Part 23

Wayne had seen his chance, and taken it; and now he was riding full tilt at the enemy, over the pair of fallen horsemen. Red Ratcliffe cut at him in passing, and missed; the rest were overbusy with their horses to do more than raise a clumsy guard; Wayne galloped clean through them, swirling his blade to the right hand and the left, and in a breathing-space, so it seemed to Hiram and the shepherd, the free moor and safety lay before him.

"Now, God be thanked, he's through, is th' lad!" cried Hiram. "Lord Harry, he swoops an' scampers fair like a storm-wind out o' th' North."

But Wayne would not take the plain road of flight; partly his blood was up, and partly he feared for the safety of his farm-hinds if he left them to play the scapegoat to these red-headed gentry. He wheeled about, and the discomfited horsemen, seeing him bear down a second time, were mute with wonder. But their fury was keen sharpened now; they glanced at the two fallen riders, trampled beneath Wayne's hoofs; they heard one of their comrades cursing at a wound that Wayne had given him as he rode through; a moment only they halted for surprise, and then, with a deafening yell of _Ratcliffe!_ they closed in a ring about him.

"Five to one now. Come, the odds lessen fast," cried Wayne, as he pulled up and seemed to wait their onset.

But he knew that flight was hopeless if he let the full company attack him front and rear. One glance he snatched at the open moor behind, and one at the walled enclosure where the sheep had lately been herded for the washing.

"God's life, I'll trick them yet," he muttered, and reined sharp about, outwitting them, and rode hard as hoofs could kick up the peat toward the shelter of the walls.

"Is he a Jack-o'-Lanthorn, this fool from Marsh?" growled Red Ratcliffe, foiled a second time.

He thought that Wayne was trusting to his horsemanship, that he would double and retreat and glance sideways each time they made at him in force, hoping to get a blow in as occasion offered. But Wayne of Marsh had no such idle play in mind; he was seeking only for sure ground on which to stand and meet them one by one. He had marked the opening in the pinfold through which the sheep were driven, and he knew that, if he could once gain the wall, the battle would narrow to a run of single contests.

They saw his aim too late; and as Red Ratcliffe swerved and swooped on him, Wayne backed his horse with its flanks inside the pinfold. He had four stout walls behind him now; the uprights of the gateway were no more than saddle-high, and above them he had free space for arm and sword-swing. It was one against five still--but each of the five must wait his turn, and each must fare alone against the blade which, to the Ratcliffe fancy, was a live, malignant thing in the hand of this witch-guarded lad of Marsh.

Again the red-heads fell back, while the Marsh farm-folk, roused by the Master's pluck, sent up a ringing cheer. And Shameless Wayne, who had chafed under long weeks of farming, laughed merrily to feel his sword-hilt grafted to his hot right hand again, to know that he had cut off retreat and that five skilled swordsmen were at hand to give him battle.

"God rest you, sirs. Wayne and the Dog are waiting," he cried, and laughed anew to mark how they shrank from the old battle-cry.

But Red Ratcliffe, seeing his brave scheme like to go the way of other schemes as promising, lost doubts and shrinking on the sudden. Man to man, he was Wayne's equal, and this time he would settle old scores--would go back to the Lean Man with his tale, and claim Janet as the fruit of victory. A thought of the girl's beauty ran across his mind, a swift, unholy sense that it would be sweeter to take her thus, unwilling and by force, than if she had consented to his wooing; and the thought steadied heart and nerve, while it lent him fierce new strength. No cry he gave, but made straight at Wayne and cut across his head-guard. Wayne shot his blade up, withdrew it, and thrust keenly forward; and Ratcliffe parried; and after that the fight ran hot and swift.

Steel met steel; the blades hissed, and purred, and shivered; up and down, in and out, the blue-grey lightning ran. The men's breath came hard, their eyes were red with prophecy of blood; their faces, that in peace showed many a subtle difference of breeding and of courtesy, were strangely like now, set to a strained fierceness, the veins upstanding tight as knotted whipcord. Sons of the naked Adam, they fought with gladdening fury; and the naked beast in them rose up and snarled between clenched, gleaming teeth. Their very horses--that are full as men of niceties overlaid by breeding--went back to their old savagery, and bit one at the other, and added their shrill cries to the men's raucous belly-breaths.

