"Tell them, if come they will--and Ned, I know, will do no less--that
they must come with swords loose in the scabbards. The signal is, 'In
the name of the dead man, peace between Wayne and Ratcliffe.' Now,
hasten, Mistress--hasten, I tell you, unless you wish to see Ned killed
at Wildwater; for see, the sun sinks fast, and sundown is the time
appointed."
Not at once did Mistress Wayne learn her message; she had to repeat it,
child-like, over and over until she had it letter-perfect, while all the
time Janet could scarce get the words out for impatience. But one thing
the little woman understood--.that Barguest had not led her up the moor
for naught, that Ned was in instant peril, that only she could save him
by hurrying back to Marsh.
Janet watched her, when at last her lesson was well learned, fade
ghost-like into the darkening banks of mist. And then she dropped to
the floor, and lay there forgetful of the preparations that were afoot
behind her in the hall, heedless of the rattle of swords, the
interchange of pleasantries between the Lean Man and his folk, the chink
of flagons on the lyke-wake board. And afterward she found cause to
thank Our Lady for the swoon which gave her so merciful a
breathing-space between what had chanced and what was yet to follow.
Mistress Wayne never halted until she had gained the door of Marsh.
Shameless Wayne himself answered her knocking; his mind seemed bent on
weightier matters for he scarce noticed her after the first quick glance
of surprise, but led her into hall, where thirty of his kinsfolk were
gathered in chattering knots about the hearth, or in the window-nooks,
or round about the supper-table. Griff and the three lads stood
together in one corner, whispering and trying the edges of their swords.
"There's no place for trickery, I tell thee," Rolf Wayne of Cranshaw was
saying as she entered. "Why should they send a messenger to say that
the Lean Man is dead? Why should they press us to go drink in amity
above his body?"
"Because they've hatched some pesty stratagem," answered his fellow,
whose doubts had reawakened during the suspense of waiting. "They'll
find it easier to fight at home than in the open."
"Pish! We've eyes and swords to help us," cried Shameless Wayne,
turning sharp round from his step-mother. "If they want peace, they
shall have it; and if war, then they shall have that likewise. But 'tis
peace, I tell you, for the Lean Man had repented of his hate before he
died."
None answered him, for all had turned as Mistress Wayne came in. And
Shameless Wayne turned then and scanned her up and down; yet, startled
as he was to see her in this plight, he asked her no question, but
filled a wine-cup to the brim and set it to her lips.
"Wast ever kind to me, Ned," she whispered brokenly. "None knows, I
think, how thou hast watched to give me my least need."
"Thy needs are no great burden for a man's back," he answered, in the
old kindly tone that he kept for her alone.--"Does the company fright
thee, bairn? Why, then, we'll none of them. Come to the parlour and
tell me all thou hast to say."
She shook her head, and stood with one hand in his, and looked from one
to another of the swart, sinewy men who kept so mute a watch on her.
"There's treason," she said simply, and stopped till she could gather
the scattered items of her message.
Wayne looked at Wayne, but none spoke. The silence that foreruns a
storm held one and all of them.
"I--I went to Wildwater--in search of Ned," went on the little woman.
"He was long a-coming, and I feared for him."
"Why, what could'st thou have done to help?" muttered Shameless Wayne.
"I did not know--only, that Barguest had called me to thy aid. I
crossed the moor, and it was very dreary, and I was frightened. But I
saw the Dog go footing it up the lane before me, and I went
on--on--until I reached the black house of the Ratcliffes."
Still no word, not a murmur, from the listening group. All eyes were on
the little figure by the table, but she stood with clasped hands and
far-away regard, as if she were looking at some other scene.
"I passed close to the one end of the house--the end that has a little
window looking on the moor--and I grew lonely, so lonely, that I wished
to turn and run back home to Marsh. And then I saw a hand beckoning me
from behind the window--and there was a crash--and, when I had found my
wits again, Janet Ratcliffe was whispering to me through the broken
pane. A long tale she told me, and I learned it all by heart, and--nay,
it has gone! There's but one word in my ears--and it sings so loudly
that I cannot hear the rest."
"What is the word?" asked her step-son gently.
"Treason--treason--treason. But there was more--some--some signal. Oh,
what will Janet say when she knows I have forgotten my lesson!"
The strain was over great for her; her face worked piteously, her hands
clasped and unclasped each other in the effort to remember. And
Shameless Wayne, dumbfounded as he was to know he had been the Lean
Man's dupe, knew well that they must humour this poor waif if they were
to get her tale from her.
"Come, little bairn," he said, "thou hast told enough. Rest thyself
awhile, and never heed the finish of thy tale."
