Part 14

"For spleen, likely, because Ned worsted them the other day; but if they do no more than that--Griff, 'twould have been rare sport to have gone up to Wildwater to-night."

Griff halted and glanced wistfully at the surly crest of moor above. "Nay; we gave our promise," he said, with manifest reluctance.

"How are we to hunt without the dogs?" put in Rob. "We left all our weapons in hall when we crept out so hastily--Good hap, there goes a fine fat fellow! We're missing the best of the moonlight with all this talk of a Lean Man who never shows his face."

They all four stood and watched the hare swing up the field and over the misty crest; knobby and big and brown the beast showed, and his stride was like the uneasy gallop of a horse whose knees are stiffening.

"We'll miss no more such chances," cried Griff. "There are two dogs at the Low Farm; let's rouse old Hiram Hey out of his bed and get the loan of them."

Hiram Hey was not abed, as it chanced, but a rushlight was in his hands and his foot on the bottom stair when Griff's masterful rat-tat sounded on the door.

"What's agate?" he growled, opening the door a couple of inches. "Christian folk should be ligged i' bed by now, i'stead o' coming an' scaring peaceable bodies out o' their wits----"

"Thou'st little wit to be scared out of, Hiram," laughed Rob.

The door opened a foot-breadth wider. "Oh, it's ye, is 't? Ay, there's shameless doings now up at Marsh. I' th' owd Maister's days ye'd hev been abed at sunset, that ye wod."

"We carry arms now, and know how to use them; so keep a civil tongue in thy tousled head," said Griff, with a great air of dignity. "We want to borrow thy dogs, Hiram."

"Oh, that's it? Well, how if th' dogs are anot to be hed at ony lad's beck an' call?"

"We'll take them without a by-your-leave in that case. Come, Hiram, the hares are cropping moon-grass so 'twould make thy old mouth water just to see them."

"Let 'em crop for owt I care. What's comed to th' Marsh kennels that ye mud needs go borrowing?"

"Hemlock has come to them, and there's not one left alive."

Hiram Hey whistled softly, and set down his candle and came out into the moonlight. "That's not a bad start for a war finish," he said, turning his head to the low hill which hid the house from him, as if expecting some sound of tumult.

"Well, 'tis done, and we're missing sport the while," said Griff, with a lad's peremptoriness. "I can hear those dogs of thine yelping in the yard yonder. Loose them, Hiram."

Hiram did as he was bid, with many a grumble by the way; then stood and watched the lads go racing over the pastures, the dogs running fast in front of them. "There's bahn to be trouble, choose who hears me say 't," he muttered. "Ay, I knew how 'twould be when I see'd young Maister fly-by-skying wi' yond Ratcliffe wench; 'tis a judgment on him, sure. Ay, 'tis a judgment; an' hard it is that we should be killed i' our beds for sake of a lad's unruliness.--What, th' dogs is gi'eing tongue already? Well, I'd hev liked to see th' sport, if my legs war a thowt less stalled wi' wark."

Hiram had been asleep a good two hours before the chase was over. Pasture after pasture was drawn, the lads' zest waxing keener with each fresh kill, until they had more hares than they could carry.

"Look at the moon, lads! She's nearing Worm's Hill already, and half a league from home," panted Griff, as he tried to add the last hare to his load.

"Ned will have somewhat to say to this," laughed Rob; "but faith 'twas worth all the scolding he can cram into a week."

"Ay, was it, but we'll put the best foot forward now. Let's leave half the hares under the sheep-hole in the wall yonder, or we shall never get back to Marsh till midnight.--There. They'll keep till morning safe enough, unless some shepherd's dog should nose them."

They set off at a steady trot, stopped at the Low Farm to close the yard gate on their borrowed dogs, and then took a straight course for Marsh. But breath failed them as they neared the homestead; their pace dwindled to a walk, and not even noisy Rob could muster speech of any sort. The moon was out of sight now behind the house, leaving the field that hugged the outbuildings in a grey half-light--a light so puzzling to the eyes that Griff, when he thought he saw the dim figure of a man crossing from the peat-shed to the yard, told himself that fancy was playing tricks with him. But Rob had seen the figure, too, and he clutched his brother's arm.

"What is that moving yonder?" he whispered.

