Part 11

"Begow, 'tis still an' lonesome, at after all th' racket," he murmured. "Poor Parson! He wodn't gladden a pulse-beat, I'll warrant, if all th' lads i' Marshcotes fell to fighting. Well, there's men like that, just as there's men 'at cannot stomach honest liquor--an' Lord help both sorts, say I.--Well, I mun mak th' most o' th' quiet, for they'll come for yond bodies by an' by.--By th' Heart, how Shameless Wayne cut an' hacked! He'll be a long thorn an' a sharp i' Nicholas Ratcliffe's side, will th' lad. Eh' how he clipped th' Lean Man's ear! God rest him!"

*CHAPTER IX*

*A MOORSIDE COURTSHIP*

The last week of March had seen rain, snow and hail; had felt the wind shift from brisk North to snarling Southeast, and from warm, rain-weighted South to an Easterly gale such as nipped the veins in a man's body and daunted the over-hasty green of elderberry and lifted the wet from ploughed fields as speedily as if a July sun had scorched them. From day to day--nay from hour to hour--the farm men had not known whether they would shiver at the hardest work or sweat with the easiest; the moist, untimely heat of one day would plant rheumatism snugly in their joints, and the bitter coldness of the next would weld it in. Nature was dead at heart, it seemed, and whether she showed a dry eye or a tearful, her face wore the dull greyness of despair, as if her thews were too stiffened and too lean with age to rouse themselves for the old labour of bringing buds to leaf, and kine to calving.

And now on a sudden all was changed. The wind blew honest from the West, and even in shadowed corners it kept no knife in waiting for man and beast. The sun shone splendid out of a white-flecked, pearly sky. In the lower lands, blackbird and thrush, starling and wren and linnet, broke into one mighty chorus; and on the moors the grouse called less complainingly one to the other, the larks were boisterous, the eagles showed braver plumage to the sun, the very moor-tits added a twittering sort of gaiety to the day. A lusty, upstanding, joyous day, which brought old folk to their doors, to ask each other if there were not some churlish sport of March hid under all this bravery--which set the youngsters thinking of their sweethearts, and brought the sheep to lambing in many an upland pasture scarce free'd of winter snow.

But the Lean Man had no eye for the beauty of the day, as he rode through Marshcotes street with Robert, his eldest-born, on the bridle-hand of him. For old Nicholas was thinking how Shameless Wayne, the lad whom he had laughed at and despised, had lately driven the Ratcliffes to hopeless flight. Both horsemen were fully armed, with swords on thigh and pistols in their holsters; and, as they rode, they kept a sharp regard to right and left, lest any of the Waynes should be hidden in ambush. Time and time the Lean Man clapped a hand to his left ear, as if by habit, and his face was no good sight to see as he felt the rounded lump which marked where Wayne's sword-cut--a fortnight old by now--was healing tardily.

"Could we but meet the lad alone in Marshcotes street here," he muttered to his eldest-born.

"Ay, but fortune is no friend to us just now," growled Robert; "and there are those who say he'd match the two of us."

"There are those who say that hawks breed cuckoos. Art thou weakening, Robert, too, because he has won the first poor skirmish?"

"Not I. If I find him in the road, I'll have at him--but meanwhile I am free to think my own thoughts."

"Well, and what are thy thoughts, sirrah?"

"That there's witchery in his sword-arm. I saw him fight in the graveyard, and he was something 'twixt man and devil; ay, he fought as if he had the cursed Dog of Marsh to back him."

The Lean Man gave a laugh--a laugh with little surety in it. "Thou'rt a maid, Robert, to fall soft at such a baby-tale as that," he sneered.

"Yet you have heard of the Dog, sir, and now and then you own to a half belief in him," said Robert, meeting the other's glance fairly. "We have had proof of it aforetime, and--see the woman yonder," he broke off, "moving at us from the corner of the lane. What ails her?"

They had passed the Bull tavern and were nearing the spot where the lane that led to Witherlee's cottage ran into the Ling Crag highway. The Lean Man turning his head impatiently as Robert spoke and following the direction of his finger, saw that the Sexton's wife was standing at the roadside. Nanny was looking through and through him, and the smile on her dry old lips was scarcely one of welcome. At another time Nicholas would have paid no heed to her; but to-day a small thing had power to touch his spleen, and he pulled up sharp in the middle of the roadway.

"I'm called Nicholas Ratcliffe, woman, as perchance thou hast forgotten," he said, leaning toward her and half lifting his hairy fist; "and when I see folk mocking me, I am prone to ask them why."

