CHAPTER XX

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*HOW THEY WAITED AT THE BOUNDARY-STONE*

Red Ratcliffe, and the two who had come through the fight with him, checked their headlong gallop when at last the pursuit died far in their wake. Their shoulders were bunched forward, their heads downcast; and not till the surly pile of Wildwater showed half a league from them across the moor did they break silence.

"There'll be a queer welcome for us from the Lean Man," said one.

"Ay, he'll shake off his palsy when we come to him with the tale of four men left behind us," answered Red Ratcliffe gloomily. "Lord, how his lip will curl! And his eyes will prick one like a sword-point, cold and bright and grey. And he'll flay our tempers raw with gibes."

"Still, there's but one of the four killed outright; and when those boggart-shielded Waynes have left, we can return to help the wounded. They'll not butcher them, think'st thou?"

"Nay," sneered the third; "'tis part of their foul pride to play the woman after victory. Like as not they'll set them on some grassy hillock, with a wall to shield the sun from them, and give them drink, and nurse them into health against the next fight."

"Nay, a month ago they would have done as much; but now? I doubt it," said Red Ratcliffe. "We've roughened Wayne at last, and I never knew what flint there was under his courteous softness till I crossed blades with him just now."

"And yond four lads have had their first taste of blood. I've known boys do at such times what hardened men would shrink from."

"Well, they will kill the wounded, or they will not. 'Tis done by this time, and we can have no say in it," put in Red Ratcliffe. "Od's life, lads, I relish the look of Wildwater less the nearer we approach it," he added, reining in his horse.

"What brought the lads up? Had they winded our approach, or was it just the old Wayne luck?" said one of his comrades, halting likewise. "Marry, there'll be an empty house at Marsh. What if we ride down before the Master's coming and fire the dwelling from roof to cellar?"

Red Ratcliffe glanced quickly at him. "There's time for it, if we ride at once," he muttered; "and something we must do for shame's sake."

"There'll be his sister there," said another, with a laugh; "trim Mistress Nell, who gives us such open scorn whenever we cross her path. She shall take scorn for scorn, full measure, if I get within reach of her mouth. Come, lads, let's do it! Burn them out, and carry the girl to Wildwater."

A craftiness crept into Red Ratcliffe's face--a craftiness that showed him an apt pupil of the Lean Man's. "We'll waste no time on burning, lest Wayne and his cursed Dog come back while yet we're gathering fuel," he broke in. "But we'll ride down and snatch the girl, and take her up to Wildwater. Ay, and we'll lay no rough hand on her till Wayne has learned her capture."

They nodded eagerly. "We shall save our credit yet. By the Heart, not Nicholas himself could have hatched a bonnier plot," they cried.

"Ay, the game is ours," went on Red Ratcliffe slowly, as they turned and rode at the trot for Marsh. "Those four ill-gotten youngsters have saved him, he thinks--but he shall find that they have killed him twice over by leaving Marsh unguarded.--The fool shall die once in his body and once in the pride that's meat and bread to him. Hark ye! We'll send down word that his sister is held at Wildwater, and he will come galloping up and batter at the gates, all in his hot way, with never a care of danger. We'll take him alive, and bring our dainty Mistress Nell into the room where he lies bound--and there's a sure way then, methinks, of racking his brain to madness before we pay him, wound for wound, for what he's done to us."

His fellows drew back a little for a moment; the cool, stark devilry of the plot shamed even them, who had dwelt with the Lean Man and never hitherto found cause to blush. Then the thought of their defeat returned on them, and their hearts hardened, and they offered no word of protest or denial.

From time to time, as they rode, the leader of the enterprise laughed quietly; from time to time he thought of some fresh subtlety whereby Wayne's anguish would be sharpened; but not until they had covered half the road to Marsh did he break silence. A little figure of a woman, with corn-bright hair and delicate, round face, was standing in the roadway, shading her eyes to look across the moor.

"'Tis the mad woman they keep at Marsh," said Red Ratcliffe lightly. "We aimed once before at the Wayne honour through their women. The omen speeds our journey."

Mistress Wayne started as they came up with her, and turned to fly, but saw the folly of it. Keeping her place, she eyed them with the watchful, mute entreaty of a bird held fast within the fowler's net. Something in her helplessness suggested to Red Ratcliffe that he might find a use for her; the weak, to his mind, were fashioned by a kindly Providence to fetch and carry for the strong, and haply this mad creature might aid him to get Nell Wayne to Wildwater. Turning the fancy over in his mind, he stopped to question her.

"Well, pretty light-of-love? What wast gazing at so earnestly when we came up?" he asked.

She answered quietly, with a touch of frightened dignity in her voice. "I heard the sound of cries and shouting far across the heath awhile since, and I feared there was trouble to my friends."

"A right fear, too. There _has_ been trouble, and your friends have just learned a bloody lesson from us, Mistress," said Red Ratcliffe, for mere zest in seeing her wince.

"Oh, sir, they are not slain? Tell me that they are safe.--Nell was right," she went on, talking fast as if to herself; "she would send her brothers to help him at the washing-pools instead of hawking.--Why did we let him ride alone so near to Wildwater?--They reached the pools too late.--Ah, God! and the one friend I had is gone." Again she turned her eyes full on Red Ratcliffe. "Is he dead, sir?" she asked wearily.

