Part 17

"There's summat I want to axe of ye, Mistress," she said, twisting an apron-corner in her feckless hands. "I've getten a little un as is like to dee o' th' Brown Titus, an' I thowt mebbe ye'd step in next door here an' gi'e th' bairn a touch o' your hand--they like as they pike up, so to say, when they feel a softer hand on 'em nor us that wark for our bread hev getten."

The same half-troubled, half-eager look came into Mistress Wayne's face as when she had lately talked with the Sexton of children and the childless women. Cold as she was, and anxious for the warmth of the peat fire which showed through Nanny's open door, she turned on the threshold.

"If 'twill comfort the child, I'll come with thee and gladly," she said.

"Ay, an' ye'll cure her, Mistress," put in Witherlee, with quiet assurance.

"Why do all the folk come running to me, Sexton, when their friends are sick?" asked Mistress Wayne. "I am so weak and can do nothing for them, and yet--" She stopped and clutched the old man. "Look who rides toward us!" she cried, shrinking behind Bet's bulky figure. "His face is scarred as if hot iron had played across it, and he lacks an ear. I know him, Sexton; he was cruel to me once--but where? 'Tis long ago, and I forget."

"Th' Lean Man, begow!" muttered Nanny. "Hiram said he war i' Marshcotes, but I niver thowt he'd foul my door-stun wi' his face.--Ay, he looks daunted a bit; he's not half th' man he war a two-week sin'," she added, eyeing the horseman narrowly and not guessing that Hiram Hey himself had added his straw to the sum of the Lean Man's burden.

Nicholas, seeing the women grouped round the door, drew rein and snapped his words out as he always did when talking to the country-folk--a habit that had earned him a good half of their ill-concealed dislike.

"Where is thy man Earnshaw? I want him," he said, frowning down on Bet.

"Earnshaw, Maister? I'm sure I cannot tell ye. He's hed no wark these two weeks past, an' happen he gets into loosish ways when----"

"Well, tell him from me that we're short of hands for the walling beyond Wildwater, and the sooner he can come with a stiff back to the work, the better I shall be suited. If he knows of half-a-dozen other stout fellows, he can bring them with him." He was turning away when his eyes fell on little Mistress Wayne, shrinking close behind Bet Earnshaw. "Oh, is it you, Mistress?" he cried. "What brings you out of doors on such a day? Marry, the wind will mistake you for a bit of thistle-down unless you have a care."

"I--I am going to heal a sick child," stammered Mistress Wayne. Still she could not remember when she had last seen this grim-faced man, nor in what way he had shown her cruelty; but instinctively she feared that he would do her some fresh hurt.

Nicholas laughed mightily. "By the Mass, so there's healing in your touch? Would I had known that the other night, when your kin at Marsh planted these pretty love-tokens on my face." He pointed to the scarce-healed scars. "Come, now, that should bolster the Wayne pride--to have a wise woman in the family to set against a foolish master."

The Sexton's wife dared not look at him, lest he should see how she itched to set her hands about his throat; but her voice confessed as much. "'Tis easy to scoff, Maister, when ye've no clouds across your sun, an' there's a mony doubts nowadays. Ay, there's them as doubts Barguest even--afore he's crossed their path." She shot a sideways glance at him, and saw that she had aimed true.

"He has never crossed mine, woman, so I'll be on the doubting side yet awhile," he answered, after a silence.

"Well, ye'll know best; but ye've crossed Barguest, if he's noan crossed ye, an' they say it's mich like wedlock, is crossing th' Brown Dog--him an' ye till death do ye part. But theer! I've telled ye as mich afore, an' happen I'm full o' fancies, for ye say ye've niver seen him sin' that neet."

Nicholas Ratcliffe wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve, and gave one quick glance behind him. Whichever way he turned, it seemed he could not rid him of these folk who talked of Barguest.

"Devil take thee!" he cried. "There's no such thing--and if there were I'd fight him with a dozen Waynes to back him. Get to your healing, Mistress Wayne; you are fit company for Nanny Witherlee."

Mistress Wayne eyed him doubtfully. "No such thing as Barguest?" she said gravely. "Sir, I have seen him--just before the fires were lit about the Marsh doorways, it was, and I was in the garden with Ned, and the Brown Dog came and fawned on him,--his coat was shaggy--brown against Ned's clothes. And he whimpered so; and I think it was because he was cold and in trouble that he lit a fire to warm himself."

