CHAPTER XVI

*

*HOW WAYNE OF MARSH RODE UP TO BENTS*

The sun was nearing the top of his climb, and his rays were kindly with Mistress Wayne as she sat by the waterside in Hazel Dene and filled her lap with flowers and green lush grasses. Here a clump of primroses nestled close to the water's edge, and there a hazel-bush waved its catkins finger-like over the peat-brown water, dusting the wavelets with finest saffron pollen. Above, in the sloping fields, lambs bleated after the wethers, and kine chewed lazily the cud of sweet new grass. All was tender frolic, as if a month ago no snow had filled the hollows of the trees where now were nests, as if no bitter wind had whistled downward from the moor, chilling the bud within its sheath and the sap in well-turned limbs of ash and oak.

Mistress Wayne ceased playing with her flowers, and fell to dreaming. She was the one still thing among all the quivering eagerness of leaves and water, birds and hovering flies and glancing fish. For the storms that had chilled and frightened her were over, and with the spring her mind seemed to be loosing, one by one, its winter bonds. Old memories stirred in her and clamoured for release; new desires awakened, and with them a fresh load of doubts and fears; she sat, helpless and inert, and strove with all her might to unravel the threads which one night's tragedy had tangled.

"Ah, it is sweet--sweet," she murmured. "I was a child once--a child--and they gave me love--both hands they gave me full of love--and it was always spring, I think, with warmth like this and song of birds. But I'm old now; older than anybody knows, and sad. I think it is because I did some one a great wrong. What was it? Down in the meadows, when he came and tried to kill me with his hard grey eyes--the eyes that stared at me afterward from the bier. Nay, he could not forgive me, even in death--I think he knew that I had never loved him."

For a moment longer she struggled with memory; then her face grew empty as of old, and she picked up her flowers and fell to talking babe-talk to them. But her witless moods held lighter sway nowadays; reason was coming slowly back, and day by day her mind returned more often from childishness into the piteous strife of sanity. She got to her feet soon, and threw the flowers from her, and looked with troubled eyes toward Marshcotes.

"I might go and find Sexton Witherlee," she said, halting with one finger on her lip; "he is so wise, and he may tell me what I want to learn. Yes, I must find the Sexton."

A crackling of twigs came from up the Dene, and turning affrightedly she saw Shameless Wayne striding along the narrow path.

"Why, little bairn, what art doing here?" he cried, as she ran to him with hands outstretched in welcome.

"Thinking, Ned--always thinking. I want to remember--oh, I want to remember--but the thoughts will never stay still enough for me to put my hand on them. I have been trying to catch the little fish in the stream yonder, and it was just the same; they stayed till I had all but caught them, and then they glanced and flickered, flickered and glanced, until I could not see them for the splashes which they made."

"Bide awhile, bairn," he said kindly; "thy thoughts will come tame to hand one day, never fear."

"Art going home, Ned?" she said, after a silence. "I was crossing to Marshcotes kirkyard, but if thou'lt come into the fields with me, and talk, I'll ask naught better."

"I'm going to Marsh, but only to get to saddle and be off again. Better talk to the Sexton this morning, and I'll walk with thee after dinner.--Nay! Never look so downcast. 'Tis only that there's work to be done up at Bents Farm, and I shall scarce get there and back as 'tis by dinner-time."

Again the puzzled look, which told that she was doubtful lest this returning memory of hers were leading her astray. "I thought, Ned--I thought thou hadst gone there yesterday? Well-away, the days slip past, and sometimes I forget to count them; was it not Thursday yesterday--and Friday today--and what comes after?" Her eyes filled with tears. "It is so hard, dear, to forget and to know that all the world is pitying me."

"Tush, bairn! Thou canst remember nigh as well as any of us now. And thou'rt right about Bents Farm; I should have gone there yestermorn, but was prevented. There! Find out yond friendly Sexton of thine, and show him how this fair spring weather is warming thee back to memory."

"Thou'lt not forget to walk with me after dinner?" she said.

"Not I.--The stream's over-wide for thee, is't? Well, that is soon reckoned with."