A sudden thought came to him. "Not dead, Mistress, but dying fast," he answered. "Thou know'st the boundary-stone over yonder, where once he laid a Ratcliffe hand in mockery? Well, we met him there not long since as he rode to the sheep-washing, and I thrust him through the side.--Peace, woman! Thou may'st help him yet to a little ease before he dies."

"Yes, yes, I will go to him. At the boundary-stone, you said----"

"'Tis not thou he cries for, but his sister. See ye, we're hard folk, and take a hard vengeance, but now that Wayne has paid his price we do not grudge him such a light request--and were, indeed, riding down to bid his sister come to him."

She passed a hand across her eyes, while Ratcliffe's fellows glanced at him with frank amazement.

"'Twas Nell, not I, he asked for?" she said. "Are you sure, sir, that my name did not pass his lips?"

"Sure, quite sure. Pish! We've taken trouble enough, and now we'll leave thee to it. Go thyself if it pleases thee--but thou'lt rob the dying of his last wish if thou dost not hurry straight to Marsh and bring his sister to the boundary-stone."

She halted a moment, then went with slow steps down the highway. And he who rode on Ratcliffe's left turned questioningly to him.

"What fool's game is this?" he asked.

"Nay, 'tis a wise man's game, thou dullard. I tell thee, Wayne may come straight home to Marsh, and meet us; we'll run no hazard that can be escaped. Nay, by God! This little want-wit will do our work for us, and bring Mistress Nell three parts of the way without our lifting hand or foot--and think how that will lighten one of our saddle-cruppers. We have Wayne safe, I tell thee, and we'll risk naught."

Mistress Wayne was out of sight now, carrying a heart that was heavier for the knowledge that Ned had no thought of her in his last hour. A strange jealousy had wakened in her; why should it be Nell, not she, who was to soothe him at the last? She had loved him, surely, better than any friend he had--and now it was Nell, Nell only, whom he wanted. Well, she would bring her.

Not for the first time did this frail woman wonder bitterly why she had been doomed to return to her right mind; yet never, amid all the remorse that had followed her awakening, had she felt one half the numbing sense of loneliness that went with her now.

"He is gone," she repeated for the twentieth time, as she went over Worm's Hill, and down Barguest Lane, and in at the Marsh gateway.

Hiram Hey, meanwhile, had returned from pursuit of the Ratcliffe farm-folk to find that his betters likewise had given up the chase as hopeless. The four lads, indeed, would have ridden to the gates of Wildwater had not Shameless Wayne compelled them to turn back; and now they were gathered round the washing pool, chattering like magpies, while the yokels straggled back in twos and threes, and the dogs returned to their masters with frolic in one eye and shamed expectancy of rebuke in the other. The moor was dotted white with sheep, some standing in bewildered groups, some browsing on the butter-grass that grew at the fringes of the bogs. Wayne of Marsh was eyeing his brothers with a fatherly sort of care, seeking for wounds on them before he dressed his own.

"What, not a scratch on you?" he asked in wonder.

Griff bared his left arm with ill-concealed pride and showed a deepish cut. "'Tis no more than a scratch, Ned. I took it from Red Ratcliffe," he laughed.

And then his brothers, not to be outdone, showed many a trivial scar, which they had gleaned amid the give-and-take of blows.

"Thank God, it is no worse," said Wayne huskily. "I should never have found heart, lads, to go back to Nell if one among you had been lost.--There! Wash them in the stream, and dust them well with peat--and, faith, I'll join you, for my own hurts begin to prick."

The streamway all about the pools was fouled by the trampling of dogs and sheep, of farm-men and rough-ridden horses, and the brothers moved further up the stream to find clean water for their wounds. As they passed the far side of the pinfold, their eyes fell upon the fallen Ratcliffes, unheeded until now in the turmoil. One was dead, his skull splintered by a hoof-stroke; the other three lay with their faces to the pitiless sun, and groaned.

Wayne was harder than of yore; yet he could not let them lie there in their agony until the sun, festering their wounds, had made them ready for the corbie-crows already circling overhead. He stood awhile, looking down on them; and one, less crippled than his fellows, rose on his elbow and spat on him.

"Let me kill him, Ned--let me kill him!" cried Griff, in a voice that was like a man's for depth.

Ned glanced at this youngster's face, and he remembered what his own blood-lust had been when he fought his first great battle in Marshcotes kirkyard, and bade them roof three fallen Ratcliffes over with the vault-stone. For it was as Red Ratcliffe had said; the fight was hot still in this lad, and he shrank from naught.

Wayne set a hand on Griff's shoulder and forced him toward the stream. "Ay, lad, I know," he said quietly; "but thou'lt think better of it in awhile.--Set these rogues under shade of yonder bank," he broke off, turning to the shepherds; "take their daggers from them first, for they have a shrewd way of repaying kindness; and then look ye to their hurts."

"We've hed a fullish day, Maister, I reckon," said Hiram Hey, going up the stream beside them and standing with his arms behind his back while he watched the brothers bind each other's wounds.