The Lean Man's anger melted; something awesome there was about this woman's quiet recountal that compelled belief. "You--you saw him?" he whispered. Then his old spirit quelled the rising terror, and he gripped the saddle afresh with his knees. "Tell him from me then, since you're friendly to him," he sneered, jerking the snaffle, "tell him that Nicholas Ratcliffe fears neither ghost nor man, and if Barguest cares to visit him at Wildwater--" The rest was drowned by the clatter of his horse's feet as he galloped down the lane.

"Neither ghost nor man?" echoed Nanny. "Ye're th' far side o' th' truth, there, Maister. I niver heard that ye feared man born o' woman--but ony one can see that Barguest hes getten his teeth in."

"Sakes, 'tis fearsome talk; I wish tha'd hod thy whisht, Nanny, that I do," twittered Bet Earnshaw.

But Nanny was no bustling housewife now, with a ready hand for whatever was to be done and a ready tongue to answer any speech; she was the same dream-eyed woman who had rung the bell for Wayne of Marsh, who had watched Wayne's body the night through and listened to the speech of other worlds.

"Mistress, ye've getten th' second-sight," she said softly, putting an arm about Mistress Wayne. "God rest ye, for ye'll stand 'twixt Shameless Wayne and trouble one day. Mistress Nell has done it, an' I've done it, an' so will ye, sooin or late; an' yourn 'ull be th' greatest help of all, for ye've seen th' Dog, while we've nobbut heard th' patter of his feet."

*CHAPTER XIV*

*HOW WAYNE AND RATCLIFFE MET AT HAZEL BRIGG*

The days had gone heavily for Janet since the Lean Man made his bargain with the Ratcliffe men-folk. Fear for Shameless Wayne mingled with the dread that she would be forced into hasty wedlock with one of her cousins; and each day that passed brought nearer home to her the grim irony which had set Wayne's life as the price of her own hand. Then, too, she had no trust in Red Ratcliffe, now that he knew her secret, and scarce a day passed but he pressed his suit home with threats of telling all to old Nicholas Ratcliffe.

Trouble, indeed, seemed closing in on Wildwater during those bitter days of sun and snow and northeast winds, which, if they had dealt hardly with the low-lying lands, had swept over these upland wastes with swift and pitiless ferocity. The Lean Man was failing, body and mind, in some strange way which the girl could not understand: for a day or two he would be hard and keen as ever, and then, suddenly as if he had been stricken by some unseen blade, the life would go out of him, and he would watch his own shadow fearfully, shunning the eyes of his kin until the fit had passed. Janet was fond of her grandfather, so far as she could reconcile such fondness with her love for Shameless Wayne, and it added the last touch of disquiet to see him under the spell of what she could not but name witchcraft. Once he had come home from Marshcotes--the same day it was which had brought him across Mistress Wayne's path as she went to heal Bet Earnshaw's child--and his eyes had met Janet's with a dumb appeal for sympathy. He had all but made confession to her then touching this spell which lay upon him; but the mood had passed, as others had passed before it, and the days wore on, from storm to calm, from calm to full break of spring, without a word from him that could give her any clue to the nature of his sickness.

This morning, as they sat at breakfast, Nicholas was in gay spirits and very full of what must be done here and done there about the land. "Spring's here at last, and we must make the most of it, lads," he cried. "Did Earnshaw bring any men with him to do the walling?"

"Ay, sir, he brought six as shiftless as himself," laughed Red Ratcliffe.

"Well, there's a cure for shiftlessness, and I'll ride that way this morning.--Janet, 'tis a twelve-month and a day since we had plovers' eggs for breakfast, and they'll be breeding now. Thou art fond of wandering abroad to no purpose; wilt take as kindly to it if I bid thee carry a basket on thy arm?"

"Just as kindly, grandfather," said Janet, well pleased to see him in a mood so cheery; "and if my old cunning serves me, I'll bring you home a well-filled basket."

"I'll warrant thou wilt, though it takes a nimble wit to match the tricksy mother-birds.--By the Heart, this springtime gets even into old blood, methinks; let's be off, lads, for we've wasted enough of a grand morning, and there's a deal to be got through before nightfall."

