Part 21

"Mark well the end of the old tale, girl. A company of Wayne's kinsfolk, riding near to Ludworth Slack soon after the Ratcliffes had set off again for home, heard a hound's baying from across the moor; they followed and the baying went on before them till they reached the spot where Wayne lay dead--and beside him Anthony Ratcliffe, with teeth-marks at his throat--and, a little way off, Wayne's hound, fast stiffening."

The girl had heard the tale not once nor twice before; but it came with a new force to-night, for every mention of the hound brought a spasm of mortal anguish to the Lean Man's face, and in a flash she guessed his secret.

"The hound was dead, mark ye," went on Nicholas, as if compelled to dwell on details that he loathed; "yet the baying never ceased. No round and honest bay it was, but ghostly, wild and long-drawn-out; and it would not let them stay there, but took them on and on until they saw the Ratcliffes far up ahead of them, climbing the hill toward Wildwater. They galloped with a will then, and overtook them at a score yards from the courtyard gate, and left but one alive, who won into safety after desperate hazard."

The moon was silver-gold now and her rays fell coldly on the Lean Man's head, on his twitching mouth and haunted eyes. The curlews never rested from complaint, and the note of many waters seemed, to the girl's strained fancy, the voice of the hound who had bayed, long centuries ago, on Ludworth Slack.

"The one left alive took on the Wildwater line," said Nicholas, after a long pause; "but he had the Dog-dread till he died, and his children had it after him, and his children's children. For he, too, had heard the dead hound baying up the moor, and its note was branded on his heart."

"And that is Barguest, grandfather," said Janet, creeping closer to him.

"That, lass, is Barguest. That is why the Marsh folk take _Wayne and the Dog_ for their cry. The hound that slew old Anthony has dwelt with the Waynes ever since; no peril comes nigh them, but he must warn them of it: and sometimes he--" The Lean Man stopped, and put a hand to his throat, and glanced at the fingers as if he looked for blood on them.

She gathered a little courage from his lack of it. "The tale is old as yonder hills, and Barguest walks in legends only. Is it not so?" she said, but with a tremour in her voice.

"I said as much, Janet, for nigh on three-score years. I cast out the old dead fears, and laughed at the Waynes and their guardian hound--and thou see'st to what I have come at last. It began when I nailed the hand above the Marsh doorway; when Nanny Witherlee--God curse her--told me I had crossed Barguest on the threshold. Still I laughed, though she has the second-sight, they say; but the fear even then ran chill through me. Thou know'st the rest, girl--how I have fought it, and cast it off, and been conquered in the end. But none knows--not even thou, dear lass--what sweat of terror has dripped from me by nights."

"I have guessed," she answered softly, "and have grieved for you more than ever I told you of."

He was quiet for a space; then rose and began to walk up and down the heather; and after that he dropped sullenly again to Janet's side. "Not long since I met Shameless Wayne on Dead Lad's Rigg, and fought with him," he went on. "I all but had him--my blade was lifted high to strike--and then--out of the empty moor a great brown hound leaped up at me. His jaws were running crimson froth, and his teeth shone white as sun on snow, and he bayed--once--and then he had me by the throat."

"Sir, 'twas your fancy! I tell you, it was fancy," cried Janet wildly. "Did Wayne see it, or Red Ratcliffe, or----"

"None saw it save I. Dost mind the tale of how my father died, Janet? For dread of the Dog. 'Tis the eldest-born that sees it always, and none beside.--Hark ye, he's baying across the marshland yonder! Fly, girl--fly, I tell thee, lest he set his seal on thee in passing."

She stifled her own dread and pleaded with him--quietly, sanely, with the tender forcefulness that only her kind can compass. He grew quieter by and by, and set himself with something of his old force of will to tell the tale to its end.

"I shall never shake it off again, Janet," he said. "Each day it has a new sort of dread in waiting for me. Sometimes I am athirst and dare not drink--the sound of water is frenzy to my wits----"

"Have any of the Wildwater dogs turned on you of late?" she asked, with a sudden glance at him.

"Nay, lass! There's no key to the trouble there."

