. 'if-*;

 
 RED 
 O' " 
 THE . 
 FEUD
 
 RED O' THE FEUD 
 
 BY 
 
 HALLIWELL, SUTCLIFFE 
 
 Author of 
 " A Man of the Moors," " Ricroft ofWithens" etc. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 T. WERNER LAURIE 
 
 CLIFFORD'S INN 
 1905
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 This story originally appeared in the 
 Weekly Edition of" The Times" and is 
 now issued in book form by arrangement 
 with the proprietors of that journal.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTBK TACt 
 
 i. ONE RATCLIFFE LIVES TO FIGHT . . i 
 
 ii. As THE TREE GROWS . . . . 14 
 
 HI. THE AXE WITH THE LONG HAFT . . 28 
 
 iv. WAYNE'S SON FARES OUT 39 
 
 v. THE BEGINNING OF IT . . . 57 
 
 vi. How LITTLE BAIRN CAME DOWN TO MARSH 72 
 
 vii. How Two AND ONE MEET AT WILDWATER . 94 
 
 vin. THE QUIET HEART OF THE STORM . . 112 
 
 ix. How MARSHCOTES STREET RAN RED . 130 
 
 x. MOONLIGHT ON THE LAND . . .146 
 
 xi. THE DOG ..... 159 
 
 xn. RED RATCLIFFE MEETS A KINSMAN . . 170 
 
 XIII. LOVE BENEATH THE FEUD . . .182 
 
 xiv. AT THE BOG'S EDGE . . . .190 
 
 xv. PARSON'S LASS . . . .208 
 
 xvi. How THE WAYNES CROSSED THE BOGS . 219 
 
 xvu. THE MASTER RIDES ABROAD . . . 225
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PACE 
 
 xvin. How AUDREY CAME TO BLACK HOUSE . 236 
 
 xix. RED RATCLIFFE STAYS AT HOME . . 244 
 
 xx. THE FEUD-SPEAR FLAMES . . .260 
 
 xxi. THE PARSON FALLS TO PRAYER . . 271 
 
 xxii. BATHSHEBA PLAYS HER PART . . 279 
 
 xxiii. How THE RAINS CAME TO ALL THE MOOR- 
 SIDE ..... 288 
 
 xxiv. How WAYNES MET RATCLIFFES ON THE MOOR 302 
 
 xxv. THE LAST FIGHT . . . 313 
 
 xxvi. AND AFTERWARDS . . . .328
 
 RED O' THE FEUD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ONE RATCLIFFE LIVES TO FIGHT 
 
 great fight was over, and far across the moor far 
 up into the molten darkness of the sky the red flames 
 glowed and quivered. Beam by beam, stone by blackened 
 stone, the old house of the Ratcliffes at Wildwater crashed 
 to its last disaster. Tempests had battered at its walls, 
 wild thunderstorms had come from the barren wilderness 
 that hemmed Wildwater in and had striven to undo the 
 sturdy homestead ; all had been unavailing ; grim, stal- 
 wart, unbending as the folk who had dwelt there through 
 the generations, the house had reared its proud head to 
 the moor and had shown its graven challenge of the Rat- 
 cliffes to their foes : " We hate, we kill." And now its 
 insolence was past, for the flames had done in one short 
 night what all the tempest fury of the years had failed 
 to do. 
 
 Under the falling embers, under the reek of running 
 flames, lay dead and dying of those who had fought the 
 last or what surely was the last great fight of Wayne 
 and Ratcliffe. The cries of men who died hard, died 
 unrepentant and hating to the last, struck now and then 
 across the stealthier uproar of the flames ; but the living 
 Waynes were gone, and there was not one of the Ratcliffes 
 screaming there who had not found a mortal hurt. That 
 had been the purpose of the Waynes when the wild fight 
 began to-night ; too often they had been sneered at as 
 the courteous Waynes ; too often they had let one adver- 
 sary go for lack of gracelessness enough to kill him in the 

 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 face of odds ; and the Ratcliffes had rewarded them in 
 the Ratcliffe way had killed and maimed and ambushed 
 their old enemies as occasion served, until at last the head 
 of all the Waynes Shameless Wayne they called him, 
 by reason of his youthful devilries, repented long ago 
 had hardened his heart for this last battle, had gathered 
 his folk and met the Ratcliffes in their own hall, had cried 
 above the din and slaughter : " No quarter, Waynes ! Let 
 none escape." 
 
 That was an hour ago, and now the Waynes were gone, 
 and the wide moor and the sky looked on while Wildwater 
 buried its own dead under the stones that once had sheltered 
 them. There had been no quarter, and not a man, not a 
 man-child, had escaped. The feud was surely stilled ; yet 
 across the waste far off and fitful, yet not to be mistaken 
 came the howl of Barguest, the Brown Dog of the Waynes, 
 whose voice was lifted always in prophecy of Wayne 
 disaster. The smoke sprang ruddy to the sky, hiding the 
 stars ; only at the edges of the moor, where the wind blew 
 wide the scurrying clouds, a lone star peeped and twinkled 
 now and then, as if afraid of what it looked upon. 
 
 The Waynes had reason to know Barguest well. He 
 had been their ghostly ally through too many centuries 
 to let them doubt his friendliness and power. Yet even 
 they, had they heard the Dog's insistent whine, would 
 have laughed to-night at his forebodings. How could 
 disaster await them now now that their foes lay piled 
 beneath the wreckage, and not a Ratcliffe lived to wear his 
 sword ? But they did not hear the Dog this once ; they 
 had unbuckled their swordbelts, down yonder at the house 
 of Shameless Wayne, had filled their goblets, and were 
 taking that ease which comes only after battle well-sus- 
 tained. 
 
 They did not hear the Dog ; but a woman heard him 
 in the house of Wildwater, as she stooped beside her 
 goodman and listened to his dying words. 
 
 " Go, go ! " he muttered. " The flames are licking at 
 you remember the burden that you carry."
 
 One Ratcliffe Lives to Fight 
 
 " I remember, and yet I will not go just yet." Her 
 voice seemed palpable, a thing of shape, so full was it of 
 courage, dread, great anguish, and great pride. " I shall 
 cany on the feud, dear lad ; I shall be spared until I have 
 set my burden down. See ! Rest your head just so, and 
 dream we're lad and lass again dream 'tis our first kiss 
 stolen by the Brigg of Tryst." 
 
 She smiled into his eyes, a piteous smile by reason of 
 its bravery. And into the man's face crept a tenderness 
 beyond belief ; wild he had lived, and wild he was dying, 
 with his naked sins upon him and a sword-cut gaping in 
 his side ; but his glance was fearless, free of shame or 
 anguish, for they had loved each other well. 
 
 " There was a laverock singing right above us," he said, 
 in low and hard- won tones, " and the sun was hiding in 
 your hair. 'Twas the Ratcliffe hair, lass red as the 
 blood that kept our pride and sword-arms strong." 
 
 "It pleased you ; that was all I asked." 
 
 The flames were licking round her ; a stone crashed 
 down at her right hand, and the splinters fell like hail 
 against her face ; they did not heed, for their courtship 
 was for life, and life had not reached the limit of its 
 ebb-tide yet. The strange, deep things of wedlock, the 
 mysteries that were older than the ruined house, older than 
 the steadfast hills themselves, abode with them in this last 
 hour ; just lad and lass they were, with the laverock 
 singing in the blue. 
 
 At last the summons came, and he answered it un- 
 flinchingly. 
 
 " We'll meet again, or not. I've led a life of sword and 
 spear, and know naught of that. But I love you, lass." 
 
 Then he sat upright, the sweat raining from his face. 
 
 " They had killed the last man-child of us all, they 
 thought," he said. " Go with your burden, and they shall 
 one day know their folly." 
 
 He lay back, weakening to his end ; and Barguest's 
 howl came nearer. Even in his agony the man raised 
 himself on one weak arm ; his red hair, wet as it was with
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 toil and the after-pain, glowed vivid in the firelight ; he 
 was a Ratcliffe through and through. 
 
 " Hark ye, lass ! " he said. " D'ye hear the Dog ? " 
 
 Her ear, too, was turned towards the eastward moor. 
 " I hear," she said. 
 
 " Tis a good sound for dying Ratcliffe ears. Never 
 in this world did Barguest sing for Waynes' happiness. 
 Hark ! He's baying now as if " 
 
 He fell back once more, his effort spent ; and, though 
 his lips moved, his wife could hear no words until she 
 stooped with her face close to his. 
 
 " What is it, heart o' mine ? " she asked, in the old, 
 homely speech. 
 
 " If it should be no man-child, after all ? " he gasped, 
 and there was panic in his failing voice. 
 
 " It shall be ; that is all ; sleep well, dear lad, and 
 trust me with my burden." 
 
 Her courage heartened him. She spoke as the doomed 
 folk speak, with equal knowledge of disaster and success. 
 She was not lying to him now to ease his parting from the 
 flesh ; it was the faith that lay at her heart which had 
 found a voice, and he was well content. 
 
 " The little Brigg of Tryst the laverock our first 
 kiss, lass and Lord God, the feud ! We hate, we kill ! 
 We hate we why, 'tis summer weather, wife, and the 
 moon above the hay-ricks." 
 
 And so he died, with love and feud as closely woven 
 as ever they had been in life. And the woman kissed the 
 still face bravely not with tears, for the time for weakness 
 had not come and she went out between the falling 
 stones, the charred, thick beams, the flame and smoke and 
 crying of the late-to-die, unhappy folk. The full wind 
 greeted her, and as she stood there, free as the out-reaching 
 moor, she noted, without knowing it, that scent of the 
 winter heather, reek of the barren boglands, crisp fragrance 
 of the bracken, were mingled with the smoke that lay 
 behind her. She was free to go her ways. The moor, 
 fettered only by the grey sky-line, had always stood for
 
 One Ratcliffe Lives to Fight 
 
 freedom with the folk at Wildwater, yet now she wished 
 for guidance, not for freedom. Where should they turn, 
 she and her burden ? For herself she cared little, knowing 
 that she would live to do her work, and do it speedily, 
 and die ; but, for the burden's sake, which way to turn ? 
 
 As she stood irresolute, there came a whimpering from 
 across the moor ; and the whimpering grew to a running 
 whine ; and she knew that Barguest was afoot, close at 
 her side. She took heart again, for the Brown Dog cried 
 for Wayne disaster always, not for hers. The moon, 
 struggling through the murk of smoke, showed round and 
 red ; and this, too, was a solace, for it spoke of fight to 
 come. Yet still, which way to turn ? 
 
 The Brown Dog howled and whimpered. There was a 
 new note in his voice the note of dread. And in a measure 
 the woman understood, as folk who are soon to die will 
 understand the real things of destiny. She laughed, and 
 the laugh was more eerie than the Brown Dog's wail. 
 
 " Your Dog has served you well, Waynes ! " she cried 
 to the wind as it hurried past. " Well, he has found his 
 master now. Courteous Waynes ! We always sneered 
 at you for that, and we shall sneer again Hark, bonnie 
 lad ! " 
 
 She talked as if the unborn child were grown to know- 
 ledge of the feud, and it may be the child's soul was awake 
 and hearkened. 
 
 " Hark ye, bonnie lad ! When a Wayne struck thy 
 father in the side awhile since, I snatched a dagger from the 
 floor and sprang at him. He cut at me and would have 
 sliced thee straight in two, bonnie bairn, but Shameless 
 Wayne most courteous of them all struck up his sword. 
 ' No feud with women-folk,' he said, and I went free. 
 Ah, but 'tis like them ! The Brown Dog cries his loudest 
 when Waynes show courtesy, and they little guessed that 
 it was I I, wee bairn who carried the Ratcliffes' hope 
 with me." 
 
 Ghoulish as the woman showed, she was not strange 
 at all when measured by the moor, the night, the shudder-
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 ing whine of the Brown Dog, the stillness of the moon and 
 stars not strange when the tale of the years was conned 
 aright, as the heath and the stars had conned it ; for she 
 was a Ratcliffe, loving a Ratcliffe, and she had learned 
 the feud-tale at her mother's knee ; there was the past 
 night's carnage, moreover, and she had seen her folk go 
 down before the glinting steel. For one purpose only 
 she kept heart alive ; her goodman had given her a dying 
 trust, and in the teeth of pain and hardship she would 
 keep her troth. Wild she had lived, as her goodman had ; 
 but at least she had been true to her heart's faith. 
 
 While she stood there, with the wind in her face and the 
 clear moon lighting up the farther reek of fire, a will-o'- 
 the-wisp rose up above the southward marshes and danced, 
 so it seemed, towards her. And now again, as she watched 
 it, it danced away from her, and then again came near, 
 as a friendly farmer's dog might do that claimed her notice. 
 
 " A light above the waste an idle light above the 
 waste Wildwater House itself is neither more nor less than 
 that," she muttered. " I'll take the omen." 
 
 With the natural, quiet leaning upon superstition which 
 was inbred in the Ratcliffes, she set off across the heath, 
 taking the will o'-the-wisp for her guide. And now a 
 sullen stretch of bog lay underfoot, tempting a false step ; 
 and now again the marshes showed their perilous, fair 
 tufts of green to snare the heedless or unwitting folk. 
 Mistress Ratcliffe skirted bog and marsh alike, yet never 
 lost her dancing guide. 
 
 At last, when her senses gathered strength again after 
 the numbness following great battle and great pain, she 
 saw the land stretched naked under the high moon, and 
 knew its every feature, and wondered that this will-o'-the- 
 wisp had guided her to a sanctuary so safe, yet so un- 
 thought of. 
 
 In Marshcotes village they reckoned Wildwater a lone 
 and haunted spot ; yet Wildwater was near men's haunts 
 when measured by the desolation of these farther lands. 
 Mystery lurked in every hollow ; each clump of stunted 
 
 6
 
 One Ratcliffe Lives to Fight 
 
 firs or crooked thorn-trees seemed full of ghostly shapes ; 
 the streams that hurried through the land made little 
 noise, as if they feared to make their presence known ; the 
 wind crept by, holding its breath for dread. Not a voice 
 there was, save the cry of a curlew wandering helplessly 
 between the heath and the white moon. And over all 
 over bog and running stream, over peat and ling and stony 
 deserts where the bracken rustled in weak and thriftless 
 patches over all there was a shuddering unrest not any 
 way to be explained. This was the Lonesome Land which 
 moor-folk shunned, a land peopled, so they said, by mon- 
 strous shapes and filmy terrors. Lonesome Pool stretched 
 wide and black in the dead heart of it, and on the far bank 
 of the pool stood Black House, built long ago by Ratcliffes 
 as a sanctuary and peopled with their tragedies. 
 
 It was Black House that Mistress Ratcliffe sought, as 
 she threaded her way between the marshland and the 
 quaking-bog. The moonlight, showing plain the dreariness 
 of this far land, had no terrors for her ; she stood too near 
 to life, too near to death, to heed such matters, and she 
 moved fast toward the solitary light that blinked and 
 quavered from the front of the grim house above the 
 pool. 
 
 The will-o'-the-wisp still danced before ; and once, as 
 she pressed too rashly forward, it sprang aside so suddenly 
 that she, too, leaped to the left hand. She missed the 
 quaking bog by a foot's width, and hurried on, and knew, 
 as she had only guessed before, that the marsh-candle was 
 busy with the Ratcliffe hopes. 
 
 " Courage, little lad," she murmured, though it was 
 she who needed all her bravery to keep her strength alive. 
 ' Courage ! Tis not so far, and they've lighted a candle 
 see it blinking yonder ! to welcome home the heir." 
 
 She came to the'edge ofJLonesome Pool, and skirted it. 
 There were rushes on its banks, and they quavered one 
 against the other, fearful as the wind that faltered through 
 them. Mistress Ratcliffe did not heed ; nor did she mark 
 that the will-o'-the-wisp, a faithful guide till now, was
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 leading her no longer, but dancing fitfully across the 
 marshes. One thing only did she note, and that was 
 Charley's Wain, with its seven lamps hung high above 
 Black House ; she and her dead Ratcliffe had loved 
 Charley's Wain of old, for it had lighted many a wooing- 
 time. 
 
 She came to the great door, and knocked as one who 
 knew herself the mistress nay, more, as one who knew 
 herself the mother of its future master. The candle-light 
 gleamed fitfully behind the window, but, slight as the 
 flame was, she saw in it a welcome. 
 
 There was the sound of footsteps pattering on the stone 
 floor of the hall, the creaking of hinges too little used ; 
 and then a woman, short, round of face, with the red hair 
 of the Ratcliffes, stood half between the moonlight on the 
 threshold and the light of the candle which she carried. 
 
 " Ah, 'tis you, Bathsheba. I have come to you with all 
 the Ratcliffe hopes." 
 
 "You are welcome, mistress. We're foster-sisters, and 
 all night I have felt your need of me. I kept the candle 
 lighted." 
 
 Each spoke as of a thing well-known beforehand. The 
 expected guest had come, and found her welcome ready ; 
 that was all. They shared strange sympathies, these two, 
 for they had lived in the broken lands that bordered 
 Wildwater. 
 
 " The feud was up to-night, and they sent the fiery 
 spear to my man, Joseph," said Bathsheba, as she ushered 
 her guest into the parlour on the right hand of the passage, 
 where a peat-fire was glowing purple-red. 
 
 " Ay, the feud was up. And what of Joseph ? He has 
 a strong arm for the fight " 
 
 She halted, remembering that this night no Ratcliffe 
 had come alive from Wildwater. 
 
 " But 'twas broken, as it chanced," said Bathsheba. 
 " Only yestreen he was breaking a young horse to the 
 saddle, and they fell together, and his right arm snapped 
 in two. He could not come, and he cursed like one gone 
 
 8
 
 One Ratcliffe Lives to Fight 
 
 mad when I told him he could never look to fight with his 
 left hand." 
 
 " He has been spared," said Mistress Ratcliffe gravely. 
 " No other has been spared, save one " 
 
 Bathsheba glanced at her. " It will be a boy," she said. 
 
 The two women eyed each other fearlessly, while the red 
 peats crumbled into grey-brown dust and the candle 
 guttered in its socket. 
 
 They understood, and the time had not come for weep- 
 ing. There was a man-child to be born, and that was duty 
 with the Ratcliffe women. 
 
 " Come to the Red Room, mistress," said Bathsheba. 
 " I've made it trim for you, and there's little time before 
 you." 
 
 " True ay, 'tis true. Listen, Bathsheba ! I shall 
 die to-night oh, never stut and stammer, woman, for we 
 know it, you and I I shall die, but the child will live, 
 and it will be a boy." 
 
 " Now, don't you take to fancies, mistress you will 
 live, and he will live " 
 
 " Bathsheba, we're foster-sisters. You need not lie to 
 me, for you, too, understand. When I am gone, look to the 
 boy. The Waynes will never seek him here. Rear him 
 to the feud. Feed his sinews till he's like an ox for bigness ; 
 feed his heart with hatred of the Waynes ; swear this to 
 me, Bathsheba." 
 
 " By the Lean Man I swear it," said Bathsheba. 
 
 Mistress Ratcliffe laughed, not gladly, but very soberly. 
 
 " The Lean Man died to-night, but he will conquer 
 death," she said. " Look to your oath, for he is not 
 merciful to traitors. And Bathsheba, good-bye. We 
 have loved each other well, and there may be a life here- 
 after. Think no ill of me 'twixt now and then, if any 
 then there be." 
 
 Bathsheba, after all the terror and the sorrow of this 
 night waiting for a sure calamity, and keeping watch 
 about a fretful man who cursed his pain and impotence, 
 felt the quick tears run down her face. This was' the
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 foster-sister she had known proud, erect, and strangely 
 sensible of old affections and she was half across the floor 
 already, going to her death in the Red Room above their 
 heads. 
 
 " But, mistress, I must watch with you ! " she cried. 
 " Bairns are untimely born sometimes, and " 
 
 " I have carried my burden hither, Bathsheba. I was 
 alone. I have the will and the strength to die unaided." 
 
 " Ay, but " 
 
 " May the Lean Man's curse rest upon you if you come 
 to me before the dawn ; and the dawn reddens late at this 
 time of the year. Farewell, Bathsheba, and rear the ladling 
 in the old Ratcliffe faith." 
 
 Bathsheba, obedient of old to the stronger will a will 
 stronger only by a little Bathsheba held her peace, and 
 watched the doomed woman go up the oaken stair with 
 the proud step she knew. And, now in the midst of her 
 grief for a foster-sister so well-loved and so soon to be lost, 
 the woman shuddered to remember the Lean Man's curse. 
 The Lean Man was dead, but he had been of those who live 
 beyond the grave ; gaunt, undismayed, and terrible, he 
 had had his will through seventy years of life ; the moor- 
 folk felt that he would have his will hereafter, sneering at 
 death as he had always done. 
 
 For that reason, and because Mistress Ratcliffe's word 
 had ever been a strait command with Bathsheba, she did 
 not go near the door of the Red Room until the dawn ; 
 she kept the peats alive on the parlour-hearth, and watched 
 beside the glow, and stepped softly now and then to the 
 stair-foot. Twice she heard a moaning, deep but undis- 
 mayed ; no shriek rang through the house, no sudden cry 
 for help, and Bathsheba kept troth until the first of the red 
 dawn crept out across the eastward lands. Then she went 
 up to the Red Room, and knocked, and entered. Two 
 candles were alight upon a table, and on the bed was Mis- 
 tress Ratcliffe, a male child in her arms, and a look of 
 happy weariness upon her face. Only in the pallor of the 
 face, the lines across the brow, were left the traces of last 
 
 10
 
 One Ratcliffe Lives to Fight 
 
 night ; for the rest, she was a mother, happy in the new 
 life on her breast, happy in the nearness of a death she did 
 not fear. 
 
 " Good-morrow, Bathsheba," she murmured, as she had 
 done on many a morn in the old house at Wildwater, 
 when Bathsheba was her maid. 
 
 " Good-morrow, mistress," the other answered huskily. 
 
 " Untimely born, you said ? Nay, he is timely born. 
 The Ratcliffes needed him, and he has come. See, Bath- 
 sheba ! Take him in your arms look well at him is 
 he not lusty, and big-eyed, and long of limb, just as his 
 father was ? " 
 
 Bathsheba took the child, and felt its limbs, and nursed 
 its crumpled toes in one hand, as women do. 
 
 " Ay, he is lusty, and the Ratcliffes need a man-child 
 now," she answered. 
 
 But she did not say that she had looked into the big 
 eyes of the babe, and had seen there a fear, a sorrow, a 
 hatred, which reflected, clearly as a summer tarn reflects 
 the gorse upon its banks, the passions that had riven 
 Mistress Ratcliffe yesternight, when she left the reeking 
 house of Wildwater to carry her burden into the wilderness. 
 Yet, though she kept silence, it was plain to Bathsheba that 
 the boy would bear to his life's end the mark of that night's 
 journey. It was well that it should be so, she told herself ; 
 it would fit him for the work to come ; but, for all that, 
 the woman in her sorrowed to see the seal so closely fastened 
 upon one so helpless and so small. 
 
 " Give him back to me. I have not long to stay," said 
 Mistress Ratcliffe, still with a smile upon her face. 
 
 It was little to her that she had gone through a threefold 
 anguish ; such things were asked of Ratcliffe women when 
 the feud-spear flamed abroad. 
 
 " Nay, you'll live to see him grow into a gradely man," 
 said Bathsheba, although she knew it for a lie. 
 
 The other shook her head, and the splendid Ratcliffe 
 hair fell ever a little looser round her pallid face. 
 
 " I shall not live, Bathsheba. What is to come is dark, 
 
 ii
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 as Ratcliffe said to me before he died ; we may know 
 naught of anything and yet and yet I think we shall 
 live again, and find each other. We loved too well far, 
 far too well for this to be the end." 
 
 The Red Room had its windows facing east, and Mistress 
 Ratcliffe, turning her eyes towards the casement, saw that 
 the sky was washed with purple, amethyst, and glowing 
 red. The dawn had come the dawn of a new feud-day 
 and her heart beat high again, not to remembered music 
 of her love, but to the tune that dying Ratcliffe had planted 
 in her heart. 
 
 " Oh, we waste time, Bathsheba ! " she cried with sudden 
 strength. " It is the boy the boy we must talk of now. 
 Your own baby died a week ago, did he not ? I remember 
 you came to me in bitter trouble." 
 
 " He died. I can foster this lad of yours," said Bath- 
 sheba, catching her thought. 
 
 " Foster him well. Rear him to be strong, and to fear 
 as little as the Lean Man feared. He came to me awhile 
 since as I lay here this same Lean Man, with his withered 
 arm and the scar of fire across his face and he seemed 
 to say ' well done.' ' 
 
 Ah, surely the Lean Man, dead and cold as he lay, was 
 living yet, for his name brought dread into Bathsheba's 
 eyes. 
 
 " Rear him, too, on the old tales," went on the mother. 
 " Give him hate of the Waynes to drink with the mother- 
 milk ; let your goodman teach him to strike quick and 
 hard with sword or spear or axe ; keep him safe by Lone- 
 some Pool until his manhood comes, then send him out to 
 fight. I have finished, Bathsheba." 
 
 " I swear by the Lean Man," said Bathsheba, and 
 crossed herself. 
 
 There was a silence, broken first by the wailing of the 
 child, then by a sudden howl, a whine, a bark, that came 
 from underneath the window you could not say whether 
 it were bark, or whine, or howl, only that no farm-dog on 
 the moor could so gather into the one note all the re- 
 
 12
 
 One Ratcliffe Lives to Fight 
 
 membered and the half -forgotten tragedies which clothed 
 the Ratcliffe flesh from cradle-time to burial. 
 
 " The Dog ! " cried Mistress Ratcliffe. " He comes to 
 bid me die in peace, Bathsheba. Nay, never weep, woman ! 
 'Tis folly at the best. Listen, Bathsheba ! I am going 
 into the Strange Land, and yet I am not leaving the good 
 moor that we love so well so well, Bathsheba, thou and 
 I. Through the months the child and I have lived to- 
 gether ; they have been months of feud and blood and 
 heartache, Bathsheba ; through all last night we were 
 together, and I talked to him as we crossed to Lonesome 
 Pool ; I shall live on in him, for he knows my faintest 
 heart-beat, Bathsheba." 
 
 And Bathsheba assented, for she remembered the look 
 behind the babe's big eyes. 
 
 Mistress Ratcliffe kissed the child, then suddenly she 
 stretched her arms out to the casement. 
 
 " I come, dear lad," she cried. " There's a laverock 
 in the blue, and harebells go a-nodding on the Brigg o' 
 Tryst, and ' 
 
 She had done her task, and Bathsheba bound up the 
 loosened jaw. Without, the dawn grew redder and more 
 red, and all about the house there was a whimpering, as 
 of a dog left out-o' -doors upon a winter's night. 
 
 And so the heir of the Ratcliffes came home to the 
 Black House, and took up in infancy a task which grown 
 men might have shirked. Yet for the moment he could 
 do naught but cry and whimper in Bathsheba's ready arms.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 AS THE TREE GROWS 
 
 THE years went by at Black House, which frowned as 
 heavily at sky and sullen moor as did Lonesome Pool 
 itself. The feud was old, the moor was older still ; they 
 had too often watched men grow to manhood, too often 
 watched them fight through their prime and reach the limit 
 of their days, to take note of the lull in the strife 'twixt 
 Wayne and Ratcliffe. It was as if the struggle had ceased 
 for a night, an hour, and the heath had never known 
 impatience. 
 
 How should it ? Under its peat lay forests, laid low 
 these scores of centuries ; under these again lay peat, 
 and older forests hid their blackened timber underneath. 
 Each tree had been a sapling once, and the moor had reared 
 it against wind and weather ; she was an old, old mother, 
 this heath with the old, lined face, and it was a little thing 
 to her that one of her men-children had waited twenty 
 years before he could take up the burden of the feud. 
 Twenty years was a moment to the moor, who watched for 
 renewal of the strife, yet waited till the feud was ripe. 
 
 To Bathsheba and to Joseph, her goodman the years 
 were full of work, anxiety, and they seemed long in the 
 passing, though short in the retrospect now that young 
 Ratcliffe stood on the edge of manhood. He was heir, 
 not to Wildwater alone, but to all the Ratcliffe lands which 
 the Waynes, asking no man's seal or sanction, had claimed 
 as the spoils of fight ; he had the feud to carry on, the lands 
 to recover ; truly, it had been no easy task to nurse him 
 through the ills of childhood, to teach his body hardships 
 and the sense of danger, when danger and hardship might 
 
 14
 
 As the Tree Grows 
 
 at any moment speed him on that journey to the grave 
 which so many of his kin had travelled. They were simple 
 folk, and simply born, these foster-parents of the master, 
 though each was of a Ratcliffe father ; and to one who 
 knew little of the wild, red-headed clan which had lived 
 within the wilderness it would have seemed a task beyond 
 their courage, beyond their power, to bring the last-born 
 of the race to manhood. Yet to them it was a simple 
 thing, a duty measured by the calls of each new day. They 
 had married because Joseph was a foster-brother to the 
 boy's father, and Bathsheba his mother's foster-sister ; 
 and the same quiet acceptance of family duty stood by 
 them through the years. They had their faith, moreover, 
 and the poetry of their lives was all wrapped up in looking 
 forward to the day when the feud should wake again from 
 sleep, and the Waynes go down like sheep before the shearer. 
 
 There was but one lad to do the work. To a faith less 
 deep, less simple the issue showed fore-determined, as if 
 the Wayne star blazed too high for any man to reach. 
 To Joseph and Bathsheba it seemed otherwise. Had not 
 the Dog howled and whimpered on the night when Mistress 
 Ratcliffe came to lay down her burden in the Red Room 
 overhead ? The Dog told only of disaster for the Waynes, 
 and his rede was final to Bathsheba and Joseph. 
 
 Had faith failed Bathsheba at times say, when she 
 was wearied out with churning and the like there was 
 another force to keep her spirit quick. By the Lean Man 
 she had sworn to guard the boy, and the Lean Man, dead 
 now these twenty years, was shorn of none of his old 
 power nay, rather, he had gained, since here and there 
 belated folk had seen him, grim and lean, ride up and 
 down the moorland ways, with his sword-arm hanging 
 palsied by his side, with his face scarred red by fire, with 
 the unalterable, bright eyes that had been his in life. 
 Bathsheba feared little in this world ; but she dreaded the 
 Lean Man and his curse. 
 
 And so the heir had grown to manhood, fed by rough 
 food and rougher tales of battle. If the twenty years 
 
 15
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 had seemed long in passing to his guardians, they had been 
 longer still to him ; for he was a child of destiny, and 
 destiny is no soft mother. Bathsheba did not know, nor 
 did her goodman, how hard the years had been to the boy 
 whom they had named Red Ratcliffe, in memory of a kins- 
 man of his own. They did not know though Bathsheba, 
 remembering the look in his eyes when he was but a few 
 hours old, must now and then have guessed it they did 
 not know how full his boy's life had been of the things 
 of manhood. When the house was quiet, and the peats 
 below-stairs fell grey and dumb to sleep, the boy lay on 
 his bed, with ears wide open to the wind that roared, or 
 whined, or whistled through the casement ; he saw strange 
 pictures of strong men drawing blood from one another ; 
 he was at one moment hot with the ecstasy of fight, at 
 another weak with pain ; this was the tale of the months 
 when he had lain unborn, when the feud had reddened 
 about the moor, and his mother had told him, not knowing 
 that she told, the tale of fight and death. Most of all, 
 he had suffered by reason of a nameless terror that took 
 him unawares by night ; it had no meaning, for in the 
 world of action he did not know the face of dread ; yet it 
 held a shame that stung him stung him, while he lay half 
 palsied on the bed, his eyes shut close against the things 
 he feared to see. This, too, was his mother's legacy, and 
 the things he feared the maddening things, which never 
 showed their faces were the ghouls, the stealthy journey- 
 ings of the Dog, the treacherous dangers of the bogs and 
 marshes, which had met Mistress Ratcliffe on her journey 
 to the child-bearing at Lonesome Pool. He did not know 
 the cause of these blind terrors, that shamed his growing 
 years ; and it may be that, because he fought them blindly, 
 without solace or excuse, he profited in soul, and learned 
 to trust no man's credit, to judge no man's disrepute. As 
 a ten-year lad he knew the pang of fear and fear's peculiar 
 shame, and neither Bathsheba nor Joseph Joseph, with 
 his skill in sword-craft could teach him a sterner lesson 
 for the future ; for in the mastery of fear lies a peculiar 
 
 16
 
 As the Tree Grows 
 
 strength denied to those if any such there be who 
 through their days walk unafraid. 
 
 There was a matter that puzzled Bathsheba. A Rat- 
 cliffe to the core at most times quick to act, quick to do 
 what lay to his hand at other times the boy would leave 
 Black House for days, would sleep among the heather, 
 would return without a word of explanation or excuse. 
 
 " There have been few dreamers in the family," sighed 
 Bathsheba, each time that he returned. " Lord grant 
 he gets into mischief at these times does aught a lad 
 may do, save dream. Did not his mother give him strength 
 enough ? Then what ails the lad to go loitering like a 
 want- wit when the moon's at full ? " 
 
 " Leave the lad to his ways," Joseph would reply, in 
 his deep, slow tones. " He fears neither man nor devil, 
 and the Waynes will know of him before the tale is told 
 to its last end." 
 
 Yet did not the boy fear ? It was when his dreads lay 
 heaviest on him that he sought solitude ; and under the 
 winking stars, the grave, impassive sky, he fought his 
 battles with the unseen foe. And each battle was a victory 
 and a strengthening, teaching him to meet the future. 
 
 And so Red Ratcliffe grew to his splendid manhood, fed 
 by the wind, by toil and sport, and tales of grievous feud. 
 From dawn to dusk he was astir, now helping Joseph to 
 till the scanty fields, now breaking-in a new horse or 
 hawking in the marshes where the wild geese, the ducks and 
 widgeons and slant-flighted snipe had dwelling, now 
 testing his growing muscles in bouts of quarter-staff, in 
 sword-play, in swinging of the long-hafted axe which was 
 one day to drip red as his own red, close-cropped hair. 
 And Joseph watched his height increase by steady inches, 
 his chest grow deep and wide, his arms attain the supple 
 girth which reminded him always of the branches of a well- 
 grown sycamore. 
 
 " There was never a Wayne of them all to match him," 
 he said one night to Bathsheba. " The lad's but twenty 
 of his years as yet, and he's brawnier by the half than me." 
 B 17
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " His mother would be proud," said Bathsheba, faithful 
 always to the one great love of her life. For Joseph, 
 dear from long communion, had seldom reached the corner 
 of her heart where dead Mistress Ratcliffe held pride of 
 place. 
 
 An hour later, as it chanced, Red Ratcliffe stamped his 
 way into the house, and called for supper. Simple as their 
 life was, and sincere the comradeship between the boy 
 and his foster-parents, neither he nor they forgot that he 
 was the heir ; nay, it pleased Bathsheba to find that now 
 and then he gave his orders with the quick, half-insolent 
 aloofness that had always marked the Ratcliffe men-folk. 
 At twenty, so far as taking his rightful mastery was con- 
 cerned, he was a man full-grown. 
 
 Yet after supper on this night, as on many others 
 he carried his flagon of ale into the kitchen, where Bath- 
 sheba's oat-bread hung drying from the creel and the smell 
 of new-baked loaves mixed pleasantly with the fragrance 
 of the peat-fire. He sat him down, moreover, in the 
 hooded chimney-chair which was sacred to his use, and 
 stretched his big legs out towards the fire-glow. 
 
 " I met a lass on the moor just now," he said ; and it 
 was the boy in him, not the man, who spoke, showing his 
 wish to talk of a new, strong note that had come to un- 
 settle the usual order of his days. 
 
 Old Joseph smiled across at him ; but Bathsheba 
 thrust out her lower lip, for she distrusted her own sex, 
 as being harmless at the best, and, at the worst, a menace 
 to such work as lay ready to Red Ratcliffe' s hand. 
 
 " There's more bilberries than lasses grow nigh to 
 Lonesome Pool," chuckled Joseph. " Where did you find 
 her, master ? " 
 
 " Over beyond Wildwater House. I rode there on the 
 black mare, as I've done once in the week since you first 
 took me there, Joseph, and showed me the blackened 
 walls, and bade me count the dead men crying on me to 
 avenge them." 
 
 " Ay, ay, I took you there," said Joseph. " There's 
 
 18
 
 As the Tree Grows 
 
 never a fallen stone but calls to you, lad ; and the timber- 
 beams you saw lying yonder, with twenty years of weather- 
 rot in them they're quiet enough, you'd think, and yet 
 they talk oh, ay, they talk, if you stoop low enough to 
 hearken. Here the Lean Man died unsatisfied, they're 
 saying, and yonder by the empty hearth your father 
 dropped with a sword-cut in his side. Talk ? There's 
 not a stone nor splintered rafter but has its message for 
 you." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe nodded gravely over his flagon. Such 
 matters were the usual business of his life to him, as to 
 Bathsheba and Joseph. This talk of feud, of vengeance 
 sure to come, did not disturb the homely warmth of the 
 fireside, did not seem harsh or any way unwonted amid 
 the fragrance of the new-baked loaves and all the orderly, 
 quiet snugness which told of Bathsheba's good house- 
 wifery. For the one fine reality in life to these three 
 dwellers in the wilds, the one work more urgent than 
 tilling of the land for necessary food, was the quarrel which 
 had flamed and dwindled and burst forth again through 
 the long generations ; and so they talked, as people do at 
 eveningtide, gravely, reflectively, with scarce a sign of the 
 passion and heart-zeal that lay underneath. A child of 
 destiny was the boy ; and foster-parents of his destiny 
 were Joseph and Bathsheba ; and the churn moved at 
 Black House, and the plough went forward, and the 
 swelling com was garnered, all to the one end. Not by 
 tranquil toil and tranquil after-rest did they seek peace ; 
 the long-hafted axe, which was growing to fit the master's 
 hand so snugly, was to them the symbol of life's work, 
 and the downfall of the Waynes the only recompense they 
 sought for toil. 
 
 It was inevitably so. Did not Black House and Lone- 
 some Pool, and all the shuddering wastes of heath that shut 
 them in, nurse sedulously the unforgotten quarrel with the 
 Waynes ? Had not the grandfathers of the folk ay, and 
 their grandfathers before them learned from their cradles 
 a simple and peculiar gospel, embodied in the motto 
 
 19
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " We hate, we kill " ? And the dignity that settles with 
 the years on all strong and single-hearted passions lay now 
 upon these three, so like and yet so unlike, who sat beside 
 the peats and moved in talk about that future which 
 showed naught as yet save danger, blows, and need of 
 constant watchfulness. 
 
 To-night, however, the boy had sounded a fresh note, 
 and Bathsheba, after listening to her husband for awhile, 
 gave way for once to curiosity. 
 
 " This lass that you met upon the moor. What fashion 
 was she of ? " she asked. 
 
 A change crept slowly over Red Ratcliffe's face, over 
 the haunted eyes which seemed for ever to be seeing visions 
 beyond his neighbour's ken. 
 
 " Of what fashion was she ? " he echoed softly. "I 
 could not tell you, save that the moor seemed full of sun, 
 though the day was grey as an old dog's coat before she 
 came." 
 
 "Ah!" murmured Joseph, and chuckled grimly to 
 himself. 
 
 " Your mother was no dreamer ! " snapped Bathsheba, 
 stung into unwonted disrespect. " Her hair was golden, 
 I take it ; well, there have been lasses with gold hair 
 before, and will be again but 'tis no colour for a man to 
 trust." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe scarcely heard her. He was puzzled by 
 the throng of gentle thoughts that came to him. 
 
 " Ay, 'twas gold," he answered, in the same quiet voice, 
 " gold as a corn-stock in September, and the wind ran in 
 and out and played with it." 
 
 " The wind had naught better to do, likely. 'Tis wind's 
 work to play with a lass's hair but not a man's." 
 
 Old Joseph glanced at her, shrewdly and with a sort of 
 friendly malice ; and Bathsheba faltered in her sternness, 
 for the look said plainly, " Hast forgotten, lass, the days 
 when our own sap ran young ? " 
 
 " What did she seek so far across the moor ? " she went 
 on, with more kindliness. " It was never at Wildwater, 
 
 20
 
 As the Tree Grows 
 
 surely, that you met her? We may be dead and gone, 
 the most of us Ratcliffes, but there are boggarts enough 
 at the old house, I should have said, to scare yond Marsh- 
 cotes folk away." 
 
 " It was half between Marshcotes and Wildwater I met 
 her, Bathsheba. I had ridden out to catch a glimpse of 
 the home where Shameless Wayne lives high, and drinks 
 deep, and waits for the coming of Judgment." 
 
 " 'Twas unwise," growled Joseph. " Have I not 
 warned you, lad, to keep apart and hidden as well as 
 may be until your manhood comes on you ? " 
 
 " The Waynes would not know me if I fell in with one 
 or another of them." 
 
 " They would know the colour of your hair. 'Tis as 
 good as wearing ' Ratcliffe ' written across your forehead 
 to carry such a ruddy head as yours." 
 
 " Ah, well, I met neither man nor woman, as it happened, 
 Joseph, save this one maid." 
 
 " You talked with her ? " said Bathsheba jealously. 
 
 " She asked her road to Marshcotes, and I told her. 
 That was all, for my speech came slowly when I most 
 wanted it." 
 
 Again old Joseph chuckled. The sobriety with which 
 the boy approached his first subservience to a lass's power, 
 his puzzled, dreamy air, were full of a dry humour for this 
 man who found few such gleams to light his path. To be 
 sure, the youngster had been tongue-tied ; and, to be sure, 
 he had longed to set her on the way to Marshcotes, and had 
 stood halting till too late ; he would learn more adroitness 
 in such matters by-and-by, when he found time to step 
 aside from battle and to take his ease. 
 
 " Tall, was she, and slender as a rush ? " asked Bath- 
 sheba. 
 
 " Ay, tall and slender, and the sky was in her eyes." 
 
 " Humph ! 'Twill be the old parson's lass over at Marsh- 
 cotes. I've heard of her, though 'tis little news comes 
 down the wind to Lonesome Pool. Reared in the Low 
 Country, they say, because Marshcotes winds were over- 
 
 ai
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 cold for her, and Marshcotes folk a thought too rough. 
 Hoity-toity ! 'Twould do such maidens good to be wakened 
 at the mid of night, as I have been, and to run down in 
 what gear they wore, or lacked, to find the sword-blades 
 dripping, and to take their share of fighting. Look ye, lad, 
 I've given my milk to you, and I've weaned you, and I've 
 reared you to as sound a piece of flesh and blood as ever 
 walked the moor. Is it naught you owe to me ? " 
 
 " I know my debts every one of them, to a Wayne or 
 to a Ratcliffe and I will pay them all one day," said the 
 boy, with a quiet dignity beyond his years. 
 
 " Then hearken to me now. Leave gold hair alone ; 
 'tis soft to handle and 'tis sweet to see, but it doesn't fit 
 with the work that lies before you, lad of mine." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe did not answer, but got to his feet, and went 
 out moodily into the hall, where the full moon, shining 
 through the great window at the southward end, made 
 wondrous patterns, grey shadows traced on a blue ground, 
 across the floor. For he knew in his heart that the feud- 
 love, nourished through these twenty years, had grown 
 blurred for awhile since the coming of the stranger-lassie ; 
 and the knowledge brought a keen disquiet, since in some 
 way he seemed to have been guilty of treachery. Too 
 simple of life and too hard of habit to probe into his own 
 feelings, he could but suffer at such times with a patience 
 all his own. 
 
 To-night, however, the moonlight glinted on the brave 
 blade of his axe, where it hung upon the wall ; he took it 
 down, and felt the cold, clean edge of it, and swung it 
 softly to and fro ; and he was disquieted no longer, but 
 felt his trouble leave him, as a man might do who comes 
 home weary and finds a well-loved wife awaiting him. 
 
 " A foster-mother I've had, and a foster-father," he 
 muttered, " but you are my foster-brother, bonnie blade." 
 
 His eyes were on the window-space, though still he swung 
 the axe in the blue light of the moon ; and on the sudden 
 his right arm and his left dropped to his side. Slow beads 
 of sweat came out upon his face. Thrice haunted the boy 
 
 22
 
 As the Tree Grows 
 
 looked, as he stood and watched the filmy figure take 
 shape this side the moonlit window. From the kitchen 
 came old Joseph's voice, deep and slow, and Bathsheba's 
 quick tones ; he heard them as in a dream, but the presence 
 that kept him company here in the silent hall was real as 
 the four walls. 
 
 Just the tall figure of a man, lean almost to deformity, 
 with one hand hanging useless at his side and a cere-cloth 
 round his haggard jaws. That was the lad's companion 
 one seen before, but never quite so palpably as now. Red 
 Ratcliffe could scarce remember the time, indeed, when 
 the first faint shadow of the phantom was not with him ; 
 as his strength grew, so this other-world companion had 
 grown in clearness ; it seemed that Ratcliffe's body-vigour 
 threw a light, as it were, upon the place of ghosts, and 
 found there its counterpart in phantom clearness. Yet 
 not until to-night had he traced the full, clearoutline which, 
 from Joseph's tales and Bathsheba's, he knew to be the 
 Lean Man's of Wildwater that dread Lean Man who had 
 counterfeited death to snare the Waynes into an ambush, 
 who had died with the Brown Dog of the Waynes at his 
 throat, who had, by force of a hate that would not die, 
 come back to seek the pleasant haunts of feud, disaster, 
 and swift fight. Vtf 
 
 Ratcliffe, for one long moment, was afraid. ..Then 
 came a long moment of hesitancy, doubt, while the moon 
 shone ever on the spears and swords that lined the oaken 
 walls, while the long-hafted axe lay prone where it had 
 dropped from the boy's nerveless hands. Then came 
 the knowledge deep, sure, unalterable that the Lean 
 Man was his friend ; that the feud was soon to rise again 
 from the dead ashes of the House of Wildwater ; that the 
 presence he had feared was an ally true and staunch. 
 
 Joseph, coming from the kitchen on some errand such as 
 Bathsheba was fond of giving him, to try his patience and 
 subdue his temper, found the young master standing there 
 in the hall, a fine light in his face, and his two hands tight 
 again about the long-hafted axe. 
 
 23
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " What ails you, lad ? " he asked, coming close to the 
 other's side. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe did not hear. He was watching the Lean 
 Man fade and flicker in the moonlight, and Joseph was 
 still unreal as a dream. 
 
 " Nay, nay ! " insisted Joseph, shaking the other roughly. 
 " You're not just canny to-night, and the moon works 
 queer pranks when she's at full." 
 
 Slowly the boy came out of his long vision, and under- 
 stood that Joseph was no dream. 
 
 " Did you see him, Joseph ? " he asked simply. 
 
 Joseph followed his glance, and saw the leaded panes 
 that intervened between the rising wind and sheltered hall. 
 
 " What d'ye mean, master ? I see naught at all, save 
 the moonlight and the bright axe in your hands." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe yawned, stretching himself to his full 
 height. " Then I'll go to bed, Joseph," he said, abruptly, 
 " for I'm tired with the day's work." 
 
 Old Joseph watched him cross the hall, and nodded 
 soberly as the master turned the bend of the stairway. 
 
 " Lord ! The girth and height of him, and only twenty 
 a three month since," he murmured. " What has he seen 
 to-night, I'm wondering ? Some brave show, to judge 
 from his prideful bearing." 
 
 He turned away, mindful of the errand he had come 
 upon ; and, when that was done, he sought Bathsheba 
 in the kitchen, and told her the tale of the master's " queer, 
 unchancy look." 
 
 " ' Did you see him, Joseph ? ' quoth the lad," he finished. 
 " Yet I could see naught, though he seemed to be looking 
 at something as plain as his own face." 
 
 Bathsheba glanced at him with tolerant contempt. 
 It was odd to see the fire glamour, almost in her eyes, 
 and to find it tempered by the long habit of half despising 
 her husband's outlook upon life. Joseph was blunt as a 
 weather-beaten rock toward that unseen world behind 
 the seen which was as real to her as it was to her foster- 
 son ; and his bluntness angered her at times. 
 
 24
 
 As the Tree Grows 
 
 " Nay, you would not see him, Joseph," she answered. 
 " Not if the Dog himself came in at the doorway yonder 
 and licked your face, would you know aught save that a 
 puff of ice-cold wind had crept beneath the threshold. 
 What did master see, you ask ? I can tell you, though I 
 doubt I might as well pour water into a wide-meshed sieve. 
 He saw the Lean Man half-palsied, branded with the fire, 
 yet with his eyes bright and troublesome for troublesome 
 and quick he was in life, and so he will be to the end." 
 
 Joseph deliberately filled himself a measure of ale from 
 the round-bellied cask in the chimney-corner, and with 
 equal slowness he tasted the first creamy mouthful before 
 answering. 
 
 " The Lean Man is dead, lass, and you and I are quick. 
 The quick and the dead lie far apart, and they'll no way 
 come together till the Judgment." 
 
 " They're together always, want-wit," cried Bathsheba, 
 with sudden passion. " Mary Mother, what was it they 
 left out of you at birth, Joseph ? You've lived at Wild- 
 water and the Black House, you've heard Barguest whining 
 like a devil left out among the moorland rains to starve 
 and yet you say the ghosties are not with us." 
 
 A doubt, a fear, crossed Joseph's face. " I've heard the 
 Dog, to be sure," he said, slowly. " There's no mistaking 
 that." 
 
 "There's no mistaking, either, what came to the master 
 in the hall just now. Twas just the Lean Man he 
 saw." 
 
 " May be, and may be not," said the other sturdily. 
 " I've only your word for't, Bathsheba, and wenches 
 young or not just so young are full of whimsies." 
 
 " I saw him before supper-time. That's how I know. 
 The scar on his forehead, under the red thatch the 
 crumpled arm all was as plain as that oak-tree face of 
 yours, Joseph, and if I don't know the Lean Man at sight, 
 there's few people on the moor that do. Now, hearken, 
 for this touches you as ghost-talk never would. The feud 
 is up again the feud is up, dost hear ? and before the
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 week is out before to-morrow's morn is out, may be 
 the first of the new tale will be told." 
 
 " I'd well like to think it, Bathsheba. But I doubt. 
 Oh, ay, I was a good 'un to doubt at all times, I." 
 
 " His mother the master's mother, rest her soul ! 
 lived near to the Lean Man during those last months. 
 She knew his power, and just before she died it was he who 
 came to her, with a smile on his lips and a whispered word 
 of cheer. Does that count for naught ? Does the master 
 does any lad walk free of the mother who bore him, 
 dead though she be ? Nay, I think not ; we're childless, 
 Joseph, thee and me we've had but the one, and he died 
 at the day's end or you'd have learned." 
 
 " May be, may be. That little lad of ours brought queer 
 thoughts to me, Bathsheba, but I'd forgotten them." 
 
 " Remember, then ! Tis no time for doubts, lad. 
 The feud is up, I tell thee, and we need friends like the 
 Lean Man. When he came to the dead mistress, when he 
 came just now to the master, it was with the self -same 
 promise aid against these cursed Waynes, against their 
 evil Dog." 
 
 Joseph answered nothing for a while. Faintly the 
 ghost-world peopling all the lands about Black House 
 was caUing him, asking faith behind the blows which he 
 was ready to give or take in honour of the Ratcliffe name. 
 Dimly he understood that faith is the reality, that sword- 
 skill and a knotty arm are but its ministers. As if to 
 strengthen the new glimmering of faith, the wind got up 
 with a peevish restlessness that Bathsheba knew well, and 
 from the moor there came a whine a dog's whine, lonely 
 and afraid. 
 
 " Hark ! " she whispered. " Barguest is afraid but 
 the Lean Man is not." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe heard the Dog's note, too, as he lay abed. 
 It brought the brightness of the long-hafted hatchet to 
 his mind, and half between sleep and waking he turned 
 and muttered, " There's work to be done to-morrow." 
 
 Bathsheba, meanwhile, had lost her passion, and was 
 
 26
 
 As the Tree Grows 
 
 bustling about the kitchen with all the whimsical alertness 
 of the housewife who makes needless work at bed- time. 
 Her thoughts were running now, not upon the Lean Man, 
 but upon the lass with corn-ripe hair who had set the 
 master's wits astray this afternoon. 
 
 " She'll come into his life again, and yet again. Could 
 not the Lean Man keep these pests, the women-folk, away?" 
 she grumbled. 
 
 27
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE AXE WITH THE LONG HAFT 
 
 THE morrow dawned as if the light September mists, with 
 a crisp breeze to stir them into fantastic shapes, held some 
 happy augury of the day's well-being hidden under their 
 frail cloak. The dawn grew full, and far-off Pendle Hill 
 crept, big and fair to look upon, from out the scattered 
 haze ; yet still Red Ratcliffe slept, nor did he turn and 
 mutter restlessly, as men do who know, even in their 
 sleep, that their wonted waking-time is past. The sun, 
 a fiery red not long ago, was gold as buttercups in June, 
 and made wide, level pathways through the lingering 
 thickets of the mist ; yet still the lad slept on ; it seemed 
 he knew the length of the day's work to come, and would 
 not stir till he had fed his strength with a full meal of 
 sleep. 
 
 At last the sun got round to the wide window-space, 
 with its casement fastened back to let the moor-air fill 
 the room perpetually. Its beams fell on the sleeper's 
 eyelids, and in a moment he was wide awake and on his 
 feet. Just the one stretch he gave, then slipped into his 
 clothes, and ran down the stair, calling for Joseph as he 
 went. 
 
 " Here, master, here ! " came the other's voice from the 
 kitchen. " I was astir two hours agone. You'll be lateish 
 for Colne market if ye're not, ye may give me a Wayne 
 name, and hang me from the nighest tree." 
 
 " I shall be in time, Joseph," said the other, in the 
 curious tone which marked his deeper moods. " 'Tis 
 neither to sell a cow nor to buy one that I ride to Colne 
 to-day." 
 
 28
 
 The Axe with the Long Haft 
 
 Joseph came out into the hall, though from the distant 
 mistals he could hear Bathsheba calling him. 
 
 " I ride with you to-day," he said ; " the Dog was baying 
 all last night, and, though I don't hold with such matters, 
 'tis well to be on the safe side." 
 
 " I ride alone," Red Ratcliffe answered curtly. " There's 
 work for you on the farm, and your place is here." 
 
 " Then give up this market-day, lad. To be sure, the 
 Waynes find their markets on the Halifax and Bradforth 
 side, and leave Lancashire alone but still 'tis not so 
 far from Marshcotes out to Colne, and one, or two, or three 
 of them might well take it into their pride-sick heads to 
 buy a horse in a fresh market." 
 
 " I said I would go, and go I will. You, I said, would 
 stay and mind the farm, Joseph, and stay you will. 
 I am master here, and I have finished." 
 
 Old Joseph, fearful as he was lest this strong, young life, 
 whose blossom-time he had guarded so sedulously against 
 the coming time of fruit, should be cut off Joseph could 
 not but warm to the downright fashion of the lad. That 
 terse " I have finished " a common trick of the master's 
 when enforcing his authority with words rang straight and 
 true as the old motto of " We hate, we kill." 
 
 " Ay, master, ay," he growled, " but take the great 
 axe with you." 
 
 " Do I ever fail ? Do they not laugh at me, these folk 
 I meet at market, because I cling to the old fashion, and 
 carry foster-brother instead of their new-fangled swords ? " 
 
 His eyes were on the axe, where it hung, between the 
 armour, pikes, and quarter-staves upon the wall. 
 
 " You asked me yesternight if I saw him standing at 
 the window yonder ? " said Joseph, after a silence. " Was 
 it the Lean Man you saw ? " 
 
 " To be sure I see his shadow now beneath the axe." 
 
 He took the weapon down and fingered the keen edge 
 of it. There was a sombre glory round about the lad 
 as he stood there in the shadowed silence of the hall ; to- 
 day at least he knew no fear, and at his heart there was a 
 
 29
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 ruddy glow, such as the singing of dead fighting ballads 
 rouses in days when peace has ousted fighting altogether. 
 
 " What's come to your face, master ? " cried Joseph, 
 moving back a pace or two. " The Lord knows I look for 
 Judgment when times are ripe, but there's a gulf fixed 
 now 'twixt quick and dead, as I told Bathsheba awhile 
 since." 
 
 " What should have come to my face ? " laughed 
 Ratcliffe but the laugh was quiet and grave. " Thou'rt 
 a dreamer, Joseph, after all, and I thought thee a plain 
 man of thy hands." 
 
 " I was born so, and I hope to die no less. Yet ay, 
 and yet by the Dog, I saw the Lean Man's look in your 
 eyes just now, and round about your jaw, and in the 
 wideness of those horse's nostrils of yours. He was lean 
 as a willow, and you're thick as an oak yet there it was, 
 a likeness plain for any man to see." 
 
 The boy's nostrils, sensitive indeed and quick to widen 
 as a horse's, quivered with a fine alertness. 
 
 " Shall I tell thee the meaning of the riddle, Joseph ? " 
 he said. " The feud was in his blood, and the feud's in 
 mine ; the axe was his once, in the days before he learned 
 to love a sword, and now 'tis mine ; he spent his life in 
 waking to the next swift fight, and I have waked to my first 
 battle. D'ye wonder that I have borrowed something of 
 his look ? Now, Joseph," he broke off, " have you had 
 your swim, or did you wait for me ? " 
 
 " Waited, to be sure. Master and man must follow 
 the same rule, though I've been itching for the water these 
 two hours past." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe hung the axe again upon its nail, and 
 together he and Joseph went out into the sunlight. The 
 breeze was merry from the west ; the moor was one sweet 
 maze of purple heather merging into red-brown beds of 
 peat ; even Lonesome Pool showed fairer than its wont, 
 and let the wind play antics with its waters. It was here 
 that, in winter-cold or summer- warmth, the lad and 
 Joseph took their morning bath. Thrice out to the far 
 
 3
 
 The Axe with the Long Haft 
 
 bank, and thrice home again that was one of the daily 
 exercises which, almost from his babyhood, had stiffened 
 Red Ratcliffe's body for the coming years. And now the 
 first of the fighting days was here, unless the Dog and the 
 Lean Man and his own heart were liars all ; and now, 
 as of old, he said his morning prayer the prayer for 
 strength to battle as he plunged into the Pool. 
 
 " Winter has stroked the water already," gasped Joseph. 
 
 "Ay, 'tis cold," laughed Red Ratcliffe. "Yet the 
 warmth and tingle of it through a body's body, Joseph ! " 
 
 " Tingle ? Ay, master ! But warmth well, 'tis the 
 last lap home, and I for one am glad of it. I'm growing 
 old, lad, and that's no welcome thought for any man." 
 
 " You'll grow young by-and-by," laughed the other, as 
 they scrambled to the bank. " Bide till the Bloody Spear 
 goes round, Joseph, and see if you're not a lad again." 
 
 Following their wonted custom, they left their wearing- 
 gear at the water's edge, and ran across the heath and 
 back again till they were dry and glowing. Even Joseph 
 had no quarrel with the cold when they were clothed 
 again, and his wits, moving more quickly now, returned 
 to the other's mention of the Bloody Spear. 
 
 " Who will you send the Spear to, master ? " he asked, 
 as they moved briskly up toward the house. " The 
 Wildwater Ratcliffes all save you are dead ; the Rat- 
 cliffes who dwelt once at Wuthrums are dead, too ; you 
 stand the male child of the race, master, and there's none 
 to see or know the Spear if so you rode with it." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe halted in his stride, and stared at Joseph. 
 " By the Heart, I never once took that view of it," he 
 cried, " though you bred me to the knowledge that we stood 
 alone, just you and I. Always the thought came to me, 
 Joseph, ' The Red Spear will go round ' and even now 
 I cling to that old picture of the riding man, the sweating 
 horse, the dripping Spear held high aloft." 
 
 " You were ever one for pictures, master. I know little 
 myself, save what I see with my two eyes." 
 
 " What you see, you see, Joseph, and what I see, I see. 
 
 3'
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 And, though we think there's never a Ratcliffe left alive 
 beside us two, I tell you the Spear will go mad again in 
 the old, good way, and the rider will gallop till he drops 
 beside his horse, and the clansmen will come in by twos, 
 and threes, and fours. I know it, Joseph and now for 
 breakfast, for I'm almost past it." 
 
 Once again was Joseph puzzled, as he moved about the 
 table spread in the main hall and waited on his master 
 puzzled to explain the sharp contrasts in Red Ratcliffe's 
 character. Who would count him a dreamer who saw him 
 now, ruddy and aglow, as he ate a breakfast likelier for 
 two men than for one lad scarce fully grown ? Yet a 
 moment since he had talked darkly of the Feud Spear, 
 and had worn that look of his which seemed to pierce 
 beyond the Veil. 
 
 ' Tis the same with Bathsheba, just," thought Joseph. 
 " 'Tis so, I take it, with all folk who have the Sight. Yet 
 'tis unchancy queer to see how sharp, and brisk to do, and 
 ready to pick a fault, both the wife and the young master 
 can be time and time. Lad," he cried, breaking short his 
 musings on the sudden, " you will have a care of yourself 
 to-day ? Lord knows it may be fancy, and us a pack of 
 fools to think that aught is going to happen at Colne market, 
 but still but still " 
 
 Red Ratcliffe finished his tankard of small-ale, stretched 
 himself as he had done on first awaking, in a free, reckless 
 fashion that was all his own, and laughed in Joseph's face 
 with something near akin to gaiety. 
 
 " There's a fine proverb, Joseph," he said. " What 
 will be, will be, and I can hear the long axe singing to itself 
 up yonder on the wall." 
 
 Not lightly had he named the axe his foster-brother. 
 As he took it in his hands, ready for the fencing-bout 
 which was as usual a beginning to his day as the swim 
 across the Pool, it was plain, not only that he knew and 
 loved it, but that the axe itself had learned from long 
 association with its master a dumb, instinctive knowledge 
 of his moods, as a favourite horse or dog might do. So 
 
 32
 
 The Axe with the Long Haft 
 
 snug it lay within his hands, so nicely balanced in spite 
 of its five-foot length of haft, so quietly ready, so it seemed, 
 to swing in wide and ever-quickening circles round Red 
 Ratcliffe's head. Bathsheba was fanciful, to be sure, 
 and cherished the belief that there was a strong soul 
 imprisoned in its steel and wood ; yet even Joseph held 
 the weapon in awe, for strange tales were told of it in days 
 gone by. 
 
 The old man and the young stood facing each other, 
 ready for the bout ; and Joseph's weapon was a sword, 
 neither long nor short, neither broad nor narrow in the 
 blade, such as were in favour now with all the gentry 
 of the moorside. It was for such a fighting tool as 
 Joseph's that the Lean Man, many and many a year 
 ago, had discarded the great axe to his undoing, so 
 folk said. 
 
 To and fro the two of them moved, the sword striving 
 constantly to get through the axe's guard, and failing 
 constantly to reach beyond that slender-looking haft. 
 Not to-day, not yesterday, not in a year of yesterdays, 
 had Red Ratcliffe learned to parry so adroitly with his 
 weapon ; he knew each trick of sword-play now, had taught 
 the axe to know it, and the two of them were ready, as if 
 they had been parts of one united body, to parry first 
 and afterwards to strike. Thrice Red Ratcliffe had 
 Joseph at his mercy this morning ; thrice the axe swung 
 high above the elder man ; thrice, with the gentle laugh 
 of one who knows his power, the lad let his blade slip 
 harmlessly to ground. 
 
 " Never heed, Joseph," he cried. " 'Twas you who 
 taught me every trick of it, and surely you'll not grumble 
 if I prove a scholar to your liking." 
 
 " Grumble ? Nay, nay, master, nay. I may be dull, 
 as Bathsheba will tell you, but I've had my visions, too, 
 since you were big enough to leave your cradle. When it 
 comes to steel and a man's sinews when I've got food to 
 dream on, as a man might say there's none to beat me 
 at the lookiug-forward. How oft have I seen you, lad, 
 
 c 33
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 with your axe swung high as it was a moment since, and a 
 Wayne head under it instead of mine. Swish ! The sweet 
 sound of it as it comes down 'tis a heavy axe and the 
 blind rolling in the mire of him you strike it heartens me 
 like Spring a-coming, laddie." 
 
 Joseph did but claim his due, and this morning, with the 
 last night's to-and-froing of the ghosts, with the present 
 over-brooding sense of battle to come, he was a dreamer 
 with the best of them. Slow he might be in certain ways, 
 but it was he who had had the wit to understand the axe's 
 real power in an age when sword-skill was the only vogue. 
 This blade with the slim-looking haft had been terrible, 
 by reason of its length and weight, when axes were proper 
 weapons of the feud ; to-day, when the uses of a hatchet 
 were forgotten quite, it must surely prove invincible ; 
 and it was Joseph who had foreseen this, when, twenty 
 years ago, an heir was born to the Ratcliffes and entrusted 
 to Bathsheba's keeping ; it was he who, true to his faith 
 throughout those twenty years, had taught the youngster, 
 almost as soon as he could lift it, to treat the big axe as a 
 foster-brother. Fighting had been the true love of Joseph's 
 life before the sad day came when the feud-flames were 
 quenched for awhile ; and with the skill of a good leader 
 he had laid his plans for the success of this one lad who had 
 such heavy odds to meet. Not by usual warfare would 
 the coming fights be won ; it was the weak against the 
 strong, and by surprises, quickness of attack, would Red 
 Ratcliffe force his way. The long axe was potent in 
 surprises ; within that slim and dainty-moulded haft of 
 rowan-wood was a straight steel bar, giving weight where 
 little weight was looked for, making the dint of swords 
 of little moment. A heavy sword might cut clean through 
 the wood of rowan, hard as it was ; but it could only jar 
 against, and shudder back from, the steel beneath. Joseph 
 trusted " big foster-brother," and his faith had shrewdest 
 sense to back it. 
 
 They finished their quick bout, and Red Ratcliffe donned 
 his coat again. 
 
 34
 
 The Axe with the Long Haft 
 
 " Saddle the roanTstallion, Joseph. Tis time I started 
 for Colne market." 
 
 Joseph went out to do the master's bidding, while 
 Ratcliffe stayed to play with foster-brother. Bathsheba, 
 her sleeves to her elbows, and flour on both her strong, 
 red arms, came fresh from rolling out the dough for an 
 apple-pasty, and found the master standing there in the 
 hall. Without a word she took the weapon from him and 
 ran her fingers down the handle ; and then she smiled, 
 the dread smile of a woman cradled in the feud. 
 
 " Joseph was sick to fare with you to-day, and I was sick 
 to let him," she said, after a long silence. " Yet just now, 
 when he came to me in the kitchen, and said you had 
 bidden him mind the farm instead, my heart rose up for 
 gladness. 'Tis you just you, my bonnie bairn, who'll 
 blow the feud-fires into flame again. I've given you my 
 milk, and your mother gave her life for you, and there's 
 a Lord God of the moor who knows the price of women's 
 gifts. Up to the saddle, lad, and tell me before parting 
 what you look to find at Colne." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe laughed. 
 
 " 'Tis market-day, Bathsheba. We've no kine ready 
 for killing here at Black House, and you said awhile since 
 that you longed to get forward with the curing of the 
 winter's meat. Well, it may be I shall find a beast or two 
 at Colne, just ready for the slaughtering." 
 
 The grim stress and storm of it this smiling talk of 
 slaughter, between a lad scarce grown and the foster-mother 
 who had done all a mother could, save bear him was lost 
 in the fine passion of the two. They spoke of killing, 
 not for killing's sake, but as a means, usual and to-be- 
 belauded, to the end of rearing up the House of Ratcliffe 
 once again. 
 
 " Go, bonnie lad, and take the Lean Man at your stirrup," 
 said Bathsheba, hearing the horse at the door. 
 
 The boy stooped, and kissed her an unwonted tender- 
 ness then took the axe, slipped it into the leathern 
 holster of the saddle, and leaped to back. 
 
 35
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " God-speed," mumbled Joseph, as he let the horse have 
 his head. 
 
 " Ay, surely," answered the lad, and set off at a canter 
 along that winding four-foot path which was the only road 
 of safety between the marshes and the shifting bogs. 
 
 ' Tis easier for you than me, lad," said Joseph, watching 
 the retreating figure. " You have the ride, and the fight 
 and the speed of it while I am left to eat my heart out, 
 wondering how it fares with you. Yet there are fools 
 who say that the stay-at-homes have all the easiest of it." 
 
 He hinted something of his thoughts to Bathsheba, 
 who was busy once more with her apple-pasties. 
 
