Part 12

"Well, I wodn't be a bit surprised if he _war_ i' th' fields this morn. He's farmed for a week, hes th' Maister, an' he knows so mich about it now that he mun be here, theer an' iverywhere, watching that us younger hands do matters right."

"Tha can mock as tha likes, Hiram Hey, but he'll teach thee summat afore he's done wi' thee. Poor lad, though, I'm fair pitiful for him! He niver rests save when he's abed, an' not oft then, for I can hear him stirring mony a neet at after he'd earned his sleep."

"Thinking of his sins, I reckon," growled Hiram.

"Well, there's some I know that hasn't mouse-pluck enough for sinning. Besides, that's owered wi'. He's stiffening right enough--yet mony's the time I wish him back to th' owd careless days. He niver hes a gay word for us wenches now, an' to see him wi' his brothers ye mud weel think he war a score year older nor he's ony call to be."

Hiram had waited for this moment, chuckling at the overthrow in store for Martha's championship of the master. "Stiffening, is he?" he said, pointing up the field and drawing his lips into a thin curve. "He may be--but he's framing badly for a start."

Martha, turning sharp about, saw the two figures come slowly down the wall-side toward the stile. Wayne's head was bent low to Mistress Janet's, as if he were pleading some urgent cause, and neither seemed to guess that they were watched.

"Well?" said Martha defiantly. "There's nowt wrong i' that, is there? I've known he war soft on Mistress Ratcliffe iver sin' last spring."

Hiram stared at her, aghast that she could look so lightly on a grievous matter; and when he spoke there was honest anger in his voice, distinct from his usual carping tone.

"Nowt wrong?" he said slowly. "What, when a Wayne goes courting a Ratcliffe? I can't picture owt wronger, ony way, seeing what has come between 'em lately an' aforetime."

"Hoity-toity! That's been Mistress Nell's way o' looking at it--but 'tisn't mine. Look at 'em, Hiram, an' say if they don't mak a bonnie couple."

"What's bonniness to do wi' 't? They're a bad stock, root an' branch, is th' Ratcliffes, an' it 'ull be a sore day for Marsh when th' Maister brings sich as yond to th' owd house. Besides, he has sworn to kill her folk."

"Well, ye cannot cut young hearts i' two wi' kinship, an' that's what I'm telling thee. Mistress Ratcliffe hes nawther father nor brother living, an' them she dwells wi' up at Wildwater are nowt so near to her but what a good lad's love is nearer."

"Hod thy whisht, lass!" cried Hiram on the sudden. "Th' Maister is looking this way at last. Begow, but he mun hev had summat deep to say to her, or he'd have seen us afore this."

Shameless Wayne reddened on seeing the occupants of the stile, and whispered to Janet, and the two of them turned quickly about, taking a cross-line back toward the moor.

"Flaired to be spoken to by honest folk," said Hiram.

"Flaired o' thy sour face, more like," snapped Martha.

Hiram was about to make one of his slow, exasperating responses when he clutched Martha by the arm and again pointed over the stile--not up the ploughed field this time, but across the pasture-land abutting on it.

"We shall know by an' by what Red Ratcliffe has in mind," he muttered; "dost see him yonder, Martha, crossing th' pasture? Ay, an' now he's following 'em up th' wallside."

"So he is. There's no mistaking that red thatch o' hisn--'twill set th' sun afire one bonnie day, I'm thinking. Does he mean to do th' Maister a hurt, think ye, Hiram?"

Hiram stretched himself with the air of a man who has work to do. "He's too far off yet for a pistol-shot; but he's quickening pace a bit, an' Lord knows what he's bent on. I reckon I'll just clamber ower th' wall here, Martha, an' wend down t' other side, and get a word wi' him as if 'twar chance like."

"Tak care o' thyseln, Hiram. There are some of us wod ill like to see harm come to thee."

But Hiram was deaf to blandishments. He had gone far enough for one morning, and, all else apart, he was no whit sorry to slip out of temptation's way.

"There's no telling when a Ratcliffe is about," he said, putting one leg over the low wall, "an' th' Maister is so throttle-deep i' foolishness just now that he's ripe-ready to fall into ony snare that's laid for him. Begow, Martha, but I don't know what th' world wod come to if there war no Hiram Hey to straighten it now and again!"

Martha sighed for the interrupted wooing as she lifted her pail from the stile. Hiram Hey moved surely, it might be, but life seemed short for such masterly painstaking slowness.

