Part 28

Wayne's heart was lifted to the storm's pitch as he rode. Ahead was the man who had made a shameful bargain touching Janet, the man who had perilled his sister's honour and warred with malice unceasing against his house. There was but a quarter-mile between them--and now but ten-score yards--yet Wildwater lay over yonder slope.

"Dost crawl, I tell thee, just when I need thy speed. Gallop, thou fool!" he muttered, then rose in the stirrups and raised a cry that might have roused the slumber of dead men in Marshcotes kirkyard.

The Lean Man checked when he heard the cry, and looked behind; and Wayne lessened by the half the distance between horse and mare.

"Who calls?" yelled Nicholas Ratcliffe.

"Wayne of Marsh. Who else? There are old debts between us, Ratcliffe the Lean."

"On both sides, Wayne the Shameless," cried Nicholas, and turned the big bay's head, and rode straight at his man with heavy sword uplifted.

Between them, while they neared each other, a zag of lightning flashed to earth, and Wayne's cry as he galloped to the shock was drowned in a wild roar of thunder. He took the Lean Man's stroke, and jerked his own sword back; but the mare shied with terror, and his return blow aimed wide, grazing the Lean Man's saddle-pommel as it fell.

"Thou aimest ill, lad. I thought a sword sat better in thy hand," laughed Nicholas, as Wayne brought his mare round once more to the attack.

The Lean Man had found his youth again, and in his heart, too, the storm-wind was singing shrill. Fear of the Dog slipped from him. He warmed to the old joy of hardened muscles and of crafty hand.

"'Tis thou and I now, thou bantling," he cried, plucking the curb as his beast reared its fore-feet to the sweltering sky. "Does the Dog fear the storm, that it comes not up with thee to fight?"

A second flash shot through the rain-sheets, and another roar snapped up the Lean Man's words. Try as their riders would the horses refused obedience to the bit, for each flash and each new burst of thunder whetted the keen edge of their terror. Three times Wayne brought round the mare and strove to force her to the shock; and three times she swerved out of sword's-reach.

"God's life, shall we never get to blows!" roared the Lean Man. "Down, lad, and we'll fight it out on foot."

There was no gully of the moor now but hid a rolling thunder-growl. The streams raced foaming between their dripping banks, and all across the sky ran sinuous lines of blue-red fire, the harbingers of lightning-blasts to come or the aftermath of flashes spent.

Yet neither Wayne nor the Lean Man knew if it were foul weather or fair, save that the rain dimmed their sight a little; for each saw his dearest enemy across the narrow, sword-swept space between them that stood for the whole world. And now one gained the advantage, and now the other, while still they shifted back and forth, treading into great foot-holes the soaked bed of peat on which they stood.

Above, the greater battle--the shock of hurrying clouds close-ranked against each other, the shriek and whistle of the wind, the down-descending sweat of combat. Below, the lesser battle, with smitten steel for lightning, and hard-won breaths for wind and thunder, and rage as fierce, and monstrous, and unheeding, as any that smote the moor-face raw from yellow east to smouldering, ruddy west.

"I have thee, Wayne!" yelled Nicholas, as he cut down the other's guard and aimed at his left side.

"Nay," answered Wayne, and leaped aside so swiftly that the stroke scarce drew blood.

A keener flash ripped up the belly of the sky as they fell to again, a nearer harshness crackled in the thunder's throat; but naught served to quench the fury of the onset. Like men from the Sky-God's loins they fought, and their faces glowed and dripped.

But Wayne was forcing the battle now, and step by step the Lean Man was falling back for weariness. Harder and harder he pressed on him; there was a moment's pauseless whirr of cut and parry, and it was done. Shameless Wayne, seeing his chance, sprang up on tip-toe and lifted his blade high for the last bone-splittering stroke that is dear to a swordsman's heart as life itself.

And then a strange thing chanced, and a terrible. As his sword was half-way on the upward sweep, Wayne saw, through a blinding lightning-flash, the Lean Man's blade shrink crumpling into a twisted rope of steel and the Lean Man's arm fall like a stone to his side. He checked himself, with a strain that nigh wrenched the muscles of his back in sunder, and lowered his weapon, and cursed like one gone mad because the sky had opened to rob him of his blow.

