Part 32

The Ratcliffes, following his lead, moved to the table and filled a brimming cup for each one of their guests. And after that they poured measures for themselves; and Janet, listening from the little room behind to all that passed, knew that the time had come for Waynes or Ratcliffes to go under once for all. The instincts of her fighting fathers rose in her; she felt her dagger-edge, there in the darkness of her prison, and yearned to take her part in what was next to chance. But little Mistress Wayne, affrighted by she knew not what, shrank back into the window-niche and prayed.

"Drink, Waynes!" cried Red Ratcliffe on the sudden. "In the name of the dead man, peace between Wayne and Ratcliffe."

The Waynes lifted their goblets high, and ran headlong forward, and dashed them in the faces of the Ratcliffes while yet their blades were only half free of the scabbards.

"Wayne and the Dog!" the cry rang out, and before the red-heads could wipe the wine-stains and the blood from mouth and eyes, the Waynes were on them.

The fight seemed long to Janet, fingering her dagger and longing for a share in it; but it was swift as the moor-wind screaming round the house of Wildwater. The wind was a tempest now; yet its voice was drowned in the blustering yell of "Wayne! Wayne and the Dog!"---the cry that had driven the Ratcliffes from many a well-fought field.

They had no chance. Surprised, outwitted, blinded by the wine-cups, they struck at random. But the Waynes aimed true and hard. One by one the Ratcliffes dropped, and still Shameless Wayne lifted the feud-cry of his house. Neither courteous nor soft of heart was Wayne of Marsh this night--nor would be till the work was done.

Ten of the foe were down, and the score and five still left were fighting with their backs against the wall. A lad's laugh broke now and then across the groans, the feud-cries, the hiss of leaping steel; for Griff was young to battle, and the two lives he had claimed had maddened him. Shameless Wayne said naught at all; but _kill_ was graven on his face.

The din of battle had wakened even the dead, it seemed; for on a sudden the Lean Man sat him upright on the bier and watched the fight. A flame was in his eyes, and with one shaking hand he strove to wrench the jaw-cloth loose, and could not. His lips moved with a voiceless cry, as if he would fain have cheered his folk to the attack; but speech and body-strength had failed, and only the brain, the quick, scheming brain, was live in him. Yet none marked his agony, none moved to unwrap the grave-cloth from his jaws.

The Ratcliffes, desperate now, made a last sudden effort just as the Waynes were surest of their victory. With one deep-throated yell they leaped to the attack, and drove the foe back with a rush, and rained in their blows as only men do when the grave is hungry for them. Two of the long Waynes of Cranshaw dropped, and one of the Hill House men. It seemed the Wildwater folk might conquer yet by very fury of the forlorn hope they were leading.

"A Ratcliffe! A Ratcliffe!" roared the on-sweeping band.

"Wayne and the Dog!" came the answer--but feebler now and less assured, for three more Waynes were lying face to the ceiling-timbers.

And then a dread thing chanced. For Mistress Wayne, shrinking close into the window-niche and watching the red pathway of the fight, heard a new note cleave through the uproar. The wind was raving overhead; the cries were loud as ever; but deeper than them all was the low whine that sounded from the courtyard door. She saw no sword-play now, no forward leap or downward crash of men; her gaze was rooted trance-like on the door, and round about her played an ice-cold wind.

Up the long chamber, through the reeking press, a brown and shaggy-coated beast stepped softly--stepped till he reached the Lean Man's bier. But only Mistress Wayne had marked his passing.

She saw the Lean Man cease struggling with the jaw-cloth--saw him turn a haunted face toward the left hand of the bier, while terror glazed his eyes--saw the rough-coated hound set back his shadowy haunches for the spring, and leap, and clutch the Lean Man by the throat.

"God's pity, 'tis the Dog--'tis Barguest!" cried Mistress Wayne.

