CHAPTER XV

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*MOTHER-WIT*

The Lean Man and Red Ratcliffe were standing in the courtyard at Wildwater, and Nicholas was regarding his grandson with cold displeasure.

"Thy tale hangs ill together, lad," he said, "and I'll not believe a word of it till Janet has told me her side of the matter. What, one of our breed go meeting one of _them_ by stealth? By the Heart, if thou hast let jealousy----"

"But, sir, I saw them; they were as close as I am to you, and his words were honeyed if his low voice and earnest look were aught to go by."

"Well, there's no more to be said. 'Tis beyond belief, and I had rather saddle thee with a lie than Janet with such wantonness.--Peste! Where is the girl? She should be back by now, unless her search has taken her further afield than a handful of plovers' eggs is worth."

"Haply she is with Wayne of Marsh, sir," said the other softly.

The Lean Man pointed through the open gate. "Is she, then?" he snarled. "The next time thou dost hazard a guess of that sort, be sure the maid is not in sight already. Now, lad, I'll front thee with her straight, and we'll plumb the bottom of this matter."

Janet saw them while she was two-score yards away, and her heart sank for the moment. Her plan seemed harder of fulfilment now that she was all but face to face with the Lean Man. But she carried herself bravely, and crossed the open with a firm step, and held her basket out to Nicholas with a curtsey.

"Here are the eggs, sir. Have I not done well?" she said.

"Put them down, girl," said Nicholas, and paused, afraid to ask the question which might kill his love for her.

Janet was quick to take advantage of his hesitation. "I've done more than rob the peewits this morning, grandfather," she went on, with a glance at Red Ratcliffe. "Whom did I meet, think ye, above the Hill House waterfall?"

A foreboding seized the younger man; for her glance said plainly that she had no fear of what he might have told his grandfather.

"Whom, lass? Come, tell me quick," said Nicholas.

"Why, Shameless Wayne--and learned somewhat from him which he little thought might prove of service to you."

"Shameless Wayne? What led thee to Shameless Wayne?" cried Nicholas.

"Nay, what led _him_ to talk to me? 'Tis not the first time, either. Not long ago, as I was crossing the fields this side of Marshcotes, he stopped me by the way, and made much of some little acquaintance which once there was between us."

Nicholas shot a glance of triumph at Red Ratcliffe, and one of doubt at Janet. "Thou should'st have passed him by," he said.

"What can a maid do, grandfather, when the man is headstrong and she is out of call of help? He"--she lifted her brows disdainfully,--"he dared to make hot love to me that day; and again this morning as I was gathering eggs, he----"

The Lean Man fetched an oath. "So the lad is not content, 'twould seem," he muttered; "it is not enough to kill three of us and to flaunt my son's hand in the public view, but he must--see, child, he means thee no good by this, and I was right when I bade thee keep to home awhile."

"But, a murrain on 't, the girl was willing!" cried Red Ratcliffe, aghast to find the Lean Man's anger diverted so swiftly from Janet to Wayne of Marsh. "What didst say to me this morning, Janet, when I met thee on the moor?"

"What I say to thee now, cousin--that thou'rt the meanest of all my kin, and the one least likely to catch any woman's fancy--that thou may'st threaten, and bully, and play the tale-bearer, and yet not win me in the end."

"'Tis plain to see I bred thee, lass," laughed Nicholas, putting a kindly hand on her shoulder.--"As for thee, Red Ratcliffe, I gave thee free leave to say thy say to Janet, but not to force her will."

"Then, sir, you would liefer see her wedded to Wayne of Marsh than to me?" broke in the other hotly. "They call _him_ Shameless, but by the Mass this girl would hold the title with better credit. See how she stands there, with an open front and a clear eye, and all the while she knows----"

"Sir, my cousin has gone through it all before," said Janet, deftly taking up the talk as Red Ratcliffe paused for very anger. "I said nay to him this morning; and he turned and snarled on me, vowing he would tell you how I met Shameless Wayne willingly by stealth. Has he done so, or was he still finding wit enough to carry the tale through when I came up?"

"I said the tale went lame," muttered Nicholas; "ay, I knew there could be naught in 't."

"Did he tell you, sir," went on Janet merrily, "did he tell you that Wayne of Marsh was whispering love-tales in my ear, and that I was listening with greedy relish? He threatened so to do; because, forsooth, he had asked me a plain question, and my answer liked him little."

Red Ratcliffe had made many a useless effort to claim a hearing, but he could see by the Lean Man's face that the tide was running all against him.

"He thought I should be feared of you, grandfather!" cried Janet, laughing softly. "He thought I should not dare to come with a straight tale to you as he came with a crooked."

Nicholas, eager beforehand to keep his trust in the girl unshaken, let his last doubts fall off from him. "Thou wast right, child, to trust me," he said. "This fool here got his word in first, and if thou hadst not told me of thy meeting with Wayne before ever I twitted thee with it--why, I might well have believed that which would have gone nigh to break my heart."

For a moment the girl's eyes clouded and she could not look him in the face. He was so kind to her, so ready to take her part at all times; and she was rewarding his trust in sorry fashion. But that passed as she remembered the Lean Man's cruelty, his guile, his resolve to do Shameless Wayne to death by any sort of treachery. Was it a time to stand on scruples, when she was fighting, not for her own life, but for another's? Again her mother-love for Wayne swept over her, touching her fancy with a sense of fine issues that were to be compassed, here and now, by her own unaided wit.

