Part 3

Shameless Wayne stood looking down at his step-mother, who still sat fondling her lover's body. There was no hatred of her in his face, though yesterday he would have railed upon her for a wanton; nay, there was a sort of pity in his glance, when at last he drew near to her and touched her arm.

"Life has been over-strong for you, eh, little bairn?" he said. "Well, we're both dishonoured, so there's none need grumble if I take you with me; shalt never lack shelter while Marsh House has a roof."

"Oh, I cannot come," said Mistress Wayne; "I have to get to Saxilton before dawn--I am waiting till the wound is healed and the blood stops dripping, dripping--oh, no, I shall not come with you--what would Dick say if he woke and found me gone?"

Entreaty the lad tried, and rough command; but naught would move her, and when at last he tried to carry her from the spot by force, she cried so that for pity's sake he had to let her be.

"Well, there's enough to be seen to as 'tis; may be she will come home of herself if I leave her to it," he muttered, and went quickly down to the tavern-door.

Jonas Feather was standing on the threshold, his head bent toward the graveyard. "What, Maister, is't you-- What, lad, ye're sobered!" he cried, as Shameless Wayne pushed past him.

"Ay, I found somewhat up yonder that was like to sober me. I'm going to saddle the mare, Jonas--she will be needed soon, I fancy."

"Sit ye dahn, Maister, sit ye dahn. I'll see to th' mare.--There's been a fight, I'm thinking? I could hev liked to see't, that I could, but they'll tell ye what once chanced to a man 'at crossed a Wayne an' Ratcliffe at sich a time--an' I'm fain of a whole skin myseln."

But Shameless Wayne was down the passage and out into the stable-yard behind. Jonas looked after him, and shook his head.

"I nobbut once see'd drink so leave a chap all i' a minute," he said, "an' it takes a bigger shock nor sich a young 'un as yond hes shoulder-width to stand. There's ill days i' store for th' lad, I sadly fear."

At the stroke of twelve, the Sexton's wife came down the belfry steps. Her right foot was numb with tolling the bell, and her fingers ached with the knitting; yet she had no thought of such matters as she stepped out into the moonlit burial place, for she was wondering how Nell Wayne had fared at Wildwater.

"Her father's lass--ay, ivery bone of her," she muttered. "Hes she killed him by now--hes she struck----"

The sound of a cradle-song, chanted in a sweet, low voice, came from above. The little old woman stopped her mumbling, and shuffled up the path, and came to where Mistress Wayne sat, with her lover's head on her lap and one baby hand pressed close against his breast.

Nanny touched her on the shoulder. "A death for a death," said she; "yet, not with all your tears to help, will Dick Ratcliffe be a fit exchange for th' Maister. 'Twill need a score sich as him, or ye, to pay th' price."

"He is sleeping. Hush! You will waken him, and 'tis early yet to start for Saxilton," said Mistress Wayne, lifting her childish face.

The little old woman quailed, and crossed herself, as she saw the light in the other's eyes. "She's fairy-kist! God save us," she muttered, as she hobbled down the path.

*CHAPTER III*

*THE LEAN MAN OF WILDWATER*

The Sexton's wife was afraid of no man that stepped; but ghosts, and fairies, and the mad folk who shared communion with the spirits, touched a bare nerve of dread. And so she stopped midway down the graveyard path, and turned, and went back to where Mistress Wayne was cowering above her lover's body. It was not that the Sexton's wife had any wish to help this woman, who had smirched the honour of the Waynes, but that she feared the disaster which refusal of such help might bring.

"She's fairy-kist," she muttered for the twentieth time, looking down at the frail figure. "God or the devil looks to such, they say an' I mun do th' best for her, I reckon."

"Ay, 'tis cold, 'tis bitter cold, and Dick will surely never come," said Mistress Wayne, getting to her feet and glancing fearfully across the kirkyard.

"Not to-night, Mistress. Ye'd best wend home wi' me, an' search for him to-morn," put in the Sexton's wife.

Mistress Wayne did not answer for awhile; she was watching the moonlight glance freakish, cold and wan, from out the purple-yellow of the clouds--was listening to the curlew-wail that thrilled across the stark, dim moor. And, slowly, as she stood there, the closed door of her mind seemed to swing back a little, letting the sense of outward things creep in. It was a dream, then, that Dick was coming to take her safe into shelter of the valleys; this was the moor that closed her in--the moor, whose face had frightened her, whose storms had chilled her to the bone, through all the brief months of her wedlock with Wayne of Marsh. She gazed and gazed into the moon-dusk, with still face and rounded, panic-stricken eyes; and from the dusk strange shapes stole out and mouthed at her.