Her voice, sharp-edged with agony, struck like a sword-thrust into the fight. The Ratcliffes were sweeping all before them; but they stopped for one half moment. Barguest had carried disaster to them always; there was not one of them but dreaded the Brown Hound; and the woman's cry that he was in the room here plucked all the vigour from their sword-arms. The battle was lost and won in that half-moment's pause; for what had daunted the Red Folk had put fresh heart into the Waynes and driven them to the onset with resistless fury.

It was a carnage then. Five Ratcliffes dropped at the first shock, ten at the next onslaught. The rest fled headlong toward the great main door, and tried to open it; but Red Ratcliffe had made the bolts too sure, and they were caught in their own trap. Snarling, they turned at bay, and showed a serried line of faces, lean, vindictive, bright-eyed as the weasel's whom tradition named their ancestor. Those who fell writhed upward from the floor and tried to drive their blades home; and the Waynes, with low, hoarse cries, put each a foot on the skulls of the fallen, and fought on in this wise least the dying, weasel-like to the end, should prove twice as dangerous as those whose limbs were whole.

Janet had followed the battle as best she could. She had heard the feud-calls swell, and weaken, and grow loud again; had heard Mistress Wayne's shrill cry of Barguest. And then her lover's voice rose swift in victory above the growling hum of "Ratcliffe! A Ratcliffe!" And she knew that Wayne of Marsh had wiped his shame clean out at last.

Red Ratcliffe and two others were all who stood upright now, and they were fighting behind a bank of fallen comrades.

"Quarter!" gasped Ratcliffe, full of a fresh stratagem.

"Not again," laughed Wayne. "We courteous fools are out of mood to-night, Red Ratcliffe."

"Quarter! We're defenceless, Wayne. Would'st butcher us?"

"Ay, would I," answered Wayne of Marsh, and cut at Ratcliffe's head-guard, and grazed his scalp as his own blade slid down the other's steel.

"Thou'st made a priest of him!" roared Griff, beside himself with the reek of slaughter. "Look at his bloody tonsure, Ned."

Red Ratcliffe flung his sword in the lad's face, and picked up a dying Ratcliffe in his arms. Fury lent sinew to despair; a moment he staggered under the body, then hurled it full at Shameless Wayne and drove him blundering half across the floor. And then he raced down the pathway he had made, and gained the hinder door, forgotten until now, and clashed it to behind him.

The passage was pitch-dark, with a sharp turn and three unlooked-for steps half down it; and his first thought was to pick off the Waynes who followed as they stumbled in the darkness, and afterward to make good his escape in such rough-ready fashion as the ensuing uproar might suggest. He halted awhile, waiting their coming, while his breath came and went in hard-won sobs; then, as his brain cooled, he bethought him of the narrow, winding passage that branched oft from the one in which he stood and led at one end to a rarely opened door that backed the orchard, at the other to the room where his Cousin Janet lay.

Behind him he could hear the Waynes calling one to another as they blundered out in search of him; some went up the main stairway; others moved cautiously toward him and called to their fellows in hall to bring them candles. He waited for no more, but crept down the narrowed passage, and felt for the door, and had his hand already on the hasp when he remembered Janet. It was his last chance of safety, this, he knew; but, like the greybeard who had schemed his last behind in hall there, he had a desperate courage of his own, and a like remorselessness. Was he to leave Wayne of Marsh to make merry with the maid for whom he had hungered these twelve months past? Nay, for she should share his flight; and Wayne should find the dregs of victory less welcome than he looked for.

His pursuers were moving all about the house; but their thoughts were all of the main doors and plainer ways of escape, and in their hurry they neglected the narrow belt of darkness that marked the opening of the side-passage. Red Ratcliffe laughed softly to himself as he ran to Janet's room; for there was time, and he could yet plant a mortal thrust in Wayne of Marsh.

Janet, with the ring of Wayne's last triumph-shout in her ears, heard steps without her door, and cried, half between tears and laughter, that Ned had come to free her--Ned, who had fought a righteous quarrel to the last bitter end; Ned, who was her master, and the master of her enemies. Ah, God! If he had not saved her from Red Ratcliffe!

The key was turned softly in the lock--too softly, she thought, for an impetuous lover. She put her hands out, felt them prisoned, and with a "Thank Our Lady, Ned, thou'rt safe!" she yielded herself to a hot embrace.