A second figure, and a third, came shadowy-vague through the low doorway of the shed, and Griff could see now that each man carried an armful of peats, or ling, or bracken--he could not tell which. Fetching a compass up the field-side, the four of them turned and crept under shelter of the house, and so on tip-toe across the courtyard till the hall-door showed in front of them. The light was clearer here, though they were hidden altogether in the shadows, and they could see a tall fellow piling a last armful on the heap of ling and bracken that already mounted to the doorway-top.

"They mean to fire the house!" muttered Griff, and felt for his brothers in the dark and drew them about him in a narrow ring.

"There were three of them--what has come to the other two?" whispered Rob.

Griff drew in his breath and nipped the other's arm till he all but cried out with pain. "There are three doors to the house, likewise. Dost not see the plan? They have us housed safe as rattens in a gin, they think, and they mean to block up every door with flames. Hush! Yond lean-bodied rogue is turning his head this way."

The man at the door had finished making his heap, and had turned sideways as if listening for some signal. Griff thought that he had heard them, but a second glance showed him that the man's regard was away from their corner--showed him, too, a lean face, cropped level where the right ear should have been. "'Tis the Lean Man himself!" said Griff. "God, why did we leave our swords indoors--we can do naught--saw ye his pistols and his sword-hilt glinting when he turned?"

"We've got our wish, and by the Heart, we'll lilt at the Lean Man, armed or not armed," answered Rob, his voice threatening to rise above a whisper for very gaiety.

A low call sounded from behind the house; a second answered from the side toward the orchard. The Lean Man whipped flint and steel from his pocket, and struck a quick shower of sparks, and on the instant a roaring stream of fire shot upward from the bracken to the ling, and from the ling to the dark pile of peats.

"'Tis done. Fools that we were to raise no cry," groaned Griff.

Time had been hanging heavily meanwhile with Wayne of Cranshaw and his cousin. Shameless Wayne, when he came in from the garden with his step-mother, found Rolf fixed in his resolve to spend the night at Marsh.

"After what chanced to the dogs," he said, "they may strike to-night as well as any other--and strike they mean to, soon or late. There's no need for me at Cranshaw, and one arm the more here is worth something to thee, Ned, as thy numbers go."

"Yes, stay," said Nell, her eyes dancing bright now that danger showed close at hand--"and if they come, we'll give them a brisker welcome than they look for."

"Well, if ye will have it so; but I doubt there'll be no attack to-night," muttered Shameless Wayne. "They move slowly, the Ratcliffes, and strike when ye least expect them.--A pest to those lads. Do they mean to scour the fields till daybreak?--Nell, get to bed, and see that the little bairn is cared for. She's in one of her eerie moods to-night; thou'lt treat her kindly?"

"As far as I can master kindness toward her. Wilt call me, Ned, if--if ye need another arm to fight?"

"Tut, lass! There'll be no fight. Pay no heed to Rolf when he tries to scare thee. There! Good-night. Give the bairn somewhat to stay her fast, for she ate naught at supper."

"What has Mistress Wayne ever done that Ned's first thought should always be for her? Ah, but I hate her still, though God knows I cannot altogether kill my pity," said Nell to herself as she went up the stair in search of her unwelcome charge.

The two men drew close about the fire after Nell had left them. A flagon of wine stood between them, and an open snuff-box; but the wine stayed untasted, and the box was scarce passed from hand to hand as they stared into the fire, each busy with his own thoughts.

"I fear for those lads, curse them. How if I ride down to the low pastures to make sure that naught has happened to them and to bring them home?" said Shameless Wayne, breaking a long silence.

"What, and leave the house? The lads are safe enough, Ned; 'tis thou, not they, the Lean Man aims at, and if he comes, 'twill be to Marsh."

"Art right--yet still I would liefer have them behind stout walls at this late hour."

Again they fell into silence. Both had had a long day, the one on foot, the other in the saddle, and presently Rolf was nodding drowsily. Shameless Wayne, glancing at him, wished that he could follow suit; but each time he dozed for a moment some memory came and stirred him into restlessness. He thought of Barguest creeping close beside him in the garden; he wondered what thread of subtle wit ran through the tangled skein of the mad woman's talk; he remembered what she had said to him of his love for Janet Ratcliffe.