"Ay," said the Master grimly, "and 'twill be work till sundown, Hiram, if we're to make up for time lost."

Hiram opened his mouth wide. "What? Ye mean to get forrard wi' th' sheep-weshing? At after what we've gone through?"

Wayne nodded. "The lads here have come to learn how farm-work goes," he said; "and would'st thou teach them only how to idle through a summer's afternoon?"

"Nay, it beats me. Nay, your father war nowt, just now at all, to what ye are," murmured Hiram, scratching his rough head.--"Isn't it a tempting o' Providence, like, to wark i'stead o' giving praise that ye've come safe through all?" he added, under a happy inspiration.

Wayne laughed. "Work is praise, Hiram, as thou told'st me once, I mind, when I was idling as a lad. See how thy old lessons stick to me." He turned to Jose the shepherd. "Get yond Wildwater sheep gathered," he said; "they'll stray back to their own pastures if thou'rt not quick with them. And when the day's work is over, bring them to the Low Farm, and we'll put a Wayne owning-mark on their backs--for, by the Rood, I think we've won them fairly."

"Lord, Lord, I may be no drinker--but I could sup two quarts of ale, an' niver tak two breaths," said Hiram Hey forlornly.

Again Wayne laughed as he clapped him on the back. "Come to Marsh, Hiram--and all of you--at supper-time to-night; and ye shall have old October till ye swim, to drink to these stiff lads who plucked us out of trouble."

"That's sense--ay, he talks sense at last, does th' Maister," murmured Hiram. Then, bethinking him that it would never do, for his credit's sake, to show himself in anything more backward than the Master, he began forthwith to rate the farm-hands with something of his old-time vigour.

And soon the pinfolds on either hand were full again of bleating sheep, and Jose and his brother shepherds were scrubbing hard in each of the two pools, and a chance passer-by could not have told, save for broken faces here and there, that a half-hour since these leisurely moving folk had been fighting hand-to-hand for the honour of their house.

And so it chanced that Wayne, who might have been saved many a heart-ache had he ridden straight home to Marsh, as any man less obstinate would have done, was still at the washing-pool when his step-mother got back to Marsh. She had found Nell at the spinning-wheel, and had told her tale; and the girl had sat motionless for awhile, her head bowed over the yellow flax, her hands clenched tight together.

"You are our evil angel, Mistress," she said, looking up at last. "Since first you set foot on our threshold, disaster has followed on disaster. But for you father would be alive--"

"Nell, spare me! Do I not know, do I not know?"

But Nell was pitiless. The news so rudely broken to her had brought a twelvemonth's hidden bitterness to the front, and she would not check it. "But for you the feud would have slept itself away--but for you Ned would be sitting at table yonder.--Mistress, how dared you come first to tell me of it?--Nay, hold your tears, for pity's sake; they'll bring no lives back."

The girl rose, and would have gone out, but her step-mother stood in front of her, lifting up her hands in piteous entreaty.

"Nell, I want--I want to go with you; I loved him, too, and I think he'll be glad to see me at the last--if--if he's not dead by this."

"_You_ want to go with me? My faith, I'll seek other company, or go alone," flashed Nell, and left her there.

Mistress Wayne had found a certain fluttering courage nowadays; see Ned she would and claim a farewell from him, without leave from Nell. The girl would not share her company; but the road was free to her--the road that led to the Wildwater boundary-stone. She waited only for a moment, then followed Nell whose figure she could see boldly outlined against the sweep of still, blue sky that lay across the top of Barguest Lane.

"I have brought disaster to them; yes, 'tis very true," she mused all along the bare white road.

The girl had far outstripped her by this time; but she caught sight of her again, a long mile ahead, as Nell topped the hill at whose feet the boundary-stone was set. Full of eagerness to know the worst, Mistress Wayne quickened pace, though her feet ached and her head throbbed painfully. It seemed this ling-bordered stretch of road would never end.

She gained the hill-top where she had last seen Nell, and glanced down in terror-stricken search of the body lying in the hollow; but naught met her eyes, save an empty road winding into empty space. Nor did a nearer view dispel the mystery: the boundary-stone stood gaunt, flat-topped and black, in the hot sunlight; the sand of the roadway was disordered as if a plunging horse had scattered it with hoof-play; but that was all.

Where was Ned? He lay beside the boundary-stone, those evil folk from Wildwater had told her. Yet there was no blood upon the ground, nor the least sign to tell her that a man had been done to death here. Nell, too, was gone, completely as if the road had yielded, bog-like, to her tread and closed about her. Only the sad cries of moor-birds broke the stillness--these, and the far-off echo of horse-hoofs pounding over a stony track.

Mistress Wayne sat her down at the roadside, among the budding heather. A great faintness stole over her; she felt her new-found hold on life slipping from her grasp. What had chanced to Wayne? Where was Nell? Was this some fresh delusion, nursed by the sun-heat and her hurried walk? She could not tell--only, she knew that the grey line of road was circling round her, that the sky seemed closing in.

"I--brought--disaster," she murmured, and let her head fall back among the heather.

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