"Ned, take me to the light! I want to see thy face. Is there blood on thee, dear lad? Nay, I care not, so it be not thine own."

Red Ratcliffe's voice came to her through the darkness. "Ay, there's blood on me, cousin--Wayne blood, that it shall be thy work to cleanse. Meanwhile, the hunt is up-- Canst not hear them running hot-foot up and down the house? Come with me, girl, or I'll set thumb and finger to thy throat and drop thee where thou stand'st."

She was helpless in his grasp. Bewildered, not knowing where Ned was, nor why Red Ratcliffe was here unharmed, she let herself be carried down the passage, far as the low door that creaked and groaned as Ratcliffe opened it. The cold wind blew on her from without, and on the sudden her senses cleared. This fool whose love she had laughed at thrice a day had trapped her after all. A few more strides, and they would be free of the moor, and Wayne might seek till morning light and never find her. A few more strides, and it would matter little that Wayne of Marsh had fought his way to the very threshold of possession.

The dawn was yet far off, and the moon was hid, or its light might have shown Red Ratcliffe the smile that played about his cousin's face, as her hand slipped to her breast and returned.

"I'll come with thee, cousin, never fear," she whispered softly, and lifted Wayne's dagger in the gloom.

"Lights! Where are your lights, ye fools?" came Wayne's voice from near at hand. "'Twill be gall and madness to me if this worst ruffian of the band escape."

"There's a darksome passage here. Does it lead to a secret way, think ye?" answered Rolf Wayne of Cranshaw.

"Likely; the wind blows shrewdly down it. Quick with the candles there! And keep your blades drawn, for by the Dog I'll kill the one who lets Red Ratcliffe through."

They gained the open door, and on the threshold Janet Ratcliffe stood, with lips half-parted in a smile, and in her eyes the first tremulous self-loathing that comes to women after they have done man's work.

"Do ye seek Red Ratcliffe, sirs?" she asked.

"Ay, show him me--show him me, I say!" roared Shameless Wayne, too hot for any tenderness toward his mistress.

"He is beside me here-- Nay, sheathe your swords; he asks no further service of you."

All crowded round, and Wayne of Marsh shaded his candle with one hand and held it low to the face of him who lay close without the door.

"Through the heart," he muttered; "to think the lass should rob me.--Nay, then, the stroke was good; need I grudge it her?"

An arm was laid on his. "Ned, I am sick; take me out of sight of all these men," said Janet.

One last look he gave at Red Ratcliffe. "All--all--dead Wayne of Marsh need never cry again for vengeance," he muttered.

He put an arm about the girl, and led her down the passage, through the knot of kinsmen who were pressing forward for a sight of Red Ratcliffe's body, and through the scattered Waynes who still were searching for the runaway, not knowing he was dead. These last turned wonderingly at seeing Ned no longer in pursuit, and stopped to wipe the sweat of battle from their faces.

"Hast overta'en him, Ned?" they asked.

"Ay, his sleep is sound," answered Shameless Wayne.--"Get ye across to Cranshaw, friends, and tell my sister that her goodman and myself are safe. And tell her--that I've kept the oath she wots of."

They glanced once at the face of Ned's companion, proud yet for all its weariness; and then they got them out into the courtyard. And after Ned had watched them go, he turned to find Janet leaning faint against the wall.

He touched her on the shoulder. "Courage, lass," he muttered roughly.

Comfort he would have given her, such comfort as a man at such a time may give the maid who loves him; but he dared not let his heart go out to her as yet, for there was that in the wide hall to right of them which overmastered love.

She straightened herself at his touch. "Ned," she cried with sudden fierceness, "'twas for thee I killed him; he meant to take my right in thee."

"I know, lass, I know. But would God I had saved thee the stroke."

"Leave me awhile," she whispered, after a silence. "I must go to the moor--the moor is big, and friendly, and it will understand."

He knew her better than to thwart her mood at such a time, and let her go; but while she was crossing to the door, a frail little woman came out from the hall and moved to meet them.

