CHAPTER XXVI

*

*MISTRESS WAYNE FARES UP TO WILDWATER*

A week had passed since the Lean Man came down to drink with Shameless Wayne, a week of bitter winds that brought rain and hail from the dark northern edge of moor. July, which should have been at middle splendour, had been flung back to March, for the thunderstorm, fiercer than any that had swept over Marshcotes in the memory of man, had quenched the sun, it seemed, and had harried the warm winds and lighter airs to hopeless flight. The heather, that had been budding fast, bent drearily to the peat and kept its flowers half-sheathed. The corn draggled limp and wet across the upland furrows.

Shameless Wayne, as he sat at meat this morning with his step-mother, turned his eyes from the window and the dripping garden-trees that stood without. Never had his chance of happiness shown clearer than it had done since the Lean Man came to drink the peace-cup with him; yet the weather chilled him with a sense of doom. Do as he would, he could not shake off the influence of moaning wind and black, cloud-cumbered skies.

"I'm a child, to sway so to a capful of cold wind--eh, little bairn?" he said.

The past week had set its mark on Mistress Wayne; her eyes were ringed with sleeplessness, and wore perpetually that haunted look which had been in them when she came from her bed to rid her of perplexing dreams.

"The children are wise sometimes, Ned," she murmured. "They sadden for storm and clap hands when the sun shines--and that is wisdom. Does the sky know naught of what is to come?"

"Nay, for it lifted when I was heaviest, and now that the tangles show like to be unravelled--see, the sky scowls on me."

"But it knows--and when disaster steals abroad it veils its face for sorrow.--Look, Ned, look! There's hail against the window-panes. Dost recall that night when thy--thy father--lay dead in hall here, and they killed Dick Ratcliffe on the vault-stone? 'Twas the edge of winter then, and now 'tis full summer; yet the hail falls, now as then, and the trees sough with the same heartbreak in their voices."

"'Tis just such another day," he muttered, crossing to the window and watching the hail-stones gather on the sill.--"What, then, bairn! Are we to cry because fortune is fairer than the weather? Have I not told thee there's to be peace at last? And Janet Ratcliffe, whom thou wast so eager for me to wed, will be mine soon as----"

"Thou hast told me all that, Ned," she interrupted gravely, "and yet--forgive me--I am sick at heart. Barguest was scratching at my door last night; I cannot rid me of him nowadays. What should the poor beast want with me?"

Wayne turned sharply and looked into his step-mother's face. If the sky's frown had chilled him, how could a word of Barguest fail to move him--Barguest, whose intimate, friendly dealings with his house had grown to be as much a part of Marsh as its walls, its trim-kept garden and lichened mistal-roofs.

"And not the Dog only, Ned," she went on, quietly, "but I saw thee stand on the brink of Wildwater Pool again--thee and Janet--and she cried to thee across the crimson waters like one whose soul is in dire torment."

"God keep us, bairn!" he cried. "Why didst not tell me this before? Did Janet speak in thy dream? Did she say aught of the Lean Man or her folk?"

"Naught; she did but wring her hands, and bid them hasten.--Ned, Ned, where art going?"

"Going? Why, to Wildwater. Red Ratcliffe has taken advantage of the old man's weakness.--God, bairn! Shall I be in time to save the lass?"

"'Twas no more than a dream, Ned," she stammered, trying to block his way. "I never thought 'twould drive thee up to Wildwater."

"How could it do less?" he answered, putting her from him and buckling on his sword-belt. "I laughed at dreams a while since--but only when they promise peace need we have doubt of them."

She followed him to the door, still piteous with entreaty. "Ned, have a care! The Lean Man is on our side now, but he is only one, and they are many at the grim house on the moor--rough men and cruel, like those who met me once and told me thou wast dying.--Well, then, if thou must go, let me come with thee!"

"Thou, bairn?" he cried. "What should such as thou do up at Wildwater? There, I'll come safe home, never fear; and keep thou close within doors, meanwhile, for thou'rt over-frail to meet these blustering winds."

She stood there at the door until he had saddled his horse and brought it round from stable; and again she sought to keep him from his errand. But he paid no heed to her, and soon she could hear his hoof-beats dying up the lane.

"God guide him safe," she whispered, and held her breath as the wind rose suddenly and set the hall-door creaking on its hinges.