 " Oh, you're fit to rear kine and clover-grass, Joseph," 
 snapped the goodwife, " but the Lord gave you no other 
 gifts, I'm thinking. By the Rood, why canst not do as 
 I am doing follow thy wonted work and know that the 
 years of peace have not gone by for naught, and earn a 
 pleasant face to greet the master with when he comes 
 home from the killing ? " 
 
 And Joseph slunk away, to plough a four-acre field for 
 the autumn-sowing of black oats. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe, meanwhile, rode across the wastes of 
 Lonesome Moor, and his eyes were on the glory of this 
 sterile land. He had known little of women nothing of 
 young girls, save of the lass, with hair as gold as a September 
 dawn, who had stricken him to dumbness yesterday 
 and, because the men-folk of this world must have a 
 glamour of some sort to round the rough edges of their 
 lives, he had taken the moor for wife before he was of age 
 to think of usual wedlock. Reared in solitude, with 
 thoughts that were older and deeper than his years, he had 
 learned to seek the tenderness, the dread, majestic beauty, 
 that underlay the wilderness. Not in the blackest of the 
 winter-time, not in the peevish days of early spring, was 
 she less than beautiful to him, this heath with her cruel 
 bogs, her sterile peat, her ling that flowered to no useful 
 harvest. The^eath was his wife, and claimed from him 
 a loving- tenderness which neither Bathsheba's fostering 
 
 36
 
 The Axe with the Long Haft 
 
 nor Mistress Ratcliffe's death at child-bearing could win. 
 The heath could set his pulses singing. The heath could 
 give him strength to meet his dreads and conquer them. 
 The heath, in fine, was nurturing a love which, given once 
 to a lass of flesh and blood, would mount high up toward 
 the stars. 
 
 Past Lonesome Pool he rode, and between the dangerous 
 lands that flanked the bridle-way beyond. And now the 
 width and wonder of the moor lay stretched before him 
 beneath the gold September sun. Savage and taciturn 
 she might be, this moor ; but she had her days of softer 
 beauty, and the autumn now was tender with her as a 
 bridegroom with his mate. East and west, north and south, 
 the broken ridges raked outward to the blue horizon- 
 mist, and all between lay plain to the least detail of heather- 
 patch, or clump of rushes, or breeze-blown yellow of the 
 bracken. God had mixed strange colours on his palette, 
 and had strewn them broadcast; away yonder toward 
 Marshcotes glowed a field of white-gold bents, their slim 
 stems curtseying to the wind ; out Bouldsworth way there 
 was a sea of ling, billow upon purple billow, barbarous and 
 majestic as the blood feud that had dyed the moor afore- 
 time ; here, close at the stallion's feet, as Ratcliffe rode 
 upon his way, the gorse shone butter-yellow in the sun. 
 And in between the sunlight and the glory of these broken 
 lands the peaty waters ran perpetually, with a gurgling 
 softness and a creeping stealth, singing such tales of 
 mystery as they went that he who stayed to learn their 
 tongue would surely stay for ever, hearkening to the stories 
 of the brave, dead days and caring little for the weaker 
 times that were about him. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe, free of the dangerous path by now, and 
 heading for the rough, upstanding bulk of Pendle Hill, 
 lost nothing of the fine day's message ; he was ready for 
 what awaited him at Colne, but meanwhile he was listening 
 to the moor, and thinking of the maid whom Bathsheba 
 had named the Parson's lass. What had he to do with 
 softness of this sort ? Could such as she look on without 
 
 37
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 a cry while he swung the long-hafted axe, and crashed 
 through flesh and bone ? Yet, for all that, he thought 
 much of her, and nearly missed his way through forgetting 
 that he had to guide his path by Pendle Hill. 
 
 It was just as he found the track again and leaped the 
 stone fence that bordered the bridle-way to Colne that a 
 chill came unawares upon him. And then there came 
 a sudden wind, and following that Red Ratcliffe heard the 
 patter of four feet upon the track. The stallion heard 
 it, too, and reared and whinnied, and would scarcely heed 
 the curb when Ratcliffe tried to bring him to a stand. 
 Out of the sunlight, out of the usual, grey bridle-track 
 he knew so well, a dog's shape flickered and was lost a 
 brown dog, lean of body, thick of hide, with eyes that 
 held a flame. 
 
 " There's naught to fright thee, lad," muttered Rat- 
 cliffe to his frightened beast. " Never, so Bathsheba says, 
 has the Wayne Dog shown himself to any but a Wayne, 
 and only when some danger pressed them close. What 
 does the new omen mean, lad ? For you and I have seen 
 him close. Just this, I take it that Ratcliffe is up in the 
 saddle, and Wayne is down in the mud." 
 
 He gave the stallion a flick of the spur, and straight and 
 hard they rode for Colne ; but the Brown Dog whimpered 
 down the way to Marshcotes, rousing the farm-folk in the 
 scattered hamlets as he passed, yet never heeding them. 
 No pause nor halt the Dog made till he reached old Marsh 
 House, where Shameless Wayne, head of all his folk, was 
 entertaining a great company to breakfast.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WAYNE'S SON FARES OUT 
 
 BREAKFAST ruled late these days at Marsh House. There 
 was wine upon the board in place of the simple ale that once 
 had served the older generation. About the women there 
 was a proneness toward the softer things of ornament 
 which had not been there aforetime ; among the men 
 there was a growing looseness of carriage, a constant 
 tendency to linger over wine and meat, which showed it- 
 self in slackening of the tissues. Yet, changed as they were 
 since these twenty years of peace began, it was Shameless 
 Wayne himself who stood out from them all, by reason 
 of the altered fashion of his face, his voice, his cooling 
 eagerness to seek hardship rather than wait for difficulties 
 to press in upon him. Once, in his extreme youth, he had 
 been over-fond of liquor, over-fond of riot and wild 
 pleasures ; then the feud-call had come to him, handed 
 down by the father dead before his time at a sly Ratcliffe's 
 hand ; he had answered the call, had answered it straight 
 and true, forgetting his old follies. In those days it was 
 the Ratcliffes who held the mastery, and Wayne and his 
 had had a steep, hard fight to wage before they were 
 assured of that last sweeping victory which had stricken 
 the Ratcliffes into silence for awhile. He had come well, 
 with honour and a good repute that bordered upon magical, 
 from his redemption and his battles ; they said still in 
 Marshcotes and Ling Crag that he carried a charmed life ; 
 but the years of peace had followed, and peace sits ill 
 upon the moor men always. What the farmer folk found 
 of pleasure and content in fighting barren lands to win a 
 lean and troubled harvest, this the Waynes and Ratcliffes 
 
 39
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 sought had ever sought through ploughing with the 
 sword that asks not rain, but blood, to rear its seedling 
 crops. It was in the marrow of them, gentry or simple 
 farming men ; they must have sweat and toil, must find 
 something that offered them a stern resistance, something 
 that gave them a victory to be won. 
 
 Shameless Wayne, when long ago he conquered his 
 youthful taste for devilry, when he settled, grim as an old 
 man, to meet the foe which was stronger both in numbers 
 and in guile, had stood straight to his six-foot height, 
 had given commands as one who had the right had held 
 himself, in truth, much as Red Ratcliffe did in these latter 
 days, knowing that he had the family honour to uphold 
 and a destiny to achieve. He had achieved his victory, 
 he thought, at the end of the last awful fight, which had 
 left the Lean Man dead, with Barguest's teeth upon his 
 throat, which had hacked the Ratcliffe men to pieces and 
 sent their women-folk forth wandering from the flame-lit 
 House of Wildwater. He had achieved his destiny, he 
 thought ; and yet he lived ; and so the slow years fastened 
 on him, and their touch was cold, and he sank back, from 
 very sloth, into the habits of his youth. 
 
 A fine man still he showed, as he sat at the head of the 
 long table and jested with his kinsfolk. His eyes were 
 bright, his chin was wilful and as proud as ever ; yet his 
 flesh was heavier than need be, and across his face, just 
 every now and then, there crept a look of restlessness, of 
 shame almost, as of one who was not doing a brave work in 
 the world, and knew that he was not. 
 
 His wife and she a Ratcliffe sat at the far end of the 
 board. And to the more fanciful of the Waynes it seemed 
 that the souls of the men who had died for the feud's sake 
 were heavy on the air of the old dining-hall, with its dinted 
 swords and axes on the walls ; for not one of them forgot 
 that Shameless Wayne and his wife Janet had come to- 
 gether through a sea of good men's blood. Had he not 
 taken her at the end of that last awfil fight, and carried 
 her to Marsh House, herself a willing captive, and married 
 
 40
 
 Wayne's Son fares out 
 
 her in face of the Parson's warning that sundered blood 
 was an offence in the sight of God ? They had long 
 memories, the Waynes, and to-day, as they drank their 
 host's new-fangled wines and ate their pasties of venison 
 and hare, the older heads remembered how this same 
 Parson, quiet as one of his own church mice at most times, 
 had thundered forth his disapproval of a wedlock he was 
 bound to solemnise. 
 
 Strange forces seemed at work on this September morning. 
 It was as if the purple ling, the gold and blue of the happy 
 sky, were echoes only of the joy of fight to come. Not 
 one of the Wayne men in hall not Shameless Wayne 
 himself but felt their swords move fitfully within their 
 slothful scabbards ; not one of them denied in his own 
 heart that thunder-weather was breeding under all this 
 calm ; as for the women, they did not know what ailed 
 them, and Janet's eyes sought those of Shameless Wayne 
 with the pleading of a mother for the safety of the child 
 she loved. 
 
 " By the Dog, quiet these many years," cried Wayne, 
 sick of the horror brooding over them before its time, 
 " are we going to sit like funeral-mutes because the feud 
 is dead and done with ? " 
 
 In his peevishness he had told the secret of his own 
 disquiet ; yet none noted it, for the women were busy 
 with their fears, and the men had each the same disquiet 
 at heart. 
 
 None answered him, as he drained his cup and filled it 
 once again these many once-agains to the wide brim. 
 
 " A toast ! " he cried, getting to his feet. " To Waynes 
 and Ratcliffes both ! The one house is alive to drink, the 
 other is too low in the mire to ask for aught but pity. To 
 the Ratcliffes, friends, and to the good Dog of the Waynes! " 
 
 The devilry of the toast could not be fully understood 
 by any there, save by the greybeards, who, older than 
 their host, yet owed him fealty because he was of the 
 prime blood. It was one of these who spoke, before the 
 men, awe-struck despite their liquor, had risen to their feet.
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " Lad," he said, though the man he spoke to had turned 
 forty, " lad, 'tis ill to jest with the names of enemies, who, 
 if they were treacherous, were brave. You younger 
 fools, who said twenty years ago that you had stamped 
 the Ratcliffes out of life, you did not heed, as may be I 
 did not heed, the wisdom of the fathers. No lusty race 
 is ever killed outright ; they live, and they are over- 
 numbered, and the call comes to the weak to fight the 
 strong, and there's a God somewhere that helps the weak 
 against the strong." 
 
 " Gad, here's a toast to you instead. Wayne of Cran- 
 shaw," cried his host, with a boisterous laugh. " We 
 never had a parson in the family aforetime." 
 
 The youngsters laughed, but the older men looked 
 grave ; for Wayne of Cranshaw was the Bayard of the race 
 a man as keen in sword-play as he was prone to pity 
 weakness and to love strength a man shrewd of judgment, 
 and, in the rare moments when he yielded to the bidding 
 of another world, not one to prophesy amiss concerning 
 disaster or success. To mock at Wayne of Cranshaw was 
 to mock at each individual excellence of life, and such 
 laughter boded well to none. 
 
 " I am no parson, lad," returned the other quietly. 
 " If I said more prayers, may be 'twould be the better for 
 me ; but I say few, and I have no gift of words. Only, 
 I have seen thee a true Wayne I have seen thee do such 
 feats of strength and bravery as set thy name once and 
 for all in the front of honour and it cuts me like steel 
 to see thee less than thyself at any time." 
 
 From the past there came a touch of manliness to Shame- 
 less Wayne. His brow cleared, the smile returned to his 
 fine mouth. His follies, for the moment, slipped from him 
 like a cloak that is done with. 
 
 " Wayne of Cranshaw," he said, in a voice that all might 
 hear, " I did you wrong. I have done myself wrong 
 in these last years. I would 7 that you, and not myself, 
 were head of the old race." 
 
 Janet looked up at her husband, a sudden passionate 
 
 42
 
 Way 
 
 ne's Son fares out 
 
 love and honour in her tired eyes. He caught the glance, 
 and answered it, and counted well worth while the effort 
 it had cost him to subdue his pride. And not Janet only, 
 but the youngest of the lads in hall, saw something new 
 in Wayne's face and round about his straightened figure 
 as he stood there with the untasted wine-cup in his hand. 
 It was as if the glamour of the old days lay, palpable 
 almost, upon him ; the mists of wine, of self-indulgence, 
 of idle years close following years of hardship, were cleared 
 away, and he stood up before them once again the man 
 of many battles against odds, the man of courtesy even 
 in his own despite, the man who, more than any other 
 Wayne of a brave race, had set his deeds upon the hill- 
 tops, to stand in the days of his children and his children's 
 children. And the elders dimly understood that they had 
 learned one of life's deeper truths to-day ; they saw look- 
 ing at this Wayne, who for the second time was bidding 
 fair to earn his name of Shameless saw that the follies 
 of a man are but the dry husk of what lies within, that his 
 good deeds are the sweet and living kernel. 
 
 It was Wayne of Cranshaw now who filled his tankard 
 and lifted it. The fret of imminent disaster had lain 
 upon him all the morning, and his heart leaped to see the 
 new fashion of his kinsman. 
 
 " Waynes all ! " he cried. " A health to the head of 
 our house. When the fight comes and it will come soon 
 I shall be glad to follow where he leads." 
 
 The words let loose a storm of cries. All the old, healthy 
 love of battle was renewed ; the feud-song seemed to rock 
 and sway like a tempest under the blackened rafters 
 of the hall. They were men again, and eager to acknow- 
 ledge their born leader. Only the women sat with lowered 
 eyes and tremulous mouths ; for they were followers only 
 in the wake of battle, and there is little gladness in weeping 
 over husbands gone to their account, in wiping blood 
 from abhorred and gaping wounds, in moistening, with 
 water from the well, lips that may never speak again. 
 
 There was a silence following the toast, and Wayne of 
 
 43
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Cranshaw had his ear toward the window that looked out 
 upon the courtyard. He heard something that was not 
 audible as yet to those who sat at meat. 
 
 " What is it ? " asked a youngster fearfully, his eyes 
 upon the elder's face. 
 
 Wayne did not answer, but presently there came a 
 whining, a scraping as of phantom feet upon the court- 
 yard stones, a sudden howl, thin, high, and long drawn 
 out. Wine-cups dropped from nerveless fingers ; each man 
 sought courage from his neighbour's glance, and horror 
 sat, a naked guest, among the company. 
 
 " Tis the Dog," said Wayne of Cranshaw simply, as if 
 he had been awaiting this. 
 
 " Quiet these score years. What ailed me to lift a 
 flagon to his health just now ? " muttered Shameless 
 Wayne. 
 
 And then a strange thing chanced, for Shameless Wayne 
 himself, and Wayne of Ludworth, and a stripling of the 
 Cranshaw Waynes, all looked toward the great main 
 door, and there was something in their eyes that drew 
 the glances of the rest in the like direction. Yet only they 
 three saw the guest come late to join the feast the guest, 
 soft-footed, lean and thick of hide, whom Red Ratcliffe 
 had seen hurrying to the tryst not long ago. 
 
 " What ails you, lad ? " asked Wayne of Cranshaw of 
 his host. " I can see naught." 
 
 " What ails me ? I have seen the Dog." 
 
 " And I," said Wayne of Ludworth. 
 
 " And I Lord God, how cold my body is ! " the stripling 
 stammered. 
 
 None doubted, though only three of them had seen the 
 shaggy beast come into hall ; but all pitied the doomed 
 three, for Barguest never lied, and their fathers had told 
 them that to hear him spoke of trouble, but to see him spelt 
 disaster. A laugh rang oddly through the silence ; it was 
 Shameless Wayne's. 
 
 " Friends," he said and again the glamour of old days 
 was on him " friends, I^amj glad to have seen the old 
 
 44
 
 Wayne's Son fares out 
 
 j 
 
 brown beast. He may warn me of death, or only of a 
 grievous hurt ; but either way I am fain to know that the 
 feud is up again, and the years of drink and dice gone by a 
 second time. My father died by a Ratcliffe hand, and if 
 there's one left of the breed and surely the Dog knows 
 I will die, if need be, to lay him stark beside the Ratcliffes 
 who have gone before." 
 
 " But you'll not go to Colne market to-day's morn 
 as you meant to do ? " said one of the younger men, who 
 had been born too late to understand more than the romance 
 of feud too late to realise the grim and instant call, in 
 face of any danger, when the Brown Dog told of battle. 
 
 " I go to-day as I said I woulds and these two go with 
 me, as they said they would, though all three of us have 
 seen the Dog. Strange, that we should all see it." 
 
 " Not so strange," put in another. " There are stranger 
 tales about the moor these latter days. Folk here and 
 there have lost themselves on the moor behind Wildwater, 
 and have come upon a No Man's Land, they say, peopled 
 with red-headed folk the Ratcliffe red. Some of the 
 folk are old, or middle-aged, but these are women, while 
 all the men are striplings ; and 'tis whispered that the 
 ghosts of those who died in the last fight at Wildwater 
 have come back, changed to a youthful shape by the 
 tricksy gnomes that live among the bogs." 
 
 " I, too, have heard the same tales," said Wayne of 
 Cranshaw, as one who knew that many rumours, put 
 together, make for a truth which one, or two, or three old 
 wives' tales could not make him credit. " I have heard, 
 too, of a red-headed giant who is seen, just now and then, 
 about the moor. He carries a long-hafted axe in his hand, 
 and in his face a look of Judgment, if all they say be 
 true." 
 
 " Uncle," cried a youngster impetuously, to Shameless 
 Wayne, " why go to-day to Colne ? " 
 
 " Because I have said that I would go to Colne." 
 
 " Ay, but if you've to fight with ghosts 
 
 "I'd liefer have live men, I own ; but Ratcliffe flesh 
 
 45
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 or Ratcliffe ghost shall not come 'twixt me and my own 
 purpose." 
 
 " Who was it started this wild game of going to Colne ? " 
 asked another. " We've left the Lancashire side to 
 Ratcliffes until now. Is Halifax, or Bradford, or Skip- 
 ton town, too poor for us ? " 
 
 " 'Twas I who first suggested it," said Wayne of Lud- 
 worth, who was by way of being the dare-devil of the 
 younger race. " We needed better horses than we could 
 find in the old markets Lord knows we've bought the 
 best of them long since and I bethought me that there 
 would have been little trade in horse-flesh done in Colne 
 since the Ratcliffes ceased to journey thither." 
 
 His tone was jaunty, yet his eyes kept wandering fitfully 
 toward the door, as if he feared to see the unbidden, quiet- 
 footed guest a second time. 
 
 " There's no luck in running into Ratcliffe haunts, take 
 it how you will," said Wayne of Cranshaw gravely. " Men 
 may be dead, but their spirits work for mischief in the 
 places loved aforetime, when the feud bites deep as this 
 of ours has done." 
 
 " We'll risk it," cried the Ludworth Wayne, though his 
 face was touched with death already, and he knew it as 
 well as any of them there who looked upon the grey, dead 
 pallor of his flesh. 
 
 Shameless Wayne stood silent, with bent brows. Then, 
 with a shrug of his wide shoulders and a leaping as of fire 
 into his grey eyes, he drank his measure of wine and pushed 
 his chair aside. 
 
 " Come saddle, lads," he said. " The sun is getting 
 noonward, and they'll not keep their market waiting for 
 us as they do elsewhere when we are late." 
 
 " We'll ride with you ! We'll ride with you ! " cried 
 one of the ladlings at the board. 
 
 " Nay ! " said Shameless Wayne. " What comes, comes. 
 We'll play no jests with fate though the wish becomes you, 
 lad." 
 
 What comes, comes it was the philosophy voiced not 
 
 46
 
 Wayne's Son fares out 
 
 long ago by Red Ratcliffe of the rival house it is the fruit 
 which ripens always when once the blossom, feud, has set 
 and hardened. All were eager to ride out with the doomed 
 three ; yet all obeyed the curt command of Shameless 
 Wayne, knowing that he had the right to ask obedience 
 from them. 
 
 " Go, and God prosper you," said Wayne of Cranshaw. 
 " If the Dog wants you, he will have you at least he has 
 warned you to keep your swords loose in your scabbards." 
 Red Ratcliffe's axe, the foster-brother, must surely 
 have laughed quietly to itself could it have listened to this 
 talk of swords, which were as children to grown men when 
 measured by its power ; but Red Ratcliffe and the axe 
 were far away at Colne Market, and not heeded just as 
 yet by the Waynes who finished their last after-breakfast 
 measures. 
 
 Janet sent a piteous glance to Shameless Wayne, to stay 
 him from the feud ; but, though he knew its meaning, 
 he would not heed it. 
 
 " A race ! " he cried. " Whether the youngsters will 
 saddle before Wayne of Marsh has got to back. I warrant 
 I shall be the first to ride out westward." 
 
 " Shall I not come, father ? " said a lad of seventeen, 
 silent until now. 
 
 Shameless Wayne looked curiously at the boy, as he 
 stood there, with his narrow shoulders, his stooping gait, 
 the thatch of red hair that seemed a perpetual reminder 
 of his Ratcliffe blood. This was the sole issue of the love- 
 match Wayne had made with Janet Ratcliffe, and he told 
 himself, this morning as on many other mornings, that 
 God had mocked their love. This lank-limbed echo of a 
 man to be his heir, to be the fruit of a passion that had been 
 hot enough to thaw the chill of feud, that had been strong 
 enough to force its way through such a mire of blood and 
 tears as surely never yet had lain between a man and the 
 lass of his heart's choice ! And that accursed crown of 
 the boy's, red as the feud itself did he hate this son of 
 his, he wondered ? 
 
 47
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " Shall you go ? " echoed Wayne. " Have I not said 
 that three of us, and three only, ride to Colne ? " 
 
 " I thought I thought," the boy faltered, " that there 
 was likely to be trouble ; and I am reckoned of no account 
 at Marsh here ; and I wished to try my sword, for I have 
 greater skill, may be, than any of you know." 
 
 To Janet, listening to her boy's every word, watching 
 the scowl grow deeper on her husband's face, the scene was 
 torture. It was as if the unrighteousness of all her twenty 
 years of wedlock were made manifest before her ; it was 
 as if the feud, after long quiet, had felt its old wounds 
 break with some sudden strain, as old wounds will. And 
 the lad's halting words, the lad's wry face of pathos, with 
 its freckles and its hunted weariness, spoke plainly to 
 the mother's heart, telling a story not good to dwell upon. 
 She knew, too, her husband's disdain of the boy ; nor could 
 she blame him, for he was not strong, and lithe, and black- 
 haired, as the heir of Marsh should be. 
 
 " Your sword ? " cried Wayne impatiently. " Oh, it 
 will flesh itself in time meanwhile, stay with the women, 
 lad, and learn their gossip." 
 
 " That was a cruel word," said Wayne of Cranshaw, 
 but his kinsman, clanking already to the door, did not 
 catch the speech. 
 
 " Ay, 'twas cruel," murmured Janet ; " but both are 
 right and both are wrong, father and son. The one had 
 reason to look for a likelier heir ; the other cannot help 
 his weakness. 'Twas my fault, after all ; for on that night 
 at Wildwater, when blood ran wide between my husband 
 and myself, I was weak to think that love could bridge 
 so much." 
 
 Weak to think that love could bridge so much ! It was 
 the woman's cry, not of this age of sleeping feud alone, 
 but of all the generations since Marshcotes Heath and 
 Lonesome Moor first saw the light. Yet to Janet it was 
 hard to bear, and the sorrows of dead sisters did not any 
 way relieve her burden. She watched the doomed three 
 and one of them the man she loved go out at the main 
 
 48
 
 Way 
 
 ne's Son fares out 
 
 door. She bade her guests farewell. She smiled bravely 
 and with unconcern when Wayne of Cranshaw, courteous 
 and kind of heart, stayed for a parting word with her. 
 
 " Do not fret, Janet," he whispered. " The days come 
 chill and raw to all of us when the wind sits that way. 
 Say, would you have us follow your goodman without his 
 knowledge ? " he added, still more gently. " What is to 
 come will come, but at least we can ride to Colne and do 
 our best, if that is your good will." 
 
 " You will not ride to Colne," said Janet, sharply. 
 " Do you think oh, I know that you are kind, but you 
 cannot know the fret of all these years gone by do you 
 think I have not learned that Fate, who could give so much 
 if she would, gives less than a beggar on the road ? It 
 is the poor who give to the poor in this life, and Fate, the 
 richest of us all, with happiness my God, what happiness 
 in her lap ! gives naught at all. What will be, will be, 
 Wayne of Cranshaw and thanks for your kind thought." 
 
 She swept him out of the hall with the depth and self- 
 possession of her curtsey, and he the solitary Wayne who 
 had treated her from the disastrous start of her wedded 
 life as a friend and not an enemy could do nothing but 
 kiss her hand and murmur " Courage " and go his ways, 
 to wonder what the end would be. 
 
 Yet Janet stumbled at the word " Courage," and the 
 weakness of her womanhood came on her. She had been 
 brave God knew how brave and now she was weak as 
 the tears that ran so quietly down her cheeks. At the far 
 end of the hall her son, with his narrow shoulders and his 
 Ratcliffe hair, was answering the taunts of the youngsters 
 who had heard Shameless Wayne's last mockery ; she 
 dimly understood that the father, by his treatment of the 
 son flinging a gibe to him now and then as he would fling 
 a bone to a dog, but scarce noticing him at most times- 
 was setting the keynote of the boy's life. The youngsters, 
 those who should have been his friends and playmates, 
 understood right well the meaning of his father's scorn ; 
 this red-head was a Ratcliffe in their midst, as was his 
 D 49
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 mother, and he was the target for their arrow-gibes, barbed, 
 not with malice, but with a straightforward boyish cruelty 
 that was hard to bear. 
 
 Dimly Janet understood what was passing at the far end 
 of the hall ; but she had no leisure, just this little while, 
 to give to the unhappy son whom she loved the more 
 dearly for his shortcomings ; she must be alone, to meet 
 her misery face to face, and wrestle with it, and pluck from 
 the struggle what measure of content she could. 
 
 There was a little room behind the main hall, a room 
 given up, as long ago as any of the folk at Marsh could 
 remember, to the women of the house. The walls were 
 tapestried ; there were curious odds and ends about the 
 room which only women could have either bought or kept ; 
 and round about the casement played tendrils of a creeper 
 unknown elsewhere about these wind-swept highlands. 
 Yet this morning, as she went to the window-space and 
 stood looking out, it was the creeper, a softening touch 
 at most times to the grim old house, which set Janet's 
 heart beating with a new disquiet ; for its leaves, soon to 
 wither and to be blown to dust by the approaching winter, 
 had taken on a red that glowed and revelled in the sun, 
 as if to fill these last days with a spendthrift glory they had 
 never known in the sober middle-age of life. 
 
 " Red ! Red everywhere ! " she murmured. " If 'tis 
 not the red Ratcliffe hair, 'tis the red of blood. The 
 double-daisies bloomed redder than their wont this spring, 
 I noted, and now the very autumn leaves are stained a 
 deeper hue. Red red everywhere and ever deepening 
 red ! So the tale was foretold, when twenty years ago I 
 stood between the moor-wind and the house of slaughter, 
 and Wayne said that we would wed in spite of all, and I 
 was weak in my love of him, as I am weak to-day, though 
 I knew that God was crying to me that such wedlock was 
 a sin. That poor old fool at Marshcotes here the parson 
 who put my hand in Wayne's on the marriage-morn he' 
 said the same. And now my harvest is growing ripe, 
 and all the ears are red." 
 
 5
 
 Wayne's Son fares out 
 
 From the dusk of the corner farthest from the window- 
 space came a voice a little, pleasant voice that had 
 naught of the full-throated uplands in it, but rather a 
 lovable, quaint softness, as of some gentle southern land 
 where winds did not blow harsh across the peat and ling 
 and sterile bogs. 
 
 " What is it, Janet ? You are sad to-day." 
 
 The other turned, and saw for the first time a little fair- 
 haired woman, with a babyish face and babyish blue eyes, 
 who sat at her embroidery- frame and noiselessly worked 
 in and out among its many threads. 
 
 " Ay, I am sad, Little Bairn, for I see Fate working at its 
 broidery, as you are doing ; yet there's no pattern shows, 
 for every thread is of one colour." 
 
 Janet had come here to be alone ; yet the little woman's 
 presence did not disturb her mood, for she went and sat 
 beside her and let her hand rest on the soft yellow hair. 
 This woman was Wayne's stepmother the baby-wife 
 whom the then Wayne of Marsh had brought from out 
 the south and yet she was so frail, so childish, that Janet 
 had caught from her husband the trick of naming her 
 " Little Bairn," the trick of being vastly tender to her, 
 and of talking as one talks only to one's self or to one of the 
 folk called fairy-kist. These twenty years had brought 
 the lines to Janet's face and to her husband's ; but they 
 had passed the Little Bairn as if they had not been, and a 
 stranger would have said that she was no older now than on 
 that far-off night when the feud had reopened, and she had 
 seen a man die for her, and her wits had gone into a far 
 land. Fairy-kist she was just that and among the 
 rugged folk of Marshcotes the word was the tenderest 
 that they knew. This Mistress Wayne was lacking only 
 in the power to understand the daily miseries of life ; she 
 rarely troubled about anything, but rested like a sapling 
 in some sheltered hollow, herself unbuffeted by the wild 
 tempests of the open moor, or at most just bending now 
 and then to some breeze that pierced her shelter. For 
 this cause she was restful to men and women who had life
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 to face each day, and, moreover, she was credited with a 
 foreknowledge deeper even than belonged to those who 
 had the second sight. 
 
 It may be that Janet had a closer link with Little Bairn, 
 for the two of them, each in her own time, had come as a 
 stranger- woman to the House of Marsh, and had suffered 
 from displeasure veiled or open, and had wondered, many 
 and many a weary time, how love the woman's love 
 that gives with both hands and asks nothing in return, 
 yet looks for all how love could shiver so and feel its 
 emptiness because a husband's folk had looked askance. 
 Yet the answer to that wonderment in each case had been 
 the same, had either of the women dared acknowledge it ; 
 the husband, too, had shown, faintly it may be, and in a 
 way unnoticed by less jealous eyes, that kinship lies closer 
 to a man's heart than a woman's, and that this cold ac- 
 ceptanpe of his choice had planted restlessness, misgiving, 
 both in the dead father and in the living son. 
 
 And so, for the queer love she bore the Little Bairn, 
 Janet came and sat beside her this morning, and smoothed 
 her hair, and talked as to herself. 
 
 " To be sure I am sad," she went on, in her deep, quiet 
 voice. " Listen, Little Bairn, while you weave in and out 
 among those coloured threads of yours. The past comes 
 back on me this morning, do as I will, and wants to crush 
 me ; and I will not be crushed ; and so I must talk of it. 
 We built our house on the treacherous bog, Wayne and I ; 
 we knew it, yet would not heed. Hark ! " she broke off, 
 her ear toward the window. " Didst hear aught, Little 
 Bairn ? " 
 
 " I heard a shouting of boys' voices, high and thin, like 
 the music the wind makes among the reeds. They are at 
 play, Janet." 
 
 " God grant it. It sounded more as if they were at battle. 
 What were we talking of ? Ay, of the bog on which we 
 built our house. The Lean Man he who walks nowadays 
 shod ghost-wise, so the country tales run was my grand- 
 father, and I loved him only a little less than Wayne, and 
 
 52
 
 Wayne's Son fares out 
 
 I was his idol. Wayne came wooing me ; we met by 
 stealth upon the moor, and first I loved him a little, and 
 then a little more than I loved the Lean Man ; and for his 
 sake I was treacherous to my folk, saying that his people 
 should be my people henceforth. Wayne killed my kins- 
 men ; it did not matter ; I loved him. Then he fought 
 the Lean Man, and would have killed him, too, if the 
 lightning had not snatched victory before him ; it did 
 not matter, for I loved him. Then the last battle came, 
 and after it was done I can smell the horror of it now, 
 Little Bairn, and it sickens and appals me after it was 
 done, we stood, just he and I, at the edge of the windy 
 moor ; and we knew what we had done, and the wrongs 
 that roared and raced breast-high between us ; it did not 
 matter, for we loved." 
 
 The Little Bairn went on with her embroidery, and no 
 trouble lay upon her face. 
 
 " I loved once," she said, in her soft, rounded southern 
 speech, " it was sweet while it lasted, but the mists came 
 down, and I was lost in them." 
 
 " Thank your God for that. Stay lost in them. Never 
 seek the plain daylight, Little Bairn, that shows you 
 where you blundered, knowing you were blundering ; for 
 it is not good to pray to die. Oh, listen, listen ! When 
 we stood there, Wayne and I, and hearkened to the groans 
 of dying men behind us, and felt the keen moor-wind 
 against our faces, I said that all that would yet be well 
 my old cry because we loved. Ah, but I knew my heart 
 kept telling, telling me that if I loved, I should find 
 courage now to prove my love ; I should send him from me ; 
 I should bid him be braver in this moment than in the 
 hottest of his battles ; and he would have understood, 
 for a strong man knows a woman's strength and reverences 
 it. He would have hearkened, and I I did not say the 
 word. He took me to him suddenly, and the night and all 
 its horrors swooned before his kisses, and I came with him 
 here to Marsh, a bride of shame." 
 
 " Do not be sad," said the little woman placidly. 
 
 53
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " Naught's worth grieving for, Janet that is the lesson 
 I have learned among the mists." 
 
 " Some day I may learn it, too, but not just yet, Little 
 Bairn. Has not the shame gone deep and deeper all these 
 years ? When I lay at Wayne's side those first days, 
 did not the feud come shuddering in between us ? Ay, 
 like a sword it lay between us, and I would the sword had 
 killed the one or both of us when we dared cross it. And 
 then the child was born, and he was the living answer to 
 the lie that I had told when I said that our love could bridge 
 disaster and the feud. And I loved the ladling all the more 
 because he was so weak ; and yet he fastened shame 
 more closely on me every year, as he grew to a puling 
 half-boy between the Waynes and Ratcliffes ; and I longed 
 sometimes for him to die I oh, hearken ! That was no 
 lad's play, Little Bairn ; it was a cry of anguish." 
 
 Janet ran to the window, but her companion still worked 
 at her embroidery, scarce heeding that the busy world 
 which lay outside her mists was big with portents and 
 alarms. The window looked out upon a garden first, 
 full of clipped yews and straggling autumn flowers, and then 
 upon a field where the Waynes were wont to practise 
 sword-play and the like ; and in the field a Wayne of 
 Cranshaw one of the Bayard's grandsons was lying with 
 his face toward the sky. His friends were gathered round 
 him, but Janet looked in vain for the tell-tale head of her 
 own son. 
 
 While she stood there, fearing everything, yet knowing 
 naught, nor able to hazard even a likely guess, her son came 
 in at the door and stood beside her at the window, looking 
 out, as she had done, upon the fallen Wayne. 
 
 " 'Twas I who did it," he said, his breath coming thickly, 
 with the echo of a sob in it. " They taunted me, and I 
 had borne it far too long, and I struck him on the face. 
 Then our swords ran out, and I was the better, and I struck 
 him through the side." 
 
 Janet stood with both hands pressed against her brow. 
 The little storm, beneath the greater one which Wayne 
 
 54
 
 Wayne's Son fares out 
 
 had gone to face at Colne, seemed the last drop in her cup ; 
 and yet she knew what the boy had had to suffer through 
 the years, and in a fashion she was proud of the spirit 
 he had shown, proud of the victory he had won against an 
 adversary broader and taller than himself. 
 
 " Tell me," she said at last, still keeping both hands 
 on her forehead, but looking at him now with tired curiosity, 
 " tell me how you came to have such skill in fence ? They 
 always said, your father and the rest, that you had no 
 liking for a sword." 
 
 " They would not teach me, saying I was too lean and 
 mis-shapen to think of such matters ; and so I went to 
 Wayne of Cranshaw, who was always kind to me, and I 
 asked him if I were a fool ; and he said, No, and that he 
 would teach me how to use the sword. That was years 
 ago, when I first went to him, and they saw to-day that I 
 was not foolish altogether." 
 
 The simplicity of the words, the troubled look of inquiry 
 on the boy's face, were witness to the cruelty which half- 
 wittingly had been meted out to him. And yet he had won 
 his first fight, and the knowledge gave him a dignity which 
 never before had sat on his uncomely body. 
 
 " Is young Wayne of Cranshaw dead ? " asked Janet. 
 
 " Nay, nor like to die. I am glad, because he is grand- 
 son to the man who taught me all my sword-play and yet 
 mother, what came to me out yonder ? When I saw him 
 fall, when I saw the blood leap out from his side, I ran 
 mad, and would have killed him outright ; but the others 
 got their arms about me from behind and held me back ; 
 and then I came to myself, and the red light stopped 
 dancing before my eyes, and I could no longer hear the song 
 that had sung in my heart, saying ' Kill, kill.' ' 
 
 " What came to you ? " said Janet, huskily, and there 
 was an awful dread, an awful shame and pity, in the 
 look she gave her son. " What came to you, ill-starred 
 flesh of my flesh ? The song of the feud came to you, 
 as it has come to every Wayne in hall to-day, as it is 
 singing now,^belike, at Colne Market. And, because you 
 
 55
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 are half a Ratcliffe, you lifted your hand blindly against 
 a Wayne, not knowing which way to seek for loyalty." 
 
 " I hear them whisper often one to the other that I 
 should play traitor if the feud were back again. Is it true, 
 mother ? They hate me, they will not let me be a Wayne 
 and yet I do not wish to be a traitor." 
 
 With a suddenness unlocked for by the mother, he broke 
 down utterly. The excitement, the strain, the half-remorse 
 that followed, the sense of loneliness, had found the child's 
 heart which beats in all of us, whether we be old or young. 
 He was ashamed, and yet the sobs would come ; and so he 
 ran like a hunted beast out of the parlour, out of the hall, 
 away to the lonely heather-lands, where he could weep 
 unseen. 
 
 The wind kept blowing fitfully, and now a sharper gust 
 rattled the creeper churlishly against the window-panes. 
 Janet, seeking for omens now in everything, turned and saw 
 the sunlit, living red of the leaves that tapped the case- 
 ment. 
 
 " Red everywhere ! " she echoed, looking out again upon 
 the field where the youngsters were carrying their fallen 
 comrade to the house. " 'Twill be feud now to the end, 
 and Wayne and I will reap our harvest to the full." 
 
 She felt a hand upon her arm, and saw that the Little 
 Bairn had left her broidery. There was a world of soft- 
 ness in the babyish blue eyes. 
 
 " Never heed, Janet," she whispered. " Naught matters 
 that is what I've learned among the mists."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF IT 
 
 RED RATCLIFFE had done his business at Colne market and 
 had bought the fat steer which Bathsheba required for 
 furnishing their winter's supply of salted meat. He had 
 despatched it to a friendly farmer in the neighbourhood, 
 to be kept by him till Joseph could ride over and drive 
 it home. And now he lingered idly among the farmers, 
 the gentry, the women-folk, who thronged Colne's narrow 
 street. All was as it had been since first he came with 
 Joseph to the market here ; there were the like knots of 
 hard, fine-featured men, the like sheep bleating in the 
 pens, the like graceless pedlars casting a roguish eye at the 
 women and tempting them to buy all manner of things 
 useful for the house or useless as ornaments for the adorn- 
 ment of their persons. And itwas this sameness that puzzled 
 Ratcliffe ; young yet to the ways of destiny, he had looked 
 for some scene out of the ordinary when first he rode up the 
 Colne street to-day. For had he not last night seen the 
 Lean Man come between the moonlight and the darkened 
 hall ? Had he not slept weightily, soberly, as one who 
 is to awake to a great trust on the morrow ? Had he not 
 ridden out beneath the gold September sun, and communed 
 with the heath, and seen the Brown Dog creeping busily 
 toward Marsh House ? 
 
 Ay, he had seen these things, and his heart had beat in 
 answer to the call of a world unseen ; and now he was 
 here in market, talking with this farmer, nodding to that, 
 showing all his skill of barter when the steer was in the 
 buying ; listening to, and parrying, the old jest touching 
 
 57
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 his fondness for carrying the axe, his foster-brother. And 
 now, as he waited idly, not knowing why he waited, nor for 
 what, a restlessness and disillusion fastened on him. So 
 long he had listened to the old, wild tales of feud from 
 Joseph and from Bathsheba ; so long had he prepared 
 himself for the man's work that lay before him ; and now, 
 to-day, he had looked for the first sweet thrill of action, 
 had looked to play his axe, not against Joseph's steel, 
 but against the sword-craft of the Waynes. 
 
 " Look'st moody, Mister Ratcliffe," said a rough-spoken, 
 hulking fellow at his elbow. 
 
 " Ay, Nick," said the other, glancing from the sheep, 
 the cattle, the horses still unsold. " I was astir betimes, 
 and now my business is done I begin to feel a tiredness in 
 my bones." 
 
 " Carriest thy great axe still, Mister ? " went on the 
 man, who from long use had grown to be the licensed 
 jester of the market, free of speech, rough or smooth, to 
 any one. " At your age, I should have said a lass would 
 be a likelier burden, but there's no reckoning on tastes." 
 
 On the sudden Red Ratcliffe thought of the lass whom 
 yesterday he had met upon the moor the lass with hair 
 as bright as sunlight on the benty upland fields and 
 Nick o' Trawdon's raillery angered him. 
 
 " Go put thy tongue in the halter, Nick," he snapped, 
 " or talk to thy equals when thou needs must jest." 
 
 Nick looked at him in wonderment ; for he knew the 
 boy's story, and had a certain tenderness toward him, 
 and they two, until to-day, had felt, without acknow- 
 ledging it, a curious sympathy and friendliness. 
 
 " He's not like himself, not like himself at all," muttered 
 Nick, as he watched Red Ratcliffe ride across the street 
 and disappear between the doorstones of the Crown and 
 Angel tavern. " I warrant they've fed him fat on the old 
 feud, that unchancy couple at Black House, and his temper 
 snaps, like, when he least looks for it. Ay, ay, 'tis sad, 
 when all is said, to think he stands alone, with his red hair 
 to point him out to any passing Wayne, and never a chance 
 
 58
 
 The Beginning of it 
 
 for all his axe, to straighten the account between 
 them." 
 
 Nick o' Trawdon voiced the feeling of the market-folk, 
 for here and there stood little knots of those who had been 
 the Ratcliffes' well-wishers in olden days, who looked at 
 the young giant as he passed, and nodded one to the 
 other, and whispered that they'd well have liked to see him 
 fighting in the brave times gone by gone by for ever. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe knew nothing of their gossip ; he was out 
 of joint with the world, and moody, and his order to the 
 landlord of the Crown and Angel to bring his horse rang 
 like a threat of vengeance if the other were tardy in the 
 doing. As he waited, taking long pulls at his flagon of 
 ale, a country lass stepped lissome down the passage and 
 brushed his elbow as she passed ; the girl had flaxen hair, 
 noteworthy among the swarthy folk who lived on either 
 the Wayne or Ratcliffe edges of the moor, and the sight of 
 it brought back again the memory of yesterday's meeting 
 with the Parson's Lass between Marshcotes and Wildwater. 
 
 " What ails me ? " muttered Ratcliffe. " A slip of a 
 lass asks me the way to Marshcotes, and I'm dumb before 
 her witchery, and then the memory clings to me as close 
 as boot to foot. This girl who passed me now she's fair 
 enough, I fancy, as men who know about such matters 
 reckon fairness ; but she's like the other only in the colour 
 of her hair." 
 
 Yet for all that his interest was roused, because in any 
 case she called to mind her fairer sister ; and when his 
 horse had been brought round, and he was moving at a 
 foot-pace through the busy street, he caught sight of her 
 again, standing on the outskirts of a little crowd which 
 had gathered round about a fiddler and three dancing 
 couples. For a moment he halted, to watch the jig, he 
 told himself ; yet his eyes were on the girl, whose feet were 
 tap- tapping on the roadway, as if she would have welcomed 
 any likely partner. And the lass, glancing up and seeing 
 again the biggest man that ever to her knowledge had 
 sought Colne market, half-smiled at him. 
 
 59
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " There's to be no fighting for me ; what if I snatch 
 a moment's foolery,, instead ? " muttered Red Ratcliffe. 
 
 He was about to throw himself out of the saddle when 
 three strangers sauntered up on foot and stood between 
 Red Ratcliffe and the group to watch the dancing. And 
 one and all, as they passed Ratcliffe, glanced at his red 
 hair, at his great bulk, at the axe which swung beside his 
 saddle ; and then they looked at one another questioningly ; 
 but none spoke to him. Gentlefolk they were assuredly, 
 and yet their faces were unfamiliar to Ratcliffe, though he 
 knew all the gentry who frequented Colne. One was a 
 man near forty, or just turned, dark, big in the build, 
 with something between recklessness and sternness in his 
 air ; of the others, one was a stripling, the other older by a 
 few years, with the bearing of a roue and a dare-devil. 
 It was this last who saw the fair-haired lass stand tapping 
 with her feet in time to the fiddler's measure, and without 
 more ado he crossed to her and slipped an arm about her 
 waist, and would have snatched a kiss had not the girl 
 turned and slapped him smartly on the cheek. His com- 
 rades laughed, but Red Ratcliffe, watching from the saddle, 
 felt his hand reach down to foster-brother. Fanciful the 
 boy was in some matters, and new to that feeling of mingled 
 reverence, awe, and keen desire which yesterday the 
 Parson's Lass had roused in him ; and so, because this 
 other maid was like her, as the moon is like the sun, he 
 resented any slight put on her by a stranger. Again he 
 half leaped to the ground, and again held back, seeing the 
 girl stand off from her assailant. There was pride and 
 venom in her eyes, for once before these three had come across 
 her in the Marshcotes street, and they were known to her. 
 
 " What are you doing at Colne, you Waynes ? " she 
 cried. " Have you come to teach us manners us poor 
 folk who live upon the Ratcliffe side of the moor ? Well, 
 then, you have your answer, and I warrant your cheek will 
 tingle with it, Wayne of Ludworth, for an hour to come." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe turned to fire, and then to frost. A 
 thousand hatreds, a thousand yearnings, fed by Bath- 
 
 60
 
 The Beginning of it 
 
 sheba and Joseph, a thousand feud-songs of his race, were 
 calling to him, turning him for the moment to the fashion 
 of one drunk. Here, then, were three of the Wayne folk, 
 and the Lean Man had not come to him last night for 
 naught. Strange that instinct had not warned him of their 
 breed ! 
 
 Wayne of Ludworth, a red mark down his cheek where 
 the lass had struck him, was standing undecided, not 
 knowing whether to run in and force a kiss or to hold 
 back. His rage was evident, nor was it lessened by the 
 laughter of the more reckless among the crowd, who hated 
 all Waynes by habit, and who were watching curiously to 
 see what the red-head sitting quietly in the saddle would 
 do next. 
 
 " Who dares talk of Ratcliffes to a Wayne ? " blustered 
 Wayne of Ludworth. " We killed them to a man once 
 on a day, and they'll not rise again to praise you hulking 
 folk of Come for loving them." 
 
 On a sudden Red Ratcliffe laughed, so clearly and so 
 eerily that a shudder crept among the crowd, no man 
 knew why. For Ratcliffe had seen what they had not, 
 and the irony of that last, " We killed them to a man, and 
 they'll not rise again," was clear to him and roused him 
 from his stillness. Among the usual traffic of the street, 
 between the well-known houses which in their sturdiness 
 seemed to speak of everyday, plain matters, a stranger 
 walked Colne market a stranger now, though once he had 
 trafficked and made merry here. Lean to deformity the 
 stranger was, with a red scar across his filmy brow and his 
 right arm swinging uselessly by his side ; and in his eyes 
 there was a keen and awful joy. Yet only Red Ratcliffe 
 saw him, and knew that one had come again from the dead 
 Ratcliffes, just as he had come from the living, to disprove 
 Wayne of Ludworth's boast. 
 
 " Who laughed ? Who was it dared to mock at me ? " 
 cried Wayne of Ludworth. 
 
 " I did," answered Ratcliffe, and slipped foster-brother 
 gently from its sheath. 
 
 61
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 There was a moment's silence, noisier than any hum of 
 voices could have been, so full was it of the crowd's deep 
 restlessness and wonderment and awe. The three Waynes 
 did not even draw their swords, but looked at Ratcliffe 
 as if asking whether he were flesh or ghost. Wayne of 
 Ludworth, dare-devil always, was the first to find speech. 
 
 "Come down from saddle and get the answer to thy 
 mockery," he said. 
 
 " Ay, if it pleases you," the other answered ; " though 
 you're three to one, I'll take no vantage of my horse." 
 
 " But first, before I deal with thee," went on Wayne of 
 Ludworth jauntily, " I'll kiss the maid here, and so the 
 two of you will get your answers, each in order." 
 
 He ran forward, surprising the girl as she watched the 
 scene with eager eyes that followed Red Ratcliffe's every 
 movement, and he took his kiss and another, and then 
 flung her from him with a laugh that was coarser than his 
 lout's embrace. He turned to find Red Ratcliffe out of 
 saddle, standing to the top of his six-foot-four of height, 
 and holding the axe in his two brawny hands while he 
 swayed it gently to and fro. What followed passed with 
 the speed of a tempest flung from the belly of a clear blue 
 sky. Wayne of Ludworth got his sword out somehow and 
 leaped back ; before his friends could get to him Red 
 Ratcliffe had run forward, had parried his first wild sword- 
 thrust as one turns aside a bramble in one's path, had lifted 
 foster-brother high and higher yet, swinging it like a flail 
 above his head. And then the great axe fell, and Wayne 
 of Ludworth's day was done, and Red Ratcliffe, with 
 little time to spare if the on-coming Waynes were to be 
 met, set his two feet firmly on the ground and tugged and 
 tugged at the axe, where it lay in Wayne's big skull, and 
 wrenched it loose in the nick of time. The stripling Wayne, 
 lighter of foot than his kinsman, had outpaced him, and 
 his sword was perilously near to Ratcliffe when at last he 
 wrenched the axe-head free and swung it high again ; once 
 more the sword was turned aside, lightly as with con- 
 tempt, and foster-brother whistled as it cut the air. Shame- 
 
 62
 
 The Beginning of it 
 
 less Wayne was close in now, and made a desperate leap 
 to save the lad ; his fore-foot lit upon a patch of offal in 
 the road, and he stumbled under the haft of the big axe 
 as it purred and whistled down the wind and bit the stripling 
 through the bone. Fair on the crown Shameless Wayne 
 caught half the blow as it descended and the haft, with 
 thick steel at its core, was weighty and like a log he rolled 
 beside his fallen kinsmen. 
 
 Again there had fallen a pregnant silence on the crowd. 
 The folk scarce dared to breathe, and their faces were grey 
 with dread, or keen with battle- joy, according to the fashion 
 in which God had made them. After it was done, more- 
 over, they were silent for awhile, and then a deep " Ah 
 h ! " went up, and men pressed forward, striving to grasp 
 Ratcliffe's hand, and crying, like so many folk run wild, 
 that the sleeping feud had wakened. But Ratcliffe fell 
 back from them and stood apart ; for his thoughts were 
 big, and the babel of men's voices interrupted them. 
 
 As they stood there, a portly, deep-wigged man, followed 
 by two men-at-arms, walked the street and saw the crowd, 
 and pushed his way among them not easily, for the Colne 
 folk had so lost their wonted calm that, forgetting the 
 Sheriff was in town to-day on business of the King's, 
 they did not heed when he went crying, " Make way, 
 make way, good folk," as he strove to gain the front. 
 
 When at last he reached the clear space and saw the 
 fallen men when he saw Red Ratcliffe, ruddy now from 
 his hair downwards, standing with both hands resting on 
 foster-brother's haft his pompousness deserted him for 
 a moment, and he shrank back in horror. He was not the 
 man to lose his self-possession for long, however, and he 
 found voice again. 
 
 " What is this ? What is this ? " he said. " Murder 
 in the public street, and the sun scarce past its noon." 
 
 " Nay," said Ratcliffe quietly, not stirring from his 
 place. ' Tis no murder, but justice long delayed." 
 
 " Justice ? Justice ? / have control of the King's 
 justice in this country. What do you mean, sir ? " 
 
 63
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " That these three, or their folk, killed mine aforetime. 
 Now I have killed them. That is the justice I've been 
 bred to understand." 
 
 The Sheriff was nonplussed. This stalwart fellow not 
 only confessed himself the slayer, but he spoke as one 
 who in very truth believed himself the instrument of a 
 righteous cause. There was no hesitancy about him, 
 but rather a subdued exaltation, and his eyes met those 
 of the Sheriff with honesty, if with a certain half-con- 
 temptuous grimness. For King's law and King's Sheriffs 
 seemed little matters to this man who had had twenty 
 years with nature, with Joseph, and with Bathsheba. 
 
 There was a pause, and the Colne folk most of all the 
 fair-haired lass whose injury he had wiped out so quickly 
 looked at Red Ratcliffe, with his splendid bulk, his indiffer- 
 ence to the law, as if he came among them from the far-off 
 days, which many there remembered not by hearsay only, 
 when the Ratcliffes bred their heroes for the fight, when 
 there was never a market held on Thursdays but brought 
 its tale of prowess. 
 
 At last the Sheriff beckoned to his men-at-arms, and 
 the two of them pressed forward to his side. 
 
 " This man is found red-handed here. Arrest him in 
 the King's name," he cried. 
 
 Ratcliffe, not sorry to enjoy the relief of all this child's 
 play after the grave work was done, stretched his arms wide 
 above his head foster-brother resting at his knee and 
 yawned. 
 
 " 'Tis true," he said. " I am caught red-handed. 
 Arrest me at your pleasure." 
 
 The Sheriff's men did not move forward, nor did their 
 master repeat his command ; there was something so 
 quietly menacing about this long man with the axe that 
 was as high as his own shoulders almost, that the time 
 seemed one for prudence. Had he not met three already 
 and worsted them they more skilled in sword-play, likely, 
 than his own escort ? 
 
 " Your name, your name ? " said the Sheriff, irritably. 
 
 64
 
 The Beginning of it 
 
 " Ratcliffe, at your service and these are Waynes," the 
 other answered grimly. 
 
 " And your abode ? " 
 
 " At the Edge of No Man's Land." 
 
 " Tut-tut, I am not one to jest with, sir. I =-" 
 
 " Nor do I jest. First there are the broken lands, 
 behind Ling Crag ; then Wildwater, where the wilderness 
 begins ; and behind the wilderness again is No Man's 
 Land, at the edge of which I dwell. You will need more 
 men than two, or twenty, to reach out yonder, Sheriff." 
 
 " What is this of Wayne and Ratcliffe ? " went on the 
 Sheriff, after another disconcerted pause. " To be sure, 
 we had trouble aforetime with some feud of the two houses ; 
 but the feud is dead dead long ago, I tell you, sir and 
 these are times of law and order." 
 
 "To be sure," said Ratcliffe, in the same even voice ; 
 " to be sure, the feud is dead, or thought to be. One of 
 the three lying here was saying as much not long since, 
 o.nd yet he was mistaken. And now, Sheriff, with your 
 leave I'll get to saddle again, for I have far to ride." 
 
 The Sheriff, swayed between duty, pride, and the cer- 
 tainty that it was useless to withstand this Ratcliffe giant, 
 turned savagely upon the crowd. 
 
 " In the King's name ! " he cried. " I bid all and 
 sundry of you aid the Sheriff in this matter, on peril of 
 your liberty." 
 
 None answered, though none made himself conspicuous 
 beyond his fellows by too evident refusal save only Nick 
 o' Trawdon, the ne'er-do-weel and jester of the market, 
 who laughed out loud. 
 
 " Tis only the skirts of law and order that brush us here 
 at Colne, Sheriff," he muttered. " We're over near to the 
 broken lands, and we love a Ratcliffe better than a score 
 of King's men." 
 
 The words, rash as they were, aroused a hum of appro- 
 bation, such as warned the Sheriff to let Nick's laugh go 
 by unnoticed. And then Red Ratcliffe whistled to his 
 horse, and the beast came through the crowd to him ; and
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 in a moment he was cantering, without farewell of any 
 sort, along the street. 
 
 " Ye'll hear of this again, ye Colne folk," stammered 
 the Sheriff. " To your houses now, and when I come this 
 way again, 'twill be with a company behind me." 
 
 The crowd split up into fives and sixes, scarce pretending 
 to hear the Sheriff's " To your houses ! " a command so 
 greatly in excess of his prerogative that only spleen could 
 have driven him to issue it. And he, for his part, was glad 
 to get away with what dignity he could muster, and swear 
 softly at his men-at-arms, on their way to the inn, because 
 they had hung back. 
 
 " 'Twas not that we played the coward, Sir John," said 
 one of them, stung at last into retort. " We know some- 
 thing of a sword, but not enough to meet a red-headed 
 devil's giant with an axe ; and, though we had our pistols, 
 the powder all got wet as you know, Sir John when we 
 fell into a bog while guiding you to Colne." 
 
 The Sheriff was a just man according to his lights, and 
 he knew that these honest rogues of his were no cowards 
 nay, he knew that, had he been in their place, he would not 
 have risked Red Ratcliffe's axe. 
 
 " Well, well," he answered gruffly. " We'll come again 
 another day, with dry powder and a greater company. 
 'Tis not alone this Ratcliffe with the axe that we shall 
 have to meet, unless I mistake the temper of the Colne 
 folk. Pest to him ! They were ever a thorn in the side 
 of law and order." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe, riding fast toward home meanwhile, 
 brought his horse to a sudden halt, and turned to glance 
 behind him. In the hurry of the fight, the press of thoughts 
 that followed, the coming of the Sheriff, he had not once 
 asked himself how it had fared with the Wayne who had 
 fallen, not under the axe-blade, but under its long haft. 
 The other two were dead, of a certainty, and the third 
 should be so yet what if his skull were thicker than the 
 ordinary, and he lay stunned only and not dead ? 
 
 "Fool, fool, that I was!" he muttered. "The Lean 
 
 66
 
 The Beginning of it 
 
 Man would have made sure and yet how could I have 
 killed him when he lay there like a log and could not answer 
 for himself ? " 
 
 He halted for awhile, perplexed and undecided. The 
 Ratcliffe lesson had been grafted too surely on his character 
 to lie unremembered now, and that lesson bade him kill a 
 Wayne always, whether his adversary could lift an arm in 
 self-defence or not. He knew, too, that his state was 
 desperate, that he was one against them all, that generosity 
 was a crime against the dead men of his house who cried 
 unceasingly for vengeance. Had not the Waynes roused 
 laughter many a time among their enemies, in the old 
 days, by showing courtesy to the fallen ? Was he, in 
 this desperate latter day, to fall into the like snare ? 
 
 Once he was on the point of riding back to Colne, and 
 finishing the work, if finishing it needed. And then his 
 young, hot generosity cried out against him and would 
 not let him do this thing. Deep as Bathsheba's lessons 
 had gone, they could not touch the boy's nature which 
 was passionate and fierce and unrelenting, which yet was 
 free of cruelty for sake of cruelty, a trait which had dis- 
 figured all save a very few of the dead Ratcliffes. Nor 
 could these lessons touch that curious, wild racing of the 
 blood which the Parson's Lass had taught him yesterday ; 
 and in these two matters, where nature was at issue with 
 long training, there were stormier fights awaiting Ratcliffe 
 of Black House, may be, than the battle he had won 
 to-day. 
 
 " It may be he is dead," said the lad, and headed straight 
 for home again. " The blow was heavy, and foster-brother 
 carries death in haft as well as blade. I'll leave him to his 
 chance." 
 
 Behind him, in Colne market-place, Shameless Wayne 
 was waking dizzily from out his swoon. Across his fore- 
 head were bands of pain, as if it were fastened round about 
 with wires thrice-heated in the furnace ; his throat ached 
 with an intolerable dryness ; and when at last he forced 
 his eyelids open, he saw the street, the moving folk, the 
 
 67
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 cattle and the sheep, like so many dancing heat-waves 
 seen far out across the ling upon a moorland summer's day. 
 The axe had missed its full purpose by that little which spelt 
 torture now for Shameless Wayne. 
 
 The crowd was shifting restlessly about, never straying 
 far from the place where the three bodies lay. And a great 
 disquiet was upon them, now that the fever-heat had cooled, 
 now that the living Ratcliffe had gone from them, with his 
 assurance and his strength, now that the dead men only 
 kept them company. In the forefront of the crowd stood 
 the lass from whom Wayne of Ludworth had snatched 
 a kiss not long ago, with Nick o' Trawdon at her side ; 
 and the way of his eyes with her showed plain enough the 
 tenderness that lay between them. 
 
 " The man is dead who kissed thee, heart o' mine," 
 Nick whispered. 
 
 She turned with a shudder from a second glance which, 
 against her will, she had given the fallen three. 
 
 " Yet 'twas not thou that killed him and it should 
 have been," she answered, with a flash of the spirit she 
 had shown the Waynes. 
 
 " How could I ? I had never a sword, nor a cudgel 
 even, and there were three of them, ail armed. Besides, 
 Red Ratcliffe was in at them before I could bestir myself." 
 
 " Yet it was thy quarrel, Nick and thou'rt a ne'er- 
 do-weel, when all is said ; and father was right, may be, 
 when he warned me to have few dealings, or none at all, 
 with thee. Nick, Nick, wilt ever understand that a lass 
 likes her man to do something ? Just now, when I saw this 
 Ratcliffe whirl and swing his axe above his head, I thought 
 'twas he, not thou, I loved." 
 
 Nick o' Trawdon, with his thin six feet of height that 
 tempted him to stoop more than a man should, stood 
 straighter on a sudden ; and into his whimsical grey eyes 
 there stole a look of purpose new to them. He under- 
 stood, faintly as yet, that the girl complained, not just of 
 to-day's inaction, but of the something that had always 
 been lacking in their courtship ; she had given him, in 
 
 68
 
 The Beginning of it 
 
 brief, a battle of some sort to fight for her, as a woman 
 must do always before the care of herself is given happily, 
 and given once for all. 
 
 " Say that again, my lass," he muttered. 
 
 She looked at him, and his serious, strong air became 
 him better, she told herself, than all his wonted rollick. 
 
 " I said I was near to loving Ratcliffe, with his big red 
 head," she answered, slow and clear. " I say now that you 
 must give me the same excuse as he. Nick, I'm fond of 
 thee surely I've given proof of that but I ask myself, 
 and get no answer what hast done with thy life till 
 now ? " 
 
 The scene had a grimness of its own ; for, just as Shame- 
 less Wayne and the woman who was now his wife had stood 
 amid the slaughter and the horror of Wildwater, twenty 
 years ago, and let their love take precedence of death, so 
 now these two, with the restful dead before them, with the 
 restless crowd close-pressing in their rear, were full of the 
 tenderness not love as yet, because not proven which lay 
 between them. 
 
 " There's no way shows as yet," said Nick o' Trawdon 
 " but a way will show itself, or else I'll make one." 
 
 " Are you not kin to the Ratcliffes on the mother's side ? 
 Hearken, lad ! To-day is the beginning, but the end is 
 far off. This bonnie Ratcliffe with his axe will do much, 
 and suffer much, and risk much, before another year has 
 gone. Canst help him in the fight ? " 
 
 " Ay," said Nick o' Trawdon simply, and he spoke from 
 heart-faith, not from the book of reason. 
 
 There was a silence ; and in the midst of it Shameless 
 Wayne awoke to the anguish of his wound, and stirred, 
 and looked about him with eyes that saw only heat-waves 
 playing up and down Colne market. 
 
 " By God, he lives ! " muttered Dick. 
 
 " Know'st thou who he is ? " said the girl. 
 
 " Nay, I know none of them. My hair is reddish, and 
 I've kept wide of the Wayne haunts." 
 
 ' Tis Shameless Wayne himself he that fought the 
 69
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Lean Man and worsted him. I would he had died here, 
 Nick, for neither thou nor I could kill a man lying helpless 
 at our feet." 
 
 " Water water love of the Virgin, give me water," 
 moaned Wayne. 
 
 Nick o' Trawdon did not stop to weigh the matter in 
 his mind, but ran to the Crown and Angel tavern and re- 
 turned with a mug, half rilled with rum and half with well- 
 water. Gently, as if he were ministering to a friend, he 
 took the man's head on his knees and aided him to drink ; 
 and the crowd looked on, and growled, and asked why any 
 man in Colne should help a Wayne to live. 
 
 " Tis breeding sorrow for us, may be," said the girl. 
 " Say, Nick, could'st do what I dare not run him through 
 the side with his own sword, and make an end of it ? " 
 
 Nick looked up at her. " Nay, lass, I couldn't," he 
 answered, "for I should never look a good man in the 
 face again." 
 
 " Art right, Nick o' mine. May God forgive me for the 
 thought ! " 
 
 For the first time in their courtship she knew that she 
 was weaker than her man. Perhaps it was a foreshadowing 
 of what was soon to come ; but sure it was that her heart 
 beat high and steadfastly, and her eyes rested on Nick o' 
 Trawdon with something of the look she had given Red 
 Ratcliffe earlier in the day. Wayne, meanwhile, drank, 
 and drank again ; and they knew, watching the returning 
 clearness of his eyes, that they were risking much, though 
 they dared do no less than help him back to life. 
 
 Nick o' Trawdon looked at her, and they had no secrets 
 now from one another. 
 
 " Never heed, lass," he whispered. " We're doing what 
 we must do, and we'll just wait for what's to follow." 
 
 But the crowd was growing more and more impatient, 
 and its growl was ominous. They had seen Red Ratcliffe 
 fight, as their fathers had loved to see a Ratcliffe fight ; 
 and these two Nick o' Trawdon and the girl were helping 
 a Wayne in his accursed need. 
 
 70
 
 The Beginning of it 
 
 " Let him die, or kill him if he will not ! " came a sudden 
 cry from the middle of the throng. 
 
 " Nay ! " said Nick o' Trawdon, snatching Wayne's 
 sword from out its scabbard and facing round about to 
 meet the rabble. 
 
 And Margaret, watching him, knew that he had begun 
 to be a man.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 HOW LITTLE BAIRN CAME DOWN TO MARSH 
 
 RED RATCLIFFE did not halt between Colne and Black 
 House. His horse had wearied of waiting round about 
 Colne market, and now, helped forward by impatience and 
 a wish to see his stall again, he did not need the spur. 
 And a good sight it was, so the lonely shepherds said, who 
 watched them pass, to see them outlined clear against the 
 blue the big man, on the big, raking horse, the two so 
 close a part of the one body that it seemed there was not 
 a pair of them at all, but one. 
 
 To the broken lands they came, and to the marshes 
 splashed with vivid green ; and round about them the 
 peewits wheeled unceasingly, crying, crying to them as 
 Ishmael must have cried amid the wilderness. The sun 
 got down and farther down, and dusk crept magical from 
 out the purpling dingles ; a thousand murmurs were 
 abroad tired murmurs, as if the day, at the end of all its 
 toil, were stretching wearied arms and muttering a thanks- 
 giving. Peace spread her wings above these broken lands, 
 and the dread width and harshness of them were hidden 
 by a veil of tenderness. Reared in the wilderness, his 
 senses tuned from cradle-time to understand the moods 
 of his mother-heath, Red Ratcliffe had never come so close 
 to her as now, had never read her speech so plainly. His 
 day's work was done, just as hers was ; there had been the 
 garish sunlight, the task, the glow and fervour ; and now 
 there was the quiet gloaming-tide, to lull his strength to 
 sleep, that so another day might find him strong to 
 labour. 
 
 "Well done, Ratcliffe. Oh, lad, well done!" That 
 
 72
 
 How Little Bairn came to Marsh 
 
 was the moor's cry to its chosen man, and a quiet and happy 
 thrill ran through him as he rode. 
 
 He was at the edge of No Man's Land by this, threading 
 the tangled way which was the only safe approach to Black 
 House. To the right were shifting bogs, and marshes to 
 the left ; one false step would have meant danger at the 
 least, and at the worst a cruel death. But the horse made 
 no false step, fast as they were going, and by-and-by the 
 width of Lonesome Pool showed near ahead. The dusk 
 was deepening now, and a mist hung light and grey above 
 the tarn ; and in and out among the mist a Jack-o'-lanthorn 
 played, as it had played a score years since, when Mistress 
 Ratcliffe came to bear her son in the red-room whose 
 windows yonder frowned upon the mere. 
 
 It may be that the years were cancelled, now at this 
 gloaming-hour ; for sure it was that Red Ratcliffe lost the 
 peace which had run beside his stirrup, and for a moment 
 a long and fearsome moment he seemed to be hurrying 
 with a sense of woe unutterable, from the phantom terrors 
 that would not show themselves. The dead mother had 
 left him a twofold legacy, it seemed, and no gladness in 
 the battle, no swinging of the sharp-toothed foster-brother, 
 could save him from these after- terrors which were not his 
 at all, but the woman's who had died at child-birth. 
 
 The horse felt something, if not all, of Red Ratcliffe's 
 sudden terror, as a beast will who lives close in sympathy 
 with his master. He whinnied with disquiet, and turned 
 his head about in question, heedless for the moment of the 
 dangers of their bridle-way. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe killed his fears, as he had done aforetime, 
 and laughed, and patted the beast's neck. 
 
