CHAPTER XXIV

*

*HOW THE LEAN MAN FOUGHT WITH SHAMELESS WAYNE*

Sexton Witherlee moved unsubstantial among his graves, stopping here to pull up a tuft of weed and there to rub a sprig of lavender or rosemary between his shrivelled fingers. He looked old beyond belief, and the afternoon sun, hot in a sweltering sky, traced crow's feet of sadness across his cheeks, and in among the sunken hollows underneath his eyes.

"What's amiss wi' me?" he murmured. "Here hev I been gay as a throstle all through this God-sent-weather--going about my business wi' a quiet sort o' pleasure i' seeing this little garden-place look so green, like, an' trim-fashioned--so green an' trim--an' now, all i' a minute, I'm sick-like an' sorry. Ay, I could cry like any bairn, an' niver a reason for 't, save it be this thunner-weather that's coming up fro' ower Dead Lad's Rigg.--Well, I mun hev a bit of a smoke, an' see what that 'ull do for me."

He lit his pipe, then fetched a broom from the tool-house and began to sweep the path of the leaves which had fallen, curled and brown, during the long spell of drought. But he desisted soon and sat him down on the nearest grave-stone.

"Nay, I've sweated ower long at helping th' living to bury their dead out o' mind, till now there's no lovesome sight, nor sound, nor smell of sweetbriar, say--but what it leads my crazy thoughts to th' one bourne--th' one bourne--an' that's a blackish hole, measuring six feet by length an' three by breadth. Lord God, I'm stalled, fair stalled! Hevn't I toiled enough at life? An' th' Lord God knaws how fain I am to be ligging flesh to earth myseln."

He sat silent for a long while, and his favourite robin came and perched on his shoulder, asking him to dig up its evening meal; but Witherlee paid no heed to the bird.

"I reckon it's a sight o' little Mistress Wayne I'm sickening for," he went on presently. "When she war fairy-kist, she niver let day pass without heving her bit of a crack wi' th' Sexton; but now she's fund her wits again--why, she hesn't mich need o' th' likes o' me, seemingly. Eh, but I wod like to hear her butter-soft voice again! There's peace in 't, somehow, to my thinking."

"Oh, tha'rt theer, art 'a?" put in Nanny's voice at his elbow.

"Begow, tha made me jump! What is't, Nanny?"

"Nay, I nobbut came for a two-three sprigs o' rosemary. It grows rare an' sweet i' th' kirkyard here, I call to mind, an' Mistress Nell, 'at I've nursed fro' a babby, is bahn to be wed to-morn to Wayne o' Cranshaw--sakes, how th' days run by!--an' she'll be wanting rosemary to wear ower her heart i' sign o' maidenhood. Well, I'd like to see one who's more a maid, or bonnier, i' all th' parish--an' I'll thank thee, Witherlee, to stir thy legs a bit for fear they'll stiffen for want o' use. What mak o' use is a gooidman, if he willun't stir hisseln to pluck a two-three herbs?"

The Sexton rose with his old habit of obedience, and went to the corner where the rosemary grew, and brought her both hands full.

"'Tis queer, I've often thowt," he said; "we all knaw what mak o' soil grows under foot here--yet out on 't come th' sweetest herbs i' Marshcotes. An' that's a true pictur o' life, as I've fund it through three-score year an' ten."

"What's tha knaw about life?" snapped Nanny. "Death is more i' thy way, an' tha'll be a wise man, Witherlee, sooin as tha comes to join th' ghosties.--Not but what there's sense for once i' what tha says. Sweetness grows i' muck, an' ye can't get beyond that; an' if onybody thinks to say it isn't so, let 'em look at Shameless Wayne, an' set him beside what he war afore th' feud broke out."

"Ay, he's better for th' fighting," put in Witherlee, with something of his wonted zest.

"Fighting? I reckon nowt on 't. All moil, an' mess, an' litter--gaping wounds that drip on to th' floors just when ye've bee's-waxed 'em--women crying their een out, an' lossing so mich time, ower them 'at's goan--'tis mucky soil, I tell thee, Luke. An' yet, begow, it hes bred summat into Shameless Wayne that he niver hed afore."