Laughing, he picked her up and leaped across the babbling water; then set her down, and turned to wave farewell as he swung round the corner of the path.

"Half her wits have come home from wandering. What when they return altogether?" he muttered. "Nay, she had better be as the bairns are. Our wits do naught for us save teach us that life rings cracked and hollow as a broken bell.--I could swear the sun moves at racing-speed," he broke off, glancing toward the south. "'Twas well I told them to set dinner back a full two hours."

The Lean Man, standing in the Wildwater courtyard, was likewise looking toward the south, as he rated three of his kinsfolk into the saddle.

"Ye lie-abed, hounds!" he roared. "Does Wayne of Marsh come riding to meet us every day, that ye mean to let noon go by? Up with the stirrup-cup, Janet, and I'll drain it once again to an errand that is all of thy making."

"'Tis scarce past the time for wild geese, sir," put in Red Ratcliffe drily, "and Janet knew it, methinks, when she sent us on this chase."

"Marry, why should'st doubt Wayne's coming?" snapped Nicholas. "But thou wast so from thy birth, lad, so I'll not rate thee for thy clownishness."

"I doubt for reasons that I'll tell you afterward," said the other, nettled by his comrades' laughter.

"What, when I return with Wayne's head at my saddle-flap?"

"If mares build nests, and lay gold eggs in them, we shall bring back Wayne's head to-day," growled Red Ratcliffe, and pricked his horse forward out of reach of further gibes.

"The young cockerels crow while the old birds fill their crops," laughed Nicholas. "Forward, lads, and mind well that none is to lay hand on Shameless Wayne till I have done with him."

Janet watched them move up into the moor, their figures, riding one behind the other, dark against the white, wind-hurried clouds.

"A fair journey, sirs!" she cried, soon as they were out of eyeshot. "A fair journey, and fair tempers when ye come back from slaying Wayne of Marsh."

Dangers were waiting in plenty for Ned, she knew; but it was enough that he was safe from the peril of the moment, and her heart sang blithely as she told herself that, but for her aid, the Lean Man would have gone to meet him yesterday--and would have found him. What she should say when they returned from their bootless errand, she knew not, nor whether her grandfather would suspect the truth of all the tale she had told him when he found one flaw in it. It did not matter; some way she would coax him back to good humour, as she had done four days ago.

Restless in her gaiety, which had a certain fierceness in it, she wandered up and down the house, and out into the garden, and thence to the stables in search of her favourite roan mare. The roan had been ailing lately, and this morning she turned a sadly lack-lustre eye on Janet in answer to the girl's caresses.

"'Tis time a leech looked to thee," said Janet, stroking the beast's muzzle. "Yet it is thankless of thee, when all is said, after the pains I've taken. I all but lost the fingers of one hand awhile since in giving thee a ball, and thou'rt not a whit the better for it. Well, we must see if Earnshaw, yond idle rogue from Marshcotes, can do thee any good; he's cunning at horse-physic, so they say."

Glad of the excuse for a scamper, but finding none of the farm-hands about the yard, she saddled the mare that stood in the next stall, led her to the horsing-steps that stood this side the gateway, and soon was galloping over the heather as if the chestnut had no knees to be broken, nor she a neck to lose. And half the way her thoughts were of the Ratcliffes, riding to meet a foe who would not come; and half the way she thought of Wayne's splendid doggedness, when she had met him at Hazel Brigg, and he had turned a deaf ear to her warning.

Mistress Wayne, meanwhile, had found the Sexton at work on a new grave and had enticed him to the flat stone which had grown to be their seat on all occasions when they foregathered for a chat. Thinner than ever was the Sexton, as if the past winter had dried the little flesh that had once made shift to clothe his bones; his eyes were dreamier, but the old kindliness was in them as they rested on this frail comrade who listened with such goodwill to all his thrice-told tales of fight and fairies, of Barguest and the Brown Folk.

"Ay, they live under th' kirkyard, do th' Brown Folk, as weel as farther out across th' moor," Witherlee was saying. "They're deepish down, but time an' time, when I'm nearing th' bottom of a grave, I can hear 'em curse an' cry at me, for they like as they cannot bide mortal men to come anigh 'em."