All morning she wandered up and down the passages, afraid of the dreams that had racked her through the night, doubtful if she had done well to give Ned warning, in hourly dread lest some ill news of him should come from Wildwater. All morning the wind sobbed and wailed, as if there would never again be gladness over the cloud-hidden land. And under the wind's note Mistress Wayne could hear the patter-patter of soft feet, ceaseless and unrestful, till for very dread she wrenched the hall door open once again and went into the courtyard. But the footsteps followed her, and once she sprang aside as if some rough farm-dog had brushed her skirts in passing.

Wild the storm was in this sheltered hollow, but on the open moor it was resistless. The wind's voice in the chimney-stacks, piteous at Marsh, was a scream, a shriek, a trumpet call, up at the naked house of Wildwater, and the walls, square to the harshest of the tempest, shook from roof to the rock that bottomed them, as if they grudged shelter to the sick man whom they harboured. For Nicholas Ratcliffe had taken to his bed on the day that followed his ride to Marsh, and he knew that he would never rise from it again.

He had made them move the bed to the window, from which his eyes could range to the far hill-spaces of the heath; and he lay there this morning, listening to the storm and counting the hours that he had yet to live. As the wind raved out of the north, he could see it plough its green-black furrows across the dripping murk that hugged the ling from sky-line to sky-line; and the sight seemed good to him.

"It fits, it fits!" he murmured. "Lord God, how sweet the storm-song is!"

He was dying hard, undaunted to the last. He had feared naught save Barguest through his sixty years of life; and even the dog-dread now was gone--it had as little terror for him as the grave which showed so close ahead. Nay, a grim sort of smile wrinkled his lips as he lay on his side, and gasped for breath, and heard the wild wind drive the Horses of the North across the waste; for he counted his hours, and he thought they would lengthen till dawn of the next day--or may be noon.

"And by then we shall have made peace with Wayne of Marsh, and with his kin," he muttered; "ay, peace--'tis a fair word after all, methinks, though once I cared so little for it."

His eyes were on the open doorway, and they brightened as Janet crossed the stair-head. "Janet!" he called. "I've a word for that pretty ear of thine; come to the bedside, lass."

The girl came softly across the floor and put a hand on his wet forehead. "Can I do aught?" she asked.

"Ay, thou canst do much, girl. Dost recall how I railed at thee when first I heard of thy love for Wayne? And then how I softened to thy pleading? Od's life, I think thou hast bewitched me; for now I'm keener set on peace than ever I was on blows. Hearken, Janet! I rode down to Marsh not long since, as I told thee."

"Ay, sir--and didst drink a cup of wine with Wayne in token that the feud was killed."

"In token that the feud was killed," he echoed, with a sideways glance at her. "And now I cannot die till I have seen the peace fairly sealed, here by my bedside. Would Shameless Wayne bring his folk here to Wildwater, think'st thou, if I made thee my messenger?"

Janet caught his hands in hers. "Would he bring them? Why, sir, he would ask naught better," she cried. "Let me ride down to Marsh forthwith."

"Young blood, young blood!" said the Lean Man, with a laugh that brought the colour to her face. "I warrant the sight of Wayne is worth more to thee than fifty truces, for thou'rt eager as a hind in spring to seek this new-made lover of thine."

"Nay, grandfather," said Janet gravely; "I would do for peace sake all that I would do for love. Peace means life--life to Wayne--is that so slight a matter that I should scruple to ride down to him?"

"Wayne's life is no slight matter," said the other softly. "Get thee down to Marsh, Janet."

The girl grew very tender on the sudden. She had dealt amiss with her grandfather in times past, and he was rewarding her by kindness not to be believed.

"We shall thank you all our lives for this--all our lives," she cried.

A shadow crossed the Lean Man's face; his hand trembled on the bed-covering; his eyes wandered hither and thither about the room, not meeting Janet's.

"I was so fearful when you learned my love for Wayne," she went on. "I feared you would find a way to kill him, and then that you would leave Red Ratcliffe free to do as he would with me."

"All that was in my mind, lass," said Nicholas, after a long silence. "Nay, if this pesty sickness had not weakened the pride in me--but that is passed. Get thee to Marsh, then, and bid every Wayne in Marshcotes or in Cranshaw come up to drink old sores away.--What, doubtful?" he broke off, as Janet halted half toward the door.

"Not of Ned's coming, sir--but the Waynes of Cranshaw will hold back, suspecting treachery. I saw Ned two days ago, and he told me how his kinsfolk had taken the news of your peace-errand."

