All of us," broke in the four lads, with a gaiety ill-matching the
occasion.
"Nay, youngsters, ye've done enough for the one day," said Shameless
Wayne.--"Let's start forthwith, then, Rolf, and rattle their cursed
house about their ears."
"What, two against them all?" cried the little woman, aghast. "Ned,
'twould be throwing thy life away--ride up to Hill House and to Cranshaw
first, and get thy folk about thee."
"Mistress Wayne is right," said Rolf, after a pause. "We shall but
throw our lives away if we go up alone--and what will chance then to
Nell?"
Still Wayne would not yield; the speed of his last battle was in his
veins still, and he could not brook delay. And while they stood there,
halting between the two courses, a red-headed horseman came at a wary
trot down Barguest Lane. The summer dusk was enough to show that he
glanced guardedly from side to side and kept a light hold of the reins
as if to turn at the first hint of danger. Seeing the gate fast closed,
however, he drew rein at the far side of it and peered over into the
courtyard. He glanced at the men's belts first, and saw that they were
empty of pistols; then turned his horse in readiness for flight.
"God's life the fool is venturesome," muttered Wayne. "What should he
want at Marsh?"
"I've a message for thee, Wayne of Marsh," cried the horseman, still
fingering the reins uneasily and striving to cover his mistrust with a
laugh. For he had liked this mission ill, and only the Lean Man's
command had forced him to it.
"A message, have ye?" said Wayne. "Your news is known already. Ride
back, you lean-ribbed hound, before we whip you on the road."
The horseman gathered confidence a little from the closed gate. "Soft,
fool Wayne! We hold your sister safe at Wildwater, and the Lean Man, of
his courtesy, bade me ride down and ensure you a fair night's rest by
telling you what we mean to do with her. She will lie soft
to-night----"
The red-head, even while the taunt was on his lips, pulled sharply at
the curb. But Wayne of Cranshaw was overquick for him. With a cry that
rang up every hollow of the fields, Rolf set his horse at the gate, and
landed at the rider's side, and dropped him from the saddle before he
guessed that there was danger.
Rolf steadied his horse, then was silent for awhile as he wiped his
blade with unhurried carefulness.
"Dost see the plot, Ned?" he asked grimly, with another glance at the
fallen horseman.
"Nay, I see only that Nell is in peril all this while--and that the
Ratcliffes had need to rid them of a fool, since they sent him here to
meet so plain a death."
"He came, this same fool, to taunt thee into going to Wildwater, if I
can read the matter--came to make sure that we should do just what thou
wast so hot to do just now.--God, Ned! _She shall lie soft
to-night_--how the foul words stick----"
"Ned, is there no end to it--no end to it?" broke in Mistress Wayne,
clinging tight to his hand and keeping her eyes away from the body lying
in the roadway just without.
"Get thee within-doors, bairn; 'tis no fit place for thee."
"Not unless thou'lt come, too. Ned, I'll not have thee ride to
Wildwater--keep within shelter while thou canst----"
But her step-son shook off her hand. "Rolf," he said, coming to the
gate and trying to read the other's face, "wilt come with me now to
Wildwater?"
Wayne of Cranshaw straightened himself in the saddle and gathered the
reins with a firmer grip. "Nay, for we'll make sure--we'll go neither
by ones nor twos, but take our whole force with us. Hast had supper,
Ned? No? Well, thou need'st it if thou'rt to fight a second time
to-day; so let the lads go fetch our kin from Hill House. I'll ride to
Cranshaw for my folk, and we'll all fare up together."
"Nay, we'll not wait--" began Ned.
But Rolf was already on his road to Cranshaw, and Shameless Wayne,
knowing that any other plan was madness, curbed his hot mood as best he
might. He would have ridden to Hill House himself, but the lads pleaded
so hard to go, and he had such crying need for food to brace him for the
coming struggle, that he agreed at last.
"Be off, then, lads," he said. "'Tis a short ride, with no danger by
the way, if ye'll promise not to turn aside for any sort of frolic."
They scampered off to the stables to re-saddle their horses; and Wayne,
as he watched them go, sighed for the boyish heedlessness which had been
his not a twelvemonth ago. Griff's thoughts were all of danger, the
thrill and rush of battle; and his sister's capture, it was plain, was
no more to him than a fresh fight, in which the Ratcliffes would again
go down before them.
"Ay, if it meant no more!" mused Shameless Wayne, and turned as his
step-mother came timidly to his side.