"Art thou never afraid of them, Sexton?" asked Mistress Wayne, her wide, questioning eyes on his.

"Nay, I niver get ony harm, as I knaw on, fro' th' little chaps,--though I do shiver whiles, for their curses is summat flairsome to hearken to. Howsiver, curses break no bones, as th' saying is, so I just let 'em clicker, an' I win forrard wi' my digging."

The little woman shivered. "They are cruel, these Brown Folk. They snatch children from the cradle, and carry them down and down, deep under the peat, to work the gold for them. I like the slim ghosties better. Sexton, talk to me of them,--the ghosts of those who lie asleep here; thou hast seen such often?"

"Ay," said the Sexton softly. "I've learned th' feel an' th' speech an' th' throb o' th' kirkyard, Mistress, till I'm friends wi' ivery sleeper of 'em all. Lord Christ, how sweet it is to sit here on a summer's eve, wi' th' moon new-risen ower kirk an' graves--to feel this feckless body o' mine crumple an' shrink, while th' inward fire grows fierce, and bright, and steady. 'Tis then th' ghosties come and slip their thin hands into mine; for th' naked souls o' men are friendly, and 'tis only our lumpish shroud of clay that frights th' sperrits from us. Ay, there's scant room, I'm thinking, for us poor mortals, what wi' Brown Folk below, an' White Folk up aboon."

"Once thou said'st 'twas only the unwed lassies walked. Is it so, Sexton?"

"Nay, there's men-folk, too. I say to myseln, small wonder that th' ghosties stir up and down, time an' time, when them as lig under sod fall to thinking o' th' unquiet things that hev happened just aboon their heads. Look ye, Mistress, how black yond kirk-tower looks at us; 'twas there a Wayne fought, in an older day, agen Anthony Ratcliffe wi' five other Ratcliffes to back him--fought wi' his back to th' tower-wall, and killed four out o' th' six that made agen him, an' sore wounded Anthony an' another. Ay, an' ye mind how Shameless Wayne took toll a while back i' this same spot? An' how Dick Ratcliffe paid his reckoning on th' vault-stone yonder?"

Mistress Wayne shrank from the Sexton as if he had struck her. "Dick Ratcliffe--Dick--what should I know of him?" she murmured. Again the still intensity of face, as she sought the key to that dim past of hers.

But the Sexton was deep in his own reverie; he was thinking, not of the woman to whom Dick Ratcliffe had given an unclean love, but of the new feud that had come to gladden these latter days.

"Is not th' place like to be restless, wi' sich as these lying bedfellows?" he went on, nodding his head in greeting at the lettered stones. "Ay, restless as I am restless, heving followed my trade, through sun an' gloaming an' mid-winter midnight, amang th' wild folk that niver found peace till they came on their last journey to Marshcotes kirkyard.--Theer, theer, Mistress!" he broke off, as the little woman's cry broke sharply into his musings and half awoke him. "I flair ye, but ye need think nowt on 't; an owd chap mun hev his spell o' dithering in an' out amang th' fierce owd tales that tangle and trip up th' one t' other. Yet I praise God that, after all these weak new days, young Wayne o' Marsh hes shown th' owd stuff a-working."

"Sexton, Sexton!" The woman's eyes, fixed on the vault-stone below, were sane now, and her voice not like at all to the childish pipe which Witherlee had grown to love. "I have tried so hard to understand--and now I know--and would God I could forget again."

Witherlee made as if to put an arm about her, so wishful of comfort she seemed; but he withdrew, feeling that her grief was over-terrible for such rough consolation as he had to offer. Instead, he filled his pipe and lit it, and waited till she found more to tell him.

They rested so for a long while, with only the song of birds and the moan of a rainy breeze to break the silence. Then,

"I see it all, Sexton," she said quietly--"the evening when Wayne of Marsh, my husband, found me with my lover in the orchard--Wayne's death--the flight with Dick Ratcliffe of Wildwater. We gained the wicket up above there--we could hear the harness rattling of the chaise that was to carry us to safety--and then--" She stopped and hid her face awhile.