"When I mock ye, Maister, ye're free to strike me, an' not afore," answered Nanny. Her tone was quiet almost to contemptuousness; and the smile that had lately rested on her lips was hiding now behind her shrewd black eyes.

Nicholas looked at her, a touch of approval in his glance; accustomed as he was to browbeat all who met him, this dried-up little body's unconcern in face of threats half tickled and half angered him.

"Hark to her, Robert!" he cried. "Free to strike her, am I? Gad, yes, and with no permission asked, I warrant!"

"An' as for mocking ye," went on Nanny, disregarding his interruption, "what need hev I to step 'twixt ye an' Barguest?"

The Lean Man was accounted hardier than most; yet he started at Nanny's mention of the Dog, following so abruptly on Robert's talk of a moment ago. "Barguest. What has he to do with me?" he cried.

"What hed he to do wi' your folk i' times past? Enough an' to spare, I should reckon. Do ye forget, Nicholas Ratcliffe, how one o' your breed crossed Barguest once on t' threshold of Marsh House? Do ye mind what chanced to him at after?"

Nanny's quiet assurance had in it a quality that daunted the Lean Man. Had she grown fiery in denunciation of his sins toward the Waynes--as in her hotter moments she was wont to do--had she drawn wild pictures of the doom awaiting those who crossed the Dog, Nicholas would have knocked her to the roadway and passed on. But her faith was unwavering; she had no doubt at all that the Lean Man had compassed his own end, and voice and gesture both were such as to convince a man against his will.

He stared at her, a growing terror in his face. "'Tis an old tale, woman, and one we scarce credit nowadays," he stammered.--"Robert, tell her she's a fool--a rank, stark-witted fool--and I a bigger fool to hearken to her."

But Robert was in no case to bolster up his father's dreads. He turned to Nanny sharply. "Where does all this carry us?" he said. "Dost thou mean that one of us has lately crossed the Dog?"

"Ay, marry. What else should I mean?" said the little old woman.

"'Tis a child's tale--a child's tale, I say," broke in Nicholas.

"Well, ye shall try the truth of it by an' by--for ye crossed th' Dog, Nicholas Ratcliffe, when ye came down to nail your token to th' Marsh doorway. I war watching by th' dead man, an' I heard Barguest come whimper-whimper down th' lane; an' then he scratted like a wild thing at th' panels; an' after that he ligged him down on the door-stun."

Nanny paused a moment, watching how the Lean Man took it.

"Ay, and then?" said Nicholas. He would fain have sounded merry, but his voice came dry and harsh.

"Then a man came riding up o' horseback, an' leaped to ground, an' reached ower th' Brown Dog to nail a man's hand to th' door. An' _ye_ war th' horseman, Nicholas Ratcliffe."

Once only the Lean Man glanced at her; then set spurs to his great bay horse and clattered up the street, his son following close behind. At the end of half-a-mile they slackened pace, as if by joint consent; but neither sought the other's eyes.

"What ails thee, fool?" said Nicholas to his eldest-born.

"Naught, sir--'twas not I who fled from a crook-backed beldame," sneered the other.

The Lean Man turned on him, glad of an excuse for bluster. "Thou dar'st to say I fled?" he cried. "Thou, who wast sucking at the breast while I grew old in fight?--There, lad! 'Twas a madness in the blood that fell on us just now. What's Barguest that he should spoil a bonnie plan? Are we not sending Wayne to his last home to-night?"

"We have planned as much," said Robert slowly, "but----"

"Ay, but--and 'but' again in thy teeth. We have him, I tell thee--Red Ratcliffe should be somewhere hereabouts by now, learning what I have sent him out to learn."

"We can learn all that, and yet not use the knowledge right," said Robert sullenly. Even yet he could see Nanny's face, could hear her voice, and he was angered by the fear they bred in him.

"That's as may be," said Nicholas grimly--"but if he brings the news I think he will the devil keep young Wayne of Marsh, for he'll need some such sort of aid.--Who is yond lubberly farm-hind, climbing up the wall this side the road? His slouch is woundily familiar." Like his son, the Lean Man had felt the sting of Nanny's words, though he was minded to make light of it; and no better proof of his humour was needed than the quick ill-tempered eye he had for trifles.

"It looks like Hiram Hey--one of Wayne's folk, and a pesty fellow with his tongue. We've found him more than once cutting peats from the Wildwater land, and more than once we've fallen foul of him."

"Have ye?" said Nicholas quietly. "Well, he did us a service there, may be; and the more peats they coane at Marsh, the better 'twill be for us to-night.--Come, lad; 'tis gallop now, and a truce to that old wife's foolery."