"Both here and on Wayne's farm. Ay, 'tis a busy time for the moorside," said Red Ratcliffe, glancing at Nicholas as they rose from table.

The Lean Man frowned him down, but Janet had caught the glance, and she misliked her cousin's tone. She welcomed Red Ratcliffe, accordingly, with less than her wonted coldness when he followed her into the courtyard a short while afterward, for she was bent on learning what lay behind his talk of Wayne's farm.

"Thou'rt quick to set off, cousin," he said. "Tell me, do the plovers nest at Marsh House, that thou showest so eager to seek their eggs?"

"I know little of Marsh House, sir, and my way lies contrary across the moor."

"Why, then, thou wilt be glad of a companion. Say, shall I come with thee, pretty Janet?"

"If it pleases thee," she answered.

He sought for mockery in her face, but, finding a half encouragement there, he fell into step beside her. Then, not understanding the slant ways of women, he must needs think that all was his for the asking, if only he put a bold front on it.

"Janet," he said, "I knew thou'd'st weary of this feather-headed rogue from Marsh. Put thy hand in mine and say 'yea' to a plain question, and I'll think no more of jealousy."

"Many thanks, cousin. Thou wooest, methinks, as a ploughboy would. _Whoa_, he cries to his team, or _gee-up_, and being used to have his horses obey him, he thinks women have as little wit."

"He holds the whip, girl, as I do, and so is sure of them. Hark ye, I'm tired of this, and I will have thy answer. Flout me again, and I tell the Lean Man what I know."

Her anger, never quiet when Red Ratcliffe was at her elbow, broke into sudden flame. "Tell him, and have done with it. I care not," she cried, forgetting that she had meant to wheedle him into telling her what she wished to know.

"Hast never seen the Lean Man's anger, that thou talk'st so glibly of it? Pish! Thou'rt a child. If I were so much as to hint that Shameless Wayne met thee by stealth, grandfather would--kill thee, I think."

"That is true, cousin, he would go near to kill me," she said, standing straight and proud with her eyes on his. "And why should I fear that at his hands which I would compass myself rather than be wife to such as thou?"

"Who fathered thee, I wonder?" he sneered. "No Ratcliffe, I'll wager, or thou would'st have died of shame long since to let one of the Wayne hounds foul thee with his touch."

"Wayne of Marsh, cousin, is a better fighter, and of a more cleanly courtesy than thou," said she, with a hard laugh. "No wonder the thought of him is bitter--the carrion crow likes not the eagle, does it?"

He turned on her, his hand uplifted, but she eluded him. And then he let slip, in the heat of jealousy what prudence would have checked.

"The carrion-crow, for all that, will be bosom comrade to him before long," he cried. "'Twas pleasant to see the Lean Man so full of cheeriness? But what did it mean, girl? Why, that he saw a way to snare thy fool of Marsh."

For a moment she faltered; but her pride in Wayne of Marsh, which was comrade always to her love for him, steadied her fear of coming evil. "Ye have hatched plans aforetime," she answered quietly--"at the burial in Marshcotes kirkyard, and when ye got fire to help cold steel at Marsh. And Red Ratcliffe, if I recall, fled each time that Wayne showed a sword-point to him."

His freckled, wind-raw face was ill to look upon, and in among his speech the wildest curses of the hillside slipped and stumbled. "I fled from the Brown Boggart, not from Wayne--but the Dog will sleep one day, and then 'twill be my turn, man to man.--Ay, I'll tell thee just what is afoot, and thou shall have that to give thee courage when the Lean Man rails at thee. Suppose Wayne has a farm called Bents close up to Wildwater? Suppose old Nicholas, passing yester-even, saw that the storms had riven half the roof-slates off, and twitted the farmer with Wayne's slovenliness?"

"'Twould not be like grandfather to pass without such raillery. Ay, sir, go on."

Janet was watching him narrowly, letting his unclean oaths drift past her, and hearkening only to what lay under them. And he, eager to wound her at any cost, went blindly on.

"Suppose the farmer, all in the way of those who have dealings with the young Master just as Hiram Hey did when I tried the same trick on him, and telling Nicholas that Shameless Wayne himself was coming up this week to see to the mending of the roof?"

"On what day does he come?" asked Janet softly.

"I'll tell thee that after we've met him on the road--and, as thou'rt kindly toward him, I'll bring thee back some pretty love-token. What shall it be, Janet--a drabbled lock of hair, or----"

"They name thee cruel, cousin--but I think thou hast been very kind just now," she interposed.