The farm-folk held their breath and watched. The Ratcliffes, clustered in a little knot, followed each steel-ripple, each cut and counter-cut, and forgot for the moment to take sides from very love of swordsmanship. And then Wayne knocked the other's blade high up in air, and would have had him through the breast had Red Ratcliffe not jerked his left hand on the curb and dragged his horse round into safety. Wayne could not pursue, even had he been minded to leave his shelter, for another Ratcliffe was on him now, offering fight as stubborn as the first.

"My breath will fail," thought Wayne, and redoubled the swiftness of his blows, and cut his man deep through the rib-bones.

But there were three left yet, and Red Ratcliffe, smarting under his defeat, had brought guile to help him where force had failed. While the sword-din began afresh, and again Wayne settled to the desperate conflict, Red Ratcliffe got to ground, picked up the sword that had been ripped from out his grasp, and crept softly to the far edge of the pinfold.

"'Tis child's play, after all," he thought. "Lord, how the rogue fights, with never a thought that he can be taken in the rear."

Wayne--forcing the battle with all his might, lest breath should fail--could get no nearer to his man as yet; and meanwhile Red Ratcliffe had gained the wall behind him and was throwing one leg over.

"He cannot keep it up, can't th' lad," murmured Hiram Hey. "Sakes, I've a mind to run in myseln an' do summat--though I mun be crazy to think on 't.--Hallo, what's agate wi' Red Ratcliffe? He looks pleased-like, an' he's getten off his horse. Oh, that's it, is't? Well, I can do a bit o' summat, happen, after all."

Hiram moved briskly up to the pinfold and reached the hinder wall just as Red Ratcliffe was climbing over it; he set a pair of arms about his middle, as he had done to one of the Wildwater farm-folk not long ago, and put his muscle into the lift, and brought his enemy with a thud on to the peat five yards away.

"Fair play's a jewel ye've niver learned th' price on at Wildwater," he said quietly. "Ye war for sticking th' Maister i' th' back, as ye could no way meet him i' front? Well, there's two opinions about ivery matter, an' mine's th' reet un this time, I'm thinking. 'Twar a Providence, it war, that yond hind o' thine came in to th' Friendly tavern yesterneet; he braced me fine for hoicking feather-weights ower my shoulder, like."

The shepherds looked at Hiram, and then at Red Ratcliffe, who was lifting himself in dazed sort to a sitting posture; it was plain they needed but the one word to close round and stamp the life out of this treacherous hound who could aim to strike from behind when Wayne had proved his match in open fight. But Hiram had an old grievance to straighten--a grievance that had rankled ever since Red Ratcliffe interrupted his courtship on a long-dead day of spring--and he paid no heed to his comrades' meaning glances.

"So, Maister; ye fooiled me once on a time, as ye called to mind just now--an' now I've fooiled ye," said Hiram, stroking his frill of beard and watching Red Ratcliffe's lowering face.

"And, by Wayne's cursed Dog, the third time shall pay for all," snapped the other, making a second effort to stand upright.

"Mebbe, but I'm fain to hev squared th' reckoning, choose what comes. Ay, it war grand, warn't it, to get Hiram Hey to tell ye how mich ling an' bracken there war at Marsh, an' th' varry spot it war stored in? Ye went home fetching a rare crack o' laughter, I'll be bound, an' ye came that varry neet to mak use o' what I telled ye. What, ye're dizzy sick? An' I'm laughing. An' that's how th' world allus wags wi' them as thinks to best Hiram Hey."

Red Ratcliffe shook off his dizziness, and snatched a dagger from his belt. "Thou foul-mouthed sot, I'll teach thee to set thyself against thy betters," he cried.

Hiram stood, sturdy and stiff; he knew there was little chance for him, but still he hoped to come to grips with his assailant and crush his ribs in before he could compass a clean stroke with the dagger. He feared the upshot not at all, and even as he waited he smiled in his old sour fashion to think that he had settled his own private cause of quarrel with Red Ratcliffe. The wind, freshening from the west, brought up a sound of shouting with it; but Hiram had no eyes for what was chancing on the far side of the pinfold.

"Begow, I shall niver be wedded now to Martha," he thought; "a chap _can_ go too slow, 'twould seem. Ay, well, I shall be saved a power o' worry, doubtless, an' wedlock's noan all cakes an' ale, they say. But, lord, I'd right weel hev liked to try it for myseln."