"It's war nor driving pigs to market, is getting Hiram to speak plain," she said to herself, setting off for home.--"Tha'll be back to thy dinner, Hiram?" she added over her shoulder.

"For sure I will. There's more nor dinner to tempt me down to Marsh," he cried, his rashness gaining on him now that he stood on the far side of the wall.

On no point save wedlock, however, did Hiram fail to know his purpose. He might have much to say about the young Master, but he had no mind to see harm come to him; and so he moved with a steady swing across the field, then turned sharp and crossed to the wall behind which Red Ratcliffe was creeping at a point some ten-score yards from the stile. He stopped then and leaned a pair of careless arms over the wall and looked everywhere but at the object of his manoeuvres, whose progress he had guessed to a nicety.

"Why, is't ye, Maister Ratcliffe?" he cried, letting his eyes fall at last on the tall, lean figure that stood not two yards away on the far side of the wall.

Ratcliffe glanced at him, but could not guess whether Hiram's stolid face hid any deeper thought than an idle wish to chatter. "'Tis I, plain enough," he growled.

"Nay, doan't fly at me--on a grand day like this, an' all. I thowt mebbe ye'd stepped on to th' Marsh land just to pick up a two-three wrinkles about farming. 'Tis not oft we're favoured wi' a sight o' ye down here."

"Dost think I need come here to learn any point of tillage?" laughed the other angrily.

"Well, I thowt it showed good sense i' ye. We're a tidy lot at Marsh, so folk say, an' I'm none blaming ye at Wildwater, ye understand for knawing a bit less about farming nor us. Your land's high, for one thing, an' lean as a scraped flint--I warrant it does your een good to see sich lovesome furrows as them, ye're walking ower."

"If speech can earn thee a cracked crown, thou'lt not long go whole of head," snapped Ratcliffe, beginning to move forward.

"Theer, theer! Th' gentry's allus so hot when a plain man strives to talk pleasant like to 'em. But it's live an' let live, I allus did say, an' sich fair spring weather as this hes a trick o' setting my tongue wagging." A sly glance at the other's back told him that Red Ratcliffe must be fetched up sharp if he were to be prevented from following Wayne of Marsh and Janet. "It sets other folk's tongues agate, too, seemingly," he added, glancing toward the hill-crest over which his Master and the girl were disappearing; "they mak a fine couple, doan't they, Maister, him an' Mistress Ratcliffe?"

Ratcliffe faced about. "Palsy take thee!" he cried. "Art thou a fool, only, Hiram Hey, or dost think to jest with thy betters?"

"Nay, I'm nobbut a fool, I reckon," said Hiram, shaking his head mournfully. "I can't say owt to please ye, 'twould seem, choose what, so I'd better hod my whisht. When I see a bonnie lass, an' th' finest lad i' th' moorside beside her--why, I thowt it could do no harm just to speak on 't, like."

"The finest lad in the moorside?" sneered Ratcliffe. "Since when did Wayne the Shameless earn his new title?"

"What, ye've not heard his praises then? I may hev my own opinion--ivery man hes a right to that--but Marshcotes an' Ling Crag can find nowt too good to say about him nowadays. Oh, ay, they all grant 'at th' Wayne land is th' best on th' moor, an' ots Maister th' handiest chap wi' sword or farming-tools. 'Tis sad, for sure, that there's such bad blood 'twixt ye an' th' Waynes; but this courtship 'ull mebbe cure it.--Nay, now, doan't be so hasty! I speak according to my lights; they may be poor uns, as Blind Tom o' Trawdon says, but they're all I've getten to go by."

Not a muscle of Hiram's face told how he was enjoying this skirmish with his enemy; only an added watchfulness of eye told that he half expected the other to strike him. His Master was out of sight now, and there was so much gained, whatever chanced to himself. But Ratcliffe lost his anger on the sudden, and turned to Hiram with something near to good-nature in his tone.

"Well, thou'rt dry, Hiram, with a shrewd wit of thy own, but I warn thee for thy own sake not to couple any Wayne with Mistress Ratcliffe in thy gossip.--Ay, and that calls another thing to mind; they say ye Wayne folk cut peats on the Wildwater land last summer, and ever since I've been seeking a chance to tell thee we'll have no more of that."

Hiram, wondering what lay under this change of front, answered slowly. "We're no thiefs, Maister; an' if our peat beds lie foot-to-heel wi' yourn, is that to say we'd ower-step th' boundary? Besides, we've no call to; our side o' th' bed yields better peats----"

"Well, I judge by what I'm told, and our farm-folk told us further that ye had carted some of their own peats as they lay up-ended for the drying."