The smile played again about the Lean Man's lips. "God's pity, what do they fear from me?" he cried. "Look at me, Janet, and say if I could scare any one--save the crows, haply, when they come a-stealing corn."

"They say that, while Nicholas Ratcliffe lives, there will be bloodshed; they say, sir, that they'll give no ear to talk of peace until--" She checked herself.

"Nay, finish it out, lass! Until I'm under sod, thou would'st have said? So my name holds good even yet? Well-away, 'tis a thought to soften one's pillow, when all is said."

He fell into silence, and Janet, standing by the bedside, saw his rough brows drawn tight together as if the brain were quick yet in his dying body. A vague foreboding seized her; time and again in the past she had seen the Lean Man knit his brows in thought, and some one of his moorside foes had always rued it later in the day.

"So the Cranshaw Waynes carry suspicion of me still?" said Nicholas after awhile. "Art sure, Janet, they will doubt me to the last? Doubt me, when Wayne of Marsh has given his hand, knowing that peace is all I ask for?"

"They have not seen the changed look of you as Wayne of Marsh has done, or they could never doubt." There was a break in Janet's voice, for her foreboding of a moment ago grew shameful when measured by the old man's gentleness.

"Then I must die without seeing what I yearned to see. Well, so be it. Now give me a promise, girl--the last I shall ever ask of thee."

"I promise it beforehand--but it must not be the last. You will live, grandfather----"

"Tush, bairn! A broken jug carries no wine.--God, don't cry so, Janet! When I was hale, I could never bide the sight of tears; and now they madden me. Listen; when the breath is out of my body, my folk will wake beside the bier. Well, the Waynes must come then if they'll not come while I'm living; death will soften them, lass."

"Grandfather----"

"Peace, I say!--Whenever I die, girl, be it to-day or when it will, do thou take the news to Wayne of Marsh and bid him to the lyke-wake with all his kin. Wilt do this much, Janet?"

"I will do it gladly, sir."

"It may be to-night, Janet. Art prepared?--Yet, Lord, I doubt they will not come! Girl, will they come, think'st thou?"

"Grandfather, what ails you? Is't not enough that you have righted this evil quarrel? You rode down to Marsh, at a time when you had scarce strength to sit the saddle; you showed Ned that he could trust you; you won him to the side of peace. What then? Lie back on your pillow, sir, and rest content."

"Rest? There's no rest," he muttered. "Fears crowd thick about a dying man; fears are carrion crows, girl, that never swoop until a man is past his strength. I fear everything, I tell thee--everything."

"I'll not wait, sir; let me go see Wayne of Marsh this moment--'twill ease thee to know I 'have told him how hour by hour your eagerness for peace grows hotter."

"Ay, go! Have thy mare saddled, and ride with the wind's heels. Tell Wayne to be prepared against my death--the death his folk are watching for. Bid him come to the lyke-wake on peril of his soul, for the curses of the dead are no light load to bear. Bid him in God's name or the devil's----"

His voice tripped for very feverishness; his eyes burned with a sombre fire; there was no doubting that this last whim of his had grown to be an overmastering passion.

"I will persuade him, grandfather, have never a fear of that," said Janet, as she went to do his bidding.

She turned at the door, and saw that he was following her with his eyes; and she stopped for a moment, spellbound by the scene. The wind was raving overhead; the light that filtered through the panes was leaden, streaked with a storm-red; the gurgle of rain, the hiss of hail, came never-ceasing from across the moor; it was as if the earth were riven asunder, and all the waters of the earth were gathering to a head. And there, silent amid the uproar, lay the Lean Man of Wildwater, with the fire-scars on his face, and the red lump that stood for his left ear, and the strained look that comes when the one-half of a man is palsied.

"How drear it is, how drear!" murmured Janet, and looked at the Lean Man again, and saw that a bitter sadness had come into his face--a sadness whose depth she could not fathom.

"Come back," whispered the Lean Man, beckoning feebly to her.--"Thou hast loved me well, Janet," he went on, as she stooped above him.

"I have loved you well, grandfather--better than ever you knew of."

"But less than Wayne of Marsh--Wayne, who thwarted me at every turn--who--there, lass! What am I saying? That is wiped out, and haply I like him none the worse because he gave shrewd blows. God, to think how fain I am to see thee wed to him--safely wed to him."

He dwelt on the last words, repeating them with a vehemence half grim, half childish. And then he pointed to the door, and not till Janet's footfall sounded on the stair did he break silence.