"Take love while thou hast it; why make the world a sourer place than 'tis already?--Was not that what she said to me?" he murmured. "Well, she is fairy-kist, and they say that when such give advice 'tis ever safe to follow it. Christ, if I could but take love tight in both my hands, and laugh at kinship.--Nay, though! Like a deep bog it stands 'twixt her and me; and who shall cross so foul a marsh as that?"

He could not rid himself of the feverish round of thought, till at last Janet's face came and smiled at him from every glooming corner of the hall. He got to his feet, and paced the floor; and once he stopped at the wine-flagon and reached out a hand for it.

"Not again," he said, his arm dropping lifeless to his side. "There's no peace along that road when once--God curse the girl! I have said nay, and will say it to the fiftieth time; why should she haunt me like my own shadow?"

He looked at Rolf, slumbering deep by the hearth; and he laughed sourly to think that one man could sleep while another moved heavy-footed with his troubles across the creaking boards. He sat down again, and watched his cousin listlessly; and little by little his own head dropped forward, and his eyes closed, and Janet and he were wandering, a dream boy and dream girl, up by the grey old kirkstone that kept watch over lovers' vows among the rolling wastes of heath.

He stirred uneasily, and Rolf's voice came vaguely to him from across the hearth. "Get up, Ned! The hall is full of smoke--the flames are whistling up the house-side----"

"Where's the little bairn? She must be looked to. Nell has wit enough to save herself," said Shameless Wayne sleepily.

Wayne of Cranshaw shook him to his feet. "They've fired the door! Get out thy sword, Ned, and step warily."

Ned was full awake by now; and as he rushed to the main door, his thoughts were neither of himself nor Nell, but of the house that had weathered fire and flood and tempest through a half-score generations of Waynes.

"The flames sing from without. There's no fire inside as yet. We can save the old place still," he cried, swinging back the heavy cross-beam that bolted the door.

"Stop, thou fool!" said the other, checking him. "Dost think the trap is not set plain enough, that thou should'st go smoke-blinded on to a Ratcliffe sword-point? We must try the side door leading to the orchard."

But Nell was downstairs by this time, with Mistress Wayne close behind her. "Ned, the kitchen-door's a-blaze, and the orchard door," she gasped--"and see--the oak is beginning to crack yonder, for all its thickness."

Shameless Wayne threw off his cousin's grasp, and drew the staples and turned the cumbrous key. The sweat stood on his forehead, and iron and wood alike were blistering to the touch. He jerked the door wide open, and over the threshold a live, glowing bank of peats fell dumbly on to the floor-boards. He strove to cross into the open, but could not; and athwart the red-blue reek he saw the Lean Man's eyes fixed steadfastly on his.

"God's mercy, this is what Barguest came to tell thee of," said Mistress Wayne, standing ghost-like and strangely undismayed in the lurid light.

"What, thou saw'st him!" cried Nell, her eyes widening with a terror no power of will could stifle. "Ned, keep back! Keep back, I say!-- Ah!" as he tried to cross the flames and fell back half-blinded--"thanks to Our Lady that they lit so hot a fire."

The four lads, meanwhile, hidden in their corner of the courtyard, had watched the scene with sick dismay--had heard Ned unbar the door--had seen the Lean Man draw nearer, his bare blade reddened by the fire--had heard him laugh and mutter like a ghoul as he waited till the heat dwindled enough to let Shameless Wayne come through to him. This way and that Griff looked about him, seeking a weapon and finding none, his brain rocking with the thought of all that rested on his shoulders; and then his eyes brightened, and he stepped unheard amid the hissing of the flames, to where the smooth, round stone lay that had lately capped the right pillar of the gateway. A moment more and he was behind the Lean Man; he lifted the stone as high as unformed arms would let him, and hurled it full between Nicholas Ratcliffe's shoulderblades, and dropped him face foremost on to the flaming threshold.

"A Wayne! A Wayne!" he cried, and after him his three brothers took up the ringing call.

The Lean Man put his hand out as he fell, and twisted with a speed incredible till he was free of the flames; and then he scrambled to his feet somehow, and tottered forward.