"Oh, but I must! It touches thee so nearly, Ned." Her face cleared on
the sudden. "I know now," she went on still with the same grave
simplicity. "They have asked you to wake with them in token that the
feud is healed. They will fill your goblets and their own, and lift
them to the cry, 'In the name of the dead man, peace between Wayne and
Ratcliffe.' And then, while ye are drinking, they will kill you with
their swords."
The storm was let loose now. The Long Waynes of Cranshaw had their say,
and the Waynes of Hill House; Griff and his brothers watched from their
corner, with eager faces that showed how they were spoiling for a fight.
The Lean Man's name flew hither and thither through the clamour; none
doubted that the plot was his, and they cursed him by the Brown Dog of
Marsh.
Shameless Wayne stood aloof from all until the din had lessened; and
when at last he spoke his voice was rough and hard.
"Waynes, are ye ready for the lyke-wake? 'Tis time we got to saddle,"
he said.
"Art mad?" cried one. "Is the warning to go for naught, that we should
put our necks into so trim a noose?"
"Let be, Ned. Wildwater is no good drinking-house for us," said
another.
"Would'st ride thy luck till it floundered?" snarled a third.
Shameless Wayne beckoned to his four brothers. "Come hither, lads," he
said quietly.
They came and ranged themselves about him, facing the noisy throng.
"Will ye ride with me to Wildwater?" he asked.
"Ay, if thou mean'st to fight," answered Griff. And, "Ay, will we!"
cried the rest.
"Then saddle.--Who goes with us?" he went on, turning to his kinsfolk.
They glanced at each other, angrily, sheepishly. If Griff and his
stripling brothers were fain to follow this bog-o'-lanthorn chase, could
they hold back?
"Think twice about it, Ned, and keep thy strength to meet them in the
open," said one of the Long Waynes of Cranshaw.
"I go, and the lads go, whoever follows.--Hark ye, Waynes! These swine
have fooled us; they have twice broken hospitality--once in drinking
with me here, and once in offering us a friendly cup at Wildwater. Will
our sword's rest light in the scabbard, think ye, if we hold back for
one single day?"
"Ned is right," struck in Wayne of Cranshaw; "and we shall take them at
unawares. They count us unprepared. The first blow will be ours."
He crossed to his cousin's side, and others with him; and those who
still thought the enterprise foolhardy could not for shame's sake stand
aloof.
"Waynes," said Ned grimly, as they clattered to the door, "they think us
over-gentle, these Ratcliffes; but to-night, I warrant, we'll be
something better than our reputation. _Kill_."
"By the Mass, we shall see fair sport at last!" cried Griff, his face
afire with eagerness.
Mistress Wayne laid a hand on Ned's arm as he was following the rest.
"I--I want to come with thee," she faltered.
"To come with me?" he cried impatiently. "Thou look'st fitter for thy
bed, foolish one."
"Say it is fancy--only take me. I'll not fear the bloodshed--I'll not
give one cry--take me, Ned!"
"But, bairn, what should I do with thee?"
"Hast heard what they say in Marshcotes--that I am thy luck, Ned?
Thou'lt win to-night if I am near at hand."
He reasoned with her, stormed at her, all to no purpose; for the little
woman could be obstinate as himself when she believed that his safety
was in case.
"I say thou shalt not come with us," he said. "There's work to be done,
bairn, and we want no women-folk to watch."
Yet for all that he would have had her come, for the superstition which
he disavowed was quick in him. She was his luck, and he knew it well as
she.
"Ned, I never yet asked aught of thee and was refused," she pleaded.
"Hold thy peace, child! I cannot take thee--and I will not."
Her eyes filled with tears; it was as idle, she could see, to turn him
from his refusal as to hold him back from Wildwater.
"There! I was harsh with thee. Never heed it, bairn," he said, looking
toward the courtyard where already he could hear the fretful pawing of
horses, the rattle of scabbards as his folk sprang into the saddle, the
gruff cries of the stable-men.
A thought came to him, then. He fingered the dagger at his belt, in
absent fashion, and turned to ask Mistress Wayne if the room where Janet
was prisoned was easy to be found.
"I could show it to thee if thou would'st take me," she said, with a
child's subtlety.
"Wilt make me curse thee, bairn? Where is the room, I say?"
"It--it lies fair on the bridle-way. 'Tis the only chamber on that side
the house."
"So Janet learned their secret, and they held her back from warning us,"
he muttered. "What if the day goes against us? Peste! I never asked
myself so mean a question before I had two lives to think for."