"The lad has thwarted me, and I forgive him," said the Lean Man slowly. "Janet has played me false, and I make her the messenger of peace. 'Tis fitting; the old hatred was an ill comrade for grey hairs."

And then he lay back, listening to the _spit-spit_ of the rain, the falling cadence of the wind. And a smile, as of hardly-won content, played round about his hollow face.

Red Ratcliffe was waiting at the stair-foot when Janet came down into the hall.

"How goes it with the dotard?" he cried.

She made no answer, but brushed past him toward the door.

"Ay, go where thou wilt," sneered Ratcliffe, watching her put on cloak and hood; "so long as the Lean Man lives, I'll lay no finger on thee, for there's a devil in him that only the grave can kill. But what after that?"

"After that, Ratcliffe the Red," she cried, turning suddenly to face him, "after that I shall put my safety in the keeping of one thou know'st."

"Wayne of Marsh, I take it? Shameless Wayne, who drank his own father's quarrel away, who----"

"Who goes abroad with a cry of _Wayne and the Dog_. Hast ever heard the cry, Red Ratcliffe?"

He winced, remembering how often he had fled panic-stricken with the cry behind him; and Janet, turning from him in disdain, crossed to the stables through the misty drizzle that was scattered from the skirts of the late storm.

It might be a half-hour later, as she dipped down the Ling Crag hill, that she met Shameless Wayne galloping hard up the stiff rise. He checked on seeing her and brought his mare on to her haunches.

"I was riding to thee, Janet. What brings thee here? No ill news, is't?" he cried.

"Nay, Ned--save that grandfather is not like to live the day through."

"There's no danger threatens thee?"

"Never less, Ned. Whither wast galloping so hard, and why dost look so tempest-driven?"

"What hast done to me, Janet?" he cried. "I'm full of dreads since winning thee; and just because Mistress Wayne saw thee last night in a vision, I needs must come helter-skelter to learn if thou wast safe."

"If the vision foretold disaster, Ned, methinks it erred--and, by that token, it is well we met, for I have a message to thee."

"What, from Wildwater?"

"Ay. Grandfather, like thee, is full of doubts--but his are a sick man's terrors. His fury I know, and his tenderness--ay, I have seen him panic-stricken, too--but I cannot tell what ails him now. His talk is all of peace between our houses; and yet, when he speaks of my wedding thee, he scarce knows whether to jest or scowl."

"I was a youngster, and chance gave me the better of the fight," said Wayne quietly. "Canst wonder he grudges it a little?"

"It must be so--and, Ned, we've happiness to thank him for. His message was that, soon as he is dead, you are to come with your folk to wake beside the body. My kinsmen are rough, Ned, but they know grandfather's wish, and when ye stand beside the bier with them, be sure the thought of death will soften them to the truce."

"I promised him as much a week since, and I'll keep faith, dear lass--for thy sake, if for no other."

"Yet he fears the Cranshaw Waynes will still hold back. Ned, canst make sure of them? 'Tis his last wish, and I would not have him thwarted.--And now, dear, fare thee well. I dare not be away from Wildwater, lest he be wanting aught, or--lest he die, Ned, without my hand in his."

Wayne turned about. "I'll ride to Hill House now, and then to Cranshaw. They shall come with me, Janet; trust me to persuade them."

"Ned! 'Twill be--'twill be to-night, I think. To look at him, he cannot live through the day."

"Then to-night shall find us ready.--Why, child, what is't?"

She brushed the quick-rising tears away. "Naught--'twas naught--only, Ned, I've no friend in the world but thou when grandfather has gone."

She was gone with that, and Wayne, after seeing her gallop into the mists, turned his mare's head and made across the moor to Hill House, where he told them of the Lean Man's message and the nearness of his end. Some were in favour of the truce, others refused to abandon their settled mistrust of Nicholas Ratcliffe; and last of all they rode with him to Cranshaw, there to take counsel of the Long Waynes. At Cranshaw it was the same; some were on Shameless Wayne's side, others were hot against his plan; and Nell herself was the first to resist his counsel.

"It seems the Lean Man's dying wish is more to thee than father's," she cried; "but, for my part, I can hear no talk of peace for the cry that rings day-long in my ears. No quarter, Ned--dost mind the cry?"

"We have followed it far enough," he answered. "Has wedlock taught thee so little, Nell, that peace shows not worth the gaining?"

"As I told thee,--neither wedlock nor aught else can wipe one picture out."

"Well, I for one, Nell, am fain to see the end of all this blood-letting," cried her husband.