 " We've won our fight, thou fool," he murmured. " Why 
 worry thyself to find trouble ? " 
 
 And the other accepted his reproof in a horse's patient 
 fashion, though it was Ratcliffe's terror, not his own, 
 that was at fault. Together they skirted Lonesome Pool, 
 and Bathsheba and Joseph who had hearkened eagerly, 
 be sure, for the master's homecoming were standing at 
 
 73
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 the hall-door to welcome them. And Joseph held the 
 stirrup-cup aloft ; for tradition bade the Ratcliffe serving- 
 folk come always to welcome home the master with a cup. 
 
 Bathsheba held a candle one hand shielding it from 
 the little sideways wind that came from the Pool and its 
 light fell full upon the horse and man and axe. And axe 
 and man and horse were red as the feud that they had 
 freshly lit at Colne, for Ratcliffe had not stayed to wipe the 
 stains from himself or from his foster-brother. 
 
 " Good hap ! " she cried, her woman's dread of blood 
 quenched altogether by the long yearning for the feud to 
 re-awaken. 
 
 " It is good hap," the other answered, with a sober 
 laugh. " Tis begun, Bathsheba ! Joseph, this foster- 
 brother has a fault. He bites too deep, and the second 
 man comes at you before you've well cleared the blade." 
 
 " 'Tis a good fault," chuckled Joseph. " Oh, ay, 'tis 
 a good fault in an axe, to bite too deep. Come you down 
 from the saddle, master, and stretch yourself across the 
 lang-settle, for I warrant you've earned a rest." 
 
 " I'll fare to the well-spring first, Joseph, and get a little 
 of the red away before I eat." 
 
 Joseph nodded briskly, then took the horse to stable, 
 and groomed him, whistling all the while with great con- 
 tent. He did not care to ask any question yet awhile as 
 to the details ; it was enough for him that the patience of the 
 years had been rewarded, that the master had proved 
 himself well-fitted for the battle when it came. To the 
 younger Waynes, sheltered among less broken lands, with 
 senses dulled by twenty years of luxury to the finer calls 
 of a world behind their own to the younger Waynes it 
 would have seemed strange that Joseph and Bathsheba 
 should both accept last night's fore-warnings, to-day's 
 quick answer, with a quietness so assured. For Joseph, 
 prone at all times to think more of farming matters than of 
 ghosts, had shared Bathsheba's sense that Colne would 
 this day see great doings such as had not stirred the town 
 since the Ratcliffes perished in the last big fight. 
 
 74
 
 How Little Bairn came to Marsh 
 
 And while he groomed the horse, Bathsheba took the 
 master, after he had washed, not into the parlour, but into 
 the sweet, firelit kitchen, where the peats were banked 
 high up the chimney, where the hooded chair sat snugly 
 in its corner and every bit of household gear spoke cheerily 
 of comfort. 
 
 " See, ye, master, I made shift to get your supper here," 
 she said. ' 'Twas homelier-like, I thought, and I could 
 bake the hearth-cakes for you as you watched 'twas ever 
 a joy to you, I call to mind, to watch them in the making." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe stretched himself to the top of his six-foot- 
 four, and then sat down to table ; for the quiet of his wel- 
 come, and the firelit warmth and homeliness of the old 
 kitchen, were dear to him to-night, as such things can only 
 be after hard battle and long toil. 
 
 " Trust thee to know the way of a man's comfort, Bath- 
 sheba," he said, falling to upon the good cheer waiting for 
 him. 
 
 " When cattle are kittle, us poor women must find some 
 way to drive them," the other answered, with the tartness 
 that was crisp and wholesome as a wind from off the peat. 
 
 She had a bowl before her, and was mixing cream and 
 flour into a dough Ratcliffe watching her the while, 
 and going back in mind to childhood's days, which would 
 ever hold for him this picture of Bathsheba, the raftered 
 beams above her head, the ruddy glow of the firelight on her 
 capable, bare arms, the brown bowl, sacred to the making 
 of the hearth-cakes, standing before her yonder on the side- 
 table. Still busy with his food, he watched her, too, take 
 out the dough, and make it into little rounded cakes, and 
 place these in the hottest of the peat-ash, and take them 
 out again when they were ready. 
 
 " They wear the same brown look as of old about them, 
 Bathsheba," he said; "and they're flaked, just as they 
 always were, like little brown leaves in autumn." 
 
 And in truth the cakes, made in Bathsheba's fashion and 
 flavoured with the peat-odour, were as dainty fare as any 
 man need ask ; and Red Ratcliffe finished the last of the 
 
 75
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 brave dish-full, as if he had not proved his manhood once 
 for all, as if he were a ladling still and fond of the things of 
 appetite. He had killed two men to-day, if not a third ; 
 but the time had not yet come for him to feel the sick 
 reality of his work at Colne ; for the present, he knew only 
 that he had struck hard and true in obedience to the fathers' 
 call, and that his ride had sharpened hunger. 
 
 Joseph came in as he was finishing, and his eye dwelt 
 tenderly and proudly on the master. 
 
 " I've groomed foster-brother, as well as the horse," 
 he said. " Ay, I've made him bright and clean again, 
 and given him just a stroke or so of the whetstone. By 
 the Lean Man, he's a lovesome tool to work with, master ! " 
 
 Red Ratcliffe moved to the lang-settle, and stretched 
 his bulk along it, while Bathsheba brought him a measure 
 and set it down upon the floor beside him. Made of their 
 own rye the spirit was, and for twenty years it had lain 
 in the barrel here, scarce touched as yet ; for ale at usual 
 times was more to the master's liking, and Joseph counted 
 spirits " a drink for gentle-folk, and over heady at that." 
 
 " A lovesome tool ? " echoed Ratcliffe, with a quiet 
 laugh. ' 'Tis no tool at all, but just a part of one's right 
 hand. Should'st hear him sing, Joseph, when the battle- 
 hunger takes him." 
 
 And then the tale of the day's doings was drawn out 
 from him, not easily ; for the lad was learning that reluc- 
 tance to talk of his slain which comes to every fighter. 
 Yet Joseph gleaned enough, and Bathsheba gleaned enough, 
 to know the way of it at Colne ; and a gladness, terrible 
 in its surety and in its lack of pity, came to both of them. 
 Bathsheba was no longer the woman of her hands, bustling 
 about the master's welfare ; she was a Ratcliffe, thrilled 
 by the dead folk of her race who still lived on to whisper 
 kill ! 
 
 " So the Lean Man came home, they say, to this very 
 house when his first fight was over ! " she cried. " He was 
 in hiding then, in Black House here but you know it well 
 as I, master it was built long, long ago, to give shelter when 
 
 76
 
 How Little Bairn came to Marsh 
 
 the Waynes were uppermost. And the Lean Man came here 
 in his youth when times had fallen ill ; and he brought the 
 long-hafted axe with him, and 'twas my own mother's 
 mother welcomed him and listened to the story of his 
 battle. He should have kept to the axe, say I, instead of 
 letting the prosperous days wean him from its use; ay, 
 ay, he would have been quick among us to this day if 
 he'd not forsaken the long foster-brother." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe sat upright on the settle, his eyes big and 
 luminous. " The Lean Man is quick among us," he said, 
 " for I saw him walk Colne market not many hours ago." 
 
 Old Joseph looked drily at him. " Some folk are born 
 to see, I reckon, and some are born blind on that side of 
 things ; for my part, I'd liefer handle the big axe than see 
 a score of ghosties." 
 
 " I saw him ; that is all," Red Ratcliffe answered. 
 
 " To be sure," murmured Bathsheba. " 'Twould be 
 unnatural if he'd not come back to hearten you, not come 
 back to see foster-brother swing aloft and to hear the purring 
 song of him. Purrs like cat with mouse, does foster- 
 brother, so I've heard the old folk say that knew his ways. 
 As for Joseph yonder, he lives in a stone- walled field, as I 
 tell him pretty well every day ; for me, 'tis the free moor 
 I was reared to, and I thank God ^f or giving me the Sight. 
 Ah, hearken, lad," she broke off* with one of her quick 
 changes, " d'ye think I did not know that it was faring well 
 with you to-day ? The picture was all broken, and I could 
 not see what head the axe came down upon, but I knew 
 that you stood high and unafraid." 
 
 " Yet Joseph taught me how to swing the axe," said 
 Ratcliffe, smiling at the grizzled comrade who had been 
 with him, sun and shower, these twenty years. 
 
 And Joseph nodded, tongue-tied, yet sensible that his 
 own work, too, was recognised, that his shortcomings, so 
 constantly brought under notice by the goodwife, were 
 after all no real blot upon his record. Had not the master 
 fought to-day with men, had not the training of the years 
 been justified ? 
 
 77
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " What of the third Wayne the one you tapped with the 
 axe-haft ? " he asked, after a long silence. 
 
 " He's alive, or dead I did not stay to ask," said the 
 master, knowing well what was to come. 
 
 " You did not stay to ask ? " cried Joseph, startled 
 from his wonted calm. " The Lean Man always stayed to 
 ask, and I fancied I had bred you to the same gospel." 
 
 " He lay there at my feet, Joseph. He was the answer 
 to your gospel. I could not kill him, and there was an 
 end of it." 
 
 " Lord God," cried Bathsheba and there was tragedy 
 deep, not-to-be-denied, in the air of this woman who so 
 short a while ago had baked hearth-cakes for the little lad, 
 grown big, whom she had fostered. " Lord God, you dared 
 to stand there, and remember what the Ratcliffes owe the 
 Waynes, and not make sure ? " 
 
 " I dared not kill him, Bathsheba. He lay so still and 
 quiet." 
 
 "Then you followed your own whimsies I'll say it, 
 whether you be the Ratcliffe heir or no you followed your 
 own whimsies, and you forget that blood asks blood. 
 Oh, Mother of God, is it a time to play the maid, and 
 shrink, and look aside ? The Waynes are to be killed, by 
 open fight, or stealth, .or any way that offers. And if 
 you shrink, the Lean Man, who blesses you to-day, will 
 curse you till you die in misery." 
 
 The years had gathered their waters to a head to-night. 
 Bathsheba, who alone knew what Mistress Ratcliffe had 
 endured, how bravely she had suffered all, how unfalteringly 
 she had given her dying will that the boy should be reared 
 to kill and spare not Bathsheba could see no issue but the 
 one. Perhaps, if her own boy had lived, she would have 
 come nearer to remembrance of her younger days, when 
 the heart was readier for pity than for hate ; but her boy 
 had died, almost at birth, and she had closed her heart, she 
 thought, once and for all. 
 
 The years had gathered their waters to a head to-night, 
 for Ratcliffe as for Bathsheba. The sudden terror he had
 
 How Little Bairn came to Marsh 
 
 felt not long ago, by Lonesome Water, was not to be put 
 away as lightly as he thought ; and now the agony of 
 Mistress Ratcliffe, when she fled a score years since to bear 
 him to his doom, came on him with a new, surprising vigour. 
 The Lean Man's curse, invoked by Bathsheba, was a very 
 present menace ; he saw with the Lean Man's eyes, and 
 knew that he should have struck a second time to-day at 
 Colne ; he was learning, too, the last lesson of the brave, 
 that they must come to courage through extreme and 
 sickening dread. 
 
 Joseph pulled at his ale-flagon ; but Bathsheba, as women 
 do, sought for the lad's feelings in his face, when she had 
 better have been blind to outward signs. What she saw 
 there frightened her ; it was as if the terrors of the genera- 
 tions were gathered into her hand, as when women go a- 
 harvesting in the wake of the goodman with his sickle 
 and hold the gold-ripe barley to their breasts. Terror 
 blank, shivering terror was in the face of this foster- 
 son of hers who had lately killed his enemies ; and she 
 was sorry, as women are when it is over-late, that she 
 had seen this thing. 
 
 It was only for a moment, and then Ratcliffe was his own 
 man again. 
 
 " Bathsheba," he said, with the quietness that was 
 strong as a steady dawn above the moor. " Bathsheba, 
 fill me another measure. I have done what I have done, 
 and left undone the rest yet somehow I know that I have 
 earned my leisure." 
 
 It was Joseph who broke the ensuing pause, while 
 Bathsheba obeyed the master she had almost cursed. 
 
 " Say, master, of what fashion was this Wayne you 
 spared ? " he asked. 
 
 " Tall, as men are reckoned forty or so, at a rough 
 guess a big and handsome face, with a look of drink and 
 tiredness in it." 
 
 " God, 'twas Shameless Wayne himself ! " muttered 
 Bathsheba. " Wayne, whose house you went to look at 
 yesternight, when you met Parson's Lass upon the moor, 
 
 79
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 and thought her better than any maid I've seen in my 
 long life." 
 
 " Well, he is dead, or is not. I cannot tell," said Rat- 
 cliffe. " What will be, will be, Bathsheba but I'm glad 
 I spared him if he's yet alive." 
 
 " The maid taught you that," snapped Bathsheba ; 
 " Parson's Lass, with her hair of gold, and her dainty, 
 south-bred ways." 
 
 " May be. She was the sweetest thing I ever saw on 
 Marshcotes Moor ; she could teach any lesson well, I 
 think. And now good-night, for I'm fain of my bed, I 
 own." 
 
 " What of the morrow ? " asked Joseph, never long 
 forgetful of the farming-side of the lone life they shared, 
 these three, at Black House. " There's the four-acre field 
 to plough, if we're to get the oats sown before winter 
 comes." 
 
 " The field must wait, or thou must plough it by thyself," 
 said Ratcliffe, halting for a moment at the door. " I 
 shall ride to Wildwater to-morrow, to tell the old house 
 what I've done." 
 
 It was after the master had gone up to bed, with sleep 
 and weariness upon him, that Bathsheba gave outlet 
 to her feelings. 
 
 " Joseph," said she, " this Parson's Lass will make 
 trouble by and by." 
 
 " I'm not thinking of trouble just to-night, Bathsheba," 
 the other answered sturdily. " The lad is right to go to 
 Wildwater, for we've taught him what the stones say 
 yonder, and the crumpled beams, and the ling that's 
 springing up already between the flooring-stones. Sakes, 
 what does the farm matter just this once ? Foster- 
 brother has had his way, and the dead folk at Wildwater 
 will be glad of the tale young master brings them." 
 
 And so it seemed that the influence of the dead took hold 
 at times of Joseph also, though Bathsheba to-night would 
 not applaud him for the feeling. 
 
 " Bundle o' rushes ! " she cried fretfully. " D'ye think 
 
 80
 
 How Little Bairn came to Marsh 
 
 he goes to the old house for any reason but the one ? 
 He'll go beyond Wildwater, as he did before, in hope of 
 meeting Parson's maid upon the moor. 'Tis just these 
 slight, bemannered, gold-haired maids that trick the 
 strong men always." 
 
 " Why should she trick him ? " demanded Joseph. 
 " I was young myself once, and so wast thou, lass, and the 
 maidens stiffen a man's sinews time and time, as well as 
 loosen them at other times, if I remember aught." 
 
 " She's southern-bred. Oh, ay, I know about her, 
 though gossip runs far and runs tired before it gets to Black 
 House here. The old Parson is a foreigner, and always 
 was, as I remember, from his first coming ; had little money 
 and big kinsfolk down in the Low Country ; held himself 
 above us country folk." 
 
 " Nay, lass, nay ! " protested Joseph. " He's been a 
 good man and a just man, according to his lights. Dost 
 not remember how he railed at Shameless Wayne and his 
 wife Janet when they came to kirk together ? 'Twas only 
 yesternight the master heard thee praise him for it." 
 
 " Yet the Parson is proud, I tell thee, Joseph, and this 
 lass must needs go to her big folk down in London yonder. 
 They say the King was pleased to notice her and King's 
 notice of a lass, from all I've heard, is not as decent as 
 it might be. And she's but seventeen." 
 
 " Smaller years, smaller call to blame." 
 
 " Thou'rt braver than thyself to-night, Joseph. Tis 
 not thy wont to answer when Bathsheba tells thee what 
 she knows." 
 
 " Likely. I have heard how the foster-brother sang at 
 Colne, and I do not fear thee, Bathsheba, somehow." 
 
 Bathsheba looked at him, and wondered ; he had been 
 tame in her hand until to-night, yet now he was a wild 
 bird of the marshes ; she did not understand that, after 
 twenty years of quiet, he was a man again. 
 
 " That other maid," she went on, shifting her battle- 
 ground, " the one whom Wayne of Ludworth kissed and 
 the master, poor fool, seems never to have guessed that 
 r 81
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 kisses come and go ! he must needs take her quarrel on 
 him because her hair was light in colour. He did not mean 
 to tell the reason, but it slipped from him unawares as he 
 lay talking yonder on the lang-settle ; this maid of Colne 
 was like the Parson's Lass, as a dog-rose favours the big 
 blooms that grow down yonder in the valley-lands and 
 so he took her quarrel on him." 
 
 " Very like. Very like, Bathsheba, lass. Tis the way 
 of a man, as I have seen it, and the way of a man is the 
 way of the world, when all's said and done." 
 
 Again the goodwife eyed her husband. " The way of 
 the world is the way of its women, Joseph," said she. 
 
 " Ay, so the women think," the old man chuckled. 
 " The fancy has tickled me, Bathsheba, more than once 
 or twice." 
 
 And again Bathsheba shifted her ground, since few 
 women fight when they are worsted. Perhaps she liked 
 her goodman better for his spirit. 
 
 " Like mistress, like maid, they say. This maid at Colne 
 I knew her from the master's talk of her she's daughter 
 to Phineas Fletcher at the Crown and Angel. He's a bit 
 like Marshcotes Parson, is Phineas, too poor of gear, and 
 too rich of his kinsfolk. Well, naught would do but 
 Margaret Fletcher must go as maid to Parson's Lass, till 
 her father got so driven that he had to call her back from 
 service." 
 
 " Well, thou wast foster-sister, and I was foster- 
 brother, to the Ratcliffes, and we wedded for that 
 reason," said Joseph slowly. " I'd have liked to see 
 the master wedded to a Ratcliffe, had there been such 
 for him. As 'tis, he'll marry Parson's Lass, I 
 fancy." 
 
 " Bundle o' rushes ! " Bathsheba interrupted, for the 
 second time to-night. It was, indeed, her most familiar 
 expression of contempt. " He'll want a fine, upstanding 
 lass, will the master, with honest red hair to her head, and 
 the Ratcliffe look about her. We've seen what comes of 
 marrying into another house, by what's happened to Shame- 
 
 82
 
 How Little Bairn came to Marsh 
 
 less Wayne and his cursed wife. Hast ever set eyes on that 
 boy of theirs, Joseph ? " 
 
 " Nay, not as I know of ; but I've heard he's just a 
 weakling." 
 
 " Just a weakling ? Ay, just that. I saw him once, 
 and only once, and it made me laugh to see what sort of 
 finish they had put to their brave wedlock. Thin and 
 narrow, with shoulders that drop into a heap, like, and his 
 eyes as full of ' Don't in mercy strike me ' as a dog's that's 
 young Wayne of Marsh House, Joseph, and I tell thee that 
 I laughed to see him." 
 
 " 'Twas like to be," said Joseph, whose outlook upon 
 Janet Ratcliffe was ever grim and unrelenting. " Ay, 
 'twas just like to be, I'm fond of speaking ill against no 
 woman, myself, for I've a fondness for 'em all ; but I will 
 say this of Mistress Janet that when she wedded Shame- 
 less Wayne she lit hell-fire in her own soul for good and all, 
 and well deserved to do." 
 
 Bathsheba had been looking at the peats, down -crumbling 
 on the hearth, but now she raised her eyes to Joseph's. 
 
 " Man," she said hoarsely, " it makes me sicken when I 
 think of what they did, those two. Wayne went through 
 fire and water for her, so he boasted openly when the 
 Parson spoke against their marriage. Ay, so he did 
 but the water ran as red as Wayne and Ratcliffe blood could 
 dye it. And they came together through the red of it, 
 and their son their heir, Joseph, save the mark ! lives 
 on to show them what they did." 
 
 And this same son though Bathsheba did not know it 
 was lying on the open moor between Wildwater and Marsh- 
 cotes ; was telling himself that he had all but killed a 
 Icinsman of his own to-day ; was wondering, not for the 
 first time in his lonely life, why God had set him in the 
 midst of a world which so perplexed him. Could Joseph 
 and his wife have seen the lad now, as he lay with his sleep- 
 less eyes upon the stars and listened to that underfret 
 among the ling which comes always from out the silence 
 of a moorland night, they might have thought less of their 
 
 83
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 abhorrence of Shameless Wayne and Janet, and more of 
 the victim of that wedlock the wedlock whose altar had 
 dripped ruddy and unclean. Ay, surely, down in that 
 mother's corner of the heart which nowadays she tried 
 to latch securely the corner which had peeped from its 
 prison-house to-night when she made hearth-cakes for her 
 boy surely Bathsheba would not have laughed to see 
 this stripling Wayne so weak. Surely, too, she would have 
 asked herself as the boy was asking himself with fierce 
 rebellion what had he sown that he should reap this bitter 
 harvest of shame, self-doubt, and separation from those 
 who were his kinsmen and should have been his friends ? 
 
 But Bathsheba and Joseph, as they went up to bed, 
 thought nothing of the lad's view of it, but only of the 
 feud. Joseph halted for a moment in the hall, took down 
 the big axe, sleek and shining and well-groomed as the 
 master's horse, and held it in his hands awhile. 
 
 " Good brother ! Good lad ! " he murmured, stroking 
 it as if indeed it were a horse that waited for the grooming. 
 ' 'Twas a rare bite you had at Colne to-day, and there'll 
 be others by-and-by." 
 
 Above them, in the Red Room where he had been born 
 to the feud, the master slept, dreamless and untroubled. 
 The tall clock on the stairway ticked out the peaceful 
 moments. Only the wind was restless round about Black 
 House that, and a wandering night-bird disturbed, 
 belike, by a wild-cat which plained and whimpered 
 round the chimney-stacks. 
 
 The head of the Ratcliffes slept in great content ; but 
 the heir of the Wayne headship, lying yonder on the moor, 
 had no such ease of soul and body. Red Ratcliffe had a 
 lonely fight before him, to be sure ; but at the least he knew 
 himself straight-bred, a Ratcliffe born of Ratcliffes on 
 either side. Young Wayne of Marsh had no such solace. 
 His hair was Ratcliffe, his name was Wayne, his body was 
 a thing to laugh at when measured by the stalwart men 
 about him ; moreover and this bit deeper than foster- 
 brother had done at Colne to-day there was a slur upon 
 
 84
 
 How Little Bairn came to Marsh 
 
 his birth. It was as if he had been born out of wedlock, 
 so far as open sneers went, and covert gibes more hard to 
 bear. And deeper yet surely God knew the agony of 
 it, and was only waiting to reward the pain deeper yet 
 struck the knowledge that his mother was despised among 
 the Waynes. His mother, with her beauty free and 
 splendid yet after twenty years of hell ; his mother, with 
 that courage and that straight, clean look of the fine eyes 
 which reminded him at all times of deep, deep waters, 
 reflecting wide and truthful skies ; his mother, to whom, 
 before his dawning manhood made him shamed to come 
 to her with troubles, he had brought his troubles and the 
 long, corroding sneers and insults of the years insults 
 which the boy feels more keenly than the man, may be, 
 because he cannot shake them off. It was a discourteous 
 mention of his mother that had brought out his sword 
 to-day and had made him cut his cousin through the side, 
 that had made him see the red of battle as clearly as ever 
 a stalwart Wayne or Ratcliffe of them all could do. 
 
 And now he lay and pondered, here on the quiet moor, 
 with its underfret of restlessness, with Charley's Wain 
 and all the stars of heaven bright above him, with his 
 loneliness and sullen doubt of God for only company. 
 His mother to be slighted ! Ay, that found the manhood 
 hiding under his lank body ; for he was not of the feud, 
 but he could fight for the woman whose love of him, and 
 care of him in spite of all her sorrow that he should be 
 framed so weak had been the only teaching that could 
 reach his heart. His mother ! Why, the name was 
 magical ; he could not choose but fight for her, and he, who 
 was compact of fears, had no dreads at all when, as a few 
 hours ago, he was compelled to prove his love for her. 
 
 Round and about the boy's thoughts went, seeking 
 shelter and finding none round and about, as the stars 
 wheeled overhead, yet faster and less tranquil than the 
 motion of the stars. He had to fight his cousin ; he had 
 to long to kill him, if only to wipe out that lying sneer ; 
 and yet and yet was not Wayne of Marsh his father, 
 
 85
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 claiming obedience to the law, old, old by now, that the 
 Wayne who lifted hand against a Wayne was guilty of a 
 crime too monstrous to be thought of ? If his father had 
 only spoken kindly to him once, if he could once have held 
 back that look of grey and passionless contempt which the 
 boy had known throughout his life, if in one detail of his 
 treatment of this son, born to show the father's sin as in a 
 mirror if Wayne had been in any way the man who long 
 ago had made his name heroic wherever peat and ling 
 looked up at the moor-sky the boy might still have re- 
 verenced him, have halted half-way between the mother 
 and the father, have failed to run in that groove of destiny 
 which to-night's anguish and reflection were graving 
 deep. 
 
 It was but a little sign of his great pain that suddenly 
 he stretched his arms toward the sky and cried aloud in a 
 voice that was deeper and fiercer than his years. 
 
 " Cannot you speak, you damned, smiling stars ? I 
 cannot go back to Marsh, for I have lifted my hand against 
 a Wayne. I cannot bide away, for the mother waits me 
 there, and sorrows for me, and has none to help her not 
 even father, who loved her once, they say." 
 
 There was a silence. The little stars smiled down on 
 him ; and he waited for the message that was slow to come ; 
 and the sweat dripped from him in his agony. 
 
 Behind him was Wildwater, with the jealous wastes of 
 Lonesome Moor behind again ; in front lay Marshcotes 
 with its hilly street, its gentler usages, its weaknesses 
 that come of luxury ; it seemed that this ill-shapen boy, 
 whose fashion had made Bathsheba laugh for glee, was, 
 as it were, the half-way guiding post 'twixt Black House 
 and the House of Marsh. For certainly his doubts were 
 finding a clear echo at this moment in the great hall at 
 Marsh. 
 
 Late toward the gloaming-tide Shameless Wayne had 
 ridden home, had blundered from the saddle, had called 
 for a long measure and a deep to be brought him here in 
 hall. The wine heartened him, and he called for more ; 
 
 86
 
 How Little Bairn came to Marsh 
 
 Janet, watching with knowledge of the years gone by, 
 knew well that Wayne would drink his fill to-night. 
 
 " How chanced it, lad, at Colne ? " she asked. 
 
 Wayne clapped a hand to his dark head, where he felt 
 the foster-brother's smart. 
 
 " It chanced ill, Janet," he said. " Two of the three 
 of us were killed, and I am here alive through Ratcliffe 
 mercy." 
 
 " Ratcliffe mercy ? I never heard of it before." 
 
 In Janet's voice there was a bitterness which Wayne had 
 heard too often ; it was as if she knew the faults of her own 
 people, yet counted them so many virtues ; it was as if 
 she taunted him, out of the great sickness of her heart, 
 because they had fancied they could bridge the feud by 
 love. 
 
 " Nor I," he answered gravely. " Nor do I like it 
 when it comes, this Ratcliffe mercy. I had rather lie cold 
 in Colne Street yonder than be alive to thank their pity." 
 
 Janet found her womanhood upon the sudden. The 
 fret and terror of Wayne's going for she had loved him 
 more deeply, it may be, because the barriers reared them- 
 selves so red between them the after-trouble touching 
 her son's sword-fight with his cousin had made her weak 
 to the call of her own heart. Without a word she came 
 into Wayne's arms, and reached up her lips to his. 
 
 " Ned, I love you through it all," she said, in answer, 
 not to what had passed between them at their greeting, 
 but in reply to the fiery years gone by. 
 
 It was many a day since Wayne and she had come to- 
 gether in this wise ; and now again, as on the day, a score 
 years ago, when he and she had cried wildly to their God 
 that love bridges all, they lay in each other's arms, and 
 kissed like lad and lass, and, for their little moment, found 
 life beautiful. But their son, out yonder with his eyes 
 upon the stars, did not find sweetness in this life, and 
 perhaps his anguish reached them ; for they left their kiss 
 half-spoken, and fell apart, and looked at one another 
 wistfully. 
 
 87
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " Ned, what chanced at Colne ? " she asked again. 
 
 " A red-headed man came at us with an axe a tool of 
 the Lean Man's in his younger days, my father told me 
 and killed Wayne of Ludworth before I could run in to 
 help him. I was in time to save the second, so I thought 
 and I slipped and caught the axe's haft on my skull as I 
 was running in to strike." 
 
 " Would I liefer have you dead than quick, I wonder ? " 
 said Janet, looking gravely at him. 
 
 " Would I liefer be dead or quick, dear lass ? I do not 
 know." 
 
 Again her arms went round him, and they were lad and 
 lass again, as God lets all folk be, just time and time. 
 
 " Tis thou, dear lad just thou till the red finish of 
 it all," she said. 
 
 Not in their early love-days, not in their forbidden prime 
 of love, had they known the gladness of this moment. 
 The red finish was assured, but they gathered mean- 
 while what flowers they could from the broken fields 
 of life. 
 
 " There have been two fights to-day," said Janet, by- 
 and-by. " The boy our boy has broken the Wayne law 
 and thrust his kinsman through the side." 
 
 Shameless Wayne again pressed both hands tight about 
 his aching head, and in and about the dizziness there 
 played a remembrance of the days when he, too, had not 
 done well at all. 
 
 " He was ever a fool," he snapped, borne down by his 
 own troubles. 
 
 " He was what we made him you and I, my husband. 
 And he played a better blade than any of your sword- 
 proud Waynes." 
 
 Again the taunt. Again the joy in a Wayne's defeat. 
 The lessons of the Lean Man, who once had loved and 
 spoiled her, could not be unlearned by Janet in a moment ; 
 like the lad out yonder on the moor, she would of her own 
 free will be traitorous to none, and yet there were two 
 loyalties that fought within her at these times loyalty 
 
 88
 
 How Little Bairn came to Marsh 
 
 to her goodman, and loyalty to those who had been blood 
 of her own blood. 
 
 " Who taught him sword-craft ? " Wayne demanded, 
 wearily. 
 
 " Your uncle of Cranshaw." 
 
 " I am glad the lad won, at any rate, if fight he must. 
 Where is he now, Janet ? " 
 
 " He ran up into the moor, they tell me, and has not 
 since returned. Tis an old trick of his, to take his troubles 
 to the moor." 
 
 Wayne strode up and down with moody brows, halting 
 now and then to snatch a gulp at his wine-flagon. 
 
 " He had better bide there," he said grimly. " You 
 know how strict the law is among us Waynes, Janet ? In 
 the old days, when we had stamped the Ratcliffes out, or 
 thought we had, our men fell into idleness, and wearied 
 of the days that brought no Ratcliffe to the fight, and took 
 to picking quarrels with each other. And so we made a 
 strict law, not to be broken any way." 
 
 " You have told me of it. That was long ago ; and now 
 for the second time the Ratcliffes are not quite stamped 
 out, for the second time a Wayne fights a Wayne 
 
 " For the second time there's a long fight ahead," 
 Wayne interrupted, " unless we get this red-head with the 
 axe. Say, Janet, who can he be ? We made so sure of 
 every Ratcliffe of them all that night." 
 
 Janet looked at him in wonder, to find him speak so 
 openly of a night that should be hidden from his sight and 
 hers ; and then she realised that his thoughts were moving 
 forward, that he thought only of the interests of his house ; 
 and she subdued herself, remembering she was his wife, 
 and so a Wayne. 
 
 " There were Ratcliffe wives," she answered, " and you 
 did not slay the women, Wayne." 
 
 " God, how blind men are ! A woman would have 
 understood," he cried. " Which of the women was it, 
 I wonder, and where did she hide with this red-headed 
 bantling who has grown so big ? " 
 
 89
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " Was he big beyond the ordinary ? " 
 " He topped the biggest in Colne Market by a head, 
 and his chest was like a bull's." 
 
 " There was one of the Ratcliffe women wife of the 
 Lean Man's heir and she was near to child-birth. I re- 
 member. If she's the mother, there's no wonderment 
 that the lad is big of body, big of the feud, for she was a 
 Ratcliffe to the bone of her." 
 
 Again their eyes met, not with the glamour of their love 
 in them, but with the shame and degradation that they 
 shared. 
 
 " I know your meaning," Wayne cried, with the weary 
 bitterness that twice before had crept into his voice to- 
 night. " What is our son like, you're thinking ? Oh, 
 by the Virgin, if we had had a son like yond red-headed 
 devil with his axe ! I tell you, Janet, the thought ran 
 through me even as I leaped to strike him." 
 
 " We asked what could not be," said Janet, and, though 
 quiet, the words were as full of bitterness as Wayne's. 
 " How could it be, when at the altar we mocked the God 
 who made us ay, earned the gentle Parson's curse, spoken 
 in face of all the congregation ? " 
 
 Wayne paced about the hall, the wine-cup ever ready 
 to his hand ; and, when he saw that Janet looked askance 
 at this same cup, he laughed. 
 
 " 'Twill be put away, Janet, 'twill be put away," he cried. 
 " To-night the old house seems full of ghosts, and dead 
 men cursing me, and tumults of the fights to come. D'ye 
 want a madman for a husband, or will you let me drink 
 in peace to-night, letting the wine be my physician ? " 
 
 She understood. Nay, she filled the cup afresh for him, 
 knowing his sorrows, and handed it to him. 
 
 " It will be put away," she said, like a child who trusted 
 him. " Not just to-night, but very soon. Oh, Ned 
 Ned, Ned, my own dear lad you must come through your 
 battles, for I cannot live without you." 
 
 About the house the slim, pad-footed ghosts were stirring, 
 and the wind was all uneasy in between the gables^over- 
 
 90
 
 How Little Bairn came to Marsh 
 
 head ; yet they were two together, and they did not 
 heed. 
 
 Into the dusk of the hall, lit only by the peat-glow, crept 
 a frail figure, more like a brown leaf of the autumn than a 
 woman. It was Little Bairn, Wayne's stepmother. 
 
 " The mists have lifted for awhile, Ned," she murmured, 
 coming close to him, as if for protection, in the fashion 
 he had known these twenty years and odd. " The mists 
 have lifted, and I do not like this naked sunlight on the 
 world." 
 
 " Why, 'tis dark, Little Bairn. There's no sun to 
 frighten thee," said Wayne, smoothing her hair, as if she 
 had been his daughter, not his stepmother. In truth, she 
 looked more like it ; for the score years and odd had gone 
 by her like a dream. 
 
 " Ah, but I know ! The sun came out, and he was a 
 round world of fire ; and the ling was crimson-red, as if 
 men had trampled one another to the death. And the wind 
 little Mother of God, it sobbed and was afraid." 
 
 Wayne's eyes met Janet's, not for the first time in this 
 night of pregnant sorrows. The Little Bairn, they knew, 
 had never lied in these moments of clear prophecy ; she 
 did not lie to-night, they knew. 
 
 " Didst see the men who fought and trampled one 
 another, child ? " asked Wayne. 
 
 " Only the one, and he was red as the sun itself the 
 red sun that maddened me." 
 
 " Was he big ? " Wayne was driven to ask the question, 
 though of his own will he would have let it slumber. 
 
 " Yes, big. A great man in his height and in his breadth. 
 He carried something long, and sharp, and red, whose use 
 I did not know." 
 
 There was a silence, and now both Wayne and Janet 
 heard the ghosts creep up and down, and marked the 
 peevish, cold complaining of the wind. 
 
 " Why, Ned, the sun is hidden, and the sweet, quiet 
 mists have crept about me once again," murmured Little 
 Bairn. 
 
 9
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " What do the mists tell you, child ? " asked Wayne, 
 a desperate weariness in his deep voice. 
 
 " That nothing matters, Ned. Oh, nothing matters, 
 surely. The daisies grow one day above the heads of all 
 of us." 
 
 She reached her lips up for a good- night kiss, in her old, 
 quiet way, and drifted out between the blackened pillars 
 of the door. 
 
 " It tallies, Janet, with what I felt on the way home 
 from Colne to-day," said Wayne, after another restless 
 silence. " The man that saved me was red-headed as the 
 Ratcliffe who clipped me with his axe ; he had drawn my 
 own sword, and was facing the greasy townsfolk who were 
 crying for my death. He got me free, too, and into the 
 saddle ; and I cannot tell you why he did it, save that he 
 had a lass beside him a lass with kind, clean hazel eyes, 
 and she it was who bade him save me, likely." 
 
 " There's an old proverb of the feud," said Janet,yow 
 and tremulously. 
 
 " Dost think I have not called it back to mind ? Seek 
 for trouble when a Ratcliffe saves. Ay, the Lean Man came 
 down once on a day to this very house of Marsh to heal the 
 feud ; and I was glad of his coming, for I had killed too 
 many men and I was weary. I listened and what came 
 of it ? That last night of slaughter came of it, Janet, 
 because I hearkened to the Lean Man's cry of peace." 
 
 "There is no peace, my husband, nor will there be till 
 the daisies grow above us the daisies that the Little Bairn 
 spoke of awhile since." 
 
 Again, their eyes met in grave and questioning trouble. 
 And God, who ever loves brave folk, must surely have 
 looked down upon these two, who, if they had sinned, had 
 also learned the lesson of great honesty, great steadfastness 
 to meet what must be met. 
 
 " What of our boy, Ned ? " she asked suddenly. " Surely 
 you will not let him live apart from us for ever ? " 
 
 " I've no choice, lass. Our law is law, to-day as twenty 
 years ago, and it says that the Wayne who lifts his hand 
 
 92
 
 How Little Bairn came to Marsh 
 
 against a Wayne, in aught save play, must go into the 
 wilderness. See you, Janet, the feud is up again. They 
 will say that Wayne of Marsh, who leads them, shows 
 favour to his son and brings disaster on the house." 
 
 " True ! " she murmured. " He must live an exile to 
 the end and yet and yet Ned, Ned, I bore him, and I 
 can't forget ! " 
 
 93
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 HOW TWO AND ONE MEET AT WILDWATER 
 """X 
 
 RED RATCLIFFE woke betimes on the morrow, and leaped 
 from bed with" 'the quickness of a man who feels there's 
 something to be done with his day. The night's sleep had 
 brought such vigour to him that, as he stood and stretched 
 himself to the top of his insolent young strength, he seemed 
 more like some happy giant of an older day than a man 
 born in dread and weakness born in this very room- 
 to play his lonely part in life. 
 
 There were sleeker men than Ratcliffe about the moors, 
 men likelier to take the fancy of unthinking lasses ; but 
 there was none like him in that comeliness which is bred 
 of great health, great width and height, great singleness of 
 soul and heart. 
 
 " The feud is up ! " was his first thought, and Bath- 
 sheba, breaking her fast in the kitchen, heard him come 
 singing down the stair. 
 
 " Ay, that's the spirit to start out with," she muttered 
 grimly, spreading the yellow, heartsome butter on her 
 oaten bread. " He's thinking of what chanced yesterday 
 at Colne, and he's merry as a throstle when the warm 
 spring's coming in." 
 
 Joseph finished his breakfast-ale before replying. " Ay, 
 lass," he said, setting down the mug with a clatter. " Ay, 
 he's thinking of Colne. 'Twas the bonniest market-day I 
 ever heard of, and there'll be othersome to follow." 
 
 They had their swim together, Joseph and the young 
 master. They had their run across the heather, their 
 play with foster-brother, pitted against Joseph's sword. 
 It was a sign of the years gone by and therefore a 
 sure sign of the years to come that they took no rest 
 
 94
 
 Two and One meet at Wildwater 
 
 from the day's tasks, though the order of their lives 
 was changed. Heretofore they had dwelt in quiet- 
 ness, nursing the master's strength and biding till the 
 time was ripe ; but now the glove was thrown to every 
 Wayne who dwelt about the moor, and instant battle 
 must be looked for at any moment of the day. It did not 
 matter ; they must take their swim, their run, their hour of 
 mimic fight ; for of these things, and of the discipline they 
 taught, came strength and steady faith. 
 
 It was a sign of the new times, however, that Ratcliffe 
 fulfilled his purpose of last night, and called for his horse 
 as soon as breakfast was well finished. There was much 
 to be done on the farm matters which a week ago he 
 would not have neglected ; to-day the visit to Wildwater 
 House seemed the first duty, for he had to tell the dead 
 men of his race how swiftly and how well the day had run 
 at Colne. 
 
 Bathsheba watched him mount and ride away, foster- 
 brother peeping snugly from his saddle, and then she 
 turned to Joseph. 
 
 " May the good God keep Parson's Lass away," she said, 
 her last night's doubts returning. 
 
 " God have his own will in the matter," answered Joseph, 
 with the new-born courage that surprised his goodwife. 
 " If thou think'st to keep pigeons from the corn-stocks, 
 or a lad as grown and lusty as the master from some lass 
 or other, thou'rt just day-dreaming, Bathsheba. What 
 ails this Parson's Lass that she's not as good as 
 another ? " 
 
 " She's southern bred, and pranksome therefore. They 
 lie over soft and lap too much rich cream down yonder 
 in the Low Country, and I trust none of them." 
 
 " And yet there's no great harm in cream. I've seen the 
 master thrive on it, and may be one here and there about 
 the South is well-set-up and likely. Twould be unchancy 
 queer, Bathsheba, if there were no good folk reared south of 
 Lonesome Moor." 
 
 Bathsheba turned on him with a sparkling eye and a 
 
 95
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 tongue that would have cowed him before these new, 
 sweet days of feud had come. 
 
 " Just hearken to me, Joseph," she said. " You're 
 plain as any oak tree, and a man would call you hard, to 
 look at you ; yet you're soft as a shifting bog when a lass 
 comes by your way. The master had fine talk of Parson's 
 Lass her hair was this and that, and her face was that and 
 this, and she was all a maid new-come from wonderland 
 and I watched thee soften to his talk. Shame on thee, 
 at thy years, Joseph, to go softening toward a maid thou'st 
 never seen." 
 
 " I've a fancy for her, all the same ; but we'll judge 
 better, Bathsheba, when master brings her home as wife 
 and all. For I have a feeling he'll do that one day." 
 
 She looked at him as if he were some other than her 
 goodman, known and flouted through the years. 
 
 " Joseph," she murmured, " what has come to thee ? " 
 
 He laughed. " Nay, I cannot tell thee, lass ! The feud 
 is up, and the master's big and quick to strike, and the 
 old days seem surely coming back. Let him meet Parson's 
 Lass upon the moor, and welcome ; she'll may be teach 
 him more than ever I could do." 
 
 Bathsheba knew, from the straightforward, fearless way 
 of him, that he was right ; and yet she had never gauged 
 that truth so difficult for women to understand the truth 
 that a good lass may lead where stronger folk would drive 
 in vain. She was perplexed by Joseph's courage ; and so 
 she flicked her apron in disdain and went indoors. 
 
 " Bundle o' rushes ! " was all her answer. 
 
 Joseph looked after her, and chewed a straw picked 
 clean and yellow from the yard, and smiled in his quiet 
 way. He knew himself for a man, and a free man, in these 
 latter days. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe, like his foster-father, like the foster- 
 brother swinging at his saddle, was feeling a free man as he 
 rode to Wildwater. He had no fear of death, and did not 
 look for death, even had he known its fear, before the feud 
 was righted between Wayne and Ratcliffe. His terrors lay 
 
 96
 
 Two and One meet at Wildwater 
 
 all in those ghost-lands, where his mother lived, and on this 
 yellow, sun-lit morning he could not well remember that 
 there were ghosts at all about this lonely land. 
 
 The track to Wildwater, after he had passed the perilous 
 way between the marshes and the shifting bogs, lay fair, 
 and clean, and sweet, across the dying purple and the 
 living yellow of the heath. The wind was merry, but 
 warm as summer ; and in the long, slant pathway of the 
 sunbeams the grey gnats rose and fell. Past the ruin 
 known as Perilous Gap he went few knowing its story or 
 the meaning of its name and on across the broken lands 
 which blossomed now in tints of gold, and red, and russet, 
 honey-hearted brown. 
 
 He passed a clump of bracken gold across the moor's 
 rude face and checked his horse for a moment in his eager 
 stride. The wind was blowing the gold dust of the fronds 
 high up toward the blue, clean sky, making a halo such 
 as he had seen about the Virgin's head in Marshcotes Kirk, 
 once when, a little lad, he had been taken there by Joseph, 
 stealthily and without Bathsheba's knowledge, to see the 
 wonder of its painted windows. 
 
 It was like Parson's Lass, he told himself. Just so the 
 glory of her hair had shown like gold dust in the sunlight ; 
 just so he had seen her haloed, magical, as men must 
 always see the first love of their days. 
 
 " She would not care to see me in the fashion I came 
 yesterday from Colne," he muttered. 
 
 And somehow a shadow crossed his great serenity of 
 mood. The red that had been so righteous to Joseph, 
 to Bathsheba, to himself the red of his hands, and clothes, 
 and face, the red of foster-brother would it have been 
 acceptable to this slim, tall lassie, with the glory of her 
 hair, the glory of her flower-like face, about her ? 
 
 " Bundle o' rushes, as Bathsheba would say ! " he cried. 
 " What am I doing, to go thinking all the way of a lass I'll 
 likely never meet again ? " 
 
 Yet he hoped that he would meet her ; and Bath- 
 sheba's shrewd instinct had been right in part, for his 
 G 97
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 pilgrimage to Wildwater, single-hearted as it was in its 
 wish to tell the forefathers what he had done, held all the 
 same a lurking thought that he might afterwards ride out to 
 Marshcotes, might afterwards 
 
 " There is no chance of it, no chance at all," he muttered, 
 rating himself for the folly of the thought. 
 
 And now his horse had carried him to a dark and rocky 
 land, where no gorse was, nor ling, nor bracken golden in 
 the sunlight ; only the red-black of the peat, the grey 
 of the boulders, answered sullenly the blue sky's message ; 
 and overhead the peewits and the curlews plained inces- 
 santly. Down a steep cleft they went, and past a crooked 
 thorn, whose limbs seemed twisted in an agony of supplica- 
 tion, and out again on to the open land where the house 
 of Wildwater stood roofless and smoke-blackened. 
 
 It was here that his folk had lived in pride, here that 
 they had perished in the last sweeping fight, here that the 
 peewits wheeled and cried as if the souls of these dead 
 Ratcliffes were wandering still about the ruined homestead, 
 restless ever till the feud was reawakened. It was here, 
 too, that Joseph had brought the master as soon as he was 
 old enough to sit a horse, here that the lad had drunk in 
 so many Ratcliffe stories, here that he had learned that 
 cool, unfaltering surety of vengeance which had become 
 to him a religion and a pride. 
 
 His horse grew uneasy, as he always did, when they drew 
 near the house. He seemed to find the warm day grow 
 chilly on the sudden, and there was a look in the eyes he 
 turned upon the master now as if he saw things to which he 
 would gladly have been blind. For no thing that lives 
 has a sense at once so lively and so delicate for the world 
 unseen as these dumb, four-footed beasts, the horses and 
 the dogs. 
 
 " Oh, quiet thyself, old lad ! " Red Ratcliffe whispered. 
 " If there are ghosts here and your sight seems keener 
 than my own why, after all, I come with a fine message 
 for them." 
 
 He got from saddle, and went in between the falling 
 
 98
 
 Two and One meet at Wildwater 
 
 doorway posts. From old habit, old desire, he looked up 
 at the motto all that was left of the pride of Wildwater 
 which still stood out in great stone letters above the door. 
 
 We hate, we kill ! That was all. Yet to Red Ratcliffe 
 it was a welcome and a promise both in one. 
 
 Into the great hall he came, where the last right had 
 reddened to its end. Yonder in the corner by the case- 
 ment latticed once, but eaten by the flames a score 
 years since yonder the Lean Man, pretending death, 
 had had his bier drawn up. Yonder he had watched the 
 fight go forward. Yonder he had felt the Brown Dog 
 whom folk call Barguest go tearing at his throat. 
 
 Surely the Lean Man must show himself to-day, thought 
 Ratcliffe, as a great awe and a great gladness came on 
 him, lifting him, as it were, into the free upper spaces where 
 the curlews hovered and the peewits glanced, complaining 
 constantly between the sun-rays and the black, black 
 moor. 
 
 " Ye dead folk, hearken ! " cried the lad. " I have 
 killed two Waynes at Come, and a third is either dead, or 
 near to it." 
 
 Not one of the younger Waynes, living a sheltered life 
 at Marshcotes, or at Cranshaw, or at Ludworth, could have 
 understood this red young giant's faith, not in himself 
 alone, but in the power of his dead kin to hear his voice 
 and understand his message. For the younger Waynes 
 had not been bred in solitude, bred in a wilderness so far 
 remote that Wildwater, compared with it, was on the edge 
 of busy life, bred in a faith so grim and so assured as that 
 which Bathsheba had taught, and Joseph had taught, 
 and foster-brother, with his sharp but silent speech, had 
 taught. 
 
 Yet no vision of the Lean Man came to him. An owl 
 flew screaming from the black and sundered chimney- 
 stalk. Up in the gossamer blue and cloudy whiteness of 
 the sky that showed through broken rafters he could see 
 the peewits wheeling, wheeling constantly. But the dead 
 men were very still ; for they had a longer life before them 
 
 99
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 now than our lean three score years and ten of flesh-carry- 
 ing, and they were not impatient, as this lusty lad was, 
 to have a battle every day. 
 
 As he stood there the white owl brushed his cheek in 
 flying past he heard his horse move softly over the moss- 
 grown courtyard stones. And under the sound of hoof- 
 beats was another sound, more soft and delicate, as if a 
 fairy trod the courtyard-way, though fairies could not bide 
 to stay a moment, so the moor-folk said, in a place so 
 haunted and so accursed as Wildwater. 
 
 He glanced up sharply, and there in the falling doorway, 
 with the gold September sun behind them stood his horse 
 and Audrey Clare, the Parson's Lass of Marshcotes, whom 
 Bathsheba distrusted, whom Ratcliffe had half-hoped to 
 see to-day. Her hair blew gently in the gentle wind, till 
 it shimmered like the gold-dust he had seen not long ago 
 above the autumn bracken ; her face looked soft, and 
 magical, and gay, between the blown, free tresses ; a man 
 who had seen many women and Ratcliffe had seen few 
 as yet might well have felt his heart go beating hard and 
 painfully, as the lad's was beating now. The horse no 
 friend of strangers at most times was pliant and well 
 pleased beneath the lass's touch, and the dread in his 
 great eyes had gone. 
 
 " See ! " she cried, as if she had known long this giant 
 who was a friend of yesterday, or the last day's yesterday. 
 " See, I found the poor beast shivering and afraid when I 
 came here just now, after leaving my own pony at the 
 outer gate. I do not like to see a horse so full of terror, 
 and I talked to him ; and then he needs must follow me, 
 though I told him 'twas ill manners to cross the thres- 
 hold." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe looked at her and was afraid. The Waynes, 
 when they met him three to one at Colne, had caused no 
 terror ; yet now he was afraid and vastly dumb. 
 
 As for the lass, she smiled half-pityingly at him, 
 and understood his case, without confessing that she 
 understood. She had seen the same look smoother, 
 
 100
 
 Two and One meet at Wildwater 
 
 may be, and rounded by some pleasant speech in the 
 King's face, when she had made her curtsey to him in 
 far-off London yonder ; she had seen the look in many 
 faces since ; yet, lacking the experience, she would still 
 have had the woman's gift of knowing when a man 
 loves her well and loves her without question. For 
 herself, she loved her pony, her free young vigour, the 
 joy of galloping across untrammelled moors. Men were 
 very foolish, and this man surely, the most foolish of 
 them all. 
 
 " I fancy you are dumb," she said demurely, when he 
 did not answer. 
 
 Again he looked at her, with the straight glance of a 
 man bred honestly and near to nature. And now for the 
 first time he spoke, and his words frightened her, as her 
 beauty frightened him. 
 
 " God of the feud ! " he cried. " I have too many 
 words too many words and I am dumb because I cannot 
 choose between them." 
 
 Straight to the top of his six-foot-four, as he had stood 
 yesterday at Colne, he stood to-day amid the blackened 
 ruins of the home to which he was the heir ; yet, for the 
 moment, he did not think of feud or battle, but just of the 
 wonder of this lass. 
 
 Audrey Clare fell to stroking the horse's muzzle, and 
 then to playing with her riding-whip ; for she knew that 
 Ratcliffe's glance was on her, savage almost in its very 
 tenderness, and she feared to meet it. And yet the little 
 he had said just that sudden cry of, "I have too many 
 words ! " did not displease her. Even her fear had in it 
 an unconfessed delight. 
 
 " How do you come here ? " he asked at length, still 
 with his eyes upon her as if they never meant to leave her 
 face. " The place lies far from Marshcotes farther even 
 than the spot I met you at two days ago when you had 
 lost your way." 
 
 " I was seeking it then, when I lost my way, and this 
 morning I had better fortune. Who would not wish to 
 
 101
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 have a peep at the old house, though Witherlee, my father's 
 sexton, tells me it is full of ghosts ? " 
 
 She looked about her, with a curiosity frank and almost 
 childish, and Ratcliffe marvelled that a thing so slim and 
 bright, a thing so like a taller sister of the fairies, should 
 stand here in the black and broken hall where men had 
 died with the feud-cry in their throats, where the women 
 had looked on, and afterwards had fled, bearing great terror 
 with them out into the stark and friendless moor. 
 
 " It is strange," she said, moving from one corner to 
 another of the hall, " strange that all this happened here 
 just twenty years ago. Why, Witherlee was an old man 
 even then, and yet he is alive to tell me stories of what he 
 watched with his own eyes wild stories that used to set 
 my pulses beating when as a child I crept out at gloaming- 
 tide, and sat beside him on a gravestone when his work 
 was done, and listened to his talk. 'Twas he who told me 
 how to find Wildwater." 
 
 " I have heard of Sexton Witherlee. Was it not he who 
 saw the Ratcliffes come to a Wayne burying he who saw 
 the swords flash in and out he who saw the accursed 
 Waynes snatch victory when we had them safe ? " 
 
 He was not looking at her now, and the face of him was 
 changed. He had seemed to her till now a tongue-tied boy, 
 despite his bulk and strength ; but now his manhood shone 
 beautiful, and terrible, and sure, from the grey eyes that 
 seemed to see the hall re-peopled with his kin. 
 
 " Then you, too, know the feud-tales ? " she asked him 
 wonderingly. 
 
 " Strange if I did not. My foster-mother was a Rat- 
 cliffe, and she told me them almost before I left the cradle." 
 
 " To look at you, I could almost fancy you come back 
 from those far-off days that Sexton Witherlee harps on 
 so constantly. And yet 'tis laughable to think of feud in 
 these quiet times." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe gave her one long glance, and then he 
 laughed, suddenly, and with a grimness that made Audrey 
 shiver as with cold. 
 
 102
 
 Two and One meet at Wildwater 
 
 " Why do you laugh ? " she asked, vexed by her 
 moment's terror. 
 
 " Because I stand here the heir to all this house of Wild- 
 water each stone is mine, each fallen rafter, each quarrel 
 of the Ratcliffes who died here twenty years agone. 
 Twenty years ? What are twenty years, when measured 
 by the years that went before the blood-sick generations 
 that came and went, and now the Waynes were down, and 
 now the Ratcliffes, and all the folk cried, ' Peace is come ! ' 
 Peace ? There can be no peace till the Trump of Judg- 
 ment Day." 
 
 Again the Parson's Lass grew fearful. She had found 
 few things to dread as yet, for under all her slimness, under 
 the grace that recalled harebells and all winsome things 
 to a man's mind, there was a courage waiting only to be 
 tested. Her very presence here, in this house of fearful 
 memories, alone and thinking naught of danger, was proof 
 that she was no dainty coward. And yet this giant, with 
 the feud-red of his hair, the quiet, unalterable fire of ven- 
 geance in his eyes, roused undreamed-of dreads in her. He 
 was the living presence of every feud-tale she had hearkened 
 to down yonder on the gravestone where Sexton Witherlee 
 would sit, and smoke, and bring the past before her. 
 
 And now Red Ratcliffe told her, spot by spot, where this 
 nun fell and that man recovered from the first sickness 
 of his wound and fought again. He told her all, just as 
 Ba'hsheba had chronicled the tale, just as Bathsheba her- 
 self had heard it from the mistress who had watched the 
 fight the mistress who had fled to bear her boy in sanctu- 
 ary the mistress who had found time, in the short period 
 of her agony, to mark these points, that Bathsheba might 
 afterwards bring up the heir in knowledge of them. 
 
 And the girl listened, listened. For her, as for Red 
 Ratcliffe, the feud was rosy-red again, and she forgot her 
 dread in swaying to the splendour and the faith of this red- 
 heaced man who knew that he would surely fight against 
 immeasurable odds, knew that he would surely conquer 
 in the end. 
 
 103
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 It was in this hour that the girl's love was born, though 
 she was unaware of it. It was here, amid the ruin of the 
 years gone by, the ruin of the days to come, that their 
 hearts found each other once for all ; and he, had he known 
 it, was never again to be the tongue-tied boy to her, but 
 the man who could ask and have, and, if need were, com- 
 mand. And all the while the noon-day sun came soft and 
 yellow through the broken door ; and all the while Red 
 Ratcliffe's horse, who long ago had stepped boldly into 
 hall, went following Audrey and asking for her touch. 
 
 " Does news travel slowly over at Marshcotes yonder ? " 
 asked Ratcliffe by-and-by. " Is there no gossip there of 
 three Waynes who went to Colne and came not back 
 again ? " 
 
 " None," said she. " Yet gossip travels fast in Marsh- 
 cotes." 
 
 " Ah, well, 'twas only yesterday it chanced, and they'll 
 not be eager to give out the news before they need." 
 
 For awhile they stood looking at each other, and the 
 girl's eyes told a wondrous tale of fear, and hope, aid 
 pride that conquered dread of bloodshed. 
 ' Were you at Colne ? " she asked. 
 " Ay, with the big axe I name foster-brother the one 
 you saw sleeping in my saddle yonder, and asked me why 
 I did not wear a sword." 
 
 " And you you killed them all ? " she asked. 
 " Two I killed, but the other may live still. He slipped, 
 and the haft caught him instead of the blade, and I forgot 
 to look more closely at him until afterwards. They tell 
 me it was Shameless Wayne himself." 
 
 " Then he was spared, if it was he, for I saw him sick 
 and dazed, I thought ride down the street this morning." 
 Again Red Ratcliffe laughed, in a fashion that had 
 chilled her a few moments" since. 
 
 " It does not matter," he said. " We shall meet again 
 in a day, or a week, or a year God knows I have learned 
 my lesson of no haste." 
 
 And then his face went soft and tender on the sudden, 
 
 104
 
 Two and One meet at Wildwater 
 
 so that Parson's Lass was glad to see how soon this new- 
 born love of his had grown to manhood. He was no longer 
 silent, and was scarce afraid of her. 
 
 " What was it, think you, made me not return to Colne, 
 when I remembered that this Wayne lay there, perhaps 
 in need of a second tap from foster-brother ? " 
 
 " Nay, I can give no guess," she said, knowing all the 
 time that she spoke less than truth. For his eyes were full 
 of her again, and the simplest maid from Marshcotes out 
 to Ludworth could have guessed their speech. 
 
 " It was the thought of you just that. I saw the 
 bracken-dust lie all about your hair, gold as the sun him- 
 self, and somehow it came to me that I must let Wayne 
 take his chance." 
 
 In her new understanding of herself and him a glad, yet 
 restless understanding she moved to the corner where a 
 little window, empty now of lead and glass alike, looked 
 out upon the moor. She wanted time for thought, excuse 
 to turn her eyes away from him wanted all, in brief, that 
 women want at such a time. 
 
 He was beside her in a moment, gripping her rudely by 
 the arm. 
 
 " Not that corner," he cried. " Ah, not that ! You 
 must not stand there." 
 
 " And why ? " she asked, with dainty wonder, as she 
 freed herself. 
 
 " Has Sexton Witherlee told you nothing of the last big 
 fight here ? Have / told you nothing ? It was in the 
 corner here the Lean Man died, with Barguest at his throat, 
 and I I am afraid for you." 
 
 She had seen something from this same window-corner 
 that startled her ; but mention of the Lean Man caused 
 her to spring back in real terror. So many tales old Wither- 
 lee had told her, yonder on the mossy gravestone-slab at 
 Marshcotes, and in all of them the Lean Man had been a 
 horror and a scourge, scarce man at all, but ghoul. 
 
 " It was there he lay and watched the last big fight ? " 
 she murmured. " The Sexton told me of it, and said the 
 
 105
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Lean Man was too strong to die ; and, when I interrupted 
 him, saying that he talked blasphemy, he laughed that 
 withered laugh of his like a brown leaf driving down the 
 wind and said the Lean Man would live on. What did 
 he mean ? " she finished, with a frightened glance toward 
 the corner where the ruined casement let the sunlight and 
 and the grey gnats through. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe looked at her in grave, inquiring fashion. 
 So early in his love, so early in the feud, it seemed that he 
 had found one in fullest sympathy with him. 
 
 " What does it mean ? " he cried. " Why, that the Lean 
 Man does live on, as yond dry old Witherlee has told you. 
 Since I was a little lad he has shown himself to me faint 
 as a mist at first, but growing clearer as my strength grew. 
 I saw him plain in the noonday sun at Colne Market yester- 
 day ; he seemed to be helping me to wield the axe." 
 
 Parson's Lass glanced fearfully about her. Nay, more, 
 she bent an ear toward the casement, as if she heard that 
 ghostly underfret which was the living voice of dead 
 Wild water House. Such things the rising of the dead 
 in this life, and the power of spirits, good or evil, to return 
 were contrary to her faith taught by the old parson 
 since the days when she was no higher than his knee. 
 Then, too, the loose, faithless habit of those about the 
 Court in London yonder had made light of ghosts- and 
 mocked at so-called superstitions. Yet now the father's 
 quiet teaching, the restless chatter of the city went by her 
 like the wind, and she saw only this ruined house the 
 moor's grim loneliness about it where blood had run as 
 fast as February streams, and men had fought, and the 
 feud had withered every Ratcliffe hope save one. And 
 now again she saw Red Ratcliffe come late to the avenging, 
 big and brawny, and ready, so it seemed, to split asunder 
 the twenty years of peace. She had to make her choice, 
 once and for all, between the velvet ways of cities and the 
 rough road of Nature ; and for one little moment her heart 
 grew sick. The sickness passed, and her pulses tingled 
 with a warmth she had not known till now. Choice ? 
 
 1 06
 
 Two and One meet at Wildwater 
 
 What choice was there, save this of the real things love, 
 and hate, and battle which knew no lie nor subterfuge ? 
 
 Red Ratcliffe watched her curiously, not guessing that 
 she was leaving her light girlhood in this house of Wild- 
 water. Courage she had in plenty, and she needed it just 
 now ; for she was learning the lesson which few women 
 dare to understand. The dead men came from out the 
 corners of the hall and talked to her with voices almost 
 palpable ; and she listened, and shivered at the first, and 
 then grew strong again. They told her, these dead, rest- 
 less folk, that life is no lass's sport, made up of whims and 
 roundelays and dainty trickeries, but a thing of tears, and 
 blood, and desperate endeavour a thing of battle always 
 a thing which knows love only as a spur to battle or as 
 a brief solace say at gloaming- tide when fight is over for 
 awhile. They told her and the face Red Ratcliffe 
 watched grew pale and wan that from cradle- time till 
 the hour when Sexton Witherlee's well-handled spade 
 was needed, men's days are days of tumult and unrest. 
 They told her lastly and the colour came again that 
 there is joy in strenuous days and recompense in toil. 
 
 The sunlight filled the doorway ; the gnats still followed 
 the grey mazes of their dance. The day was scarce older 
 than it had been when she entered ruined Wildwater ; 
 yet now she was a woman grown. 
 
 Slowly her eyes were lifted to Red Ratcliffe's ; and both 
 were silent. Strong love and strong men-children come 
 from such-like silences. 
 
 Then she came and stood beside him, her slim height 
 dwarfed. " You bring the old saying back to mind," she 
 said. " Thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things." 
 
 " I never heard the saying yet it rings true, somehow," 
 he answered soberly. 
 
 " Why, 'tis in the Book." 
 
 " But I have read no books, save that Joseph, when he 
 used to bring me here as a lad, was wont to say that every 
 stone and every fallen rafter was a printed page for me to 
 read." 
 
 107
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Again a wonderment came on her. This man, whose 
 bearing spoke in every line of well-bred forefathers, had 
 read no books nay, did not know that the Book she named 
 was the Bible did not know, it seemed, that there was 
 a Bible which all good folk should read at times. Truly, 
 it was a far step from her old life to this new one ; and yet 
 her fears were gone. 
 
 The horse, still following Audrey like a dog, lifted his 
 head on the sudden, and the girl's pony, tethered at the 
 broken courtyard-gate without, gave a low whinny. 
 
 " He hears something more than we do," said Ratcliffe, 
 glancing at his horse. 
 
 " Ay, I know what he hears." A deeper colour came 
 into her cheeks, warmed already by excitement ; she 
 fidgeted with her whip, and looked, now toward the door- 
 way, now at Red Ratcliffe's face. 
 
 " Then you've the better of me," he answered, " for, 
 often as I've been to Wildwater, I never saw man or maid 
 here save yourself and Joseph. This nag of mine would 
 never set his ears back so if 'twere just another horse, or 
 a dog, that came wandering across the moors." 
 
 " He hears a man's step and so do I," said Audrey 
 Clare. 
 
 And now he,too, could hear a sharp footfall on the stones 
 without, moss-grown as they were and softened to the 
 tread. 
 
 " What does he seek at Wildwater ? You almost 
 seemed to look for him," asked Ratcliffe jealously. 
 
 " Yes, I looked for him, and he seeks " 
 
 She halted a moment, doubtful if, so early in their know- 
 ledge of each other, she should trust him with her quarrel ; 
 then she went on, quickly and without faltering. 
 
 " Waynes are your food, are they not ? Well, here is 
 one and he has persecuted me." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe laughed, not harshly this time, but as if 
 a great content had come to him. Never again would he 
 and she be very far from one another now, for she had given 
 her gauntlet into his keeping. And, as he laughed, a black- 
 
 108
 
 Two and One meet at Wildwater 
 
 headed, prettyish youth ran across the threshold, hiding 
 the sunlight and the dancing gnats ran, and halted sud- 
 denly, and gazed open-mouthed at the two who stood side 
 by side in this drear hall of Wildwater. 
 
 Now Audrey Clare had been accounted tall in the south 
 country, and even in Marshcotes, where big men were 
 reared, she had seemed to dwarf their height. Partly 
 her upright carriage aided her ; then, too, it was usual for 
 the Marshcotes women to reach to their men's shoulders 
 only, and for this reason the Waynes had credited her with 
 a height beyond her due. Yet now, as young Wayne of 
 Marsh stood open-mouthed within the threshold, he saw 
 that the Parson's Lass showed almost little saw that the 
 man beside her towered up and up till his red head seemed 
 lost in the dark upper gloom that rested day and night upon 
 the hall saw that he had two folk to meet, instead of the 
 one maid he had come to seek. 
 
 The three of them were silent for awhile, and it was 
 Wayne who first found voice. 
 
 " By God, 'tis the red-head Shameless Wayne met yester- 
 day at market ! " he cried. 
 
 " Ay, the same," said Ratcliffe, soft as the purr of foster- 
 brother when he meant to strike. " And you are kin to 
 Shameless Wayne, I take it ? Well, sir, your business 
 here ? For this is a Ratcliffe house, and I am here to 
 claim it." 
 
 The new-comer, coxcomb as he was and half ruined by 
 soft living, lacked nothing of the Wayne courage. With- 
 out a word he snapped his sword from the scabbard and 
 made at the man whose bulk had startled and dismayed 
 him. Ratcliffe had no time to pluck foster-brother from 
 the horse's saddle, nor did he feel in need of the good axe ; 
 he just stepped to one side, let the lad blunder past, stum- 
 bling from the back-set of his useless blow, and caught him 
 in his arms. As a farmer lifts a sheaf of oats he raised the 
 youngster high above his head, and looked at Audrey 
 Clare. 
 
 The question in his eyes was not to be mistaken. The 
 
 109
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 same instinct that had led him to spare Shameless Wayne 
 at Colne bade him now be merciful, if so she wished it. Ay, 
 in defiance of his upbringing, in spite of that old cry, " We 
 hate, we kill," which had rung down the Ratcliffe genera- 
 tions like a trumpet-note, the last of the race was minded 
 to give quarter if she wished it only if she wished it. 
 