"They say him an' th' Lean Man is hunting one t' other fro' morn to neet, but allus seem to tak different roads. What's come to th' Lean Man, Nanny? He war daunted a while back, an' now he's keen as ony lad again!"

"Tha doesn't knaw Barguest's ways as I knaw 'em, lad. Th' Dog, when he's haunted a man nigh out of his senses, hods off for a bit, for sport, like, an' maks him 'at he's marked think th' sickness is all owered wi'--an' then, when he's thinking o' summat else entirely, up th' Brown Beast leaps, snarling fit to mak his blood run cold.--Ay, it's true th' Lean Man is hunting this day, for I met him riding into Marshcotes not a half-hour sin', wi' his een on both sides o' th' road at once, an' his hand set tight on his sword-heft."

"Did he say owt to thee, Nanny? He's noan just friendly to thee, an'----"

"He said nowt to me," broke in Nanny, "but I said a deal to him. I asked if Barguest's hide war as rough, an' his teeth as sharp, as when he fought th' owd feud for th' Waynes. An' he seemed fit to strike me first of all; an' then he sickened; an' at after that he rode forrard, saying nowt nawther one way nor t' other. Well, he minds how his father died, an' his father's father; an' he'll be crazy again by fall o' neet, if I knaw owt. It's th' Dog-days, an' all, an' th' month when dogs run mad is Barguest's holiday, I've noticed."

"Tha mud weel say it's th' Dog-days," said Witherlee, pointing to the moor above. "We shall hev sich a storm as nawther thee nor me hev seen th' like on, Nanny, sin' we war wedded."

From the moor-edge an angry haze was beating up against the wind, and the sun, a round ball that seemed dropping from the steel-blue of the sky above it, was cruel with the earth. Everywhere peatland and tillage-soil--the very graveyard earth--opened parched mouths and cried for drink. But still the sun shone, and only the slow-moving haze told of the rain to come.

"Ay, it 'ull be a staunch un," said Nanny. "Tha'd best come indoors, Witherlee, afore it breaks--for when it does break, buckets willun't hod th' drops, an' tha'll be drenched i' crossing th' kirkyard.--Why, there's Mistress Wayne. If iver I see'd a body choose unlikely times, it's yond little bit o' sugar an' spice."

Witherlee glanced eagerly down the graveyard path. "Now, that's strange," he murmured. "I war nobbut saying afore tha comed, Nanny, that I hedn't bed speech of her this mony a day--an' here she comes. Eh, but she's a sight for sore een, is th' bonnie bairn!"

Nanny's half-religious awe of Mistress Wayne was disappearing now that she had come to her right mind again. "Nay," she grumbled, "I reckon nowt so mich on her. She war bahn to do a deal for th' Maister, so I thowt; but what's comed on 't? Nowt, save 'at she carried a fond tale to Mistress Nell a while back, an' all but brought her into ruin.--Now, lad, art minded to get out o' th' wet that's coming?"

"Nay, I'll step indoors by an' by, for I'm fain of a crack wi' th' little Mistress at all times."

Nanny glanced shrewdly at her husband; something in his voice--a weariness that was at once helpless and resigned--brought an unwonted pity for him to the front. Impatient she was with him at most times; but under all her fretfulness there was a sure remembrance of the days that had been.

"Luke," she said, laying a hand on his sleeve, "tha'rt nobbut poorly, I fear me. Stop for a word wi' Mistress Wayne, if needs must, but don't stand cracking till tha'rt wet to th' bone."

"Nay, I'll noan stay long, lass--noan stay long," he murmured.

Nanny moved down toward her cottage, and the Sexton, sighing contentedly, gave a good-day to Mistress Wayne while yet she was half up the path.

"Ye've not been nigh me lately, Mistress," he murmured, making room for her on the grave-stone which had grown to be their wonted seat.

"I have been restless, Sexton, and my walks have taken me far a-field. But to-day I'm tired, and full of fancies, and I thought 'twould be pleasant to sit beside thee here and talk."

"To be sure, to be sure. Ye're looking poorly-like, an' all; it 'ull be this heavy weather, for I feel that low i' sperrits myseln----"

"'Tis more than the weather," she interrupted, turning her grave child's eyes on his. "The mists begin to come down again, Sexton, as they did when my lover was killed yonder on the vault-stone. Sometimes I can see men and women as thou see'st them; and then a mist steals over them, and they are only shadows, and the ghosts creep out of the moor, moving real among the unreal men and women."

