Part 22

"Thee shut thy mouth, Hiram Hey; tha'rt ower owd to gi'e lip-sauce to lusty folk," said the foremost of the Wildwater trio, coming to the back of the settle and leaning threateningly over the old man.

Hiram lifted himself slowly into a sitting-posture. "There's _breed_ i' us owd uns," he said; "th' race weakened by th' time it got to sich as thee."

"We'll see about that," said his assailant, and stooped quickly, his hands toward Hiram's throat.

But Hiram shot out his arms with unlooked-for vigour, and gripped his man under the arm-pits, and pulled him like a kitten over the high back of the lang-settle. Then he got to his feet, still hugging the other close, and gave a steady swing, and landed him clean over his left shoulder on to the sanded floor-stones.

"If awther o' ye others hes owt to say, I'm noan stalled yet," said Hiram, dropping to his seat again.

The fallen man did not move for a space; and then he clapped a hand to one knee with an oath. "There's summat broken," he groaned.

"Likely," put in Hiram Hey. "I've hed chaps mell on me afore, an' it mostly ends th' same way."

The two who were still unhurt helped their comrade to the door, and turned for a sour look at Hiram. "Turn an' turn about," said one; "there's summat i' bottle for all ye Wayne chaps, an' I'll look to thee myseln, Hiram Hey, when th' chance comes."

"Summat i' bottle, is there?" said the shepherd, after they had gone. "Th' Lean Man hes been fearful quiet lately; I feared he war hatching weasel-eggs. Ay, an' his men hev been quiet, an' all; 'tis mony a week sin' we hed ony sort o' moil wi' 'em."

"Well, I'm stalled o' wondering what's to happen next," said Hiram, yawning with great content. "I war all a-shiver when th' feud first broke out, an' ivery day I looked to be shotten at th' least, if not sliced up wi' a sword at after. But th' days jog on somehow, an' there's nowt mich comes to cross th' farm-wark."

"Yond war a shrewd lift o' thine, Hiram," said the shepherd presently, seating himself at the other side of the hearth.

"I learned to lift, lad, when I war a young un; an' ye doan't loss that sort o' trick so easy. 'Tis weel enough for these lads to be all for fighting wi' their fists--but let me get to grips wi' a man when he means mischief, say I, an' he'll noan do me mich harm.--Now, Jose, art bahn to get another mug-full? I'm fain o' laziness to-neet, an' I could weel sup another quart, though I'm nowt mich at drinking myseln."

Janet, meanwhile, had ridden straight home to Wildwater after passing the window of the Friendly Inn, and had encountered Red Ratcliffe as she led her horse round to stable.

"Dost ride from Marsh?" he sneered, blocking the stable-door.

"From seeing a better man than thou? Nay. I have no dealings with Wayne of Marsh."

"Thou'lt have no chance of such dealings by and by."

"Indeed?" Lifting her brows a little, but disdaining to ask his leave to pass the door. "Indeed, Ratcliffe the Red? I thought--it might have been but fancy--that somehow thou didst shirk talk with Wayne of Marsh?"

"The Lean Man does--but there's younger blood than his to carry on the feud. We're sick of waiting for the call that never comes, and soon we mean to show Nicholas that what he has not wit to compass, we can."

"So eager to clinch the bargain?" she mocked. "Should I make thee a good wife, think'st thou?--There, take him to stall thyself," she added, putting the bridle into his hand. "I _know_ thou canst stable a horse, if thou hast scant knowledge of how to woo a maid."

"'Tis a knowledge I may gather by and by--and thou shall teach me," he answered, meeting her eye with more than his accustomed boldness.

*CHAPTER XIX*

*HOW WAYNE KEPT THE PINFOLD*

The marshland beyond Robin Hood's Well was noisy this morning with the shouts of men, the sharp, impatient bark of dogs, the shrill bleating of sheep. A warm, lush-hearted day of June it was, with a yellow sun rising clear of the flaked strips of cloud that hung about the middle blue of heaven, and a low wind shaking the budding heather-tips and wrinkling the surface of standing pools; just such a day as fitted a sheep-washing, for wind and sun together would be quick to dry the fleeces.

The washing-pools stood a few yards away from the stream that ran through Goblin Ghyll, and were no more than deepish holes dug out of the peat, bottomed and walled with sandstone blocks and rendered water-tight in a measure by lumps of marl worked in between the fissures of the stones. A narrow channel, fitted with a sluice-gate at the upper end, connected the streamway with the pools. On the right hand of each pool was a walled enclosure, into which the flocks were driven from the moor; on the left, a similar pinfold received the sheep as they were washed, and kept them penned there until each batch was ready to be driven off by its own shepherd.