"Ned! Where art thou?" cried Rolf from the courtyard. "There's thy mare
here, kicking all to splinters because thou wilt not mount her."
But Wayne was already out in the courtyard and had stepped to the roan
mare's head. The roan ceased pawing at sight of him, and came and
thrust her muzzle close against the master's cheek; and Wayne with one
clean vault was in the saddle.
But his step-mother had all the cunning of the fairy-kist. Quick as
himself she had followed him into the yard. The flaring torch-light
showed her Griff's boyish figure and eager, laughing face on the
outskirts of the throng.
"Griff, I must ride with thee to Wildwater," she said, laying a hand on
his saddle.
The lad started. He was a little afraid of his step-mother in these
latter days, as youngsters are of those they cannot understand.
"Why, Mistress?" he asked bluntly.
"'Tis a whim of mine--nay, 'tis a crying need. Ask no more, Griff; it
is for thy brother's sake--and if thou wilt not take me, I'll run beside
thy stirrup till I drop."
Puzzled, liking neither to take her nor to refuse a plea so urgent,
Griff stooped at last and swung her to his crupper. "The Lord knows how
it will fare with you at Wildwater," he muttered, as his brother's call
to start rang through the courtyard.
In silence they went up the moor, a score and ten of them. The wind,
quiet for awhile, was gathering strength again, and its breath was
bitter cold. A blurred round of yellow marked where the moon was
fighting with the cloud-wrack over Dead Lad's Rigg. The whole wide moor
was dark, and lonely, and afraid. The heather dripped beneath the keen
lash of the wind, and over Lostwithens Marsh the blue corpse-candles
fluttered.
"Are ye feared, Mistress?" said Griff, stooping to the ear of Mistress
Wayne when the journey was half over. His voice was jaunty, but in
truth his dread of moor-boggarts was keener for the moment than his zest
for the battle that was waiting them up yonder on the stormy hill-crest.
"I fear the moor always, Griff; 'tis pitiless, like those red folk who
dwell at Wildwater," whispered Mistress Wayne, clinging more tightly to
him.
"Well, there'll be fewer of them by and by, so keep thy courage warm
with that."
Nearer and nearer they drew to Wildwater, while Janet Ratcliffe was
still kept prisoned in the narrow chamber that overlooked the moor. She
had wakened from her swoon in time to hear the last preparations of her
folk in the hall behind her, and the Lean Man's voice was in her ears as
she lifted her aching head and heavy limbs.
"Do I fit this cursed bier?" he was saying.
"Like a gauntlet, sir," answered Red Ratcliffe.
"Do I look pale enough? Lord knows I need, for the fight to keep old
death at bay shows like to break me. Lads, if only my right arm were
whole! I'd take my turn with you, 'od rot me, and have one merry
sword-cut for my last. What hour is't?"
"'Tis close on ten of the clock. They should be here by now."
"Tie up my chin, then, lest aught be wanting. Poor fools! Poor,
courteous fools! To think they come in innocence."
Would the dread farce never end, thought Janet? Or would a hand reach
out of the moor--the moor that was her friend--and strike the Lean Man
in the midst of his cool-ordered devilry? But still their voices
sounded through her prison-wall. She listened more intently now, for
old Nicholas was talking of herself.
"When all is over, bring the girl into hall here--the girl who mocked me
and played the harlot with my foes. Spare her no drop of agony; bring
her to where Wayne of Marsh lies bloody, and tell her that is the bridal
I had set my heart on. God, how deep my hate goes! And"--his voice
faltered by a hair's-breadth--"and once I loved her."
He loved her still, thought Janet, and the half-confession touched a
strange chord in her. A moment since she had burned with hate of her
grandfather; yet now, with the obstinacy of her race, a spark of the old
love wakened for this crafty rogue who had spent his last hours in
working for her misery. Nay, there was a touch of pride in him, because
he kept so staunch a spirit to the end.
"Well, time wags. Tie up my chin, I tell thee, Ratcliffe the Red," said
the Lean Man after a lengthy silence.
Janet could hear Red Ratcliffe start forward to do the old man's
bidding, could hear the awed laughter that followed. Her fleeting love
for him died out. She loathed his treachery, and his impious
trafficking with death. Sick at heart she got to her feet and began to
pace up and down the room. Had Mistress Wayne carried the message to
Marsh House? Or had she faltered by the way? She was so slender a
bridge to safety that it seemed she must break down.
The wind whistled through the shattered window, and with it came a spit
or two of rain. Janet, her senses sharpened by anxiety, heard the least
under-sound that came from the hall, the moor, the moaning
chimney-stacks. She started on the sudden and put her ear to the
casement. Up the path that skirted the house-side came the faint
_slush-slush_ of horse-hoofs striking sodden earth.