"Come in to supper, dear. Thou need'st it, as Wayne of Cranshaw said,"
she pleaded, threading her arm through his and coaxing him indoors.
The board was ready spread; but the brave show of pewter, the meats and
pasties and piled heaps of haverbread, served only to make the wide,
empty hall look drearier, and Wayne would not glance at the slender,
high-backed chair which marked Nell's wonted seat at table.
Hunger was killed in him; but he forced himself to eat, since food meant
strength to fight Nell's battle by and by. And while he ate, the little
woman sat close beside him, watching his every movement, and wishful, so
it seemed, to speak of something that lay near her heart.
"Ned," she whispered, finding courage at last, "it was I who sent Nell
across the moor to-day; and what she said to me was true--I have brought
nothing but disaster on your house since first I came to Marsh. The man
who lies outside there, Ned--the man whom your cousin slew--I was feared
just now, seeing him dead. But need I be? God knows I would fain lie
where he lies now, for then--then, dear, I should bring no more trouble
upon those I love. Naught but disaster I've brought----"
"That is not true, bairn," said Wayne gently. "Many a time thou hast
brought rest to me when none else could--no, not Nell herself.--Ay, once
thou gav'st me hope that there was no such crying shame in loving awry,"
he added, with sudden bitterness. "What of thy wisdom now, bairn?
Shall I woo Mistress Janet while I help tear Wildwater stone from
stone?"
"It was no fault of hers, dear. How if she sorrows for Nell as much as
thou, or I, or any of us?"
But Wayne would not listen. "How the time crawls!" he muttered, as he
pushed his plate away and rose impatiently. "Surely they are here by
now. Hark! was not that the courtyard-gate? I left it unbarred against
their coming. Didst hear it opened?"
"Ay, I heard it opened--and there's a footstep on the paving-stones."
"Bairn, help me to buckle my sword-belt on again. I know there's luck
goes where thy hand has rested."
She helped him eagerly. "It is not all disaster that I bring, then?
Thanks for that word, Ned; I needed it," she murmured, chafing her baby
fingers against the stiff buckle.
She was still striving with it, and Ned was stooping to help her, when
the main door opened, and Janet Ratcliffe stood slender on the
threshold, not laughing, but with an odd merriment lurking in her eyes
and about her resolute mouth.
"I have come to our dearest enemy. Make me your captive, Wayne of
Marsh," she said.
He sprang back as if she had been less warmly flesh and blood; but
Mistress Wayne smiled in her pleased child's fashion as she crept out of
sight among the shadows at the far end of the hall.
"You have chosen your time well, Mistress, if a jest is in your mind,"
said Wayne.
"Nothing further, sir. Your sister is in dire peril; would less have
brought me to one who has spurned my warnings oft aforetime?"
He waited, frowning, till she should tell him more.
"Men's wits move like the snail does, methinks," she cried. "Am I less
dear at Wildwater than Nell at Marsh? Send up to the Lean Man, sir, and
say what dread things you will do to me, and see if he will not exchange
his prisoner for yours."
Wayne looked hard at her, doubtful still and bewildered by the heedless
devilry of her plan. "You have risked much for the honour of my house,"
he said slowly.
"Nay, for the honour of a woman who had little deserved the infamy they
planned for her."
"But 'tis out of reason! You run too great a hazard, Mistress.--See,
our plans are laid, and already the Cranshaw and the Hill House Waynes
are on the road hither. Go back while you have time, Mistress."
"I shall not go back, sir, for I know how hopeless are your plans. They
have guarded Wildwater securely against attack; and even if you seemed
like to force an entry they would make sure--how shall I tell thee,
Ned?" she broke off, lapsing to the old familiar speech and turning her
eyes shamefacedly from his.
"They would make sure of Nell's dishonour. That is thy meaning, Janet?
God's life, that is a true word. Yet--when they learn that this capture
was all thy doing, not mine, thou'lt have a rough welcome home to
Wildwater?"
"There is always danger for me there," she said, her voice deepening;
"but that should not vex thee, surely, Wayne of Marsh?"
Shameless Wayne glanced neither back nor forward now. It seemed as if
some hidden chord, frayed by the months of self-denial, had snapped on
the sudden; her fearless strength, her man's power to frame a swift
stroke of daring and to carry it through, her woman's fierce, unheeding
tenderness--all these he understood at last--understood, too, that his
love for her, nurtured in rough soil and inclement weather, had come to
a hardier growth than pride. Before, he had lacked her, felt the keen
need of possession; but now he loved her, and watched the old barriers
crumble into unmeaning dust.