The fight at the pinfold was waxing keener all the while; but Shameless Wayne was hard-pressed now, and the first twinges of arm-tiredness were cramping his strokes a little. Yet his laugh rang deep as ever, and the sweetness of each stroke was doubled, since each must be near his last. One thought only held him, and that was a thought of pride--pride that he would die in the mid-day open, righting the old Wayne battle.

"He gives, he gives!" cried one of the two horsemen who were left to take their turn.

"Does he give?" panted Wayne, and made the quick cross-cut, following a straight lunge, which his father had taught him long ago.

The stroke told, and his opponent's bridle-arm dropped heavy to his side; but still he fought on, and still his comrades watched, eager to take his place the moment he fell back. Then Wayne was touched on the neck, and again on the side, just as Red Ratcliffe roused himself to leap on Hiram Hey.

Shameless Wayne in front, and Hiram, with whom he had waged many a stubborn contest, on the far side of the pinfold--it seemed that master and man would go out of life together, each dauntless, each proud in his own hard way, each ready, doubtless, to turn on the further shore of Death and take up some interrupted quarrel touching farm-matters--yet each dying because he had stayed to save the other when flight had been full easy.

Shepherd Jose, not caring to see such matters as he knew must follow, turned a pair of dim eyes down the slope, and started, and clutched his neighbour by the arm.

"In time--by th' Heart, in time!" he cried.

As if in answer to him, a swift, clear shout came up the moor, over the sun-bright sweep of ling.

"_Wayne and the Dog_. Hold to it, Ned! Hold to it."

Wayne knew the boyish voices, and his heart leaped, but he dared not let his eyes wander until the cry had been thrice repeated, until his adversary had given back for dread of the new foe. Red Ratcliffe, at the same moment, stopped half toward Hiram Hey, turning his eyes on the upcoming horsemen; then he raced for his horse, and sprang to saddle, and joined his hesitating band of comrades.

"Begow, that's a let-off, an' proper," said Hiram Hey, scarce comprehending yet that he was safe.

For a moment a silence as of night held the Ratcliffes, while they watched the four Wayne lads charge gaily up the slope, plucking their swords free of the scabbard as they rode.

"On to them; they'll break at the first onset," muttered Red Ratcliffe, and galloped down to meet them.

For the first time Shameless Wayne's heart grew soft and his nerve weak. They were over young, these lads who had been left to his care, to fight with grown men; what if one of them were slain in saving the life he had gladly given up a while since? But that passed; breathing again, he felt new strength in his arm, and as he crashed headlong in at the rear of the down-sweeping band, he swore that this thing should not be.

"Wayne and the Dog!" cried Griff, as he made at the foremost Ratcliffe.

"Wayne and the Dog!" roared Ned from the rear, and cleft the nearest Ratcliffe through the skull. And even as he wrenched his blade free, he laughed to mark with what elderly and sober glee these youngsters waged their maiden battle.

Front and rear the Ratcliffes were taken. Confused, hard pressed on every side, their blows grew wilder and more flurried. But still they held to it, and Wayne's four brothers had cause to thank the hard, monotonous hours they had spent in learning tricks of fence.

All was changed on the sudden. There had been quick breathing of striving swordsmen, and quiet, deep breaths of silent watchers--a quiet which Hiram Hey's conflict at the far side of the pinfold had scarce ruffled. But now it seemed as if Bedlam had let loose a second strife of tongues. The farm-men, maddened by the sight of blows, ran in at one another and fought for Wildwater or for Marsh. The dogs played Merry-Andrew with the sheep, and scattered them wide across the moor, and still pursued them. Cries of men, bleating of bewildered ewes, wild barking of dogs a-holydaying--and then, clear above all, Griff's shrill cry, "They flee, they free!"--and after that three flying horsemen steering a zig-zag course through sheep and dogs and wrestling farm-folk.

And over all was the splendour of the mid-day sun, the wind among the ling, the deep, unalterable silence that lies forever at the moor's heart, whether men live or die, whether they fight or drink in peace together. Only the plover heeded the swift fight, and screamed their plaudits to the victors.

*CHAPTER XX*

*HOW THEY WAITED AT THE BOUNDARY-STONE*

Red Ratcliffe, and the two who had come through the fight with him, checked their headlong gallop when at last the pursuit died far in their wake. Their shoulders were bunched forward, their heads downcast; and not till the surly pile of Wildwater showed half a league from them across the moor did they break silence.