"Are you sure, sir? You recall how one of the farm-dogs ran mad a year ago, and a farm-hand, trying to kill him, was bitten on the arm--and again on the hand as he tried to snatch a hair as a cure against the mad-sickness? He, too feared water----"

"Ay, and died of a sickness of the body, plain to be felt and known. But what of me, girl? 'Tis a mind-sickness, this--a dumb, soft-stepping, noiseless thing that flees if one stands up to it, only to come back, and snarl, and grin, the moment the heart fails for weariness. Come, we'll get us home, Janet. It has eased me a little to tell thee of it--haply thou'lt help me make a last big fight."

"God willing, sir," she murmured, as she turned to walk beside him.

Once only he broke silence on the way to Wildwater. Stopping, he bared his throat to the moonlight, and bade her look well at it, and watched with anxious eyes as she obeyed.

"Canst--canst see the teeth-marks there?" he whispered.

"'Tis smooth, sir, without a scratch on 't."

"Pass thy hand over--lightly. I can feel the deep wound burn and sting--surely thy fingers can feel the pit."

"There is no wound, grandfather--no wound at all."

He drew his breath again, and laughed, and, "Tell me again, dear lass," he said, "that it is fancy--naught but fancy."

"It is altogether fancy," she answered.

"Art tricking me?" he said with sudden suspicion. "Let me see thy fingers, lass--the fingers that touched my throat."

She held her hand out to him. "There's no stain on them, sir. Have I not told you?" she cried, striving to keep the terror from her voice as best she could.

"Why, no," he whispered; "no stain at all. And yet----"

And after that they spoke no word until Wildwater gates showed dark in front of them.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*THE FEUD-WIND FRESHENS*

It was high summer now on Marshcotes Moor. Everywhere the farm-folk were full of the busy idleness which comes when ploughing and sowing are over and the crops are not yet ready for the scythe or sickle. The lads found time to go a-courting in shaded lanes or up by the grey old kirk-stone; their elders did much leaning over three-barred gates, with snuff between a thumb and forefinger, while they talked of hay-harvest, of the swelling of corn-husks in the ear, of the feud which had been so hot in the spring and which now seemed like to die for want of fuel.

For a strange thing had chanced at Wildwater. The Lean Man, once dauntless, had grown full of some unnamed terror; and, though his arm seemed strong as ever and his body full of vigour, his brain was sapless and inert. His folk came to him with fresh plans for slaying Wayne of Marsh; and he turned a haunted eye on them, and said that naught could kill the lad. The cloud which had hung over Marsh House had settled now on Wildwater, and even the hot youngsters were chilled by a sense of doom. If the Lean Man had given up hope, they said, what chance had they of snaring Shameless Wayne?

And so the days went on, and the feud slumbered, and Janet was torn between sorrow for her grandfather and gladness that his malady left Wayne free from ambush or attack. Each day, indeed, seemed to bring fresh trouble in its train; for Red Ratcliffe, dumbfounded as he had been when their errand to Bents Farm had proved no wild-goose chase, was yet distrustful of his cousin. She had spoken a true word that day, and they had met Wayne; but there was some devilry hid under it, and haply she knew enough of the Black Art which had saved her lover to be sure no harm could come to him. Laugh at superstition as he might, Red Ratcliffe had not been cradled in the winds and reared among the grim wastes of heath for naught; he and his fellows were slow to acknowledge witchcraft and the boggarts that stepped in moorside tales, but the seed, once planted, found a rich soil and a deep in which to come to leaf. Little by little he was growing to believe that Janet was the cause of each discomfiture at Wayne's hands; and, while he let no chance pass of railing on her for a witch, he uttered many a scarce-veiled threat that soon he would throw all to the winds and hold her without leave of the Lean Man or the Parson.

As for Shameless Wayne, he had ceased to wonder that no fresh attack was made on him. He would die when Fate ordained, and nothing could alter that; but the farm-work, meanwhile, at which he laboured as distastefully and keenly as of old, was going grandly forward, and not sour Hiram Hey himself could say that the land had gone backward since he took the charge of it. Janet had been right when she named pride his strongest passion; and even his love for her, self-thwarted, could not rob him of a certain sober joy in raising crops in face of Ratcliffe sword-points and the keen-toothed winds. It was all uphill nowadays for Wayne of Marsh; and each new difficulty overcome gave him hard and sure content such as no wild frolic of his earlier days had brought.

Yet the summer bore hardly on him when he thought of Janet. No farm-hind but was free to couple with his mate; only the Master, it seemed, was doomed to go lonely through these spendthrift days of sun and warm south winds and ripening meadow-grass.