 There was a strange light in Audrey's face as she looked 
 on. Not once, nor twice, had men fought for her ; but 
 there had been an orderly, quiet duel, far out of sight of 
 the lass for whom the sword-blades played ; it was here, 
 amid the bleak and riven moor, amid the bleak and riven 
 hate of centuries, that she saw the brief combat in the doing 
 and knew that she held the scales of life and death in her 
 own hands. It may be that the skein of cruelty which is 
 intertwined with even the good women's lives was threaded 
 through this lissome girl's ; it may be she had an impulse to 
 murmur, " Kill ! " For she had suffered in her pride from 
 this stripling, and pride was at once her weakness and her 
 strength. 
 
 The impulse, if such there were, went by her, and she 
 shook her head. 
 
 " Not in cold blood," she said. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe tossed his burden to the far side of the hall, 
 and there young Wayne lay still and helpless. 
 
 " Have you have you killed him ? " murmured Audrey 
 Clare. 
 
 " Not I. See how the boards have rotted, and how the 
 peat has made a carpet for his fall. He's only stunned 
 Now, I shall see you safe to Marshcotes, for on the road 
 one fool has travelled there may be others." 
 
 Despite the gravity of all that had passed between them 
 since she came, a thoughtless girl, to Wildwater, the Par- 
 son's Lass smiled faintly. She was thinking of the time, 
 not long ago, when he should have offered escort of this 
 kind and had found instead a dumbness not to be believed. 
 
 As he was helping her to saddle, her gravity returned. 
 " You must not come," she said. " There are many 
 Waynes in Marshcotes, and they do not love you." 
 
 no
 
 Two and One meet at Wildwater 
 
 " It is not the Waynes I fear, and I shall come," he 
 answered, with a quietness that checked her protests. 
 
 He got to saddle, and together they rode out in the light 
 of the dipping sun rode through the rough ways of the 
 wilderness, and across the tamer heath that bordered 
 Marshcotes, and so by the stony bridle-way which led 
 through Marshcotes kirkyard to the Parsonage. 
 
 And Audrey Clare was repeating, over and over, those 
 words of his, " It is not the Waynes I fear " ; for he had 
 spoken in sombre fashion, as if there were some fear or 
 other some live and pressing dread close-hidden in the 
 rear of all his courage. What could he fear, she wondered, 
 not knowing that the mother who bore him for the feud 
 had left him, too, a colder legacy. 
 
 Yet now Red Ratcliffe thought of nothing but the lass 
 beside him, who rode in her straight young beauty as if she 
 queened the moor. It was as Bathsheba had said this 
 girl was all a maid new-come from wonderland to him, and 
 the glamour-tide of life was over and beneath and all about 
 him as he rode. 
 
 But the Waynes, at Marshcotes yonder behind the kirk- 
 yard and the Parsonage, were thinking of their dead and 
 wondering how to come to grips with the red-head who had 
 mocked them.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE QUIET HEART OF THE STORM 
 
 WHILE the Parson's Lass rode homeward with Red Ratcliffe, 
 while the Wayne youngster, who had brought them closer 
 to each other than he dreamed of, came slowly back to 
 consciousness in the hall of Wildwater, there were softer 
 doings in Marshcotes kirkyard. Here the September sun 
 shone, not upon the moor all naked in its beauty, but on 
 a well-kept place of graves ; restrained, and trim, and sober 
 the place was, and the headstones, black at most times, 
 showed unsuspected softnesses of green and yellow lichen 
 which the sun had found. Faint as the breeze was, and 
 merry till it reached the graveyard, the few trees here 
 rowans mostly, with here and there a thorn were sobbing, 
 dropping one by one their weather-beaten leaves. A robin 
 sang, and his was the only happy note amid the rustle 
 of dead leaves, the sorrowful complaining of the trees. 
 For the rest, there was peace ; but it was the peace of forced 
 inaction, and with it all the dead men, underneath their 
 lichened slabs, did not seem full of cheer. 
 
 At the far end of the kirkyard, nearest the moor, there 
 was a low, flat vault-stone, and on it Sexton Witherlee was 
 seated, with Wayne's step-mother known as Little 
 Bairn to all and sundry beside him. Witherlee had just 
 finished trimming a new-made grave as Little Bairn came 
 drifting up the path, and he had pointed silently to their 
 accustomed seat and had prepared himself for one of the 
 gossips which were the daily food of their odd companion- 
 ship. 
 
 Audrey had likened the sexton's laugh to the sound of a 
 dry and wind-blown leaf ; but, indeed, the sexton himself 
 ay, and Little Bairn was like a fallen leaf, and the sport of 
 
 112
 
 The Quiet Heart of the Storm 
 
 any breeze. He was so old that spade-work now was done 
 by stronger hands, and he could only potter up and down 
 among the graves he loved. He was so old that the past 
 was his true life, the present a mere troubled dream of food 
 that it burdened him to eat, of sleep that brought no dreams 
 like his waking ones. He was so old that he could meet 
 little Mistress Wayne, the fairy-kist, on the footing of their 
 common childhood. 
 
 Such tales they told each other, sitting there upon the 
 vault-stone ! Hers were fairy-stories, the most of them 
 gathered, so old Witherlee believed, from the little green 
 folk with whom she had communion ; but his were of big 
 fights fought long ago, of ambush and surprise, of battle- 
 men who stood in their brawny strength and lived again 
 from out the broken past. And the folk who crossed the 
 kirkyard now and then would see the two together, would 
 smile and wag their heads, and say that one and one went 
 well together when both were witless ; but they did not 
 know that Little Bairn and Witherlee wove such romance 
 from the crude threads of life as made their days full of 
 great glory and great ease. 
 
 This afternoon, while the sun bent down toward Ling 
 Crag, they watched the gold leaves fall, and watched the 
 red leaves fall, and were silent until Witherlee began to 
 laugh that withered laugh of his. 
 
 " Puts me in mind, mistress, watching the leaves float 
 down puts me in mind of Timothy Hirst. He's buried 
 snug yonder, just under the big rowan ; as I should know, 
 for I sodded him up more years agone than I can call to 
 mind. A sad miser, Timothy ; never cared for the lasses, 
 he ; never cared for wine and revel and what not ; 'twas 
 guineas he had taken to bed and board with him." 
 
 " Guineas ? " echoed Little Bairn. " What are guineas, 
 Sexton ? I'm all among the mists these days, where 
 nothing matters, and I I do not seem to know what 
 guineas are." 
 
 " I've near forgotten myself," chuckled Witherlee, 
 his thin voice sharp as the reed-note of the breeze among 
 H 113
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 the trees. " Ay, I'm nigh past thought of guineas, for 
 they nail no coffins down ; and yet yond gold leaves falling 
 call them back to mind. Hark how the trees moan and 
 shiver at parting with their gold ! Twas just so, they tell 
 me, Timothy Hirst cried out and groaned when Death 
 came yammering at his door and plucked him bare as a 
 winter oak. Oh, ay ! Oh, ay ! He couldn't take the gold 
 to Marshcotes kirkyard now, could he, little mistress ? " 
 
 " It would be heavy. Gold is very heavy, Sexton. I 
 seem to remember so much from the days before the mists 
 came down." 
 
 She looked at him in some perplexity childish per- 
 plexity, as of one who sought the wisdom of an older head. 
 Then, in a moment, her face changed, and she stooped 
 down to pluck a yellow flower, last of the autumn-tide, 
 and held it up against the sun. 
 
 " There's gold for you," she lisped. " We can take this 
 sort of gold with us, Sexton, at the last. Surely, surely, 
 for it grows upon our graves, and it is good to think of 
 sleeping under such a coverlet." 
 
 " True, very true," murmured Witherlee, his eyes fixed 
 dreamily upon the rowans. " Yet I'm not thinking of 
 the gold leaves so much just now, mistress I'm looking 
 at the red leaves see ye ! The one that fell just now 
 'tis crimson as a dawn-sun, and there's a sort of fire about 
 it that won't any way be quenched. It calls the old feud 
 to mind, somehow." 
 
 She crept closer to his side and put a little white hand 
 into his seamed, discoloured palm a brown-black palm, 
 which showed that he worked in the peat soil of the grave- 
 yard. 
 
 " I do not like your red," she whispered. "It frights 
 me, Sexton. It seems to bring back some some ghost 
 or other from the past. There was a gravestone, wide and 
 flat, and my lover fighting for me and the stone was wet 
 and slippery, so that he nearly fell and again he nearly 
 fell and then the other one thrust at him with his sword, 
 and he dropped, and and I forget the rest, Sexton, I 
 
 114
 
 The Quiet Heart of the Storm 
 
 always forget the rest, save that the stone grew red, so red 
 and after that the red patch spread and spread, till it 
 covered the whole moor." 
 
 Sexton Witherlee kept silence ; for the face of Little 
 Bairn was a child's face no longer, but the face of one who 
 looks before and after and knows the things of fate. The 
 robin still sang on. Not a sleeper in Death's garden but 
 held his peace as Witherlee was doing. The red leaves 
 fell, and the breeze still wandered, homeless and afraid, 
 down the straight alleys of the graveyard. Only the 
 Sexton and Little Bairn were changed. 
 
 " Let me come closer yet, Sexton," pleaded the little 
 woman. " The mists have left me, and I see the hard, 
 cold world again, and I am frightened. Hearken ! There 
 were three Waynes went to market yesterday, and only one 
 came back. There was bloodshed, for one who called 
 himself a Ratcliffe came with a great axe " 
 
 " Mary Mother ! " mumbled Witherlee. " A Ratcliffe, 
 say ye ? And he killed two Waynes ? Nay, nay, the 
 Ratcliffes died from out the moor these score years since. 
 Nay, mistress ! Could that have chanced and us not 
 heard of it in Marshcotes ? " 
 
 " They brought home the bodies stealthily by night. 
 They did not wish it to be known in Marshcotes. 'Tis 
 true, 'tis sadly true, Sexton, for Shameless Wayne it was 
 who 'scaped the one Wayne who has always treated me 
 with kindness and I heard him telling Janet of it yester- 
 night." 
 
 " I saw him ride down Marshcotes street this morn, with 
 a sort of grey, quiet devil in his face," muttered Witherlee. 
 " Ay, I thought when I saw him that there was either 
 drink or sorrow in him or both, may be, for one breeds 
 t'other." 
 
 " He was riding to tell Wayne of Cranshaw what had 
 chanced. He was riding Sexton, cannot you see the red 
 waters flowing at the kirkyard foot ? " she broke off, point- 
 ing downward with one baby finger. 
 
 The Sexton saw no flowing waters there ; but, turning 
 
 "5
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 to his comrade, he saw the echo of some such picture 
 in her strained and frightened face. 
 
 " I can see it all ! " she cried, scarce louder than a 
 whisper. " Tis all as it was years ago red, red every- 
 where, and the moor all drowned in crimson waters. Ah, 
 God, for peace ! I was so happy while the mists lay over 
 me, and now " 
 
 Quickly as the mists had lifted, so they fell again on Little 
 Bairn. Her face was strained no longer, and she fell to 
 playing with the yellow flower again. 
 
 "Naught matters; naught matters, Sexton, whatever 
 things may chance," she murmured. 
 
 The Sexton lifted his head upon the sudden, as the sound 
 of hoofs came from the bridle- track that crossed the lower 
 corner of the graveyard. 
 
 " By the Heart, there's a Ratcliffe yonder, if my old 
 eyes have not forgotten the red look of the breed," he 
 murmured. " Ay, and Parson's Lass God bless her in 
 queer company." 
 
 Little Bairn did not glance up from her flower, and the 
 two rode on unheeded by her. 
 
 " Did you see that odd, unchancy couple on the grave- 
 stone ? " Ratcliffe asked, as they were drawing rein beside 
 the Parsonage gate. 
 
 " Yes. Wayne's stepmother of Marsh and Sexton 
 Witherlee, of whom I told you I find them often here, 
 telling stories each to other." 
 
 " Wayne's stepmother ? What, she who all but dis- 
 honoured old Wayne of Marsh by running from him with a 
 Ratcliffe ? How should that be for the little one yonder 
 is a child, yet her tale has been told these twenty years." 
 
 " True ; but the fairies kissed her on that night, and 
 now the years slip by her, and never seem to touch her as 
 they pass. Poor Little Bairn ! There's only Shameless 
 Wayne at Marsh who treats her well." 
 
 The years had fallen, too, from Witherlee, were one to 
 judge by the eyes which followed Red Ratcliffe out of sight, 
 or by the hands which, nerveless awhile since, played up 
 
 116
 
 The Quiet Heart of the Storm 
 
 and down his narrow legs. First had come little Bairn's 
 prophecy of blood that should cover all the moor, and now, 
 hard on the heels of this same prophecy, had come a red 
 young giant, with a great axe swinging at his saddle ; and 
 the Sexton chuckled as he sat and talked with his com- 
 panion. 
 
 " Tis queer oh, ay, 'tis queer," he muttered, " but I 
 always loved a fight, little Mistress loved to watch a fight, 
 I should be saying, for Lord knows I've no swordcraft of 
 my own, and I'm no way what a man could call brave of 
 heart." 
 
 Little Bairn nodded, to show that she was listening, 
 but her thoughts seemed far away. 
 
 " When the goodwife was living see, she's buried 
 close under the kitchen windows of the tavern yonder 
 when Nanny was alive, I was mortal feared of her. 
 Many's the time I've crept out among the wee, soft graves 
 here just to hide from her sharp tongue. Nay, I'm not 
 brave, Mistress, not brave at all ; and yet my heart warms, 
 like, to a fight, and always has. Tisn't the killing, just, 
 that pleases a body, and 'tisn't the maiming, just, and 
 'tisn't the bonnie work of clearing up the litter after all is 
 finished there's more in a fight than that. When you see 
 the sun go dripping off their swords like water when you 
 see the big chests bared and the big arms swinging like so 
 many flails when there's two or three come racing against 
 one, and the one stands his ground and mows them down 
 oh, by the Lord, Mistress, ye cannot help your heart go 
 beating happily ye cannot help forgetting that you're 
 weak, and old, and never over-brave ! " 
 
 " My heart is beating happily," said Little Bairn, catching 
 at the phrase. " I am in the mists again, and they are 
 cool and very quiet." 
 
 The Sexton did not heed her. He, too, was in the mists, 
 but not the grey, cool mists which his companion knew. 
 And while the old man lingering over the recital as one 
 who tastes and knows good wine will roll it round his tongue 
 went over the old tale of how the Ratcliffes came to a 
 
 117
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Wayne burying and fought to the death in this same kirk- 
 yard where the robin sang so peacefully to-day, Red Rat- 
 cliffe was talking to Parson Clare in the low, cool parlour 
 which looked out upon the graveyard. 
 
 Ratcliffe was unused to houses, and distrusted any alien 
 roof above his head ; yet Audrey had been so insistent that 
 her father should acknowledge the service done her, so 
 eager in her wish to offer hospitality, now that he had 
 ridden far in the teeth of danger and had come to her own 
 door, that the other could not but consent. The meeting 
 had been a strange one at the first, but the Parson, stiff 
 and over-full of dignity, had unbent when Audrey told 
 him what this huge, well-favoured man had done at 
 Wildwater. 
 
 " Wast a fool, child, to go so far abroad, especially when 
 the Waynes grow unmindful of good manners nowadays. 
 Our debt to you, sir, is no less, and I acknowledge it ; 
 though with your pardon you also are a fool to venture 
 into Marshcotes." 
 
 He rapped smartly on the table with his cane he had 
 been about to walk abroad when they arrived and when 
 a serving-maid came in he ordered venison-pasty, oat-cake 
 and cheese, and a tankard of October ale to be set updn the 
 board. And Ratcliffe, deep in love as he was, and listening, 
 too, for the signs of danger which lay close to him, he knew 
 in Marshcotes here Ratcliffe warmed to the good food 
 when it came, for at all times he was ready to give his six- 
 foot-four of bone and muscle its rightful due. From time 
 to time he glanced at Audrey, and twice he met her eyes ; 
 and he was glad that he had broken bread in this quiet 
 Parsonage which sheltered her. Once in a while he had 
 taken bite and sup at the Colne tavern, and once in a while 
 he had supped with some farmer dwelling near the wilder- 
 ness ; but never until now had he sat at the board of 
 gentlefolk and equals. 
 
 The Parson, for his part, stood by the hearth, and 
 watched these two ; and there were lines of pain and dis- 
 quiet about his face, had the others cared to notice it. 
 
 1x8
 
 The Quiet Heart of the Storm 
 
 This lass was dearer to him than any maid should be, save 
 to her lover ; it was the solace and delight of his last years 
 to have her beside him in the bleak and wind-swept Par- 
 sonage, in the life which was so at variance with the gentle 
 blood in him, though it fitted well with a poverty that had 
 been too proud to beg of richer kinsfolk down in London 
 yonder. The lass was dear to him ; and out of such love 
 as his comes terror always terror lest harm should touch 
 even the skirts of the loved maid. 
 
 The Parson stood and watched the two of them, as they 
 sat there at the board ; and ever his thoughts grew gloomier 
 as he recalled his daughter's tale of what had chanced at 
 Wildwater. Of old, when the feud flamed red and hot 
 above the moor, he had seen the Ratcliffes as a folk un- 
 scrupulous, unforgiving, ready always to make war instead 
 of peace, and he had favoured the Waynes in their uphill 
 battle against a tricky foe. Then had come the downfall 
 of the Ratcliffes, and Shameless Wayne's disastrous 
 marriage ; at the altar he had cursed the pair he came to 
 marry, and since then he had seen Shameless Wayne return 
 to dice and liquor, had seen the younger Waynes grow up 
 unbridled and licentious, had watched the persecution of 
 his daughter, had determined twenty times to send her 
 out of harm's way, back to the London life which he dreaded 
 only less for her than he feared this less polished devilry 
 of Marshcotes. Yet each time he had said to himself, " I 
 am old, and I cannot live without my lass ; surely I can 
 protect her." And so the girl had stayed with him indeed, 
 she wDuld have grudged to leave him now, seeing how weak 
 he was and old and the Waynes had grown a little fuller 
 of wine, a little emptier of grace, as the months wore on 
 through winter-tide and summer. And now this very 
 morning it seemed the danger had grown so big that only 
 another's presence at Wildwater had saved Audrey from 
 insult, if from nothing worse. 
 
 Audrey herself still sat at table, crumbling her oat-cake 
 and watching Red Ratcliffe as he ate ; but only God knew 
 what a storm of tears impotent, wild tears was flooding 
 
 119
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 the old Parson's heart. His little girl, born late in life to 
 him, whom he had watched and tended since her mother 
 died and left her, a week old, to his care his little girl, 
 with the fragrance of her innocence upon her and the 
 dainty dawn of womanhood scarce golden yet above the 
 pale horizon-edge of life his little girl, whom a breath of 
 evil would outrage as direr tragedy would hurt her hardier 
 sisters was she to be the sport of such as drank and ate 
 and hawked at Marsh. 
 
 It may be that the Parson did not understand his 
 daughter, for fathers and lovers do not often understand a 
 maid. It may be that Audrey Clare knew well enough 
 the risks she ran, that her innocence was of a hardier growth, 
 and one less easily besmirched, than either Parson Clare 
 or Red Ratcliffe knew. Yet the Parson did not guess as 
 much, and his heart was weak within him as he thought of 
 Audrey's danger. Must he find courage, after all, to send 
 her to her London kinsfolk ? It might be well and yet 
 the King bore no good name, and it was common gossip 
 that His Majesty had looked too curiously at Audrey. An 
 upright man, the Parson was, and he was nearing the end 
 of days well-spent ; and for a moment, in his bitterness 
 of soul and heart, he cried out upon the God who had 
 brought this trouble on him at the last. Yet he was a 
 brave man also, and for that reason he checked the cry, 
 and thrust it back, and was ashamed of it. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe, meanwhile, had pushed his plate away, 
 and he and Audrey were looking at each other across the 
 board, a certain shyness, as of understanding newly come 
 by, in their glances. For the first time a sense of hope 
 came to the old Parson, as he watched these youngsters 
 with the clear, unerring eye of age. This lad with the 
 ruddy hair and wind-blown face there was an honesty 
 about him, a downright self-assurance that was neither 
 arrogant nor foolish, but fashioned of some inner strength 
 of mind and purpose. And he had succoured Audrey 
 when her need was dire. What if ay, what if 
 
 The Parson halted, and rubbed his long hand on his 
 
 120
 
 The Quiet Heart of the Storm 
 
 chin, and looked at Ratcliffe with a dawning wonder. The 
 boy's red thatch, the shape of his jaw and forehead, the 
 whole look of him, had been familiar once to Parson Clare. 
 How could that be, he wondered ? Then he recalled that 
 these two had met at Wildwater, and Wildwater was a 
 place that none save a Ratcliffe or a random lass would seek. 
 Again he watched his guest who missed the scrutiny 
 because he could look only at his wonder-maid and the 
 riddle was plain to him at last. Yet it seemed strange ; 
 in the Ratcliffe faces he had known aforetime there had 
 been guile, a certain look of the fox, that could not be mis- 
 taken ; in the face of this lad there was honesty as clean 
 as the wind and the moor and the sky that had found a 
 mirror there ; yet the family likeness, too, was stamped 
 on him, as good coin and bad may be marked with the same 
 superscript. A moment longer the Parson stood by the 
 hearth, his thoughts shifting to and fro ; and then a cry 
 escaped him before he knew that he had meant to utter it. 
 
 " Why you're a Ratcliffe, sir ! " he cried. 
 
 Ratcliffe had pushed his chair aside, and now he rose 
 and met his host's eyes with the simple dignity that had 
 marked all his doings in this house. 
 
 " I am, sir, and I am proud of it. Was that why you 
 named me a fool for coming into Wayne haunts ? " 
 
 " Nay, I had not guessed your name then. I warned you 
 because of what you did at Wildwater, and because the 
 Wayne you overthrew may well have got home again by 
 now, to tell his fellows what you did ! " 
 
 " I did worse or better at Colne market yesterday," 
 laughed Ratcliffe, all the ease and vigour of his growing 
 manhood on him. " The glove is thrown, sir, once for all, 
 and I well, I shall die when God wills, but I need not die 
 just yet in fearing it beforehand." 
 
 Audrey stole a glance at him ; a great fear, a greater 
 pride, were in her heart ; and pride and fear alike would 
 dwell there till the feud was staunched. 
 
 But the Parson, who had been young and hot in his day, 
 laid his cane upon the table, and settled himself in the high 
 
 121
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 chair by the hearth, and beckoned Ratcliffe also to be seated. 
 Then he took his snuff-box out, and tapped it gravely, and 
 handed it across. 
 
 " Young man," he said, in his clear-cut, silvery voice, 
 scarce weakened yet by age, " young man, I seem to have 
 found little courage and little honesty in Marshcotes parish 
 since the idle days came on us. For this reason I bid you 
 welcome. Peace is my trade, sir, but in war or peace I like 
 to meet a man." 
 
 Audrey crept to her father's knee and watched the logs 
 that crackled on the hearth ; but the warmth that gave 
 new beauty to her face came from the fire within. So 
 quickly the hours had moved since her first meeting with 
 Red Ratcliffe, so quickly her heart had passed from the 
 primrose-ways into the troubled ways of love, that she 
 knew little as yet of what had chanced to her ; she did not 
 know that this new warmth had come because she had 
 heard her father, whom she loved, give praise to the man 
 who could claim love for the asking. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe, for his part, had learned from Joseph 
 a fondness for snuff, and he passed by the old man's 
 praise while lifting the pinch to his nostrils between a 
 thumb and forefinger. The lad was not used to praise, 
 indeed, and he saw no use for it in the life which stretched 
 before him. 
 
 Then, little by little, the Parson led him on to talk of 
 his life out yonder at Black House, and Ratcliffe forgot 
 himself almost forgot Audrey now and then, as she sat 
 at her father's knee with her great eyes fixed upon their 
 guest in telling of his mother's flight from Wildwater, 
 of his own birth in the Red Room, of the long, unfaltering 
 years that followed, of Joseph and Bathsheba, and all the 
 faithfulness of the old couple. Then he talked of the late 
 fight at Colne, and the fights to come ; and the Parson kept 
 forgetting that he was a man of peace, and the light danced 
 in his old, tired eyes, and he found no rebuke to offer to 
 this lad who preached, in every word, in every deed, the 
 righteousness of feud and bloodshed. 
 
 122
 
 The Quiet Heart of the Storm 
 
 In after days, when storm and stress had grown to be 
 companions to her, Audrey returned in mind to this quiet, 
 fireside scene, and wondered that her heart, maiden until 
 Red Ratcliffe came, should have yielded in so short a 
 space to the man's strength, to the pity of his loneli- 
 ness, to the tale of the good fight at Colne, and his 
 certainty of goodlier fights to come. And yet this 
 afternoon, as she sat and listened, she did not guess that 
 she was fancy-free no longer, that she had lost that 
 dainty disregard of men and of men's foolish passions 
 which down in London yonder had maddened and 
 enthralled her cavaliers. 
 
 The sun, yellow still as harvest-gold, got low toward 
 the western moor, and from the window of the Parsonage a 
 big, white moon rose steadfastly above the church. And 
 still the Parson renewed his own hot youth in listening to 
 Red Ratcliffe ; and the three of them were deaf for the 
 moment to a danger that already was gathering head in 
 Marshcotes Street. 
 
 The danger was set a-foot, as danger is apt to be, by a 
 gossip's tongue ; for, when Ratcliffe and the Parson's 
 Lass rode down together through the kirkyard, close past 
 the spot where Sexton Witherlee's wife lay under her black 
 headstone, the hostess of the Bull tavern was looking 
 through her kitchen window. She saw the couple pass, 
 and when, a half-hour later, one of the Waynes of Marsh 
 came striding into the inn and called for liquor, she was 
 pleased to speed the time by speaking of the big, red-headed 
 stranger who had drawn rein at the Parsonage gate and 
 entered. 
 
 " Why, master, you might have killed me with a feather, 
 as the saying is," she finished, one corner of her apron lifted 
 to her mouth. " I mind what the Ratcliffes looked like 
 twenty years agone, before your house God rest it, sir 
 settled all differences between ye. And I thought, this 
 is a Ratcliffe ghostie, thought I, come back to plague us ; 
 and then I saw how Parson's maid was chatting with him, 
 easy-like, and I had to own he must be flesh and blood ; 
 
 123
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 and yet it puzzled me, for hair and eyes and face were 
 Ratcliffe to the life." 
 
 To her dismay, young Wayne flung down his tankard, 
 turned on his heel, and went out without a word. 
 
 " Wayne or no Wayne, he might learn gentler manners 
 ay, and pay his score," she muttered, picking up her 
 cherished pewter and noting where the fall had 
 dinted it. 
 
 Wayne himself was half down the narrow road that led 
 to Marsh, and when he reached the house and found two 
 of his kinsmen drinking wine in hall he laughed. 
 
 " We've snared the fox ! " he cried. 
 
 " What fox, Ned ? " said they, looking up from their 
 half-finished measures. 
 
 " Why the red fox, lads the one who worried two of 
 us to death at Colne, and all but had a third." 
 
 " What, Ratcliffe ? " 
 
 " To be sure. Audrey Clare has led him in a silken chain 
 as she leads most of us and now he's at the Parsonage 
 ripe-ready for us when we care to knock." 
 
 All was bustle in a moment. Sword-belts were snatched 
 from the table or the floor, and girded on ; there was a buzz 
 of talk and speculation. 
 
 " We'll knock at once," laughed the taller of the two, as 
 he gulped down the remainder of his wine. 
 
 "To be sure we will," said he who brought the news, 
 with judgment riper than his years. " Yet remember there 
 were three met him face to face at Colne, and they were 
 tried men all. There are three of us, untried shall we 
 fare better, think ye ? " 
 
 " Oh, to the deuce with your wisdom ! " cried the 
 youngest of the three. " Let's be at him, and have 
 done." 
 
 " 'Tis not my wisdom," the other answered drily. " 'Tis 
 the wisdom of a long axe, held in two long arms and 
 Shameless Wayne himself said the axe was half-devil, and 
 the man half-devil, and the two of them together just a 
 devil out of hell. Listen, lads ! We'll be at him, and at 
 
 124
 
 The Quiet Heart of the Storm 
 
 once but Shameless Wayne for one will curse us if he 
 adds us to the number of his slain." 
 
 " Oh, let us hasten ! The fox may well slip past us 
 while we're talking here." 
 
 " Nay, he'll not leave Marshcotes yet awhile, if we know 
 aught of Audrey Clare. There's one here and there at 
 Marsh who would give his ears for such hospitality as this 
 red-headed outcast is enjoying." 
 
 " By that token, what of Maurice ? " put in the third. 
 " He has not been seen since we broke fast this morning, 
 and I fancied he was dangling after Audrey Clare again ; 
 it has grown a habit with him lately." 
 
 " He told me he was riding out to meet her," put in 
 another. 
 
 " That is like Maurice ! Vowed he had a tryst, eh, 
 though all the while we know she's cold as a snow-wind 
 from the moors. Well, Maurice has missed the maid, it 
 seems, and he has missed a fight as well. Come, lads ! 
 Tis only a half-mile from here to Marshcotes Parsonage, 
 and we'll need no horse-flesh to carry us." 
 
 Even the youngest of the three, and the lightest-hearted, 
 felt his heart beat fast as they went out at the courtyard 
 gate and up the stony bridle-way. " I wonder, is he man 
 or devil, this red-head ? " was his thought. 
 
 It was a sign of the new times that Ratcliffe already 
 showed gigantic and mysterious to the Waynes, though it 
 was only yesterday that he had fought his first battle. 
 It was a sign of the new times, moreover, that Shameless 
 Wayne before he rode out to-day to take counsel with his 
 Cranshaw kinsman, had given strict commands to all these 
 lads at Marsh. 
 
 " The feud is up again," he had said. " Watch for a 
 red-head with an axe ; if you meet him in the way, be 
 swift with the first blow, for he strikes once, and only 
 once ; run in before he is aware, and strike 'tis your only 
 chance." 
 
 For Shameless Wayne, whose life, once boyish wildness 
 was laid aside, had been full of destiny, full of battle, full 
 
 "5
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 of big issues framed round about with bigger superstitions 
 Shameless Wayne was not the man to undervalue such 
 a foe as Ratcliffe, though he was one and the Waynes were 
 numbered by their scores. Nay, more, this had been 
 looked for by Wayne of Marsh ; amid the peaceful years 
 that followed the ruin of Wildwater, amid the wine he 
 drank too freely, amid the fret of idleness, while his man- 
 hood ached for action, Wayne had watched for some such 
 bolt from out the grey, impassive sky of peace. His union 
 with Janet called for retribution ; and sometimes he told 
 himself that he and she had suffered enough within the 
 boundaries of each evil day that found them more divided 
 than the last ; yet oftener he told himself, and knew it 
 true, that only the wrath of heaven could wash their sinning 
 clean. The feud had not been killed ; in some way, at 
 some time, the smouldering ashes would be stirred anew, 
 and once again the Waynes would be fighting for their 
 lives, speeding the Fiery Spear from Cranshaw out to Lud- 
 worth, from Stony Heights to Wuthrum's Ghyll. For 
 this reason the fight at Colne had come on him as a thing 
 half-expected; for this reason he had ridden out to 
 Cranshaw, to take counsel of that Wayne who was the 
 Bayard and cool-headed counsellor of the race ; yet in 
 the very exercise of this foresight he was leaving, had he 
 known it, three striplings to attempt an onslaught which 
 he himself had tried in vain. 
 
 " Gad, how Shameless Wayne will fret when he returns 
 to find that we have done his work," cried the youngest 
 of the three, as he made up the hill and saw a corner of the 
 market-square peep down upon him from the top of the 
 steep lane. 
 
 Yet Ratcliffe, talking of old days and new within the 
 shelter of the Parsonage, was not aware of trouble until 
 on the sudden he checked himself in the middle of some 
 tale, and glanced at the window, through which the full 
 white moon was staring. Audrey, whose eyes had not been 
 far from his since he began to weave his glamour-tales, 
 followed the direction of his glance, but could see nothing ; 
 
 126
 
 The Quiet Heart of the Storm 
 
 the old Parson glanced that way in turn, and he was blind 
 likewise to what Red Ratcliffe saw. 
 
 " Go on, go on, sir," muttered the Parson. " You were 
 telling how your mother came to Black House, and how 
 the Lean Man appeared to her " 
 
 " Ay, just as he is appearing now there at the case- 
 ment, beckoning me to come." 
 
 Again the others tried to see with his own vision, and 
 failed ; and yet the quietness of his voice left little doubt 
 that he spoke of something which, to him at any rate, was 
 real as the white moon shining in on them. 
 
 " Tut-tut ! " the Parson said, tapping his snuff-box 
 fretfully. " Such things are not seen, sir 'tis contrary 
 to godliness to traffic with the under- world." 
 
 "It is the over- world, sir," Ratcliffe answered gravely. 
 " It is above us always, guiding us, shaping us, making the 
 little things of big account and the big things little. Lord 
 God, have I not learned that lesson out yonder in the 
 wilderness ? " 
 
 " Spirits of the earth below, or the heaven above, do not 
 appear to us," snapped Parson Clare, angered that this 
 lad's sincerity half carried him away. 
 
 " What of the Witch of Endor, father ? Her tale is told 
 in Scripture," put in Audrey, whose faith was swayed more 
 surely by Ratcliffe's warm conviction than by her father's 
 cold dissent. 
 
 " I know naught of Scripture, and little of the ins-and- 
 outs of speech," said Ratcliffe, in the same deep tone ; 
 " but the Lean Man stands there, and beckons me and 
 by your leave, sir, I must say farewell and go about my 
 business." 
 
 He was already near the door, and Audrey, forgetting 
 everything except the dread that seemed to loosen all her 
 limbs, went and clutched him by the arm. 
 
 " Does it mean does He come to bid you fight ? Is 
 this the business that you talk of ? " 
 
 He looked down at her, from the height of his stature 
 and the height of his clear resolve. " He bids me fight," 
 
 127
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 he answered. " I was born for that, and bred for that ; 
 what then ? " 
 
 Parson Clare felt the years slip lightly from him. Peace 
 was peace, and a goodly thing in its own place ; but could 
 he say that this lad's question, " What then ? " the 
 question which summed up a past of effort and a future of 
 stern fight could he say that the question was not in truth 
 its own good and fitting answer ? Moreover, the Waynes 
 were pride-sick and a scourge, and it might be that another 
 David had come to quiet Marshcotes here to pit his stone 
 and sling against the daintier weapons of the adversary. 
 
 Ratcliffe's horse was at the door, fretting the garden- 
 path with his impatient hoofs. In silence Ratcliffe took 
 the long axe from its sheath ; and Audrey, pale and 
 sorrowful, could not do less than watch his every move- 
 ment, though now the axe, so good and brave a fellow in 
 the stories lately told, showed murderous and unhallowed. 
 
 " You you will not get to saddle ? " she asked. 
 
 " No, I will leave the horse in your own charge. I noted 
 the steps, down yonder at the kirkyard-foot, as we rode by, 
 and it is there I mean to take my stand." 
 
 " But are you sure that there is danger ? " 
 
 " The Lean Man never lies, save to an enemy. I looked 
 for him at Wildwater, when I went just now to tell him 
 how the axe had fared at Colne ; and he did not come, 
 knowing his own time best. And now, knowing his own 
 time best, he beckons me." 
 
 " And you will go without without a farewell said ? " 
 
 Through the fore-glee of the battle, through the iron 
 walls of purpose, the girl's voice crept. He looked clear 
 down into her eyes, but did not touch her, nor make any 
 nearer movement. 
 
 " My farewell is this," he said, deep and low and clear 
 as if he stood, a happy bridegroom at the altar, and uttered 
 his responses. " If I die, I die loving ; and if I live, I 
 live loving, to my life's end ; and, whether I die or live, 
 you are the sweetest lass that ever I shall see in this world 
 or the next." 
 
 128
 
 The Quiet Heart of the Storm . 
 
 Not the words alone, but the voice, went home to Audrey 
 Clare. There in the Parsonage garden, with the dying sun 
 and rising moon conflicting as to which should cull the 
 sweetness of the stocks, the lavender, the bushy rosemary 
 there with the grim Parsonage behind, and in front the 
 ordered headstones, hiding each its tale of love and strife 
 and after-rest there, with the freedom of the sky above 
 them and a robin singing of the winter near at hand, her 
 heart went out to him. 
 
 " And I do you ask naught from me ? " she said. 
 
 " Not yet. Not till foster-brother has been proved 
 afresh. Not till " 
 
 But her hand was on his arm again, and the wonder 
 in her eyes was such as dizzied Ratcliffe, as wine will dizzy 
 one not used to it. 
 
 " Neither you nor foster-brother need be proved ; and 
 what you give you take again. God bless you," said 
 Audrey Clare, who had disdained, folk said, the King 
 himself. 
 
 129
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 HOW MARSHCOTES STREET RAN RED 
 
 JUST after the Waynes strode up the bridle-track in search 
 of Ratcliffe, a company of their kinsfolk from Stony 
 Heights, some twelve or so in all, came riding to the gates 
 of Marsh, dismounted there, and thundered at the door 
 of the main hall. They had been hawking all the day, 
 and, finding themselves at the sport's end not far from 
 Marsh, had turned aside to claim hospitality from Shame- 
 less Wayne. 
 
 Their knocks were answered presently by a sleepy 
 serving-man, who carried those marks of an easy, slothful 
 life which stamped his master and his master's kin. Once 
 on a day the servants of Marsh House had been staunch 
 fighters, ready at any time to pick a quarrel with the 
 Ratcliffe underlings ; but that day had gone by, and the 
 history of the Waynes seemed written on the fleshy face, 
 the insolent, half-slouching gait, of the man who opened 
 to the visitors. 
 
 The guests swore carelessly on hearing that Shameless 
 Wayne and all the household were abroad ; but when 
 they learned that three of the Waynes had set off on foot 
 in the direction of the village, they turned their horses' 
 heads. 
 
 " If they're not mounted, be sure they're drinking at 
 the Bull. Let us join them there," said one. 
 
 " Ay," put in another, " and catch a sight of Parson's 
 Lass, may be. Tis odd, but that slim bundle of cantrips 
 could queen the country-side, if she were minded." 
 
 ' 'Twill take a warmish sun to thaw that bit office," 
 laughed a third. " I tried it once myself and cursed if 
 I've been less than frozen ever since." 
 
 130
 
 How Marshcotes Street ran Red 
 
 " It needs men, 'twould seem, not ladlings, to deal with 
 a headstrong maid," sneered Black Wayne, the swarthiest 
 of them all, and, judging from his air, their leader. " If 
 I had no wife at home to keep my thoughts from straying, 
 would I let such a rose go hanging on the hedge, think ye ? 
 There's the fool here at Marsh Maurice, the pretty dandy 
 of the flock who spends his days in following and his 
 nights in sighing for her. Tut ! He should clip her round 
 the waist, and kiss her mouth, and then see how she took 
 him." 
 
 " Gossip says that one or two have followed that advice 
 already and carried home a long scar on their cheeks 
 from my lady's riding-whip. She hark, lads ! Did ye 
 hear aught ? " 
 
 Ay, they heard. From the market-square above a wild, 
 clear cry had sounded. 
 
 " A Ratcliffe ! A Ratcliffe ! " 
 
 And now, neither so loud nor yet so clear, there rang, 
 an answering cry, " A Wayne ! A Wayne ! Wayne and 
 the Dog ! " 
 
 They pushed their horses forward, reaching the market- 
 square in time to see such a sight as Marshcotes village, 
 even in the prime of the old fighting days, had never wit- 
 nessed. For Red Ratcliffe, with the failing sun behind him 
 and the gaining moon in front, was standing on the top- 
 most of the wide stone steps which lead from street to kirk- 
 yard ; and in this strange light, half moon's, half sun's, 
 with the advantage of the higher ground, moreover, he 
 looked gigantic beyond the six-foot-four which he could 
 claim. In his hands was a great axe, which, just as they 
 approached, came down upon a second Wayne and stretched 
 him mute beside the first. 
 
 " A Wayne ! A Wayne ! " yelled the new-comers, 
 slipping from their saddles, since Ratcliffe's vantage- 
 ground compelled them to attack on foot. The third of 
 the Marsh Waynes he who had brought his fellows to 
 meet Ratcliffe and had found him waiting at the church- 
 yard steps the third Wayne, heartened by the cries of
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 those behind him, ran in afresh and aimed a quick blow 
 at Red Ratcliffe's thigh ; but Ratcliffe stepped aside, 
 more nimbly than could have been expected from his bulk, 
 and once again foster-brother purred and whistled through 
 the air, and clove a way through flesh and bone. 
 
 " A Ratcliffe ! A Ratcliffe ! " cried the red-head on the 
 steps, and waited waited, so it seemed, without a sign 
 of heat or of impatience. 
 
 The twelve Waynes drew back a pace, took counsel of 
 each other, then came on with a sweeping battle-cry. And 
 now it was that the face of Ratcliffe changed, and glowed 
 with a strange inward fire, as he met the shock of their 
 first coming, and drove them back, adding one more to 
 the number of the slain who lay in uncouth postures on 
 the steps. And now it was that Sexton Witherlee came 
 out of his dreams of days gone by, and hobbled down the 
 path, rubbing his lean hands for joy ; and Audrey Clare 
 crept nearer, and the old Parson ; and Little Bairn, her 
 eyes alive with prophecy, came sobbing over the grey- 
 green headstones and crying that all the moor was reddening 
 fast ; and the Bull Inn, and the houses fronting on the 
 market-square, held each its faces pressed against the 
 casement ; ay, there were some even of the villagers who 
 stood in the tavern-doorway and looked on, forgetting any 
 danger they might run in watching the glory that rested 
 like a halo round about Red Ratcliffe and that awful 
 space which was covered by the swing of foster-brother. 
 
 And not the village folk alone looked on ; for in the 
 fields that neighboured Marshcotes the barley and the oats 
 were ripe, and the men of half a dozen upland farms were 
 busy with the harvest. News of Ratcliffe's coming, news 
 of the beginning of the fight, had spread among them, 
 none knew how, as a gorse-fire spreads when a dry March 
 has brittled all the moorland slopes. 
 
 " There's Waynes a-fighting. Th' owd, good days are 
 come again," the murmur passed from one to another. 
 
 They left their husbandry, and ran headlong down the 
 slopes, and up the braes, and into the market-square. 
 
 132
 
 How Marshcotes Street ran Red 
 
 Wide-built men they were, for the most part, with bared 
 arms the colour of a walnut's juice, with kerchiefs, red as 
 the feud, tied round about their brows, with sickles in 
 their hands, because their haste to see the battle had been 
 too eager to let them think of dropping an accustomed 
 tool. Into the market-square they ran, each striving to 
 outstrip the other ; and they came in time to see Ratcliffe's 
 axe sweep down upon the fourth Wayne's head, to see his 
 comrades linger and withdraw .a space. And they lifted 
 their voices, these reapers, and the noise of it drew all eyes 
 to them, and the villagers, seeing the sickles in their hands, 
 seeing the hot, keen look of them, fancied at the first that 
 they had come from No Man's Land, like Ratcliffe, to make 
 war with Waynes. For a moment, too, the Waynes them- 
 selves held this belief, until they recognised first one, 
 and then another, of these farm- folk dwelling on the 
 moor's edge. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe, waiting on the steps, did not so much as 
 turn his head. It seemed he was deaf and blind to all except 
 the dozen Waynes, less one, who talked together hurriedly 
 before returning to the steep attack. And ever the fire 
 glowed brighter in his face ; single he was, with a single 
 purpose, and the clustered onlookers might cry and murmur 
 as they would for they were naught to him, because they 
 were not Waynes. 
 
 The silver moon crept up, and the ruddy sun swooned 
 down, and the Waynes gathered courage to come on again. 
 
 They rushed the steps, as many as could stand abreast 
 while their comrades forced them upwards from behind. 
 Again Red Ratcliffe moved with the lightness of one born 
 to sword-play, and again the axe came down the axe 
 that had known battle before Wayne swords were forged, 
 the axe that had no niceties of play, but only the one 
 downward sweep that hurled the foremost Wayne, riven 
 and red, hard back upon his fellows, disordering them 
 and rendering their foothold perilous upon the wet and 
 cumbered steps. 
 
 A deep " Ah ! " went up from the watching throng, and
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 to a man they longed for Ratcliffe's victory, for the red- 
 head was one against hard odds. And Sexton Witherlee 
 kept rubbing his two withered hands together and mutter- 
 ing to himself. And even Audrey Clare forgot to be 
 afraid, forgot that she was looking on at what should have 
 been for ever hidden from her maiden eyes ; she knew only 
 that her man was being proved this day, that the beauty 
 of his strength lay on him like a fire. 
 
 No wonder that afterwards no man could think of Rat- 
 cliffe as being of the like flesh-and-blood with himself. 
 In his face was the light of many battles, waged by his 
 fathers for three hundred years and odd ; he was as one 
 who had dead men's honour to maintain, one who knew 
 that strength and righteousness were ranged beside him. 
 Straight at the topmost of the steps he stood, while the 
 Waynes again fell back and talked together ; and his voice 
 rang out once more above the heads of those who watched 
 the fight. 
 
 " By the Dog you boast of, Waynes, this is no fight, but 
 butchery ! There were fifteen of you, and I am one and 
 yet you force me into butchery." 
 
 Stung by his cry, they tried again to mount the steps ; 
 but the bodies cumbered them, and another had reeled 
 back into their midst before the second step was gained. 
 And the village folk sent up again their deep " Ah-h ! " 
 And the reapers, with their red kerchiefs and their sickles 
 white in the blue-white moonlight, and red where the 
 dying sunset struck this side of the steel the reapers cried 
 and yelled, not knowing which side they favoured Wayne 
 or Ratcliffe but knowing they had seen a man strike 
 hard to-day. 
 
 And now it was that a strange thing befell, a thing strange, 
 not in itself, but in its bearing on an issue so terrible as this 
 that lay between one Ratcliffe and the Waynes. For 
 Nick o' Trawdon the same who had succoured Shameless 
 Wayne at Colne had gone across to Cranshaw a little be- 
 fore noon to fetch a three-year bull that he had bought 
 not long ago ; and at this moment, thinking little of blood- 
 
 134
 
 How Marshcotes Street ran Red 
 
 shed and much of his bargain, he was urging the bull 
 a great, sulky fellow, with crisp, brown curls upon his 
 forehead up the narrow Marshcotes street. This was 
 while Ratcliffe flung his taunt abroad ; and just as Nick 
 got into the market-square the bull making his own way 
 with little difficulty the Waynes were standing back, 
 leaving a wide space between themselves and Ratcliffe 
 into which no man intruded. 
 
 The bull, growing restive at the uproar of the crowd, 
 scenting the blood, moreover, that trickled down the 
 churchyard steps, stayed in the middle of this open space, 
 and put his head down, and began to bellow fitfully. 
 Round and round his glance went, till it rested on Red 
 Ratcliffe, and on the axe which, held aloft to meet the 
 sunlight and the sun-rays, shone crimson. The colour 
 maddened him, and the Waynes, seeing it, began to mutter 
 though even in their panic they were shamed of it that 
 the bull might accomplish what they had failed to do. 
 
 Again the deep " Ah ah ! " rose from the crowd, 
 as the beast laid his head lower still, and drove straight up 
 the steps, trampling the fallen, yet carried forward with- 
 out slipping by the very blindness of his rush. The on- 
 lookers feared then for Ratcliffe, as they had not feared 
 before ; but he himself stood quiet, as if it were naught 
 to him to meet this changing issue of the fight. And now 
 the bull was scarce five feet from him, and foster-brother 
 twice whirled crimson into the upper light, dropping a 
 ruddy dew, then hid himself deep in the bull's curled 
 front. Without a tremor the brute fell prone among the 
 littered heap of Waynes ; and there were men among the 
 watchers who followed the flesher's trade ; and these, 
 knowing the matter that they spoke of, said there was no 
 other on the moorside who could drive a blade so deep. 
 And afterwards, from these same fleshers, came the whisper 
 that ran far and wide about the heath, and fixed itself as 
 deep into moor legends as ever Ratcliffe's axe had struck 
 the whisper that foster-brother, when battle was toward, 
 was tenanted by the soul of the Lean Man. 
 
 '35
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Indeed, there was angel or devil in Red Ratcliffe and his 
 blade to-day. Naught could touch them, naught could 
 stand against them ; and heretofore they had defended 
 only. What if they leaped to the attack instead what 
 then, the Waynes asked each other in high, broken voices ? 
 It was now, in the midst of a panic deepened by the bull's 
 intrusion and his overthrow, that they lost their one fair 
 chance. So deep the axe lay in the skull that Ratcliffe 
 was defenceless, as yesterday at Colne ; this way and that 
 he tugged, and for a moment a long moment it seemed 
 that he was lost. 
 
 " Pick up a sword, lad ! " muttered Sexton Witherlee 
 between his toothless gums. " Pick up a sword, and have 
 at them ! There are plenty good blades lying at your 
 feet." 
 
 Yet still Red Ratcliffe tugged at foster-brother ; and the 
 Waynes recovered sense to see what had befallen, and on 
 they came again with a hoarse cry of " Wayne ! Wayne 
 and the Dog ! " And the village folk, and those who had 
 come with sickles from the harvest fields, were vastly still 
 and vastly watchful. 
 
 Just on the stroke of fate the axe released its hold, and 
 Ratcliffe, though he stumbled backward with the force 
 of his own tug, had time to recover and to strike. 
 
 All this, though long to the onlookers, had lasted scarce 
 the tenth part of an hour. The sun lay, a ball of fire, at a 
 hand's-breadth from the westward roofs of Marshcotes ; 
 the moon was not far up above the eastern chimney-stacks. 
 And Ratcliffe, though his breath came hard, thought that 
 a moment's ecstasy, no more, had passed since first the 
 fight began ; but to Audrey Clare it seemed that time had 
 leaped into eternity. 
 
 It was Audrey who saw what was in the doing, there at 
 the far side of the open space where the Waynes, driven 
 back for a third time, were seeking a new way of onslaught. 
 It was idle to think of flight, for that would bring disgrace, 
 and exile worse than death ; it was idle to charge up the 
 steps in face of what awaited them ; there seemed no hope 
 
 136
 
 How Marshcotes Street ran Red 
 
 at all, until their swarthy leader bethought him of a 
 feint. 
 
 A great silence, following the roar and tumult of the 
 fight, had settled on the folk ; Red Ratcliffe, too, was silent, 
 save that he was drawing big, sobbing gulps of breath ; 
 and out of this uncanny silence came the Wayne stratagem. 
 
 Audrey, watching keenly, saw two of the attacking 
 party edge their way toward the right hand of the market- 
 square, whilst the others made as if to risk another on- 
 slaught ; she saw the pair move forward until they 
 reached the track that led upward to the Parsonage, and 
 so, in a roundabout fashion, to the kirkyard itself. She 
 guessed the meaning of it ; and when the Waynes in front 
 came on again, or seemed to do in order to keep Ratcliffe' s 
 eyes and ears engaged, the girl looked backward and saw, 
 as she had looked to see, two Waynes come running down 
 the path. Sexton Witherlee and Little Bairn, the Parson, 
 and herself, were straight between Ratcliffe and these 
 two, though hitherto they had watched from the safe 
 rearward of the battle ; and scarcely had they time to 
 spring aside when the two came bearing down on Ratcliffe 
 with their swords uplifted. 
 
 " Turn, turn ! Ah, God, will you not turn ? " cried 
 Audrey. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe heard the voice, as he would have heard it 
 if the grave mould lay upon him heard it as he could 
 have heard no other voice just now. On the sudden he 
 faced about, and because he knew that time was brief 
 and he would have to meet the upcoming Waynes at once, 
 he did no more than tap the two rearward Waynes with the 
 flat of foster-brother's blade and lay them senseless on the 
 path. 
 
 Truly this giant, fighting for his race, had much for 
 which to thank old Joseph's training. Had he been only 
 strong to ply his axe, without the quickness which big 
 men rarely show, he would have been taken cither front 
 or rear ; but Joseph had taught him that peculiar 
 speed of turn and feint which, seen in a. swordsman
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 now and then, reminds one of the glancing of a plover's 
 wing, so free it is and so unfettered. A second's delay in 
 turning round upon the two attacking from the rear, and 
 Ratcliffe's tale would have been told on this September 
 afternoon ; a moment's halt in despatching the two be- 
 hind, in turning again to meet the massed enemy that waited 
 him in front, and the Feud Spear of the Ratcliffes might 
 well have slumbered for many a year to come. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe was true to his breeding, and it was a pity 
 Joseph could not stand and watch just now could not see 
 his lessons, taught patiently and long, show palpable in 
 the ease, and swing, and balance of this lad who fought 
 against the many, and meant to worst them at the finish. 
 
 The Waynes below, meanwhile, were making a pretence 
 of their attack, being sure that their comrades would take 
 the enemy at unawares ; and so quickly did Red Ratcliffe 
 turn to smite the two behind, so swiftly did he turn again to 
 face the steps, that the Waynes in front had scarce time 
 to understand the peril before their foe was at them. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe had defended until now, had kept his 
 judgment and his temper well in hand ; but now he meant 
 to take his holiday. With a yell that broke against the 
 casements of the Marshcotes houses, a yell that fell back 
 splintered into little echoes, he leaped the whole six steps 
 leaped over the bull's carcase and the bodies of the Waynes 
 leaped full into the middle of the bewildered seven, and 
 cut down one, and drove the rest like witless sheep across 
 the square and into the narrow way that led to Marsh. 
 The Waynes the proud Waynes an hour ago, God save 
 the mark ! were in full flight, and one pursued the six 
 remaining. It was a shameful and a bitter thing, no 
 doubt ; yet none who saw that battle in the market-square 
 could afterwards find blame for those who fled ; nay, they 
 were wont to say in later days that twenty men might well 
 have given way before the weight and fury of Red Rat- 
 cliffe's onset, unlocked for as it was, and coupled with a 
 roaring cry that split the blue sky like a thunder-blast. 
 
 Yet, blame or no to the six flying Waynes, it was a drear 
 
 138
 
 How Marshcotes Street ran Red 
 
 day for their house. Down the steep lane to Marsh they 
 raced, Red Ratcliffe claiming one just as they reached the 
 little brig of stone that stood at the bottom of the hill. 
 Their aim was to rush into Marsh House and bolt the door 
 against their red pursuer ; but Ratcliffe would have none 
 of this, and headed them still witless-wild as driven 
 sheep straight up the lane, while he took toll again, and 
 felled the rearmost with his axe. 
 
 He rested then, and leaned awhile on foster-brother 
 to regain his breath, and watched the four remaining 
 Waynes show big for a moment on the moonlit hill-crest, 
 then disappear. His day's task was done, so far as slaying 
 went ; but there was one thing left to do, and he re- 
 membered this as he looked at the quiet, grey front of the 
 House of Marsh. 
 
 It was now for the first time that his heart grew sick. 
 To kill men in hot blood and righteous battle was one thing, 
 but to do what Ratcliffe custom asked, as the sign and 
 pledge of further feud to come, was nauseous to him. 
 The Lean Man, once on a day, had not hesitated to do this 
 thing ; for the tale was wakeful yet of how he killed a 
 Wayne, and cut off his right hand, and fixed the same 
 high up above the Marsh House doorway. Others before 
 the Lean Man had done as much ; but this last of his 
 house, Ratcliffe to the bone in many matters, could no 
 more do disrespect to a dead foe than yesterday he could 
 kill Shameless Wayne at Colne. 
 
 He halted there, and found his breath again while 
 thinking out the matter. The gage must be set up above 
 the door of Marsh ; he could not do it, and yet he must 
 decide in one way or the other. Joseph, when he returned, 
 would ask if he had done as much, and what answer could 
 he give ? 
 
 Suddenly his eyes fell on the fallen man, and on the 
 gauntlets that he wore. With a sense of heart's-ease 
 he stripped one gauntlet gently from the dead right hand, 
 and crossed to the main door, which was open now and 
 half-filled by the bulk of the same serving-man who awhile
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 since had opened to the Waynes of Stony Heights. The 
 man had heard the awful panic-screams of the pursued, 
 had come to the door to see what devil's game was going 
 forward, and stood there now with dropped jaw and 
 bulging eyes. 
 
 " Quick, fool ! Time presses," cried Red Ratcliffe. 
 " I want a stout nail and a hammer." 
 
 The serving-man, though half a dozen of his fellows 
 were within call, had forgotten the old tradition that 
 underlings, like masters, must fight to the death for the 
 house whose bread they ate. He saw only a giant, red from 
 thatch to heel, who carried an axe of a bright crimson hue ; 
 had there been fifty men behind him in the House of Marsh, 
 he would not once have thought of fight. Like a whipped 
 hound he went to do the stranger's bidding, and Ratcliffe, 
 when the man came cringing with nails and a hammer in 
 his hand, laughed to think that he stood here, a lonely 
 red-head against unknown odds of Waynes stood here 
 in the heart of the Wayne country, with only the big axe 
 for friend, and claimed the services of a hireling here at 
 Marsh. 
 
 Now the Lean Man had been tall, but less by a good four 
 inches than Red Ratcliffe ; and so it chanced that the 
 gauntlet symbol of a dead right hand was nailed far 
 higher over the Marsh doorway than any hand had yet been 
 nailed throughout the stormy past. And Ratcliffe, when 
 his task was done, nodded gravely, first at the gauntlet, 
 then at the gaping serving-man. 
 
 " Look ye, fool," he said. " When Shameless Wayne 
 comes home, bid him look up and see that the gage stands 
 higher than aforetime. And if he asks the reason, tell 
 him that the feud-smoke will rise higher above Marshcotes 
 Moor, and Ling Crag Moor, and Lonesome Heath, than in 
 the days gone by. And if again he asks who called at Marsh 
 to-day why, say 'twas Red Ratcliffe, at his service, 
 and that his visitor dwells hard by Lonesome Pool." 
 
 " God save us ! " muttered the man. " Lonesome Pool 
 is where the brownies come from and the boggarts, and 
 
 140
 
 How Marshcotes Street ran Red 
 
 the Sorrowful Woman, and the Lean Man who, they say, 
 came here on just such another errand of the nailed right 
 hand. And he lives there, this fellow with the axe. Small 
 wonder that evil days are coming." 
 
 But Red Ratcliffe was already out of ear-shot. With the 
 easy stride which showed that he did not trust altogether 
 to horse-flesh when he moved abroad, he went up the 
 bridle-way and into the market-square. All Marshcotes 
 was abroad, clustered into groups, some peering at the 
 bodies, some standing apart and chattering of the fight ; 
 yet, when Red Ratcliffe came, walking as if the village 
 were his own and no man his master from this to the end 
 of the world's highways, the gossips fell into silence, and 
 the timid tried to shrink into a smaller compass, and not 
 a cheer was raised, for the braver sort, who would have 
 given Ratcliffe his due meed, felt somehow that his deeds 
 were over-big for praise. 
 
 Only one voice was lifted, and that was Nick o' 
 Trawdon's, who, from the moment when his bull first 
 charged the churchyard steps, had followed the shifting 
 issues of the battle with a zest that only a nature like his 
 own undisciplined, and gay, and lawless could fully 
 know. When he had crossed to Cranshaw earlier in the 
 day he had thought only of the bargain he would make ; 
 when he returned, driving his bull and telling himself that 
 he was guineas in pocket by the deal, his thoughts were 
 pastoral still until he came to Marshcotes market-square ; 
 but now he counted the bull's loss as nothing, and he raised 
 one mighty shout. 
 
 " God rest you, master ! God rest you for a fighter 
 born ! " he cried. 
 
 " Ah, Nick, is it thou ? " said Ratcliffe quietly ; for 
 indeed he was in that high exaltation of mood when it 
 was easy to see clearly, though the face before him had 
 been less familiar than Nick o' Trawdon's. 
 
 " The same, at your service, and God speed to you." 
 
 " Better not let a Wayne hear you say as much," 
 muttered a bystander.
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " And why not ? " retorted Nick. " You've seen what 
 happens to Waynes when a Ratcliffe seeks them out. 
 I'm from Colne way, I, and we've said these twenty years 
 that the Ratcliffes would one day come to their own 
 again." 
 
 An angry murmur rose, for this was Marshcotes, after 
 all, and pledged of old to keep loyal toward the Waynes ; 
 but Red Ratcliffe heard no more, for he had passed on, 
 and mounted the steps which were littered by his handi- 
 work, and crossed to the spot where Audrey Clare was 
 standing, hard by the Parsonage gate. He did not see the 
 Parson, who stood contrite by the steps, viewing the dead 
 and repenting of the warmth that had crept into his blood 
 while watching Ratcliffe fight ; he did not see the Sexton, 
 rubbing his old hands together and chattering of the days 
 gone by ; he did not see Little Bairn, nor hear her piteous 
 cry that a red flood was drowning all the moor ; he only 
 saw the slim figure that drooped across the wicket-gate. 
 
 " Audrey ! Lass, what ails you ? " he muttered, putting 
 one arm close about her. 
 
 She lay a moment so, then passed a hand across her eyes 
 and looked him in the face. 
 
 " You went out of sight," she said, " and the joy of 
 watching you was gone, and I was left alone alone with 
 with the dead folk you left. Oh, 'tis your life's work, 
 I know but but surely Little Bairn was right just now 
 when she said that all the moor was crimson." 
 
 " Let be ! " said Ratcliffe, quickly, masterfully. " Did 
 7 shed the blood yonder ? Nay, the Waynes shed it long 
 ago, and I am but returning them their gift." 
 
 " I'll not weep not sicken, or any way be weak," she 
 whispered, cowed for the moment by his heat. 
 
 " Audrey, there was something whispered between us, 
 and I said that I would wait until the axe had proved 
 himself. Well, what now ? Am I too big, or over red, 
 or too much of a fool, to ask for you ? 'Twill be a hard 
 life yonder at Black House ; think twice about it, lass." 
 
 She glanced at him, and it seemed to Ratcliffe like sun- 
 
 142
 
 How Marshcotes Street ran Red 
 
 light creeping through the mists that of a morning hugged 
 the edge of Lonesome Pool. 
 
 " They say that second thoughts are best," she mur- 
 mured ; "so I'll think twice, even as you bid me." 
 
 " And what then ? What then ? D'ye think I'm stone 
 or bog-oak, to keep me waiting on your whimsies ? " 
 
 " What then ? Why, that second thoughts are first 
 thoughts often." 
 
 Since he was a man, and simple as the winds, his life- 
 long tutors, it was strange to him that she could stoop to 
 coquetry she who had watched men fall into the crimson 
 sea of war and perish there she who had wept a moment 
 since, remembering the slain. He did not know as yet 
 that woman's coquetry is sometimes like their tears, in- 
 dulged lest they should feel too keenly the hard and cruel 
 hand of life. 
 
 He gripped her rudely by the arm. " Am I to win or lose 
 you, lass ? " he asked. 
 
 The bluntness of his mood, the clear honesty of him, 
 broke down her waywardness. 
 
 " To win," she answered, in a low voice that carried 
 magic with it. " My first thoughts and my last thoughts 
 are just this that I think of one day loving you." 
 
 It was well that Ratcliffe's horse, though wild to join 
 the fight, had stayed where he was bidden ; for Ratcliffe 
 and the Parson's Lass had now no other shelter from the 
 moonlit kirkyard. What went to those moments, hidden 
 by the horse's bulk, no man need pry into ; but those who 
 have waited, keeping their manhood brave until the 
 finding of the one right maid, may know what silence 
 and what speech they gave each other. 
 
 " And now I've a command for you," the girl whispered. 
 ' Tis my first, and surely you'll obey ? " 
 
 " Ay, will I." 
 
 " Then get to saddle at once, and ride as straight as the 
 moor-tracks take you to Black House. At any moment 
 other Waynes may ride through Marshcotes nay, news 
 may have been sped to them already
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " I have got my wind again," said Ratcliffe simply ; 
 " and my business lies with all the Waynes, at any time 
 they care to meet me." 
 
 " And 'tis my first request ! And you deny it. Well, 
 then, you do not love so very much, it seems perhaps 
 no more than those little puppet-folk who live about the 
 Court, and talk of love, and play with love, and never come 
 to the understanding of it." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe halted between two minds ; then he 
 stooped and kissed her, and got up to saddle, and rode off 
 without a word. And Audrey, knowing it was hard for 
 him to go, loved him the better for his answer to her wish. 
 
 Near to the scene of the late fight, as he rode by, Red 
 Ratcliffe saw the Parson, and drew rein. 
 
 " Give you good- day, sir," he said gravely, " and thanks 
 for the hospitality you've shown me." 
 
 The Parson looked hard and long at him before replying ; 
 it seemed as if he could not reconcile Red Ratcliffe's 
 courage and clean honesty with the work of the lad's hands 
 the work whose proofs lay evident about the church- 
 yard steps. 
 
 " God forgive you for your slain," he said at last, and 
 bowed with much ceremony, and kept tap- tapping at his 
 snuff-box, nervously, long after he had watched man and 
 horse go up into the moor and out beyond the farther rise. 
 
 And now, to judge from the uproar that floated upward 
 from the market-square, the strife had not been stilled by 
 Ratcliffe's going ; and Sexton Witherlee, hobbling to the 
 steps again to see what was toward, found Nick o' Trawdon 
 in the middle of a noisy throng of Marshcotes folk. 
 
 Nick, a well-wisher of the Ratcliffes always, as Colne 
 men were, and fired, moreover, by what he had seen Red 
 Ratcliffe do to-day and yesterday Nick had thrown 
 prudence to the winds, had followed up his first taunt with 
 a second still more stinging, and now was in the thick of as 
 pretty a broil as even he could wish. On all sides fists 
 were near him, and staves, and here and there a drover 
 cracked his whip with ominous clearness ; while Nick had 
 
 144
 
 How Marshcotes Street ran Red 
 
 no more in his hands than the slim hazel-switch which he 
 had cut on setting out to drive the bull from Cranshaw. 
 He was not dismayed in any way, for it had been the 
 instinct of his patched and many-coloured life to get himself 
 into the thick of a trouble first, and afterwards to trust 
 to heaven and his wits for the finding of the outward way. 
 
 A moment more, and the crowd would have been at him ; 
 for the scent of fight was in the air, and Nick had taunted 
 them outrageously. It was now that Nick o' Trawdon 
 looked about him, spied the horses left by the Waynes 
 when they dismounted, and saw his way clear upon the 
 sudden. With a yell that was a feeble echo of Red Rat- 
 cliffe's, he charged the crowd, head down, like his own 
 bull ; the quickness of the attack bewildered them for a 
 moment ; and in that moment Nick o' Trawdon gained the 
 first of the horses a black, raking mare and leaped into 
 the saddle. Then, with an airy wave of the hand and a 
 last taunt, he took the road that led to Ling Crag village. 
 
 " He's a rare second to yond Ratcliffe giant," chuckled 
 Witherlee, who at all times loved to see the one against 
 the many. " By the Mass, 'twould be right fitting if one 
 and t'other could come together, master and man. Ay, 
 and by that token Ratcliffe will be needing one or two 
 about him, now he's stirred this hornet's nest." 
 
 '45
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MOONLIGHT ON THE LAND 
 
 SHAMELESS WAYNE came riding home from Cranshaw a 
 half-hour after the great fight was over. His fine face, 
 marred just a little by the traces of hard living, was sombre 
 and hard set ; for Wayne of Cranshaw, with whom he 
 had taken counsel touching Ratcliffe's doings yesterday 
 at Colne, had given him little comfort. 
 
 " He is but one ay, true," the old man had said ; " or 
 not true, may be. Hast ever thought, lad, that we let the 
 women go, that night at Wildwater, and that there may be 
 twenty such as this Ratcliffe, reared in hiding and reared to 
 meet us one day ? " 
 
 " Janet said as much. I had not thought of it before 
 she spoke," the younger man had answered. 
 
 And then they had fallen into talk of ways and means 
 to kill this feud rekindled ; and each had felt the other's 
 instinct that long battle and disaster were in store ; and 
 Shameless Wayne rode now with doom and old regrets for 
 company. 
 
 The night helped his mood ; for the sun was down by 
 now, and only the white moonlight shone on the gnarled 
 hummocks of the moor. The larks no longer sang, but a 
 curlew plained unceasingly, seeming to follow him as he 
 made forward. His thoughts were with these misspent 
 twenty years that intervened between the present trouble 
 and the days when he had been a man, fighting a man's 
 battles steadfastly and in the face of odds. Had he been 
 younger, remorse would have been more bearable, for it 
 would then have been a scourge, keen and wholesome as 
 a leech's knife when blood-letting is needful ; but remorse 
 was a dull and shiftless comrade now as little like the 
 
 146
 
 Moonlight on the Land 
 
 young, hot fire of boyhood's shame as the boy is like 
 the grey elder he must come to be if he lives long 
 enough. 
 
 A man came hurrying from Marshcotes to seek out 
 Shameless Wayne and tell him of the slaughter done by 
 Ratcliffe ; and the man met him now, half-way between 
 home and Cranshaw yet, looking at Wayne's face, he 
 did not dare to give his message. 
 