Altogether, what with vigour of the sun-rays, and leisurely haste of loose-limbed shepherd folk, and brisk to-and-froing of excited dogs, the scene was a stirring one, contrasting strangely with the eerie hush which was wont to hang over this land of marsh and peat. Hiram Hey was there, his old heart warmed by the abuse, commands and ridicule which he dispensed with a free tongue to all comers. Jose the shepherd was there, with a kindly eye and a word in season for each particular member of his flock. There were other shepherds, too, from outlying portions of the Wayne lands, and thick-thewed farm-lads, and youngsters no more than elbow-high who, under pretence of helping to collect the flocks from off the moor, tried sorely the tempers of the blunt-headed, sagacious sheep-dogs, whose manoeuvres were thrice out of four times defeated by the interference.

"Well, Hiram, hast getten owt to say agen th' weather?" said Jose, splashing into the pool.

Hiram grasped the first of the ewes securely by its fleece, and half pushed, half pulled it to the brink. "Owt to say agen th' weather? I should think I hev!" he cried.

"I thowt as mich, lad. Trust thee to hev thy grumbles, choose what," panted the other, as he took the sheep bodily into his arms and plunged it under water.

"'Tis varry weel for ye poor herding folk to thank th' Lord for all this power of sun. But us as hes likelier wark--tilling, tha knaws, an' sich like--it fair breaks a body's heart, that it does. There's yond Low Meadow war bahn to yield th' bonniest crop o' hay iver tha set een on, if we'd nobbut hed a sup o' rain; an' now 'tis brown as a penny-piece--ay, fair dried i' th' sap, it is. But ye poor, shammocky sheep-drivers think there's nowt save ewes an' tups i' th' world."

"Poor, are we, say'st 'a?" snapped the shepherd who was working alongside Jose in the pool.

"Ay, poor as rattens," answered Hiram. "I allus did say a sheep war th' gaumless-est thing 'at iver went on four legs."

"There's folk more gaumless goes on two," put in Jose; "an' tha's getten a lob-sided view o' sheep, Hiram Hey; tha's all for beasts, an' hosses, an' pigs, an' tha willun't see 'at sheep are that full o' sense----"

The shepherd got no further with his speech; for the ewe which was being pushed toward the brink took a wild leap on the sudden, and landed fair into his arms before he had got his feet well planted on the bottom; and sheep and man went under the grey greasiness that covered the surface of the pool.

"Ay, they're sensible chaps, is sheep," said Hiram drily, while he watched the shepherd rub the water out of eyes and hair. "A beast now--nay, I'm thinking a calf wod hev hed more wit nor that."

"Well, an' wodn't tha knock dahn ony chap that framed to souse thee?" retorted Jose, undaunted still. "'Tis nobbut one more proof o' their sperrit.--Theer, lass, theer! Jose noan wants to wrangle wi' thee--theer, my bonnie--" His voice dropped into inarticulate murmurs as he took a fresh hold of the sheep and fell to rubbing her wool with a long arm and a knotty.

"Will th' young Maister be coming up, think ye?" asked a farm-hand by and by.

"He will that, if I knaw him," said Hiram grimly. "He telled me last forenooin he war coming to see 'at ye all kept to it.--Now, lads, will ye frame, or mun I come an' skift ye wi' my foot? I niver see'd sich a shammocky, loose-set lot o' folk i' all my days. Tom o' Thorntop, get them ewes penned, dost hear? Seems tha'd like to keep me ut laking all th' day while tha maks shift to stir thyseln."

The work went steadily forward, and soon the pinfolds on the far side of each of the two pools were all but full of ewes, shivering in their snowy fleeces. Neither did jest and banter flag, nor the gruff oaths of the shepherds as they gathered their flocks together under Hiram's wide-reaching eye.

"We mun hev a bit o' dinner i' a while," said Jose at last; "I'm as dry as a peck o' hay-seeds."

"I'll warrant," growled Hiram, and for sheer contrariness went off to see that a new flock was penned ready for the washing.

He gave a glance at the sun as he turned, and another across the sweep of peatland. "Begow, but it's bahn to be a warm un, is th' day, afore we've done wi' it," he muttered. "Th' heat-waves fair dance again ower Wildwater way. An' yond grass i' th' Low Meadow 'ull be drying as if ye'd clapped it i' an oven.--What, there's more coming to wesh sheep, is there? They'll hev to bide, I'm thinking, for a tidy while."