"I said, sir, that I was powerless to keep Wayne of Marsh from walking with me," she went on, her voice gaining depth and subtlety as she made forward with the tale that had been shaping itself in her mind all through the long walk home from Hill House; "but I could at the least make him pay for his ill manners in curious coin. _He_ to dare offer marriage to a Ratcliffe! My cheeks were red with shame, as if another man had offered less than marriage; but I would not let him see it. I lured him on, I played with him, I learned all that he had done, or was doing, or was about to do."

"God rest thee, lass!" cried the Lean Man, with a boisterous laugh. "Who says thou'rt more or less than a very Ratcliffe? Thou didst lead the poor fool on, then, with a trail of honey? By the Dog, I never loved thee half as well as now.--What, Ratcliffe the Red, thou lookest moody! The old man was not fond enough to stomach any wild tale thou didst bring to him?--Well, girl, what didst learn from Wayne?"

"That he was going to Bents Farm, to see that some repairs were rightly done."

"Ay, it tallies," murmured Nicholas.--"Go on, Janet; we knew as much as that."

"But did you know, sir, that Wayne had somehow learned your purpose? He was to have gone on Thursday----"

"Did he tell thee that, or was it I?" broke in Red Ratcliffe. "Hark ye, grandfather! I let slip to her this morning the tale of what we meant to do, and she uses it now for her own ends."

"Peace, sirrah! I have a long account to square with thee, and a quiet tongue may keep thee from adding to the reckoning. Didst let the tale slip? The more fool thou, when I had bidden thee speak of it to no man. Haply 'twas from thee that Wayne of Marsh learned what we have in mind?"

"It matters little, as it chances, whether Wayne knows or not," said Janet. "He will go on Friday, sir, at noon, instead of on Thursday; for he told me as much, laughing to think how easily he could outwit you."

"Haply the last laugh will be mine," said Nicholas grimly. "Didst learn how many of his folk he meant to bring with him? Being warned, he will not go alone, I warrant."

"Nay, he professed to be a match for any four of you," answered the girl, a spice of the Ratcliffe devilry leading her to garnish her story with needless detail, "but for prudence sake, he said, he would take some two or three with him."

"A match for any four?" muttered the Lean Man. "I'll keep that word in mind when Wayne fares up to Bents. Ay, by the Rood I will let none but myself cross swords with him. Three of my folk I'll take, to equal his, and none shall say that Wayne of Marsh fought against odds when he was slain on the road to Bents Farm."

Janet shuddered to hear her grandfather talk of Wayne's death, as of a fact already well accomplished; glancing at the Lean Man's height and wiry frame, remembering the skill he had in wielding that dread two-handled sword of his, she felt that Wayne of Marsh, for all his lusty youth, would find a match in Nicholas Ratcliffe. And then she laughed her fears away; for was she not sending the slayers on the veriest Jack-o'-lanthorn errand that ever led men into the bogs?

"Take the men with you, sir, for Wayne can be tricky as yourself," she said gravely. "By Our Lady, I think he'll not fare back again from Bents to Marsh."

"Hast a shrewd head on thy pretty shoulders. Gad, yes, thou'rt crafty! Who is't thou callest to mind, girl? Some one out of the musty Book that Parson reads from on the Sabbath. Delilah, was it not, who fooled the long-haired fighter and clipped his locks for him as if he were a sheep at shearing-time?"

"And he could not fight at all, sir, after the shearing was done. 'Tis a good fable," laughed Janet.

"Ay, but how if she is clipping a Ratcliffe poll the while, and fools us into thinking that Wayne's locks, not ours, are underneath the shears?" snapped Red Ratcliffe.

The Lean Man, good-humoured almost now that his quarry was well in view, turned and looked his grandson up and down. "It would take a clever lass, methinks, to clip that rusty head of thine; as well reap a stubble-field for corn," he sneered.--"There! The work speeds merrily, and a little jest suffices for a big laugh. Janet, come draw me a measure of wine, and we'll pledge thy mother-wit."

He moved across the courtyard, and Red Ratcliffe, stepping to Janet's side, laid a hand on her cloak. "I asked this morn who fathered thee," he whispered. "Well, now I know. The devil got thee, and thou'lt not shame him. The game is thine so far--but by the Lord I'll make thee smart when fortune shifts her favours."

"What, dost not believe my story?" she answered, with demure wonder. "Well, go on Thursday, then, if thou doubtest----"

"Nay. He will not go to Bents Farm on Thursday, for thou hast warned him; nor will he go on Friday, since thou tellest us so glibly the place and hour. But we'll wait each day for him until he comes."

"The Lean Man will not wait with you, save on the Friday."

An ugly scrowl crossed the other's face. "The Lean Man ages fast; we must learn to strike while he is hanging on every lying word of thine," he said, and left her.

Janet halted on the threshold before following Nicholas indoors.

"Ay, even such as he can call me liar," she muttered, looking out across the heath as if for guidance. "Sorrow of women, why must we always stoop to feints and trickeries? Why cannot we fight as men fight----"

The peewits were wheeling over the sky-rimmed moor, and Janet, watching them, bethought her once again how they had used the self-same trickery to save their unhatched young. Instinctively she felt their world was hers, their teaching hers, and what was right for the wild things of the heath was right for her.

"And I have saved Wayne of Marsh. God be thanked for it," she cried with sudden fervour, and went to bring the Lean Man the cup which was to pledge her mother-wit.

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