"On to him, lads," cried Griff, and would have closed with him, but Nicholas rallied, and picked up his fallen sword, and moved backward to the gateway, swinging the steel wide before him. The lads gave back a pace or two, but he dared not stop to pay them for their night's work; his eyes were dimming, and his right hand loosening on the hilt, and he knew that his course was run if Shameless Wayne should cross the threshold before he found a hiding-place. Griff watched him go, his fingers itching all anew for his unfleshed sword; and just as Nicholas staggered through the gate, the two Ratcliffes who had kept ward at the other doors came running round the corner of the house, ready to close with those who had given the cry. "A Wayne, a Wayne!" They found four lads against them, standing unarmed, and straight, and fearless altogether, in the crimson glow.

"Why, what's this?" said Red Ratcliffe, half halting. "Have these sickling babes driven old Nicholas off?"

"Ay," answered Griff, not budging by one backward step; "and would drive you off, too, ye Ratcliffe redheads, if we had any weapon to our hands."

Red Ratcliffe rapped out an oath and made headlong at the lad. And Shameless Wayne, seeing all this from across the gathering flames, leaped wide across the threshold, and landed on the outskirts of the fire, and cut Red Ratcliffe's blade upward in the nick of time. The other Ratcliffe drove in at him, then, and turned his blade in turn, and the fight waxed swift and keen for one half-moment; then Wayne got shrewdly home, and dropped his man close under the house-wall; and Red Ratcliffe, waiting for no second stroke, had turned and flashed through the gateway toward the moor before Wayne had guessed his purpose.

Shameless Wayne made as if to pursue; but the crackling of the flames behind warned him that there must be no delay if Marsh were to be saved.

"To the mistals, lads. Bring buckets and fill them at the well-spring!" he cried.

Griff and others needed no second bidding, but ran with him across the courtyard and pushed open the mistal-doors. The cows were lying quiet in their stalls; the place was fragrant with their breath, and every now and then there sounded a faint rattling through the gloom as one or other fidgetted sleepily on her chain. Shameless Wayne, dark as it was, knew where to lay hands on the feeding-buckets that were stored here in readiness for the coming summer; and soon he and Griff, and the three youngsters, were dashing water over the blazing threshold of the main door as fast as they could cross to the well and back again. Nell, meanwhile, once she had seen her brother safe through the fire and safe through the quick fight that followed, had found heart again.

"Did I not bid you call me if one more arm were needed?" she cried, with a touch of her old spirit. "See, Rolf, the floor is smouldering now, and the panels are starting from the wall. We must get through the kitchen-door and fetch water from the well behind.--What, has the fire roused thee at last, Martha? Come with us--and thou, Mary."

The maids, who had crept down in fearful expectation of what might meet them below-stairs, followed cheerfully when they found no worse enemy than fire to meet. The kitchen-door fell inward as they reached it, but there was little danger on this side, for floor and walls were of stone, and the peats could find no fuel. Wayne of Cranshaw stamped out the embers, and they all ran, a bucket in either hand to the well that stood just outside the door, and thence back to the hall; and while those in the courtyard rained water on the one side of the flames, Wayne of Cranshaw and the women-folk on the other side kept down the smouldering fire that threatened every moment to set the hall ablaze from roof to rafters. For a fierce half-hour they worked, Nell bearing her full share of the toil, until the last angry eye of fire was quenched.

"Begow, if last week's wind hed been fly-be-skying up an' dahn, there'd hev been little left o' Marsh; 'tis a mercy th' neet war so still," said Martha, standing in her wonted easiful attitude and looking through the gaping doorway.

"A mercy, say'st 'a?" snapped Mary, whose eyes were on the spears and swords that lined the walls. "A mercy, when there'll be all yond steel to rub bright again to-morn? Sakes, I wodn't hev thowt th' smoke could hev so streaked an' fouled 'em--an' 'twas only yestreen I scoured 'em, too. Well, let them thank th' Lord as thank can, but for me I'll hod my whisht."

Shameless Wayne was likewise looking at the blackened walls, and Rolf saw that same light in his eyes that had been there when he stood at the vault-edge, and bade them bury alive the fallen Ratcliffes. Nell, too, was watching him, and she, who had never before feared him, knew now that there were deeps and under-deeps in her brother's nature which she had yet to plumb.

"What art thinking, Ned?" she asked, laying a timid hand on his sleeve.

"Thinking?" he said slowly. "I'm thinking that Marsh was all but blotted out--and I am learning how I loved the place. Keep guard awhile here, Rolf. I have an errand that will take me to the moors."