"God's faith, art witless altogether?" he cried, dumbfounded by her hardiness.

"Nay, for I've learned what will serve one I love. Get thee back to Wildwater, cousin, with thy tale-bearing. 'Tis thou and I now, a man against a maid, and the thought of fighting thee is physic to my blood."

He saw now into what folly he had been betrayed. She would seek out Shameless Wayne, and one more attempt to rid them of their enemy would be defeated.

"Thou'lt not--not dare to warn him," he stammered.

"Shall I not? Those that they hang at the gibbets, I've heard--down in the peaceful lands where gibbets are--had as lief be hung for a herd of oxen as for one poor sheep. Grandfather can do no more than kill me--well, I'll give him greater cause."

He stood irresolute while the girl moved up the path. Eager as he was to carry her back forthwith to Wildwater, he knew that any show of force would serve only to deepen the girl's hate of him.

"She's passing dear to the Lean Man, too," he muttered. "He'll be loath to turn against her as it is--and 'twould only discredit the tale I have to tell him if I used force. Well, let her go. Haply she will not set eyes on Shameless Wayne."

Yet twice he started in pursuit; and when at last she had dipped over the nearest hill-crest, his bitterness would not be held in check.

"I offered her honest love, and she refused it," he cried, kicking the peat up with his heel in senseless frenzy. "God curse her, she shall not wed Wayne of Marsh till thistle-tops grow wheat."

But Janet, swinging free across the moor, was strangely light of heart. The deceit that had lain between herself and Nicholas was to be lifted once for all, whatever might be the upshot, and there was no longer any secret by force of which Red Ratcliffe could press his suit. Not for a moment did she doubt that her cousin would fulfil his threat; the Lean Man's wrath she regarded as awaiting her already at Wildwater, and she had learned not to underrate its fury. But by some means she would fight them, for her own sake and for Shameless Wayne's; and she came of a stock to whom battle had ever been what the wind was to the storm-birds who hovered the year about the chimney-stacks of Wildwater.

She would go straight down to Marsh, she told herself, and ask for its Master. The servants would wonder, doubtless, and the moorside gossip would be fed by the strange tale of how a daughter of the Ratcliffes had come to seek her people's enemy; but what did gossips matter now that she had declared open warfare with her folk? There was a grim reckoning for her at Wildwater, and she did not shrink from it for her own sake; but Shameless Wayne must be kept out of danger's way, and see him she must before returning if he had to be sought from Marsh to Cranshaw.

Janet laughed on the sudden, as she crossed the rough stretch of moor that lay this side of Withens. She was to see Shameless Wayne before the sun went down, and to do him a last service; and the lark's song overhead found a blithe answer in her heart. Then, too, the moor was in joyous mood, and no upland tarn ever reflected the sky's face more faithfully than Janet echoed the shifting humours of this big-little world of hers. No year went by but she learned all afresh how rare and bewildering a thing was springtime on the moor; so warm it was, so full of a thousand clean-cut scents, of wind and peat, of ling and standing waters. The bilberries, with their green and crimson leaves, lay bushy to the sunlight, which shone reflected in tints of amethyst or ruby, pearl or daintiest saffron. The crowberries, which had shown a surly green the winter through, put on new livery, and all down their serried stems the brown-red blossoms peeped. A stray bee loitered down the wind, and cloudlets lay like snow above the blue edge of the heath.

It was the time of year when Janet ceased looking across the endless spaces of the moor, and turned her eyes to the lesser miracles that showed at every step. Month after month the waste had shown itself a giant of awful majesty, whose breath was storm, whose heart was pitiless; and now--lo, this moor was full of little housewife's cares, cleaning her floors of last year's litter, suckling her young like any human mother, neglecting no hidden corner where blade or flower was thirsting for her milk.

Past Robin Hood's Well the girl went, and across the beck, and over the moor this side of Withens; and as she went she thought that surely Wayne of Marsh must lose a little of his sternness under such skies as these. Nay, she smiled as she looked toward the far-off brink of moor under which Marsh House lay hidden.