"What's agate ower yonder, Hiram?" called one of the shepherds. "Tha's getten thy een on summat, by th' look on ye."

"There's a big lot o' sheep coming, though they're ower far off for me to tell who belongs 'em," said Hiram, shading his eyes with both hands.

Two or three left work and crowded about him. The flock came nearer, followed by a press of men on foot and men on horseback.

"By th' Heart!" cried one. "They're Wildwater sheep, yond; I can see th' red owning-mark on their backs."

"Ay. Lonks they are, if my een's gooid for owt," said Hiram.

No man looked at his neighbour, and none spoke of those who rode behind the sheep, though the red-headed horsemen, sword on thigh, were twice as plain to be seen as the breed of sheep they brought to washing. Silently Hiram and his fellows returned to work; silently the Ratcliffes rode forward to the pinfold walls, while their farm-folk followed with the sheep.

Red Ratcliffe peered over the wall-top of the nearer pin-fold, and affected vast surprise at sight of the busy stir within. "What is this, lads?" he cried, turning to his kinsfolk.

"'Twould seem there's more than one has marked how fair a washing day it is," answered another, showing a like surprise. "They're not content with one pool, either, but must use them both."

"Whose sheep should they be, think ye? They're sadly lean, once they are rubbed free of dirt," went on Red Ratcliffe, who seemed to be the leader of the band.

"Nay, if there's aught poor in breed, father it on a Wayne," said the other.

Red Ratcliffe fixed his eyes on Hiram Hey, who was watching the pool with that daft air of simplicity which was his staunchest weapon in times of peril.

"We want to wash our sheep," said Ratcliffe.

Hiram lifted his head. "Oh, ay? Well, we shall noan keep ye long--say till six o' th' afternooin," he answered, and resumed his contemplation of the pool.

"Six of the afternoon? 'Tis easy to be seen, sirrah, that thou hast a taste for jesting," said Red Ratcliffe.

"We've scant time for jests, Maister, an' I'm telling ye plain truth. Ay, we'll be done by six o' th' clock, for sure--or mebbe a two-three minutes afore, if these feckless shepherds 'ull bestir theirselns. Jose, what dost tha think?"

"Think?" echoed Jose, rubbing hard and fast at the fleece of an old bell-wether. "Well, mebbe we shall win through by half-after five--but there's niver no telling."

Red Ratcliffe curbed his temper; for he had known many moor folk in his time, and this trick of "shamming gaumless" was no new one to him. He changed his key accordingly, seeing that his own rough banter would stand no chance against Hiram's subtler wit.

"Clear the pens of yond murrain-rotted ewes; we've some whole-bodied sheep to wash," he said peremptorily.

"Clear th' pens?" said Hiram, scratching his head. "Well, we're framing to clear 'em, fast as iver we can. An' as for th' ewes--there's been no murrain among Wayne sheep these five year past."

"Cease fooling, thou lousy dotard! Dost think we've come all the way from Wildwater only to go back again because we find a handful of yokels, belonging to God-know-whom, fouling the water of the pond?"

"Honest muck fouls no pools, an' I thowt onybody wod hev knawn we belonged to Wayne o' Marsh. Ay, for ye allowed as mich a while back--seeing, I warrant, what well-set-up chaps we war."

"Begow, that's th' first we've heard on 't fro' owd Hiram," muttered Jose the shepherd, chuckling soberly as he dipped another ewe.

"Ay," went on Hiram placidly, "there's none denies 'at th' Wayne farm-folk can best ony others i' th' moorside."

"Tha lees, Hiram Hey! Man for man, ye're childer to us as warks at Wildwater," cried one of the Ratcliffe yokels, gathering courage from the armed force about him.

"Settle that quarrel as best pleases you," cried Red Ratcliffe sharply; "meanwhile 'tis work, not talk, and if yonder pool is not cleared by the time I've counted ten--well, there'll be more than sheep dipped in it."

Hiram looked at him with a puzzled air. "Theer!" he said. "Th' gentry mun allus hev their little jests, an' I'll laugh wi' th' best, Maister Ratcliffe, when I find myseln a thowt less thrang. But orders is orders, th' world ower, an' when young Maister says 'at a thing's getten to be done, it's getten to be done."

"Where is your Master?" snapped the other. "'Tis a poor farmer lies abed while his hinds play."

Hiram's glance was a quick one this time, quenched under his rough grey eyebrows as soon as given. "So ye thowt he'd be here this morn?" he said. "Nay, he's noan a lie-abed, isn't th' Maister, but he's getten summat else to do."