"Lad, thou'rt fay!" cried Wayne of Cranshaw, as his cousin moved toward the door. "Dost mean to seek the Lean Man out?"

Shameless Wayne turned and smiled in curious fashion. "Nay, only to leave a message for him on the road 'twixt this and Wildwater."

"Oh, Ned, I know what 'tis!" cried his sister, with sudden intuition. "For God's sake, dear, leave that to the Ratcliffes; it is not--not seemly to tamper with the dead." She pointed across the black remnants of the peats that strewed the threshold, and shuddered knowing what lay so close against the house-wall there.

Wayne flashed round on her, and the four lads, listening awe-struck from the far-end of the hall, shrank further back to hear the clear bitterness of voice he had.

"All shall be seemly henceforth--all, I say! I'll hunt the Lean Man as he hunts me--ay, and his tokens shall be mine. Hark ye, Nell! We're over soft, we Waynes-- Come here, lads," he broke off, beckoning to his brothers.

Griff came and stood before him, the others following slowly. "Yes, Ned?" he asked, breaking a hard silence.

"Ye were fools to stand up to Red Ratcliffe as I saw you do to-night. They would never do the like."

"Was't not well done, then?" said the lad, the corners of his mouth drooping.

Wayne laughed exceeding softly. "Ay, 'twas done as I would have you do it. God rest you, youngsters, and when your turn comes to hold the weapons--strike deep and swift."

He was gone without another word, and Nell looked at Wayne of Cranshaw in search of guidance.

Rolf shook his head. "As well dam Hazel Beck with straws as stop Ned when the black mood is on him," he said.

They heard him stop just outside the door, then clank across the courtyard; and soon the sound of hoof-beats was dying down the chill breeze that rustled from the moors.

Too sick at heart to listen to her cousin's rough words of comfort, Nell wandered up and down the house disconsolately, till at the last her walk brought her to the side-passage leading to the orchard. They had forgotten this third point of attack in their eagerness to save the hall; but here, too, though the door had fallen in, the bare walls and flagged passage had given no hold to the flames, which were burning themselves out harmlessly. Yet the girl went pale as her eyes fell on what the flickering light showed her at the far end of the passage, and she moved forward like one who strives to throw off an evil dream. Crouched above the smouldering wreckage, her hands spread white and slim to the glow, was Mistress Wayne; and she was crooning happily some ballad learned in childhood. She looked up as Nell approached, and smiled, and rubbed her hands gently to and fro across each other.

"Barguest was cold, poor beastie, so he lit a fire to warm himself. Is't not a pretty sight?" she said.

Nell bent to her ear. "What of Ned?" she asked. Her voice was tremulous, beseeching, for she knew that such as these had power to read the future. "What of Ned? Will he come back safe to-night?" she repeated.

"Safe? Why, yes--he's kind to me; how should he come to harm?"

*CHAPTER XII*

*HOW THEY FARED BACK TO WILDWATER*

Red Ratcliffe, soon as he had gained the moor, made for the shallow dingle where they had left the horses on their way to Marsh. He found his grandfather standing with one foot in the stirrup, striving vainly to leap to saddle; and he saw that the Lean Man's face was scarred with fire, and his hands red-raw on the reins.

"It has been a hard night for us," said the younger man. The words came dully, with terror unconcealed in them.

Nicholas let his foot trail idly from the stirrup, and stumbled as he faced about; but his eye was hawk-like as ever, and his tone as harsh. "A hard night--ay. There's a long reckoning now 'gainst Shameless Wayne. How comes it that thou rid'st alone?"

"Wayne leaped through the fire and cut Robert down; and I----"

"Fled, I warrant. What, could ye not meet him two to one?"

"There's witchcraft in it," muttered the other sullenly. "Didst see him fight that day in the kirkyard? Well, last night it was the same; he sweeps two blows in for every one of ours, and his steel zags down like lightning before a man's eye can teach his hand to parry. I tell you, some boggart fights for the Waynes of Marsh, and always has done."

The Lean Man nodded quietly. "Ay, is there--for I've seen the boggart.--There, fool, don't stand gaping at me like a farm-hind at a fair! Help me to saddle, for I am--" he paused, and forced a laugh--"I am weary a little with the ride from Wildwater to Marsh. And lead the chestnut by the bridle; we must find him a fresh master, 'twould seem."