This for a long moment--and then she ran like a scared child to the little old woman's arms, and hid her face, and entreated protection from that wilderness which had grown a live, malignant presence to her.

"Give me house-walls about me--give me light, and warmth--Mary Mother, hark how the night-birds wail, and scream, and mock me," she cried, with sobs between each panting plea.

The Sexton's wife, not understanding how any one should fear the moor to which she had lived bedfellow these five-and-sixty years, was yet quick to snatch the opportunity. It would never do to leave this witless body to the night-rain and the cold, and who knew how soon she might fall again upon her lover's body and again refuse to quit the spot?

"Come wi' me," she muttered, putting an arm about Mistress Wayne and hurrying her across the gravestones.

"Where wilt take me?" cried the other, half halting on the sudden. "Not--not to Marsh House, where Wayne lies and haunts me with that still look of reproach?"

"Not to Marsh, Mistress--nay, not to Marsh. See ye, 'tis but a step, and there'll be a handful o' fire for ye--an' walls to keep th' cold out----"

"Then, we'll hurry, will we not? Quick, quick! The shadows are laughing at us--and the owl on the church steeple yonder hoots loud in mockery. Oh, let us hurry, hurry!"

"Well, then, we're here. Whisht, Mistress, for there's naught ye need to fear," cried Nanny, halting at the door of the cottage which stood just across the road.

The Sexton, Luke Witherlee, was smoking his pipe in the ingle-nook and hugging the last embers of the peat-fire. A thin, small-bodied man, with parchment cheeks, crow's-footed, and a weakish mouth, and eyes that were oddly compact of fire and dreaminess. He glanced up as the goodwife entered, and let his pipe fall on the hearthstone when he saw what manner of guest she had brought back with her.

"Nay, Luke, muffle thy tongue, an' axe no questions," said Nanny, in a tone that showed who was master of the Sexton's household. "This poor body wants a lodging, an' so we mun lie hard, me an' thee, for this one neet. What, ye're minded to make friends, are ye, Mistress?" she broke off, surprised to see her guest, after a doubtful glance at Witherlee, go up to him and lay her slim hand in his own earth-crusted palm.

"An' welcome to ye, Mistress," said the Sexton quietly. "We've nowt so mich to gi'e--but sich as 'tis, 'tis yourn."

Mistress Wayne forgot her terror now that the stout walls of the cottage shut out the whimpering goblins of the moor. She sat her down by the Sexton's side, and looked into his face, and saw a something there--something friendly, quiet and tender--which soothed her mood. And he, for his part, seemed full at home with her, though he fought shy at most times of the gently-born.

"Good-hap," muttered Nanny, "to think there should be fellowship 'twixt Witherlee and her! Well, I allus did say Witherlee war ower full o' dreams to be a proper man, an' happen they understand one t' other, being both on th' edge o' t' other world, i' a way o' speaking."

Nanny stood open-mouthed awhile, regarding the strange pair; then hobbled to the three-cornered cupboard that stood in the far corner of the kitchen, and reached down cheese and butter and a loaf of oaten bread. To and fro she went, restless and alert as when she sat in the belfry-tower and sent Wayne's death-dirge shuddering out across the moor. Mistress Wayne was talking with the Sexton now--childish talk, that simmed the old man's eyes a little--and Nanny as she went from cupboard to table and back again, laying the rude supper, kept glancing at them with a wonderment that was half disdain.

"Will ye be pleased to sup, Mistress," she said, when all was ready. "Th' fare is like yond moor that frights ye so, rough and wholesome; but I doubt ye're sadly faint for lack o' belly-timber, and poor meat is better nor none at all, they say."

Mistress Wayne shook her head, with a bairn's impatience, and tightened her hold of the Sexton's hand. "I'm not hungry, I thank thee--not hungry at all," she murmured.

But Nanny would take no denial, and at length she coaxed her visitor to break her fast.

"That's likelier," growled the little old woman, as she threw fresh peats on the fire. "Victuals is a rare stay-by when sorrow's to be met. Now, Mistress, warm yourseln a bit, an' then I'll see ye safe between sheets."

The peat-warmth, following her long exposure to the wind, set Mistress Wayne a-nodding; and the Sexton, seeing how closely sleep had bound her in his web, took her in his arms with a strength of gentleness that was all his own, and carried her to the bed-chamber above, and left her safe in Nanny's care.