"They are coming!" she muttered, racked with fear lest her warning had
miscarried.
Soon she could see thick shadows crossing the window-space--shadows of
men on shadows of horses, outlined against the lesser blackness of the
sky beyond. Something struck the ground at her feet; she groped for it
and her fingers closed upon a dagger with a curving blade. She knew
then that Wayne of Marsh was forewarned--knew, too, the meaning of his
quiet message to her. If he should fall he had given her a refuge from
dishonour.
Her courage returned. At worst she could die with him; and Wayne's luck
in battle did not let her fear the worst. She stood straight in the
darkness of her prison, and heard the horsemen turn the corner of the
house, and waited.
Wayne of Marsh, meanwhile, led his folk straight in at the Wildwater
gates, which stood wide-open in proof that they were welcome guests.
"Now, Mistress, what am I to do with you?" whispered Griff to his
step-mother as he pulled up his horse and lifted his frail burden to the
ground.
But Mistress Wayne, not answering him, slipped from his side and lost
herself amid the darkness. Nor did she know what purpose was in her
mind--only, that where Ned was, there must she be also.
Shameless Wayne sprang from the saddle and knocked sharply on the door
with a cry of "Ratcliffes, ho! Ratcliffes!"
The door was flung wide. "Welcome, all Waynes who come in peace," cried
Red Ratcliffe from the threshold.
"We come to secure peace," said Wayne, and turned in the darkness of the
courtyard and whispered, "_kill_."
The hall was aglow with light as they entered. Candles stood in all the
sconces of the walls, on the mantel-shelf, on the great dining-table
which was pushed close against the outer wall; and, at the head and foot
of the Lean Man's bier, a double row of flames shone yellow on the
burial-trappings. Over the mantel were the rude letters of the Ratcliffe
motto, _We strike, we kill_; and Wayne of Marsh smiled as his eyes fell
on the device which he and his had ridden hither to disprove.
Red Ratcliffe caught the direction of his glance, and touched him
lightly on the shoulder. "'Tis but an outworn saying, yond," he cried.
"We neither strike nor kill, now that the dead has bequeathed us fairer
days."
He beckoned toward the bier, and Wayne and all his folk drew round it in
a ring, looking down upon the closed eyes and wax-white face of their
old enemy. Until now they had doubted whether the Lean Man were really
dead; but doubts vanished as they saw the still look of him and marked
how death had lent its own nobility to the scarred weasel-face.
"His last prayer was for an end to our long feud," said Red Ratcliffe,
smooth and grave.
"Ay, was it--and he wept that he had not lived to see us friends," cried
one of his fellows.
Shameless Wayne kept his eyes on the dead man, for fear his scorn of all
this honeyed speech should show too soon; and he thought, as Red
Ratcliffe spoke, that a tremour like the first waking of a smile ran up
from the cloth that bound the Lean Man's jaws. But he could not tell;
the candle-flames were slanting now in the wind that rustled through the
open door, and the fantastic shadows thrown by them across the bier
might trick the keenest sight.
"'Twas wondrous how quiet an end he had--the old hate clean forgotten,"
went on Red Ratcliffe.
"May all his kinsfolk have as quiet an end," said Wayne, and sighed
impatiently, wondering when the signal for the onset would free him from
all this give-and-take of idle talk.
Yet he would not hurry to the goal; for if the Ratcliffes thought to
lull him into security by delay, the self-same logic taught him likewise
to be patient. For Shameless Wayne was cool to-night; his aim was not
victory alone, and if one Ratcliffe of them all escaped, he would count
himself a beaten man.
A silence followed. The Ratcliffes were glancing sideways at each
other, as if asking, "When?"--and one of them, stooping to Red
Ratcliffe's ear, whispered, "The door! We have forgot to cut off their
retreat."
"The night blows shrewd, friends. Let's shut it out," cried Red
Ratcliffe boisterously.
He stopped half toward the door, and fetched an oath, then laughed
aloud; for there on the threshold stood little Mistress Wayne, shivering
from head to foot.
"By the Mass, we entertain a gentle member of your house, friend Wayne,"
he said. "Enter, Mistress; there's no peace-cup rightly drunk, they
say, unless a woman's lips have touched it."
Wayne frowned on her as she stepped timidly into the room and crossed to
where he stood. "How com'st thou here?" he asked.
"I could not leave thee--oh, Ned, I could not leave thee," she
whispered. "Dear, thou'lt win with me here to watch thee--and--for Our
Lady's sake, get done with it, for I'm sick with doubts and fears."