"Begow, that's a likely tale!" cried Hiram, roused at last. "When we worked noon an' neet for a week, cutting an' drying an' carting, to be telled we----"

"There! Thou'rt honest, Hiram, and I'll take thy word for it," laughed Ratcliffe. "So the peats have lasted, have they? Ours are all but done after this cursed winter."

"Now, what's he at?" muttered Hiram. "When th' Ratcliffe breed hatches a civil word, they allus want stiff payment for 't.--Our peats are lasting fine, an' thankee," he said. "'Tis all a matter o' forethought, an' some fowk hesn't mich o' that. Oh, ay, we've getten a shed-full next to th' mistals, let alone th' stack at th' far-side o' th' yard; an' it's April now, so I reckon we shall see th' winter through. Ye niver catch us tripping down at Marsh."

"Not oft," said Ratcliffe, with a crafty smile.--"Faith, though, thy boasting would move better if it had less to carry, Hiram. We're all at fault once in a while, and I warrant that, if the peats will last, your bedding--bracken and the like,--has fallen short."

"Then ye'll warrant to little purpose," put in Hiram, with triumph, "they lig side by side, th' peats an' th' bedding--an' if ye'll step down an' tak a look at Marsh ye'll find a fairish heap o' both sorts."

He laughed at the humour of the invitation, and Red Ratcliffe followed suit as he turned on his heel.

"Another day, Hiram, and meanwhile I'll take word back to Wildwater, that we've all to learn yet from the wise men who dwell at Marsh."

"Scoff as ye will, ye're varry right there," muttered Hiram, as he too, went his way. "But I'd like to know what made ye frame to speak so civil all at once."

Red Ratcliffe was already moving across the field, with a light step and a face that was full of cunning glee; nor did he slacken pace until, half toward Wildwater, he saw Shameless Wayne parting from Janet at the corner of the crossroads. His face darkened for a moment, then cleared as he watched Shameless Wayne pass down the road to Marsh.

"I've learned two things worth the knowing to-day," he murmured, striding after his cousin, "and both should cut solid ground from under Wayne's feet. God, though, they did not part like lovers! Has Janet's needle-tongue proved over-sharp for Shameless Wayne? Ay, it must be so--and now she's full of sorrow for the quarrel, all in a maid's way, and droops like any wayside flower."

Janet turned as his step sounded close behind her; she glanced at the road which Wayne had taken, and then at Red Ratcliffe, but his manner was so open and free of its wonted subtlety that she told herself, with a quick breath of relief, that her secret was safe enough as yet.

"Would'st have company on the road, cousin?" he said lightly.

"I had better company before thou cam'st," she answered lifting her dainty brows.

He stared at her, thinking that she meant, at the bidding of one of her wilder moods, to make frank avowal of her meeting with Shameless Wayne. "Better company? Whose was't?" he snapped.

"Why, sir, my own." There was trouble deep-seated in her eyes, but her tone was light; for she had learned by hard experience to know that only mockery could keep Red Ratcliffe's surly heat of passion in any sort of check.

"Art something less than civil, Janet, to one who loves thee."

"Well, then, why fret thyself with such a thankless Mistress? I'm weary of hearing thee play the lover, and I tell thee so again--for the third time, I think, since yesterday."

"Thou'lt be wearier still before I've done with wooing thee. Hark, Janet; 'tis no light fancy, this----"

"Light or heavy, sir, 'tis all one to me. My thoughts lie off from wedlock."

He stopped and gripped her hands with sudden fury. "By God, if thy love turns to any but me," he cried, "I'll cut the heart out of the man who wins thee."

She pulled her hands away and stepped back a pace or two; and amid all his spleen he could not but admire the fine aloofness of her carriage. Not like a maid at all was she; heaving breast, and bright, watchful eye, and back-thrown head, seemed rather those of some wild thing of the moors, pursued and driven to bay among the wastes where hitherto she had lived out of sight and touch of men.

"So it comes to this, Red Ratcliffe?" she said slowly. "The sorriest fool at Wildwater dares to use force when I refuse him love?"

"'Twas the thought thou might'st love elsewhere that stung me," he muttered, cowed by her fury.

Again a passing doubt crossed her mind--a doubt lest he had reached the cross-roads in time to see her bid farewell to Shameless Wayne. "How should I love elsewhere?" she faltered.