 " Best let him see it for himself," he muttered, passing 
 by with lowered glance. " There's that in his face would 
 kill the man who brought bad news just now." 
 
 Wayne did not heed him, but rode on, seeing only the 
 chill moonlight and the rough, wild waste of moor whose 
 voice was lonely as the curlew's the curlew that followed 
 wailing, his horse's every forward step. He thought of 
 Janet, of their son who was exiled into this lonesome 
 waste of peat and bracken, of the height of his love for 
 Janet, and of the long, crashing fall ; he remembered, as 
 if he had lived in another life and could recall it, with what 
 desperate hardship, as a boy, he had changed from Wayne 
 the Shameless to Wayne the Avenger of his people ; ay, 
 the very thrill of battle he could recall, and the awed 
 peace that came to him amid the hottest of his fights. 
 Gone ! All gone ! The moor itself was not more chill 
 and lonely than his life ; like his own son, he was in bitter 
 exile, but his son at least had never known the breadth 
 and glory of a passion such as his had been for Janet, of a 
 passion marred by force of outward circumstance, of a 
 passion which lay now between them like a foul and track- 
 less bog. And then there were the youngsters of the race, 
 the cousins and the nephews who shared the shelter of 
 Marsh House with him. Had he done right by them ? 
 Had he shown a fair example ? No ; quite contrary. 
 
 " I have ill-spent the years and God, whom our young- 
 sters jest at nowadays, is well aware of it." 
 
 The cry escaped him unawares ; it was the summing 
 up of all his thoughts throughout this lonely ride. And 
 truly, if God saw level with the man if Wayne indeed
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 were black as his own judgment of himself his punish- 
 ment was near at hand. For he had reached the nearer 
 corner of the churchyard now, and already he was aware 
 of folk scattered here and there in little knots, aware that 
 something out of the ordinary was going forward. Audrey 
 and the Parson were no longer here, for they had sought 
 their chambers, and were striving, each of them, to shut 
 out the memory of what their eyes had seen so lately. 
 But Sexton Witherlee was here, and Little Bairn, and 
 women of the village, whose children clutched their aprons 
 and hid their heads therein, and cried because they scented 
 slaughter. 
 
 " Like the old days, just," muttered Witherlee, as he 
 saw Shameless Wayne come riding in between the double 
 line of graves. " 'Twas so he came, twenty years gone by, 
 to find himself too late for the first fight of the feud. And 
 now again he comes too late. Oh, Lord, Lord, 'twill 
 stiffen him, as it did long ago. Ay, there'll be Wayne to 
 reckon with before so long." 
 
 Yet Witherlee did not draw near to Wayne ; and it was 
 Little Bairn who first gave the Master of Marsh an inkling 
 of the truth. Frail, with her bright hair round her like a 
 cloud, she stepped in front of the big horse Wayne rode ; 
 and the beast, being kind like his master to all weaker 
 things, stopped midway in his stride lest he should trample 
 her. And then she crept to Wayne's stirrup, and reached 
 up her baby hands ; and Wayne, heavy-hearted as he was 
 and sure of trouble near at hand, smiled gravely at this 
 little woman whom he had sheltered, loved, and petted 
 since first she came, unwelcome and a stranger, to the grey 
 house of Marsh. 
 
 " What is't, Little Bairn ? " he asked. " Dost want to 
 ride pillion as far as home ? Why, then, here's my foot 
 set thy own on it, and spring to saddle. My beast will 
 never feel thy weight." 
 
 She shook her head. " I cannot bear to come to Marsh 
 just yet," she pleaded. " Nay, Ned, you must not ask me 
 to come down to Marsh. There's a crimson carpet no 
 
 148
 
 Moonlight on the Land 
 
 bridal-carpet, either stretched from the kirkyard here to 
 Marsh and I dare not cross it." 
 
 " What has frightened thee, Bairn ? " asked Wayne, 
 with the tender patience that in itself disproved his own 
 hard judgment of himself. 
 
 " Oh, everything has frightened me. See ! I was sitting 
 on the gravestone yonder, and Sexton Witherlee was telling 
 tales to me, and for once these dreadful moors of yours 
 were kind, and the sun was shining yellow, and the sky 
 was blue. And then I cannot tell how it chanced the 
 sun grew red, and the sky grew red, and crimson tears 
 began to fall. Ah, Ned, Ned, I cannot live among your 
 moors I told your father so how long since, Ned ? 
 when he brought me a young bride to Marsh. How came 
 I to live among them, when even the sunniest day turns 
 round to rain before you can find shelter ? " 
 
 Wayne laughed sadly. " Tis not the moor you need 
 blame, Little Bairn. 'Tis life's at fault, and on the hills 
 or in the valleys sunshine means always rain to come." 
 
 " There was one with an axe," went on the other, looking 
 wistfully up into her stepson's face, as if to ask the meaning 
 of life's riddle. " He was big, and red like the carpet 
 stretched from here to Marsh, and when your kinsmen 
 came to talk with him, he swung his axe up " 
 
 " My God ! Thy hand is heavy on me," was Wayne's 
 cry. 
 
 And then he loosed the Little Bairn, and left her standing 
 there, and rode on until he reached the churchyard steps. 
 Just as they had fallen lay his kinsmen ; and mingled with 
 them was the bull's savage bulk ; and, out beyond, Red 
 Ratcliffe's way across the square was marked by one 
 silent body, face down against the stones. The crowd, 
 awed by Wayne's unhappy face, kept silence, and he, 
 without a word, turned back upon his paces and rode out 
 by the gate, 'twixt Parsonage and church, which was the 
 outlet for all but foot- travellers. Down the steep road to 
 Marsh he went, and found another body at the gate ; up to 
 the main door he rode, and saw a gauntlet nailed high above 
 
 149
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 the cross-beam. Still without a word he called for a stable- 
 boy, and got from his horse, and threw the reins to the lad 
 who came answering to the master's call. 
 
 He went into the hall then, and, with a face set like a 
 millstone, poured out a measure of red wine, and, when this 
 was drunk and a second measure filled, he rapped upon the 
 table. The man who had brought Red Ratcliffe nails and 
 hammer not long ago came sideways in, and peered at 
 Wayne as if he knew not whether to take instant flight or 
 hold his ground. 
 
 " Come forward curse you, stand straight, and re- 
 member you are of the Waynes ! come forward there, 
 stand with the moonlight on you, so that I can read lies 
 or truth in that full-fleshed face of thine. Now, how comes 
 the gauntlet to be fixed above the door ? And what has 
 chanced to-day at Marshcotes ? " 
 
 " I I saw nothing, until a red fellow with an axe came 
 
 to the door here and called for nails and a hammer " 
 
 Wayne started forward and seemed about to strike the 
 man, then checked himself. 
 
 " And thou thou, of a Wayne household didst bring 
 him the hammer and the nails ? " 
 
 The man stood opposite the big window of the hall, 
 and his face was wan and pale as the moon's face, shining 
 on him mercilessly. 
 
 " I I had no choice," he stammered. 
 " That is the cry nowadays ! " said Wayne, in a voice 
 whose coldness seemed to hide a core of fire. " No choice ! 
 Ay, but a score of years since thou and thy kind would have 
 fought to the death for the Wayne honour, rather than do 
 this shameful thing. A score of years since but why do 
 I talk of that, when the day is gone by for good and ail, 
 and for followers we've only full-fed fools like thee. Go 
 forward with the tale ! Did I not bid thee tell what 
 chanced to-day ? " 
 
 " I know not, save what they tell me, those who saw the 
 battle on the churchyard steps. There came a red man 
 of the Ratcliffes, carrying an axe ; and he met fifteen 
 
 150
 
 Moonlight on the Land 
 
 of the Waynes, and killed some, and chased the others 
 as far as the gates of Marsh House here." 
 
 " Chased ? " 
 
 " Ay, for they could not stand against him, and they 
 fled." 
 
 Wayne's voice grew colder still ; and yet the fire within 
 it seemed ten times hotter than before. 
 
 " Of old, we did not flee ; we died, if need were. But 
 it is all the same ! They had no choice, they'd say, mimick- 
 ing your own jackdaw-cry. Ay, if Ratcliffe had asked thee 
 for nails and a hammer to fasten my hands and feet upon 
 the floor-boards here, thou'dst still have said, ' I have 
 no choice.' Now, listen, and tell your fellows what I say. 
 The feud is up again, and the old rules shall be observed 
 while I am master ; and the first I hear complaining that 
 he had no choice, the first who skulks or shows the white 
 feather to the red breed of Ratcliffe by the God who'll 
 one day judge me, I will kill him where he stands." 
 
 The man stood in the moon-glare, his foolish mouth 
 agape. Was this the master, who had drunk and diced 
 and let discipline trot lightly on the rein these many years ? 
 Just so the folk had wondered, twenty years ago, when 
 Wayne had been compelled to pit his misused youth against 
 adversity ; for Wayne was of the metal which rings true 
 always on the hard surface of adversity. 
 
 " Have you have you more to ask ? " stammered the 
 man. " I fear this moonlight it drives men mad, folk 
 say." 
 
 " Thou fearest everything, it seems, and thou'lt be never 
 madder than to-night. Ay, I have more to ask. Why 
 is the house so empty ? Where are all my folk ? " 
 
 '' Some went to Ludworth for a dicing night, they said 
 and three went up against this Ratcliffe, and did not 
 come again." 
 
 " The mistress where is she ? " 
 
 " She rode up into the moor just after noon." 
 
 A fear took the master unawares. " She rode up into 
 the moor ? Did she name her errand ? " 
 
 IS'
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " No, but there was trouble in her face." 
 Up and down the hall tramped Shameless Wayne ; and 
 the frightened serving-man followed his every movement 
 with his glance. And then at last the master noticed him, 
 though he had forgotten all save Janet. 
 
 " Go, fool ! Go to thy kennel, dost thou hear ? " he 
 snapped. 
 
 The man obeyed, and Wayne filled up his tankard. 
 " Wine, wine ! " he muttered. " I drink, and drink, 
 and it serves only to fix the old troubles more securely. 
 Well, I'll be rid of it to-morrow or to-morrow's morrow 
 and 'tis but a lying helpmate at the best. That poor, 
 fleshy rogue whom I rated awhile since was his fault 
 more deep than mine ? Janet gone, the feud awake 
 again, our folk showing Wayne heels to a Ratcliffe face 
 have I no blame to share ? Ay, for my sins cry out to 
 God, and, though my brain is sick, I must fight down the 
 past." 
 
 The moonlight crept to the right hand of the window, 
 and found out the master's face, and showed a story tragic 
 as the sum of life itself. 
 
 "Janet has gone," he muttered by -and -by. "She 
 has left me Janet has left me yet not because the evil 
 days have come." 
 
 In his voice, in the simple words, there was something 
 Janet should have been at hand to listen to ; his need of 
 her, his faith in her, were equal ; and a weary sort of pride 
 sounded in that " yet not because the evil days have 
 come." He thought that she had left Marsh House for 
 ever, and a weaker man, smitten hip and thigh at every 
 turn as Wayne was now, might well have fancied that she 
 had fled from doom and misery ; but Wayne knew that, 
 if she had indeed forsaken him, it was because of the dread 
 gulf between them, because of that bloodshed which had 
 ushered in their marriage-morn, and which, reopened now, 
 had brought new sickness to her soul. 
 
 Ah, how he missed her ! True, there had been that 
 gulf between them, widening with the years ; true, there 
 
 152
 
 Moonlight on the Land 
 
 had been bitterness at times, and taunts had leaped from 
 the full heart of misery ; true, the curse of God and man 
 had lain on them. Ay, true, all true ; yet she had been 
 all in all to him, and was so still. 
 
 Again he filled his wine-cup and stood listening to the 
 voices that inhabit an old house when it is quiet. Men 
 cannot sorrow and rejoice in any place, and leave no 
 after-whispers of their frets behind them. 
 
 Gone ! All were gone ! There should have been a 
 troop of lu^ty sons about him now ; instead, there was 
 that puling outlaw, half Wayne, half Ratcliffe, who was 
 wandering, God knew where, about the moor. There 
 should at least have been cousins, nephews, and the like ; 
 but some of these were dicing out at Ludworth yonder, 
 and seven of them were dead at Ratcliffe's hands. There 
 should have been a wife to put both arms upon his shoulders 
 and look him in the eyes and whisper that the world at 
 least held love ; but the wife whom he had chosen should 
 never in this world have been his wife. 
 
 The master of Marsh was wading deep just now, so deep 
 that on the sudden he shook the waters of anguish from 
 him lest they should overwhelm him. 
 
 " I am needed," was all he said. " And if there's none 
 to fight with me ay, if I am given bound into Ratcliffe's 
 hands I'll not be less than Wayne of Marsh." 
 
 He glanced at the four walls of the hall. Men did not 
 then on the moorside, at anyrate adorn their walls 
 with painted semblances of themselves ; they placed there 
 instead the swords and axes, the gauntlets, spears, and 
 clubs which stood for deeds. It was deeds that life asked 
 of Wayne just now ; and he took heart from these weapons, 
 light and heavy, which all had eaten Ratcliffe flesh in 
 generations past. 
 
 " First, to see the dead," he muttered. " There'll be 
 few wounded, if I remember how the axe played yesterday 
 at Come." 
 
 He buckled on his sword-belt unloosed when he came 
 into the hall and made sure that the blade sat easy in 
 
 '53
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 its scabbard. Red Ratcliffe might be lurking still in 
 Marshcotes or its neighbourhood. 
 
 The moon, high, round, and virgin-white, looked down 
 on Marshcotes market-square when he strode up. And, 
 like a virgin, she looked coldly and without passion on a 
 world she did not understand. What was it to her that 
 rude men fought and trampled one another into clay ? 
 It was dismaying, and the sight of blood was an offence ; 
 but for the feelings of the dead, the feelings of their slayer, 
 she had no thought, because she could not understand. 
 
 It was Wayne's part to know these things, as he stood 
 for a moment looking at the dead. Here lay a lad of 
 whom he had expected much ; there, just wide of the bull's 
 carcase on the churchyard steps, was the body of his dearest 
 cousin. Not one was alive to feel the anguish of his wounds, 
 and it seemed to Wayne that he, in his own body, felt the 
 gathered anguish of them all. 
 
 The square was full of excited folk who could not tear 
 themselves from watching, like the carrion crow, above the 
 place of slaughter an instinct deep-planted in mankind 
 as is the love of battle. Yet even now tradition bound 
 them. They had made no effort to remove the bodies, to 
 change in any way the grim aspect of the street ; for, 
 whatever side the country folk might take in their own 
 hearts, they left the field clear always to Waynes and 
 Ratcliffes. Alive, the two houses were free to fight their 
 battles, and afterwards they must be free likewise to bury 
 their own dead. 
 
 " I am one, and the dead are many. Will none help me 
 to carry my folk to Marsh ? " said Wayne. 
 
 Unwillingly, not because they wished him anything but 
 well, but because he asked them to forsake old instincts, 
 unwillingly a few of the men came forward ; then others 
 followed, and soon the slain were lying in the hall at Marsh, 
 with tapers winking in the draught at each man's head 
 and feet, to light his soul across that Dead Man's Moor 
 which lies between this life and the next. 
 
 Two Waynes there were whom Ratcliffe's axe had only 
 
 154
 
 Moonlight on the Land 
 
 tapped ; but the Master of Marsh knew naught of these, 
 for the villagers were prone to reticence, and long before 
 Wayne came, old Parson Clare, repenting of his selfish 
 communing with his own misery, had gone out to give 
 what help he could to the wounded. He had found two 
 only yet alive, had had them carried to the Parsonage, 
 and had seen the younger of the two die of the skull-wound 
 foster-brother's haft had given him. The other was Black 
 Wayne, the wanton leader of the Waynes from Stony 
 Heights, who not long ago had ridden up the lane from 
 Marsh and had wondered if he'd snatch a glimpse of Audrey 
 Clare. It was he who had planned the trick of taking Red 
 Ratcliffe from the rear ; he had been one of the pair who 
 carried out the plan, and now he was opening dazed eyes 
 in the Parsonage and was looking full into the eyes of 
 Mistress Clare herself. 
 
 " Why 'tis Parson's Lass," he muttered. " I came to 
 see you and and a brute with a red axe got in between 
 
 " Hush ! " said Audrey, forgetting insults suffered at 
 his hands aforetime. " You are to rest, and to ask nothing. 
 You have a grievous hurt." 
 
 " D'ye think I care ? " he said, with a touch of his wonted 
 recklessness. " I always said always said curse me if 
 I know what I said something about Parson's Lass, and 
 how I had a wife at home, and wished " 
 
 He began to wander in his talk, and in his ravings he 
 cried constantly that he feared no man, but did fear the 
 devil, when the devil came in scarlet wearing-gear and 
 tapped men's skulls as if they were no more than hazel- 
 nuts. 
 
 Audrey watched patiently beside him, and now and then 
 the Parson entered and walked restlessly about the room, 
 tapping his snuff-box and forgetting to take accustomed 
 pinches. And the girl's heart was light, .though battle 
 lay behind, and certain battle lay ahead ; for she remem- 
 bered the fashion of Red Ratcliffe's wooing, when he kissed 
 her in the churchyard. Down pillows, say the moor folk,
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 are no help to love when it is out of gear ; but, when it 
 prospers, violets blossom from the mire and stones of 
 life. 
 
 Not so with Wayne of Marsh. His work for the day was 
 over, and he sat in hall, with none but the dead to keep him 
 company. The moon by now had travelled wide of the 
 great window, and only her phantom after-light was left 
 to add a subtle gloom to the wind-blown flickerings of the 
 death candles. Only once had he been disturbed, and that 
 was when the man-servant came softly in to say that his 
 stepmother had sought through the house for him while 
 he was busy with the carrying of the bodies. 
 
 " Ay, and when she did not find me ? " Wayne had asked. 
 
 " She went out again, crying that the very roof was 
 dripping red." 
 
 " Get to thy kennel again, if thou canst find no news 
 more stirring. Stay, though ! The wine runs low." 
 
 The wine had been brought, and Wayne had settled 
 himself again into the big oaken chair beside the hearth. 
 Even the logs burned fitfully, as if afraid of what a merrier 
 blaze might show ; and the master did not stir them. 
 
 " So even Little Bairn has gone ? " said Wayne, who 
 was in the mood to trust shadows with his confidences. 
 " First, the lads go, to dice or to be slain ; then Janet goes ; 
 and now Little Bairn has left me. Small blame to any of 
 them ! For 'tis no house for a wedding." 
 
 He looked round at the bodies ten in all with the 
 shifting lights and shadows on their faces, and saw in their 
 stillness a dignity which life had never granted them. 
 And then again he glanced at the swords and spears upon 
 the walls ; and, measured by the tale of death they told, 
 the presence of these dead folk was a light matter, drifting 
 like flotsam on the wide and crimson sea of centuries. 
 
 " By God, my father gave me a big heritage ! " said 
 Wayne, after a long silence. 
 
 No man, to see him there, his head half lolling against 
 the chair-back, the wine-cup ever ready to his lips, would 
 have guessed that he was stronger and more sober than he 
 
 156
 
 Moonlight on the Land 
 
 had been since the last feud was stilled. Without haste, 
 without fear, without self-doubt, he was planning how to 
 take Red Ratcliffe ; and, because he was old in warfare, 
 he did not despise the enemy for that he was alone and 
 single-handed. 
 
 To the gossips yonder in Marshcotes it was the chief 
 part of their wonder that Ratcliffe was one against so 
 many ; yet to Wayne of Marsh there was no sort of surprise 
 in this. To him, Red Ratcliffe was the weapon in fate's 
 hands a weapon of that fate which had been waiting for 
 himself throughout the years of luxury. Had he not 
 known, when Janet and he were joined together, that the 
 price would one day be demanded of him ? The reckoning- 
 day had tarried in the coming, but his account with God 
 was all the longer. 
 
 Well, all was gone, and for that reason Wayne of Marsh 
 grew almost gay ; for he was of a breed that had always 
 found prosperity a curse and battle a sure friend. Then 
 suddenly, as he sat there and planned the dead men 
 making never a murmur the silence was disturbed ; for 
 the wind, quiet as a whisper before, got up and wailed, and 
 the wailing note grew shrill and cold ; and then there was 
 the patter as of ghostly feet upon the floor, a whining at the 
 master's elbow these, and afterwards a silence heavier 
 than before. 
 
 " Ah, 'tis the Dog ! " murmured Wayne, still with the 
 same quiet air that seemed near to gaiety. " And he's 
 afraid, it seems afraid of something more than danger 
 threatening Marsh afraid " 
 
 He paused, trying to catch some message from the un- 
 seen world. Of what was the Ghostly Dog afraid ? What 
 new note was there in that running whine which Wayne 
 had heard before, which yet had never sounded so full of 
 panic and dismay ? Of what was the Dog afraid ? Ah, 
 he had it ! 
 
 " He fears for his own shaggy hide," said the Master of 
 Marsh. " First, the lads fear, and then the Dog falls into 
 terror. Truly, there are red, queer days to come ! " 
 
 '57
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 And then his quiet acceptance of the future left him ; 
 he was a man again, with a man's disquiet ; and, because 
 Barguest had come and gone down a pathway of cold 
 wind, he raked the logs together on the hearth and sat 
 with numbed hands spread above the blaze. But he 
 looked no longer at the dead, though the firelight lay upon 
 their faces and showed each grey, still line of them. 
 
 158
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE DOG 
 
 WHEN the Brown Dog left Wayne to warm his fingers at 
 the blaze though it was soul-warmth that the Master 
 needed he took the uphill road which to-day had seen 
 more turmoil and unrest than it had known for twenty 
 years ; and ever as he went the Dog kept halting as if to 
 scent the tracks of the day's battle, and ever as he went he 
 howled with gaining terror. 
 
 There was one in Marshcotes a man not far from death, 
 who had that gift of the Sight which coming death will 
 give his victims now and then who was crossing the road 
 to reach the field-track leading to his farm above. And 
 he, though nothing could be seen, heard the patter of the 
 Dog's feet, his lonesome howl, and felt the cold wind of 
 his passing. He reached home with difficulty, took to the 
 bed he would never quit again, and, when the good-wife 
 asked him why he stared so blankly at the house wall, 
 he answered that he was hearkening to Barguest, who had 
 gone up the lane to feast upon the kirkyard dead. And the 
 good-wife said naught at all to that, for even the children 
 knew that the Brown Dog of the Waynes fed stealthily 
 by night upon the bodies of poor buried folk. And the man 
 died that night, crying with his last breath that evil days 
 were coming on them all. 
 
 Indeed, the weight of evil days to come lay heavy upon 
 all who lived about the moorside, though many of these, 
 dwelling solitary beyond the village, knew nothing of the 
 fight upon the steps. It was as if thunder-weather were 
 abroad, and even the farm hinds, wearied with the day's 
 toil, could not drink their evening ale in peace beside the 
 hearth, but kept unbuttoning their shirts at the neck, 
 passing their hands across their foreheads, growling, " Ay, 
 
 '59
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 'tis warm and cold in the one breath. Surely there's 
 thunder brewing." It seemed that the rising storm of 
 feud, and hate, and reckless battle had in it something so 
 palpable, so strong after long repression, that it could 
 reach, not the dreamers only, but those who carried thick 
 thews and thicker skulls as a sort of buttress 'gainst another 
 world. 
 
 And if the rest of Marshcotes felt so much, what of 
 Witherlee, grown old in reaching truth by aid of fantasy ? 
 Warmed by the fight, he had no way been at ease indoors, 
 where he had gone to snatch a bite of supper, and soon he 
 had come out again and settled himself upon the grey- 
 green slab of stone which marked the bourn of one tired 
 wayfarer ; and here his dreams came on him, and the 
 shadows lifted from his eyes, and he saw strange happenings 
 in the kirkyard, which lay, so quiet to all appearance, 
 under the white light of the moon. 
 
 Little Bairn had left him for awhile, had sought com- 
 panionship at Marsh, had found instead a silent hall that 
 awed her by its emptiness ; and now she, too, was back 
 again at Witherlee's side, for to each of them this grave- 
 stone was a sanctuary in time of trouble or unrest. 
 
 Ah, the loneliness of these two figures, their faces making 
 little spots of white amid the dark and close-packed head- 
 stones ! With the sun and the blue sky above them, they 
 had seemed odd enough, moving the passer-by to smile 
 indulgently, as elders smile at children ; but now they were 
 not odd at all they were so in keeping with the awed 
 stillness of the place that passers-by, if any there had been 
 at this late hour, would have held their breath at sight of 
 them and murmured, " Boggarts ! " 
 
 Perhaps it was the width of the sky above them, the 
 coldness of the moon whose light hid all the stars, save one 
 which trembled far across the moor ; or, again, it may have 
 been the quietness of the old Sexton's laughter that gave the 
 scene its eerie note. For Witherlee was laughing, and in 
 his talk there was that touch of comedy which illumines 
 and makes plain life's tragedies. 
 
 1 60
 
 The Dog 
 
 " Hark ye, Mistress ! " he was saying now. " Ye're 
 scared of all these to-doings of a long axe and a longer 
 man behind it, and I'll ease your mind a bit by telling ye 
 what I can see i' this same kirkyard." 
 
 " What do you see, Sexton ? " asked Little Bairn, her 
 hand stealing into his like a child's who asks for one more 
 tale at bed-time. 
 
 " See ? What I see every night, whether there be moon 
 or no. I see the tale of Marshcotes Parish brought to life 
 again I see the graves slip open, Mistress, and the white 
 folk creep abroad." 
 
 Hither and thither his bright eyes glanced. And now a 
 chuckle would escape him, and now a low indrawing of 
 the breath between his toothless gums that might have 
 been a whistle of surprise ; but it was long before he spoke. 
 
 " You promised me a tale, Sexton," said the little woman, 
 fretfully. 
 
 " Ay, promised ye a tale " yet still his eyes were on the 
 graveyard " to be sure I promised ye a tale. Eh, eh, but 
 cannot ye see the tales for yourself, Mistress ? This bit 
 o' God's land, as Parson calls it, is full this minute of folk 
 who're fair perplexed wi' tales their own tales, mind ye, 
 that they're living through again. D'ye see the headstone 
 yonder nay, more to your right hand the one fashioned 
 like a cross, with the moon asleep among the lichens ? " 
 
 " I see it," whispered Mistress Wayne. 
 
 " And do ye see naught else about the grave ? " 
 
 " Nothing nothing at all, Sexton." 
 
 " Ah, well, ye've got the Sight, but not my sort. Ye 
 see things to come, while I see things that are gone. Twas 
 my way always to hark back. I've a kind o' love for things 
 gone by ; they smell like rosemary, to my thinking." 
 
 Again there was a silence, while the Sexton watched and 
 chuckled. And again the Little Bairn crept closer to him 
 and pleaded for the promised tale. 
 
 " Well, now, as I was saying, there's the headstone 
 yonder with the moonlight fast asleep on it. If ye were 
 to go down, little Mistress, and read what's carved on the 
 L 161
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 stone, ye'd see it was sacred to the memory of Jonathan 
 Sunderland, who lived in righteousness, and died in peace 
 at the age of three score and twelve, and left a second wife to 
 mourn his going. Oh, ay, he showed a good face to the 
 world, did Jonathan Sunderland, and I thought him won- 
 derful myself, I did until I came to bury him. It's there 
 I'm terrible, little Mistress, to see into the heart of a man ; 
 for Parson thinks he knows men's hearts, and the Marshcotes 
 leech has the same fancy, because men come and lie to them 
 time and time, not daring to speak truth ; but men don't 
 lie to Witherlee, when he's popped them snug-like under 
 sod." 
 
 " How can they lie, when they are dead ? All men cease 
 lying then," said Little Bairn, with innocent avowal of 
 her distrust in all things. 
 
 " Ay, but they begin to speak plain truth," chuckled 
 Witherlee, " seeing they can't help themselves. Whether 
 they will or no, out they come each night with their secrets ; 
 and I sit here and smoke my pipe ; and I know as much of 
 every man and woman buried here as would have made 'em 
 walk in naked shame if I'd known it before they died 
 and if I'd told on 'em. We were talking o' Jonathan 
 Sunderland, and he would show ye what I mean if ye could 
 see him now as I do." 
 
 Again the Sexton watched the headstone with the 
 lichened cross, and it was plain he talked of what he saw 
 being done before his eyes down yonder. 
 
 " Jonathan Sunderland has had to leave yond trim, 
 quiet bed of his, little Mistress. He sleeps by day now, 
 and wakes by night, just contrary to what he did i' life ; 
 but then his doings likewise show just contrary to what they 
 used to do. See ye, he's not left lonely ! See ye, he no 
 sooner creeps up above ground than there's company all 
 waiting ready for him here a lass and there a lass, comes 
 from her grave in search of Jonathan Sunderland. And 
 I know the lassies, Mistress ; and they fawn on Jonathan 
 in a way ye can't mistake ; and they're telling you and me 
 if only you could see 'em, little Mistress, sidling up to 
 
 162
 
 The Dog 
 
 him all like so many kittens they're telling of the way 
 of things with Jonathan while he was quick among us. 
 Sakes ! There's little Tabitha Earnshaw, with her arms 
 around him at this minute. I mind Tabitha ; she was 
 bonnie and pranksome as a lark, was Tabitha, until a day 
 came when she fell into quietness, like, and naught would 
 move her from the corner by the hearth where she'd sit and 
 cry till her eyes were red as a Ratcliffe head. Well, her 
 shame came on her by-and-by, and she died ; and she took 
 to wandering in my bit of a garden here, though God 
 knows I kept her grave as trim as might be, for I was 
 fondish of the lass. But Jonathan Sunderland still went 
 to kirk, and held his head aloft, and there was never a soul 
 about the moorside knew that he'd had aught to do with 
 Tabitha until they came to bury him. And then I knew 
 about it, right enough, for th' very night he was buried, 
 he got up all in his burial-shroud, and Tabitha got up and 
 just ran to him over graves and all." 
 
 " Life is always that, Sexton ! " murmured Little Bairn, 
 as the other stopped to light his pipe afresh. " God made 
 us women to be played with, and men to play with us ! " 
 
 " Seems like it, Mistress. Cat and mouse mouse and 
 cat ye've life in a nutshell there, so far as I can tell. 
 Which is mouse, and which cat, I wouldn't be for saying, 
 though I have my own notions like another man. 'Tis 
 only when men fight that women- folk are soft-like ; there's 
 a deal of wholesomeness in fighting, so far as I've seen 
 things." 
 
 He smoked in silence for awhile ; and then again the 
 smile crept in among the wrinkles of his face, and again he 
 chuckled quietly. 
 
 " Nay, they won't let him bide ! " he went on. " Tis 
 not just Tabitha, but there's others round about him, 
 all a-chattering and a-cheeping at him in their dumb, 
 ghost's way. Some are kitten soft, like Tabitha, and 
 seem to bear no malice ; but other some are of the bold 
 sort, and they're asking him, all in a sort of frenzy, why he 
 lived soft i' life, while they lived hard for his sake oh, 
 
 163
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 ay, oh, ay, Jonathan Sunderland has got no feather bed to 
 lig in now o' nights." 
 
 His eyes wandered to the grave from which Jonathan had 
 lately crept, and again the Sexton could no way keep back 
 that chuckle which summed up, it seemed, his outlook 
 upon life. 
 
 " And now the first wife's getten out of bed, and now the 
 second wife has followed her. D'ye see 'em yonder, little 
 Mistress ? They sleep a thought later than Jonathan 
 always, having better consciences, may be. And now 
 they're coming down the path ; the first wife is saying to 
 the second that Jonathan Sunderland is hers, for that he 
 wedded her and swore to love her till he died ; and the 
 second wife is saying to the first that Jonathan is hers, 
 because he swore that he'd never thought so much of th' 
 first 'un and that he'd found his true mate at long last. 
 And there they go a- wrangling I've watched them nights 
 without number and now they've come to where Jonathan 
 is being set on by every lass he's wronged about the moor- 
 side, and the two wives seem to understand it on a sudden, 
 and 'tis plain to both that their goodman never had a first 
 and last love in this world, but just loved easy as he went 
 along. Ay, wives and wantons find little difference 'twixt 
 'em when they come to die ; but as for Jonathan well, 
 I often wish Parson, with his talk of hell to come, could see 
 what I see here i' Marshcotes kirkyard. He's punished 
 enough and to spare, is Jonathan Sunderland." 
 
 " Ah, Sexton, Sexton ! " pleaded Little Bairn, her 
 voice as sweet and pitiful as a winter linnet's when the snow 
 is falling. " Sexton, you should not mock at love so ; 
 do you not know that all women look for the first love 
 and the last love both in one, or they are shamed for ever ? 
 You should not mock at love, Sexton." 
 
 " Nay, 'tis not I who mock 'tis the ghosties telling 
 me their secrets that mock at love. Hark ye, Mistress ! 
 I'm so old that it makes God laugh to think I'm still alive ; 
 and I've kept bright eyes to the world's doings ; and I tell 
 ye love is well for play of lads and maidens, but 'tis fight 
 
 164
 
 The Dog 
 
 that keeps a man's stomach sweet against his latter 
 end." 
 
 " Love is everything, Sexton. Indeed it is, though I 
 lost it by the way and have never found it since. I 
 
 She halted and crept nearer still to Sexton Witherlee ; 
 and he, for his part, strained his eyes to find among the 
 gravestones what had given out that sudden, eerie howl. 
 The night had been warm before unwontedly so for late 
 September but now a peevish wind played hide-and- 
 seek between the tombs with its own echoes. 
 
 " What was it ? " whispered Little Bairn. " Was it a 
 farm-dog, Sexton ? " 
 
 " Nay, 'twas a bigger dog than that. Ay, see him yonder. 
 Mistress ! There, 'twixt Jonathan Sunderland's head- 
 stone and the next ! He's crouching low and whining, as 
 if he wanted to be hid." 
 
 And now Little Bairn could see with the Sexton's eyes, 
 for this touched the past and future equally. She saw a 
 great, rough-hided beast that crouched in the shadow 
 of the headstone ; she saw as Witherlee, his toothless 
 jaws agape, saw also saw the Lean Man, one arm lying 
 helpless at his side, the scars showing plain upon his face 
 beneath the moonlight ; and the Lean Man drew slowly 
 nearer to the Dog, and the Dog whined piteously. 
 
 ' 'Tis the Lean Man of Wildwater," said Little Bairn. 
 " He frightened me once on a day, and I never forget 
 the face of one who frightens me." 
 
 " Ay, 'tis he. Now watch, little Mistress watch ! " 
 
 The Lean Man drew nearer yet to Barguest ; then, with 
 a spring, he was at him, and a fight began which was as 
 high above Red Ratcliffe's battle of to-day as hell is lower 
 than the earth. The Dog had got the better of the Lean 
 Man of Wildwater once on a day ; but the Lean Man then 
 was hampered by the flesh, while now he met the enemy on 
 'equal terms. 
 
 " I am sick and, oh, so weary, Sexton ! " pleaded 
 
 Little Bairn, not able, though she wished it, to take her 
 
 eyes from that moonlit space, as bright as day almost, 
 
 165
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 where the high feud of Wayne and Ratcliffe was being 
 waged afresh. 
 
 " Nay, now ! " muttered Witherlee. ' 'Tis well worth 
 viewing, little Mistress. A fight always is. See yonder ! 
 The Lean Man has him by the throat ! " 
 
 " I would the mists might cover me again ; there is 
 peace beneath the mists." Yet still the little woman 
 watched and shivered. 
 
 And still the dreadful fight went on, and still the virgin 
 moon looked down, wide-eyed, with a maid's disdainful 
 wonderment. Yet the fight was bigger than the sum of 
 every battle seen on Marshcotes moorside since Wayne and 
 Ratcliffe first threw the gauntlet down and picked it up. 
 Round and about the gravestones went the Lean Man and 
 the Dog, one clutching the other with his teeth, the other 
 wrapping his old foe with that phantom arm which, steel 
 in life, seemed now to be something harder, yet more pliant, 
 than any steel could be. 
 
 And the Dog kept whimpering, whimpering, even as he 
 fought, and bit and snarled ; but the Lean Man was quiet, 
 and on his fire-scarred face there was a look of victory. 
 
 " Lord, he was ever a fighter, the Lean Man ! " muttered 
 Witherlee, too lost in his love of watching battle to feel 
 dread. " Didn't I say he was too strong, too full of hate, 
 to die ? Haven't I glimpsed him, time and time, creeping 
 in and about the kirkyard here ? Oh, ay, he was seeking 
 the Dog, I reckon, and now he's found him." 
 
 The graveyard now was icy-cold, for the wind of Bar- 
 guest's passing to and fro stirred every fallen leaf from off 
 the pathways. The sky, too, grew overcast, and in the 
 midmost of the fight the moon's light was quenched, and 
 naught was to be seen by Witherlee or Little Bairn ; but 
 there was a sudden howl, a quicker rush of wind that seemed 
 to cut them like a knife, a sobbing and a whining that grew 
 faint and fainter still across the moor. And then there 
 rose, it seemed, a shout of " Ratcliffe, Ratcliffe ! " a 
 shout so big and long sustained that it seemed the Rat- 
 cliffe dead had joined in plaudits of the Lean Man's victory. 
 
 1 66
 
 The Dog 
 
 " Th' Dog is beaten, little Mistress ! D'ye hear ? The 
 Lean Man was over strong to die." 
 
 " Ay, but the mists have covered me again, Sexton," 
 said Little Bairn, her voice as silver-sweet as if no fears 
 had ever troubled her. " I will get home to Marsh, Sexton, 
 for when the mists are kind I sleep with pleasant dreams." 
 
 Old Witherlee scarce bade her a good-night, for his 
 thoughts were full of the Lean Man, full of the new feud 
 which had been ushered in by the day's fight of a living 
 Ratcliffe against living Waynes, by this night's battle 
 between the guardian spirits of either house. 
 
 The cold wind had passed, and now the moon shone 
 white and tranquil once again above the land. Yet 
 Witherlee could no way get to bed. Up and down, down 
 and up, he paced between the graves, rubbing his hands 
 together as if he warmed them at the fire of feud. Only 
 once did his thoughts stray from bloodshed, and that was 
 when he came to the grave, just under the windows of the 
 Bull tavern, which marked his goodwife's resting-place. 
 
 " I was saying this and that of Jonathan Sunderland a 
 while back," he murmured, stroking his sharp chin and 
 smiling that old, old smile of his. " Well, I was never 
 by way of being just so free wi' the lasses as Jonathan, 
 but there'll be tales oh, ay, there'll be tales told when I 
 come to my long home. And the wife will fratch, I'm 
 thinking, when she learns how Hetty Wood there, there ! 
 I'm quick, not dead, for all my years, and I'll not dwell 
 on what may chance." 
 
 Yet for a moment he halted there, looking at the grave, 
 for his wife had owned a shrewd tongue in her lifetime, 
 and he could not think that its lash would be any the less 
 keen when he joined her in the world of ghosts. 
 
 Then he went forward a hobbling, solitary figure under 
 the unheeding moon until he reached the kirkyard steps 
 and looked upon the scene where Ratcliffe and foster- 
 brother had proved themselves to-day. 
 
 " Nay, nay," said Witherlee, shaking his head. 
 " They've carried the bodies off, and that's just so much 
 
 167
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 waste of time. It seemed so plain and easy-like to fight 
 it out so close to th' graveyard, with naught to do save 
 dig their graves, and put them in, and no more said. And 
 now they'll have to be brought all up yond stony lane 
 from Marsh, and I call it a sad waste, seeing the Waynes 
 will soon be busier folk than some of them will like." 
 
 And so, still grumbling, he crossed over to his cottage, 
 and the churchyard was left to its own people. Only a 
 solitary candle, burning in an upper window of the Parson- 
 age, showed that Audrey Clare was sitting with the 
 wounded man, giving him drink at times and at other 
 times ministering as best she could, with little skill, to the 
 bandages about his head. She had not heard the tumult 
 of the Lean Man's fight with Barguest ; for she was young 
 as yet, and had not earned by suffering either the Sight or 
 the Hearing which were life's doubtful gifts to Witherlee 
 and Little Bairn. 
 
 In the middle of her watch the moon had long since 
 dipped behind the Parsonage roof she turned to find 
 Black Wayne regarding her. 
 
 " Do you love this red- head with the axe ? " he asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 The blood came to her face, brought there by pride or 
 shame, she knew not which. " That, sir, is a question he 
 may ask, but not another." 
 
 " Ah, well, I know the answer. Hark ye, then ! I'll 
 win you, Audrey Clare ay, I'll be well to-morrow, and 
 I'll take you. They say that sickness weakens a man to- 
 ward love, but I've forgotten that I have a wife forgotten 
 all, save that the glory of your face has turned my 
 wits." 
 
 " Oh, coward, coward ! To take help at a woman's 
 hands, and then to turn upon her ! " 
 
 " I care not. I love you, and I'll take you." 
 
 " What, with Red Ratcliffe there ? I think not. He 
 has taught you one fair lesson the next time you will 
 not live to benefit." 
 
 " I will take you, Audrey Clare. There ! I'm full of 
 
 168
 
 The Dog 
 
 sleep again run your bodkin into me, if you're afraid, 
 and end the matter that way." 
 
 " I have no fear," said Audrey quietly. " Have I not 
 seen you worsted by one dear to me ? " 
 
 And yet the hand of fate, heavy on all the moorside, 
 seemed to have touched her shapely shoulder, too, in 
 passing. For she feared she knew not what, and a low 
 prayer escaped her. 
 
 " God keep me safe for him oh, keep me safe for him ! " 
 she cried. 
 
 No answer reached her from the kirkyard, and the little 
 stars winked down upon the Parsonage as if they sat too 
 high to think of human troubles. 
 
 169
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 RED RATCLIFFE MEETS A KINSMAN 
 
 RED RATCLIFFE, after bidding farewell to the Parson, had 
 ridden straight across the moor toward the broken lands ; 
 and he could think of nothing but the lass who had given 
 herself into his keeping. 
 
 Over the gnarled clumps of ling he rode, across the peat- 
 beds, dark and savage even with the moonlight on them, 
 through russet bracken that clutched his horse's fetlocks 
 as he passed. Yet the moor, whose face was hard and 
 dinted as a fighter's, for once suggested naught of battle 
 to Red Ratcliffe. True, he had done what he had done 
 on the steps of Marshcotes churchyard ; true, the feud was 
 his life's work ; but now his thoughts were all of Audrey 
 Clare. 
 
 For Joseph and Bathsheba, though they had trained 
 him patiently, had left him, after all, a strong and vastly 
 simple child of nature on the one side of him. No woman 
 had written on his heart before his manhood was alive to 
 judge 'twixt love and makeshift ; he had squandered no 
 treasure in following light fancies ; all the strength in him 
 that strength which bends a man toward a woman as if 
 he were a sapling in a gale had been husbanded until the 
 coming of the Parson's Lass. Life had given him a hard 
 road to follow, but had given him recompense in this, that 
 Audrey was his one fit mate. 
 
 Ah, nothing ailed the world to-night ! And Ratcliffe, 
 as he cantered over a stretch of peat the horse's hoofs 
 padding soft as if they trod on velvet could hear the big, 
 warm heart of life a-beating. His way was clear now, he 
 told himself ; and he was over young to know that men are 
 
 170
 
 Red Ratcliffe meets a Kinsman 
 
 nearing a knot in the skein of life when they make bold to 
 say the way is clear before them. 
 
 He passed the belt of peat and came to a stretch of 
 bracken once again ; and suddenly a figure leaped from 
 underneath his horse and sprang aside in time to miss the 
 hoofs. The horse, fretful already because of the blood- 
 reek that had come to him at Marshcotes, reared suddenly, 
 and spread his legs abroad ; and Ratcliffe, thinking of the 
 lass who had kissed him yonder in the kirkyard, lost his 
 seat. He fell on his right side, against a grey old rock that 
 lurked beneath the bracken ; and, when he rose, there was 
 a stabbing pain half-way between his shoulder and his 
 middle. Slowly, as he recovered from the shock, he 
 realised that a lanky, ill-made lad stood close beside him. 
 His first instinct was to reach out for foster-brother, but 
 then he looked again at the stripling and did not move. 
 
 " Well, fool ? Hast naught better to do than lie in wait 
 to startle travellers ? " he asked not harshly, for the boy 
 was frail of build, and Ratcliffe ever had a tenderness for 
 weakly things. 
 
 " I did not lie in wait," said the other, and his voice was 
 tired beyond his years. " I was wearied out, and lay here 
 trying to sleep, and your horse was all but on me before 
 I knew." 
 
 Ratcliffe noted the lad's weariness, and looked more 
 closely at him. 
 
 " Why, thou hast the Ratcliffe hair ! " he cried. 
 
 " Ay, to my sorrow, for I'm a Wayne by birth, and they 
 twit me with my Ratcliffe thatch at Marsh House yonder." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe broke into a laugh. " See, ladling, d'ye 
 know that I'm a Ratcliffe just come from killing kinsmen 
 of your own ? Are you mad, or what, to name yourself 
 a Wayne ? D'ye remember nothing of our motto, ' We 
 hate, we kill ' ? Oh, run and hide yourself, fool, before 
 I lift my hand against you." 
 
 Yet, even as he talked of lifting his hand, Red Ratcliffe 
 felt a sharper stab in his right side, and knew that his hurt 
 was grave. 
 
 171
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " I'm neither Wayne nor Ratcliffe, God pity me," said 
 the lad helplessly, as one who did not care to flee from 
 death. " Were I a Wayne, I'd have my sword out at you 
 now, and kill you ; but the Waynes will have naught of 
 me." 
 
 " Your sword ? Why, ladling, can you use it ? " Again 
 Red Ratcliffe laughed, in kindly pity. 
 
 " I used it yesterday at Marsh, and thrust a kinsman 
 through the side. That is why I am here for ever in the 
 wilderness." 
 
 And Ratcliffe understood in a dim way that the lad was 
 brave, despite his weakliness, and that he was at war with 
 life and destiny. 
 
 " You have no home ? " he asked, and not one of those 
 who had watched him fight at Marshcotes would have 
 known his gentleness of face and voice. 
 
 " Not any," said the other simply. " And they called 
 me a traitor, those who live at Marsh ; and I do not wish 
 to be a traitor, if God would tell me on which side to 
 fight." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe looked the youngster up and down. In 
 this weak body, behind this sad, uncomely face, he re- 
 cognised a spirit dauntless as his own ; ay, and before he 
 knew it his hand was out, and though the pain clutched at 
 his right side, he gripped the other's hand. 
 
 " Lad," he said, " come home with me, and I will show 
 you on which side to fight." 
 
 For a moment it seemed the youngster would break into 
 tears ; such sympathy, such tacit faith in his power to be 
 braver than his body warranted, were rare in his marred 
 life ; he wished to go with this red, upstanding giant of a 
 man yet he conquered his desire, for, like so many outcasts 
 he had thought much, and prayed a little, and plucked 
 strength, from out the wreckage of his life, to keep his 
 conscience clean. 
 
 " I cannot come with you," he said, each word demand- 
 ing effort. " I cannot come, because you are a Ratcliffe, 
 and I dare not fight against my people." 
 
 172
 
 Red Ratcliffe meets a Kinsman 
 
 " Who was your mother ? " asked Ratcliffe gently. 
 " She was never a Wayne, or you'd carry a dark head." 
 
 " She was a Ratcliffe Janet, the Lean Man's grand- 
 daughter. It was for her I fought ; they called her God, 
 I daren't so much as think the name they called her and 
 I saw a red light come dancing 'cross the fields, and I ran 
 my cousin through." 
 
 Ratcliffe held his breath awhile. This lad was Janet's 
 son Janet, who was cursed by Waynes and Ratcliffes 
 both Janet, who stood out above the wild feud-story of 
 the centuries as a woman scarcely human, a woman who had 
 crossed the seas of hell to seek her lover on the farther 
 brink. And this mis-shapen lad, with the brave heart and 
 the clean way of following his conscience, was her son ? 
 Surely, surely, Red Ratcliffe had stumbled into matters 
 too deep and tangled for foster-brother's skill. 
 
 " You saw the red light dancing ? " he muttered absently. 
 "Ay, I have seen the same once yesterday at Colne, 
 and once to-day at Marshcotes." 
 
 " Tis a fierce light, but good to fight by, and it seems to 
 warm one," said the lad, with a simplicity of speech that 
 claimed Red Ratcliffe's sympathy. 
 
 " You're a fighter," cried Ratcliffe, forgetting Janet, 
 forgetting all except the boy's forlornness. " Come to 
 Black House with me, and you shall find a battle every 
 day." 
 
 The lad still shook his head. " It cannot be. How can 
 I fight against the Waynes, when my father is the leader of 
 them all ? How can I lift a hand against the Ratcliffes ? 
 I heard father mutter one day that he wondered why such 
 fools as I were born to cripple a strong world ; and he was 
 right ; father is always right but then he was born of 
 Waynes born strong and good to look at while I 
 
 He broke down suddenly, for he had wandered long and 
 far since yesterday, with little food, and his grief had been 
 a man's, too heavy for his stripling shoulders. 
 
 " There, there ! " said Ratcliffe, chilled by the fury of 
 the other's tears. " You need a fire and such cheer as Bath-
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 sheba can give you. Climb up beside me, lad, and come 
 where you will find a welcome." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe stood beside the stirrup, ready to get to 
 saddle ; but the boy dried his tears, and looked at horse 
 and master with a longing not to be mistaken, and shook 
 his head. For others was the speed, the gallant fury of 
 pitched battle ; his own fights lay amid the silences, and 
 he had harder foes to meet to meet alone, unfriended 
 than came with sword or axe. 
 
 " I cannot come," he repeated dully. " Some day I 
 may learn which are my kin, but now 
 
 As if he feared temptation, he ran lightly through the 
 bracken, not waiting to finish what he had in mind to say ; 
 and Red Ratcliffe followed him with his eyes until the lad 
 had disappeared. 
 
 " Why couldn't Wayne and Janet Ratcliffe pay their 
 own debts to God ? " he muttered, angered by his pity. 
 " Why must this poor devil of an outcast, with the man's 
 heart inside him, go weeping for their sins ? God o' Mercy, 
 but 'tis a world turned upside-down ! " 
 
 To hunt, to till the land, to practise axe-play, had been 
 Red Ratcliffe's world till yestermorn. But now the thing 
 called love, and that other thing called battle-lust, had 
 sharpened all his senses ; and he was asking, for the first 
 time, why justice walked abroad in the guise of wrong- 
 doing. Some day, may be, he was to learn, through 
 travail and unrest, the secrets of that hidden justice which, 
 after all, attends the seeming whimseys and contempts 
 of fate ; but to-night he could see only the picture of that 
 weeping lad, who roamed the empty moor in payment for 
 his parents' sin. 
 
 At last he shook himself from out what he was pleased 
 to name " a woman's mood," and leaped into the saddle. 
 He had forgotten the sharp pain in his side, but he re- 
 membered it when he was in the middle of his spring, and 
 he could scarce find his other stirrup for a moment, so 
 sudden was the sickness that came over him. The horse, 
 impatient to be home and weary of all these senseless
 
 Red Ratcliffe meets a Kinsman 
 
 baitings by the way, set off at a hard gallop ; and Rat- 
 cliffe, too spent to hinder him, just bore the pain as well 
 as might be, and came to the edge of No Man's Land, and 
 began to cross, still at a reckless gallop, that winding path 
 'twixt marsh and bog whose every turn was known to 
 his good beast. 
 
 Nick o' Trawdon, meanwhile, had galloped likewise 
 from the market-square at Marshcotes, had passed Ling 
 Crag, and only when he reached the boundary-stone that 
 cuts off Yorkshire from the sister county did he check 
 his borrowed mare. Then, too, for the first time, he looked 
 the situation in the face. It had been easy to applaud 
 Red Ratcliffe's battles on the steps, easy to twit the 
 Marshcotes folk with the downfall of the Waynes, easy to 
 leap to the first saddle that he found and ride away ; but 
 now the dangers of the days to come showed plain enough. 
 His hair was red as that of his Ratcliffe father ; he would 
 be marked henceforward in the Wayne country as one who 
 had applauded Ratcliffe and thereafter stolen a Wayne 
 horse ; and even to Nick's careless mind the future showed 
 dark clouds. 
 
 Yet Nick was never prone to gloom, and he was wont 
 to snatch at the first haphazard thought that came to 
 promise better things. Had he not warmed to Ratcliffe's 
 uphill fight ? Had not his sweetheart, so short a while 
 ago as yesterday, bidden him be more like a man, less like 
 a ne'er-do-weel, before she wedded him ? 
 
 " I'll do it ! " he cried, turning the mare's head away 
 from Lancashire. " Ay, if the Waynes want me and 
 I've a fancy that they will they shall kill me in fair fight, 
 and not like a ratten in a hole." 
 
 He touched the mare with his heels and swung away, 
 whistling as he went, toward the edge of No Man's Land. 
 As it chanced, he reached the beginning of the perilous, 
 bog-strewn track to Black House just after Red Ratcliffe's 
 horse had set his hoofs on it. 
 
 " Hoy ! " called Nick o' Trawdon carelessly, as if he 
 hailed a shepherd on the hills. 
 
 '75
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Ratcliffe, thinking it was a Wayne who called, pulled 
 in his horse, then forced him to turn round upon the narrow 
 path, though all the while his right side hurt him grievously. 
 
 " Who calls ? " he answered, feeling painfully for the 
 haft of foster-brother. 
 
 " Nick o' Trawdon, at your service. By the Brown Dog, 
 don't you know a friend ? Or d'ye think I've seen you 
 play to-day and yesterday with that long axe, and yet go 
 risking the sharp tooth of it ? " 
 
 " What is't you want, Nick ? I'm full of aches and 
 hunger, and can't hold in my horse much longer." 
 
 " I want to come with you and be your man. That's 
 plain speech, I take it ? I want to learn the way of a 
 hatchet and to fight beside you." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe laughed. " Wast a jester ever, Nick. 
 What fool's talk are you at ? " 
 
 " Lead on, and I'll tell you by-and-by," said Nick. 
 
 The stallion, as it fell out, ended the matter on his own 
 account, by turning suddenly and setting off along the 
 track. 
 
 " Follow me closely, if thou wilt come, Ned ! " called 
 Ratcliffe. " The track winds in and out, and there's death 
 on either hand of it." 
 
 " I'll follow ! " Nick answered cheerily. 
 
 And so they came to Black House, and Bathsheba and 
 Joseph were standing on the moonlit edge of Lonesome 
 Water, straining their eyes to see if the master were coming 
 at long last. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe swayed as he slipped from the saddle, 
 and would have fallen had not Nick o' Trawdon clutched 
 him. 
 
 " Why, you're wounded ! " muttered Nick. " Yet I 
 never saw a sword-blade touch you." 
 
 Joseph pushed the stranger roughly aside. " Who ye 
 be, I know not," he growled, " but 'tis I will see to master. 
 'Twas I who reared him, eh ? Well, then, let be, for 'tis 
 my work to see to him." 
 
 Yet the master was so lumbering in his gait that it needed 
 
 176
 
 Red Ratcliffe meets a Kinsman 
 
 both of them to get him safe indoors and stretched along 
 the settle in the kitchen. 
 
 " Eh, eh ! " groaned Bathsheba, as she stirred the peats 
 and set the kettle lower on the reckan. " Twas like to be, 
 or it couldn't be ; yet I little thought to see him i' this 
 plight, late as his coming is. D'ye know aught of this ? " 
 she broke off, eyeing Nick o' Trawdon jealously. 
 
 " I know he fought at Marshcotes, for I watched him ; 
 and he took never a hurt, that I could see." 
 
 " And what brings you here, if a body may ask ? " 
 
 Joseph had been watching the new-comer closely, and 
 now he interposed. "Nay, lass ! His hair is Ratcliffe- 
 red, and if so be he's helped to fight the Waynes why, 
 we must e'en keep civil tongues and bid him welcome." 
 
 " Bundle o' rushes, Joseph ! Bundle o' rushes ! See 
 where the wind sits before you start a-whistling for a new 
 one." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe opened his eyes and looked about him ; 
 and Bathsheba, unable to rest unless she were ministering 
 to him in some way whether that way were right or 
 wrong Bathsheba poured out a measure of rye-spirit, 
 filled up with water from the steaming kettle, and bade him 
 drink it. 
 
 " Gad, how trimly it slips down ! " said Ratcliffe. 
 " Joseph, I've killed a few at Marshcotes to-day and I 
 came home with never a mark on me and I was thrown 
 in riding here. Oh, by the Feud, 'twas bitter to be fooled 
 like that when all the moil was over ! See, though, I'm 
 well again I " 
 
 He tried to rise, then clutched his side and fell back 
 again. In a moment Bathsheba had thrust the men aside, 
 had stripped the master to the waist, and now was passing 
 careful hands across his side. 
 
 ' Tis naught but two broken ribs, thanks be," she said, 
 " You may be sick and dizzyish now, master, but you'll 
 mend o' that i' a day, and in a two weeks you'll be sound 
 again." 
 
 " Two weeks ? " echoed Ratcliffe. " Why, Bathsheba, 
 M 177
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 I've lit the feud-fire, I tell thee, and to-morrow they'll 
 be on us." 
 
 " There, there ! Go easy-like. They'll have the bogs 
 to cross, I reckon, and there's none to show them the right 
 way." 
 
 Ratcliffe, drowsied by the spirit, lay still ; and his 
 breathing came and went with gaining peacefulness. 
 
 " Audrey, I'll win or lose you by this fight," he muttered 
 drowsily. " If I win if I win Audrey, there's a darkness 
 coming over me I cannot see you " 
 
 Only Bathsheba could catch the words, and her face went 
 sour as cream in thunder-weather. This was her lad, 
 though he was her master, too ; had she not fended for 
 him, spent wakeful nights and toilsome days for his sake ? 
 And was a lass with naught save sun-gold hair to commend 
 her, a lass who had never lifted finger-tip to do him servdce, 
 to rob her of her boy ? So have all mothers and foster- 
 mothers felt, since Eve bore Cain to slay his brother ; and 
 such sadness makes women, good or bad, a little gusty in 
 their moods and kin to the March winds when they come 
 from Marschotes out to Colne. 
 
 " As for thee," she flashed, turning on Nick o' Trawdon 
 as being a welcome whipping- post, " I know not what has 
 brought thee to Black House. Thou look'st as proper 
 a ne'er-do-weel as I ever set een upon the sort to hang 
 over mistal-doors, and chew a straw, and watch good men 
 earn bread and milk for thee." 
 
 " Ay, I'm all that," assented Nick, with the good- 
 humoured air that rarely left him. " I'm all that, and 
 more or have been. And now, after seeing the fight at 
 Marshcotes, I've taken a fancy to settle down, like, in life, 
 and earn my living honest by fighting Waynes." 
 
 Bathsheba tossed her head ; but Joseph, full of the com- 
 ing troubles so clearly shadowed by these two battles of 
 the master's, Joseph was quick to recognise a strong man 
 and a friend beneath the other's lazy air. It was Joseph 
 who filled the new-comer a measure and added water from 
 the kettle, and bade him pay no heed to Bathsheba. 
 
 178
 
 Red Ratcliffe meets a Kinsman 
 
 "Sit ye down, lad," said he. "The master's sleeping 
 like a bairn, and if ye happen to speak low he'll never hear 
 you. Now, what happened out yonder when the master 
 fought ? " 
 
 Nick o' Trawdon drank half his measure at a gulp ; 
 pulled his chair up to the peat-fire ; nursed the remaining 
 liquor between his knees. Joseph, too, drew up ; and 
 Bathsheba, outraged as she was by the conspiracy of the 
 two against herself, could not forbear to do the like. 
 
 And then Nick told them of the battle on the church- 
 yard steps, of the bull his own bull which had so nearly 
 marred the master's chances, of Red Ratcliffe's sudden 
 leap and downward rush across the market-square, of the 
 glory and the light upon his face. He could tell a tale as 
 well as most men, this graceless Nick o' Trawdon, and 
 point by point he made his hearers see the shifting issues 
 of the day. 
 
 " Lack-a-day, and me not there ! " sighed Joseph, when 
 he had done. " That's twice the master has stolen off and 
 had his play, leaving me here to toil." 
 
 " Well ! " cried Nick. " The third time pays for all 
 and I fancy you and I, Joseph, will have the fighting to 
 ourselves." 
 
 " Ay, they'll come to-morrow, if I know aught. Shame- 
 less Wayne was never one to sit on warm ashes when the 
 feud was lit. What then ? He'll bring a few with him 
 to-morrow, say and he'll try to cross, and the bogs will 
 have him. There's no sport for us there, lad, that I can 
 see." 
 
 " There may be some to find the bog-path ; or Wayne's 
 wife Janet Ratcliffe once on a day may point him out 
 the road. There's a devil in the woman bids her do anything 
 for Shameless Wayne." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe tossed uneasily upon the settle, and 
 muttered in his sleep. " Poor fool ! Poor mis-shapen lad ! 
 And your mother's Janet Wayne, is she ? No wonder 
 you're in hell, for she crossed to hell to bear you, and 
 you've to carry all her load." 
 
 179
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " What says he ? " whispered Joseph. 
 
 " I couldn't rightly catch it," said Bathsheba. " Sharp 
 as my ears are 
 
 " Ay ! " murmured the good man. " Sharp as a weasel's 
 when there's a cony nigh at hand." 
 
 " Sharp as my ears are, I couldn't reckon up his speech. 
 Sick men are always so ; he'll mend before so long." 
 
 " Who are you, lad ? " said Joseph, breaking a long 
 silence, as he turned to their unknown guest. 
 
 " Nick o' Trawdon is all the birth-name folk will give me ; 
 but my father was a Ratcliffe, if I did chance to be born 
 the wrong side of the hedge. See ye, Joseph ! There's 
 a lass at Come." 
 
 " Seems to me there's lasses everywhere," said Bath- 
 sheba. " That's why men never get through with the 
 work God lays ready to their hands." 
 
 " And I've a fancy for her, Joseph, you'll understand." 
 
 " Oh, ay, I understand ! Nay, Bathsheba, 'tis of no 
 use to frown, for a man must be a man, just time and time." 
 
 " And the lass of Colne bade me be a man, just as you say, 
 Joseph. And then 'twas my bull, after all, that went near 
 to spoil a bonnier fight than ever I'd seen before ; and I 
 stole a Wayne horse, moreover ; and somehow I reckoned 
 I'd throw in my lot with his, for I fancied you'd have need 
 of company, like, before so very long." 
 
 And now, not Joseph only, but Bathsheba as well, knew 
 the they had a man beside them on the hearth a man 
 who, ne'er-do-weel or no, would stand beside them in the 
 days to come. 
 
 " I'll fill your measure for you," said Bathsheba, " for 
 I've ever heard a wastrel swallows liquor as a ring-dove 
 swallows corn. And if we have to make the best of you 
 well, life's always a making the best of something 
 weather, or men-folk, or crops and us poor women learn 
 our lesson early." 
 
 But Joseph, who could sometimes play the visionary 
 amid the hard affairs of life, was looking into the red peats, 
 as the moor folk always do when their hearts commune 
 
 180
 
 Red Ratcliffe meets a Kinsman 
 
 with God and Destiny. There is a warmth and calm 
 about the glowing peats that give to men the restfulness 
 of churches. 
 
 " Hark ye," he said, in his slow fashion, " I've lived hard, 
 and had no time to fatten fancies. But I know this that 
 this stranger laddie comes like a May-swallow, leading 
 others to the summer of the Feud. Thou'st laughed at me, 
 Bathsheba thou, that see'st ghosts where I can see naught 
 at all save moonshine because I've said that one day 
 yet the Feud-spear would go round among the Ratcliffes. 
 The master would do all that was thy cry and yet I 
 knew that hurt must come to him, soon or late, and other 
 help be needed. Nick o' Trawdon, I care not which side 
 of the hedge you came to birth but, by the Dog, I'm 
 pleased to see you here." 
 
 " Joseph, didst hear aught stirring ? " the good-wife 
 asked, pointing to the window. 
 
 " I heard a farm dog yelping 'cause he found himself 
 too far from home," said Nick o' Trawdon. 
 
 " There's no farm on this side," said Bathsheba. " 'Twas 
 the Wayne Dog, if I know aught and he seemed to be 
 running for dear life." 
 
 " Fancies : thou'rt full of fancies, Bathsheba," growled 
 Joseph, though a moment since he, too, had harboured 
 fantasy. " Nick o' Trawdon, thou'rt a thirsty rogue ; 
 fill up again, and drink to the health of him who's 
 slumbering there as if he'd never wake till Judgment." 
 
 Without, the moon lay placid on the waste of No Man's 
 Land. She showed the flat, black bogs, the flat, green 
 marshes. And it seemed that, least of all, she remembered 
 the deep floods of hatred gathering to a head amid the 
 moors ; for the Brown Dog raised a stricken cry, and the 
 shadow of the Lean Man chased him over bog and marsh 
 and shivering bracken, and the moon sailed out from a 
 cloud of grey-blue haze, unheeding still that the heath was 
 in travail with big deeds to come. 
 
 181
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 LOVE BENEATH THE FEUD 
 
 SHAMELESS WAYNE, sitting moodily in hall at Marsh, 
 had not reached the end of the day's sorrows ; for pre- 
 sently the outer door was opened, and Maurice Wayne 
 stole in. The lad's shoulders were bent forward ; he 
 slouched as he walked ; and when he saw his uncle sitting 
 there, with only wine and bier-candles for company, he 
 tried to slip away among the shadows. 
 
 " Come to the hearth here, Maurice," said Wayne, in 
 a voice whose coldness made the youngster shiver. " Now, 
 say why you carry the look of a whipped dog. They told 
 me you were dicing out at Ludworth with your fellows." 
 
 " I did not go with them. I I chose to ride across the 
 moor instead." 
 
 " On mischief of some sort ? So much is plain from your 
 face. Well ? Your errand, whatever it was, sped all 
 amiss ? For I see you come without your sword." 
 
 Maurice, full enough before of his own trouble, grew 
 chillier and more like a beaten hound. He had known this 
 uncle as a reveller, an elder comrade who had always a 
 jest for the youngsters when he touched wine-cups with 
 them. How came it then that in a moment he had har- 
 dened, that his voice carried terror with it, that his eyes 
 were quick to note the disordered details of his person ? 
 
 " I rode to Wildwater," he said sullenly, " to to see 
 the old house of the Ratcliffes ' 
 
 " That is a lie," Wayne interrupted, with the same 
 weary coolness. " You went on some private errand of 
 your own to meet some wench or other, if I know your 
 ways. Well ? " 
 
 " I found a red brute there a big fellow, who named 
 
 182
 
 Love beneath the Feud 
 
 himself a Ratcliffe, and sprang at me before I could thrust 
 him through, and threw me with my head against the 
 floor. He he must have broken my sword, for when I 
 came to myself again it was lying on the ground in two 
 clean pieces." 
 
 " This Ratcliffe seems to have had a harvest-day," said 
 Shameless Wayne. 
 
 And on the sudden the coolness of his manner went, 
 and he got to his feet and strode up and down the hall with 
 a fury easier to be borne than his quiet mood had been. 
 
 " Oh, come, all you others you who went to dice at 
 Ludworth ! Come, one by one, and creep into the old 
 house with tails between your legs come and say that you, 
 too, have met Red Ratcliffe by the way, and given your 
 swords for him to break. See ye, lad," he broke off, seizing 
 the other by the arm and leading him to the ten bodies 
 that lay quiet beneath their death-candles. " D'ye know 
 who these are ? Or are you so full of your own cursed 
 troubles that you care not what has chanced to others ? " 
 
 Maurice, shaken out of his own grief, looked at each 
 remembered face, and shivered ; for until now he had been 
 wandering abroad in misery, not daring to come home, 
 and so no gossip of the day's affairs had reached him. 
 
 " There's Ned yonder," he said, in a low voice. " I 
 loved him best of all my kin, and he he is dead. Say, 
 uncle, what has chanced to-day ? " 
 
 " Naught to grieve about," Wayne answered bitterly. 
 " Only that Ratcliffe came to Marshcotes, and our folk 
 went up against him, and he killed them to a man. And 
 after that he carne to Marsh here and nailed a gauntlet up 
 above the door. Was it on his homeward way that he fell 
 in with you, and, being tired of slaughter, gave you no more 
 than a cracked skull ? " 
 
 " No, 'twas at noon I met him." 
 
 " Odd, odd ! I never heard of Ratcliffe mercy till I 
 myself was spared at Colne ; and now again this red fool 
 gives another Wayne his life." 
 
 " Suppose I had got him when I struck at Wildwater ? '* 
 
 183
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 said Maurice. " I aimed true enough, but he leaped aside, 
 and then uncle, if I had got him ! " he glanced over- 
 shoulder at the dead " all these would have been alive 
 to-night to drink to me." 
 
 " Ay, true ; but the feud has no stomach for might- 
 have-beens, and there's never a drop of wine will go between 
 their teeth again." 
 
 And then Wayne's heart softened to the lad, for he was 
 young, and spent with shame and grief. Moreover, had 
 not Wayne himself, who dared to judge him, been worsted 
 by this same Red Ratcliffe ? 
 