"Your tale is told, Lean Ratcliffe," he said. "Had the storm so few marks for sport that it must needs rob me in the nick of vengeance?"

The Lean Man tried to move his stricken arm, and his face showed ghostly-grey through the rain sheets while he mowed and mumbled at his impotence. But the old light shone quenchless in his weasel eyes, as he slid his left hand toward his belt, and clutched his dagger, and stumbled forward with the point aimed true for the other's breast. But Wayne had never taken his eyes from him and he warded the stroke in time.

"'Tis an old device of your folk, and one I know," cried the younger man. "Your game is played out, lean thief of Wildwater--God pity me that I lack your own strength to kill a stricken man."

"Curse thee, curse thee!" groaned Nicholas. "Is that not an old Wayne device likewise? Ay, and a mean device, when we would liefer take steel at your hands than quarter. Kill me, thou fool, least it be said I begged quarter of a Wayne."

Wayne eyed him gloomily. "Cease prating! I cannot kill you, and I cannot leave you to die among these howling moor-sprites. Can you sit in the saddle if I lift you to 't?--Peste, though, the horses have taken to their heals. Can you frame to walk, then?"

The Lean Man made a few steps forward, then stopped and seemed to stumble. "Give me thy hand, Wayne, as far as Wildwater gates. I am weak, and cannot walk alone," he mumbled. "There shall none of my folk do thee hurt--I swear it by the Mass."

Wayne saw through the trick, for he knew from those few forward steps that, though his enemy's sword-arm was sapless as a rotten twig, his legs were firm to carry him. A touch of grim approval crossed his hate. This Lean Man had a grandeur of his own; maimed, defeated, worn with the fiercest battle he had ever fought in his long life of combat, he could yet keep heart to the last and frame a quick stroke of guile when all weapons else had failed him.

"Featly attempted!" cried Wayne of Marsh. "How your folk would swarm about me when you got me to the gates! And in what strange fashion they would keep me safe from hurt. Nay, Lean Man, I know the way the hair curls on the Ratcliffe breed of hound."

The old man was silent, weaving a hundred useless subtleties. And then an exceeding bitter cry escaped him. "God curse thee, youngster! The Dog fights for thee--my very children fight for thee--and now the sky opens to snatch thee out of hurt."

"Nay," answered Wayne, gravely, "for the blow was mine, and you know it."

And so they parted. And the storm howled ravening over the tortured waste.

*CHAPTER XXV*

*AND HOW HE DRANK WITH HIM*

It was the morrow of Wayne's fight with Ratcliffe of Wildwater, and he rode with his sister to her wedding. The past day's storm was over, but the clouds hung grey and lowering, spent with the battle, yet waiting to rally by and by for a fresh outburst. The day was scowling on the bride, folk said, and Nell herself would fain have seen one gleam at least of fair-omened sunlight.

"Well, lass, I have brought thee a wedding-gift of the choicest," said Wayne, as they neared Marshcotes village.

"And what is that, Ned?" Her voice was cold, for she would not forget how Janet Ratcliffe had supplanted her, had driven her into wedlock before she wished for it.

"What is it? Why, the knowledge that the Lean Man has fought his last. I would not tell before, seeing thee so busy with thy bridal-wear--but yestereven we met on Ling Crag Moor, he and I, and fought it out."

The light came back to her eyes. "Didst kill him?" she asked eagerly.

"Nay, for the storm robbed me. I had him, Nell, and just was striking when the lightning snatched my blow."

"'Tis well, Ned. I had liefer thou hadst given the blow--but he is dead, and I'll take that thought to warm me through my bridal."

Wayne eyed her wonderingly, for he had looked for greater softness at such a time. "He is not dead, lass; his sword arm was crumpled--but for the rest, he could make shift to get him home."

"Thou--didst--let him go?" Nell had come to a sudden halt, and her voice was low and passionate.

"God's life, what else could any man have done? Wast bred a Wayne, Nell, or did some Ratcliffe foster-father teach thee to trample on a stricken man?"

"Thou should'st have killed him," she answered, and went slowly forward.

Again Wayne glanced at her. "There's rosemary on thy breast, lass, and thy shape is like a maid's," he said, after a deep silence,--"but, Christ, I sorrow for thy goodman, if thou com'st to thy very bridal with such thoughts."