"That's nobbut th' second-sight," said Witherlee gently. "I've getten it, an' ye've getten it, Mistress, an' we've to pay our price for 't. But it's nowt to fret yourseln about."

"Not when I hear Barguest--Barguest creeping pad-footed down the lane? Sexton, I've heard him every night of late--just at dusk he comes, and if I pay no heed he presses like a cold wind against my skirts. Does it mean trouble for Wayne of Marsh, think'st thou?"

"Hev ye set een on th' Dog?" asked Witherlee sharply.

"Nay, I have but heard him, and felt his touch."

"Then there's danger near Wayne o' Marsh, but nowt no more nor what he'll come through. 'Tis when th' Brown Dog shows hisseln 'at he doubts his power to save th' Maister--he like as he seeks human help then, an' it's time for all as wish well to Marsh to be up an' doing.--Begow, but we'd better be seeking shelter, Mistress."

She followed his glance, and shivered at that look of earth and heaven which they called in Marshcotes the scowl of God. To the west, whence the wind was gathering strength, the sky was a dull, blue-green; from the east a tight-drawn curtain of cloud moved nearer to the sun, which shone with dimmed light and heat unbearable. Light drifts of cloud trailed like brown smoke between earth and sky. The whole wide land was still, save for quick breaths of suffocation which stirred the summer dust and whipped up the leaves untimely fallen.

"I am frightened, Sexton. Let us go," murmured Mistress Wayne.

"All day I've watched it creeping up," said Witherlee, regarding with rapt eyes the eastern sky. "There's storms as come quick, an' go as lightly--but this un hes nursed its rage a whole long day, an' when it bursts, 'twill be like Heaven tumbling into Hell-pit fire. Ay, I've seen one sich storm, an' it bred bloodshed. See ye, Mistress, th' first rain-drops fall! An' th' streams that are dry this minute 'ull race bank-top high afore an hour is spent. An' them as seeks for tokens need seek no farther."

Beyond the kirkyard hedge a horseman passed, fast riding at the trot.

"What did I tell ye!" cried the Sexton. "Th' storm an' th' Lean Man ride together, an' th' streams that war empty shall be filled."

"He must be hastening from the rain. See, Sexton, he rides as if pursued."

Witherlee remembered Nanny's meeting with Nicholas. "It may be th' rain he's hastening fro'--or it may be summat 'at ye've heard whining, Mistress, when dusk is settling over Barguest Lane," he said.

For a while he stood there, nursing his visions and heedless of the gathering drops; then, seeing how Mistress Wayne was shivering, he came back to workaday matters.

"Come ye wi' me, Mistress," he cried. "Th' drops is falling like crown-pieces.--Good sakes, there's another horseman skifting out of th' wet, or intul 't; who mud it be, like?"

Shameless Wayne, riding up the field-side that ran from the Bull tavern to the moor, looked over and saw his step-mother standing beside the Sexton in the kirkyard.

"The clouds blow up against the wind. There'll be thunder, Witherlee," said Wayne, and would have passed on.

"Well, there's one gooid thing 'ull come on 't, ony way," answered the Sexton. "Th' Lean Man o' Wildwater is like to get wet to th' bone afore he wins across th' moor. An' ye can niver tell but what a wetting may tak a man off--I've knawn mony a----"

Wayne swung his horse round sharply. "The Lean Man! Hast seen him, then?" he cried.

"Not ten minutes agone. He crossed up aboon there at a gooidish trot."

"What, by the moor-track?"

"Nay, his face war set for th' Ling Crag road; he war hurrying, an' wanted better foot-hold for his horse, I reckon, nor th' peat 'ud gi'e him."

Mistress Wayne was at the wall-side now. "Ned, thou'lt not ride after him?" she pleaded. "'Tis Nell's wedding-day to-morrow--she'll think it a drear omen."

But Wayne was already gathering the reins more firmly into his hand. "Nell will want a wedding-gift, little bairn--and, by the Red Heart, I'll bring her one of the choicest.--Sexton, shall I overtake him before he gets within hail of Wildwater?"