 " Maurice," he said, " I was minded to send you out 
 into the moor, as I sent my own son ; but older men than 
 you have met this Ratcliffe and not returned again, and 
 God knows I am not fit to be your judge. Look in the faces 
 of the dead once more, and swear that you will take their 
 quarrel up." 
 
 " I swear. Uncle, do you think it's nothing to me that 
 I have lost my honour ? Do you think that I am too light 
 to care ? Give me one chance to fight beside you, and you'll 
 find me brave." 
 
 By the light of the flickering candles Wayne eyed his 
 nephew and approved him. 
 
 " Get to thy bed," he said, with a kindly hand on his 
 shoulder ; " and remember that the feud is up." 
 
 He was alone again ; and, though his body craved for 
 sleep, his mind was restless as a stream that runs through 
 stony ways, seeking it knows not what and never finding 
 it. The house, too, was full of roving wind-gusts, and the 
 ghosts, deceived by the man's stillness, crept out again and 
 chattered ceaselessly. 
 
 What ailed him ? Something more than death, and 
 other deaths to come ; something more than the weight 
 of misused years ; something he could not name, which 
 yet was the one thing lacking to his courage. 
 
 The door opened softly so softly that he did not heed 
 it, thinking a sharper gust of wind was taking holiday. 
 There was a footstep on the floor. A freshness, as of the 
 
 184
 
 Love beneath the Feud 
 
 open moor, swept by him. He lifted his eyes from the 
 wine-cup in his hand, and there before him stood Janet, 
 looking down on him Janet, with tears and many love- 
 lights on her face Janet, her rich hair blown abroad 
 despite the hood that covered it. 
 
 Wayne knew now what had been lacking. Without a 
 word he went to her and caught her in his arms ; and the 
 ten dead folk were very quiet, so that Janet did not heed 
 them. 
 
 " I thought that you had left me," said Wayne at last. 
 
 " Left you ? I to leave you, when the troubles came ? 
 Lad, did you think so meanly of me ? " 
 
 " Hush, little fool ! What I thought of you at twenty, 
 I think now. There was never a doubt of you, Janet, 
 but I fancied that you had found the misery too hard to 
 bear." 
 
 " What misery ? This of the feud new-awakened ? " 
 
 " No, but the misery of knowing that we came together 
 over dead men's bodies." 
 
 " I love you, and 'tis over-late to cure me of that sickness, 
 lad. Shall I tell you why I went abroad ? My boy went 
 out into the wilderness the boy I had born and suckled 
 and my heart yearned for him. I found him after long 
 search, and and he told me, Ned, the reason of his quarrel 
 with a kinsman. Hush ! Bend your ear, for they had 
 named me something that should not be said of any woman, 
 and I should not like the walls to hear it said of their own 
 mistress." 
 
 " They named you that ? " cried Wayne. " My own kin 
 named you that ? Then let Red Ratcliffe wipe it out for 
 me, since I'm forbidden to lift hand against them." 
 
 " Ah, never heed for me ! I've been glad to bear such 
 things for you these many years. But the boy, Ned 
 cannot you see that no lad could hear his mother so be- 
 named and not strike for her honour ? And he is brave, 
 though poor to look at and mis-shapen " 
 
 She hid her face against his own, and Wayne, whose cup 
 was brimming-full to-night with remorse, saw how he had 
 
 185
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 misjudged, belittled, harried this poor lad who, in the end 
 of all, had found strength to choose outlawry as the price 
 of defending Janet's honour. 
 
 " I've been hard with him," he muttered. " An outlaw 
 he must be, Janet, yet awhile for never did we need 
 discipline as much as now but he shall earn his own way 
 home again, if he be willing. Let him do some great deed 
 he has sword-play, you tell me and I will bring him to his 
 own again." 
 
 Janet shook her head. " He cannot, Ned. So much 
 I learned from him when I met him on the moor. He 
 knows not on which side to fight." 
 
 " I have dealt all amiss with him," said Wayne abruptly. 
 " See you, Janet, I've watched the years go past me with 
 their ghosts while I have sat here to-night and I have 
 known something of what that lad of ours has suffered. 
 Ay, I would not even teach him how to use his 
 sword, though I am glad a better man than I has taught 
 him." 
 
 " After I had left him on the moor a strange thing 
 happened, Ned. I looked back for a last glimpse at him, 
 as mothers will, and saw him fling himself among the 
 bracken ; and then I guessed that he was crying his heart 
 out, and I could not bear it, and ran toward him ; and then, 
 before I could get to him, a big man on a raking horse 
 came galloping up against the moonlit sky and our boy 
 sprang out from the bracken and the rider was thrown 
 out of the saddle." 
 
 " Twould be Red Ratcliffe. Was he hurt, wife ? " 
 
 " Not overmuch, I fancy, for the boy and he talked long 
 together, and then he got to saddle and away. Ned, 
 there are candles burning," she broke off, noting the bier- 
 lights for the first time. 
 
 " There has been a fight, lass. Red Ratcliffe liked 
 yesterday at Colne so well that he must needs come here 
 to-day and I was off to Cranshaw and I came home to 
 find ten of our folk killed and the rest put to shameful 
 flight. Oh, Janet, lass, when I found you gone to-night, I 
 
 186
 
 Love beneath the Feud 
 
 was almost glad to think that you were free of coming 
 troubles." 
 
 She put her hands in his. " Ned, did you not miss me ? " 
 
 " Miss you ? Ay, as I should miss the winds of Marsh- 
 cotes moor if I were thrust into a dungeon." 
 
 " And I ? D'ye fancy I could live without you ? What 
 was it that we said lad and lass together at the Brigg 
 of Tryst ? We said that love bridged all." 
 
 Her eyes kept stealing to the bodies of the slain, but 
 she would not think of them too much ; battle and turmoil 
 had ushered in her birth and the first days of her wedlock, 
 and she was not one to swoon at sight of death. 
 
 " Listen, dear lad ! " she went on, and her voice was low 
 and soft. " The years have done their best to set strife 
 between us. We have failed often to say the good word, 
 or look the kindly look, when each was hungering for it. 
 Well, then, let's welcome all disaster, for it has taught us 
 Ned, what has not trouble taught us ? " 
 
 As moor grasses in a dry March breeze take light from 
 a tinder-spark, so love was lit afresh between these two. 
 For Shameless Wayne had fought, in days past, like one 
 greater than a man ; and he loved as few men ever find 
 the way of loving. Ay, big as the Marshcotes hills, big 
 as the long traditions of their races, had been this love 
 of Wayne's and Janet's ; but it came to its full height 
 to-night, and laughed disaster in the face. 
 
 " Ned, they have whispered all these years that we 
 have paid our souls as the price of wedlock. They have 
 whispered that hell waited for us." 
 
 " If they were right, we have paid our debts in full, Janet. 
 There is no hell that you and I have not passed through." 
 
 " That may be, lad ; but if 'tis not so ? " 
 
 " We care so little. If there's heaven to come, or hell 
 to come, we'll be together, lass." 
 
 Janet lifted her voice amid the dead men's silence. 
 
 " Thank God for all our troubles. Even at the Brigg 
 of Tryst we never loved like this." 
 
 As a mist that is gathered into the dawn, the veil between 
 
 187
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 them parted, grew frail and frailer yet, and disappeared. 
 Man and wife, in honour and all trust, they gave the 
 nuptial kiss, and knew that ruin might rattle on the 
 roof-stones, yet find them undismayed. 
 
 " To-morrow I shall take our folk at Marsh with me, 
 and rout out this Ratcliffe with the axe," said Wayne, 
 feeling the need of action as a physic against over-stress 
 of passion. 
 
 " You cannot find him," cried Janet, full of new dis- 
 quiet. " Ned, I know Wildwater, and I know the wilder- 
 ness beyond where Black House lies. Black House was 
 wont to be our sanctuary, because the bogs and marshes 
 wrap it round so closely that only one who knows the 
 path can reach it." 
 
 " Yet we shall find it to-morrow, or die in these same 
 bogs. How can I let this Ratcliffe ride abroad as it pleases 
 him and take his toll ? " 
 
 " Ned, for our love's sake, stay at home ! " 
 
 " For our love's sake I shall go. Would you have me 
 shamed in your own eyes ? " 
 
 " No, lad. You must fare out. Sorrow o' women, all 
 life seems a faring out ! Yet yet oh, Ned, I'm broken 
 by this love of ours, now it has waked from sleep. Ned, 
 I can show you the true path to Black House." 
 
 Janet, for her love's sake, had risen to strange sacrifice ; 
 for she was Ratcliffe of the Ratcliffes still, so far as feud 
 went, and this was treachery. Wayne understood her 
 saw her sacrifice in the clear, strong light of love. 
 
 " Little Lass," he said, " we may be bairns of hell, as 
 the folk say we are, but at the least we'll each be loyal. 
 I shall go to-morrow to find out this red devil's brat, and 
 you'll not hinder me, nor come to point the way." 
 
 For a moment she wavered, eager to dissuade him. 
 
 " Go," she said at last. " There's God behind such 
 cleanliness as thine, Ned, and I'll bide patiently till you 
 come home again." 
 
 And now the dead men were forgotten quite, and the 
 candles flickered all unheeded. This was a second marriage 
 
 1 88
 
 Love beneath the Feud 
 
 each safely in the other's arms and the wonder of their 
 love was on them. 
 
 " Ned, the moon was cold and harsh to-night,' she 
 whispered. " I bethought me of the time when she was 
 gentle long since, at the Brigg of Tryst and seemed to 
 know our inmost thoughts. Ah, surely the moon is 
 fickle as a wanton." 
 
 " Our love is steady, though. Let the moon shift for 
 her own wanton self," laughed Wayne. 
 
 They parted at the door, and then Wayne called her 
 back. 
 
 " Nay, naught," he said, " save that the coming years 
 grow light beneath your touch, Janet." 
 
 The dead men slept, and Wayne, seeing how low their 
 guardian-candles guttered in the sockets, replenished 
 them. He had no longer any war with fate ; what would 
 be, would be, and Janet was his own above the little ins- 
 and-outs of destiny. 
 
 189
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AT THE BOG'S EDGE 
 
 BATHSHEBA was full of cheerfulness and bustle on the 
 morrow of the fight at Marshcotes. The master had 
 returned, after the doing of great deeds ; and now he was, 
 for the time being, beyond all danger of attempting deeds 
 yet greater. For Bathsheba, though she was hot upon the 
 trail of feud, found leisure now and then to listen to her 
 heart, and at these times she feared for the master's safety 
 feared so deeply that a passing hurt, such as this which 
 kept him to his bed, became a matter of rejoicing. There 
 was nursing to be done, moreover, and Bathsheba had a 
 natural love of attending ailing folk. 
 
 " Well, how fares it with the master ? " asked Joseph, 
 coming into the kitchen where she was preparing a brew of 
 simples. 
 
 " A bit light-headed, as he's like to be. Sakes, dost 
 think a man can fight all day, and break two ribs at th' 
 end on't, and never feel no worse ? I've braced his ribs 
 up fine, and they've naught to do but knit and mend ; 
 but the shock has unsettled his wits, and I for one am glad 
 on't 'twill keep him tame awhile. Hast seen aught of 
 the Waynes ? " 
 
 " Not yet, but they'll be coming before so very long, if 
 I know their temper. Stands to reason, Bathsheba, you 
 can't go killing a round dozen of a man's kin and not look 
 for an early visit from him." 
 
 " Why art idling there, by that token ? " snapped the 
 goodwife, adding a few sprigs of horehound to her brew 
 of herbs. 
 
 " Because I am as dry as a bone, lass, and Nick o' Traw- 
 don took the watching while I slipped in to snatch a drink 
 
 190
 
 At the Bog's Edge 
 
 of ale. We've watched since sunrise, one or t'other of us, 
 and 'tis weary work to stand on your legs waiting for folk 
 that willun't no way come." 
 
 " Oh, Nick o' Trawdon ? He comes from Lord knows 
 where, and what's he seeking here is my question ? Folk 
 don't join the weaker side for choice, so far as I've seen 
 life." 
 
 " Tuts ! Thou know'st as well as I, lass, that Nick o' 
 Trawdon, light though he be without, is right good steel 
 within. Shame on thee, Bathsheba, to sneer at one who 
 comes to help us in our need." 
 
 " The master will be well before long. His arm is enough, 
 I should have thought." 
 
 Joseph dipped deep into his mug of ale, then smiled at 
 his goodwife across the froth-tipped edge. 
 
 " You've got the Sight, lass, and you fancy that the 
 master's full of destiny, and power o' Ratcliffe spirits 
 risen from the dead, and such-like makes o' moonshine. 
 Well, I haven't the Sight, thanks be, and can only guide 
 myself by common-sense." 
 
 " Common-sense ? Ay, thou'st a lot of that, Joseph. 
 'Tis common-sense, I take it, bids thee step inside to fill 
 thyself with old October ale, when Waynes are up and 
 ready to murder us where we stand this minute." 
 
 " Waynes are up, doubtless, but 'twill take them a tidy 
 while to find their way 'twixt bogs on one hand and marshes 
 on the other. Meanwhile, I'm heartening my body with 
 good ale, and I call that the best of common-sense, 
 Bathsheba." 
 
 She looked at him with that curious, half-bewildered 
 glance which she had never given Joseph until the re- 
 awakening of the feud had cheered him to revolt against 
 domestic tyranny. Yet she liked him better in his bravery 
 than ever she had done in his long-suffering days. 
 
 " As I was saying," went on Joseph, after another 
 mighty pull at the October. " As I was saying, Bathsheba, 
 I can see with my own een that the master is good to carry 
 an axe, and good to meet a two-three Waynes at any 
 
 191
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 time but there's such a thing as luck in this life, lass, 
 and luck will out at times. The Lean Man and all the 
 ghosts about the moor will do him little service if once he 
 fails to bite with foster-brother for, mark ye, that's the 
 weak spot in an axe if ye miss with him, the weight of 
 your own blow carries you forrard, like, and a Wayne can 
 cut you with his sword before you've time to say amen. 
 That's why I say that we're in need of Nick o' Trawdon 
 and such-like ; he's no ghost-seer, he, and the two of us 
 will keep master out of hurt through using a bit of fore- 
 sight." 
 
 " Well, then, I reckon Nick must be made welcome, 
 though I never liked such fly-by-sky, light-mannered men 
 myself." 
 
 " So the master's mending, is he ? " said Joseph, setting 
 down his mug with a clatter. 
 
 " Ay, thanks to me. You've jested time and time, 
 Joseph, about that bit of a herb-garden I've kept so trim ; 
 but let me tell you it has been the saving of the master. 
 Where should I have been without my camomile, and 
 fever-few, and horehound ? " 
 
 " I'm saying naught against your herb-garden, Bath- 
 sheba," he answered, in that new-found tone of raillery 
 and assurance that so perplexed his wife. " Women do 
 well to look to herbs when men are righting ; herbs keep a 
 woman out o' mischief, like, and they do less harm, when 
 all's said, than a body might have thought." 
 
 Bathsheba finished the preparation of her brew, then 
 flounced away. 
 
 " I'm going to master," she said, turning at the door. 
 " He's wandering, but he talks more sense to a minute than 
 ye'll talk to a year, Joseph." 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder, lass. And he's a strong-bodied 
 lad, and all, and will likely overcome thy simples as he 
 overcame the Waynes at Marshcotes yesterday." 
 
 He waited for an answer, since Bathsheba was ever fain 
 of the last word ; but she went away in silence, and Joseph 
 filled himself the half of another measure. 
 
 192
 
 At the Bog's Edge 
 
 " Good ale never harmed a man yet," said he to his^ 
 frothing mug, " and Lord knows there's enough to come 
 to need what strength a man can buy or borrow. Heigho ! 
 But master's lit a fire we shan't see quenched this side of 
 next year's Christmas." 
 
 He finished the ale, then went to the edge of Lonesome 
 Pool, where Nick o' Trawdon looked out across the water 
 in search of the coming Waynes. 
 
 " Dost see aught, Nick ? " he asked, shading Jhis eyes 
 likewise and looking far across the sunlit waste. 
 
 " Ay, moving specks two, three, five, and more behind 
 they're coming due south from Wildwater way." 
 
 " Then thy eyes are quicker than my own, lad." 
 
 " Bide a while, bide a while now, d'ye see 'em yonder 
 where they show against the bracken-patch ? " 
 
 And now Joseph, too, could see the moving specks, and 
 Nick o' Trawdon, with his sharper eyes, could count their 
 number a round score in all. And Joseph laughed, that 
 grim, quiet laugh of his. 
 
 " They're two miles away," said he, " for I know just 
 where that strip of bracken lies. Well, now, watch ye, 
 Nick o' Trawdon ; they'll find sentries waiting for them 
 before they've covered a mile more of ground." 
 
 " What, bogs and such-like ? " 
 
 " Ay, bogs and such-like. And they're fearful good at 
 sentrying, are bogs, for they never sleep, you may have 
 noticed." 
 
 Nick, too, laughed quietly, and they stood watching the 
 horsemen draw near the spot where the perilous ways 
 began ; for they were at a mile's distance now, and the 
 sun was bright on them, and even Joseph could distinguish 
 the figures of the men and of the horses which they rode. 
 
 " There's Shameless Wayne himself rides at the head," 
 said Nick. 
 
 " So much the better. Ah, now bide and watch ! 
 There'll be some bonnie things to see out yonder." 
 
 And while they watched, these two, the Waynes came 
 nearer still to the treacherous lands ; and the younger men 
 
 N 193
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 looked up at the bulk of Black House, where it towered 
 from the summit of its hill. 
 
 " Egad ! " cried one. " This is a Ratcliffe hiding- 
 house, so we've been taught. It seems more like the city 
 set upon a hill that Parson Clare keeps prosing of on 
 Sabbaths." 
 
 Now, Shameless Wayne, not a godly man at any time, 
 had ever set his face against the loose contempt of Scripture 
 of which the younger sort were proud, and this mention 
 of the city set upon a hill drew a black look from him ; for 
 the proven men of this world, when they go to war, may 
 happen to have few prayers at command, but, at the least, 
 they refrain from mocking God. 
 
 " Hark ye, lad," he flashed, " clean lips keep company 
 with courage. Steady, you behind ! D'ye think to push 
 forward as if the marshes were a well-found highroad ? " 
 
 Carefully, this way and that, he guided his horse along 
 the first steps of the track, for he had learned from Janet, 
 and from traditions of the long ago, that Black House 
 needed no other shelter than its bogs. But all his care was 
 useless, for in a moment his beast was floundering. Wayne 
 pulled him back, not much too soon, and again made search 
 for firmer ground, and again was hard put to it to win 
 safety. The others, thinking they could find a road 
 where Wayne himself had failed, sought each a pathway 
 for himself and met with a like fate. And last of all 
 Wayne bade them all ride up and down the margin of the 
 bog-land till they found an inlet. Mile after mile they 
 skirted this drear land, always with Black House looking 
 down upon them as if in mockery ; and some hugged the 
 bog-land to the right, and some sought the edges of the 
 marsh on the left hand ; but none found out a way. For 
 Black House, looking them so openly in the face across the 
 marshes, was girdled, north and south, east and west, 
 by such natural defences as never a castle in the land 
 possessed. Only the round hill on which it stood, just big 
 enough to pasture its sheep and cattle, and to rear its crops, 
 was free of bogs and marshes, and Joseph, when at rare 
 
 194
 
 At the Bog's Edge 
 
 moments he lapsed into poetry, was wont to say that 
 " God's sort of armour was the best, when all was 
 said." 
 
 There was something uncanny in the stillness of the 
 scene, and Joseph, no less than Nick o' Trawdon, grew 
 weary of the stillness. After yesterday's hot fight seen 
 by Nick and pictured clearly by old Joseph this watching 
 of an enemy that could not get to them was tame and 
 shadowy, and they were learning already, these two, that 
 it is easier always to run in and strike your foe, whatever 
 the odds may be, than to wait amid the silence of the 
 siege. 
 
 " Oh, by the Heart, let's wake the rogues ! " cried 
 Joseph suddenly, tired of watching the Waynes ride up and 
 down, down and up, in search of a surer foothold for their 
 horses. 
 
 " I'm with you," laughed graceless Nick o' Trawdon. 
 
 Together they raised the old feud shout, " A Ratcliffe ! 
 A Ratcliffe ! " And the Waynes all pulled their horses 
 up, and looked across that obstinate half-mile of bog that 
 would not let them through. 
 
 " Wayne Wayne and the Dog / " they cried in answer. 
 
 " Ay," shouted Joseph, " but your dog goes whining 
 nowadays, with's tail between its legs and the Lean Man 
 after him. Come find us, Waynes all ; there's only two 
 of us to meet the score of you." 
 
 It was odd how this boy's sort of banter raised Joseph's 
 spirits. If it were not fight of sword with sword, it was 
 better, at any rate, than waiting idly for a foe who could 
 not cross to them. For this reason the old man went along 
 the winding track, Nick following him, until two hundred 
 yards or so alone lay between the Waynes and themselves. 
 
 " Where is the red-head with the axe ? " cried one of the 
 younger Waynes, after a wild and useless effort to cross 
 those ten score yards. 
 
 " Abroad," answered Joseph grimly, rejoicing in his lie. 
 " He was so full of yesterday that a body couldn't no how 
 hold him at after breakfast- time this morn. Full o' talk,
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 the master was, of going down to Marsh House again, just 
 to see, like, what he could pick up yonder." 
 
 Shameless Wayne, from the far side of the bog, lifted his 
 big head ; and the sunlight showed each line, of strength 
 and weakness, as if it were cut from solid rock. 
 
 " Are you lying, red-head ? " he asked. 
 
 " Not more than usual," growled Joseph. " If ye doubt 
 me, Wayne o' Marsh, ride down and see." 
 
 Joseph had no wish to let the adversary know that Red 
 Ratcliffe lay indoors with a couple of broken ribs ; the old 
 Ratcliffe guile was his, and the sly suggestion that Rat- 
 cliffe was abroad met with an instant answer. Twice 
 already he and his foster-brother had gone abroad among 
 the Waynes and left their message ; and now Shameless 
 Wayne fell back a little, and looked across the marshes 
 at Joseph's inscrutable, hard face, and thought of Janet. 
 
 " Stay you here, you six," he said abruptly, pointing 
 this and that man out from among his younger kinsmen. 
 " The rest of you ride down with me to Marsh. If Red 
 Ratcliffe is abroad, we're seeking an empty nest up here." 
 
 " That'll do, Nick o' Trawdon," chuckled Joseph softly. 
 " Seems we've only to hint the master is gone abroad on 
 his business and they get skeery-like, these Waynes. I 
 mind the time when Shameless Wayne was playing just 
 that part, and so much as a whisper to a Ratcliffe that 
 he was riding up and about the moor was as good as saying 
 the Dog was at their heels. Time brings matters ship- 
 shape, I've noticed, after ups-and-downs, same as a see- 
 saw with a bairn at either end on't." 
 
 " Ay," murmured Nick o' Trawdon. " We're few enough, 
 Joseph, and I could laugh, if times were not just so solemn- 
 like, to think how one man with broken ribs, and two fools 
 like ye and me, asking your pardon, Joseph, can set 
 panic going all about a country-side." 
 
 " By God, we have set panic going ; leastways, the 
 master has," answered the other, still keeping watchful 
 eyes upon the enemy. " And panic is a fearsome word, lad, 
 when ye speak it of brave folk. Waynes are brave, and 
 
 196
 
 At the Bog's Edge 
 
 Ratcliffes are brave, whatever their differences may be ; 
 and now I'm seeing the Dread go walking all abroad for 
 th' second time. 'Tis sickness, so to say, and sickness 
 ever takes the strong folk hardest." 
 
 Joseph, with all his contempt for other worldly matters, 
 had also a second sight of his own, the sight which conies 
 to old folk when they have held to one straight, strenuous 
 road of life, have fought their battles and have still a little 
 strength to meet the future, have learned the lesson which 
 it is good to learn when nearing the edge of the Beyond, the 
 lesson that time may seem careless of his debts, but in the 
 end pays every farthing that he owes. 
 
 " Nick, lad, I've been fearful," whispered the old man 
 in his comrade's ear, " but now I'm fearful not at all. 
 There's summat come to me, lad, from watching those 
 black-headed Waynes who seek to get at us. I can see 
 the few go scattering the many, and the Ratcliffe feud- 
 spark blazing up and down the moor again, and the master 
 coming safely home from many dangers." 
 
 " Be damned if I can," answered Nick o' Trawdon, with 
 the careless laugh which is at all times like food and 
 drink to troubled men. " Seems to me, Joseph, we're 
 just nigh-to, or thereby, to being killed like two pullets in 
 a hen roost." 
 
 " We'll all die one day," snarled the other, his Ratcliffe 
 lips going bare, like a wolf's, about his teeth. " I'm not 
 talking o' dying just yet, Nick o' Trawdon, for we've set 
 the panic blazing like a fire about the Waynes ; and the 
 Dread, God knows, is a better friend than sword, or five- 
 foot axe, or all these tricksy bogs that hem us in." 
 
 " I'll take your word for it, Joseph but I happen, like, 
 to love a lass out Colne way, and I've rather a fancy for 
 living on to wed her." 
 
 " Oh, 'tis that way wi' ye ? Well, it 'ull do ye no great 
 harm, I reckon, to have a lass to fight for. Master, for his 
 part, is full of some maid or other, and as I said to Bath- 
 sheba only this morn, when she was grumbling at his talk 
 o' Parson's lass, ' Bathsheba,' says I by th' Heart, look 
 
 197
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 yonder! " he broke off. "There's more Waynes coming 
 up to take us, Nick." 
 
 Five Waynes, indeed, and after them three others, and 
 three again behind, were riding swiftly over the broken 
 lands ; news had gone round that the siege of Black House 
 had begun, and from the four quarters of the moor the 
 Waynes were riding out. 
 
 To Shameless Wayne, who had been waiting, after his 
 last commands, to view the land again and see how best 
 to order the attack of those left behind to Shameless 
 Wayne the coming of these eleven kinsmen was only a 
 further menace, for, if Red Ratcliffe were indeed abroad, 
 the house at Marsh down yonder, and Janet, and Little 
 Bairn, whose comfort was dear to him even in his darkest 
 and busiest hours, were in such peril as he dared not think 
 of. They were alone, these women, and Marsh House 
 was alone, and yesterday a Wayne gauntlet had been 
 nailed up above the doorway. Janet and he last night 
 had come together in that new love and trust which is ever 
 and ever the stronger after troubles past ; and now he was 
 bearing the brunt of the new happiness, for in the cold, 
 rough moors it comes more easily to men to meet evil times 
 than good. 
 
 " Ride back with us," he said to the new-comers. " The 
 six we're leaving here are enough too many, I doubt, 
 seeing that Red Ratcliffe is this side, not the other, of the 
 marshes." 
 
 " Why leave us here, then ? " said a hasty lad. " 'Tis 
 no man's sport, uncle, this of riding up and down the 
 marshes' edge." 
 
 It was significant of loosened discipline that any voice 
 should be raised against the head of all the Wayne houses ; 
 it was significant of the coming days that Shameless Wayne 
 turned in his saddle, and looked the lad over from crown 
 to heel, and answered him in a voice that was quie in its 
 depth and passion. 
 
 " Youngster, we've done with the days of asking, ' Why, 
 why ? ' When I command, I command, and there's an 
 
 198
 
 At the Bog's Edge 
 
 end. Listen ! The feud got up and blazed like a gorse- 
 fire twenty years ago ; and our striplings did not ask, 
 ' What next ? What are we to do ? ' They did the thing 
 that lay ready to their hand, wasting no time with words, 
 and God showed them in good time where work was waiting 
 for them." 
 
 And not the youngsters only, but the hard elders who 
 heard Wayne's words and saw the look on his dark face, 
 were abashed, and ready to obey, and mindful that they 
 had not spent the past years very well. Shameless Wayne 
 had done many things amiss he had disguised no tittle 
 of his record, good or ill, and these elder folk could judge 
 him fairly and yet in every hour of need he had shaken 
 his wide shoulders free of follies ; ay, when the after- 
 sickness of these follies lay upon him, and heart and soul 
 were sick in him, he had, not once or twice, gone out to 
 meet his destiny in the open, had faced danger when its 
 front showed big and sullen as the winter hills, had, last 
 of all, retrieved the whole Wayne fortunes. For that 
 reason he claimed obedience to-day, though disaster had 
 come like a thunder-bolt from a June sky upon his folk ; 
 for that reason they would follow him to the end, these 
 kinsmen who were now half hardy and half spoiled by 
 luxury. Feud and long battles rear such men as Shameless 
 Wayne, and when they come among us, they are apt 
 to find lesser folk forget their follies, remembering only 
 that a man is judged by times of need, not by the dawdling 
 hours of his prosperity. 
 
 On the sudden, there in the sunlight, with the wild moor 
 and the bogs about them, and Joseph watching silently 
 with Nick o' Trawdon across the marshes, Shameless Wayne 
 laughed a laugh sharp and quick as the call of a grouse 
 when he seeks his mate in early spring. 
 
 " Look ye, the six I'm leaving here," he cried, " you're 
 youngsters, all of you I chose you for that reason and 
 you've to find your work. When the fox leaves his covert, 
 'tis something, after all, to burn it down before he comes 
 to it again." 
 
 199
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 It was Maurice Wayne whom yesterday Red Rat- 
 cliffe had thrown into a corner of the House of Wildwater 
 who answered. 
 
 " Until we find a way across the bogs, and burn Black 
 House," he said, " we six will not return." 
 
 And now the witchery of fight was gripping all of them ; 
 and now the wind sang in the withering heather-bells, shrill 
 as the battle which was coming, like its own self, from the 
 belly of a sunlit sky ; and now these men looked at each 
 other, like so many school-lads spoiling for a fight. 
 
 " By God, the feud is up ! " cried one whose grey head 
 should have warranted a quieter voice. " We're living 
 again, we Waynes, after twenty years of death." 
 
 A great cry went up ; and Joseph, listening to it, felt 
 a stirring of the heart, and nudged his comrade, and mur- 
 mured, " Leastways, Nick, howe'er the matter ends, 
 we are fighting men, not rattens." 
 
 "Ay, begow," answered Nick, with one of his comical, 
 dry smiles ; " but ye're too old, Joseph, to love a lass 
 overmuch, and what of my maid waiting for me at Colne ? " 
 
 " Tuts, she'll bide, and love ye better afterwards." 
 
 " Ay, that's varry weel, but I'm not just dealing wi' 
 corpses nowadays and I heard Wayne's voice just now, 
 and the temper on't and I rather fancy, Joseph, we haven't 
 long to live. 'Tis harder on me than ye, when all's said, 
 for I needn't see my grave so close as ye do," he added, 
 still with the same gay humour, " if I hadn't followed Red 
 Ratcliffe yestereen, and all for foolishness." 
 
 " Let be," growled Joseph. " There's many a folly turns 
 out wisdom. Let be, and remember ye came in our hour's 
 need, and look to see yon silly wench of Colne when you're 
 proved worth a lass's having." 
 
 " There's summat in that," assented the other, half 
 blithely, and part in earnest. " Ay, there's summat i' 
 that, Joseph. Look ye, they're riding down the moor, 
 all but six of them. 'Twas a rare stroke o' thine to hint 
 that Red Ratcliffe was abroad." 
 
 " I'm wearying for a harder sort o' stroke, Nick. Come 
 
 200
 
 At the Bog's Edge 
 
 now, six to two looks likelier than it did awhile since. 
 We'll may be see some man's work soon." 
 
 The old man ran his fingers softly along his sword's edge, 
 and hummed a song to himself, all harshly out of tune ; but 
 Shameless Wayne rode, with his friends behind him, over 
 and across the moor, leaving only the half-dozen striplings 
 to watch Lonesome Marsh. 
 
 Joseph, surely, had spoken a true word just now when 
 he said that time measured with just scales ; for Shameless 
 Wayne, no coward, and the Waynes with him, brave folk 
 all, were ill at ease as they recrossed the wide stretch of 
 moor that lay between themselves and Marshcotes. They 
 looked from the right hand to the left, and they rode wide 
 of the thicker bracken-clumps, lest these should hide Red 
 Ratcliffe and his axe ; they moved, in brief, like men who 
 meant to reach their goal, but like men who feared also an 
 enemy scarcely human. 
 
 Just so had Shameless Wayne once stricken fear into the 
 Ratcliffes ; had ridden out of the mid-day or the moonlit 
 moor ; had left his dead behind him and vanished into 
 emptiness again. Just so had each new tale of his prowess 
 added fresh terror to his next appearance. Just so had the 
 Ratcliffes looked over shoulder, right and left, whenever 
 they moved abroad. 
 
 " Times change," said Wayne grimly, catching one of 
 these side-glances of his kinsmen. " The red fox runs 
 behind the hounds nowadays, my masters." 
 
 The others answered nothing only rode down the moor, 
 a silent company, with faces dark as if death had cast his 
 shadow on them. 
 
 Behind them, where six were left to conquer two at the 
 bog's edge, the scene was in strange contrast to yesterday's 
 fight upon the churchyard steps. At Marshcotes there 
 had been feud-cries ringing up amid the jar of sword on 
 axe ; there had been the shouts, the groans, the hushed 
 murmurs, of the folk who watched the battle ; there had 
 been the roar of a maddened bull, and all the speed and 
 fury of Red Ratcliffe's leap from the steps into the middle 
 
 201
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 of his enemies. Now, there were six silent lads on the one 
 side, two quiet men upon the other, and between them the 
 deeper silence of the marshes. 
 
 Now and then a grouse went grumbling by, so close that 
 the creak of his wings was plainly to be heard ; once a 
 peewit cried, and wheeled quickly down the wind at sight 
 of strangers ; for the rest, the blue sky and the sun looked 
 down upon the waste of scarcely moving bracken, of bil- 
 berry, of russet heather, which girdled the green land of 
 the marshes. Ratcliffes and Waynes alike were by way of 
 acknowledging no over-lord ; yet God was master here, 
 and, between the firm land where the Waynes stood and 
 the firm land where Black House frowned out across at 
 them, there was a barrier such as man's hand could never 
 rear. Nay, more, there was a lesson being taught to 
 Waynes and Ratcliffes both, here at the bog's edge, could 
 they have hearkened to it ; for the silence was pregnant 
 with a man-child, to be named the Future, and that future 
 at the last end of the feud was to be guided by God's hand 
 after a fashion which all would be compelled to understand. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Waynes sought up and down the edge 
 for some passage to Black House ; and Joseph and his 
 comrade waited silently ; and, last of all, the youngest of 
 the Waynes gave a great shout, and galloped over what he 
 fancied was good ground, and came helter-skelter toward 
 the waiting two until he was no more than a hundred 
 yards from them. 
 
 His comrades watched him enviously Maurice specially, 
 for he had hoped to wipe his shame out once for all to-day. 
 Then, on the sudden, they saw his horse plunge into what 
 looked like a green and lawny island set amid the darker 
 land : they saw the beast strive furiously, yet making not 
 an inch of forward ground, until he sank fetlock high, then 
 to the level of his knees. It was^when the marsh reached 
 his belly that the horse ceased to strive, and lifted a head 
 of human agony, and cried aloud in terror and great anguish, 
 while his rider, who had sprung from saddle, sank quietly 
 in his turn. And no Wayne out of the five was minded now 
 
 202
 
 At the Bog's Edge 
 
 to envy his comrade, for they knew what had befallen him 
 knew that Black House was all the more secure, by reason 
 of the thousand paths which seemed to promise safety for 
 awhile, then ended in this treacherous " Green o' Death." 
 
 Joseph watched the horse sink low and lower yet, and 
 his face was full of a hard joy. 
 
 " Ratcliffe luck is in," he muttered. " and going bonnily." 
 
 " Nay, Joseph, nay ! " said Nick o' Trawdon. " May be 
 I'm softish, may be I never could bide to hear a dumb thing 
 screaming but ye and me must fare out to help yond lad." 
 
 The old man looked once at him. " This comes o' 
 hearkening to maids. Varry weel i' their place, is maids, 
 seeing men-childer must be born, or th' world wouldn't 
 go its round. Only hark ye, Nick o' Trawdon d'ye come 
 to fight Ratcliffe battles, or just to play at kiss-me-quick 
 behind the hedge ? " 
 
 " I'd crack his skull, and laugh to do't," said the other 
 obstinately ; " but to see him sink and sink by God, 
 'tis no man's work, this." 
 
 " Oh, ay, but 'tis ! Matters naught, lad, whether ye 
 kill 'em wi' the edge or wi' the point. So long as a ratten 
 is dead, he's dead, and who needs hold a Crowner's Quest 
 over above his body and his longish tail ? " 
 
 The horse, his head still uplifted to the blue of the 
 September sky, had sunk to the saddle pommel now, and 
 his master was hidden to the waist. 
 
 " I can't abide that sort o' death," repeated Nick ; " hast 
 never a heart i' thy body, Joseph ? Thy face is all in a 
 twisted grin." 
 
 " If it's thy mind to save him, lad, well, go and do it," 
 answered the other drily. 
 
 And Nick o' Trawdon stepped from off the track, and 
 made toward the struggling pair who seemed to be so near 
 him. Three strides he took, and at the fourth his foot went 
 into oozy ground, and at the fifth he sank so far that he had 
 to throw himself flat upon his back and drag his right leg 
 out as best he could. 
 
 " Let be, thou fool," said Joseph. " I tell ye, not fifty 
 
 203
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 of us could get the ladling out even if we would. He's in 
 the worst o' the marsh, save for one spot I know of, and 
 look ye, how he sinks. The beast takes longer, for he's a 
 broad belly stretched across yond green, moist place." 
 
 Nick, seeing the uselessness of effort, returned to Joseph's 
 side ; but his right leg was numbed to the bone by that 
 brief contact with the bog, and he dared not glance at the 
 sinking man, the crying horse, for their anguish seemed to 
 him a monstrous thing, unfit for any eyes to look upon. 
 
 The Waynes, too, turned their eyes away, and a great 
 sickness fell on them. This was not battle such as they 
 had sought ; rather, it was battle such as falls to most 
 of us in this life the weary waiting, the seeing friends go 
 under cold and sullen waters beyond reach of help from us, 
 the silent dread of what's to come and the need to keep 
 our hearts alive and our hands busy through it all. 
 
 Only once did they look at their drowning comrade ; 
 and that was when the ooze was licking at his chin, when he 
 knew that he had little speech left to him in this life. Lad 
 as he was he gathered his courage in remembering that he 
 was a Wayne. 
 
 " Wayne and the Dog / " he cried. " A Wayne a 
 Wayne ! " 
 
 And then he sank to the mouth ; but the horse, to whom 
 death came less quickly and less mercifully, still raised 
 piteous cries. Joseph alone of them all was no way 
 daunted ; for he saw one foe the less, and, because he was 
 old, and had seen many ways of feud, pity was a thing 
 abhorred by him, a creeping sickness that weakened a 
 man's hold on his sword. 
 
 And by-and-by the horse ceased his cries ; and the marsh, 
 disturbed awhile, began to bury its own dead, in its own 
 quiet fashion. First, the bubbles rose, and settled, and 
 rose again ; and then the islands of black peat, marking 
 where horse and rider had disturbed the surface, grew less 
 and less, as the oily green spread quietly over them ; till, 
 last of all, none could have told that the bright, tempting 
 marsh had any secrets to be hidden. 
 
 204
 
 At the Bog's Edge 
 
 " Joseph, Joseph ! " cried Nick o' Trawdon, fear and 
 sorrow in his voice. " By the Heart, let's get to skull- 
 cracking, lest we go thinking overmuch of what has 
 chanced. Let's across, and into them, Joseph ! There's 
 only five against us two." 
 
 " Now, quiet, will ye ? " growled his elder. " D'ye think 
 I'm not fair longing to run in and take our chance ? But 
 the master's lying ill yonder, and there's just yourself and 
 me, lad, to take care of him. We must bide, Nick, lad, we 
 must bide." 
 
 " Lord, how the sickness comes across my eyes ! " said 
 Nick, after a long silence. 
 
 Joseph patted him on the shoulder with rough kindliness. 
 " I know, lad, I know," he said. " I used to be taken that 
 way myseln, when I was younger. Ye'll grow to think 
 naught on't, when ye've seen a few more die. Tuts! 
 What's dying ? Easier nor living, the good God knows 
 easier by th' half nor living, Nick o' Trawdon." 
 
 And so the sun drew westward, and more westward still, 
 ruddying the bracken, lighting the green of the marshes, 
 till it settled into sleep behind the farther hills. The moon 
 who had striven hours ago to rival her goodman's power, 
 began to throw a gentle light across the moor ; and then her 
 power increased, though still the red of sunset lingered in 
 the west ; and then, save for a star-point here and there, 
 she was the one lantern of the heath, lighting the knolls and 
 dingles of the moor so plainly that wayfarers might cross 
 as easily as if 'twere noonday. 
 
 And still the Waynes waited on this side of the marsh. 
 Had their comrade died less evilly, there might have been 
 a grumble heard ; but, as it was, no answer came, save a 
 " We're with you," when Maurice Wayne said once again, 
 at the edge of dusk, that they five must not return till they 
 had won their right. Shameless Wayne, no less than 
 Joseph, had the true instinct of a leader, and he was wise 
 in leaving boys, not men, to lay siege to the marshes round 
 about Black House wisest of all in giving Maurice, last 
 night, a tacit claim to leadership. It was Maurice who 
 
 205
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 took the watch, bidding his comrades sleep until Red 
 Ratcliffe came, or till he wakened them ; it was Maurice 
 who paced up and down the marshes' edge, long after the 
 others had stretched themselves amid the warm and 
 fragrant bracken ; it was Maurice who thought a little of 
 the Parson's Lass, but more of the shame gone by and of 
 the honour soon to come. 
 
 God knows what dreams he had, stifling his yawns 
 as he watched on the edge of this drear land watched with 
 the ghosts for company, while he hoped and feared that 
 Red Ratcliffe would swoop down at any moment with foster- 
 brother glinting in the moonlight. May be he dreamed of 
 honour won again and, indeed, he was soon to win it 
 and may be he thought, as all of us have thought, that 
 honour comes in state, with beat of drums and plaudits 
 of the simpler folk, instead of coming humbly, like a wistful 
 maid who fears all eyes except her lover's. May be for 
 moonlight on the silent moors shows strange mirrors to a 
 man he fancied he would meet Red Ratcliffe here to- 
 night, and face him, and beat down that five-foot length 
 of axe, and afterwards ride out to Marshcotes to wed the 
 Parson's Lass. 
 
 Little the moon cared, as she lit the bogs and the marshes 
 and the higher grounds as she showed Joseph's burly 
 figure, with Nick o' Trawdon's slighter bulk beside him, 
 both watching and both waiting as she showed the sleeping 
 four among the bracken, and Maurice moving restlessly 
 along the margin's edge. The moon had seen too much of 
 human to-and-froings, and she longed to see the peace of 
 nature's desolation once again about the moors she loved. 
 
 " Oh, be damned ! " growled Joseph, from across the 
 marshes. " We must get our sleep, Nick, one time or 
 another, and these bogs are safer blankets wet though 
 they be than most folk sleep beneath. We'll get to 
 Black House, lad, and fill a measure or so, and wake 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " Why not run in and kill 'em ? " said Nick o' Trawdon 
 smoothly. 
 
 206
 
 At the Bog's Edge 
 
 " Because that youngster watching on the hither bank 
 would rouse his folk before we could win to them ; because 
 I'm not so handy with a sword as I used to be, and you've 
 scarce had a lesson yet ; I tell ye again, Nick, lad we must 
 leave all risk-taking to the master. He's got the Luck 
 o' Nine Necks, while thou and I have only one apiece to 
 lose." 
 
 Maurice saw them turn away and move toward Black 
 House, and wondered if there were some Ratcliffe guile 
 at work ; then he fell to watching the path they took, 
 hoping he might remember it. The hope was vain, how- 
 ever; could he have found the track for the first fifty 
 yards, he saw, by the windings and the sudden turns which 
 Joseph made, that no stranger could hope to cross unless 
 he had a guide immediately in front of him. 
 
 " Well, the Red Rat is this side the bog," he muttered, 
 as he took up again his ceaseless pacing to and fro along the 
 margin. " God, if only he would come, and let me have 
 one thrust at him ! " 
 
 No answer came from out the beautiful, quiet moonlight 
 of the moor. Now and then a horse neighed from the 
 dreary line of thorn- trees which stood like bent old men 
 on a neighbouring hillock of dry ground the thorns 
 which had served the Waynes for tethering posts. For the 
 rest, the feud slept tranquilly, gathering strength to meet 
 the coming days. 
 
 207
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 PARSON'S LASS 
 
 " AUDREY, I've to cross the moor," said Parson Clare, 
 coming into the room where his daughter sat beside Black 
 Wayne, her fingers moving silently about some bit of 
 embroidery. It was eight of the same evening on which 
 Maurice Wayne strode up and down the edge of No Man's 
 Land, waiting for an enemy who did not come. 
 
 " Ah, not to-night, father ! " 
 
 She had looked up quickly at him, had seen the worn, 
 tired face, the hair grown white and scanty through 
 patient following of his duty. 
 
 "Child, there's a dying man out between here and 
 Wildwater. He has asked for me. That is all." 
 
 It was strange to see how firm the Parson was when 
 he had work to do. Perhaps, judging from the zest with 
 which he had yesterday listened to Red Ratcliffe's tales, 
 from his eagerness to watch the after-fight, he had had 
 leanings, earlier in life, toward the battles of this world ; 
 but that was long gone by, and his work now lay amid 
 the warfare of human souls that strove against the God 
 who made them. 
 
 " But, father " 
 
 " Peace ! " he said peremptorily. " There might have 
 been snow upon the moors, and yet I should have gone. 
 'Tis child's play now, with the heath dry as June and the 
 moon at full. How is the sick man, Audrey ? " he broke 
 off, with a glance of distaste at the couch on which Black 
 Wayne was sleeping heavily. 
 
 " All but well, I think," answered the girl, not adding 
 that a few hours ago he had been well enough to make 
 
 208
 
 Parson's Lass 
 
 wild love to her. " All but well, father, judging by the 
 quietness of his sleep." 
 
 " Lack-a-day," murmured Parson Clare, taking a pinch 
 of snuff before he set out on his mission. " Life gets no 
 simpler, child, as we get older. We are bringing this 
 rasca> back to health, because pity lets us do no other way 
 and yet and yet " 
 
 The Parson took another pinch, shut his snuff-box 
 with a snap, and went out into the passage. 
 
 " Life gets more tangled every day," sighed Audrey, 
 sorrowing that a man so old must have so much to fear, 
 so many labours to undergo. " If only Red Ratcliffe 
 would come back and rid us of these Waynes ! " 
 
 It was no easy task for the girl, this of sitting beside a 
 rogue whose rude health, once returned, would be a menace 
 and an outrage to her. Yet she could do no less 
 than tend him ; nay, when the sick man's folk had come 
 to bear him down to Marsh after the great fight, she had 
 herself refused to let him go, thinking it would put his 
 life in jeopardy. 
 
 Indeed, this night of moonlit calm seeemd to be full of 
 unrest for all upon the moorside. Down yonder at Marsh 
 House the Waynes sat looking grimly at each other, 
 their unburied dead still lying with the bier-candles throw- 
 ing ghostly lights and shadows on their upturned faces 
 sat looking at each other, and asking where Red Rat- 
 cliffe was. At the bog's edge Maurice Wayne paced up and 
 down, repenting of his past, and seeking ways and means 
 to wipe its misdeeds out. Up here at the Parsonage sat 
 Audrey Clare, feeding the wonder of her new-found love, 
 fearing the defenceless days to come, when Black Wayne 
 and his like should find leisure to maltreat her. 
 
 " Ah, God, and I was made for him ! " came the sudden 
 cry, at the end of all her thoughts. And the pity of life 
 struck sharply at her, so that she wished the tears would 
 come. 
 
 Black Wayne stirred on his couch, half-raised himself, 
 and asked for wine. She brought it to him, and he drank 
 o 209
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 it greedily, and asked for more. Then there fell a silence, 
 broken by the man. His eyes were on the girl ; and she, 
 meeting the glance, held down her head in misery and 
 shame. 
 
 " I'm strong again," he said. " Twas only a passing 
 blow, Audrey, and I'm strong again. Did I talk of wife 
 and bairns awhile since ? Well, they mean naught for 
 there's something in your face that lights the devil in a 
 man." 
 
 " You are our guest, and I have tended you," she 
 answered, lifting her head with a weary sort of pride. 
 
 " I am your guest, and you have tended me," he echoed. 
 "True, and Waynes are gently bred, they say. May be 
 the blow has sent my wits astray, Audrey ; may be I was 
 never gentle, like yon Shameless Wayne whose courtesy 
 has wrecked the Wayne hopes more than once." 
 
 " You are pleased to talk, sir, but you would be wiser 
 to keep silence and to rest. You are not recovered yet." 
 
 " I'm not often pleased to talk," he said, sitting up- 
 right and clearing the sickness from his eyes. There was 
 a certain rude devilry about the man, a carelessness of 
 pain, a headlong disregard of all that threatened him, 
 which had earned him many a man's love and many a 
 woman's. " I'm rarely pleased to talk, Mistress Audrey. 
 Life's too brief, and there's too much sap in it, to let a 
 plain man waste time in words. See you ! I'm your 
 guest, and you have tended me ; and I care not a snap of 
 the finger for't, seeing I cannot make my record blacker 
 than it stands ; and to-night I mean to take you with me." 
 
 Audrey Clare stood back, her hands behind her, her 
 eyes bright, and clear, and full of that eagerness which 
 comes when folk stand upon the edge of battle. Red 
 Ratcliffe had not seen so dire a fight before him yesterday ; 
 for he had only life to lose a thing we must all lose soon 
 or late but she had something which every woman must 
 carry safely to her grave, or lie thereunder without ease 
 until all graves gape wide for Judgment Day. 
 There was a maid-servant or two somewhere about 
 
 210
 
 Parson's Lass 
 
 the Parsonage. There was the man-of-all-work who looked 
 after her pony and her father's glebe-land. It was useless, 
 though, to make an outcry ; for this man, so weak awhile 
 since, was almost whole again, helped by his great strength 
 and by his passion, and it was plain that not gratitude 
 nor any pity could move him from his purpose. Of what 
 use were maid-servants and one unhandy groom against 
 such as Black Wayne ? Of what use was her honour, 
 guarded jealously, yet hidden in . casket so frail that 
 any man might steal it ? 
 
 " Are you black to the heart of you ? " she asked, 
 with sudden vehemence. 
 
 " They tell me so, and I seem to thrive on the easy re- 
 putation. At least I love you, and I mean to take you, 
 Audrey." 
 
 Through fear and turmoil Audrey kept her courage, 
 remembering Red Ratcliffe. 
 
 " You talked of the warmth o' life," she said, with quiet 
 scorn. " Knowing I love another, and am as cold as 
 frost upon the ling to you say, would you care for that ? 
 Would you care each day to know that I thought you less 
 than the dogs ? For the dogs have honour, after all 
 they are faithful to the hand that feeds them." 
 
 " Ay, for I've lived, and seen frost turn to April sunshine. 
 D'ye think your red fool of a lover knows how to thaw a 
 frost ? He's a boy, Audrey just a boy and he'd weary 
 you within the month." 
 
 Audrey went to the window, and looked out upon the 
 bleak and moonlit graveyard. Sexton Witherlee was 
 there, had she but known it, seeing the dead return, and 
 living in the past he loved ; Little Bairn was there, seated 
 beside the Sexton on the grey, mossy tomb and talking of 
 the primroses she gathered with old Wayne of Marsh these 
 twenty years gone by, when she, a little more and a little 
 less of a child than now, was learning the lesson of all 
 brides ; and they were chattering, these two, in their own 
 queer way, with none to overhear them. 
 
 Audrey looked out, seeing neither the Sexton nor the 
 
 21 I
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Bairn. She saw the moonlight only, and the star that 
 winked and trembled over Cranshaw Rise, and the grey 
 rows of headstones lying, head to foot, from end to end 
 of the packed graveyard. She was seeking for a pathway 
 of escape, just as Maurice Wayne, yonder by the bogs, 
 was seeking for a way of entry to Black House. 
 
 Black Wayne smiled as he waited ; he was used to find 
 women fall like ripened apples into his hand, and he 
 misunderstood the silence of the girl. 
 
 " They say the King looked on you, Audrey," he said, 
 with a sneer. " Well, there's no King here in Marshcotes, 
 save the Wayne who can prove himself the best of a bad 
 breed. Kings come and go, girl, but a man's love is a 
 thing to reckon with." 
 
 "So is an adder on the moor," she answered, turning 
 sharply. 
 
 Wayne only laughed. It pleased him to see the shame 
 come red into her cheeks, for he knew as the lowest 
 hind upon the moorside knew that this Parson's Lass was 
 pure as a summer's dawn upon the hills. 
 
 " You're courteous, Audrey," he murmured. " Fool 
 Wayne of Marsh must have been giving you a lesson. 
 It makes no difference. You're mine, and you'll learn to 
 love me before another moon comes shining through the 
 casement yonder." 
 
 Audrey made no answer, but looked out again upon the 
 graveyard. She had no sword-skill, and little strength, 
 as matched against Black Wayne ; but she had a love for 
 Red Ratcliffe a love bigger than the hills, though builded 
 only yesterday. 
 
 " You love me ? " she said, turning suddenly. 
 
 " Ay, and will make you happy." 
 
 She showed no trace of doubt, and her eyes lingered 
 on his own. " You swear to make me happy ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " I've never failed with women yet oh, by God, that's 
 not the thing I meant to say Audrey " 
 
 " You swear to make me happy ? " she repeated. 
 
 212
 
 Parson's Lass 
 
 " By the Rood or by the Dog, though I've little faith 
 in the brown brute." 
 
 Round and about the churchyard, as if in answer to the 
 challenge, there stole a running whine a whine that 
 ended in a yell of dread. 
 
 " Hark ye," murmured the Sexton to Little Bairn, as 
 they sat beneath the moonlight. " There's Barguest a- 
 calling and a-crying. Sure, Mistress, there's brave deeds 
 in the making." 
 
 " Naught matters," answered the other, in her cool, 
 sweet voice. " What should matter, Sexton, when the 
 moon's asleep so quietly on the moor ? " 
 
 Black Wayne, disdain the Dog as he would, had heard 
 what the Sexton had heard, and for the moment he was 
 daunted. Live recklessly, crush down the under-realities 
 of life as he might, he could not forget the Wayne tradition 
 could not forget how, two days ago, certain of his kins- 
 men had heard the Dog, and had afterwards ridden out 
 to Colne to prove it a true prophet. 
 
 Audrey had heard nothing, nor seen Wayne's fear ; 
 full of her own scheme still, she turned again to him. 
 
 " I will come with you," she said. " Only give me 
 time a short few moments in which to take some 
 wearing-gear." 
 
 Now Wayne was only half recovered, and the chill of 
 Barguest' s voice was on him still ; so that, too dazed to 
 think of trickery, he let her go. 
 
 " They're all of the same clay," he muttered, filling his 
 tankard afresh and draining it. " These lads came dancing, 
 after her whims, and thought to capture her with poodle's 
 antics. She was needing a master all the while and, gad, 
 she's found one ! " 
 
 He waited patiently, glad to feel the warmth of the wine 
 drive out all recollection of Barguest's running yelp ; but 
 as he waited, there came the sound of horse-hoofs from 
 behind the Parsonage galloping hoofs upon the hard, 
 stony road that led into the moor. Not for a moment 
 did he doubt his folly now ; and he told himself, as he ran 
 
 "3
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 out into the churchyard and through the wicket-gate, that 
 he was more daft than any of the lads whom he had lately 
 laughed at. He was right ; for, braggart as he was, he 
 knew in his heart that such as Audrey Clare did not go 
 welcoming shame as if it were a bridal-gift. 
 
 Audrey, soon as she was free of the house wondering 
 that her simple plot had carried well ran to the stable, 
 where her pony was nodding in the stall after a feed 
 of oats and hay. There was none to help her saddle, nor 
 would she have wasted time had the man-of-all-work been 
 about the stable. She led the little mare out into the moon- 
 light, clapped a bridle on her, leaped to her back from the 
 horsing-steps that stood near by, and turned her head 
 toward the moor. 
 
 A true word she had spoken, after all, when she told 
 Black Wayne that she was going to take woman's gear 
 with her. For she carried the bonniest and most 
 fragrant of all such gear she and the little black pony 
 and yet its woof and weft were spun only from the moon- 
 beam threads of honour. 
 
 " Gallop, lass ! " she cried, as she reached the moor. 
 " Gallop away from Black Wayne, and find my lover for 
 me." 
 
 The pony was sound of heart, for she was of a breed 
 that even Audrey's kindness could not spoil. She seemed 
 to know, the little black beast, that she was carrying 
 treasure minted, not by the King, but by the sweet and 
 cleanly winds of Heaven. Yet the moor was full of pit- 
 falls, and, even this side of Wildwater and of No Man's 
 Land, there were slippery places where horse or man might 
 sink, and on the drier lands there lay rabbit-burrows 
 waiting for unwary feet. 
 
 Audrey gave no heed to pitfalls. Over the silent moor 
 she galloped, and under the silent moon ; and the pad of 
 her pony's hoofs, soft as they struck upon the peat, seemed 
 like a voice lifted loud amid the wilderness. But ever and 
 ever she made for Wildwater, because her lover had been 
 wont to journey thither, because she sought him now. 
 
 214
 
 Parson's Lass 
 
 Black Wayne, meanwhile, had run to the stable, only to 
 find it empty ; then he had run to the highway, thinking 
 to cross over to the Bull tavern and hire a horse there. 
 As good or ill luck chanced, however, a horseman came 
 riding up at the trot, just as he reached the joining of 
 Parson's Lane and the wide highroad. Wayne caught the 
 stranger's horse by the bridle, so roughly that it reared upon 
 its haunches. 
 
 " Be damned, sir," said the rider a peaceful merchant, 
 thinking of a bargain to be made in Halifax to-morrow. 
 " What fool's play is this ? " 
 
 " Wayne's play," answered the other. " I want a horse, 
 and yours looks good to go." 
 
 With a twist of the arm he threw the horseman out of 
 saddle, then set his foot into the stirrup and mounted. 
 
 " Wayne's thanks for the horse ! " he cried, and gal- 
 loped, and turned the horse with a swerve that all but lost 
 him his seat, into Parson's Lane ; and the merchant picked 
 himself from out the road, and dusted his broadcloth 
 carefully, and thought of sending for the Sheriff. 
 
 Half-way up the lane there was a rutty, ill-found hollow 
 in the track, which at times was scarcely to be crossed, which 
 even now in the dry season allowed no horseman to gallop 
 over it. Wayne checked his beast's gallop instinctively 
 as he neared the hollow, for he had known Parson's Lane 
 and all its trickeries too long to be heedless of them now. 
 And, as he checked, another horse came neighing down 
 the lane to meet him a horse that stopped never at all 
 to consider the dangers of the rutty hollow, but came 
 hot-foot and turned about in the narrow bridle-way soon 
 as he reached Black Wayne, and threw his head back like 
 a dog let out of kennel for a scamper, and reached a smooth 
 tongue up to lick Wayne's face. 
 
 " Why, lass ! " cried Wayne. " Where hast been 
 through these damned hours of sickness since Ratcliffe 
 dizzied me upon the churchyard steps ? " 
 
 The horse Wayne rode, wearied out after a long journey 
 from Lancashire to-day, stood passive, only lifting his 
 
 "5
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 ears and widening his nostrils to ask if this four-footed 
 kinsman were friend or foe. But the other beast was 
 Wayne's own horse, and felt the saddle on him ache to 
 carry the master once again, and licked his hands and 
 face all to tell him that, since the churchyard fight, he 
 had been wandering homeless on the moor, waiting for 
 Black Wayne, and seeking him, and cropping, when his 
 needs demanded, the barren grass-lands of the heath. 
 
 " Thou'rt better than this packman's fat-ribbed brute," 
 laughed Wayne, drawing his horse close in and slipping 
 from one saddle to the other. 
 
 He gave the merchant's nag a kick of the foot, and the 
 horse, tired out, stood still and waited for the enemy to 
 leave him to his peace. And some say that afterwards 
 this merchant's horse went down the lane to Marshcotes 
 village, and that his rightful owner found him there ; but 
 most folk to-day believe that he went up into the moor 
 and there fell in with, and joined, the roving band of 
 horses which, since the far days of the earlier feud, had 
 carried riders into battle, had lost their masters from the 
 saddle, and had fled to live and breed and die upon the 
 heath. 
 
 However that might be, Black Wayne rode forward up 
 the lane and into the moor the moor that was soft and 
 tranquil as a kind maid's eyes to-night. He had no thought 
 of sickness ; he felt the throb of a good horse under him, 
 and he followed Audrey as men hunt the fox, for sport's 
 sake and for lust of chase. 
 
 And by-and-by he saw her, riding fast ahead of him ; 
 for her pony had stumbled twice, and the second time, 
 forgetting her pursuer, Audrey had stayed to give the 
 little mare her ease, until she heard the thud of hoofs be- 
 hind her ; but, at the sound, she thought of the mare no 
 longer, but of Red Ratcliffe, who yesterday had fought 
 upon the churchyard steps. 
 
 Over and over the desolate, moonlit heath they rode. 
 No broken ground came now to spoil the chase. Forward 
 and forward they galloped, and the little mare seemed to 
 
 216
 
 Parson's Lass 
 
 know that she was carrying a jewel beyond price, for the 
 big horse could not overtake her. 
 
 The moon looked down upon them dispassionately, as 
 she had looked upon the fight of yestereven on the church- 
 yard steps ; it was all one to her whether this girl, riding so 
 furiously and with a heart half broken by anxiety, won or 
 lost her race of honour. 
 
 Over and over the heath they galloped ; and the moon 
 shone blue and tranquil on the land ; and they two had the 
 wilderness to share between them, for well-content or woe. 
 
 As for Black Wayne, he had lost all his sickness now ; 
 nay, he was glad the maid had fooled him, for the speed 
 of the chase was in his blood, and he had no doubt of the 
 finish, and this seemed the blithest road of wooing he had 
 ever ridden. 
 
 Swing, and skelter, and gallop, over the rises they went, 
 and down the steep brae-sides, and pad-foot over the bare 
 peat-lands. The little mare was sobbing now, and Wayne's 
 bigger horse was fetching deep, raking breaths ; but still 
 they kept their stride, and still the moor wind whistled by 
 them, singing the perilous fight of woman's honour. 
 
 And now one gained, and now the other ; and neither 
 guessed that a stranger kept pace with one and the other 
 a great, rough-coated hound, filmy as a moon shadow, with 
 filmy breath running in a wide stream from out his nostrils. 
 And, whether Audrey gained, or whether the hulking 
 beast that carried Black Wayne drew nearer to the fugitive, 
 the ghostly hound went forward, always forward, licking 
 the heels of Wayne's horse. 
 
 Near to Wildwater and her heart aching for her lad to 
 come Audrey's mare galloped hard into a spur of rising 
 ground, and stumbled, and fell prone, unseating her. But 
 Wayne galloped on, and sprang from saddle, and laughed 
 like a boy who finds his play at last. 
 
 The filmy hound ran up and put his snout into Wayne's 
 hand, and whined as if every Rachel on the moor were 
 mourning for her children. And Wayne looked down, 
 feeling a touch as cold as the bog itself, and saw the brown 
 
 217
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 rough brute ; but he only laughed again, for his mood was 
 hot, and proof against all terror. 
 
 " A good race, lass ! " he cried. " And now you're 
 mine. Did I not swear to make you happy ? " 
 
 A great and piteous cry escaped her, as Audrey faced 
 him under the blue, wide moonlight of the wilderness. 
 Her hour was come, it seemed, and Red Ratcliffe had been 
 deaf to her call across the waste that he should ride and 
 succour her ; and now she called to the tender mother of 
 all women in their time of need. 
 
 " Mary Mother, look from the sky and see my plight ! " 
 she cried, in a voice that awed Black Wayne himself for a 
 moment. 
 
 They stood there, he and she, and the moonlight showed 
 their strained and eager faces ; and suddenly Wayne 
 laughed. 
 
 " You're mine," he said. 
 
 218
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 HOW THE WAYNES CROSSED THE BOGS 
 
 IT might be a half-hour, or more, after Joseph and Nick 
 o' Trawdon had left the bogs to guard Black House, that 
 a little lad came over the moor, skirting the edge of the bog 
 from the direction of a farm named Intakes which lay 
 neighbour to Black House at three-miles distance. Secure 
 and self-contained as Joseph and his master were, with 
 their bit of land and their farm stock to supply all needs, 
 they were not altogether independent of their neighbours. 
 Beasts had to be bought and sold, and interchange of 
 help had to be given now and then say, when the hay 
 crop ripened or the oats were yellowing for harvest and 
 so it chanced that Farmer Hird of Intakes had grown 
 friendly with Joseph, after the fashion of men who till the 
 soil together ; and Hird's lad, through running often to 
 and fro with messages between the two farms, had learned 
 the way across the marshes, and could follow it by night 
 or day. Farmer Hird was abed with a sharp attack of 
 rheumatism. Neither he nor his wife had left the farm 
 during the last few days, and no news of the re-awakened 
 feud had come to them ; and to-night he had sent his boy 
 to ask Joseph if he would drive a beast to Colne for him 
 to-morrow, as he could not follow it himself. 
 
 The lad came whistling down the bog's edge. He had 
 no dread of ghosts, nor of the marshes, and was thinking 
 of the hot cakes and the rabbit pie which Bathsheba 
 motherly in all her instincts was wont to spread for him 
 on such occasions. Maurice Wayne, still seeking some 
 way of getting to Black House, lifted his head, surprised 
 by the boy's whistle, so cheery and so out of keeping with 
 the work which he and his sleeping kinsmen had to do. 
 
 219
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " What art doing here, youngster ? " he said, putting 
 himself in the boy's way. 
 
 " Going to Black House," answered the other sturdily 
 enough, although Wayne had startled him. 
 
 " Well, so are we I and my four friends and we lack a 
 guide across the marshes." 
 
 The boy Timothy looked at the horses, pulling at their 
 bridles up yonder where the crooked thorn-trees fringed 
 the sky looked at the four men sleeping in the bracken 
 and felt lonely and afraid, as if he knew that danger was 
 threatening, yet could not guess its nature. 
 
 " What d'ye want there at this time o' neet, master ? " 
 he asked bluntly. 
 
 " What dost ihou want, fool, if it comes to that ? " 
 growled Wayne. 
 
 " I've to take a message from my father." 
 
 " And we've to take a message from my uncle. So 
 lead on, and play no tricks on us." 
 
 Timothy, so brave awhile since, fell a-blubbering 
 suddenly. 
 
 " I'm feared," he sobbed. " Ye look so tall and black 
 and I wullun't lead ye to Black House. Red Ratcliffe 
 would kill me if I did." 
 
 " Tut, Red Ratcliffe is abroad. Look ye, youngster, 
 we shall not hurt you, and we'll not let another hurt you, 
 if only you do our bidding." 
 
 " I'm feared. He'd kill me soon or late. I'm feared, 
 for he's big, is Red Ratcliffe, and father says his temper gets 
 unchancy queer at times." 
 
 Maurice Wayne was young in patience ; here, by rare 
 luck, had come his chance of getting to Black House 
 was he to stand wasting time, wheedling a silly farm boy 
 out of his fears ? He took the youngster by his neck and 
 swung him lightly to and fro toward the marshes. 
 
 " Choose," he snapped. " Safety or the bog, thou 
 clown ? " 
 
 So Timothy, having no real choice at all, consented ; 
 and Maurice whistled his comrades out of their slumber, 
 
 230
 
 How the Waynes crossed the Bogs 
 
 and the little lad struck out along the perilous way, and 
 they five followed. 
 
 Once Maurice felt his heart fail him, as they passed near 
 that silent patch of green which hid his cousin ; but he 
 would not think of it, for he had promised Wayne of Marsh 
 that he would redeem his past. 
 
 On and on they went, the moon making witchery of the 
 land ; and here a black bog hugged the path, and there a 
 green marsh slumbered evilly ; but Timothy knew his road, 
 and well he guided them. 
 
 They came at last to the rising ground which sloped 
 to the front of Black House ; and the farm dog heard them 
 and gave tongue ; and Joseph who slept at all times with 
 a dog's lightness was roused by the furious barking. 
 
 " Get up, Nick o' Trawdon ! " he cried, shaking his 
 comrade where he slept upon the settle. " We're wanted, 
 so it seems." 
 
 Nick roused himself and gave a mighty yawn. " Was 
 dreaming of the lass at Colne," he muttered. 
 
 " Well, 'twill be the last o' such dreams, unless thou'rt 
 minded to bestir thyself." 
 