"Janet," he said quietly, not moving nearer to her yet, "dost think I
care naught what chances to thee?"
"'Twould seem so, Ned. Twice I have told thee of the bargain made
between the Lean Man and my cousins----"
"Nay, only hinted at it. What was this bargain, Janet?"
Lower still her voice dropped. "That I should be given to the one who
slew thee," she said.
She glanced once at him, and for the first time since leaving Wildwater
she felt a touch of fear. For Shameless Wayne had given a cry--a cry
such as she had never hearkened to, so deep it was, so brutish in its
rage against those who had agreed to this foul bargain. He sprang to
her side--she could feel his arms close masterful about her--and then,
with some strange instinct of defence, she forced herself away.
"Not that, Ned," she cried. "Is it a fit hour for--for softness?--And
see, thou'rt wounded, Ned--and I've had no time to tell thee----"
A dozen feints of speech she would have tried to keep him at
arm's-length, but Wayne would none of them.
"There's one wound, lass, of thy own giving, that matters more than all
the rest," he said.
"Hush! I'll not listen. There's work to be done--'twill not wait--it
is no fit hour, I tell thee."
The last flush of gloaming stained the dark oak walls, the spears and
trophies of the chase that hung on them; it lighted, too, the girl's
straight figure and bent head, as she shrank against the window--shrank
from Wayne, and from the knowledge that her will was broken once for
all. Ay, she was conquered, she who had lived her own life heretofore;
what if she could hide it from him? Was it too late to escape into the
free wilderness where she was mistress of her thoughts and secrets? It
had been easy once, when they had met, boy and girl, to pass light
love-vows at the kirk-stone; but this was giving all to him, and her
pride rebelled, ashamed of its own powerlessness.
But Wayne was not to be held in check. He wooed like a storm-wind, and
like a reed she bent to him.
"It is a fit hour," he cried--"and what is to be done will wait, child,
till thou hast told me--" He stopped, and lifted her face till she was
forced to meet his glance.
"Told thee what, Ned?" she asked, not knowing whether her unwillingness
were real or feigned.
"That thou'rt mine altogether--that thy thoughts are mine, and thy body,
and thy pride--ay, that I've mastered thee."
Wayne kept her face tight prisoned. She could feel his touch gain
fierceness; his voice had a note in it not to be gainsaid.
"Ned, I will not say it--will not--" she faltered.
And then on the sudden she put both arms about his neck, and laid her
face to his, and, "Thou art my master--my master, God be thanked," she
whispered.
The good-nights of birds came sleepily from the dim garden; there was a
stir of laggard bees among the flowers; and pride of summer reigned for
its little spell with these storm-driven children of the moor. And
frail Mistress Wayne, who had watched, mute and unheeded, from the
shadows that seemed scarce more unsubstantial than herself, went out and
left them to it.
So for a space; and then a new sound was born of this restless, haunted
night. Far off from Barguest Lane there came a shouting of gruff
voices, and the sparrows in the eaves awoke to chirp a fitful protest.
Janet turned in Ned's arms and glanced toward the door. "What is't,
Ned?" she whispered.
"The Waynes are here," he cried--"and I'll take a lighter heart to
Wildwater, Janet, for knowing----"
"But, Ned, thou didst promise not to go," she cried.
"Ay, but I've learned that from thee which makes me doubly set on going.
Dost think I could let thee return now to the Lean Man's care?"
"Yes, yes! I tell thee, there's no danger but what I have faced before,
and can meet again."
"We were over-happy just now, girl; fate grudges that. Thou shalt not
go, I say."
"There! I knew 'twas folly to name thee _master_. Hark how thou usest
the whip at the first chance! Is every wish of mine to be thwarted now,
to prove thy sovereignty?"
"Nay, for it's sure. But when I hear thee ask to fight my battles----"
"Whose else should I fight, dear lad?" she broke in, with pretty
wilfulness. "See, 'tis the first thing I've asked of thee, and I will
not take denial. Ride to Wildwater, thou and thy friends, and ye place
Nell in peril, as I told thee. Send word that I am here, and she will
be brought safely down to Marsh. Ned, try the plan at least! And if it
fails, I'll let thee----"
"But what of Nell meanwhile? Each moment lost----"
"I left her my own dagger, and she has given proof already that she can
use it. But there's no fear for her, unless ye drive my folk to bay."