"Art gloomy, Ned, of late. Is it because the Ratcliffes scruple to come down and fight with thee?" said his sister, as they sat in hall one evening and watched the stir of bees among the roses that clambered up the window-panes.

"Nay, for I am always fighting one of them--and never more than after a week's idleness."

Her voice grew cold. "'Tis time thou didst turn from that--and time Marsh had a mistress. Are there no maids, save one, about the moorside?"

"None for me, nor ever will be. Besides, Marsh has its mistress; thou'rt not going to leave us, Nell?"

"By and by I must. Rolf is getting out of hand, and will take the old excuse no longer. Faith, I begin to think he loves me very dearly, for every day he thwarts me more and more."

"Thy place is with him, after all, and I'm a fool to think to keep thee here forever.--Where are the lads, Nell? Hunting still, I'll warrant."

"Ay. They are restless since they fought the Lean Man; each morning they seem to start earlier for the chase, and sundown rarely sees them home again."

"Well, it is making men of them. They are learning a shrewd turn of fence, too, and when their time comes they will know how to parry Ratcliffe cuts.--We wash the sheep to-morrow, Nell; wilt ride with me and watch the scene? If a red sunset be aught to go by, we shall have a cloudless day."

"To-morrow I cannot. 'Tis churning-day, Ned, and the butter is always streaked when I leave those want-wit maids alone with it."

"It is better that thou should'st not go," said Wayne, after a pause. "I was a fool to speak of it, Nell, for the washing-pools lie over close to Wildwater, and 'twould be unsafe for women-folk."

"Unsafe?" she echoed, with a quick glance at him. "Then 'tis unsafe for thee, Ned, and I'll not have thee go to the washing at all."

"That is folly, lass. I have a sword, and I carry less risks than a maid would.--A rare holiday the men would have, my faith, if I left them to wash the sheep at their own good pleasure."

"Take the lads with thee, then, if thou must go."

"I promised them they should go hawking until dinner-time, and after that they must come up; but why spoil a morning's pastime for them?"

"The old tales fret at times," she answered gravely, "and to-night I'm sad a little, Ned, like thee. The washing-pools lie near to Wildwater, as thou say'st, and thou know'st how Waynes and Ratcliffes first fell out."

"Tut! If I give heed to women's fancies, when shall I find an hour to move abroad in? The Ratcliffes have got their fill for a good while to come, and they'll keep well on the far side of the pools, I warrant. What, Mistress? Thy wanderings have brought thee supperless indoors," he broke off, as his step-mother opened the door softly and set down a basket of marsh-marigolds among the dishes and platters that cumbered the great dining-table.

Nell rose with no word of greeting and left them; and Mistress Wayne, glancing in troubled fashion after her, crossed to the window and leaned against it.

"I had better have stayed as I was, Ned," she said, smiling gravely. "Nell was growing kind--but that has passed now I have found my wits again."

He winced; for he knew that he, too, had felt less kindliness toward her since her helplessness had gone. Looking at her now, frail against the mullioned casement, he could not but remember that it was she, in her right mind as she was now, who had fouled the good fame of his house.

"Ay, and _thou_ hast a touch of her aloofness, too," she went on. "I can read it in thy face, Ned.--Listen. I've had in mind to tell thee something these days past, but have never found the words for it. I wronged thy father--but not as deeply as thou think'st. Ned! Canst not think what it meant to me--the dreariness, the cold, the hardness of this moorland life? And when Dick Ratcliffe came, and promised to take me out of it----"

"See, Mistress, there's naught to be gained by going over the old ground," he interrupted harshly.

"But, Ned, there is much to be gained. Am I so rich in friends that I can let one as staunch as thou go lightly? Thou'rt midway between hate and love of me, I know, and if--Ned, if I were to tell thee I was less to blame--" She stopped and eyed him wistfully.

It was not in Shameless Wayne to resist this sort of pleading from one who had shared with him the bitter months of disfavour and remorse. They had been comrades in adversity, he and she; and was he to turn on her now because she could no longer claim pity for her witlessness?

"Thou need'st tell me naught, little bairn," he said.