 Joseph was looking through the window, and down 
 below, climbing the broken ground, he saw five men who 
 carried swords in their hands swords that shone blue, 
 and long, and thin, in the full moonlight. He saw, too, 
 a little lad who stood apart and wept. 
 
 " They've found us, after all," he growled. 
 
 Nick o' Trawdon, wide-awake now, followed Joseph 
 into the hall ; but when the old man handed him his sword, 
 he looked askance at it ; for on the wall, near to the place 
 where Red Ratcliffe's axe was wont to rest o' nights, there 
 hung a weapon laid aside these hundred years a shaft of 
 oak, only a little shorter than the axe's, and at the end of it 
 a ball of iron, covered over with sharp spikes. 
 
 " This for choice, Joseph," he said, gay and careless as 
 his wont was. " Tis nearest like the mell we used for 
 beating heavy ground and farmyard tools come ever 
 easier to my hand than gimcrack swords and what not." 
 
 221
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " As ye will only aim to kill, lad." 
 
 When Joseph opened the hall door his hard old heart 
 going blithely as if summer sang the hay-time in it was 
 about the hour when Audrey Clare ran to the stable of the 
 Parsonage, got to her pony's back, and gave Black Wayne 
 the race for honour. And sure it was that, under all this 
 silence of the moon-lit moors, the feud was crying loud 
 again to heaven : not only would this house of Ratcliffe, 
 if Joseph's sword-arm failed him, or Nick o' Trawdon 
 struck amiss, be burnt with fire not only this, the less 
 calamity, might chance but yonder on the moor Red 
 Ratcliffe's heart-o'-life galloped over and down, and down 
 and over, the raking hillocks rode for something which, 
 once lost, would rob Ratcliffe altogether of that joy which 
 lay behind, and sweetened, all his victories. 
 
 Yet the Master slept, his ribs braced tight by Bath- 
 sheba ; for the weariness of the last fight was on him. 
 And Joseph with his sword, and Nick o' Trawdon, swinging 
 his heavy, ill-looking weapon, stood for a moment in the 
 moonlight, watching the foe come up. 
 
 " Tis speed, and only speed, will do't," whispered 
 Joseph. " They're devils with the sword, and always 
 were." 
 
 " By the Lord, it purrs like a kitten in my hand," laughed 
 Nick, as he gripped his tool afresh. 
 
 With a roar of " Ratcliffe, Ratcliffe ! " they raced down 
 the hill. And Nick o' Trawdon heeded naught that the 
 Wayne who met him had his sword on guard he just 
 swirled his weapon over his head, and brought it down, 
 and whirled man and sword into the moonlit lower ground. 
 Joseph had waited likewise for no pretty game of thrust 
 and parry, but had chosen his man, had set his sword 
 moving to the speed of his downward run, had struck once, 
 beating down all trick of fence and cutting his enemy clean 
 through the collar-bone. 
 
 And now it was three Waynes against two Ratcliffes ; 
 and Maurice Wayne, unhurt as yet, minded himself that 
 he had come to the gates of Black House, but had lost three 
 
 222
 
 How the Waynes crossed the Bogs 
 
 out of six in doing it, and must move warily if he were to 
 fulfil the promise made to Wayne of Marsh. 
 
 And now, out yonder between Wildwater and the Parson- 
 age, Audrey Clare was galloping with her own fortune and 
 her lover's, racing racing on a loose rein under the little 
 pony's charge, under the stark and heedless moonlight. 
 
 And still the Master slept, though his dreams were 
 troubled, and foster-brother sat ever closer in his sleeping 
 hand he would not part with the big axe when Bathsheba 
 entreated him and in the hidden land of sleep he fought 
 strange battles, all made up of Barguest howling down the 
 wind, of sunlight shining on the bracken dust, of maidens 
 going, sweet as God had made them, between the bracken 
 and the bogs. 
 
 Yet Joseph and Nick o' Trawdon still stood upon the 
 higher ground, and fought the Ratcliffe fight alone ; and 
 the Waynes held off, obedient to Maurice's command, and 
 waited for their chance. It was then that Nick, thinking 
 to repeat his first good blow, raised a big shout and rushed 
 down the hill again, calling to Joseph to come on. At the 
 second step he stumbled, at the third fell headlong, and 
 his weapon, slipping from his grasp, struck Maurice Wayne 
 upon the thigh, half deadening the limb for a moment. 
 
 " Fool, fool ! " grumbled Joseph, clambering down, just 
 on the stroke of time, and standing between Nick o' Traw- 
 don and the enemy. " Why couldn't ye have bided ? " 
 
 " 'Tis too late to think of that, Joseph," said the other 
 drily, as he got to his feet and looked about him for another 
 weapon. 
 
 And now the odds were changed again, and the three 
 Waynes raised a laugh as they made forward at one Rat- 
 cliffe. Joseph's arm was stiff already ; and once more it 
 seemed that the Ratcliffe hopes were hanging on a thread 
 as light as gossamer. 
 
 The little lad, meanwhile, who had guided these men to 
 the fight, stood shivering in the rear, daring scarce to 
 breathe, yet no way able to take his eyes from those who 
 fought.
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " Come on, striplings ! " snarled Joseph, with his old 
 wolf's trick of baring his teeth. " The Master takes a 
 dozen such as ye in a bunch, and surely I can do for an 
 odd two or three." 
 
 They were at him now ; and Joseph's skill was greater 
 than theirs, but he could not keep up this thrust and parry 
 as long as they, by reason of his age. And the moon looked 
 down on them, and her light trickled like blue water from 
 their blades : but Timothy, the farm boy, shivered as he 
 heard the purring and the hiss of stricken steel. 
 
 224
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE MASTER RIDES ABROAD 
 
 RED RATCLIFFE still lay sleeping in the room where he had 
 first set eyes upon the feud. The room lay at the rearward 
 of the house, and no sound of the fight without came 
 strong enough to pierce his sleep. And none may say what 
 came to him as he slept whether it were a sick man's 
 vision, made up of weariness and random odds and ends 
 of memory, or whether it were that Audrey, fighting her 
 battle out yonder over the moor, did in sober truth send 
 him a dream-message that carried well. 
 
 And Ratcliffe's dream was this that he saw Audrey 
 galloping, with loosened hair and loosened rein, across the 
 heath that, following hard, there came a man who gripped 
 the saddle of a raking horse. Once or twice he saw the 
 girl's pony stumble, and his sleeping hand went tight 
 about the haft of foster-brother. Then she rode on again, 
 the big horse close behind. And then Red Ratcliffe woke, 
 and he, at least, had no doubt of his vision. Had the ghost- 
 world, all these years at Black House, not taught him 
 terrible things, just as his right hand gripping the big 
 axe now had taught him things as terrible ? Had he 
 not seen the Lean Man come from the under-world to 
 beckon him to combat ? Nay, did he not see a lean, 
 scarred shape take filmy substance now, as he lifted sleepy 
 eyes to the moonlit window-space ? And the ghostly 
 right hand lay withered down the length of the lean body, 
 but the left hand beckoned beckoned with a grey fore- 
 finger showing plain against the blue of the moonlit 
 casement. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe got to his feet, laid foster-brother on the 
 floor while he poured water into the ewer and plunged his 
 P 225
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 head into the crisp, clear cold of it. Then he took up the 
 axe again, and went out. 
 
 Bathsheba was sleeping in the next room, ready to serve 
 the master if his sickness turned to fever, as she half looked 
 for ; and now, as he went through, she sat upright, regard- 
 ing him with wonder and with awe. 
 
 " Nay, now, nay ! " she said. " All the fight ye've had, 
 master, and two ribs " 
 
 " You've tightened them into their place again," said 
 Ratcliffe, in the quiet, deep voice which she had learned to 
 know, " and now my lass waits for me across the moor." 
 
 " Oh, then ye must have your way, I reckon," said 
 Bathsheba, with something of her wonted tartness. " Ask- 
 ing your pardon, though, how come ye to know she waits 
 at this queer time o' neet ? " 
 
 " The Lean Man goes in front of me," was all Ratcliffe's 
 answer ; but the other understood, and she did not seek 
 to stay him further. 
 
 He went out into the moonlight, by the door which 
 opened on the stable-yard ; and the haft of foster-brother 
 lay warm and quiet in his hands. He had learned to saddle 
 quickly, and Bathsheba, listening above-stairs, was as- 
 tonished to hear so soon the clatter of horse-hoofs on the 
 stones. 
 
 Joseph, meanwhile, was fighting against three youngsters, 
 sound of wind, and scarce less skilled in sword-play than 
 himself. Only by keeping constantly to the higher ground 
 moving upward step for step with them could he hold 
 out against the odds ; and well it was for him that Maurice 
 Wayne could not do more than limp in following, by reason 
 of the blow upon the thigh which Nick o' Trawdon's weapon 
 had given him. As it was, the old man felt his breath come 
 wheezily, and his arm twinged sharply with re- awakened 
 rheumatism, and he saw death face to face. 
 
 " A poor end a poor end ! " he thought. " I'd reckoned 
 on a few good fights afore I died but 'tis overed with. 
 Oh, ay, 'tis overed with." 
 
 Nick o' Trawdon, seeing his companion's distress, sought 
 
 226
 
 The Master rides Abroad 
 
 round and about for a weapon, and found none, until he 
 glanced toward the lower ground, and caught the moon- 
 light glinting on the round, barbed head of the tool which 
 had smitten Maurice Wayne so grievously. He crept 
 quietly down, regained his weapon, then climbed again, 
 and clubbed the heavy bulk of iron and oak above his head. 
 " We're not done yet," he muttered gaily. 
 Before he could run in and strike, there came a rattle 
 of hoofs from the direction of Black House ; and the 
 Waynes looked up in sudden wonder, and down upon them, 
 heeding naught, Red Ratcliffe rode to save his lass. Joseph 
 leaped aside, and so did Nick o' Trawdon ; but the Waynes, 
 secure till now in their belief that Red Ratcliffe was abroad, 
 stood staring helplessly at this huge, galloping fellow who 
 rode as if the devil had shod his horse. 
 
 Through the three Waynes the horseman crashed, scatter- 
 ing them to one hand and the other ; and, because his 
 mind was dizzy, and because his sense of Audrey's need 
 was keen, Red Ratcliffe did not stay to ask what men these 
 were through whom he rode. Like shadows of a shadow 
 he saw them, for he was looking only for Audrey Clare, who 
 called to him from out the moor. His good horse found the 
 bog path, and once again it was well for Ratcliffe that the 
 beast knew his way so well ; true to each twisting of the 
 road, as if he were a hound close following on the scent, 
 the horse kept the dangerous way, and gave his master the 
 dry, wide moor beyond, and galloped faster even than 
 Audrey and Black Wayne were galloping to meet him. 
 
 Behind, where the three Waynes lay scattered by the 
 horse, Joseph and Nick o' Trawdon did quickly what 
 needed to be done. Stark the work was, and stark the 
 moonlight shone upon it ; and, when it was over, they 
 carried the bodies to the marshes, one by one, and threw 
 them in with a " one-two-three " and a mighty heave ; 
 and their graves, black for a while, grew quietly green 
 again, as grass will cover the grave-mound of a year ago. 
 " We've been cleaning our mistals out," said Joseph 
 grimly.
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 But Nick o' Trawdon shuddered. " Joseph, I'd liefer 
 have had my strike at yond Wayne while he was up and 
 fighting. The master spoiled all the frolic for me." 
 
 " Now, lad," said the other, " we're here to fight Red 
 Ratcliffe's battles, and I've no fancy for these maidish 
 tricks that come to thee. Would'st see rattens in the hay- 
 mow, and not knock 'em on the head ? Now, come and 
 get into thy bed, Nick, for we'll see naught of the Waynes 
 before to-morrow's morn, if I know aught." 
 
 Nick o' Trawdon looked behind him as he turned to 
 follow Joseph looked at the green, quiet marsh, which 
 hid lives as big with hope until a moment since as his own 
 quick-beating heart. For Nick, like all folk who are gay 
 persistently in face of good or evil hazard, had a kind heart 
 and a pitiful. 
 
 " 'Tis cold under yond green slime," he said. 
 
 " Ay and 'tis cold on the top o' the hill here, when 
 winter comes setting her teeth in a man. Life's cold, 
 Nick, take it how ye will, and it seems to me ye've got to 
 think o' what's to come, same as I have." 
 
 " Why, then, thou'rt right ! " asserted Nick, with an 
 attempt at jauntiness. " We've our work set, sure, afore 
 we've done wi' Shameless Wayne." 
 
 Yet even Joseph, his grim face set toward Black House, 
 turned, as his comrade had done, for one last look upon the 
 bogs. And he saw the little lad, who stood and whimpered 
 in the moonlight ; and he went and lifted him to his shoulder. 
 
 " Come ride a horse," he growled, with droll, pathetic 
 memory of the days before Bathsheba and he had buried 
 their own child those first days of the child's brief life 
 when he had looked forward, with a father's tenderness, to 
 games of pick-a-back. 
 
 " I'm feared," said Timothy. " There's Red Ratcliffe 
 waiting with his big red axe and, besides, mother's biding 
 up for me." 
 
 " Mother must bide awhile," snarled Joseph. " Thou'st 
 let a few Waynes in, laddie, and may well let more, if we 
 leave thee free to roam the moorside." 
 
 228
 
 The Master rides Abroad 
 
 ' Eh, but the beast that mun be driven to Colne to- 
 morrow ? " pleaded the lad, who had learned already that 
 the first needs of a farmer were the needs of his own lands 
 and sheep and cattle. 
 
 " It will bide, laddie but the feud willun't bide. 
 Thou'lt come pick-a-back wi' me, and lie at Black House 
 for a while." 
 
 They moved up the slope, the three of them ; and 
 down below, meanwhile, the six Waynes were keeping to 
 their word, for not one of them would now return to 
 Marsh, unless some riot of the bogs such riots had been 
 known should carry their dead bodies to the valley. At 
 the edge of Black House they would wait perpetually, with 
 the green o' the bog above them ; and it may be Maurice 
 Wayne had found a warmer bed than Nick o' Trawdon 
 fancied, for the lad had taken honour with him into the 
 Far Country. 
 
 But Ratcliffe. warm and alive to his finger-tips, galloped 
 wide across the moor, taking the line past Wildwater 
 and intent on reaching the Parsonage with speed, whether 
 or no his horse dropped dead at the finish. And ever the 
 moon rose higher, and ever the dingles and the rises, the 
 ling and the fern and the peat, grew clearer, clearer, till they 
 lay like a sculptured fairyland, fresh from the hand of God. 
 
 " You're mine," said Black Wayne again, as he and 
 Audrey Clare stood facing each other across that slender 
 bridge of shame which it was death for her to cross. 
 
 Straight to her slim height she stood ; and her eyes 
 were haunted and afraid ; but there was no faltering in 
 her voice. 
 
 " You scorn me but do you guess what scorn you 
 meet ? " she said, and the distinctness, the surety of her 
 loathing, struck like a whip. 
 
 " Do I care ? " he answered. " Oh, damn you, girl, 
 you will lie tame as a cushat in my hands before the winter 
 comes." 
 
 From out the moor, this side of Wildwater, there came 
 the scurrying beat of hoofs ; and Audrey turned and looked, 
 
 229
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 and saw her lad ride over and down toward her, his fine 
 bulk chiselled by the moonlight into the likeness of a giant. 
 
 " Shall I lie tame ? " she cried, with a sob and a sudden 
 laugh. " Go fight with a man, and, if you win, you shall 
 learn the way of a cushat when she's tame within your 
 hand." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe had seen the two of them by now ; and 
 he swerved from the straight line to Marshcotes, and came 
 ridirg down on Wayne from five-score yards 01 so away. 
 And Wayne, seeing the axe in Ratcliffe's hands, knowing 
 himself on foot, and helpless against the horse's bulk and 
 the bulk of foster-brother Wayne dropped into the 
 bracken, and, when the horse was a score yards from him, 
 he leaped to bis feet witn a yell, swaying his arms in the 
 moonlight. The horse shied, then reared, and, onl> by 
 that luck which attends the few who fight against the 
 many, did Red Ratcliffe light upon his feet. 
 
 Wayne had no time to get his sword out, and foster- 
 brother lay among the bracken ; and Audrey Clare looked 
 on, her lips apart, her blood on fire, while these two closed 
 one with the other and fought with their naked hands. 
 
 Nay, but the fight was over-short and over-certain. 
 The strength of two was Red Ratrliffe's at any time, and 
 now he had bitter rage to back his strength. For a while 
 Black Wayne resisted ; for a while they turned and twisted 
 in the bracken, its brittle stems scratching long wounds 
 across their faces and their hands ; and then Ratcliffe 
 fetched a deeper breath, and took a firmer hold, and 
 Wayne sank back among the yellowing fern. They said 
 afterwards Wayne's kinsmen who found him dead upon 
 the moor and took him down for burial that ribs and 
 spine were crushed into the one shapeless mass ; and 
 those who had seen Red Ratcliffe swing his axe could well 
 believe the tale. 
 
 Ratcliffe looked once at his enemy, then crossed to the 
 hillock where Audrey stood with lips apart. 
 
 " Audrey," he said, very quietly and very tenderly, " I 
 came to save you." 
 
 230
 
 The Master rides Abroad 
 
 She gazed and gazed at him, and the moonlight in her 
 beautiful, clear eyes seemed recompense for any hardship. 
 
 " He is dead ? " she asked. 
 
 " Ay, and in hell, I doubt." 
 
 " That is just," she answered, after a long silence. " He 
 aimed to take me into hell with him and then and 
 then, my dear, you came." 
 
 Just as they had come together yesterday after the 
 great fight on the churchyard steps, they came together 
 now ; for, sure and round as Bouldsworth Hill itself, this 
 love of theirs was reared toward the sky, with the free 
 winds blowing keen about it. 
 
 " Audrey," he said, " you are coming to Black House. 
 These Waynes grow noisy nowadays." 
 
 "Yes," she answered, the moonlight still within her 
 eyes, " I will come, for I trust you and I love you." 
 
 And now Red Ratcliffe saw the fairies, for the first time 
 since his eyes opened on the world he saw them, moon- 
 reflected, in the girl's brave eyes. Light-footed things they 
 were, these fairies, all made of gold and gossamer ; but 
 they were kind, and they were real, and they nodded gently 
 at him, bidding him take heart o' luck in the midst of this 
 wild wooing. For the fairies, when a maid moves single- 
 hearted toward her lover, attend on her and seek her 
 company. So the moor folk say, at least ; and Red Rat- 
 cliffe now was proving the old fable true, for with mortal 
 eyes he saw the green folk dance. 
 
 He had had no easy life. Full of labour, full of the 
 ripening feud, his boyhood's days had been ; and now the 
 sullen clouds of battle had gathered, and blood was raining 
 from them throughout the length and breadth of Marsh- 
 cotes Moor ; but here in the moonlight, with Audrey's 
 heart against his own, he tasted joy joy exquisite and 
 pure and fresh, that creamed and bubbled like water from 
 some unsullied hill- top stream. 
 
 " I thought battle was good, and only battle." he said, 
 with a sort of wondering awe. " I lived for it, Audrey 
 until I met you on the moor."
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " And now ? Ah, tell me what now ? " 
 
 " Why, you just you." 
 
 Audrey no longer scorned him for his brief way of 
 saying and of doing. Rather, she knew that love such as 
 this needed but a broken sentence here, a short word there, 
 to interpret and to make it plain. They had the dead 
 about them those slain at Colne, at Marshcotes. and 
 here at Wild water and it was not theirs to throw light 
 shuttlecocks of talk between them, as gallants and their 
 ladies did in the Low Country. 
 
 " Come and lie safe in old Bathsheba's care," said Rat- 
 cliffe by-and-by. " There'll be things to see at Black 
 House I had liefer you could be spared, lass but leave 
 you in this wasp's nest I will not." 
 
 " I come, and I lie safe," she answered, wondering at the 
 care he showed for the least scruple of her modesty. " Take 
 me with you, lad o' mine, and I'll not waver when the battles 
 come." 
 
 They plighted their troth, as troth is rarely plighted 
 in this life ; and they looked long and steadfastly at one 
 another, and saw faith and strength and high endeavour 
 each in the other's face. Then Ratcliffe whistled to his 
 horse ; and the beast came safely to his hand, ashamed 
 of his late fright and asking pardon, and Audrey's pony 
 shaking her rough hide still, in anger that she had stumbled 
 in such foolish fashion, followed in Red Ratcliffe's wake. 
 But Wayne's horse had moved to the place where his master 
 lay lay with crushed body and with grim, shut lips that 
 would never call to his beast again ; and the horse had 
 scented death, and, after his kind, he had fallen into panic, 
 and now was racing home across the moor. And first he 
 sought his master's house ; and all the lights were out, 
 and no hand clutched his bridle, to lead him into stable. 
 And next he told himself for the beasts and the human 
 folk are alike in this, that they trick themselves, when 
 the first grief lies cold upon them, with the belief that 
 their dead are alive and happy somewhere, if only they 
 could find them the black horse told himself that his 
 
 232
 
 The Master rides Abroad 
 
 master must have recovered from his swoon up yonder 
 on the moor and be supping now at Marsh House, as he so 
 often did. 
 
 He came to the House of Marsh, and cried like a lost 
 bairn outside the door. And Shameless Wayne looked at 
 his wife, and at the kinsmen who kept watch with him 
 waiting for Red Ratcliffe's coming and Janet, wearied 
 out with fear, with new love for her husband, answered 
 the questions raised by all these glances and cross -glances. 
 " First the Dog comes howling, and now a horse comes 
 empty in the saddle and cries to us. What do you make 
 of it, friends ? " 
 
 " Disaster," said the youngest of the company. 
 " Nay ! " cried Janet, lifting her fine head, with its 
 tell-tale hair of Ratcliffe colour. " Tis not disaster, but 
 the beginning of what is soon to be. Trouble came evei 
 like a north wind to the Waynes it makes them cold, 
 and afterwards the glow of fighting warms all their blood. 
 Waynes, you have doubted me, but I'm a true wife to your 
 leader." 
 
 They looked at her these men who sat among the 
 wine-flagons, with the dread of Ratcliffe's axe upon them 
 and they ceased to scorn her because her hair was Ratcliffe 
 red. 
 
 " Waynes all," said one of them impulsively, " we are 
 hearing a crying and a wailing all across the moor, and at 
 our gates. Our dead are with us, too, and every wind 
 seems whistling trouble's song. And yet I can think of 
 naught, save this that we have persecuted Wayne's wife 
 of Marsh, and done amiss." 
 
 A little pleasure crept into Wayne's tired face. " Sneers 
 are for time of peace, friends," he said. " And now there 
 is no peace, and you will know, if we come to win our 
 battle, that all the praise of it is owing to my wife, and 
 neither yours nor mine. May each of you get such strength 
 and comfort from your mates as I have done." 
 
 Full of awe the scene was, and full of that simplicity 
 which does not fear to tell its heart's faith to the world. 
 
 233
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 The dead slept between their bier-candles, waiting to- 
 morrow's burial. The living glanced reverently at Wayne 
 and at his wife, and saw how two brave folk could love each 
 other. And their hate of Janet died ; for it is war, not 
 peace, that oft-times heals long-standing quarrels. 
 
 The horse was crying still outside the door, and Wayne 
 bade one of them go open it ; and the beast, soon as he 
 saw the door ajar, pushed his way in with little ceremony 
 and looked about him, and went nosing each of the great 
 company in turn. And the tears came to Janet's eyes, 
 for she understood that love, through life and death and 
 hardship, is the birth-gift, not of us human folk alone, 
 but of the four-footed beasts as well. 
 
 To and fro went the horse, great anguish in his eyes, 
 till last of all he came to where the candles winked and 
 spluttered over the dead. It may be he was wearied out 
 with galloping across the lands of fear ; it may be his wits 
 were riding on an easy rein ; but sure it was that, in some 
 muddled horse's way of reasoning, he thought that one of 
 the dead lying there was his master, never again to be 
 carried over hill and dingle. For he gave one cry a 
 human cry and then his head dropped low, and he went 
 out into the moonlight. And they tell in Marshcotes still 
 of how they found him at the morrow's dawn lying dead 
 beside the roadway, and no mark of hurt on him ; for 
 brave hearts, when they break, are wont to show no 
 outward wounds. 
 
 " 'Tis Black Wayne's horse," said one, watching the 
 moonlight filter through the door. " Has he, too, been 
 the plaything of Ratcliffe's axe ? " 
 
 " We can lose him, and not grieve," said Shameless 
 Wayne. " Such as lie soft and love too many women 
 are no steel to meet Red Ratcliffe with." 
 
 And though Black Wayne had friends there he was 
 ever one to make men and women love him no voice 
 was raised in protest, for they knew the judgment true. 
 
 It might be a moment later time went by these folk, 
 waiting for the wrath to come that Little Bairn, Wayne's 
 
 234
 
 The Master rides Abroad 
 
 stepmother, crossed the blue strip of moonlight which the 
 open door let in. She had tired of sitting by the Sexton's 
 side, and was coming home to bed, to dream, perhaps, 
 that Wayne's father came wooing her afresh, yonder in 
 the Low Country where no feuds stirred and never the 
 voice of Barguest whined about the land. 
 
 She halted on the threshold, the moonlight nestling in 
 her hair and rounding all her baby-prettiness. 
 
 " Good-even, gentles all," she said, with the little lisp 
 that disarmed men's judgment of her. " They say the 
 moor is all in flood-red and impetuous, because so many 
 men have died, and must die yet. Ah, will you never learn 
 my wisdom ? Naught matters, gentles, in this life 
 naught matters, and men have died, and still the world 
 goes on." 
 
 And because they stood very near to death, each one 
 of them, they did not smile at Little Bairn. Rather, they 
 remembered that the fairy-kist are true prophets always, 
 and their silence was deep as the graves which most of 
 them were soon to fill. 
 
 " The moor goes sobbing," said Shameless Wayne ; 
 " but we are men, and this child is afraid. Come hither, 
 Little Bairn, and find your comfort." 
 
 She ran to him and nestled in his arms. " Ah, Ned, 
 how ruddy all the sky is," she murmured. " You'll not 
 let the red floods drown me ? " 
 
 " Not I," said Wayne ; and Janet, his wife, and every 
 kinsman looking on, approved Shameless Wayne for the 
 kindness which spared always time in trouble's hour to 
 soothe the weaker folk unless, indeed, his son claimed 
 pity. But his son was wandering exiled on the moor, and 
 all, save Janet, had forgotten him. 
 
 35
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 HOW AUDREY CAME TO BLACK HOUSE 
 
 THEY had ridden half a mile or more along the track to 
 Black House, Audrey Clare and Ratcliffe ; and the pony 
 kept near to Ratcliffe's horse, as if she knew that the two 
 of them must needs be friendly ; and those who rode kept 
 silence, seeing the beauty of the night before them and 
 finding it in keeping with their mood. Deep in the heart of 
 each lay an exquisite, fine sense of trust, of glamour and of 
 comradeship ; and now and then they turned to look at one 
 another, and rode on again with hearts at ease. 
 
 Just as they reached the spot named Gallows Rigg, 
 where the track wound through a steep and barren place of 
 rocks, a stooping figure turned the corner of the way. 
 It was Parson Clare, returning from his work of speeding 
 a farmer's soul into the after-world ; and he was weary, for 
 his years lay heavily upon him, and he was anxious, bitterly 
 anxious, as to Audrey's fate. Even now, as he turned the 
 corner of the track, he was thinking of her, of the lawless 
 Waynes, of the turmoil and the insults which beset 
 her; and he was making feints and passes with his cane 
 pretending that it was a sword and harking back to 
 the days before he took the oath of peace : and he looked 
 up, to see Audrey herself riding joyously beside Red 
 Ratcliffe. 
 
 At first he thought that weariness had played him some 
 odd trick ; and then his voice came low and stern. 
 
 " Audrey, Audrey, what is this ? " 
 
 Audrey glanced at her lover ; and he answered with that 
 blunt simplicity which from the first had won the heart of 
 Parson Clare. 
 
 " I found your daughter helpless, sir. in the hands of a 
 
 236
 
 How Audrey came to Black House 
 
 Wayne who had driven her out from your own house, 
 and afterwards pursued her. We plighted our troth, and 
 I am carrying her to Black House." 
 
 " Damme, and are you, sir ? " said the Parson, the man 
 out-peeping through his raiment, as always chanced in 
 moments of astonishment. 
 
 " She will lie under my foster-mother's care, and I shall 
 be ready, day or night, to fight her battles. Sir, I have no 
 nice way of using words, and I tell you, there is none to 
 guard her at the Parsonage yonder. By your leave, or 
 without it, I mean to take her with honour to Black House." 
 
 Unrest took hold of Parson Clare. He got his snuff- 
 box out, tapped it and took a pinch, then looked at Audrey, 
 sitting quietly in the saddle looked at Red Ratcliffe, 
 with battle and high purpose graved already on his youthful 
 face. He was an old man, helpless save in the war of evil 
 spirits against good ; this Red Ratcliffe, whose axe swung 
 staunchly at his saddle, was master of the moor to-night, 
 and of his daughter's honour, and he proposed to take the 
 maid with him. Parson Clare, looking at the boy's face, 
 could find no guile there ; and he took another pinch of 
 snuff, distended his nostrils delicately, and put the box 
 back into its place. 
 
 " It is as you say. I cannot guard my daughter. Are 
 you very sure, you two, that to the world's end you would 
 follow each other faithfully ? " 
 
 Red Ratcliffe laughed, and a sound heart beat behind 
 the laugh, " We have no doubts, sir," he answered, and 
 Audrey's silence said the same. 
 
 " I have lived long," said the Parson, in a voice not 
 altogether sad, yet full of pathos. " I have lived long, and 
 have seen the world a little, and I waited for Audrey's 
 mother till my heart grew sick. I've no faith in long 
 betrothals, and you twain may go to Black House as man 
 and wife, if you desire it." 
 
 Audrey glanced aside, a sudden fear in her eyes. Wed- 
 lock was an unknown land as yet, though betrothal, sweet 
 to her already, was no older a land than yesterday. But 
 
 237
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Ratcliffe held his head yet higher to the blue of the moonlit 
 sky. 
 
 " Can you wed us now, here on the open moor ? " he 
 said. '' We ask no better, sir." 
 
 And Parson Clare grew straighter, too ; for he was proud 
 of his cloth, as once he had been proud of his horseman- 
 ship, and of his duelling, down yonder in the Low Country. 
 
 " My office gives me power. You may go from me, if 
 you will, man and wife in the sight of God." Again he 
 looked at Audrey with that wistful, anxious gaze of his. 
 " My dear, have you no doubts ? Remember that God 
 himself will never sunder two folk plighted in this wise 
 and you have little knowledge each of the other." 
 
 " I have knowledge enough, father, and I go gladly with 
 him," said Audrey, forgetting all her fears. Into the un- 
 known land she was journeying, where the ghosts of 
 maidenhood lie round about a new-made wife and cumber 
 her ; yet she looked at her goodman, and she, on whom 
 the King had smiled, was well-content. 
 
 Parson Clare saw, with the eyes of a long and hard 
 experience, that both were happy in their choice ; and he 
 beckoned them to leave their saddles. There in the 
 bracken they knelt, and the Parson put their hands to- 
 gether, and thereafter they got to their feet and looked 
 wonderingly at one another, scarce realising they were man 
 and wife. 
 
 And then it was that Audrey's heart misgave her, for 
 it was time to say farewell to say farewell, and to know 
 that her father must walk lonely over the moor, only to find 
 a lonely house awaiting him. And she came and slipped her 
 hand into the old man's. 
 
 " Oh. but 'tis hard for you, father. Say, have I done 
 right ? " 
 
 " We had no choice, Audrey. Send word to me, just 
 every little while, that you are faring well, and I shall ask 
 no more." 
 
 He kissed her, and gave Red Ratcliffe a God-speed ; 
 and he went home to a desolate parsonage simple and 
 
 238
 
 How Audrey came to Black House 
 
 brave, a man after God's own heart, in this as in all other 
 trials. He went indoors, took down a bunch of keys from 
 the nail on his study wall and crossed to the squat, grey 
 church ; and there he opened the register, and wrote 
 Audrey's name and Red Ratcliffe's, with the date and 
 place of the marriage ; for he was too old to risk one night's 
 delay, and this record that his girl went in honour, not in 
 shame, to Black House, must be plain for all men's eyes 
 to see. 
 
 He crossed the graveyard once again ; and his heart lay 
 very still and cold within him, and he murmured to himself 
 as he went, " Audrey a wife ! Little Audrey ! What 
 would her mother think of this night's work could she but 
 see it ? " 
 
 When he was half across the graveyard Sexton Witherlee 
 came hobbling down from the stone where he had been 
 keeping vigil with the ghosts. 
 
 " Give you good-e'en, Parson," he said, glad always of 
 a gossip. " You're late abroad to-neet." 
 
 " Ay, late," the other answered wearily. 
 
 " Eh, Parson ! Tis a rum make of a world," went on 
 the Sexton, noting the listlessness of Parson Clare. " Here's 
 ye and here's me, and we're both old enough to make a 
 body laugh. Ten year and a day it is, for sure, since first 
 I says to myseln, ' Witherlee,' says I,' which is like to bury 
 t'other first, thee or Parson ? ' And still we're here, and 
 still I'm wondering which 'twill be. Ay, 'tis a rum 'un, this 
 old world, choose how ye take it ; ye're o' th' gentry, and 
 I'm o' the common mud, and yet we're close as brothers 
 for one is bound to bury t'other." 
 
 They fronted each other in the moonlight ; and the wind 
 went whispering among the graves, blowing the scanty 
 grey that covered Parson's head and Sexton's. 
 
 " We die when the" Lord chooses, Witherlee. Get ye to 
 bed, and pray that you come to a good grave in the end ' 
 
 " Come to a good grave ? " muttered Witherlee, watch- 
 ing him go up the path. " Few do, judging by what I see 
 o 1 nights. We play over many pranks i' this world to lig 
 
 239
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 easy in the next. Parson, Parson, if only ye had the Sight, 
 same as I have ! Ye'd know what sort of after-life men 
 get." 
 
 The Sexton hobbled, laughing quietly and eerily to him- 
 self, to the westward gate of the graveyard, then across the 
 roadway up which Black Wayne had lately ridden in 
 pursuit of Audrey and into his cottage. And may be, 
 had he known what Parson Clare was feeling now, he would 
 have credited him with another sort of Sight, and one as 
 real as his own. 
 
 For something came to the Parson as he crossed his 
 threshold : and he stood like a dazed man in the doorway, 
 listening to the message that came to him from out the 
 silence. And he knew that his days were numbered ; but 
 he knew also that, before he laid down the burden of his 
 years, some work as big as Red Ratcliffe's, as big as Shame- 
 less Wayne's, was coming to his hand. 
 
 " I am old for such labour," said the Parson simply ; 
 " but I will do my uttermost." And he stumbled into the 
 parlour, and felt for the tinder-box, and, when he had lit 
 the candles, looked round about the place where Audrey's 
 hand was manifest in every corner. 
 
 " May Ratcliffe guard her well, since I cannot," he said. 
 At Black House, meanwhile, Joseph and Nick o' Trawdon 
 were sitting by the hearth, too wearied-out to sleep ; and 
 Bathsheba was listening, for the second time, to the tale 
 of the night's work was wondering, for the fiftieth time, 
 how the master was faring yonder in the broken lands. 
 And wide-awake in the settle-corner sat Timothy Hird, 
 the lad whom Joseph had carried home upon his shoulder. 
 Timothy was no longer frightened ; he had been made 
 much of by Bathsheba, had found the supper which he 
 had thought of long and earnestly, and now was listening 
 to the talk of feud and battle. And, because the boy's 
 soul is a dim, but faithful, mirror of the man's, young 
 Timothy found warmth and comfort in these tales of blows 
 well driven home. 
 
 " Did father tell ye what he saw, a se'nnight since ? " 
 
 240
 
 How Audrey came to Black House 
 
 said the boy, breaking into the silence that had fallen on 
 his elders. 
 
 " Nay, laddie. Come tell us," said Bathsheba, whose 
 heart was motherly, over-lay it as she would. 
 
 Timothy looked warily at her, as the young of all animals 
 look at their elders ; then he crept to her side, and sat upon 
 the floor, nestling his head against her knee. He felt a 
 hero, too, for he had news to give, and saw that all these 
 older folk were listening. 
 
 " Father went up the moor a week gone by, seeking 
 strayed sheep a wild lot o' ewes he'd bought i' Skipton 
 and he couldn't find 'em, choose where he went. And he 
 got into what he called No Man's Land, and he peeped over 
 the edge of a hillock, trying, like, to spy out the ewes, and 
 he saw a great, big, queerish line o' houses, all builded out 
 o' peats and stones ; and he saw a lot o' red lads moving 
 down and about ; and there was a score on' em, and he 
 could tell, by nose and chin and red o' the hair ay, he 
 could tell, said father that they were Ratcliffes bred and 
 born." 
 
 " They were no way ghosties, lad ? " said Bathsheba. 
 
 " Ghosties ? Nay ! They were washing theirselns at 
 the well-springs ; and father says he never saw a ghostie 
 wash itseln. Don't need to, says he, seeing they never 
 sweat and mucky theirselns." 
 
 On the sudden Joseph smacked his knee. 
 
 " Bathsheba, we're want-wits, ye and me ! " he cried. 
 
 " Speak for thyseln, Joseph. I allus guessed ye were, 
 but " 
 
 " Oh, cease clacking wi' thy tongue, Bathsheba ! Why 
 didn't we think that Wayne spared all the women twenty 
 years agone ? And the Mistress came hither to bear Red 
 Ratcliffe ; and surely other-some went carrying men- 
 children, too, across the moors. And the feud dies never 
 at all, Bathsheba, wi' Ratcliffe men or Ratcliffe women ; 
 and the Master spoke a true word, though I laughed at him, 
 when he said that the Feud Spear would go round." 
 
 " Why, now," said Nick o' Trawdon, with his easy laugh, 
 
 Q 24*
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " I made naught so much o' the fighting to-night, Joseph, 
 but give me a horse under me, and a lighted spear i' my 
 hand, and the morn's morn sees me seeking out these kin 
 o' thine." 
 
 " If the Master comes safely home," said Joseph, " thou 
 shalt go, Nick." 
 
 " The Master does come safely home," put in Bathsheba. 
 " I feel warm to the tips o' my fingers, Joseph, and that 
 means there's no hurt come to him." 
 
 Yet at that moment, the farm-dog, sleeping on the 
 hearth, got to his haunches with a sudden yelp, and ran 
 to the door, and, for the second time to-night, barked 
 furiously. 
 
 " Begow, they're come again ! " muttered Joseph. 
 
 He snatched his weapon, Nick o' Trawdon did the like, 
 and the dog ran out before them into the moonlight soon 
 as the door opened. They heard the sound of horses 
 coming up the hill, and the dog's barking changed to a 
 whimper of delight, and Joseph saw the Master, riding big 
 under the big moon, with a slender lass beside him ; and 
 the lass sat cross-legged on her pony because it had no 
 saddle. 
 
 " We're being wakened up, like," said Joseph. " Here's 
 Master, but devil kens who the wench is riding straddle- 
 wise beside him." 
 
 " 'Tis the Parson's Lass, I fancy," muttered Nick. " My 
 girl at Colne was maid to her, and showed her to me once, 
 and, even by the moon's light, Joseph, there's not two as 
 straight and slim as this i' all the moorside." 
 
 Up and up the slope came Ratcliffe and his wife ; and 
 the farm-dog ran to meet them, barking a welcome at their 
 horses' heels ; and at the door Red Ratcliffe leapt from 
 saddle, and lifted Audrey down. 
 
 " Give you good-even, Joseph," he said, as if he came 
 from hunting or from tillage. " Good-even, Nick o' 
 Trawdon. I've brought a wife to the old house." 
 
 Bathsheba had run to the door ; and she was looking 
 hard at Audrey, while listening to the Master's words. 
 
 242
 
 How Audrey came to Black House 
 
 " Bundle o' rushes ! " said she, surprised into discourtesy. 
 " Men don't wive in half an hour, and never did." 
 
 " Sometimes, Bathsheba," the master laughed. " Pre- 
 pare the Red room, and give my wife your hand, and tell 
 her she's bonnie, in moonlight or in sun." 
 
 Bathsheba drew nearer, and saw how sweetly this maiden- 
 wife stood under the white moon ; and, because she had 
 been new-wedded once herself, and because her heart went 
 always beating after a fashion that the moor folk call 
 " mother-kind," she took Audrey in her arms, and kissed 
 her, and found that jealousy, as between herself and the 
 new wife, was killed for ever. 
 
 " So ye were right, master ? " she said. " Ye rode out 
 after hearing the lassie call to ye, and ye won her here to 
 Black House. Lad, what of your broken ribs to-morn ? " 
 " They've slipped your bandages, Bathsheba, but some- 
 how I pay no heed. Bring supper, for we've travelled 
 long and travelled far, we two." 
 
 That was how Audrey came to Black House : and the 
 tale is handed down to-day how into that place of terror, 
 into the house where Red Ratcliffe's mother had sheltered 
 from the feud-storm, the young bride came, with a great 
 and lasting joy in her blue eyes. So bright she was, so 
 bonnie, so straight and simple in her pride, that the bitter 
 hatreds, cradled here for generations, seemed dwarfed and 
 foolish ; and the hearts of all felt lighter, and braver to 
 meet the coming days. 
 
 And the farm-dog ran from one to the other of them, 
 whining joyously, as if to say he was no ghost, like 
 Barguest, but a living comrade and a friend. 
 
 243
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 RED RATCLIFFE STAYS AT HOME 
 
 A QUIETNESS settled on Black House. No summons came 
 to the master from abroad ; rather, his wife was calling 
 to him every moment, in a score of subtle ways, that he 
 should stay at home. Moreover, he was compelled to give 
 his ribs a chance of healing, for the struggle with Black 
 Wayne had wrenched him terribly. 
 
 They had taken counsel together, he and Joseph and 
 Nick o' Trawdon ; and all had agreed that there might 
 be truth behind what the little lad had told them of the 
 Red Folk living in their moorland huts ; they agreed, too, 
 that it was better to bide still awhile, until the master's 
 ribs were whole counsel which Audrey, when she heard 
 of it, approved. 
 
 And so the tranquil weather came to them between the 
 storms ; and ever the bracken grew more russet, and the 
 sun more golden, and the sky more crisp and blue ; and 
 the little family, so near disaster's edge, so anxious day 
 and night to know what the Waynes were doing, grew 
 notwithstanding strangely happy, strangely intimate and 
 friendly. Joseph and Nick o' Trawdon were busy winning 
 home the bracken for mistal bedding, and Red Ratcliffe 
 would go and watch them he had ever loved the bracken - 
 gathering and Timothy, his fears of the huge man dis- 
 appearing, would follow at his heels like any dog. And 
 Audrey would steal into Bathsheba's kitchen and talk with 
 her while she bustled through her work, and creep nearer, 
 day by day, to the farm-wife's heart. 
 
 Timothy's mother, indeed, still knowing naught of the 
 re-awakened feud, had come to Black House in grievous 
 trouble, asking where her lad was, and fore-certain that 
 he had perished in the bogs. She was met by Joseph, 
 who grudgingly allowed her sight and speech of the boy, 
 but would not let him go with her. 
 
 244
 
 Red Ratcliffe stays at Home 
 
 " Tuts, he's safe enough ! " the old man growled. " Get 
 back to your farm, woman, for I tell ye feelings may be 
 feelings, but the bonnie feud is up, and here the lad bides 
 till the end." 
 
 The days wore on ; and the moon, which had seen such 
 turmoil of swinging swords, of galloping horses, of men 
 hurrying to their death, and of two folk hastening into 
 wedlock the moon had dwindled into a filmy crescent 
 that only showed by day ; but the stars were strewn each 
 night across the dusky blue, and on one such evening, as 
 Nick o' Trawdon came from working over-late at the 
 bracken, it was these same stars that set him thinking of 
 his lass at Colne set him thinking, too, that the moors were 
 safe to cross, since there was light enough by which to guide 
 a horse, but not enough to show him to a prowling Wayne. 
 
 " Joseph," he said, " I've been thinking." 
 
 " Tuts ! " growled Joseph. " Doing's more i' my line." 
 
 " Each in their place, says I. I've been thinking, 
 Joseph, and it seems to me that, fond as we are o' Parson's 
 lass, and willing to watch for her little finger turning, we're 
 roughish, all on us." 
 
 " Well ? " asked Joseph guardedly. 
 
 " She's been gently reared, and used to having a trim 
 maid to serve her. And my lass at Come was close in 
 fondness with her when they lived together, mistress and 
 maid. Ye see " 
 
 " Oh, ay, I see," said the old man grimly. " Wedlock's 
 like good ale one good pewter- full goes asking for a 
 second." 
 
 " Ay, but there's more than that. Roughish I am, 
 Joseph, and roughish I'm like to remain but I have my 
 feelings same as other folk. Red Ratcliffe brought his 
 maid fro' Marshcotes, because the Waynes were after her. 
 Well, Waynes looked at my lass t'other day, and I'm 
 riding out to-night, Joseph." 
 
 " Tis thy risk, lad ; but I see ye mean it, and I'll say 
 naught when there's a maid at one end of an apron -string 
 and a man at t'other." 
 
 So Nick o 1 Trawdon had his way ; and through the 
 
 245
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 perilous land he rode that night ; and he halted on his way 
 at the farm where Timothy Hird's father lay abed, and 
 quieted the old man's fears touching his lad, and learned 
 from him just where to seek the Red Folk if they were 
 more than a tired man's vision across the wilds of the 
 moor .After that he came to Colne, safely and with spirits 
 running high ; and he found his lass, persuaded her that 
 he was learning to be somewhat of a man, carried her 
 straightway to the parson, and rode back again with the 
 girl pillionwise behind him. 
 
 Bathsheba feigned great anger at what she called " this 
 flood o' new-made wives " ; but Audrey's joy was plain, 
 for they two, living lonely in the Marshcotes Parsonage, 
 had loved each other as well as mistress and maid ever 
 loved one another in this world. By - and - by Bath- 
 sheba changed her mood, as often chanced with her ; and 
 she told Nick o' Trawdon that, for a ne'er-do-weel, he had 
 shown a pretty thought fulness for Parson's Lass ; and 
 Nick eyed her roguishly, and said he was well -satisfied, 
 and took no praise. 
 
 For the Waynes, meanwhile, it was black winter, let 
 the sun shine as warmly as he might upon October's 
 pomp. They had gone, a score of them, to the bog's edge 
 in search of their kinsmen who had not returned ; they 
 had found naught but emptiness, and green of the marshes, 
 and Black House scowling at them from its hill. And last 
 of all they had gone down again to Marsh House, waiting 
 always for the coming of Red Ratcliffe, and seeking 
 some way of finding the perilous bog-path. 
 
 They supped on unrest, and woke to break their fast 
 upon an unrest greater still. And in and out, between the 
 churchyard and the house, fluttered Little Bairn, like a 
 bird that seeks shelter from the coming storm. Only 
 Shameless Wayne kept a jest upon his lips ; and only Janet 
 knew how, in the long night hours, his anguish came upon 
 him, re -acting from the day's persistent endeavour to 
 keep their hearts warm in his folk. 
 
 Wayne of Cranshaw the Bayard and the clean -lived 
 gentleman who did not look to see his good deeds rewarded 
 
 246
 
 Red Ratcliffe stays at Home 
 
 in this life came in to join their councils or their rides 
 abroad, with ever the same look in his face. A still, awed 
 look it was, and his comrades knew it for the shadow which 
 death sends before his coming. 
 
 And Parson Clare went heavily about his business like- 
 wise, feeling his years increase each day, and waiting, not 
 for Red Ratcliffe, but for that other call which he knew 
 was surely coming. His house was lonely now, and one 
 by one he removed the tokens whereby Audrey had made 
 her presence manifest in every room ; for it was not good 
 that he should dwell too much on by-gone memories when 
 the finish and the great battle of his life were near at hand. 
 
 As if disaster did not howl loud enough at the doorway 
 of Marsh House, new rumours reached the Waynes each 
 day. The country folk, excited by the fight upon the 
 churchyard steps, began to see things real and unreal 
 when they walked afield o' nights ; but chiefly their eye- 
 sight played them false, for they reported that Red Rat- 
 cliffe had been seen here, seen there, riding with his red 
 axe swung above his shoulder. This they were sure of ; 
 whereas the less-credited rumour chanced to be true that 
 a colony of red-heads were living God-knew-where behind 
 the wildest of the moors, and had been seen by one and 
 sundry who had not stayed to ask them face to face whether 
 they were men or boggarts. 
 
 It was this latter rumour which Wayne of Cranshaw 
 heeded. 
 
 " Wayne of Marsh," he said to his kinsman, as they sat 
 by the hearth one night, " we spoke a true word when we 
 said that other Ratcliffes must have been born after that 
 night at Wildwater. They're foxes to hide, when the 
 hunt runs over-strong behind them. Red Ratcliffe does 
 not ride this side of his own house, I doubt, but waits to 
 send the Feud Spear round." 
 
 And Shameless Wayne looked at him, and saw the soft, 
 grey shadow on his face, and knew that the wisdom of 
 those near to death was on him. 
 
 " Twould be better than this one man shaming all of 
 us. I would he had fifty to his back, Wayne of Cranshaw, 
 
 247
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 and fifty more, and fifty after that for I ever found the 
 losing battle easier to fight." 
 
 " God's hands are shaping us," the other answered, 
 speaking, as he spoke always now, in the voice of one 
 who knows and does not hazard guesses. " Whether 'tis 
 one or many naught matters, as Little Bairn would 
 say." 
 
 And on the morrow, Wayne of Cranshaw, saying nothing 
 to his fellows, rode up into the dangerous lands, and past 
 Wildwater. He might meet Red Ratcliffe, or he might 
 avoid him ; but he hoped that he would live to skirt the 
 marshes round about Black House, live to ride on the 
 wide outskirts of the bog, and follow the track which rumour 
 said would take him to the Red Folk's hiding-place. 
 
 Just as he came to the brink of the marsh, however, 
 just as he turned sharp to the right hand because his 
 horse began to sink, it chanced that Joseph came from out 
 Black House and cast a wary eye across the bog. He saw 
 Wayne seeking for a drier ground, and the old fox rose in 
 him. 
 
 Now, Timothy Hird stood near the house, throwing 
 stones at any bird that came in sight ; and Joseph beckoned 
 to the youngster, and, " Lad," said he, " wilt cross the bog 
 again, and let yond stranger catch thee, and lead him here 
 as pratly as thou didst the others ? " 
 
 " Tis a fearsome job," said Timothy, looking up into 
 the old man's face. 
 
 " Oh, away wi' thee, there's naught to fear ! Bring 
 him over, laddie, and see what Bathsheba will do for thee 
 at supper-time to-night." 
 
 May be the boy was moved by a love of sheer adventure, 
 as grown men have been moved before and since his time. 
 May be he had heard of slaying and of feud so often, round 
 about the moorside hearths, that the sharp edge of reality 
 was dulled. 
 
 Or perchance he had foddered a cow in the mistal one 
 day and had seen it butchered on the next, and so had 
 learned a little of the way in which life mingles heart- 
 softness with cruelty. At any rate, he set off, whistling 
 
 248
 
 Red Ratcliffe stays at Home 
 
 in the sunlight, across the winding path ; and old Joseph 
 dropped into the bracken, dumb as a fox when he hears 
 the far-off hounds ; and Wayne of Cranshaw was too busy 
 finding a fair going for his horse's footsteps to note Joseph 
 or the little lad, until Timothy came whistling to the dry 
 lands, almost under the feet of Wayne's horse. 
 
 " Hallo, lad, d'ye know the way across ? " asked Wayne. 
 
 " Ay," said Timothy. 
 
 " Wilt show it me ? " 
 
 " Ay." 
 
 Wayne of Cranshaw turned quickly from his purpose 
 of going out to find the Red Folk. He had instead the 
 chance which all his friends had sought the chance of 
 coming to Black House. His life was soon to end, he knew, 
 and if Red Ratcliffe was there to meet him, it was well ; 
 and if Ratcliffe was abroad, it was also well, for he would 
 kill all men-folk in the house, and afterward would burn 
 the roof -trees to the ground. There were six men sleeping 
 underneath the bogs who could have told him of the way 
 that Timothy Hird led Waynes to gossip with a Ratcliffe ; 
 but his kinsfolk's mouths were closed by the green and 
 slippery ooze, and Wayne went forward. 
 
 " Wilt lead me faithfully, little lad ? " he asked. 
 
 " Ay," said Timothy, for the third time ; and the heart 
 of him went pit-a-pat for glee, as he thought how full 
 these new days were of likelier sport than snaring conies 
 at the burrow's mouth, or stoning wildish moor birds. 
 
 Wayne curbed his horse to a gentle pace. Over and 
 down and round about the perilous marsh-way the horse- 
 man followed the boy ; and Timothy still whistled as he 
 went. 
 
 They came to the high and well-found ground at last, 
 these two, and Joseph leaped from the bracken, and his 
 sword was sharp in his hand. 
 
 " A Ratcliffe, you / " he cried, while Timothy stood aside 
 and watched, his eyes as big as only a boy's can be. 
 
 " A Wayne I " cried the master of Cranshaw in return. 
 And his horse reared at the cries, at the dreariness of this 
 lonely land through which his master rode him ; high and 
 
 249
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 higher still he reared, and his left fore-foot struck Joseph 
 on the chest, and Wayne of Cranshaw had a clear gallop 
 up the hill to Black House, soon as he had halted to 
 despatch his enemy. 
 
 Once again did the Wayne courtesy step in to mar 
 their battles ; for Wayne of Cranshaw saw that this man 
 was old, and that the onset of the horse had stunned him 
 partially ; and, because he could not butcher him in cold 
 blood, he waited for a moment till Joseph should recover 
 and get his sword into his hand again. 
 
 " Get up and face me ! " he cried, seeing Joseph sit up 
 dizzily. 
 
 " Ay, darn ye," growled the other, and got to his feet, 
 and reached out for his sword, where it lay five yards away. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe, meanwhile, had been wandering on the 
 hill- top pastures with his wife : and the breeze was low and 
 quiet ; and they loved each other, disdaining perils by the 
 way and letting the sunshine enter through the opened 
 shutters of their hearts. Men's hearts, they felt, are like 
 men's houses it is wholesome to unshutter every window 
 so long as the sun is in the blue ; since God knows the times 
 come oft enough when every casement must be closed 
 against the storms. 
 
 October's lap was full of flower- children to-day. Sparse 
 the fields were, and the wild moor grumbled at them 
 constantly for daring to be there ; yet, wherever Audrey 
 and Red Ratcliffe wandered, the flowers were growing at 
 their feet. Near the beck, which slipped and gurgled 
 over its smooth stones and its trout, the yarrow lifted its 
 white head ; and up the slopes the harebells nodded to the 
 wind ; and all across the pastures the bugle-flower lifted its 
 tiny, deep-blue trumpets. From the moor there came the 
 constant scent of bracken. 
 
 " It is good to be alive," laughed Ratcliffe. 
 
 " Ay, surely," answered Audrey. 
 
 And then he tired of honey, remembering that he had 
 been brought into the world for other work than this. 
 
 " I have my strength again," he said. 
 
 " And you must go abroad at last. Well, I shall stay 
 
 250
 
 Red Ratcliffe stays at Home 
 
 at home, and keep my heart from breaking as best I can 
 but I had rather see you dead than waiting on my fears, 
 instead of faring out where you must go." 
 
 They stood there, in the breeze-swept pasture, and they 
 looked at one another, steadily and tranquilly ; and to Red 
 Ratcliffe there came the last consecration of all human love. 
 Young, and slim, and new to the needs of a man, as this 
 girl-wife was, she had mastered already the lesson which 
 Janet, down yonder at Marsh House, was learning for the 
 second time. She knew that fighting of some sort is the 
 man's work ; she knew that the woman's battles lie in the 
 waiting lands, where dreads foregather and patience proves 
 a hard stepmother ; she knew that love-in-idleness is 
 lower than love-in-hardship, as the stars are higher than 
 the hills. 
 
 " I have found a help-mate for the future days," said 
 Ratcliffe suddenly, in the true voice which women know. 
 
 " By God's mercy, yes," she answered simply. " I do 
 not like sun-weather always." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe stretched his shoulders wider and straighter 
 still, rejoicing in his strength ; and he took his wife, and 
 lifted her, and played to and fro with her, as if she were 
 as little as Timothy Hird Timothy, who led men across 
 the bogs to meet their death. 
 
 " My ribs are whole again, lass. Come down, and see 
 me play with foster-brother." 
 
 They crossed the breezy fields, and they came to Black 
 House, and Ratcliffe ran in to fetch the big axe from its 
 nail ; but, just as he came out, thinking to try his strength 
 once more, he was aware of Audrey, standing in the court- 
 yard and beckoning him down the slope. And there below 
 him he saw Wayne of Cranshaw riding up saw the horse 
 strike Joseph to the ground and, during the grace allowed 
 by Wayne to his fallen enemy, he raised a mighty shout of 
 " Ratcliffe, Ratcliffe I " 
 
 Wayne looked up, and saw a big man, swinging a big 
 axe, run down toward him, and knew that this must be 
 Red Ratcliffe, and turned aside from Joseph. And, even 
 with death's shadow on him, even with his sword-arm ready 
 
 251
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 for the coming onset, Wayne was lost in admiration of his 
 foe. Like a wind out of heaven Ratcliffe came, tem- 
 pestuous and unafraid ; like a wind he hurled Wayne's 
 guard aside, and cut him through the shoulder, sundering 
 his left arm ; and the axe glanced down his ribs and lighted 
 on the saddle ; they also say those who pass on the wars 
 of Wayne and Ratcliffe and keep the story quick among 
 us that the axe-blade cut through the saddle, and hid 
 itself in the middle of the horse's spine ; and there it 
 stayed a while, for Wayne was lying on the ground, and 
 Ratcliffe's madness had died out of him, and, as he looked 
 in the face of the dying man, he saw something of the fresh, 
 clean beauty of the fields where he had lately walked with 
 Audrey. 
 
 " Ah, let me help you die ! " he cried, running to Wayne's 
 side and lifting him. " Better I had died than you for 
 Audrey talks of God, though I never knew him, and there's 
 a light upon your face that calls the summer's dusk to 
 mind." 
 
 Wayne throbbed with agony, and yet he smiled. " Red 
 Ratcliffe," he whispered, " 'tis no fault of yours. Two 
 fools fought generations since, and you and I are only 
 reaping what they sowed." 
 
 And so he died, with forgiveness in his eyes ; and Rat- 
 cliffe, because he loathed the work of foster-brother, carried 
 the body to tne marshes carried it gently and hid it 
 out of sight. 
 
 Then he went up the hill, like a broken man. And 
 Audrey was standing near the house, her face to the wall ; 
 for such things must be done, she knew, but the crude 
 seeing of them was like the breath of pestilence. 
 
 " Well ? " she asked, turning half about when he touched 
 her on the arm. 
 
 " He is sleeping. Think of your prayers, Audrey I 
 never yet knew one, saving ' We hate, we kill ' think of 
 your prayers, for I want his slumbers to be sound." 
 
 And Audrey went indoors ; and all that day and all that 
 night they feared to look at one another, though Ratcliffe's 
 
 252
 
 Red Ratcliffe stays at Home 
 
 deed was righteous in his own eyes and in hers ; and the 
 mystery of life lay heavy on them both, so that they could 
 not scent the bracken-wind that rustled through Black 
 House. 
 
 Joseph had been a dazed spectator of the fight ; but, 
 after Ratcliffe had buried the dead and gone up into the 
 house, he gathered his wits together, and looked about 
 him. The first thing he did was to pluck the axe out 
 from its lodging in the horse's spine. 
 
 " Queer talk the master held with Wayne," he muttered, 
 " Queer talk, for sure. And at th' end on't he leaves 
 foster-brother i' the lurch to say naught o' me. Oh, 
 ay, he saved my skin, I'm well aware, but he'd forgotten 
 me quite at after th' killing was done. It willun't do, 
 master ! " he went on, as if reasoning earnestly with the 
 lad whom he had reared, a suckling, to the fight, " Rat- 
 cliffes never fought i' that style, and never should do. 
 Whimsies are good for maids and wives, but not for men- 
 folk when the feud is up." 
 
 Then he took the axe with him into the kitchen, 
 wiped the blade with exceeding tenderness, and gave 
 it a touch of the whetstone. 
 
 " By th' Heart, though, 'twas a rare blow, yond o' 
 Master's ! " he growled, as he hung the axe up on the wall. 
 " Never look to see a better, I." 
 
 The day wore on to gloaming ; and down at Marsh 
 House they waited, waited till the mood of each man was 
 like a bow-string drawn too tight. 
 
 " Tis easy to fight, Wayne of Marsh," said an elder of 
 the company suddenly ; " but God's curse on this cold o' 
 the waiting-time ! " 
 
 " We are Waynes," said their leader. " Whether to 
 fight or wait, we bear what comes." 
 
 The elder settled into silence, and wondered that they 
 had dared to name this man The Shameless. And at the 
 moment one came into hall, flushed with a gallop that had 
 left his horse half dead at the outer door. 
 
 " Wayne of Cranshaw's dead," he cried.
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Wayne of Marsh put a hand across his eyes, and for 
 a while his heart was sick. Then he lifted his head. 
 
 " He was the bravest and the truest of us all," he said. 
 " How died he ? " 
 
 " I was riding round and about the moor, seeking for 
 Red Ratcliffe ; and suddenly I saw Wayne of Cranshaw 
 five-score yards ahead of me ; and I called to him, but he 
 would not hear, and galloped on." 
 
 " Ay ? " said Shameless Wayne, as the other paused for 
 breath. 
 
 " I followed, but could no way catch him up. And still 
 I followed, till I sighted him again ; and he was in the 
 middle of the marsh that guards Black House, and a little 
 lad was guiding him ; and I tried to follow, but could find 
 no beginning to the track, though they were plain and 
 clear before me, Wayne of Cranshaw and the little lad." 
 
 " Why did he ride alone ? God, if only we could chance 
 upon the lad ! " broke in a youngster. 
 
 " Peace ! " said Shameless Wayne, and waited for the 
 tale. 
 
 " He came in safety to the high land round about Black 
 House ; and one met him there, and Wayne's horse struck 
 him to the ground. Luck of Our Lady, it was all so plain 
 to me across the bogs, and yet I could not follow, because 
 the track winds in and out like a maid when you court 
 her in the spring. Then a great red-head with an axe 
 came roaring down, and he cleft Wayne of Cranshaw and 
 his horse with the one stroke, and afterward he carried 
 him to the marsh, and / have done." 
 
 He filled a tankard and drained it greedily. And a great 
 murmur rose, disquieting as the wind when winter's fury 
 comes. 
 
 " So that old fox of a Ratcliffe lied once again," said 
 Shameless Wayne. " He swore Red Ratcliffe was abroad, 
 when I rode to the bog's edge yesterday : and for the 
 second time I believed him, for I can never measure wits 
 with a liar, and never could." 
 
 " But that was yesterday," said one who had been at 
 
 254
 
 Red Ratclifte stays at Home 
 
 the bog-brink with him. " He may have chanced to be 
 abroad, and yet be home again by now." 
 
 " Ah, yes, 'twas yesterday," answered Shameless Wayne, 
 a storm of bitterness upon him ; " but for all that I warrant 
 the old fox lied. They feed on lies, these red-heads, as a 
 hare crops parsley- tops." 
 
 His eyes were roaming about the hall, richer than Black 
 House in trophies of battle-fields gone by ; and presently 
 he went and took down an axe discarded long ago. 
 
 " I am over old to learn the way of an axe at this late 
 day," he said ; " but I, and all of you, must find how to 
 parry a hatchet with the sword. See," he went on, turning 
 to the tallest of his kinsmen, " take you the axe, and 
 make what play you can with it, and I will try my blade 
 against it." 
 
 The Waynes gathered round the two ; and more and more 
 they understood that Wayne of Marsh was their leader in 
 fact, and not in name alone. Not one of them had thought 
 of meeting Ratcliffe with his own weapon ; but Shameless 
 Wayne had thought of it, in the midmost of this last grief 
 which had befallen him. 
 
 To and fro they went, Wayne and his adversary ; and, 
 when the first man tired of wielding his axe, another took 
 his place, and then another ; and Shameless Wayne was 
 learning constantly new tricks of parry and withdrawal, 
 was framing a desperate resolve to meet Red Ratcliffe, 
 when the last fight came, on equal terms. 
 
 Yet, do as they would, the waiting-dread fell on them 
 once again, when the bouts were over. The dumb, majestic 
 sanctuary of the marsh in which Red Ratcliffe hid, was a 
 thing that overpowered their reason and fed their super- 
 stitions, just as to this day men cross the bogs with doubt 
 and ghostly fears for company. And they sat and whis- 
 pered, one with another, and drank the wine which cheered 
 them not a whit, and watched the candles brighten, drip, 
 and flicker. 
 
 Little Bairn was in the hall, unnoticed, when first the 
 play of axe and sword began ; and to her child's mind it
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 had seemed that her folk were fighting now in earnest 
 among themselves. So she crept out to Marshcotes grave- 
 yard, and found the Sexton sitting on their wonted trysting- 
 stone. 
 
 " Sexton," she whispered, with Charley's Wain and all 
 the bright stars looking down on her. " Sexton, men go 
 out from Marsh House and come never again, to drink their 
 wine save one now, and one again, who comes to say that 
 Waynes are hid beneath the bog. Did I not tell you all the 
 moor brooks were running crimson-high ? The harebells 
 growing on the brink are drowned, Sexton and, when they 
 lift their heads again, Our Lady knows they'll wave red 
 belfries in the wind instead of blue." 
 
 She found no comfort here, for the Sexton, long before 
 her coming, had been shivering on the gravestone, and the 
 ghosts that walked by starlight failed to move his cynic 
 fancy. 
 
 " Old December's crept into my blood, somehow," he 
 said, in his husky, dry-leaf voice. " I'm feeling old at 
 last ; and Parson's sinking into his six-by-three, failing 
 each day and forgetting to wake me up to ring the Vesper 
 Bell when I fall asleep of afternoons ; and I've a fancy 
 the ghost o' my wife Nancy, stirring yonder, is yapping at 
 me now, saying I was allus full o' dreams I've a fancy that 
 Parson and Sexton will never settle their quarrel i' this 
 world. Parson said he'd like as he'd bury me, and I said 
 I'd like as I'd bury Parson. And now I feel in need of the 
 shroud that Nancy wove for me before she died ; and 
 Parson is dying, I know ; and 'twill be a wry jest if some 
 third party, like, comes burying the twain of us." 
 
 They did not always listen to each other, these two, 
 since friendship can afford deaf ears ; and Little Bairn 
 had drifted already from trouble into peace. 
 
 " Naught matters, Sexton," she said, in the voice that 
 was like summer's wind stirring the summer's fields. 
 " The sun will rise, and the moon will set, and nobody 
 cares at all." 
 
 " Well, then," said Sexton Witherlee, " we mun just bide 
 
 256
 
 Red Ratcliffe stays at Home 
 
 still and wait. But I tell ye, Mistress, the Parson is no way 
 going to over-live me. I'd be shamed, I wod, to find 
 Parson laughing at me, Over Beyond, because he'd over- 
 lived me by an hour. Lordie, Lordie, I wonder if Parson 
 will take his snuff-box over the Brink wi' him ! Reckon 
 he will, for it fits him like a glove. Sexton wi' his bit o' 
 baccy, and Parson wi' his snuff they'd be lonesome, little 
 Mistress, if ghosties look askance at such-like habits." 
 
 And silence fell on them. Over their drooping heads 
 the feud-storm piped and whistled. They did not heed. 
 The little fears, the little needs, of this life or another, 
 were theirs, and the bigger winds passed over them. 
 
 Old Joseph, meanwhile, up at Black House, had seen 
 his goodwife go to bed, taking her rush-light with her ; 
 and Nick o' Trawdon's wife was sleeping likewise ; and 
 the two men sat cosily beside the hearth, and stirred 
 the peats with either foot whenever the fancy took 
 them. 
 
 " Nick," said the older man, replenishing his ale-mug, 
 " the Master was contrary- wise to-day. He oft-times is, 
 though I fancied loving a lass was good for any proper 
 man." 
 
 " So 'tis," laughed Nick ; " naught better i' this world, 
 Joseph. Ye take my word for that." 
 
 " Tuts, I'm past it ! I've seen kine go wantoning i' the 
 spring, Nick, and four feet go like two, as the saying is. 
 Breath o' the heather, and the light i' bonnie brown een 
 I know 'em, lad, I know 'em and so does every four- 
 legged thing that ever found a mate. What I was saying 
 was just this the Master's softening, like, and only the 
 red-litten spear will wake him out of his lass's arms. Just 
 ride to-morn, lad, and take the best horse we can lend ye, 
 and gallop out with the spear aflame to yond Red Folk 
 living wide and behind of where we're sitting now." 
 