"Wilt never understand?" she cried impatiently. "Wilt never learn that I wedded the feud, long months ago, when father staggered to the gate and died with his head upon my knees? Sometimes, Ned, it seems I care for naught--naught, I tell thee--save to see the Ratcliffes stricken one by one. And thou could'st have slain their leader, the worst of all of them, and didst not!"

"Nor would do, if I had my chance again," he answered, meeting her eye to eye.

"Ah, God, that I had been born a man-child of the Waynes! That was like thee, Ned, just like thee. Reckless, stubborn, hot for battle--and then, all in a moment, the devil apes helplessness and touches thee to woman's pity. Father was the same, and died for it; he would not kill the last remnant of the Ratcliffes when the chance offered."

"If thou hadst made a comrade of the sword, and learned what it teaches a man's heart," said Wayne quietly, "thou would'st know why father left killing--ay, and why I let the Lean Man go in safety."

She was silent until they had turned the bend of Marchcotes street and saw the kirk-gates standing open for them, with the knot of village folk clustered round about the tavern. And then she glanced at him--once, with the passion frozen in her eyes.

"Had Mistress Janet naught to do with that?" she asked. "Or was it a thought of her that weakened thy heart at the eleventh hour?"

Wayne jerked his bridle and started at the trot. "Thou lov'st me, lass," was all he said. "Well, thou hast a queer way of showing it.--See, our folk wait for thee just within the gates; and there is Rolf, with as soft a bridegroom's look as ever I saw. For shame's sake, Nell, return him something of the love he's giving thee."

"Love!" she murmured, as they dismounted at the gates. "Well-away, I've naught to do with it, methinks; 'twas hate that cradled me--and if God gives me bairns, I'll rear them to take on the feud where thou hast failed."

It seemed the folk were right when they named the day unchancy; for Nell's hand was cold in her lover's as he led her up the graveyard path, and her mind, disdaining all that waited for her in the present, was wholly set upon that late-winter afternoon when she had watched her father breathe his last. Nor could she shake the memory off when she stood within the kirk and listened to the droning Parson's voice. _Till death do us part_--what meaning had the words? Death walked over noisily abroad in Marshcotes parish to render the vow a hard one either to make or keep; and man and wife need look for such parting every day so long as there were Ratcliffes left to foul the moor.

It was done at last. Rolf and the pale, still girl whom now men named his wife moved down the rush-strewn aisle. Their kinsfolk, with pistols in their belts and swords rattling at their thighs, followed them into the wind-swept, sullen place of graves. And the village folk ceased every now and then from strewing rue and rosemary before the bride, and whispered each to other that twice in the year this kirkyard had seen the Waynes come armed--once to the old Master's burial, and now to his daughter's bridal. Would this end as that had done, they asked? And then they glanced affrightedly toward the moor-wicket, as if they looked for another shout of "Ratcliffe" and another rush of red-heads down the path.

But naught chanced to break the grey quiet that hung over graves and dripping trees. The bridal party got to horse. The landlord of the tavern, according to old usage, brought the loving-cup and lifted it to the bride's lips. And then, still with the same foreboding stillness of the crowd about them, they wound down Marshcotes street.

Shameless Wayne rode with them until they came to the parting of the ways this side of Cranshaw; and then he stopped and took Nell's hand in farewell; and after that he gave Rolf a grip that had friendship in it, and a spice of pity too.

"She is in thy care now, Rolf," he said. "Od's life, Marsh will seem cold without its mistress."

"'Twill not lack one for long; I trust the new mistress will love Marsh as I have done," said Nell, and Wayne, as he turned about and set off home, knew once for all that no wit of his could ever throw down the barrier that had reared itself between them.

But he had scant time for counting troubles during the weeks that followed. The grass was ready for the scythe in every meadow, and he was busy day-long with the work of getting it cut and ready for the hay-mows. The weather--rainy, with only now and then a day or two of sun between--doubled the labour of hay-winning; for no sooner was it cocked and all but ready for the leading, than the rain came down once more, and again the smoking heaps had to be spread abroad over the sodden fields. The work was ceaseless, and Wayne of Marsh took so tired a head to pillow every night that sleep fell on him before he could hark back to the tangled issues of the feud.