"Ah, but I need! I was dying, Ned--dying for lack of warmth. And Dick Ratcliffe promised to take me into shelter; and I clutched at the chance greedily, as a prisoner would if one came and offered him liberty. But the wrong that Wayne fancied of me, when he found us in the orchard, I had never thought to do--never, dear. I was a child, and loved Ratcliffe because he showed me a way out of trouble; and I meant to go away with him because--how shall I tell thee, so as to make thee credit it? I had not a thought of--Ned, I was not wicked, only tired--tired, till I had no eyes to see the straight road, nor heart to follow it. I was hungering for warmth; the ghosts were so busy all about Marsh House, and I wanted the happy valleys, out of reach of the curlew-cries and the shuddering midnight winds."

Wayne put an arm about her. "It was worth telling, bairn," he said quietly, "and father would lie quieter if he knew that his honour had not gone so far astray."

"Thou'lt still keep a friend to me?" she whispered.

The gloom settled more heavily upon his face. "Thou talk'st as if I were thy judge," he said. "'Twas only in seeming thou didst the worst wrong to father--but what of me? Did I look so carefully to his honour? Or was it his own eldest-born who darkened his last days, who made his name a by-word up and down the country-side, who drank while a kinsman fought the vengeance-fight for him? Not if I work to my life's end to wipe off the stain, will it come clean."

"'Tis cleansed already, Ned, twice over cleansed--and there's one waiting who will give thee thanks for it. I met her not long since in the kirkyard, and I never saw love so plain on a maid's face." Her voice was eager, and the words came fast, as if she had given long thought to the matter.

"Mistress Ratcliffe, thou mean'st?" said Wayne, after a silence. "What ails thee, bairn, to be so hot for this unlikely wedding?"

"Because she is straight and strong, and full of care for thee; because, when an ill chance led me once to Wildwater, it was she who took pity on me and showed me a safe road to Marsh. Ned, she is the one wife in the world for thee; why wilt thou cling to the old troubles?"

He shook his head. "The troubles are new that stand 'twixt Janet and myself--and any day may bring forth more of them."

"Thy folk will be her folk, if thou'lt take her," she broke in eagerly. "She lives among rough men--there's danger every hour for her."

Mistress Wayne had struck the right note at last. Half willing as he was to be convinced, and imbued with the sense that the fairy-kist could give no wrong advice, he would yet have held obstinately to his old path. But he took fire at the suggestion that there was danger to the girl at Wildwater. Now and then a passing fear of it had crossed his own self-poised outlook on the situation; but a hint of it from another roused all his smouldering jealousy and passion.

"Danger? Of what?" he cried.

But Mistress Wayne had no time to answer; for the door opened on the sudden and the four lads came tumbling into hall, piling the fruits of their long day's sport in a heap against the wall.

"A rare day we've had, Ned!" cried Griff. "Ay, we're late for supper, but thou'lt not grudge it when thou see'st how many other suppers we've brought home to larder."

Wayne looked at the heap of grouse and snipe, conies and hares and moor-cock. "Well, fall to, lads," he laughed, "and I'll save my scolding till ye're primed against it.--Are ye still bent on hawking to-morrow, after this full day's sport?"

"Ay, are we!" cried Griff. "We're but the keener set to have another day of it."

"Then go; but mind ye come straight up to the washing-pool after dinner. 'Tis time ye learned the ways of farming."

The youngsters made wry faces at this as they settled themselves to the mutton-pasty.

"We met the Lean Man again to-day," said one presently, in between two goodly mouthfuls.

"And what said he to you?"

"Naught. He wore as broken a look as ever I saw, and when we rode at him with a shout----"

"Lads, lads, fight men less skilled at sword-play than the Lean Man," put in Shameless Wayne, smiling the while at their spirit.

"But he fled from us, Ned--minding the night, I warrant, when we took him in the back with yond stone ball. Yet they say he's always like that now; Nanny Witherlee tells me he sees the Dog at the side of every Wayne among us, and flees from that, not from us."

"Nanny is a fond old wife, with more tales on her tongue-tip than hairs on her thinning thatch."

"Yet--dost mind what I saw, too, that night in the garden?" said Mistress Wayne. "Brown, blunt-headed--I can see him yet, Ned, as he fawned against thy side."

Wayne did not answer, though he paled a little, and soon he made excuse to leave them.

"Where art going, Ned? We've fifty tales to tell thee of the day's sport," cried Griff.

"But have I idleness enough to listen, ye careless rascals?" laughed Wayne from the door. "I must see Hiram Hey and make all ready against to-morrow's work."

"Thou'lt not find him, for he was going into the Friendly Inn with shepherd Jose as we passed through Ling Crag."