"There'll be a queer welcome for us from the Lean Man," said one.

"Ay, he'll shake off his palsy when we come to him with the tale of four men left behind us," answered Red Ratcliffe gloomily. "Lord, how his lip will curl! And his eyes will prick one like a sword-point, cold and bright and grey. And he'll flay our tempers raw with gibes."

"Still, there's but one of the four killed outright; and when those boggart-shielded Waynes have left, we can return to help the wounded. They'll not butcher them, think'st thou?"

"Nay," sneered the third; "'tis part of their foul pride to play the woman after victory. Like as not they'll set them on some grassy hillock, with a wall to shield the sun from them, and give them drink, and nurse them into health against the next fight."

"Nay, a month ago they would have done as much; but now? I doubt it," said Red Ratcliffe. "We've roughened Wayne at last, and I never knew what flint there was under his courteous softness till I crossed blades with him just now."

"And yond four lads have had their first taste of blood. I've known boys do at such times what hardened men would shrink from."

"Well, they will kill the wounded, or they will not. 'Tis done by this time, and we can have no say in it," put in Red Ratcliffe. "Od's life, lads, I relish the look of Wildwater less the nearer we approach it," he added, reining in his horse.

"What brought the lads up? Had they winded our approach, or was it just the old Wayne luck?" said one of his comrades, halting likewise. "Marry, there'll be an empty house at Marsh. What if we ride down before the Master's coming and fire the dwelling from roof to cellar?"

Red Ratcliffe glanced quickly at him. "There's time for it, if we ride at once," he muttered; "and something we must do for shame's sake."

"There'll be his sister there," said another, with a laugh; "trim Mistress Nell, who gives us such open scorn whenever we cross her path. She shall take scorn for scorn, full measure, if I get within reach of her mouth. Come, lads, let's do it! Burn them out, and carry the girl to Wildwater."

A craftiness crept into Red Ratcliffe's face--a craftiness that showed him an apt pupil of the Lean Man's. "We'll waste no time on burning, lest Wayne and his cursed Dog come back while yet we're gathering fuel," he broke in. "But we'll ride down and snatch the girl, and take her up to Wildwater. Ay, and we'll lay no rough hand on her till Wayne has learned her capture."

They nodded eagerly. "We shall save our credit yet. By the Heart, not Nicholas himself could have hatched a bonnier plot," they cried.

"Ay, the game is ours," went on Red Ratcliffe slowly, as they turned and rode at the trot for Marsh. "Those four ill-gotten youngsters have saved him, he thinks--but he shall find that they have killed him twice over by leaving Marsh unguarded.--The fool shall die once in his body and once in the pride that's meat and bread to him. Hark ye! We'll send down word that his sister is held at Wildwater, and he will come galloping up and batter at the gates, all in his hot way, with never a care of danger. We'll take him alive, and bring our dainty Mistress Nell into the room where he lies bound--and there's a sure way then, methinks, of racking his brain to madness before we pay him, wound for wound, for what he's done to us."

His fellows drew back a little for a moment; the cool, stark devilry of the plot shamed even them, who had dwelt with the Lean Man and never hitherto found cause to blush. Then the thought of their defeat returned on them, and their hearts hardened, and they offered no word of protest or denial.

From time to time, as they rode, the leader of the enterprise laughed quietly; from time to time he thought of some fresh subtlety whereby Wayne's anguish would be sharpened; but not until they had covered half the road to Marsh did he break silence. A little figure of a woman, with corn-bright hair and delicate, round face, was standing in the roadway, shading her eyes to look across the moor.

"'Tis the mad woman they keep at Marsh," said Red Ratcliffe lightly. "We aimed once before at the Wayne honour through their women. The omen speeds our journey."

Mistress Wayne started as they came up with her, and turned to fly, but saw the folly of it. Keeping her place, she eyed them with the watchful, mute entreaty of a bird held fast within the fowler's net. Something in her helplessness suggested to Red Ratcliffe that he might find a use for her; the weak, to his mind, were fashioned by a kindly Providence to fetch and carry for the strong, and haply this mad creature might aid him to get Nell Wayne to Wildwater. Turning the fancy over in his mind, he stopped to question her.