Yet every now and then he found time to stop amid his labours and to tell himself that, spite of all Nell had to say, he was glad to have kept his hand from the Lean Man that day upon the moor. It had been easy to fight with Nicholas Ratcliffe in hot blood; but he had conquered him, and that was enough; and Janet would have given him less than thanks if he had killed the only one among her folk who claimed her love.

Another matter he learned, too, and one that irked him sorely. Heretofore he had gone about the fields with no fear of danger, but rather with a welcome for it; but ever since the night when Janet had come down to Marsh and given herself to him, he had grown tender of his skin--had halted before going out, and had wondered if sundown would find him still unharmed. Some day, perchance, he would confess as much to Janet if she came to need proof of his passion for her; but the knowledge of it was very bitter to him now, and, even as he crushed it down, he mocked himself for feeling it.

The days wore on until at last the hay was all won in, and the farm-folk paused for breath before the corn should be ready for harvesting; and all the while Wayne's friendship with his step-mother grew deeper and more intimate. Often, when his brothers were out with hawks or dogs, she was his only companion at the supper-board; and afterward she would sit beside him while he drank his wine, talking and watching the fire which burned on the great hearth-place the year through. Mistress Wayne showed even frailer than of yore; she clung more closely to Ned, with more of the dumb pleading in her eyes; and his pity deepened as he saw that she was slowly drifting back to witlessness.

Three weeks had passed since the Lean Man had fought with Shameless Wayne, and it was whispered up and down the moorside that Nicholas Ratcliffe was near his end. None knew how the rumour had arisen, but some traced it to gossip of the Wildwater farm-men; and Earnshaw, who had caught a chance sight of Nicholas on the morning after the storm, vowed that he had never seen a man shrivel so in the space of one short day. Nanny Witherlee had the news from Bet the slattern, and she passed it on in turn to Hiram Hey, who carried it to the Master on the very morning that saw the last of the hay safely housed.

Wayne sat up late after supper that night, turning the news over in his mind and wondering if it were true. Dusk was stealing downward from the moor, but the storm-red of sunset lingered yet, and the ghostliness which crept about Marsh o' nights had more unrest in it than usual, as if the darkness that it craved were falling over slowly. The Master had the old house to himself: Mistress Wayne was in her chamber; the maids were gone to Rushbearing Feast; the four lads, despite the broken weather, had followed the chase all day and were not yet returned.

"So the Lean Man is dying," mused Wayne, his eyes on the slumbering peats. "Ay, there's likelihood in Hiram's gossip. 'Tis a marvel he has lived so long, after the storm that palsied him.--Well, God knows I'd liefer the lightning had done the work than I."

The silence of the house crept softly over him, as he sat on and on, thinking now of Janet, now of his sister, and again of the feud that still lay smouldering until one side or the other should stir it into life again.

A sudden weariness of it came to him. Must they fight everlastingly, till either Waynes or Ratcliffes had been swept from off the moorside? The Lean Man's death would free Janet of the only tie that bound her to Wildwater; would it bring her folk likewise nearer to the thought of friendliness?

"God grant it may," muttered Wayne.

And then he glanced across the hall, toward where his father had lain upon the bier awaiting burial--where he himself had stood and sworn above the body that he would never rest from killing. The tumult of the past months rolled back; he saw again the quiet face of the dead; he felt anew the bitter hate that had informed his vow. Was he to draw back now, because the one sweeping fight had given his stomach food enough? Nay, for his oath held him, now as then; and, now as then, he must be ready at all hours to carry on the old traditions.

While he sat there, his head between his hands, with the peats dropping noiseless into light heaps of ash, the door opened and Mistress Wayne crept into hall. Her hair was loosened; her bare feet peeped from under her night-gear; and a man, to look at her, would have named her the bonniest child that ever stood far off from womanhood. She stood for awhile regarding the quiet figure by the hearth, then came to him and rested both hands lightly on his shoulders.

"Why, bairn, I thought thou wast asleep," said Wayne, starting from his reverie.

"I could not sleep, Ned. Each time I closed my eyes the dreams flocked round me."

He took her hands in his and drew her gently down. "Dreams? Come tell them to me, little one," he said.