"Was he?" growled the other. "Hiram is a poor drinker by his own showing, and a man with no spare time on his hands--but he has worn many a tavern threshold bare, I'll warrant, since he first learned to set lips to pewter."

And, indeed, Hiram wore a leisurely air enough at the moment. Stretched at his ease on the wide lang-settle of the Friendly Inn, he was handling a mug of home-brewed and watching the crumbling faces in the peat-fire, while shepherd Jose talked idly to him from the window.

"There's somebody got four gooid legs under him," said Jose, as the racket of horse-hoofs came up the road.

"Ay, by th' sound. Who is't, Jose?" answered Hiram lazily.

"Why, Mistress Janet fro' Wildwater. She's a tidy seat i' th' saddle, hes th' lass," said the shepherd, pressing his face closer to the glass to see the last of her.

"A wench can hev a tidy seat i' th' saddle, an' yet be leet as thistle-down."

"Ay, but she hes a snod way wi' her, an' all. I've thowt, whiles, she hed more o' th' free, stand-up look o' th' Waynes about her nor her breed warrants."

"Well, there's some say that, if wishes war doings, she'd hev a Wayne name to her back," said Hiram, shifting to an easier posture.

"Nowt o' th' sort!" put in the shepherd warmly. "Th' young Maister may hev been a wild-rake, an' he may be wilful i' farming-matters an' sich--but he'd niver foul th' owd name by gi'eing it to a Ratcliffe."

"That's as may be. But young blood's young blood, an' she's winsome to look at, as nawther thee nor me can deny."

"There war summat betwixt 'em, now I call to mind, afore this last brew o' trouble war malted. I've heard tell o' their meeting i' th' owd days up by th' kirk-stone when they thowt nobody war looking. But that's owered wi'. Tha doesn't fancy there could be owt o' th' sort now, Hiram?--Theer, get thy mug filled up, lad, for tha needs a sup o' strong drink to brace thee for th' long day's sheep-weshing to-morn."

"I'll hev my mug filled, Jose, lad--though I'm no drinker--an' I'll keep my thowts about th' Maister an' th' Wildwater lass to myseln. But I've seen what I've seen--ay, not a three week sin'--an' if iver tha hears 'at two folk are courting on th' sly, doan't thee say I didn't tell thee on 't, that's all."

"What didst see, like, a three week sin'?" asked Jose the shepherd, his head tilted gossip-wise to one side.

"Nay, I war niver one to spread tales abroad, not I. But it warn't a mile fro' where I'm sitting now, on th' varry road 'at runs past th' tavern here, that I happened on two folk standing fair i' th' middle o' th' highway. An' one war fearful like the Maister, an' t' other warn't so different fro' Mistress Ratcliffe; an' they war hugging one another summat fearful."

"Now, come, Hiram! Gossip's gossip, but I'll noan believe that sort o' talk about th' Maister."

"That's as it pleases thee, lad. I nobbut said 'at th' couple I saw war like as two peas to him an' Mistress Janet. Ay, an' they'd getten dahn fro' their hosses, an' she war crying like a gooid un i' his arms. Well, 'tis as Nanny Witherlee is allus saying, I fear me--if a blackberry's nobbut out o' reach, ye'll find all th' lads i' th' parish itching for 't."

"Well, I mun tak thy word for owt to do wi' courting," said the shepherd drily. "Tha'rt framing to learn nowadays thyseln, so they tell me."

"An' what about thee?" cried Hiram, roused from the tranquil gaiety which his bit of gossip afforded him. "I'd think shame, if my hair war as white as thine, Jose, to turn sheep's eyes on a young wench like Martha."

Jose chuckled, as if he could tell much but would not, and Hiram Hey grew more and more disquieted as he wondered if, after all, he had gone too slow with the first and last great courtship of his life.

While Hiram sat nursing his mug, and while the shepherd kept a quizzing eye upon his moodiness, the inn door was thrown open and three rough-headed fellows stamped noisily into the bar. "It smells foul," said one, stopping at sight of Hiram and the shepherd, and holding his nostrils between a dirt-stained thumb and forefinger.

"Ay," said another, "it's th' Wayne smell--ye can wind 'em like foxes wheriver ye leet on their trail."

"Yond's Wildwater talk," said Hiram to the shepherd, not shifting his position on the settle. "They're reared on wind up yonder, an' it gets into their tongues, like."