"'Tis ower an' done wi' long sin'," murmured the Sexton; "ower an' done wi,' Mistress."

"'Twill never be over and done with. Dick was killed--but I--I was not given death, only a merciful little spell of sleep."

"Nay, I wish th' poor body wod cry her een out," thought the Sexton, watching the bright eyes and tragic face. "I niver held wi' a crying woman myseln, but I could thoyle tears better nor this stark, dry grief o' hers."

But Mistress Wayne was far from tears as yet. A great load was on her heart, crushing the misery inward; it was long before she could shake off the least part of it, but at last--after the Sexton had waited with a patience that was all his own--she crept nearer to him, and laid a hand on his, and began to talk with a quiet and settled gravity.

"I was not at all to blame, Sexton," she said. "I think, if he knew all, even dead Wayne of Marsh might look with pity on me. I was so young when he brought me out of the sweet, warm South up into these dreary mountain-tops--so young, and the folk here were so harsh, and I hated them when they mocked me for my foreign ways. Wayne was kind, so far as he knew how to be, but I feared him--feared his sternness, and his hard dark face. The storms that only brought him ruder health were killing me, and the wind at nights, as it moaned about the chimney-stacks, was like a dirge. And Nell could not forgive me for coming a second wife to Marsh. I had no friend at all, save Shameless Wayne; they despised him as a drunkard and a reveller, but I never had aught but kindness and goodwill from him. Sexton, was it not hard----"

Witherlee did not answer. His glance, roving to the far side of the graveyard, had fallen on his goodwife, who was nearing him with a brisk, decided step; and he, who feared no ghost that ever walked light-footed through the grasses, shrank from the tongue which was wont to fall like a flail on him.

"Ay, I said how 'twould be!" cried Nanny, while still a score yards off. "Frittering thy time away, while th' wife is wearing herseln bone-thin for thee. Here th' dinner hes been cooked this half-hour, an' th' dumplings as cold as Christmas, an' I allus did say th' most worritsome trick a man could hev war coming late to his victuals."

"I'm coming, fast as legs 'ull tak me," said Witherlee, scrambling to his feet. "An' as for th' dumplings--I'd as lief hev 'em cold as warm; it's all one when they've gone down a body's throat."

"Hearken to him! All one, says he--he'll be telling me next there's nowt to choose 'twixt to-day an' yesterday. Is't all one whether _tha_'rt warm, or cold as one o' yond coffin-chaps under sod?--Ay, an' now there's Earnshaw coming. Well, well, if him an' thee once get together, there'll nowt less than a thunderstorm skift ye, an' that I'll warrant."

Earnshaw, coming up from the Bull tavern, met them as they turned the corner of the pathway. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets, and he wore his usual air of shiftless cheeriness.

"Blowing rain, I fancy," said Earnshaw, standing square across the path.

"Blowing fiddlesticks," snapped Nanny, who was in one of her worst fratching moods. "Get out o' th' gate, Earnshaw, an' let busier folk pass by. It's weel to be thee, or Witherlee here--nowt to do save put hands i' pockets, an' tak 'em out again."

"Nay, now, tha'rt allus so bustling, Nanny. Tak life at a fair, easy pace, say I, an' ye'll noan need Witherlee's pick an' shovel this side o' three-score years an' ten. Hast heard th' news, like?"

The Sexton's wife could not resist that simple query. "News? What's agate?" she said, half turning about.

"Why, th' Wildwater farm-lads is getting past all. There's no day goes by now, so Hiram Hey telled me, but what they come to words or blows wi' th' Marsh lot. It means summat: like master, like man, an' I warrant they've ta'en example fro' th' Lean Man hisseln. What mak o' chance lies Shameless Wayne, that's what I want to knaw?"

"Tha wert up at Wildwater thyseln awhile back?" said the Sexton, still with one eye on his wife.