"If not for myself, he'll love me for my news, may be," she said, and smiled again as she thought of what might chance when she knocked at the door of the Marsh House and asked for Shameless Wayne. How if his sister Nell should open to her and ask her business? Once already they had met, she and Nell, since the feud broke out; and Nell had taunted her with outright bitterness; and they had not parted till deep wounds had been given and received on either side.

"Were she to open to me," murmured Janet, "she would rive a spear down from the walls and thrust me out, for fear another than she should help Ned into safety. Well, I must risk that, too--but I had liefer meet the Lean Man than this same Mistress Nell. Love is jealous, they say--but for madness it is naught to this quiet, sisterly affection."

The peewits screamed about her, and the empty basket was still swinging on her arm; and now and then from very habit, she cast a glance about her in search of the eggs which she had promised to bring back to Wildwater. But Marsh was in her mind, and with each mile her stride grew longer, her carriage firmer. She was to see Ned, and after that she would let come what would. Soon she came in sight of Hill House standing bluff on the further slope of Hazel Dene, and a song rose unbidden to her lips; for Hill House held kinsmen of her lover's, and it was scarce more than half a league from Marsh.

Janet was nearer to the truth than perchance she guessed; for Nell's love of her brother, the slow growth of years of thwarted hopes and bitter self-denial, was firm as the rock on which Marsh House was built. He had been a ruffler and a drunkard, so wild that his name had grown a by-word among folk who were not easily moved by any usual excesses of the gentry; he had all but killed the last spark of love and trust in her; and now, just when he had cast off old ways, and had stood up, a man, before scorn and intimate, hourly danger and the slow round of farm-work which he loathed--now, it seemed that all was to go for naught because of his love for one of the accursed folk who dwelt at Wildwater. Jealous she would have been of any wife, but it was shame unspeakable to think that Janet might ever take her place at Marsh; and she was full of the matter this morning as she and Shameless Wayne walked up the fields together.

"Ned," she cried, breaking an uneasy silence, "dost recall how once I asked thee about Mistress Ratcliffe? Thou said'st then it was a folly laid aside, yet now----"

"Well, now?" he said, in a hard voice.

"I have heard that not long since thou wast with her on the moor, stooping more closely to her ear than friendship alone warranted."

"'Twas Hiram Hey told thee as much? He's the wise sort of fool who must hunt out the wrong side to every trivial matter."

"Nay, it is common gossip by this time. I had it from Nanny Witherlee, who has loved us well enough, Ned, thee and me, to allow of freedom in her speech. She is of my mind, too--that the last and worst disaster would fall on Marsh if----"

"If the clouds dropped, or the sun shone bright at midnight?" he broke in stormily. "I have told thee, Nell, that there is naught between us now--can be naught. Dost want to hear me swear it?"

"Yet thou lov'st her," she said, with the keen glance of jealousy.

"Ay, as I love the good life in my veins," he answered, his voice deepening. "But what of that? Even life must go, soon or late; am I a woman, to think love the one thing that must not be crushed?"

"'Tis the one thing that none can lay plans against. Hark ye, Ned! Mistress Ratcliffe met thee by chance, I take it, and ye talked awhile together and then passed on. Thou wilt meet her again--to-morrow--and some trick of speech or eye will sweep thee off thy feet--and thou'lt wonder, having played with steel, that the sharp edge cuts thee to the bone."

He flushed, and would not meet her glance. "If chance sends her across my path, I can help it as little as if a dozen of her kinsmen met me by the way--and, faith, the latter would prove more hazardous, I fancy. Shut thy mind to it once for all, Nell; I love her, and she's naught to me, and there we'll leave the riddle."

Never until now had Nell complained, nor touched on her old devotion to him; but his open confession, twice repeated, jarred on her beyond endurance. "I've a right to speak, Ned," she cried. "I loved thee before this wanton crossed thy path; I have cared for thy comfort in fifty little ways thou know'st naught of. When father was hard on thee for thy wildness----"

"I know, lass, I know," he muttered, his anger chilled. For remorse never slept so sound with Wayne of Marsh but that the lightest touch could wake it.

"And later, when Rolf pleaded hard with me to wed him--he quarrelled with me but yesterday about it--I would not go, because thou hadst need of me at Marsh. See, Ned, I've been sorry and glad with thee--I've given up more, to keep thee out of wildness, than I shall ever tell. Is all to go for naught, because a woman beckons lightly to thee from across the moor?"

"I have told thee," he said, and left her without another word.