She crept still closer to him, shivering as with cold. "Ned, I saw thy father as he lay in hall here, long ago--saw his still look, and the candle-shadows slanted by the wind across his face."

Her glance, as Wayne's had done, sought the place where the bier had rested; and he wondered why his thoughts and hers should run on the same theme to-night.

"Let the dream rest there, bairn," he said.

She did not heed him, but went on, with wrapt, still face. "And then the dream shifted, Ned, and it was the Lean Man lay there--the Lean Man, with one ear shorn level with the cheek and the dreadful scars upon his face. Ned, 'twas fearsome! For Nicholas Ratcliffe sat him up and scowled at me as he does when he meets me on the moor--as he did when first I went to Wildwater and was turned forth of doors by him. And his hands crept out toward me, Ned, till they closed about my throat; and then I woke; and I could not bear it, Ned, so I came down to thee."

"Never heed such dreams," he whispered soothingly. "Thou'rt over-weary, that is all."

"It may be so--yet they were so real, Ned! So real." Again she glanced across the hall. "Thrice I saw thy father lying there--and once, Ned, thou stood'st beside him, so I thought, and pleaded with him. Thou had'st kept well thy oath, thou said'st; was't not enough?"

Wayne's hand tightened on her own. It was not the first time that she had touched, as with a magic wand, the hidden burden of his thoughts; yet never had she aimed so surely to the mark as now.

"And what said he--what said the dead man on the bier?" he queried eagerly.

"What said he? He opened his eyes, Ned, and looked thee through and through. ''Tis not enough, save all be slain,' he answered, in a voice that was faint as the echo of a bell. 'I weary of it, father,' thou said'st. 'Yet wilt thou keep the vow, though thou think'st 'tis done with,' said the dead man, and closed his eyes. And then--Ned, there was a whimper and a crying at the door, and thy father stirred in sleep, and lifted himself, and cried _Wayne and the Dog_, so clear that it was ringing in my ears when I awoke."

Wayne answered nothing for a space. For not his father only, but his father's fathers, lifted their shrouds and gazed at him--gazed mercilessly and told him that the feud was not his, to be staunched or fought at pleasure, that it was a heritage which he must bear as best he could, passing it on when his turn came to die.

No buried legend of his house, no musty tale of wrongs suffered and repaid but came back to mind. And Mistress Wayne sat still as destiny beside his knee, and kept her eyes on his. The wind moaned comfortless through the long, empty passages; the garden-shrubs tapped their wet fingers on the window-panes; and the House of Marsh seemed to mutter and to tremble in its sleep.

Wayne roused himself at last, and looked down at the frail, troubled face. "Dreams need not vex us, bairn, when all is said. Fifty such will come in the space of one night, and each carry a contrary tale."

"And then we heed them not; but mine to-night are played all upon the one string, Ned. What should it mean?"

"It means that thou hast lived through some drear months, little one, and the memory of them takes thee at unawares in sleep.--Come, now, fill up my wine-cup for me, and light the candles, for 'tis gloomy here in hall--and then I'll tell thee tales until thou'rt ready for thy bed again."

She was quick at all times to shift her mood to his; and soon her face smoothed itself, her hands ceased moving restlessly, as she lay back against his knee and listened to his voice. Only the softer tales he told her, of the Wayne men and the Wayne women, their loves and the fashion of their wooing. And in the telling he, too, began to lose the discomfort which her dreams had roused.

"Tell me, Ned," she said, looking up on the sudden; "had any of thy folk so strange a wooing as thine?"

"Ay, three generations back. But that tale has a drear ending, bairn, and I'll not tell it thee."

"Often and often I dream of thee and Mistress Janet; sometimes she stands at the far side of Wildwater Pool and bids thee cross to her--and thou goest waist-deep, Ned, to reach her--and then the sun sets red behind the hill and the waters turn to blood."

"Of a truth, little one, thou'rt minded to have me sad to-night," he muttered.

"Nay, not sad!" she pleaded. "There's much that is dark to me, Ned, but one thing I never doubt--that Janet will come safe to thee. Let the waters redden as they will, thou'lt cross to her one day."

"Over her kinsfolk's bodies? Ay, it may be so," said Wayne bitterly.