"Ay, for sure. I war in an' amang 'em while I war doing yond walling job for th' Lean Man; an' they war allus clevering then about what th' Ratcliffes war bahn to do, an' allus striving to pick a quarrel wi' ony o' th' Marsh lads 'at came handy. I tak no sides myseln----"

"I'll warrant tha doesn't. He'd nearly as lief wark as fight, wod slack-back Earnshaw," put in Nanny.

"Well," cried Witherlee, "yond lad at Marsh is making as grand a fight as ony Wayne that's gone afore him, an' we're all fain, I reckon, to see him win i' th' end.--What say ye, Mistress?" he broke off, turning to the little woman who sat apart, hearkening to their gossip but taking no share in it.

"He will win, Sexton," she answered quietly. "Dost doubt it?"

Nanny softened for a moment, as she, too, glanced at Mistress Wayne. "Not wi' ye beside him. By th' Heart, Mistress, but I'd be flaired for Shameless Wayne if he'd no friend sich as ye to keep him fro' ill hap."

"Nay, I can do naught--save sit with hands in lap sometimes, and read the future, and see Ned moving safe through bloodshed and through glint of swords."

"Do nowt?" echoed the Sexton's wife. "Ye said as mich when Bet Earnshaw axed ye to go an' touch her bairn. Did ye do nowt that day, Mistress, or is it thanks to ye that th' little un mended fro' th' minute ye set hand on her?"

"'Tis something that goes out of me--I know not what," murmured the little woman. "It is strange, is it not, that such as I should have the gift of healing when wise men have failed?"

"Book-learning never cured a cough, as they say i' Marshcotes," put in Nanny.--"Who's that at th' moor-gate? Why, if it isn't Mistress Ratcliffe herseln! My sakes, it's a full kirkyard this morn. What mud she be after, think ye? She's hitching her horse to th' gate-post, mark ye--an' now she's coming down wi' that long, lad-like stride o' hers, as if she war varry full o' some business.--I'd rarely like to know what brings her so far afield."

Janet stopped on seeing the chattering group of rustics, with Mistress Wayne sitting quiet and motionless behind them; then, finding that Earnshaw was among the gossips, the girl went down to him. The Sexton's wife eyed her narrowly as she approached, and nodded her head with a gesture which said, more plainly than words could have done, that beauty and a free carriage were dust in the balance when weighed against the damning fact that she was born a Ratcliffe.

"Earnshaw, I want thee to come and doctor that roan mare of mine," said Janet.

"Doan't axe him to do owt he could call wark, Mistress," cried Nanny, missing no opportunity to gibe. "Call it laking, an' he'll come like a hare; but reckon it's wark, an' ye may whistle a twelve-month for him."

"Thee hod thy whisht, Nanny," Earnshaw interposed. "If there's a horse to be physicked, Mistress Ratcliffe hes come to th' right man, choose who hears me say 't."

"There's them as says tha wert born i' a stable, Earnshaw, an' I can weel believe it; bred an' born, I reckon, for tha'd walk further to see a horse nor to sup a quart of ale--an' that's saying a deal. Now, Witherlee, art coming, or shall I hev to sweep thee indoors wi' a besom?"

Nanny, her temper no wise improved on learning that Janet's errand promised so little mystery, carried off Witherlee without more ado. Earnshaw could find no good excuse to linger after he had discussed the roan mare's ailments with Janet; and he, too, passed up the graveyard and out at the top gate. The girl was about to follow him and ride home again, when Mistress Wayne called to her.

"Come hither, Mistress. I have somewhat to say to thee," she cried, motioning the girl to the seat beside her.

Janet, who had last seen her, a wind-driven waif, come wailing into the Wildwater hall, was startled by the change in her--by the wild grief in her blue eyes, and the resolution in her baby face. Without a word she took the proffered seat, wondering what Mistress Wayne could find to say to her.

"I saw you come in at the wicket, and I knew you," said the other presently. "It is so strange, girl; all has come back to me in a wave, and I remember faces--dead faces, some of them; and some again are living, and beautiful like yours. I want to talk with you of Ned--him they call Shameless Wayne."