Red Ratcliffe paused, wondering if he should loose his shaft at once, but he thought better of it. Janet was safe under hand at Wildwater for the nonce, and if he bided his time until her mood has less gustiness in it, he might use his knowledge to better purpose.

"Nay, I trust thy pride far enough, and thy fear of the Lean Man, to know thou'lt not wed worse blood than ours," he said softly; "but I'm not the only one at Wildwater that hungers for thee, and there are the Ryecollar Ratcliffes besides."

"And fifty more belike. What then, sir?"

"This--that I'll have thee, girl, if every Ratcliffe of them all says nay," he muttered savagely.

She glanced at him, then turned her back and moved to the far side of the road. "Art a man sometimes in thy words," she said, over her shoulder. "If only thou could'st show deeds to back them--why, I think I'd forgive thee the folly of thy love for its passion's sake. There, cousin! I'm weary o the talk, and my steps will not keep pace with thine to Wildwater."

"Thou askest deeds? Well, thou shalt have them before the week is out," he said, and struck across the moor. At another time he would not have accepted such easiful dismissal; but he knew the game was his now, and there was nothing to be gained by matching his wit with hers through two long miles.

"What ailed me to walk so openly with Wayne of Marsh?" mused Janet, following at her leisure. "I had as lief we were seen by grandfather himself as by yonder spiteful rogue-- And all to what end? Wayne is against me, too, though his face cannot hide"--she stopped, and her trouble melted into a low laugh--"cannot hide what I would see there."

Red Ratcliffe did not go straight into the hall as he reached Wildwater. Some dark instinct, begotten of fight and plot and brute passion barely held in check, drew him to the pool that underlay the house. The look of the sullen water, the old stories that were buried in its nether slime, touched a kindred chord in him, and he gleaned a sombre joy from standing at the edge and counting again the dead which tradition gave the pool. He was roused by a touch on his shoulder, and looking round he saw old Nicholas watching him with a grim air of approval.

"It has a speech of its own, eh, lad? And wiser counsel under its speech than most I hear," said Nicholas, pointing to the water.

"Ay, it has hid a Wayne or two aforetime, and it seems to crave more such goodly food. Yet 'tis strange, sir, that Barguest is said to lie here o' nights. 'Tis he, they say, that kills the fish and keeps the moor-fowl from nesting on the banks. What should the guardian of Marsh House do sleeping cheek by jowl with us?"

The Lean Man quailed for a moment, as he had quailed when Nanny Witherlee told him how he had crossed Barguest on the Marsh threshold. But the disquiet passed. "Tush, lad!" he cried. "Leave Waynes to their own old wives' tales, and come to a story with more marrow in 't. Didst learn what I sent thee out to learn?"

Red Ratcliffe lost his brief touch of superstition. "Ay--and that without going nearer than half a league to Marsh. As I was on my way there I chanced on Hiram Hey, and the wry old fool told me all I asked with never a guess at my meaning."

"There's enough, is there?"

"And to spare. I've seen to the hemlock, too, and one of the lads is to go----"

"Hold thy peace!" cried Nicholas, chiding him roughly. "Here's Janet, and she must guess naught of this; 'twould only fright her."

Red Ratcliffe moved away as his cousin came up, for he had no wish to make further sport for her yet awhile. "Fright her, poor lambling, would it?" he muttered. "The Lean Man's care for her is wondrous--but what if he knew that I had learned more to-day than ever he sent me out in search of?"

"Come here, Janet," said Nicholas, as the girl halted, doubtful whether he wanted speech of her. "There has been somewhat on my tongue this long while past, and every time I see thee come in from these fond walks of thine, I read two things more clearly."

"And what are they, grandfather?" she said, slipping a coaxing hand into his.

"That the wind gives thee beauty enough to tempt any man--and that there's danger in it so long as we're at feud with the Waynes."

"But that is an old tale, sir," she pouted, "and--and no harm has come to me as yet."

"The more cause to fear it then, to-morrow, or the next day after. See, lass, I would not deal hardly with thee, but I'll not give way on this one point, plead as thou wilt. There are Ratcliffes in plenty who want thee in wedlock, and 'tis time thou hadst a strong arm about thee. Thou'lt wander less abroad, I warrant, soon as thou hast a goodman."

"But, grandfather, I do not want to----"

"Be quiet, child! And let an older head take better care of thee than thou wilt ever take of thyself. Besides, they are so hot for thee, one and another, that there's danger of a feud among ourselves if the matter is not settled one way or the other. Red Ratcliffe asked me for thee only yesternight."