Red Ratcliffe had already shut the door and slipped the bolts into their
staples. And Shameless Wayne looked on and nodded; for he, too, was
wishful for closed doors. He had taken advantage of the little woman's
entry to draw off the Long Waynes of Cranshaw, the Waynes of Hill House,
and his four brothers, from the bier;--they had masked themselves, as if
by chance, a little apart from the red-headed host of Ratcliffes, and
either side looked for awhile at the other, each hiding their sense of
the wild humour of the scene.
Red Ratcliffe was smooth and merry as one who dances at a rout. "Od's
life," he cried, "what with the wind, and surety that the dead man's
ghost walks cold among us, we need strong liquor. Wayne of Marsh, a
bumper with you."
The Ratcliffes, following his lead, moved to the table and filled a
brimming cup for each one of their guests. And after that they poured
measures for themselves; and Janet, listening from the little room
behind to all that passed, knew that the time had come for Waynes or
Ratcliffes to go under once for all. The instincts of her fighting
fathers rose in her; she felt her dagger-edge, there in the darkness of
her prison, and yearned to take her part in what was next to chance.
But little Mistress Wayne, affrighted by she knew not what, shrank back
into the window-niche and prayed.
"Drink, Waynes!" cried Red Ratcliffe on the sudden. "In the name of the
dead man, peace between Wayne and Ratcliffe."
The Waynes lifted their goblets high, and ran headlong forward, and
dashed them in the faces of the Ratcliffes while yet their blades were
only half free of the scabbards.
"Wayne and the Dog!" the cry rang out, and before the red-heads could
wipe the wine-stains and the blood from mouth and eyes, the Waynes were
on them.
The fight seemed long to Janet, fingering her dagger and longing for a
share in it; but it was swift as the moor-wind screaming round the house
of Wildwater. The wind was a tempest now; yet its voice was drowned in
the blustering yell of "Wayne! Wayne and the Dog!"---the cry that had
driven the Ratcliffes from many a well-fought field.
They had no chance. Surprised, outwitted, blinded by the wine-cups,
they struck at random. But the Waynes aimed true and hard. One by one
the Ratcliffes dropped, and still Shameless Wayne lifted the feud-cry of
his house. Neither courteous nor soft of heart was Wayne of Marsh this
night--nor would be till the work was done.
Ten of the foe were down, and the score and five still left were
fighting with their backs against the wall. A lad's laugh broke now and
then across the groans, the feud-cries, the hiss of leaping steel; for
Griff was young to battle, and the two lives he had claimed had maddened
him. Shameless Wayne said naught at all; but _kill_ was graven on his
face.
The din of battle had wakened even the dead, it seemed; for on a sudden
the Lean Man sat him upright on the bier and watched the fight. A flame
was in his eyes, and with one shaking hand he strove to wrench the
jaw-cloth loose, and could not. His lips moved with a voiceless cry, as
if he would fain have cheered his folk to the attack; but speech and
body-strength had failed, and only the brain, the quick, scheming brain,
was live in him. Yet none marked his agony, none moved to unwrap the
grave-cloth from his jaws.
The Ratcliffes, desperate now, made a last sudden effort just as the
Waynes were surest of their victory. With one deep-throated yell they
leaped to the attack, and drove the foe back with a rush, and rained in
their blows as only men do when the grave is hungry for them. Two of
the long Waynes of Cranshaw dropped, and one of the Hill House men. It
seemed the Wildwater folk might conquer yet by very fury of the forlorn
hope they were leading.
"A Ratcliffe! A Ratcliffe!" roared the on-sweeping band.
"Wayne and the Dog!" came the answer--but feebler now and less assured,
for three more Waynes were lying face to the ceiling-timbers.
And then a dread thing chanced. For Mistress Wayne, shrinking close
into the window-niche and watching the red pathway of the fight, heard a
new note cleave through the uproar. The wind was raving overhead; the
cries were loud as ever; but deeper than them all was the low whine that
sounded from the courtyard door. She saw no sword-play now, no forward
leap or downward crash of men; her gaze was rooted trance-like on the
door, and round about her played an ice-cold wind.
Up the long chamber, through the reeking press, a brown and
shaggy-coated beast stepped softly--stepped till he reached the Lean
Man's bier. But only Mistress Wayne had marked his passing.
She saw the Lean Man cease struggling with the jaw-cloth--saw him turn a
haunted face toward the left hand of the bier, while terror glazed his
eyes--saw the rough-coated hound set back his shadowy haunches for the
spring, and leap, and clutch the Lean Man by the throat.