Hiram Hey, meanwhile, was going his leisurely way, glancing curiously at the Lean Man as he went by, but not guessing that he was furnishing him with food for talk. He slouched along the pasture-fields stopping at every other step to watch the sport of heifers, to note a broken piece of walling, or to berate some luckless farm-lad whom he found at play.

"I wodn't call it a fair day, for we've not done wi' 't yet," he murmured. "Nay, I wodn't call it a fair day, an' that's Gospel, till I see how it behaves itseln. We mud varry weel hev snow afore it wears to neet, or else thunner--or both, likely."

He leaned over a three-barred gate and eyed the long furrows climbing to the hill-crest--sleek furrows, with dust lying grey on the sun-side of the upturned sods. And while he lazied there, a milking-song came clear and crisp from over the wall that hid the High meadow from him.

"That's Martha," he cried, brightening on the sudden. "She sings like ony bird, does th' lass. What should she be doing, I wonder, so far fro' Marsh on a working-day?"

His step had an unwonted briskness in it, his carriage was almost jaunty, as he moved along the wall-side to the stile at the corner. A milk-pail was showing now above the top step of the stile, with a cherry-ripe face and trim, short skirted figure under it. Martha halted on seeing Hiram Hey, and set two round, brown arms to the pail, and lifted it down to the wall; then leaned with one hand on it while she dropped a saucy curtsey.

"It's warm," ventured Hiram, picking up a stone from the grass and throwing it aside.

"Warm? I should reckon it is. Tha'd say so if tha'd carried this pail a-top o' thy head for a mile an' better.--But, Lord, we munnot complain, for 'tis a day i' five-score, this, an' warm as midsummer."

"Thee bide a bittock, as I telled young Maister this morn. 'Spring's come again, Hiram,' says he to me. 'Mebbe,' says I, 'but when a man's lived to my years he learns to believe owt o' th' weather--save gooid sense.' That's what I said, for sure."

"Tha'rt not so thrang as or'nary, seemingly?" said Martha, after a pause.

Hiram glanced at her, as if suspecting mockery. "Nay, I'm allus thrang," he answered, shaking his head in mournful fashion. "I've heard folk say I do nowt just because they've seen me hands-i'-pocket time an' time; but when ye're maister-hand at a farm, there's head-work to be done as weel as body-work."

"To be sure--an' 'tis fearful hard, is head-work."

"Ay, I oft say to shepherd Jose that th' humbler your station i' this life, th' fewer frets ye hev."

"I feel fair pitiful for thee, Hiram," said Martha, glancing softly at him across the pail, "when I see what worries tha hes to put up wi'."

Hiram came a step nearer. "Tha mud weel pity me, lass. 'Tis grand to be sich chaps as Jose--all body, i' a way o' speaking, an' no head-piece worth naming to come 'twixt victuals an' their appetites.--Martha, lass, I've oft wondered how tha came to be born a wench."

"Would'st hev hed me born a lad?"

"Nay, begow! but tha's getten so mich sense; that's what I mean. It fair caps me--as if I'd fund apples growing on a thistle-top."

Martha had a keen answer on her tongue-tip, but she held it back; for the lads were beginning to pass her by, and it was time she had a goodman. "It's a lot for thee to say, Hiram, is that," she murmured, dropping her eyes. "I iver thowt there war maid i' Marshcotes could come nigh to what _tha_ looks for i' a wench."

"Nor I nawther," said Hiram gravely. "I've said to myseln time an' agen that if I war to keep good company till th' end o' my days, I'd hev to live wi' myseln."

"It wod take a good un to be mate to thee."

Hiram half lifted his foot to the bottom step of the stile, then withdrew it. "Go slow, lad," he murmured. "If tha taks it at this flairsome speed, where wilt be by to-morn?"

"I wod tak a varry good un," repeated Martha.

But Hiram had taken fright on the sudden. "I seed th' Lean Man go through Marshcotes a while back," he said, with would-be carelessness.

"Oh, ay? Th' Ratcliffes seem to be up an' about this morn, for I passed Red Ratcliffe i' th' meadow not five minites sin'. Sakes, but he's an ill-favoured un, is Red Ratcliffe! He war for gi'eing me a kiss an' a hug just now, but I let him feel th' wrong side o' my hand i'stead.--An' what did th' Lean Man look like, Hiram, after his fighting o' t' other day?"

"Nay, I niver stopped to axe; but I noticed he looked queerish where he took yond sword-cut a two-week come yesterday. I'm none for praising th' young Maister, not I, seeing he's shameless by name an' shameless by natur--but I take it kindly of him that he sliced th' Lean Man's ear off clean as a tummit-top. There's none i' th' moorside but wishes his head had followed."