"And art thou fain," she answered bitterly, "to see him wedded to this Ratcliffe girl?"

"Ay, even that I'd welcome, though 'tis not long since I thought ill of it. But it should help to heal the feud--and, besides, they say she is no Ratcliffe in her honesty."

"Have it as ye will. Mistress Janet is leagued with her kin, doubtless--but men do not believe these matters when their logic is a bonnie face."

"Mistress Janet is well enough; all the moorside has a kindly word for her," put in one of the Waynes of Hill House; "but what if the Lean Man has not done yet with his accursed trickeries?"

"Then we are armed, and in full force," said Shameless Wayne. "Would the Lean Man have bidden all of us to the feast, think'st thou, if he had meant trickery?"

"Ned is right," put in Rolf; "we will go to the lyke-wake, and if the feud is to be staunched above his body, there'll many a wife go happier to bed than she has done since the spring came in."

Nell held out against them still; but they overruled her, and one by one the malcontents agreed to follow the counsel of those they counted as their leaders.

"He'll not last through the day, so Janet told me," said Shameless Wayne. "Best come with me to Marsh forthwith, and wait the messenger."

"So thou'lt marry this daughter of the Ratcliffes?" said Nell, as she stood at the gate and watched her brother get to horse.

"God willing, Nell--and one day thou wilt love her near as much as I."

"Nay, I have done with loving. Ride on, Ned, and if they tell thee I have cared for thee--why, say they lie."

He touched his horse and rode slowly out; and all the way to Marsh his thoughts were busy with this sister's love that would fain have kept him close in prison. It was not the feud only then, that warped her nature. _I have done with loving_, she had said; and dimly he understood that even her husband had no place beside him in her heart.

"Od's life, these women! Who framed them at the start?" he muttered, as he gained the steep down-hill that led to Marsh.

And then he remembered little Mistress Wayne, and wondered if she had rid her of the needless fears which had driven him out this morning in search of Janet.

But his step-mother had left Marsh House and was already nearing the lane-top that took her to the moors. All morning she had wandered from room to room, from house to courtyard, to see if Ned were coming home. Why had she listened to her dreams, she asked herself? Why told him how Janet had stood on the verge of Wildwater Pool, entreating help? Visions might play her false and had done as much a score of times. Yet--what of Barguest? He at least was real; he at least--

She put her hands against the gate to steady herself, and looked up the lane; for the sound of pattering feet was in her ears once more, and there was a coldness in the wind more shrewd than any that blew off the moors. And not only the sound of feet, and icy, upward moving breeze--for a dun and shaggy-coated hound crept out of the empty road, and swung up toward the heath.

Mistress Wayne halted no longer now. There were many who had heard the Dog in Marshcotes, but none save she to whom he showed himself. It must be as she feared; Ned was in peril at Wildwater, and the Dog was leading her to him. Not once did she halt to ask what service she could render him; it was enough that he was in danger, and that Barguest sought her aid.

The dun mist hugged the moor as she made forward. The clouds were grey as hopelessness, and everywhere the sound of moorland brooks, flushed by the heavy rains, was like a doom-song in her ears. Underfoot the peat oozed black at every step. The further hills were blotted out, the nearer rises showed unsubstantial, wan and ghoulish; the very grouse were wearied into silence. The shaggy-coated beast that had led her here had vanished into the drifting mists; but still she pressed on, her whole mind bent on reaching Wildwater.

She would have been lost at the first mile had she brought reason to help her find the track to Wildwater; but instinct guided her more surely, and presently the black house in the wilderness showed swart among the mists. So dark it looked, so evil, that once she half turned back; but Ned had need of her--and she would go to the house-door and knock, and ask what they had done with him. And if they killed her--well, it would not matter.

On and on she went. And now she had reached the outer-most intake; and now she had crossed the lank grass, and gone through the gate at the top, and reached the bare house-side that looked from its solitary window on to the path which led to the courtyard. Mistress Wayne caught her breath, and stopped, and listened; but the house was still as death. Her resolution faltered; she looked up and down the wall, with the rain-lines shimmering grey from the gable-end to the rustling weeds at its foot--looked, and saw nothing for awhile--looked, with the absent gaze of those who wander in their sleep, until a shadow crossed the window-pane, a shadow that took substance.

Then there was a crash, the falling of broken glass, and Mistress Wayne had wit neither to scream nor flee. She could but follow the hand that beckoned through the broken pane.

*