"She slumbers like a year-old babby," said Nanny, coming down again, by and by.

"Oh, ay? Well, she looked fair worn out ai' weariness. What ails her?" answered Witherlee, filling his pipe afresh and watching Nanny's shadow go creeping up the wall as she stepped in front of the rushlight burning on the table.

"Tha's heard nowt, I'm thinking, o' what chanced i' th' kirkyard?"

"Nay, I've heard nowt. I've been dozing, like, by th' ingle, an' niver a sound I heard save th' death-bell tha wen ringing for Wayne o' Marsh. Ay, it seemed i' tune wi' my thowts, did th' bell, for I war thinking o' th' owd feud 'twixt Wayne an' Ratcliffe. 'Tis mony a year sin' that war staunched, lass, but I can see 'em fight fair as if 'twere yesterday."

"Trust thee to doze! I wonder whiles what thou hast to show for thyseln, Luke Witherlee, that I do, while th' wife is ringing her arm off," snapped Nanny, her temper sharpened by the long day's work and sorrow.

"Show for myseln?" said he, with a sort of weary patience. "Nowt--save that I can plank a grave better nor ony Sexton fro' this to Lancashire. An' that's summat i' these times, for we shall see what we shall see now Wayne o' Marsh is killed. Ay, for sure; there'll be need of a good grave-digger i' Marshcotes parish.--What's been agate, like, i' th' kirkyard? I knew there war summat bahn to happen for I heard th' death-watch as plain as noonday."

"Why, Dick Ratcliffe war for carrying off yond little Mistress Wayne--her as sleeps so shameless-peaceful aboon stairs--an' Rolf Wayne o' Cranshaw met them fair i' th' kirkyard."

The Sexton roused himself, and his eyes lost their dreaminess.

"Did they fight, lass?" he cried.

"Hark to him! Give him a hint o' blood-letting, an' he's as wick as ony scoprel."

"It's i' th' blood, lass, and 'twill out at th' first taste o' blows," said Witherlee, with a shamefaced glance at his wife. "I'm not mich of a man myseln, but I aye loved a fight, an' that's plain truth."

"Well, tha'd hev seen one, I reckon, if tha'd been where Wayne o' Cranshaw war to-neet," retorted Nanny grimly. "I missed it myseln, for I war ringing th' bell; but when I came out into th' graveyard, there war Dick Ratcliffe stretched on th' vault-stone, an' Mistress Wayne greeting aboon his body. An' a rare job I had, my sakes, to get her safe within doors."

"They fought at th' vault-stone, did they?" murmured Witherlee. "Where did they stand, Nanny? An' who strake first? An' how did t'other counter?" His voice, smooth and gentle, was ill in keeping with the brightness of his eyes, the restless movement of his hands.

"How should I tell thee? I see'd nowt o' th' fight, being thrang wi' other wark."

"That's a pity, now. I allus like to hev th' ins an' outs of a fight fixed fair i' my head, so I can go ower it all again when sitting by th' hearthstone o' nights. Well, well, we shall see summat, lass, afore so varry long."

The little old woman twisted her mouth askew. "Luke," said she, "tha'rt at thy owd tricks again. Tha breeds visions an' such-like stuff as fast as a cat breeds kitlings, an' they run all on th' days when Waynes killed Ratcliffes at ivery crossroad, when ivery fair day war like a pig-killing."

"There's sorrow goes wi' fighting, an' there's mony a gooid life spilt," said the Sexton, "but 'tis sweet for a man's stomach, for all that, an' th' lads grow up likelier for 't. Look at yond Shameless Wayne, now--wod he be th' racketty ride-th'-moo'in he is if he hed to carry his life i' his hand fro' morn to neet?"

"He'd hev no life to carry, most like," retorted Nanny. "He'd do wi' mending, would th' lad; but there's a mony other men-folk i' like case, an' I could do wi' all on ye better if ye war made all ower again. An' I'll thank ye, Witherlee, to say nowt agen Shameless Wayne i' my hearing, for I'll listen to nowt but gooid of him. There's more i' him, let me tell thee, nor thee or onybody hes found out yet."

The Sexton set flint to steel and lit his pipe afresh; and a smile lurked fugitive about his mouth. "Well, if there's owt behind his shamelessness, he'll hev his chance o' showing it," he said. "Th' feud 'ull be up, Nanny, by and by. Last neet Dick Ratcliffe war killed--that's to mak even deaths on one side an' on t' other. To-morn likely or th' next day after, another Wayne 'ull be fund stretched stark by some roadside; an' that 'ull be Nicholas Ratcliffe's way o' saying, 'Come on, lad's, an' fight it out.' Ay, I've seen th' feud get agate afore this, an' I know th' way on 't."