"Now whisht, Hiram!" cried Martha. "It's a two-week come yesterday sin' they fought i' th' kirkyard, but I'm sick yet wheniver I call to mind how they came home to Marsh that morn. Th' burial-board war all spread, an' I war agate wi' drawing a jug of October when Nanny Witherlee comes running into th' pantry, as white as a hailstone, an' 'Martha,' say she, 'there'll be a sorry mess on th' hall-floor--an' us to have spent so mich beeswax on't,' says she. 'Why, what's agate?' I says. 'Th' Waynes is back for th' burying-feast,' says Nanny, 'an' they've brought some gaping wounds, my sakes, to sit at meat wi' 'em.'"

"I warrant they did," assented Hiram, "for I see'd 'em myseln."

"Well, I runs a-tip-toe then to th' hall door, an' I screamed out to see th' Waynes standing there. A score or so there mud be, all drinking as if they'd sweated like brocks at grasscutting; an' there war a queer silence among 'em; an' some war binding arms an' legs, an' th' floor, I tell thee, war more slippy under a body's feet nor ony beeswax warranted."

"Th' Maister went through it without a scratch, for all that, though they say he fought twice for ivery one o' t' others. Ay, his father war like that when th' owd quarrel war agate--allus i' th' front, yet niver taking so mich as a skin-prick till th' time came for him to dee."

"How long ago war that, Hiram? I've heard tell o' th' owd feud, but it mun hev been a long while back."

"Longer nor ye can call to mind, lass. 'Twas a sight o' years back, afore tha wert born or thought of."

Another soft glance from Martha. "I shouldn't hev thought _tha'd_ hev remembered it so weel, Hiram," she murmured. "Tha talks as if tha wert owd enough to be a girt-grandfather to sich a little un as me."

Hiram saw his error. "Nay, I'm youngish still, Martha," he put in hastily, with a tell-tale pulling of his hat over the widening patch of forehead that showed beneath the brim. "'Tis hard thinking that thins a body's thatch, an' when I call to mind what a power o' sense I've learned sin' being a lad, I wonder I'm not as bald as a moor-tit's egg. Well, tha mud find younger men nor me, but----"

"I set no store by youngness, Hiram. I allus did say a wise head war th' best thing a man could hev."

"Begow, but tha'rt a shrewd un, Martha, as weel as a bonnie un!" cried Hiram, and checked himself. "Yond's a tidy slice o' land," he said, nodding at the dusty furrows in front of them.

But Martha knew her own mind. "I'd liefer talk about thee, Hiram, that I wod," she said. "Land's theer ony day we want to look at it!"

"Well, now, there's summat i' that," he answered, with a shade of uneasiness in his voice. "Where hast been, like, for th' milk, lass? 'Tisn't every day I find thee stirring so far fro' Marsh."

"I've been to th' High Farm, for sure. What wi' milk for th' new-weaned calves, an' for churning, an' what not, we shouldn't hev hed a sup i' th' house down at Marsh if I hadn't come a-borrowing."

"There's waste somewhere, I'm thinking," said Hiram sadly. "Th' roan cow war niver fuller i' milk nor now, an' yond little dappled beast I bought off Tom o' Dick's o' Windytop is yielding grandly. Nay, nay, there's waste at Marsh! I said how 'twould be when young Maister took hod o' th' reins."

"Waste, is there? I'd like thee to hev a week or two at managing, Hiram; tha'd see how far a score quarts o' milk 'ull go, wi' four growing lads an' th' Maister, an' all ye lubbering farm-folk to feed. But theer! Men niver can thoyle to see owt go i' housekeeping; an' I'll be bidding thee good-day, Hiram, as tha's getten no likelier sort o' talk nor that."

She made pretence to lift her pail from the top of the stile, and Hiram so far forgot his caution as to put a hand on her dimpled arm.

"Sakes, lass, I wodn't hev thee go!" he cried.

"Then don't thee talk about waste and sich-like foolishness; I thowt tha'd more sense, Hiram, that I did. Nawther is young Maister what tha thinks him, let me tell thee; he's stiffening like a good un an' there's them as says he's getten th' whip-hand o' Hiram Hey already."

"Stiffening, is he?" cried Hiram, whom the jibe stung more keenly because he could not but admit the truth of it. "Well, there's room an' to spare, for he hes as slack a back as iver I clapped een on. But if tha thinks he can best Hiram Hey, Sunday or week-day----"

He stopped and shaded his eyes with both hands as he looked more keenly up the fields. Two figures had topped the crest--one a girl's, the other a man's, loose-built and of a swinging carriage.