"Wi' that mare's belly betwixt your legs, Maister, ye'd catch him six times ower."

Wayne stopped for no more, but touched the mare once with his heels and swung up the field and round the bend of the Ling Crag road. The Sexton looked after him and nodded soberly; and it was strange to see his old eyes brighten, as if at the grave-edge he were turning back to see this one last fight.

"There's more nor one storm brewing; I said as mich," he muttered, and hobbled to the wicket to see the flying trail of dust and rain that marked the rider's headlong course.

The wind rose on the sudden. The rain-drops fell by twos now where lately they had fallen singly. A far rumble of thunder crept dull through the leaden sky-wrack.

"Gallop, thou laggard, gallop!" muttered Wayne to his mare, as Ling Crag village swirled by and the rough track to Wildwater stretched clear ahead.

The village folk came out of their houses as he passed, but they were slow of foot, and all that they reaped for their trouble was the fast-dying beat of horse-hoofs down the wind.

"Wayne, 'tis Shameless Wayne. Who but him carries Judgment-fire i' his hoss's heels?" they said.

Past Blackshaw Hall and through the Conie Crag ravine swept Wayne the Shameless; past the three wells of Robin Hood and Little John and Will Scarlett, and up into the naked moor. The land lay flat to the sky up here, and through the thickening rain-sheets Wayne could see his enemy's lean figure rising and falling to the trot of his lean bay horse. Soon the track crept timorous round the bog, and under foot the water splashed and creamed; but still Wayne plied his mare with tongue and spur. The thunder-throb grew nearer, and muttered all along the murky sky-edge and down the dun moor-fastnesses. Earth and sky, bog and peat and cloud-wrack, were wakeful and at war; the starveling moor-birds fled on down-drooping wings, and from the under-deeps the Brown Folk chattered restlessly.

Wayne's heart was lifted to the storm's pitch as he rode. Ahead was the man who had made a shameful bargain touching Janet, the man who had perilled his sister's honour and warred with malice unceasing against his house. There was but a quarter-mile between them--and now but ten-score yards--yet Wildwater lay over yonder slope.

"Dost crawl, I tell thee, just when I need thy speed. Gallop, thou fool!" he muttered, then rose in the stirrups and raised a cry that might have roused the slumber of dead men in Marshcotes kirkyard.

The Lean Man checked when he heard the cry, and looked behind; and Wayne lessened by the half the distance between horse and mare.

"Who calls?" yelled Nicholas Ratcliffe.

"Wayne of Marsh. Who else? There are old debts between us, Ratcliffe the Lean."

"On both sides, Wayne the Shameless," cried Nicholas, and turned the big bay's head, and rode straight at his man with heavy sword uplifted.

Between them, while they neared each other, a zag of lightning flashed to earth, and Wayne's cry as he galloped to the shock was drowned in a wild roar of thunder. He took the Lean Man's stroke, and jerked his own sword back; but the mare shied with terror, and his return blow aimed wide, grazing the Lean Man's saddle-pommel as it fell.

"Thou aimest ill, lad. I thought a sword sat better in thy hand," laughed Nicholas, as Wayne brought his mare round once more to the attack.

The Lean Man had found his youth again, and in his heart, too, the storm-wind was singing shrill. Fear of the Dog slipped from him. He warmed to the old joy of hardened muscles and of crafty hand.

"'Tis thou and I now, thou bantling," he cried, plucking the curb as his beast reared its fore-feet to the sweltering sky. "Does the Dog fear the storm, that it comes not up with thee to fight?"

A second flash shot through the rain-sheets, and another roar snapped up the Lean Man's words. Try as their riders would the horses refused obedience to the bit, for each flash and each new burst of thunder whetted the keen edge of their terror. Three times Wayne brought round the mare and strove to force her to the shock; and three times she swerved out of sword's-reach.

"God's life, shall we never get to blows!" roared the Lean Man. "Down, lad, and we'll fight it out on foot."

There was no gully of the moor now but hid a rolling thunder-growl. The streams raced foaming between their dripping banks, and all across the sky ran sinuous lines of blue-red fire, the harbingers of lightning-blasts to come or the aftermath of flashes spent.