"Has he? And what might that be?" said Red Ratcliffe softly.

"Shall I tell him?" muttered Hiram, half audibly. Then, after a pause of seeming doubt, "He's cutting grass i' th' Low Meadow," he said.

"Cutting grass at this time of year?"

"Ay, for sure. Wildwater land ligs cold, an' ye're late wi' crops up yonder; but th' grass lower dahn is running so to seed that it war no use letting it bide a day longer. It 'ull be poor hay as 'tis, an' all along o' this unchristian weather."

"So he'll not come to the sheep-washing?" broke in Red Ratcliffe, with a glance at his fellows.

"I've telled ye so," said Hiram, "an' telling ye twice willun't better a straight tale."

"I'm thinking Hiram hes a soft spot i' his heart for young Maister; I've niver knawn him tell so thick a lee afore," muttered shepherd Jose, as he went forward with his work.

Red Ratcliffe, looking down the streamway and wondering whether it were worth while to insist on his claim to the pool, laughed suddenly and jerked his bridle-hand in the direction of a horseman who had turned the bend of the track below and jumped the stream.

"Shameless Wayne will come to the washing after all," he said, and waited, stiff and quiet in the saddle, till Wayne of Marsh should cross the half-mile that intervened.

"I war mista'en, seemingly. Th' Maister mun hev crossed straight fro' th' grass-cutting," said Hiram, putting a bold face on it to hide a sinking heart.

The old man turned his back on the Ratcliffes, and his face to the upcoming horseman, whose head was thrust low upon his shoulders as if some gloomy trend of thought were dulling him to all sights and sounds of this fair June day.

"I framed weel, an' I could do no more," he said to himself; "but sakes, why couldn't he hev bided a while longer? Th' Ratcliffes 'ud hev been off to th' Low Meadow i' a twinkling, if I knaw owt.--What's to be done, like? He's a wick un to fight, is th' Maister, but there's seven o' these clever Dicks fro' Wildwater, an' that's longish odds."

Hiram stood for awhile, puzzled and ill-at-ease, watching his master draw slowly nearer to the pools; and then his face brightened on the sudden as he shuffled across to where two shepherd lads were talking affrightedly together.

"Set your dogs on a two-three sheep, an' drive 'em downhill, an' reckon to follow 'em," he whispered. "Then ye'll meet Maister--an' a word i' his lug may save him fro' a deal. An' waste no time, for there's none to be lessen."

The lads, catching the spirit of it, had already got their dogs to work when Red Ratcliffe's voice brought them to a sudden halt; for Ratcliffe, mistrusting fellows of Hiram's kidney, had marked his whispering and guessed its purpose.

"Come back, ye farm louts!" he cried, and turned to Hiram with a sneer. "Art fullish of wit, thou think'st? Dost mind how once before we matched wits, thou and I?"

"I mind," said Hiram. "'Twas when I told ye where th' Marsh peats war stored--but ye didn't burn mich wi' 'em, Maister, if I call to mind."

Red Ratcliffe laughed at the retort; for his eyes were on the horseman down below, and his mood was almost playful now that his prey seemed like to come so tame to hand.

"I'm flaired for th' Maister this time, that I am," muttered Hiram, as he, too, glanced down the slope; "but being flaired niver saved onybody fro' a bull's horns, as th' saying is, so I mun just bide still an' keep my een oppen."

The Ratcliffes passed a smile and a jest one to the other as they saw Shameless Wayne draw near and marked the heavy gloom that rested on him; for it pleased them that the man they loathed should have bitterness for his portion during the few moments he had yet to live.

Wayne did not glance up the moor until he had ridden within ten-score yards of them. He half drew rein on seeing the seven red-headed horsemen waiting for him on the hill-crest; and Red Ratcliffe, thinking he meant to turn about, was just calling his kinsmen to pursue when he saw Wayne drive home his spurs and ride straight up to meet them.

"Bide where ye are," said Red Ratcliffe then. "He's courteous as ever, this fool of Marsh, and would not trouble us to gallop after him."

"'Tis like him; he war allus obstinate as death, an' wod be if th' Lord o' Hell stood up agen him," groaned Jose the shepherd, as he left the water and joined the knot of farm-folk who stood aloof, expectant, and doubtful for their own safety and the Master's.

"I give you good-day, Wayne of Marsh," called Red Ratcliffe.

"I shall fare neither better nor worse for the same. What would you?" answered Wayne, halting at thrice a sword's-length from the group.