"If the world held him and me, sir, I would go to the far side of it and leave him the other half," she cried, with childish vehemence.

"Well, well, there are others. I gave him free leave to win thee if he could, and he must do his own pleading now."

They stood by the water-side awhile in silence, the girl in sore fear of what this new mood of her grandfather's might bring, and Nicholas returning to the foolish scrap of goblin-lore with which Red Ratcliffe had just now disquieted him. Do as he would, the Lean Man could not hide from himself that a dread the more potent for its vagueness, had been creeping in on him ever since he learned what had lain on the Marsh doorway when he went to nail his token on the oak. Broad noon as it was now, the light lay heavy on the water, and Nicholas could not keep his eyes from it, nor his mind from the legend that named it the Brown Dog's lair.

"Janet," he said, looking up at her with a light in his keen eyes which she had never yet seen there, "there's a weak link, they say, in every man's chain of life, and it has taken me three-score years to find out mine. This Barguest that they talk of? Dost credit him, lass?"

She glanced quickly at him, puzzled by the vague terror in his voice. "I have lived with the voices of the moor," she answered gravely, "till I can doubt plain flesh and blood more easily than Barguest, and the Sorrowful Woman, and----"

"Pest!" he broke in impatiently. "'Tis fitting a maid should let her fancies stray. But a grown man, Janet? There! The pool breeds more than the one sort of vapour, and we'll stay no longer by it.--Think well, lass, on what I said of wedlock, for thou'lt have to make early choice."

Hiram Hey, meanwhile was sitting beside the kitchen hearth at Marsh, watching Martha clear the board after dinner; for he always dined at the house, thought he slept and took his other meals at the Low Farm. The rest of the serving-folk had gone to this or that occupation, and Hiram was minded to take up his wooing again at the exact spot where he had left it an hour or two earlier.

"I've been thinking o' things, Martha, sin' I saw thee looking so bonnie-like this morn," he said.

"What sort o' things?" she asked, demurely sweeping the table free of crumbs.

Hiram ruffled the frill of hair under his chin, and smiled with wintry foolishness. "Well, what's wrang for a young un like th' Maister is right enough for a seasoned chap like me. I'm rather backard i' coming forrard, tha sees, but it cam ower me t' other day that I mud varry weel look round an' about me; an' if I could find a wench 'at war all I looked for i' a wench----"

"Ay, what then, Hiram?"

He paused, and shuffled his feet among the heap of farmyard mud which had already fallen from his boots. "Why, there's niver no telling--niver no telling at all," he said, with an air of deep wisdom.

"Sakes, he's a slow un to move, is Hiram," muttered the girl, losing patience at last.

"Well, I mun be seeing after things, I reckon, or there'll be summat getting out o' gear," said Hiram, rising and stretching himself in very leisurely fashion.

"Ay, tha'rt famous thrang," flashed Martha. "Comes moaning an' groaning, does Hiram, at after he'd done his day, an' swears th' wark goes nigh to kill him. An' this is what it comes to most days, I reckon--loitering by stiles, an' talking foolishness to wenches 'at are ower busy to hearken----"

"Nay, lass, nay! I wod liefer we didn't part fratching."

"Well, hast getten owt to say?" she asked, facing him abruptly.

"Say? Well, now, I'm backard i' coming forrard, as I telled thee--but tha'rt as snod-set-up a wench as iver----"

"Thanks for nowt. Good-day, Hiram. Tha'rt backard i' most things, I'm thinking," said Martha, flouncing out into the yard.

Hiram looked after her awhile, then shook his head. "I war right to go slow," he murmured. "Women's allus so hasty, as if they war bahn to dee to-morn, an' all to get done afore their burial.--Well, I mun see to yond tummit seeds, I reckon; but I wod like to know what Red Ratcliffe war up to; summat he'd getten at th' back on his mind, but what it war beats me."

And something Red Ratcliffe had in mind; but what it was, and how nearly it touched those at Marsh, Hiram was not to learn this side the dawn.

*CHAPTER X*

*WHAT CROSSED THE GARDEN-PATH*

Shameless Wayne, returning late on the day which had witnessed Hiram Hey's cautious efforts toward wedlock, found his step-mother standing at the courtyard gate, a look of trouble in her face and her eyes fixed on the rounded spur of moor above. Wayne's heart was growing daily harder against the strong, and softer where any sort of weakness was in case; and the mad woman's plight, her frailty and friendlessness, seemed to strike a fresh note of pity in him at each chance meeting.