Yet neither Wayne nor the Lean Man knew if it were foul weather or fair, save that the rain dimmed their sight a little; for each saw his dearest enemy across the narrow, sword-swept space between them that stood for the whole world. And now one gained the advantage, and now the other, while still they shifted back and forth, treading into great foot-holes the soaked bed of peat on which they stood.

Above, the greater battle--the shock of hurrying clouds close-ranked against each other, the shriek and whistle of the wind, the down-descending sweat of combat. Below, the lesser battle, with smitten steel for lightning, and hard-won breaths for wind and thunder, and rage as fierce, and monstrous, and unheeding, as any that smote the moor-face raw from yellow east to smouldering, ruddy west.

"I have thee, Wayne!" yelled Nicholas, as he cut down the other's guard and aimed at his left side.

"Nay," answered Wayne, and leaped aside so swiftly that the stroke scarce drew blood.

A keener flash ripped up the belly of the sky as they fell to again, a nearer harshness crackled in the thunder's throat; but naught served to quench the fury of the onset. Like men from the Sky-God's loins they fought, and their faces glowed and dripped.

But Wayne was forcing the battle now, and step by step the Lean Man was falling back for weariness. Harder and harder he pressed on him; there was a moment's pauseless whirr of cut and parry, and it was done. Shameless Wayne, seeing his chance, sprang up on tip-toe and lifted his blade high for the last bone-splittering stroke that is dear to a swordsman's heart as life itself.

And then a strange thing chanced, and a terrible. As his sword was half-way on the upward sweep, Wayne saw, through a blinding lightning-flash, the Lean Man's blade shrink crumpling into a twisted rope of steel and the Lean Man's arm fall like a stone to his side. He checked himself, with a strain that nigh wrenched the muscles of his back in sunder, and lowered his weapon, and cursed like one gone mad because the sky had opened to rob him of his blow.

"Your tale is told, Lean Ratcliffe," he said. "Had the storm so few marks for sport that it must needs rob me in the nick of vengeance?"

The Lean Man tried to move his stricken arm, and his face showed ghostly-grey through the rain sheets while he mowed and mumbled at his impotence. But the old light shone quenchless in his weasel eyes, as he slid his left hand toward his belt, and clutched his dagger, and stumbled forward with the point aimed true for the other's breast. But Wayne had never taken his eyes from him and he warded the stroke in time.

"'Tis an old device of your folk, and one I know," cried the younger man. "Your game is played out, lean thief of Wildwater--God pity me that I lack your own strength to kill a stricken man."

"Curse thee, curse thee!" groaned Nicholas. "Is that not an old Wayne device likewise? Ay, and a mean device, when we would liefer take steel at your hands than quarter. Kill me, thou fool, least it be said I begged quarter of a Wayne."

Wayne eyed him gloomily. "Cease prating! I cannot kill you, and I cannot leave you to die among these howling moor-sprites. Can you sit in the saddle if I lift you to 't?--Peste, though, the horses have taken to their heals. Can you frame to walk, then?"

The Lean Man made a few steps forward, then stopped and seemed to stumble. "Give me thy hand, Wayne, as far as Wildwater gates. I am weak, and cannot walk alone," he mumbled. "There shall none of my folk do thee hurt--I swear it by the Mass."

Wayne saw through the trick, for he knew from those few forward steps that, though his enemy's sword-arm was sapless as a rotten twig, his legs were firm to carry him. A touch of grim approval crossed his hate. This Lean Man had a grandeur of his own; maimed, defeated, worn with the fiercest battle he had ever fought in his long life of combat, he could yet keep heart to the last and frame a quick stroke of guile when all weapons else had failed him.

"Featly attempted!" cried Wayne of Marsh. "How your folk would swarm about me when you got me to the gates! And in what strange fashion they would keep me safe from hurt. Nay, Lean Man, I know the way the hair curls on the Ratcliffe breed of hound."

The old man was silent, weaving a hundred useless subtleties. And then an exceeding bitter cry escaped him. "God curse thee, youngster! The Dog fights for thee--my very children fight for thee--and now the sky opens to snatch thee out of hurt."

"Nay," answered Wayne, gravely, "for the blow was mine, and you know it."

And so they parted. And the storm howled ravening over the tortured waste.

*