"Then tha should think shame to let thy een brighten so. If tha'd seen th' face o' yond lass o' Waynes, when she came up to me while I war ringing i' th' belfry-tower a while back--if tha'd seen th' poor bairn's eyes wild for lack o' th' tears that wouldn't come--tha'd sing to a different tune, Luke Witherlee, that tha wod, about this sword-fighting an' pistoling. Nay, I've no patience wi' thee. Lig thee down on th' settle, Luke, an' get to sleep. I've a long day afore me to-morn."

The little old woman settled herself as comfortably as might be in her rocking-chair, turning her back on Witherlee, and shutting her eyes in token that she had said her last word for the night. But the Sexton still sat on, his pipe-bowl in the hollow of one hand, his eyes upon the grey-red ashes of the peats. Old and gnarled his body was, and shrunken his face; but he was thinking of the fights to come and the heart of him was lusty as a boy's.

Only once did Nanny break the silence. "I cannot thoyle to thin' o' th' way yond little body aboon stairs is sleeping," she said, half rousing herself. "She's no light sins to carry, an' wakefulness wod hev shown a likelier sperrit."

"Live an' let live, lass," said Witherlee gently; "an' when Mistress Wayne hes fund her wits again, 'twill be time to cry out on her for her sins."

"Tha'rt ower tender for this rough world. I allus telled thee so," murmured the little old woman.

Soon she was breathing in the sharp, stifled fashion that told the Sexton she was hard asleep. And he, too, began to nod, with softer thoughts than fight to give him company--thoughts of the frail woman who had claimed his hospitality, the little fairy-kist wanton who seemed so full in sympathy with his dreamings.

"Good or bad, God keep the little body," he whispered in his sleep.

Silence crept shadowy from the corners of the room--the silence, compact of rustling undersounds, that seems full of tragedies half lost yet unforgotten. The little sounds grew big, the big ones thunderous. The eight-day clock on the right hand of the chimney-piece ticked weightily, with grave disregard of everything save Time's slow passing. Nanny's harsh breathing crossed her goodman's softer snore. And now a rat floundered in the rafters overhead; and now the spiders in the walls began their clear and eerie ticking--_tick-tick_, _tick-tick_, like the swinging of an elfin pendulum. Once in a while an owl hooted, or the long-drawn wailing of a peewit sounded from the moor without. The night, in this cottage-kitchen, was endless, ghoulish and unrestful; and the slumbering folk on chair and settle served but to heighten the unrestfulness.

Witherlee turned in his sleep, and lifted his eyelids for a moment, and heard the spiders ticking in the wall. "Yond is th' death-tick," he muttered drowsily. "Lord save us, there'll be blows afore th' moon wears old."

Again the fret of little sounds fell over the cottage--over the living-room, and over the bed-chamber above where Mistress Wayne was tricking a brief spell of sleep from fate. But her sleep was neither so lasting nor so light as Nanny Witherlee had named it, and dawn was scarce greying over the moor-reaches when she waked.

Full of a sense of disaster, confused and rudderless, she rose and went to the window and looked out across the graves. And the dawn was a pitiful thing, that came to touch her sorrows into life. Where was she? And why should the grave stones, set toward the brightening East, show red as blood? She could not tell--only, that some one was waiting to carry her far from these dreadful places of the moor. Someone was waiting for her--that was the one surety she had. But where?

She smiled on the sudden, and clapped her slender, blue-veined hands together. "Why, yes," she lisped, "'tis Dick Ratcliffe who waits for me--strange that I cannot see him in the graveyard. We should have met there, he and I." She stopped and knit her little brows. "Dick lives at Wildwater," she went on slowly. "How if I seek him out, and reproach him that he did not wait? Yes, yes, I'll go to Wildwater--we have far to go to-day, and I must hurry."

She picked up her wearing-gear and eyed it questioningly; then donned it quickly, stole down the stair, and stood, finger on lip, regarding the Sexton and his wife.

"If they should waken, they would never let me go," she murmured. "I must tread softly--very softly."

"'Tis th' death-tick, an' there'll be fight afore th' new moon's in her cradle," muttered the Sexton in his sleep.