"Nay, _I_ niver said I thowt as mich," said Martha demurely, not heeding the direction of Hiram's glance. "'Twas shepherd Jose said it yestereen when he stepped down to th' house wi' th' week's lamb."

"What, Jose!" cried the other, with an angry cackle. "He niver had a mind aboon sheep, hedn't Jose, an' sheep is poor wastrels when all's said. So tha lets an owd chap like yond come whispering i' thy ear, dost 'a, Martha?"

"An' who's to say nay to me, I should like to know?" Her voice was combative, but she leaned a little toward Hiram as she spoke, and he all but took the last dire step of all.

Very foolish showed Hiram, as he stood looking at the maid, with caution in one eye and in the other a frank admiration of the comeliness which showed so wholesome and so fresh amid the greenery of field and hedgerow. And all the while he was murmuring, "Go slow, lad, go slow, I tell thee," and his lips were moving shiftlessly to the refrain.

"Thou'rt tongue-tied, Hiram. Who's to say nay to me, I axed thee?" laughed Martha.

Hiram rocked the milk pail gently with one hand, and stared up the new-ploughed furrows of the field ahead of him. "Thy own good sense, lass, should say thee nay," he answered guardedly. "Them as tends sheep, an' nowt but sheep, gets witless as an owd bell-wether; an' if I war a lass I'd as lief wed a turnip on a besom-stick as shepherd Jose."

"If tha wert a lass, Hiram, tha'd die i' spinsterhood, I'm thinking."

Martha's attack was spirited, but she sighed a little as she noted Hiram's far-away regard; his thoughts were with the land, she fancied, when she fain would have brought them nearer home. Yet, as it chanced Hiram Hey was not thinking of farm-matters at the moment; Martha had her back to the ploughed field, and she could not see that the two figures which had lately topped the rise were coming down the field-side toward the stile. And it was plain now to Hiram that one was Janet Ratcliffe, the other Wayne of Marsh.

"It's queer, is th' way o' things," said Martha presently, loth to go her ways, yet too impatient and too womanly to stand there with no word spoken.

"Oh, ay? Well, things war niver owt but queer," answered Hiram, startled out of his abstraction.

"I war thinking o' th' bloody fight i' th' kirkyard. No more nor a two-week back it war, Hiram, an' here we all are, cooking an' weshing an' churning i' th' owd way, when we'd looked for fearsome doings all up an' down th' moorside."

"A wench would look for 'em; but I could hev telled thee different if tha'd axed me," said Hiram complacently. "Look at yond puffs o' dust that come ivery two-three minutes over th' furrows--dost think even Shameless Wayne could let a seed-time sich as this go by, while he war agate wi' fighting? Nay, nor th' Ratcliffes nawther. We mun all live by th' land, gentle an' simple, an' afore awther Wayne or Ratcliffes can afford to marlake, they'll hev to addle belly-timber."

"There'll nowt o' more come on 't then? Th' Lean Man has been fearful quiet of late, an' there's them as thinks th' fight i' th' graveyard has daunted him for good an' all."

"Daunted him, has it?" rejoined Hiram grimly. "Thee bide till th' oats is sown, an' th' hay won in, an' then tha'll see summat. Th' Lean Man is quiet like, tha says? Well, I've known him quiet afore, an' I've known him busy--an' of th' two I'd liefer see him thrang."

"Tha'r a good un to flair folk, Hiram! Why would'st liefer see him thrang?"

"Why? Because when a Ratcliffe says nowt to nobody, but wends abroad wi' a smug face an' watchful een, same as I've seen 'em do lately, ye may be varry sure he's fashioning slier devil's tricks nor iver.--Red Ratcliffe met thee just now, did he, Martha?"

"I telled thee as mich--he warn't so slow as some folk, Hiram, for he'd no sooner clapped een on me nor he had an arm about my waist."

Again Hiram wavered, and again whispered caution to himself. "He showed some mak o' sense there, Martha--but that's not what I war axing thee. What war he doing, like, when tha first comed up wi' him?"

"Nowt, nobbut mooning up an' down, as if i' search o' somebody."

"Well, he war on Wayne land to start wi', an' that wears a queerish look."

"Sakes, young Maister is nowhere near, I'm hoping!" cried Martha. "Red Ratcliffe carried his pistols, an' a shot from behind a wall wod suit him better nor a stand-up fight."

She still had her back to the ploughed field, and Hiram smiled in sour fashion to think how very near the master was, and what company he was keeping at the moment.

"Thou'rt fearful jealous for th' young Maister," he said. "I'm thinking there's truth i' what they say i' Marshcotes--that Shameless Wayne allus gets th' soft side of a maid."

"An' should do, seeing he's what he is!"