Janet glanced at her in surprise. A faint colour crept over her brow. "You--you know, then?" she murmured.

"Yes, I know. Often--in the days when I could only half understand--Ned talked of you to me; and I recall now that, before the troubles came, you used to meet him up by the kirk-stone. Dear, I cannot let you both go into the pitiless marshes, as I have done. He loves you----"

"Ay, a little less than he loves his pride," said Janet bitterly.

"Some day he will love you more." She clutched the girl's arm eagerly. "None knows but I how bitter the struggle has been for him. He is mad, mad, to let good love slip from him while he grasps at shadows. _I_ had a man's love once, girl, and I threw it aside, and--God pity all who let the gift go by."

Tears were crowding thick to the eyes of Mistress Wayne--warm, heart-healing tears which had been denied her until now. A sudden compassion seized Janet, and under the pity a gladness that Wayne of Marsh had found the struggle bitter as she could have wished it.

"He loves me, say you? Say it again, Mistress; 'tis the pleasantest speech I've heard these long days past," cried the girl.

"He is wearying for you--wearying for you. Hark ye, dear! I cannot let you drift apart. Come with me back to Marsh, and I'll make all smooth between you--ay, though Ned strives with all his might against us."

Janet smiled and shook her head. "That is a little more, methinks, than the most love-sick maid would do. Bring him to me, and I will welcome him----"

"Nay, life is so short, so very short. See, I'm but a child yet, and impatient, and all my heart is set on giving Ned his happiness, because he cared for me when there was none else to befriend me. I'm sure 'twill all come right: Ned has gone riding up the moor, but he'll be home by now, and we can----"

"Up the moor, say ye?" cried Janet, with sudden misgiving. "Which road took he, Mistress?"

"To Bents Farm, I think he said. He was to have gone yesterday, but was hindered."

Janet sprang to her feet and stood looking down on Mistress Wayne. This, then, was the end of her wise scheme; this was the fruit of all her care for him. And in her recklessness she had bidden the Lean Man take three other Ratcliffes to meet him by the way.

"What is't?" asked Mistress Wayne, wonderingly.

"What is't?" cried Janet, with a hard laugh. "Naught, Mistress--save that I've murdered one who was dearer to me than my own body."

Turning, she ran up the path, and out at the wicket, and tugged at her horse's bridle, which she had fastened to the gate-post, so hard that it broke between her hands. And fast as they galloped across the moor, toward Bents Farm, the pace seemed sluggish when measured by her thoughts. Was it too late? Was Wayne already lying face to sky, with lids close-shut over the eyes that would see neither sky nor moor again? Nay, it should not be, it must not be.

_Gallop_. She would ride into the thick of them, and somehow pluck him from between their blades; they dared not strike a woman, one of their own kin, and while she held them off Wayne might compass his escape. Yet she knew it was too late, and again the picture came before her, clear in its every detail, of the quiet body and the upturned face that would be lying somewhere on this same road to Bents. Each turn of the way was a hell to her, because of what might lie beyond, each turning safely past was heaven. _Gallop_. There was yet time.

She neared the dip of Hoylus Slack and heard the sound of hoof-beats in the hollow. It was done, then; the strain was over, and there was no room for hope. Was this Red Ratcliffe, come to bear news to Marsh that its Master was dead? If so, she would gallop her horse against his, and snatch for his weapon as they fell together. The horseman was half up the hill now, and a great cry broke from her as she saw the blunt, rugged face with the kerchief tied across the brow. Pulling her beast back almost on to his haunches, she stood and waited till the horseman topped the rise and came to a sudden halt at sight of her.

"Ned, Ned, art safe?" she cried, reining in close beside him.

Wayne of Marsh eyed her soberly. "Safe? Ay. Wilt sorrow or be glad of it, Mistress Janet?"

"Cease mockery!" she pleaded. "See, I would think shame to confess it at another time, but all the way from Marshcotes I have sickened at thought of--God's pity, Ned, what might have chanced!"

"Well, enough has chanced, I fancy, for one morning's work. If a ripped forehead, that scarce will let me see for bleeding through the kerchief----"

"Stoop, Ned. Thou hast tied it ill, and my fingers are better at the work."