"Well, pretty light-of-love? What wast gazing at so earnestly when we came up?" he asked.

She answered quietly, with a touch of frightened dignity in her voice. "I heard the sound of cries and shouting far across the heath awhile since, and I feared there was trouble to my friends."

"A right fear, too. There _has_ been trouble, and your friends have just learned a bloody lesson from us, Mistress," said Red Ratcliffe, for mere zest in seeing her wince.

"Oh, sir, they are not slain? Tell me that they are safe.--Nell was right," she went on, talking fast as if to herself; "she would send her brothers to help him at the washing-pools instead of hawking.--Why did we let him ride alone so near to Wildwater?--They reached the pools too late.--Ah, God! and the one friend I had is gone." Again she turned her eyes full on Red Ratcliffe. "Is he dead, sir?" she asked wearily.

A sudden thought came to him. "Not dead, Mistress, but dying fast," he answered. "Thou know'st the boundary-stone over yonder, where once he laid a Ratcliffe hand in mockery? Well, we met him there not long since as he rode to the sheep-washing, and I thrust him through the side.--Peace, woman! Thou may'st help him yet to a little ease before he dies."

"Yes, yes, I will go to him. At the boundary-stone, you said----"

"'Tis not thou he cries for, but his sister. See ye, we're hard folk, and take a hard vengeance, but now that Wayne has paid his price we do not grudge him such a light request--and were, indeed, riding down to bid his sister come to him."

She passed a hand across her eyes, while Ratcliffe's fellows glanced at him with frank amazement.

"'Twas Nell, not I, he asked for?" she said. "Are you sure, sir, that my name did not pass his lips?"

"Sure, quite sure. Pish! We've taken trouble enough, and now we'll leave thee to it. Go thyself if it pleases thee--but thou'lt rob the dying of his last wish if thou dost not hurry straight to Marsh and bring his sister to the boundary-stone."

She halted a moment, then went with slow steps down the highway. And he who rode on Ratcliffe's left turned questioningly to him.

"What fool's game is this?" he asked.

"Nay, 'tis a wise man's game, thou dullard. I tell thee, Wayne may come straight home to Marsh, and meet us; we'll run no hazard that can be escaped. Nay, by God! This little want-wit will do our work for us, and bring Mistress Nell three parts of the way without our lifting hand or foot--and think how that will lighten one of our saddle-cruppers. We have Wayne safe, I tell thee, and we'll risk naught."

Mistress Wayne was out of sight now, carrying a heart that was heavier for the knowledge that Ned had no thought of her in his last hour. A strange jealousy had wakened in her; why should it be Nell, not she, who was to soothe him at the last? She had loved him, surely, better than any friend he had--and now it was Nell, Nell only, whom he wanted. Well, she would bring her.

Not for the first time did this frail woman wonder bitterly why she had been doomed to return to her right mind; yet never, amid all the remorse that had followed her awakening, had she felt one half the numbing sense of loneliness that went with her now.

"He is gone," she repeated for the twentieth time, as she went over Worm's Hill, and down Barguest Lane, and in at the Marsh gateway.

Hiram Hey, meanwhile, had returned from pursuit of the Ratcliffe farm-folk to find that his betters likewise had given up the chase as hopeless. The four lads, indeed, would have ridden to the gates of Wildwater had not Shameless Wayne compelled them to turn back; and now they were gathered round the washing pool, chattering like magpies, while the yokels straggled back in twos and threes, and the dogs returned to their masters with frolic in one eye and shamed expectancy of rebuke in the other. The moor was dotted white with sheep, some standing in bewildered groups, some browsing on the butter-grass that grew at the fringes of the bogs. Wayne of Marsh was eyeing his brothers with a fatherly sort of care, seeking for wounds on them before he dressed his own.

"What, not a scratch on you?" he asked in wonder.

Griff bared his left arm with ill-concealed pride and showed a deepish cut. "'Tis no more than a scratch, Ned. I took it from Red Ratcliffe," he laughed.

And then his brothers, not to be outdone, showed many a trivial scar, which they had gleaned amid the give-and-take of blows.

"Thank God, it is no worse," said Wayne huskily. "I should never have found heart, lads, to go back to Nell if one among you had been lost.--There! Wash them in the stream, and dust them well with peat--and, faith, I'll join you, for my own hurts begin to prick."