Mistress Wayne, startled by his voice, ran fast across the floor, and lifted the latch, and went out into the gathering dawn. A moment only she halted in the lane, then turned to her right hand and went up toward the moor with hurried steps. She must reach Wildwater--and Wildwater, she knew lay somewhere up among the moors.

Up and up she went, past naked pasture-land and lank, rough-furrowed fields. She passed a shepherd tending the ewes which had lambed in the inclement weather--one of the Marsh shepherds, who wondered sorely to see his late master's wife come up the moors in such guise and at such an hour.

"I want to get to Wildwater; some one is waiting for me there, and we have far to go, and I cannot find the way," she said, drawing near to the shepherd, yet keeping a watchful eye on him, and ready, like some wild thing of the moor, to take flight at the first hint of danger.

The shepherd eyed her queerly. "Ye want Wildwater, Mistress? Well, 'tis a fairish step fro' here to there--though yond bridle-track will land ye straight to th' door-stun, if ye follow it far enough. Are ye forced to wend thither, if I mud axe a plain question?"

"Oh, yes, I have a friend there who waits my coming. He'll be angry if I fail him."

"'Tis no good house to visit," said the shepherd, scratching his head in dire perplexity. "Have a thowt, Mistress, o' them that live theer."

"My lover dwells there. Is not that enough?" she answered gravely, and went her way.

Up and up, till she gained the wildest of the moor, where eagles nested and the goshawk soared. Up and up, until she stood beside Wildwater Pool, and looked across its stagnant waters, and saw the long house of the Ratcliffes frown beetle-browed upon her from amid the waste of ling. And half she feared; and half she gladdened, thinking what welcome her lover held in store for her; but when she neared the gate and felt the swart defiance of the house, she halted.

Between Ling Crag and Bouldsworth Hill it stood, this house of the Wildwater Ratcliffes. Above it were the wind-swept wastes of heath; below, the lean acres which bygone Ratcliffes had wrested from the clutches of the moor. Yet the dip of the hills sheltered it a little and the garden was trim-kept adding, if need were, the last touch of desolation to the homestead. A rambling house, shouldering roughly at the one end a group of laithes and mistals; above the narrow latticed windows the eaves hung sullenly, and the stone porch without the door offered at the best a cold welcome, and at the worst defiance. Over the porch was a motto, deep chiselled in the blackened stone.

"We hate, we strike," said the house to the outside world, and the motto, though it matched well the temper of each generation of the Waynes, suited none of the stock so well as old Nicholas Ratcliffe, known through the moorside as the Lean Man of Wildwater.

Below the wan strip of intake, an upland tarn showed its sullen, unreflecting face to the sky. Nor curlew nor moor-fowl was ever known to haunt the rushes that fringed Wildwater Pool, no fish ever rose from its waters; and men said that God had cursed the pool, since a winter's night, nigh on a hundred years agone, when a Ratcliffe had tempted a Wayne to sup with him in amity and had thereafter thrown his body to the waters. But Nicholas Ratcliffe loved the tarn, as he loved the storms that broke over the naked hills and the wild deeds that had made his fathers a terror and a scourge; and the sons and grandsons who grew up about him he trained to the rough logic of tradition. Brave the Lean Man was, and crafty as a stoat; wiry of body, lank-jawed of face; and the hair stood up from his crown a rusty grey, like stubble when the first frost has nipped it.

Old Nicholas sat in the hall this morning, in the carved oaken chair that stood over against the lang-settle. Robert, his eldest-born, sat opposite, and three other of the grandsons were at table still, finishing a breakfast of mutton-pasty and ham and oaten-bread, washed down with nut-brown ale. For the hall, running a quarter the length of the house and all its width, was the chief living chamber, where the indoors business of the day was gone through; a cool and pleasant chamber in summer heat, but in winter the winds piped through and through it, driving the women-folk for warmth to the more cosy parlour. The Lean Man had been cradled in cold winds, and it pleased him to see as little as might be of the women; for women were rather a cumbrous necessity than a joy to Nicholas Ratcliffe. "Thy son should be safe off with Mistress Wayne by now," said Nicholas to his eldest-born.

"Likely. 'Tis all the lad is good for, curse him! Dick was ever the weakling of the breed."

"Aye, but there's a use for weaklings, when all is said," chuckled the old man. "They fear dishonour worse than aught that can chance to them, these Waynes, and when first I learned that Dick was playing kiss-i'-the-dark with yon milk-faced wife of Wayne's, I gave him rope enough to strangle the Marsh pride."

"He starts well!" laughed one of the youngsters from the breakfast board.