She was glad of the least labour she could do for him; he might be churlish, he might accept her service as if it were a penance, but he was safe, and free to treat her as he would. Shrinking a little when the bandage was loosened, she glanced at the wound and noted its discoloured look.

"Bide awhile," she said, slipping to the ground. "Thou'lt have trouble with it, Ned, unless I lay fresh peat on it to drive out the bad humours."

"'Twill heal of itself; I would not trouble thee," he muttered. It was a nice, bewildering point of honour to Wayne of Marsh, this acceptance of aid from Ratcliffe hands, and he spoke with scant civility.

But Janet was back already with a handful of the warm red mould, and she bade him get down from saddle that she might the better fasten on the bandage.

"Now tell me. How didst come through it, Ned?" she asked, tying a second knot in the kerchief.

"That is what I cannot tell thee. They met me, four of them, where the road is narrow up by Dead Lad's Rigg."

"Ay, four of them. God give me shame," murmured Janet.

"I heard the Lean Man bid them stand aside and leave us to it, and after that I knew no more till he and I were lunging each at the other. He knocked my sword up at the last, and lifted his own blade to strike----"

"Yes, yes, go on. What then, Ned?"

"Nay, I told thee I could give no right answer. Just as I had given all up--with a thought, it may be, of one who had been forbidden--the Lean Man's arm dropped to his side, and he sprang back in the saddle, all but unseating himself."

"But, Ned, I cannot credit it. Didst thou make no movement to drive him back?"

"None, for 'twas all done in a flash, and he might have split my skull in two if he had brought down that great blade of his."

"Was there naught, then, to occasion it?"

"Naught that I could see, yet he backed as if the fiend were at his throat. His own folk were no less puzzled than I, but his terror ran out to them and held them; and when I made at him afresh not one rode forward."

"Didst--didst not kill him?" she said. Any but the Lean Man he might slay, but her grandfather--nay, she could not brook that when faced so suddenly with the chance of it.

"I did not," answered Wayne grimly--"for the reason that he fled."

Again she stared at him. "_Fled_? Grandfather fled, say'st thou?"

"Did I not say that there was Ratcliffe pride in thee? Ay, plain in thy voice, and in thy little faith that the Lean Man could flee. Yet so it is, Janet; and I made after him almost to the gates of Wildwater; and if his had not been the better horse----"

"Then whence came this ugly gash of thine? 'Tis all a puzzle, Ned, and my late fear for thee has dulled my wits, I think."

"Why, his folk came after me in half-hearted fashion, and I had to ride through the three of them when I turned back for Wildwater. I took this cut in passing, and he who gave it me will go lame for the rest of a short life; and then they, too, made off, daunted by the old man's panic, and I was left to wonder what goblin had come between Nicholas Ratcliffe's blade and me."

"He has been strange of late--ever since the night when he came down to burn thee out of Marsh. Some illness has taken him; it was the fire that did it, may be, when he fell face foremost into it."

They stood awhile, neither breaking the strained silence. Then Janet touched the bandage lightly, and smoothed it a little over the close-cropped hair, and, "Ned," she whispered, "thou said'st something just now. _With a thought of one who had been forbidden_. Who was it, Ned?"

Very grave he was; not rough now, nor uncivil, but sad with the sadness that old hatreds, formed before his birth, had woven for him.

"Who should it be but thou, Janet? I told myself in that one moment how well I loved thee--and I was glad. And then some strange thing warded death from me--and, see, the feud stands gaunt as ever between us two."

The reaction from her late dread was stealing over Janet fast, and with it there came the memory of how she had brought him into this desperate hazard, from which a miracle alone had saved him.

"Ned," she cried, "who bade the Lean Man take three of his folk against thee, think'st thou? Who told them thou would'st ride to Bents Farm to-day?"

"Red Ratcliffe, at a venture."

"Nay, it was I. Thinking to keep thee safe, I said thou would'st go to Bents to-day instead of yestermorn. So thy wound, Ned, was all of my giving, and--why dost not hate me for it?" she finished, with a passion that ended in a storm of tears.