"What, bairn!" said Wayne gently. "We've fought our troubles through together, thou and I; and there'll be none can break our friendship now, I warrant."

"Blood, blood--see how it drips--oh, hurry, hurry! The stain can never be washed out if once it reaches Wayne of Marsh--he lies under the vault-stone yonder--he stares at me with cruel, unrelenting eyes."

And Wayne knew that she had fallen back to the witlessness of that long-buried night when he had watched his cousin fight above the vault-stone. The crash of blows, the bloodshed and the tumult, had touched the hidden spring in her and made her one again with those piteous-happy folk whom Marshcotes gossips called the fairy-kist.

A great awe fell upon him as he watched the milk-soft face under its loosened cloud of hair, as he hearkened over and over to the happenings of a night that was scarce less terrible than this. That was the night which had re-opened the old feud of Wayne and Ratcliffe but this had killed it once for all.

"Will my lover ever come, think'st thou?" said Mistress Wayne. "The post-chaise has been waiting long--the horses fret--the postillion says we shall never gain Saxilton unless Dick Ratcliffe hastens." She paused, and her mind seemed for a space to grapple with the present. "Didst see Barguest steal into the hall?" she whispered. "He came and couched at the bier-side--and then he sprang--come see the teeth-marks in the Lean Man's throat."

She beckoned them so imperiously that they were drawn against their will into the reeking chamber, and between the still heaps of the slain, and up to the bier whereon Nicholas Ratcliffe lay with death stamped livid on his face. Quietly as if it were a usual office, the little woman turned down the shroud and pointed to the sinewy throat; and Janet's eyes met Wayne's across the body of their foe, while they whispered one to the other that Mistress Wayne saw something here which was denied to any save the fairy-kist.

Wayne of Cranshaw came striding into hall, and after him Griff and his brothers, with a press of Hill House folk behind. But Rolf silenced them when he saw the figures by the bier, and led them quiet out into the night.

"Best leave them to it," he muttered to a kinsman. "'Tis an ill knot to unravel, and God knows how 'twill fare with yond sad pair of lovers."

They stayed there for awhile, Wayne and Janet. The battle-heat went from him; passion was stilled; he stood and went over, one by one, the turmoils that were past--stood, and watched the hate of feud shrink, mean and shamed, into the darkness that had bred it--stood, and wondered to what bitter harvesting the aftermath of feud must come.

And Janet watched him, with the dead man's bulk between them--watched him, and sought for a shaft of hope to cross the gloomy hardness of his face.

Shameless Wayne lifted his head by and by and moved to the door to rid him of the spell. "Come where the wind blows cool, girl. There's a taint in every breath we draw," he cried.

In silence she followed him to the threshold of the great main floor and looked with him across the lone reaches of the wilderness. Dark, wide and wet it stretched. The rains seethed earthward from a shrouded sky. There was no wail of moor-birds, no voice save the sob of the failing wind among the ling.

"Is this our wedding-cheer?" said Janet, meeting his glance at last. "And those in hall there--are they the bridal-guests?"

Wayne answered nothing for a space. And then he gave a cry, and took her to him, so close he seemed to dare each whispering ghost of feud to snatch her from him.

"We never sought the thing that's ended yonder," he whispered hoarsely. "We'll shut it out--we'll--Janet, hast no word for me?"

But the Lean Man, quiet on the bier where he had gibed at death, paid little heed to them. The feud was stanched between Wayne and Ratcliffe; yet he had never a word to say, of protest or of sorrow. The feud was stanched; yet Mistress Wayne, while she plucked at the dead man's shroud as if to claim his notice, was sobbing piteously.

"My lover waits me at the kirkyard gate," she faltered; "but I dare not pass the vault-stone. Sir, it drips crimson as the sun that lately set behind Wildwater Pool. And hark! There's Barguest whining down the wind."

The rain still fell without. The clouds came thickening up above the house of Wildwater. And far off across the moor a whining, comfortless and long-drawn-out, fluttered on the brink of silence.

THE END