"Why, we would wash our sheep, and yonder rough-tongued hind of thine refused us. So, said I, as I saw you riding up the slope, 'We'll ask the Master's leave, and of his courtesy he'll grant it.'"

Shameless Wayne would never stoop to the Ratcliffe frippery of speech. "My courtesy takes no account of such as ye," he answered bluntly.

"Think awhile!" went on the other gently. "These pools were made for Waynes and Ratcliffes both in the days before there was bad blood between us. 'Tis our right as well as yours to use it when we will."

"And when we will. First come, first served.--Come, lads, ye're loitering, and half the sheep are yet unwashed," he broke off, turning to the farm-men.

Red Ratcliffe's face darkened. "The old wives say, Wayne of Marsh, that the first feud sprang up at this very spot, because it chanced that the Marsh and the Wildwater ewes came on the same day to the washing. I would have no lad's blood on my hands, for my part, so bear the old tale in mind, and give us room."

Wayne had his sword loose all this time, and his eyes, even when they seemed to rove, were never far from Red Ratcliffe's movements. "Your talk, sir, wearies me," he said. "Ye mean to strike, seven against one.--Well, strike! I'm waiting for you, with a thought of what chanced once in Marshcotes kirkyard to keep my blood warm."

The Ratcliffes were daunted a little by the downright, sturdy fashion of the man; and for a moment they hung back, remembering how Wayne of Marsh had met them time and again with witchcraft and with resistless swordplay. One looked at another, seeking denial of the folly which could credit Wayne with power to match the seven of them.

"Where is the Lean Man to-day? 'Tis strange he comes not to the sheep-washing," said Wayne of Marsh, as still they halted.

"He would not trouble," snarled Red Ratcliffe. "'Twas butchery, he said, for a man of his years to fight with such a callow strippling."

Wayne smiled with maddening coolness. "That is a lie, Ratcliffe the Red. He dared not come. The last I saw of him, he was riding hard--with my sword-point all but in his back. Well? Am I to wait till nightfall for you, or are ye, too, minded to turn tail?"

Stung by the taunt, Red Ratcliffe spurred forward on the sudden, and his comrades followed with a yell; and even sour Hiram Hey sent up a half-shamed prayer that the Master might come through this desperate pass with safety. Hiram, as a practical man and one who dealt chiefly with what he could see and handle, was wont to use prayer as the last resource of all; and his furtive appeal was witness that he saw no hope of rescue--no hope of respite, even--for his Master.

But Jose the shepherd had not been idle during that brief pause between Wayne's challenge and the onset of the Ratcliffes. He had watched Hiram's attempt to send a warning down the slope; and while the storm grew ripe for breaking, he bethought him that there were those about Wayne of Marsh who might yet serve him at a pinch. To one hand of the Ratcliffes were the ewes, ten-score or so, which they had brought to give colour to their quarrel; about the shepherd's knees were his two dogs, the canniest brutes in the moorside. A few calls from Jose, in a tongue that they had learned in puppyhood, a sly pointing of his finger at the Ratcliffe sheep, and the dogs rushed in among the huddled, bleating mass. The sheep were for making off across the moor, but Jose the shepherd shouted clear above the feud-cries of the Ratcliffes, and worked his dogs as surely as if this were no more than the usual business of the day; in a moment the flock was headed, turned, driven straight across the strip of moor that lay between Wayne and his adversaries.

Quickly done it was, and featly; and just as the Ratcliffes swept on to the attack, the ewes ran pell-mell in between their horses' feet. The dogs, wild with their sport, followed after and snapped, now at the sheep, now at the legs of the bewildered horses. Two of the Wildwater folk were unhorsed forthwith; three others were all but out of saddle, and needed all their wits to keep their beasts in hand; and Shameless Wayne, watching the turmoil from the hillock where he stood firm to meet the onset, laughed grimly as he jerked the curb hard down upon his own beast's jaw.

"I thowt 'twould unsettle 'em a bittock," murmured Jose the shepherd, stroking his chin contentedly while he watched the ewes driven further down the hill, leaving clear room between his Master and the rearing horses of the Ratcliffes.

"Dang me, why didn't I think on 't myseln!" cried Hiram Hey. "It war plain as dayleet, an' yond owd fooil Jose 'ull mak a lot of his cleverness when next he goes speering after Martha. Ay, I know him!--That's th' style, Maister!" he broke off, with a sudden, rousing shout. "In at 'em, an' skift 'em afore they've fund their seats again."