Wayne set both arms about her then, and strove to comfort her; angry he had seen her, and scornful, but this sudden grief, so little like her, and so unexpected, loosed all the harshness that he was wont to set between them as a barrier when they met.

"Nay, Janet, never cry because of what might have chanced and did not," he whispered. "'Twas no fault of thine, lass, that I went to Bents to-day."

A sour face showed over the wall that bounded the left hand of the highway, and presently a pair of wide shoulders followed as Hiram Hey began to climb over into the road.

"What in the Dog's name art doing here, Hiram?" cried his Master, starting guiltily away from Mistress Janet.

"Nay, I like as I hed to look after some beasts i' th' High Pasture. 'Tis fine weather, Maister--but a thowt past mating-time, I should hev said."

"Thy ears are big, Hiram, but my hands will cover them."

"Now, look ye! It hes been a failing o' mine wi' th' gentry iver sin' I war a lad; I may speak as civil as ye please, an' I get looks as black as Marshcotes steeple. An' all th' while I war nobbut thinking o' two fond stock-doves that I fund nesting a three-week late up i' Little John's wood."

Janet waited for no more, but beckoned Wayne to lift her to the saddle and touched the roan mare with her whip.

"Is there danger for thee at Wildwater?" he whispered, clutching her bridle. "If there be--I tell thee I'll not let thee go."

"Danger? Nay, if thou hadst failed to go to Bents, there might have been; but now they'll think I warned them in good faith."

"But what of the bargain, Janet? The last time we met thou told'st me of some bargain, made by the Lean Man, which touched thy welfare."

She paused, eager to toll him all; but a second glance showed her that he was in no fit state just now to have more troubles thrust on him. Even the effort of lifting her to saddle had blanched his face; the cloth was reddening, too, about his forehead, and he swayed a little as he held her rein. She must find a better time to tell him; for if he learned what that grim bargain was which pledged her to his murderer, he would run headlong against her folk, weak as he was, and find himself outmatched.

"The bargain was of little consequence," she said. "There was a price named for my hand--but such a price as none at Wildwater, I think, will ever claim. There, Ned! Let go my bridle, for that hind of yours is watching all we do."

Still he was not satisfied; but his hand slackened for a moment on the rein, and Janet started forward at the trot. Once she turned, at the bend of the road, and waved to him; and then the moor seemed emptied of its sunlight on the sudden.

Wayne stood looking up the highway long after she had gone, and turned at last to find Hiram's quiet grey eyes upon him.

"Well, Hiram? What art thinking of?" he said, with something between wrath and grudging laughter in his voice.

"Nowt so mich, Maister. 'Twould be a poor farmer as 'ud frame to sow Hawkhill Bog wi' wheat; that war all I hed i' mind. Soil's soil, choose how ye tak it, an' ye cannot alter th' natur on 't. Theer! My thowts do run on farming till I've getten no room seemingly for owt else; an' I niver axed ye how ye came by this red coxcomb o' yourn."

Wayne glanced over Hiram's question as he put his foot in the stirrup. He read the old fellow's meaning clear enough, and it angered him that his love for Janet should be hinted at under cover of this slow farming-talk.

"Soil's soil, Hiram," he said, "and I had as lief sow corn on yond stone wall as look for any crop of kindliness from that dried heart of thine."

"Begow, he knows nowt about me an' Martha," chuckled Hiram, as his Master rode down the highway. "My heart's as soft as butter nowadays; but I wodn't let young Maister guess it.--Martha, now. I believe i' going slow, an' that's gospel, but I'm getting flaired she'll slip me. There's shepherd Jose, th' owd fooil, dangling at her apron-strings, an' I'd be main sorry to see a lass like Martha so senseless as to wed him just for spite.--Well, Martha's noan a Ratcliffe, thanks be, an' that's more nor th' Maister can say o' yond leetsome wench fro' Wildwater. She'll bring him trouble yet, as sure as I shall mow th' Low Meadow by and by."

*