 " I'll go," said Nick o' Trawdon. " I seldom get good 
 
 horse-flesh under me, but Lord knows I like the feel of it 
 
 at all times Joseph," he broke off, " I'm not one to fancy 
 
 aught, but all night long, sleeping and waking, I hear 
 
 R 257
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 your dog go howling round the house, as if dead folk lay 
 round about and he had scented them." 
 
 " Tis terrible far ahead he scents," snapped Joseph ; 
 " or may be Bathsheba gave him over-good a supper. 
 By the heart, thou'lt be scared by Barguest next, or by 
 the Lean Man's ghost. We're fighting now, lad, not toying 
 round about wi' ghosties." 
 
 " I'll take your word for't, Joseph but I wish ye'd 
 stop your farm-dog's yelping, I can't lie easy-like, and 
 neither can the wife." 
 
 And Joseph answered nothing ; for he knew that his 
 dog had a bark that wakened him at once, or, failing that, 
 waked Bathsheba ; and yet they two had been no way 
 disturbed o' nights. 
 
 " Get thee to bed, lad," said the older man. " Thou'st 
 too much ale in thee." 
 
 " Likely," answered Nick, with a sober laugh ; " yet, 
 granting that, 'tis ill when a dog's voice comes yowling 
 'twixt a new-made groom and bride." 
 
 " Want your bread buttered on the hither and the 
 t'other side. Tuts ! " said Joseph. 
 
 And so they went to bed. Yet, had they been abroad 
 upon the moor, they would have known hard-bitten 
 Joseph, even, would have known that out of the star- 
 lit heaven there came troubles bigger than the span of 
 this wild heath. 
 
 It was all abroad, the brewing tempest, though it was 
 no storm of this world's wind and rain. To one lad lying 
 on the open moor, the ghosts of men long dead, the ghosts 
 of horses ridden into old time battles, the ghosts of women 
 who had suffered, generations since, seemed to come out 
 from the warm and peaceful night and mock the stars' 
 serenity. And dead men fought again, and dead women 
 prayed, and havoc went on windy feet about the 
 heath. 
 
 The lad was Janet's son ; and all, save Janet, had for- 
 gotten him, although his troubles were greater than those of 
 any kinsmen who waited yonder at Marsh House. They 
 
 258
 
 Red Ratcliffe stays at Home 
 
 could fight, at least, when the hour came ; but his own 
 hands were tied. 
 
 Forgotten, exiled, depending on his father's farm-folk 
 for furtive bite and sup, the lad kept heart somehow ; 
 and Shameless Wayne, had he but known it, possessed 
 indeed the thing he craved for a worthy son to follow 
 him. 
 
 And now the boy lay, as he loved to lie o' nights, with 
 his face to the stars ; and he wrestled with that never- 
 ending question which came and talked to him as plainly 
 as did the ghosts of men slain in long-syne feud. Only 
 by proving himself a peace-maker could he take his share 
 of the world's burden ; and, because he was no idler, he 
 could not rest till work came to his hands ; and the irony 
 that rawed his wounds lay in this he would rather have 
 been a man of war than a man of peace, would rather have 
 felt the sword-blade whistle in his hand than have owned 
 all the world of charity. 
 
 This could not be ; and he lay there, facing the stars, 
 facing that question, " How could he bring peace between 
 his mother's and his father's house ? " And no answer 
 came ; and he cried aloud to the God who made him. 
 
 " I am forsaken," he said. 
 
 And then he closed his eyes ; and sleep, the healer, 
 spun cobwebs all across his drooping lids ; and in his 
 dreams he saw a moorland brook run down to join its 
 river, and knew that the brook despaired, over and over 
 again, when its bed was all made hard with stones and 
 shingle, when rocky headlands met its course, thrusting 
 it aside as if it had no business there. And in his dreams 
 he learned the lesson of the brook, and saw the river gained 
 at last saw, too, the rocky headlands worn, by great 
 patience, into smooth, relenting slopes. 
 
 And then he woke. And the stars were looking down 
 upon him. And he saw no way of peace-making as yet, 
 but peace was on him peace, soft as that which comes 
 with summer weather, when a man goes out to meet his 
 maid after the milking time. 
 
 259
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE FEUD-SPEAR FLAMES 
 
 NICK o' TRAWDON looked at Joseph across the table where 
 they sat at breakfast. It was the morning after they had 
 talked beside the hearth together, while Wayne's son lay 
 out among the bracken and dreamed of peace. 
 
 " I'll get yond horse saddled, Joseph," he said. 
 
 " And where will you ride ? " said the Master, who, 
 coming on some errand to the kitchen, had stood unheeded 
 in the doorway for a moment. 
 
 " To carry the Spear to the Red Folk. Naught less was 
 in my mind." 
 
 " Oh, ay ? " said Ratcliffe grimly. " And by whose 
 orders, Nick o' Trawdon ? " 
 
 " Well, by mine," answered Joseph, scratching his chin 
 and feeling that, in the warmth of last night's chat beside 
 the hearth, he had overstepped discretion. " Ye see, 
 Master, I fancied ye would doubt whether these Red Folk 
 were more than just so many boggarts ye'll believe fifty 
 times in a boggart for my once and I wanted ye to have 
 more friends about ye and, if my judgment goes 
 for aught, and if these Red Folk live, as we've heard 
 they do, be sure they've been taught to know the Feud- 
 Spear, same as a cur-dog is trained to know the smell o' wool 
 when sheep lies over-blown i' winter." 
 
 " And you fancied another thing," snapped Ratcliffe, 
 with that quick insight into the truth of any matter which 
 was one of life's many gifts to him. " You thought my 
 arms were tied with apron-strings, and dalliance was all 
 my work. Well, you shall ride, Nick, to point me out the 
 way, but unless you chance to be head of the Ratcliffes, 
 'tis I who carry the Spear." 
 
 260
 
 The Feud-Spear Flames 
 
 So they went out to the stable, and they got to horse ; 
 and, according to a usage old almost as the hills about 
 them, Bathsheba came out into the courtyard, and moved 
 to the Master's side, and gave him the stirrup-cup to drain. 
 And Joseph, sour of face because Ratcliffe had read his 
 thoughts aright, brought the long spear which had hurried 
 fast as doom about the moor since first the Waynes and 
 Ratcliffes fought at time of sheep-washing. At the spear's 
 end was a great ball of tar and peat, and Joseph showed a 
 fair-weather face again as he struck flint on steel, kindled 
 the tinder, and lit the flame which had smouldered through- 
 out these twenty years of peace. 
 
 And now Audrey came to her husband's side ; and her 
 eyes were bright and clear, because afterwards she would 
 find time for tears ; and her voice rang true and brave. 
 " Ride straight, and come safe home again," she said. 
 
 " Your God wills it, lass, I think. Good-bye." 
 
 And now Nick o' Trawdon's wife snatched a brief word 
 with the ne'er-do-weel whom she had wedded ; and she 
 was a younger wife than Ratcliffe's by a day or so, and not 
 so full of courage. 
 
 " Thou hast so little skill in fighting yet, Nick, and I'm 
 not fain to be a widow." 
 
 " Ay, but I've a power o' luck behind me and that's 
 always more than skill," he laughed. " We ride out, and 
 we ride in keep thy heart warm for me." 
 
 And so they crossed by the bog-path, he and Red 
 Ratcliffe ; and no Wayne had ventured to the edge to 
 spy upon them or to meet them ; and they swerved to 
 the left, hugging the marshes as they went, but keeping 
 always on October's dry and russet lands. Up to higher 
 and still higher ridges they mounted, Nick guiding his 
 horse skilfully by the landmarks of which Farmer Hird 
 had told him. 
 
 Neither broke the silence until two miles were past. 
 Red Ratcliffe, reared to superstition, had no great faith 
 that these kinsmen they rode out to see were flesh and 
 blood ; a company of ghosts, who mazed man's eyesight 
 
 261
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 on the lonely moor, were what he looked for but, ghosts 
 or no, it was his duty to rear up the Feud Spear so long as 
 any chance there was of bringing Ratcliffes in. 
 
 This same spear, its end glowing dull and fitfully at 
 first, was flaming wide by now, as the speed of the horse's 
 going caught and harried it. And up the desolate lands 
 they galloped, and down the rough dene-sides ; and the 
 spear burned brighter in the sunlight ; and a shepherd, 
 following the track of lost ewes upon the hills above, looked 
 down and saw the flaming brand, and, till he died, he 
 swore that he had watched the devil blowing coals of hell 
 into a flame across the heath. 
 
 They had passed Wuthrums Ghyll by now, the galloping 
 two, and for the first time Ratcliffe spoke. 
 
 " The mist is getting up," he said. " See how it creeps 
 
 from the hollows, Nick, see how the sunlight laps it up." 
 
 ' 'Twill be thick upon the moor before we win back home 
 
 again," the other answered briefly. " We're near the Red 
 
 Folk now, howsiver, if I've not led ye wrong." 
 
 They crossed a deepish cleft, all full of rowan-trees and 
 hazel, where little moorbirds chirruped at the sunlight ; 
 and they mounted the farther rise, and came to a level 
 stretch of peat, dead- black beneath the blue- white of the 
 sky, save where the mists crawled gently in and out. And 
 then they came to a deeper cleft, with a steep face of rock 
 falling abruptly from the moor, to guard its privacy. 
 They plucked their horses back on the very edge of it, 
 and saw what they had come to find. 
 
 Beneath them lay many huts, heather- thatched ; and 
 women were washing garments in the stream that ran 
 through the bottom of the valley ; and men were wielding 
 uncouth weapons, striving one against the other in play, 
 with laughter and great shouts when either got beneath 
 his fellow's guard. And all the men were thatched with 
 red, as their huts were thatched with weather-beaten ling ; 
 and all the women had hair as russet-red as bracken when 
 the first cold nips it ; and the master, looking down, knew 
 that these were Ratcliffes, flesh and blood. There was no 
 
 262
 
 The Feud-Spear Flames 
 
 doubt of it ; and all his blood came flooding through Red 
 Ratcliffe's body, singing the battle-cry. 
 
 " A Ratcliffe, ye ! " he cried, and he whirled the Red 
 Spear round his head. 
 
 The men below ceased playing, and the women all 
 ceased washing by the stream-side ; and they saw the 
 Feud Spear, hoped and prayed for all these years, go 
 swinging up into October's sky. 
 
 Soberly down the hill rode Red Ratcliffe and his friend ; 
 and up the hill to meet them came a withered dame who 
 surely had not known her youth these forty years ; and 
 she clutched the spear from Ratcliffe's hand, and waved 
 it high, and sang the Nunc Dimittis of the Feud. 
 
 " The Spear has come, Ratcliffes ! Did I not tell ye ? 
 Ride in upon the horses we have stolen all these years gone 
 by, and thrust the Waynes over and down into the Pit of 
 Hell. Thank Mary Mother that I've lived to see this day." 
 
 And then she fell, clutching the Feud Spear to her breast ; 
 and they tell us those who to-day pass on the feud-lore 
 of the heath that on her dead face there was peace, such 
 as lives on the faces of brave men and women when their 
 tale is told. 
 
 The men-folk left their play, and they ran to the rude 
 stables ling-thatched, like their houses where each kept 
 his stolen horse. In exile they had lived, each one of them ; 
 and that black night of twenty years ago, which saw Wild- 
 water House fall burning on the slain, had given them no 
 lawful mothers' milk. A wild, shock-headed band they 
 were ; for women, when the fathers of their unborn bairns 
 are slain before their eyes, do not go harbouring mercy for 
 the victors, and these red-heads, to whom at last the Feud 
 Spear came, galloped ravening like a pack of wolves about 
 Red Ratcliffe. Their horses, too, gently stabled once on 
 a day, were shaggy and rough-ridden now, and all they 
 could remember of this life was that stable and moor alike 
 were hard to live within. 
 
 They swarmed about Red Ratcliffe, men and horses 
 neglecting the dead woman who lay with her face grown 
 
 263
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 youthful on the sudden to the sky. This was the hour of 
 battle, and what had they to do with women, alive or dead ? 
 
 They rode bare-back on their horses, with both hands 
 free ; and Nick o' Trawdon who on the edge of death 
 would never learn to hold his gay moods back laughed 
 when he saw that their weapons were vastly like the tool 
 that he had chosen when he went to meet the Waynes in 
 company with Joseph. Long hafts the weapons had, and 
 at the end a clump of iron ; and only a few of them had 
 chosen to wear the swords which they had got by theft 
 from the riders of their stolen horses. 
 
 " A Ratcliffe, a Ratcliffe ! " yelled the Master, glad that 
 these crying wolves were flesh-and-blood, not ghosts. 
 
 And that was the cry taught them by their mothers ; 
 and the red-heads crowded like so many well-trained dogs 
 about Red Ratcliffe, and answered back, " A Ratcliffe ! 
 We hate, we kill, and you shall be our leader." 
 
 " Ay," said the Master soberly ; " or else I'll split one 
 and another with my axe." 
 
 They rode up the face of the steep valley, and came to 
 the open moor ; and the mist crept always round about 
 their horses' hocks, and the blue of the sky grew dim * 
 up above, the sky was blue enough, but, underneath, the 
 grey fog moved and hindered them. 
 
 Fast as they rode, the mists rode faster still. Before 
 they had come to Wuthrums Ghyll, the fog was up to their 
 horses' middles ; and Nick o' Trawdon, who had brought 
 them hither, pulled up his nag and sought for the re- 
 membered landmarks. The moor was full of pranks to- 
 day, as she is wont to be ; for the middle of the sky was 
 sunlit over them, and blue as violets ; but the way beneath 
 a man's feet or a horse's was over-hidden quite in a grey 
 fog, whilst all the farther landmarks, by which alone a 
 man could guide himself in these wild lands, were blotted 
 out. 
 
 " We've lost our way," said Nick o' Trawdon bluntly. 
 " Plague on the mist, to come just when we want her 
 least ! " 
 
 264
 
 The Feud-Spear Flames 
 
 The red-heads riding with them could give no help ; for, 
 in their forays into the gentler lands, in search of food or 
 horses, they had constantly gone south toward Ludworth, 
 not north toward Marshcotes. 
 
 Then suddenly the mist lifted for a space, as these 
 autumn fogs will do, not knowing their own mind ; and 
 Nick o' Trawdon looked about him. 
 
 " We can wend forrard," he said. " See ye, there's 
 Hell Dog Ghyll this side yond hummocky spur of moor ; 
 and yonder to the left is Hangman's Snout. Oh, ay, I'm 
 learning where we're getten to." 
 
 They trotted briskly forward ; and the red-heads raised 
 a cry of "Ratcliffe/ A Ratcliffe ! " that billowed down 
 the moor like thunder. This was their holiday at last, 
 and Red Ratcliffe, bigger than their dreams of a big leader, 
 and the axe whose sharp edge peeped from his saddle, 
 roused the wild mood in them as no strong drink could do. 
 
 Terrible, and naked of compunction, was that battle- 
 roar ; and the Waynes, could they have heard it, would 
 have known that they had to meet a foe more stark and 
 forthright than Red Ratcliffe. Hardship had been meat 
 and drink to these children of the outer wilderness ; snow, 
 and frost, and bite of the bitter winds, had toughened them 
 until their flesh was hard as bog-oak ; and their hearts were 
 free of mercy, for the women who had borne them had seen 
 their fathers killed. 
 
 As it chanced, one of their foes did hear them for 
 Shameless Wayne had ridden out alone to seek an inlet 
 to Black House across the marshes. Like Wayne of Cran- 
 shaw, he would not take his friends with him on so rash a 
 venture ; and, like Wayne of Cranshaw, who slept beneath 
 the marsh, he had a settled purpose in his mind. Black 
 House might be impregnable on this side, but what of the 
 moors behind it ? Surely the bogs did not circle it alto- 
 gether, as sea surrounds an island ; and he hoped, by 
 taking a wide compass, to find dry land and easy going for 
 the horses of his folk. 
 
 He was well on the Ludworth side by now, and was 
 
 265
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 reining his horse in the direction of Black House, when that 
 thunder-roar went up from the Ratcliffes. He turned 
 in the saddle, and looked across the heath, on which the 
 sun shone through the lifted fog ; and he saw Red Ratcliffe, 
 big on a big horse, and the other red-heads with him, all 
 roaring lustily. 
 
 Across the moor he called. " A Wayne, a Wayne / " 
 he cried, prepared to lay his life down now, if only he could 
 have one clear thrust before he died. 
 
 The red-heads heard and answered ; and the thunder 
 of their cry redoubled, and the dingles of the moor caught 
 and re-caught it, till it seemed that a thousand cries of 
 " Ratcliffe, Ratcliffe ! " fell into splintered shreds against 
 the rocks. 
 
 Against them all rode Shameless Wayne, setting his horse 
 to the gallop. It was a hard matter to live, but a vastly 
 easy thing to die ; and at the least he might cut through 
 Red Ratcliffe before he fell. 
 
 There might be eight hundred yards between them ; and 
 because men are apt to think in time of battle that God 
 is sleeping, the one Wayne and the many Ratcliffes galloped 
 hard to meet each other, their minds full of the feud alone. 
 And then the moor laughed in her homespun sleeve, and the 
 mist came down as suddenly as rain in April and blanketed 
 them about. White as a lass's hand the mist was, but it 
 was thick as a stone -built wall, and there was none of them 
 who did not strive to check his horse's gallop. 
 
 And then the moor-sprites chuckled, seeing with eyes 
 free of mist how 'wildered men can be when fog comes on 
 them. Some of the Ratcliffes fell, their horses striking 
 rabbit-burrows or spurs of rock ; some rode wide ; and 
 over the moor there was a muffled roar of men befooled. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe kept the saddle, but his horse was startled 
 by the uproar and frightened by the mist, and carried him 
 far from his folk ; and Wayne's horse, too, would not be 
 curbed at once ; and when the mist lifted for a space, 
 suddenly as it had come, they found themselves one 
 Ratcliffe now against one Wayne alone together in a wide 
 
 266
 
 The Feud-Spear Flames 
 
 and shallow dingle, with peat beneath and the untroubled 
 sunshine over them. Perhaps a score yards, perhaps a 
 score and ten, lay between them when first the fog's be- 
 wilderment cleared from their eyes. 
 
 " It is well, Wayne of Marsh," said Ratcliffe, slipping 
 foster-brother from its sheath. " I like you better now 
 than when I should have killed you in cold blood at Colne." 
 
 And Wayne answered nothing, for it was hard to fight 
 with one to whom he owed his life. Courteous he was, 
 and courteous he would remain till death came knocking 
 at his door ; and it hindered him to know that for his 
 kin's sake he must fight, and find either way a losing 
 chance. Yet he got his sword out, and he crushed his 
 scruples down, and the fire of youth came to him once 
 again, as it had come a score years since when he rode the 
 moorland like a pestilence, carrying weakness and nameless 
 tremors to the sword-arms of the Ratcliffes. Across the 
 black of the peat he rode at Ratcliffe ; and across the naked 
 peat Red Ratcliffe rode to meet him ; and one of the two 
 it seemed, must surely lie in peace to-day, his still face to 
 the sky. 
 
 All night Wayne's son had lain among the bracken ; and 
 his fate lay heavy on him. About the time when Red 
 Ratcliffe took the lighted spear from Joseph's hand, the 
 lad had wakened, to find the stark blue sky above him, 
 and, under the sky, the reality of pain. He wandered in 
 and out about the moor ; and then the mist came on him, 
 as it came on the Ratcliffes and on Shameless Wayne ; 
 but he did not heed, since, sun or mist, he had never yet 
 found sure going for his feet in this life. 
 
 The lad found himself, when the mist lifted, in that wide 
 and shallow dingle where Wayne and Ratcliffe faced each 
 other ; and suddenly he knew the past night's dreams 
 prophetic, knew that he, who was neither Wayne nor 
 Ratcliffe, could fight the hardest battle of the three the 
 fight of the peace-maker. He ran like a hunted fox down 
 the quiet slope of the hill ; and he came between the axe- 
 man and the swordsman ; and Wayne's horse reared, and 
 
 267
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 all but threw him ; and Ratcliffe's horse shot up his fore- 
 feet to the sky ; but both kept the saddle. 
 
 " Art mad, or what, to come between us ? " roared 
 Ratcliffe, the battle-hunger in his voice. 
 
 " I am he that got up beneath your horse the other 
 night, and threw you," answered the other, breathlessly, 
 " and I am well-advised to come between you." 
 
 " Who art thou ? " cried Shameless Wayne, with a 
 bitter longing to seem forgetful of this ill-shapen lad 
 this lad with the Wayne eyes and the Ratcliffe hair, who 
 was his sin, and Janet's, made manifest in flesh. 
 
 " I am your son," the boy answered, searching his 
 father's face for some token of pity or relenting. " And 
 I am half a Wayne, and half a Ratcliffe, and I would ask 
 you twain to give the hand of friendship to each other." 
 
 They stared at him in blunt surprise, and may be with 
 some liking for his courage. Like a torrent, gaining and 
 ever gaining bulk as it ran down to snatch its tributaries, 
 the feud had grown in these last days to a flood that over- 
 mastered all it met ; and men's hopes, and men's desires, 
 and women's natural gentleness, raced like straws upon the 
 froth and bubbles of its surface. Yet this boy dared stand 
 in the middle of its onset now, and thought to dam it with 
 a few fair words of peace. 
 
 " Half a Wayne, and half a Ratcliffe," cried Ratcliffe 
 suddenly, with a laugh like a wild beast's growl. " Why, 
 then, stand off, and watch the battle ! None likelier than 
 yourself to make sure of fair play. Stand off, you cur- pup, 
 d'ye hear ? " 
 
 A wave of hopelessness swept over the boy again. His 
 plans had all miscarried, for not by persuasion would these 
 two come to friendship. He glanced wearily across the 
 moor, and hope returned to him ; for he had lived too 
 lonely, had sought the heath's companionship too often, 
 to miss any knowledge of its moods. The mist was creep- 
 ing over and down again, and he asked only for a little 
 time. 
 
 So he held his ground, and talked with them ; and once 
 
 268
 
 The Feud-Spear Flames 
 
 Red Ratcliffe threatened to ride him down ; and thrice 
 his father cursed him for a son unnatural ; but still he 
 held his ground, and the mist swept over them and none 
 could see his hand before him. 
 
 " Where are you, Wayne ? " yelled Ratcliffe, and his 
 voice struck dumb against the fog. 
 
 " Here, Ratcliffe ! " answered Wayne. " The boy 
 must take his chance." 
 
 Hard they rode, each at the other, and thought that they 
 rode true ; but the mist's enchantment was upon them, 
 and crooked ways seemed straight, and straight ways 
 crooked, and they went crying to each other through this 
 white midnight of the fog, till Wayne's sword and Rat- 
 cliffe's axe were beaded over with little, blue-grey drops 
 of moisture. And still they could not find each other ; 
 and the boy, because he had no fear and did not run abroad, 
 escaped the onset of their horses. 
 
 And then it was that Wayne's son remembered how 
 mists will lift as suddenly as they come down ; and he ran 
 near and far, crying now A Wayne and now A Ratcliffe 
 till the dumbness of the shrouding mist grew big with feud- 
 calls calls deadened, as the sound of heavy boots is 
 deadened when the snow cakes under men's nailed heels, 
 but clear to be heard for all that. 
 
 The men's hoarse cries were mingled with the boy's, 
 till last of all Wayne rode up and down three separate 
 dingles on the Marshcotes side of the moor, and Ratcliffe 
 crossed wide out toward Colne, each thinking he was getting 
 near to grips with his prime enemy. 
 
 " 'Tis scarce the work I sought," said Wayne's son to 
 himself ; " but they'll not find each other, this one day at 
 least." 
 
 The fog lifted once again, and the sun shone yellow from 
 the blue-o'-violets sky, and it lit the beaded bracken and 
 the bearded ling. And Wayne's son saw his father, dim 
 on the sky-line, galloping hard toward Marshcotes, thinking 
 his enemy had chosen to seek him in his weakest place 
 the place where Janet and his honour lay. And he saw 
 
 269
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Ratcliffe's head against the sky-line on the Colne side. 
 And, with his many sorrows, he found heart to laugh 
 aloud. 
 
 " There's peace for one day," he muttered. " Lord 
 God, why did you not put battle into my hands instead ? " 
 
 270
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE PARSON FALLS TO PRAYER 
 
 NICK o' TRAWDON, soon as the fog came down and upset 
 all his reckonings, had called to his friends to keep still 
 upon their horses till the mists lifted ; and most of them 
 obeyed him, so that, when the sunlight came again, they 
 drew together, though some were fouled with slime in token 
 of a fall. And then the stragglers here and the stragglers 
 there spied where their comrades stood, and all gathered 
 to the one spot all, save Red Ratcliffe. Up and down 
 the moor they sought him, and then Nick saw the mist 
 come light-fingered across the land again. 
 
 " He must be well ahead, lads," he said, " and at the 
 worst he'll find his way to Black House as we must do, 
 lest this unchancy fog benights us." 
 
 " Yond was a Wayne that rode at us ? " growled one. 
 
 " Ay, the head of all the breed. He has what we call 
 cat-lives, has Shameless Wayne, and ever had." 
 
 " Would have had a few lives less," said the other, " if 
 the White Lady had not come riding down the wind." 
 
 " Well, she's riding now again," put in Nick o' Trawdon 
 drily. " We'd best be jogging, friends, for I'm wide by 
 many a mile of all the best-known tracks." 
 
 So they won to Black House at last, after many stoppages 
 to wait the passing of the mist. And Nick o' Trawdon's 
 wife, because she was the latest wedded of the women, 
 heard their hoof-beats first. Then Audrey heard, and 
 Bathsheba snatched the stirrup-cup, standing ready by 
 the hearth ; and Joseph wakened from a doze a heavy 
 doze, fathered by long watching of the bog and reached 
 out for his sword, and followed. 
 
 The sky was clear as the Red Folk clattered up the hill ; 
 
 271
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 and Nick's wife was selfish in her joy at sight of her good- 
 man riding at the head of them, unhurt and laughing, 
 and she forgot her mistress. 
 
 " Ah, lad, thou'rt home again ! " said she, reaching up 
 her lips to his. 
 
 " Why, I fancy so. What else ? " he answered gaily. 
 
 Then Audrey came among them, with a white and tragic 
 face ; and she heeded not at all that stranger- Ratcliffes 
 were come to fight the Waynes ; rather, the shock-headed, 
 uncouth crowd were like a dream to her, for she could not 
 find the one reality she craved the big head and big 
 shoulders of the man she loved. 
 
 " Where is the Master ? " she asked, in a voice as low 
 as sorrow's. 
 
 " Home here before us, surely," said Nick o' Trawdon. 
 
 " He has not come," was all the girl- wife answered ; 
 and she went indoors, and laid herself upon the bed where, 
 twenty years gone by, her husband had been born in grief 
 more bitter than her own. 
 
 Her maid came to her presently, full of repentance for 
 her joy in Nick's home-coming, full of all sympathy and 
 wish to make sorrow blossom into hope. 
 
 " You are kind," said Audrey, " but help there is none 
 for me." And she turned her face to the wall, and Nick's 
 wife crept softly out, finding no longer any joy in another's 
 safe return. 
 
 But by-and-by Bathsheba came ; and she knelt by 
 Audrey's side, and talked to her, as only the women can 
 whose hearts are simple and whose hands have worked 
 at churn or dairy. 
 
 " Ah, now, whisht ye, lass," she murmured. " I'm 
 warm, I tell ye, and that allus means the Master's safe. 
 Once, when he fell as a little lad and cut his forehead nigh 
 in two against a stone, I was cold for hours afore they 
 brought the boy-lad in, and I knew that summat was by 
 way o' happening, like. To-day I'm warm, thanks be, 
 and your man is riding home to ye, I know." 
 
 Audrey lifted heavy lids, her eyes were blue and 
 
 272
 
 The Parson falls to Prayer 
 
 serious. " Would I had your gift of seeing after and 
 before, Bathsheba," she murmured. " I'd give all my tears 
 for one little ray of hope." 
 
 " Better as ye are, Mistress," said Bathsheba, with a 
 wholesome spice of tartness in amongst her pity. " I've 
 seen before, and I've seen after, and oft-times ye get cold 
 o' nights, lassie, when ye have that kind o' sight." 
 
 On the sudden Audrey lifted herself from the bed ; and 
 like a trumpet in her ears there rang the beat of a horse's 
 feet. 
 
 " He has come Bathsheba, he has come ! " she cried. 
 
 " As I telled ye, lassie. He was bound to come, soon 
 or late and, unlike most men-folk, he has chosen to come 
 soon." 
 
 But Audrey did not hearken. She had dried her eyes, 
 and straightened her gown, and she was down th^ stair 
 and out to meet him in the sunlit courtyard. 
 
 " I thought you dead," she whispered, as she clutched 
 his stirrup, and reached up toward him just as her own maid 
 had reached to Nick o' Trawdon not long ago. 
 
 His answer chilled her ; for Ratcliffe had ridden far, 
 through sun and fog, and he had missed his prey. 
 
 " Wayne rides in safety, lass," he said, " and, seek as I 
 would, I could not find him." 
 
 " Hast found naught better than a Wayne ? " she asked 
 demurely. 
 
 And he looked at her ; and in her face there was the 
 softness of a dawn when day comes early up the hills. 
 
 " Audrey," he said gently, " a man's wife is dear but 
 my folk passed on the feud to me." 
 
 And so at last she understood what this new life must 
 be, knew that it would be keener in joy than the old, but 
 keener also in pain knew that the times must come when 
 she would have to stand aside a little, as now, until her 
 husband's work was done. Ay, for sake of the love be- 
 tween them, she must not grudge him his work, nor look 
 always to find him the hot lover when he came home 
 chilled by failure.
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " You'll meet him once again upon the moor," she said. 
 " Let be, dear, and come in, and see these wild kinsfolk 
 of yours who followed Nick o' Trawdon." 
 
 Not Red Ratcliffe only returned disheartened, but 
 Wayne also, and for the same cause ; for Wayne, when he 
 reached Marsh House, found that his enemy had not passed 
 by that way ; and he repented of his haste in riding down 
 the moor so quickly, and longed bitterly for his lost chance 
 of finding Ratcliffe. 
 
 Janet was above-stairs, thinking of her son, and planning, 
 so far as planning availed aught, to keep Shameless Wayne 
 from riding out on such lonely ventures as to-day's. Wayne 
 looked round the hall for her, soon as he crossed the thres- 
 hold, and her absence seemed the last disappointment of 
 a day, which from the start had not sped well. 
 
 ' You are moody, Wayne of Marsh," said one of those 
 who sat about the board. " We have lately dined ; will 
 you not sit, and eat and drink some comfort into you ? " 
 
 Wayne shook his head. " Moody ? " he snapped, losing 
 the temper which at most times was fine and yielding as 
 a well-found sword. " Am I always and always to go 
 screening a sad heart with a merry face ? Moody ? Ay ! 
 Now take your turn, one or the other of you, and show 
 me that the clouds are not so thick, and not so thunder- 
 black, as they appear. I've done as much for you since 
 this accursed Ratcliffe roamed abroad." 
 
 None answered ; but one brought him a flagon of wine, 
 and Wayne took a deepish draught. 
 
 ' That was a child's outburst," he said by-and-by, re- 
 covering himself. " Friends, we shall die, or we shall 
 live ; but at the least they'll nail down our coffin-lids 
 upon good gentlemen." 
 
 Steady, quiet of voice, a man to tempt even cowards 
 into bravery, Shameless Wayne looked round upon his 
 folk ; and a common impulse came to them, and they 
 lifted their wine-cups high and toasted him, as if they 
 dined with him in time of peace and revelry. 
 
 " Am I wont to be over-superstitious ? " he went on. 
 
 274
 
 The Parson falls to Prayer 
 
 " Yet now I am disposed to be. I went up to Black House 
 to-day, seeking to find an inlet from the rear ; and I met 
 Red Ratcliffe and all his Red Folk with him, and the mist 
 came down and scattered us as we galloped to the shock." 
 
 " What, you against them all ? " 
 
 " Odds are of God's making, not of mine," said Wayne, 
 with a quiet laugh. " The fog sundered us, and, when it 
 cleared, I found Red Ratcliffe in a shallow dingle ; and we 
 were alone ; and then the mist came down again, and hid 
 us, and led us roaming wide apart across the moor. Friends, 
 you know the feel of a sword, when it lives and is restless 
 in your hand, and you know your blow is going to strike 
 well home ? Well, it was such a blow the mist robbed me 
 of, and I fear this Ratcliffe is no man at all, but a devil 
 red from hell, who's leagued with the mist and the wind 
 and the rain against us." 
 
 " And these Red Folk ? How many of them, Wayne ? " 
 
 " I had no time to count ; but they were many, carrying 
 long-shafted clubs like these upon the wall yonder. We 
 could deal with them but this Ratcliffe shows like to 
 slay us one by one. God, the feel of the blade in my 
 hand to-day ! I could have counted twenty, biding my 
 time, and the stroke would have run as sweet as a lass to 
 the pedlar when he comes with fairings in his pack. I 
 could not have missed him, Waynes ! " 
 
 They knew at least, the elders did that strange, lithe 
 feel of a blade when a swordsman's luck runs high as a 
 moor brook after snow ; and they cursed the mist, each 
 after his own fashion, and afterwards they talked of ways 
 and means, of what were best be done to meet the^Ratcliffes, 
 but on them all there lay a hopelessness, disguise it as they 
 would, and they listened for the sound of Barguest a- 
 crying and a-yelping at the door, and pretended, when at 
 last they heard it, that it was the wind though wind 
 there was none, save a gentle stirring of the breeze. 
 
 Down to the starlit dusk the day wore on ; and still 
 the moor was throbbing with that nameless shuddering 
 of the things to come ; and Little Bairn crept out to her 
 
 275
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 accustomed place upon the gravestone, and found the 
 Sexton there, blinking his old eyes at the graveyard and 
 the stars. 
 
 " I'm tired of crimson skies and crimson moors," she 
 said ; " tired of the Black Wayne faces, Sexton, and the 
 red, red blood they spill upon the ground. Will there 
 never be a blue sky over us again, Sexton ? I love the blue 
 skies so, and these moors affright me." 
 
 The Sexton shivered. His years lay cold upon him, 
 and he was seeing now, not ghosts of the folk who stirred 
 his humour, but ghosts of the buried Waynes and Ratcliffes 
 who could not rest within their graves. He saw, too, the 
 days to come so soon, when he should be as one of them, 
 lying under sod and only creeping out o' nights to roam, 
 a dead man among the dead. 
 
 " You're fond of saying, Mistress, that naught matters," 
 he muttered, his toothless gums all chattering, " but 
 'twould seem to Witherlee and that's myseln as if death 
 mattered a fearful deal. There's my wife Nancy, sleeping 
 quiet-like once in a way to-night, but waiting for me, 
 Mistress ay, biding till I come to join the ghosties, and 
 ready to pay off a few old scores. She knows my bad old 
 doings now, ye see. Besides, I've a sort of a clinging to 
 life, rheumatiz, and Parson's cranks to put up with, not- 
 withstanding. Mistress, I've no wish to die ! I want to 
 see another winter's robins come i' their red waistcoats 
 and pick the snod worms up from the shovel's end ; I 
 want my old heart's like to break to think on't I want to 
 see another spring come bringing the tree-buds out and heart- 
 ening the speckled throstles into song. Oh, by th' Heart, 
 'tis a cold and solemn business, this going under ground ! " 
 
 They were silent, and the stars looked down on them : 
 and then the Sexton tried to lift his spirits, but his chuckle 
 had no heart in it. 
 
 " 'Twould be fine and queer if neither Parson buried 
 me, nor me th' owd Parson," he said. 
 
 Little Bairn clutched at his arm, and pointed down 
 between the graves. 
 
 276
 
 The Parson falls to Prayer 
 
 " Do you see aught, Sexton ? " she whispered. 
 
 Witherlee looked down ; and they both saw what was 
 going forward. As of old, the Lean Man and the Dog 
 were in and out among the headstones, and the Dog was 
 crying like a child left out of doors at night, and the Lean 
 Man was chasing him. But suddenly, as they watched, 
 the Brown Dog found his courage, and turned and closed 
 with his old enemy ; and Little Bairn and Witherlee looked 
 on, because they could not take their eyes away, and they 
 saw a fight so wild, and close, and awful, that Witherlee 
 would have given his remaining days of life in exchange 
 for power to turn his head aside. 
 
 And then there chanced what seemed a miracle ; for, 
 when the fight was hottest between the lean ghost, with 
 his palsied arm, and the shaggy dog, whose eyes glared 
 ruddy in the starlight, they fell apart upon the sudden, 
 and each looked at the other, and the Lean Man beckoned 
 to the Dog, and the beast came and fawned on him, and 
 they were friends. And up between the graves they went, 
 and farther up into the moors above, the Dog ever at the 
 Lean Man's heels, and ever barking joyously like some 
 homeless cur that finds a friend at last. 
 
 A wonderful, soft breeze came down and fanned the 
 cheeks of Little Bairn and Witherlee ; and the Sexton 
 felt a cool and childish hand within his own. 
 
 ' Tis like the spring you talked of, Sexton, is it not 
 and the throstles all are singing." 
 
 " Throstles ay," said Witherlee ; " but what has the 
 Dog to do with songs o' spring ? " 
 
 In one man's heart, at least, no joy of spring was sound- 
 ing. Parson Clare, still seeking for his mission, had gone 
 up into the hills, as all men living near the moor are wont 
 to do when trouble comes to them ; and he had looked 
 at the starry dust that marked the highroad of the Milky 
 Way, had looked at Charley's Wain, swinging its lamps 
 across the void, had asked for an answer to the riddle of 
 his fast-declining days. 
 
 The answer came at last ; and he fell on his knees among 
 
 77
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 the heather, and prayed for strength to carry his labours 
 through ; and the great stars wheeled above him, and the 
 breeze came soft as early violets, and he did not know 
 that the task appointed him was the first mile-stone set 
 upon a road which led to a farther goal. 
 
 Then he went down to the Parsonage ; and he was 
 spent with prayer ; and all about the old house Audrey's 
 voice seemed crying, crying to him ; yet he knew that 
 she lay far-off, and would likely never sit at his knee again, 
 and he yearned for his little girl. 
 
 Just as Wayne's son had sent up his cry to-day, so 
 Parson Clare did now, amid the silence of the Parsonage. 
 
 " Lord God, if only you had asked strength from my 
 youth, and not from my old age ! " he cried. 
 
 278
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 BATHSHEBA^PLAYS HER PART 
 
 n 
 
 " THEY make a deal of dirt about a house, Joseph," said 
 Bathsheba, on the morning after the Red Folk had 
 ridden in. 
 
 " And who might they be who make such a power of 
 dirt ? " asked Joseph, with a sly twinkle round his lips. 
 
 " Why, these wild folk from the moor. Luckily, Black 
 House was built to give room for twice as big a company 
 but 'tis not one woman's work, but twenty, to follow 
 them." 
 
 " Then dunnot follow, lass. They'll be busy out o' 
 doors afore so long, and some o' the poor rogues will never 
 come again to trouble thee. Waynes, too, have a trick 
 of making dirt, Bathsheba, when they meet Ratcliffes ; 
 they do it wi' their swords. But the moor's not like a 
 four-walled house soon clears up her litter, she, with a 
 shower o' rain or so." 
 
 Bathsheba was no match for her goodman nowadays, 
 and knew it. Moreover, she was never far away from 
 battle, and from battle chances, and these lads, who had 
 come in to fight for the master's cause, were gradely-built 
 and good to look upon. 
 
 " I'd sorrow to see one of the ladkins killed, I own," 
 she murmured. " Yet they showed littlish pity yester- 
 morn themselves, Joseph. 'Twas well and away for them 
 to Black House but what o' the women-folk they left 
 behind ? " 
 
 " Tuts ! We want only men here, lass saving Master's 
 wife, and Nick's, and mine. D'ye think the Red Folk 
 were minded to crowd us out wi' chattering women ? " 
 
 " Ask me," said the goodwife sharply, " and I'd say 
 
 279
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 they never once thought of their women-kind, but just 
 rode hot and away i' search o' frolic soon as the Master 
 came. Poor wenches out yonder on the lonesome lands ! 
 Poor wenches everywhere, say I ! They've to carry and 
 fetch, and kicks come quicker in than ha'pence for all 
 their trouble." 
 
 " Thou'st so little sense, when all's said, Bathsheba. 
 Did they go out into the Lonesome Lands these score 
 years gone ? Did they go out across a threshold reeking- 
 hot as a mistal but warmed by no good kine and fare 
 out into the mirk ? Did these women live for months in 
 shelters made by their own hands, and brave it out, and 
 live to rear men-children ? Did they, or didn't they, 
 Bathsheba ? " 
 
 " Why, ay, they did," agreed Bathsheba, who found it 
 hard to know her Master in these latter days. 
 
 "Then, tuts! Will they be scared, think ye, to live 
 on i' the old place, and bide, and look to see us coming 
 when we've done our work ? I tell ye, we want men, not 
 women, here, for days as red as a Ratcliffe's thatch are 
 coming on us all." 
 
 There was a pause ; and Bathsheba came straight to 
 her goodman's arms, and her tears lay moist upon his 
 cheek ; and Joseph realised, dimly under the stress of 
 coming battle, that good women, to their lives' end, are 
 not children altogether, and not lassies altogether, but that 
 the gusty sweetness of young Primrose April will come at 
 times upon them all, turning strife and evil days and surly 
 weather into glamour of the budding spring. 
 
 " Lad Joseph," she said, " I've troubled thee with 
 whimsies through the years. And thou wast right, and 
 I was wrong, and thou'st the better wisdom of us two. 
 And, Joseph, the feud is good, and I've fostered it, same 
 as I fostered the Master but I'm thinking just thinking, 
 lad, that life 'ud be a drearyish thing if ye were to be slain." 
 
 Joseph was daunted now. " Nay, now," he muttered. 
 " Nay, Bathsheba. I wouldn't have thee cry I wouldn't 
 no way have thee cry." 
 
 280
 
 Bathsheba plays her Part 
 
 She looked up quickly. " Tears are like rain, Joseph 
 good for well-found land, but evil for the sourer fields." 
 
 " That's good farming-lore, any way, Bathsheba. 
 Good fighting- wisdom, too, if ye ask Joseph. Rain never 
 did aught to a well-found man, or a well-found bit o' field 
 save moisten his hand-grip on the axe o' life. I'm bothered, 
 lass, for all that," he broke off. " I'm not by way o' 
 harbouring fancies, but Red Ratcliffe rode home to-day 
 without the Feud-Spear." 
 
 " And what of that ? " asked Bathsheba, half lost 
 among the lands where fairies danced about her love for 
 weather-beaten Joseph. 
 
 Joseph looked through the kitchen- window, hearing a 
 footstep on the stones outside ; and he saw Red Ratcliffe 
 coming to the door. 
 
 " I'll tell the Master what of that," he answered grimly. 
 " He should know by now what comes o' letting the Feud 
 Spear drop." 
 
 The Master came in with a brisk step. " Joseph " 
 
 he began, intent on giving some order for the day. 
 
 But the other interrupted him. " Master, where does 
 the Feud Spear lie this moment ? " he asked. 
 
 " I had forgotten it," said Ratcliffe, after an uneasy 
 silence, " forgotten it till this moment, Joseph. When we 
 found the Red Folk and sent up the call, an old, old woman 
 ran up the hill to meet us, and clutched the spear ; and then 
 the lads came swarming round about us, and I thought of 
 naught save bringing them to Black House." 
 
 " As I said," put in Bathsheba, herself again. " Women 
 are never heeded when they've done their work." 
 
 " Ye should have called one thing to mind," said Joseph. 
 " When the Spear's lost, comes peace's frost." Didn't I 
 teach ye that, Master, when ye were dandling-high, and I 
 rode ye on my knee o' nights ? Afore ye were born afore 
 I or my father's father was born the Ratcliffes knew that 
 when the Spear was lost, there'd be an end of feud. And 
 the fight was only just beginning only just beginning," 
 he finished ruefully. 
 
 281
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " I'll ride to the far lands to-day and fetch it back," 
 said Ratcliffe. 
 
 Now superstition which, after all, is but another name 
 for faith is a thing hard to reckon with. Joseph had 
 little faith, and Bathsheba had much ; yet the woman, 
 who so often saw before and after, who had watched the 
 Lean Man come and go, and had listened to countless 
 voices from the over- world the woman chanced to have 
 small belief in this legend of the Spear which was dear to 
 her goodman's heart. And in that she erred, for the one 
 faith of a plain man is more to be depended on than the 
 many faiths of the more fanciful. 
 
 " Master, ye've enough to do," she said ; " these raw 
 lads have to be trained to fight you said it yourself 
 yestreen and 'tis throwing fairy-money into th' bog to 
 go riding outward now, just when the terror's chilling all 
 the Waynes, just when we've got our lads about us, asking 
 only to be taught." 
 
 " Bathsheba, 'twas half an excuse, I own. I want to 
 find Shameless Wayne again there's no mist on the hills 
 to-day and I've a fancy he is riding somewhere about the 
 moors, as restless as myself." 
 
 " Lad, if ye'd bided twenty years, as I have done, for 
 the feud to re -waken if ye'd seen me suckling ye, when 
 your hands were just two podgy bits o' weakness, things 
 to laugh at and to cry over if ye'd learned my patience, 
 ye would not be sorrowing now because Shameless Wayne 
 does not drop under your axe in a moment, like an o'er- 
 ripe plum falls into a lass's lap." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe looked at Bathsheba, and so did Joseph. 
 There's a strange cogency about the speech of the child- 
 bearers when they show their hidden records of patience 
 and long-suffering, and the farm-wife's face was fair to 
 look upon so fair that Joseph thought himself a lad 
 again, wooing stealthily beneath the moon, and hearing the 
 hares go cropping sweet o' the grass while Bathsheba 
 reached up a glamoured face to him. 
 
 " Let the Spear bide," said Bathsheba. " Tis not out 
 
 282
 
 Bathsheba plays her Part 
 
 o' Ratcliffe hands, and the women yonder will care for it 
 as well as a mother would." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe listened to her, since the business of train- 
 ing these unruly lads seemed the more urgent ; moreover, 
 he feared to leave Audrey unguarded in the midst of men 
 who longed for battle, and could not find it instantly. And 
 Joseph acquiesced reluctantly. Yet not one of them 
 guessed now or ever knew that Red Ratcliffe had been 
 saved from almost certain death by following Bathsheba's 
 advice. 
 
 Wayne himself, with a great company, had chosen this 
 morning for a foray into the broken lands ; for it was 
 his hope that Red Ratcliffe with his folk might be abroad 
 on yesterday's battle-ground, eager as himself to fight in 
 open sunlight. They travelled far into the lands that lay 
 behind Black House, and by chance they rode to a hill- 
 crest, to see the better whether any horseman were coming 
 up across the moor ; and down below them they saw no 
 men, indeed, but a hive of women moving to and fro in 
 the secluded glen. 
 
 " See the colour of them ! " said one. " Only a fox's 
 brush, or a Ratcliffe's head, can carry such a colour." 
 
 Shameless Wayne looked down the sunlit brink, and he 
 read the riddle of the scene below him. 
 
 " They're the mothers and the sisters of those Red 
 Folk I saw yestermorn," he answered. " What will the 
 sons be, friends, with mothers such as those to suckle 
 them ? " 
 
 " Pity we spared them, twenty years ago," said a grizzled 
 elder. " Kill all, say I, when the feud has hardened 
 women into men." 
 
 " Let none again speak words from hell in my hearing," 
 cried Wayne, his face keen and hard with anger. " Were 
 a Wayne to slay a woman, I would kill him with my own 
 hand. Oh, shame on you, friends, shame on you ! " he 
 broke off, the passionate, tender heart of the man awaking. 
 " Let us live, if we may, and die if we must but those 
 women yonder might well have been mother or sister to 
 
 283
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 each one of you. They are brave, and God give them rest 
 for it." 
 
 And now the women had spied them, had seen their 
 black heads swart against the hill-top sky ; and they ran 
 up, the old and the young together, and the Waynes 
 stayed still in their saddles, and watched them in 
 amazement. 
 
 " Ye are Waynes ? " cried the foremost of the women, 
 breathless after her climb. 
 
 " Ay," said Wayne of Marsh. 
 
 And then a storm of cries arose, and curses rattled on 
 the Waynes, like hail with a northern wind behind it ; and 
 the women leaped in among the horsemen, and clutched 
 at them, and, because their strength was fed by open air 
 and hardship, they were as men to reckon with, though they 
 came unarmed. 
 
 For the first and the last time in his life, Shameless 
 Wayne was bent on flight. Even to loose, as gently as he 
 could, the grip of the woman who had fastened on him, 
 hurt him in what had always been a weak place in his 
 armour. Courtesy to all, but courtesy toward women 
 'specially, had seemed often to ruin Wayne's hopes in this 
 stark and forthright feud ; and now he loathed his work 
 of getting free from all these crying folk. 
 
 May be his comrades would have been less gentle, had 
 they not heard their leader's passionate rebuke. As it was, 
 they forced the women off as best they could, not hurting 
 them, and they followed Shameless Wayne at a gallop over 
 the gold and the red and the black of the moor, and left the 
 Ratcliffe women crying shrilly still behind them. 
 
 And no man spoke, as they skirted the marshes round 
 Black House and cast wistful eyes toward the bogs whose 
 secret was denied them. For the silence of the learning- 
 time was on them ; since out of battle men are born, and 
 from battle only do men come, by favour of their God, 
 to peace. They had learned this, at least, these Waynes 
 who a few days since were living in folly's peace and ease 
 had learned that Wayne, who led them, could draw off from 
 
 284
 
 Bathsheba plays her Part 
 
 trouble and find grace to plead for women had learned, 
 perhaps, a little of that exquisite, clean chivalry which not 
 all the faults of Shameless Wayne could take from him. 
 
 Ratcliffe, meanwhile, lay safe at home. If, disdaining 
 Bathsheba, he had ridden out to find the Feud Spear, he 
 would have galloped straight into the whole of the Wayne 
 company. Moreover, he would not in any case have found 
 the Spear ; for the beldame who had clutched it first had 
 clasped it so close to her withered breasts that, when they 
 came to bury her on the quiet glen-side, they could not 
 force it from her hands ; and so they had hidden it with 
 her, beneath the yellowing hazel shrubs whose nuts were 
 late to ripen. 
 
 It was after this that another of those quiet and eerie 
 silences crept down about the feud. To Audrey, in her 
 inexperience ay, even to Bathsheba, who should have 
 learned the way of feud by now there was something 
 monstrous in these days of peace. After the fight which 
 she had watched on the steps of Marshcotes churchyard, 
 Audrey could not understand that Red Ratcliffe did not 
 come in, with wounds upon him, three times a day at least ; 
 but then she had never known how fields will grow lush with 
 the hay-crop and thereafter must rest a while the veriest 
 idlers till the second harvest of the year grows quietly 
 in the night and in the sunshine. But Joseph knew these 
 things, and his old blood warmed in him ; and he forgot 
 that the Feud Spear had gone out of sight. 
 
 Little by little Joseph and Bathsheba drew the story 
 of the years from the red- heads who slept now within the 
 shelter of Black House. Just as Red Ratcliffe's mother 
 had come into the wilderness to bear her child, so these 
 other women had gone out, each with her burden, into the 
 farther lands ; so they had passed on the tale of feud, and 
 had reared these lusty lads of themselves, if they survived 
 the wet night's perils, or by foster-mothers if they died 
 to carry on the battle. 
 
 Men who asked no man's leave, were these Red Folk ; 
 and, though in speech they differed little from their leader, 
 
 a8 5
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 they were more lawless than ever their own kin had 
 been. These, when the feud was up, disdained the Sheriff's 
 interference in their private quarrel ; but they did not 
 rob their peaceful neighbours, as the Red Folk had been 
 reared to do. Nay, when Joseph and Nick o' Trawdon 
 questioning how long their supplies of cattle, sheep, or meal 
 could last, with all these mouths to feed, one of the new- 
 comers promised they would see to that, and, to Joseph's 
 question, " How, lad ? " he answered simply that they 
 would ride and bring in all the stock from the nearest 
 farm and, when these supplies were finished, they would 
 go to the next nearest. And he and all his friends were 
 astonished when they learned that such things were not 
 done on this side of the moor. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe's fears for Audrey weakened and died out 
 as the days wore on. For these wild cousins of his looked 
 on her from the first as a being almost supernatural ; her 
 beautiful, soft eyes, her hair all spun by sunshine out of 
 golden bracken-dust, the slimness and the graceful height 
 of her such things were miracles to these boys who until 
 now had only seen their own weather-roughened women, 
 or perchance some farm wench when they went a-raiding. 
 They called her " the gold fairy grown to woman's size," 
 and there was not one of them but answered her least nod, 
 asking no thanks except the joy of serving her. 
 
 Nick's wife, moreover, because she was a little like her 
 mistress, and because the two were such fast friends, en- 
 joyed the same immunity from insult ; and this oddly- 
 sorted company, which waited at Black House for the next 
 battle to begin, found much to like in one another, and 
 worked together quietly for the coming end. 
 
 Yet they, who thought the feud was theirs and the 
 Waynes' alone, counted nothing on the work which an old 
 and lonely Parson was doing all these days the work, 
 which, in its last result, was to determine the fortunes of 
 both Waynes and Ratcliffes. 
 
 Parson Clare did not know, for that matter, what final 
 mark his prayers would reach the prayers which might be 
 
 286
 
 Bathsheba plays her Part 
 
 truly aimed, which might, for all that, glance like an arrow 
 from a tree-bole and hit some further object quite un- 
 thought of. He had only the one goal in sight ; and day 
 and night he prayed to reach it prayed sometimes in the 
 desolation left behind by Audrey at the Parsonage, but 
 oftener on the open moor. And at last a chance meeting 
 or what seemed a chance encounter brought his heart 
 to his lips, and he threw down the gage for all Marshcotes 
 village to see and to take up. 
 
 287
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 HOW THE RAINS CAME TO ALL THE MOORSIDE 
 
 PARSON CLARE'S encounter was with the landlord of the 
 Bull Inn, which adjoined the steps of his own churchyard. 
 The Parson had come out, weak with long prayer, to visit 
 one of his flock who lived half down the village street ; 
 and the landlord stood at his own door, his coat off and 
 his sleeves rolled up above the elbow, and hailed the 
 old man as he passed. For there was a grudge between 
 them of long-standing, since Parson Clare strove constantly 
 to keep good customers away from the Bull, and the host 
 strove constantly to entice them thither. 
 
 " Give ye good-day, sir," said the landlord, touching 
 a grey forelock. 
 
 " Give ye good-day," said the Parson, one finger lifted 
 to his beaver hat, in token that he always answered courtesy 
 with courtesy. 
 
 " Rare fine weather for the horse-races, Parson, a week 
 come to-day," went on the other, knowing that these 
 same races had been a perpetual thorn in his enemy's side 
 since first he came to Marshcotes. " Rare fine weather, 
 and it couldn't no way break to rain nay, not if it tried 
 ever so." 
 
 It was then that Parson Clare lost his weariness for- 
 got that he was old, and tired, and near his end re- 
 membered not at all that Audrey had gone from him into 
 the doubtful lands of wedlock. The landlord, roughly 
 enough, had touched the hidden nerve which had been 
 aching throughout the Parson's days of prayer. 
 
 The Parson came near the threshold of the Bull ; and 
 men who, in his old days, had met him in the dawning, 
 sword in hand, would have known that look upon his face, 
 
 288
 
 How the Rains came to the Moorside 
 
 had they lived to see it now. The face of a younger man 
 it was, all strung to the pitch of a harp after the player 
 has brought it into tune ; and his voice came true and keen, 
 and the landlord quailed before him. 
 
 " The weather will break to rain," said Parson Clare. 
 " Year after year I have prayed against your accursed 
 races ; but I did not pray enough. Listen, you, and spread 
 the tale about, and judge afterward if I am lying ! Night 
 and day, day and night, an old man has prayed that rain 
 will come three days before to-morrow's week and three 
 days before to-morrow's week the rain will come, and it 
 will drown your race once and for all in the pit of 
 Hell." 
 
 The Parson lifted a finger to his beaver again in token 
 of good-day, and passed down the street. And the land- 
 lord watched him out of sight, and not till evening brought 
 his cronies round about him, not till old ale had mellowed 
 his remembrance of the Parson's face and voice, did he 
 find heart to laugh at the prophecy of Parson Clare. 
 
 " What was Parson saying this morn, think ye ? " he 
 asked, looking from one unsober face to another. " Why, 
 that he'd drown our races for us by force of prayer ' Par- 
 son,' says I, ' 'twill take a bigger nor ye to pray Marshcotes 
 races out of Marshcotes village. Old drones never made 
 new honey yet,' I says, ' nor prayers a stopping-gate for 
 race-horses.' ' 
 
 The landlord, after twice repeating this imaginary speech, 
 began to believe that he had indeed replied to Parson 
 Clare in this brave fashion ; and they all laughed with 
 him, and asked how the old mad-wit proposed to make 
 his promise true. 
 
 " 'Twill rain three days and nights beforehand, so he 
 says." 
 
 An old fanner present rattled his mug on the table, and 
 grinned from one red ear to another. " Dang me, that's 
 good ! " he cried. " I've seen Marshcotes weather, man 
 and boy, these seventy years, and I should know it a bit 
 by now. Terrible changeful weather, ay, at most times 
 T 289
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 but I'll lay any man a guinea to a boot-sole that we get 
 no rain this side o' this day fortnight. A real St Martin's 
 summer, this, that willun't break for fancy-prayers and 
 fancy-parsons." 
 
 " Th' owd Parson's gone doi ting-like," said the landlord. 
 " Th' wind blew the thatch off his roof once on a day, I 
 reckon, and he's ne'er recovered it. Small wonder, say I, 
 when a man's getten a rich-ripe slip of a daughter, and all 
 these Waynes about ; 'twould be enough to crazy most 
 on us." 
 
 So they laughed their fill, and went each in due time 
 to his bed ; but on the morrow they spread the rumour 
 wide that Parson Clare had sworn to stop the races. It 
 was not only that there was an element of sport in this 
 struggle of one man against them all ; that alone would 
 have aroused their interest, but there was more behind. 
 These races, held every year in the long pasture-field be- 
 tween Marshcotes and the moors, were vastly dear to all 
 the village folk ; they brought the riff-raff of two counties 
 in, and scenes were common that outraged law and decency, 
 but for all that it was the one great holiday they had, and 
 they clung to it with fierce persistency. What matter 
 that the horses which came to the starting-point were 
 bare of rib and blundered in their gallop ? One horse 
 would win, and wagers could be laid, and afterward good 
 money could be spent in liquor. 
 
 The folk of Marshcotes clung to their holiday ; and the 
 report went near and far that Parson Clare was striving 
 to upset it ; and he, when he met their scowling glances 
 or their open laughter, was glad that he had thrown the 
 gauntlet down. His faith was strong on him, and each 
 day found it stronger ; and at such times men welcome 
 opposition. 
 
 " 'Tis well," he would mutter as he went about his 
 usual affairs. " Out of a clear sky the rain shall come 
 and wash their unbelief away." 
 
 And now, as the day of the races grew nearer, his strength 
 increased, and ever his prayers redoubled, while the sun 
 
 290
 
 How the Rains came to the Moorside 
 
 was warm in the unclouded sky by day and the new moon 
 grew bigger in the heavens night by night. 
 
 " Where's the Parson's rain-fall now ? " the landlord 
 of the Bull would ask his cronies. 
 
 "Away to the back o' Daft Man's Land," they 
 would laugh, strong in their weather-faith as was the 
 Parson. 
 
 And so Parson Clare one night found himself half be- 
 tween the mirk and the dawn, on the moor above the 
 graveyard. On the morrow it must rain, or his faith would 
 be broken into pieces for all the moor folk to gibe at as 
 they passed. 
 
 All was still and clear, and through the light haze came 
 a breeze as kind as summer ; and far off the young moon 
 traced the pattern of the distant hills. 
 
 " Belike the rain has lost its way crossing the moor," 
 they were saying one to another down in Marshcotes. 
 
 But Parson Clare prayed steadfastly, till soul and body 
 seemed strung to breaking-pitch with the one last, mighty 
 effort. And suddenly, as he prayed, the breeze began to 
 move more briskly, and shifted to the south of west, and 
 from the co're of it there came a. little moan whose meaning 
 no man could mistake. 
 
 The Parson got to his feet, stumbling a little for he 
 was wearied out and listened to the new note in the 
 wind ; and then he went down to the Parsonage, and 
 slept in great tranquillity. 
 
 And folk in Marshcotes, so they say, awoke from sleep 
 that night and heard the rising wind that whimpered round 
 the casements ; and a man would stir uneasily, and turn 
 to the wife beside him, and murmur that may be Parson 
 had the right of it, when all was said. But others pushed 
 their doubts aside, and growled that this was only some 
 frolic of the breeze, meaningless and soon to pass. 
 
 Far across the moor the old Parson's prayers seemed 
 to spread to-night ; for at Black House the Master 
 woke from sleep, in the dead middle of the night, and 
 looked at the moonlit window, and saw the Lean Man 
 
 291
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 beckoning with his one unpalsied hand. He rose, and 
 Audrey heard him donning his riding-gear. 
 
 " What is it, heart o' mine ? " she asked. 
 
 " I know not, lass, save that the Lean Man calls to me." 
 
 And Audrey, though she shivered as with cold, let him 
 go out, knowing that, with her leave or lacking it, he must 
 answer to the call. 
 
 He saddled quickly, slipped foster-brother into his 
 sheath, and rode out with the sickle moon to guide him. 
 The Lean Man went before him ; and Ratcliffe thought 
 his errand was to rescue the Feud Spear from the farther 
 lands ; but the Lean Man guided him instead straight out 
 toward Marshcotes, and Red Ratcliffe then was sure that 
 he was meant to take the Waynes at unawares. 
 
 And so he was, but not in the fashion that he looked for. 
 
 When near Wildwater, Ratcliffe's heart misgave him ; 
 for he saw that his guide was not alone, but that a rough 
 and wistful hound went following the Lean Man, a spectre 
 attending on a spectral master ; and the dog would fawn 
 on the man at times, and the man would turn to pat his 
 shaggy hide. 
 
 " Can a ghost go into dotage ? " muttered Ratcliffe, 
 perplexed and half -dismayed. " The Lean Man is friends 
 with Barguest, 'twould seem by Audrey's God, I'll soon 
 be clasping the hand of Shameless Wayne and calling him 
 my friend, if this queer work goes on." 
 
 Yet still he followed his two guides till they came to 
 a drear and lonely dingle, which even the moonlight could 
 not hearten into warmth. And here the Lean Man halted, 
 and the dog crouched at his heel ; and through their filmy 
 bodies Ratcliffe saw a youngster, black of head and broad 
 in build. He was a Wayne, riding out as others had 
 done before him on the forlorn hope of finding, unaided, 
 a way to cross the bogs that fortressed Black House round 
 about. Not a youngster of those at Marsh but hoped to 
 succeed where all before had failed, and this was only the 
 last of many who had ridden on the same fruitless quest 
 and some had returned as empty as they went, and others 
 
 292
 
 How the Rains came to the Moorside 
 
 had been enticed by the tracks which promised fair 
 footing across the bog and had returned no more. 
 
 " Hi, you, d'ye carry a Wayne head ? " cried Ratcliffe, 
 as he drew the long axe from its sheath. 
 
 The other saw, beneath the sickle moon, a great bulk 
 of a man against the sky, and up above his head the 
 shadowed outline of the axe ; and he knew that he was 
 face to face with Red Ratcliffe gigantic in the flesh, 
 but bigger still in these last days by virtue of the deeds 
 that had lifted him into the upper spaces of the super- 
 natural. He saw, and fear ran through him like water 
 from an ice-cold well-spring on the moor ; and then he got 
 his sword out, and galloped hard at Ratcliffe, and struck 
 with the frenzy of a great hope and a great despair. If 
 only he could bring this red-head down, and carry the 
 long axe home with him to show to those at Marsh ! 
 
 As it chanced, his sudden onslaught came nearer to 
 success than an attack more studied could have done ; 
 the light, clear enough to show the ground beneath a horse's 
 feet, was vague and maidish for the play of sword on axe, 
 and only on the edge of death did Ratcliffe lift the haft 
 of foster-brother to parry the wild stroke. Through the 
 wood of the haft the stroke bit forward, and jarred against 
 the inner core of steel ; and the sword ran like a live thing 
 from Wayne's hand, and fell with a gentle thud against 
 the peat. 
 
 Even now the boy could have brought his rearing horse 
 to discipline, could have turned him sharp to the right, 
 and have galloped for his life. But he would not ; for 
 disdain of death was a creed handed down by generations 
 long almost as the number of his years. He saw the axe 
 swing up above Red Ratcliffe's head. He saw the blue of 
 the sickle moon run off from the blade like showers of 
 molten dew ; and he gathered the glory of the fathers to 
 his aid, and knew himself a man. 
 
 " Wayne and the Dog ! " he cried, as another had cried 
 not long ago when the cold marsh came licking at his 
 mouth. 
 
 293
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Yet Ratcliffe's axe lay still. Perhaps he remembered 
 his wife's farewell, the softness and the mercy of it ; per- 
 haps he looked aside, and saw the Dog fawn friendly at 
 the Lean Man's heel, and was puzzled by this friendship 
 in the midst of enmity ; or it might be that the moon's 
 light was strong enough to show him that this boy was 
 young, and good to look upon, and quite defenceless, 
 waiting bravely for his fate. 
 
 " Lad," said he, sheathing foster-brother with a sudden 
 snap, " a Ratcliffe does not fight with unarmed folk. Pick 
 up your sword from the peat lest shame come on you, 
 going empty of it to Marsh House and tell your folk 
 that I and mine will ride out to-morrow's morrow morn, 
 just after sunrise, and meet you and yours upon the naked 
 moor. We'll take no 'vantage of our bogs. On the high 
 ground, half between this and Marshcotes, we'll ride out 
 to meet you." 
 
 The words came to him, he knew not whence ; but he 
 glanced aside again, and the ghost of the Lean Man looked 
 at him in friendly-sort, and the shadowy dog whined 
 happily. 
 
 So they parted, after Wayne, bewildered altogether, 
 had stooped for his sword, after Ratcliffe had bidden him 
 a strange farewell, half serious and half mocking. 
 
 " Give you a restful night," he had said, " and a less 
 speedy rest to-morrow's morrow morn if we meet upon 
 the moor." 
 
 This was the God-speed Wayne took home with him 
 this, and the coldness, which none but a Wayne could 
 understand, that came of taking mercy from a Ratcliffe. 
 He stabled his horse, and stole, not wanting to, into the 
 hall of old Marsh House. iHe had looked to find a company 
 of kinsmen there, sitting the night through in restless 
 expectation of the Ratcliffes' coming ; but only Shameless 
 Wayne sat hugging the peat fire, hugging the new-lit love 
 for Janet and the old regrets of years gone by. 
 
 " Well, lad ? " asked the older man, looking up. " What 
 new disaster comes on us ? Your face tells me you have 
 
 294
 
 How the Rains came to the Moorside 
 
 evil- news. God o' the feud ! " he broke off impatiently, 
 " will none ever come with good cheer to me must it be 
 always, ' This one lies dead of an axe's stroke on the 
 moor,' or, ' That one lies among the bogs ' ? " 
 
 The boy told him then the tale, and gave him Ratcliffe's 
 message ; and Shameless Wayne lost all his moodiness. 
 
 " To-morrow's morrow morn ! " he cried. " I had 
 liefer he had named to-morrow, and saved us one day's 
 waiting. Lad, 'tis good news you bring, not evil news at 
 all!" 
 
 " He gave me my life, and I am ashamed." 
 
 Wayne looked at his kinsman, and saw how great his 
 trouble was ; and he went to him and laid a kind hand on 
 his shoulder, and out of the depths of his own past shame 
 and trouble he plucked that sympathy which all men 
 understand. 
 
 " He gave me my life at Colne, lad, and it was greater 
 shame than yours. Forget it, and let the coming fight 
 wipe out your debt." 
 
 And presently other Waynes came trooping in, and 
 heard the news, and the shadow of their quiet and des- 
 perate time of idleness was lifted, and they talked far 
 into the night of battle and of battle only. 
 
 And Ratcliffe, too, returned to Black House, and roused 
 his sleeping red-heads, and told them what message he 
 had sent to Marsh ; and a great hubbub rose, and the 
 keen light came into their faces, and old Joseph stood 
 apart and rubbed his hands with quiet glee. 
 
 " Why not have given them a meeting-place at dawn 
 to-day ? " asked a rash youngster. 
 
 " Because you all have had a hard day, and a long one, 
 in the fields. We must be rested, friends, lest our arms 
 grow tired with killing Waynes," laughed Ratcliffe. 
 
 So at Black House and Marsh alike, there was thought 
 only of the coming fight ; and a frail old Parson, near his 
 death, but sleeping now after long toil, had no place in 
 their reckonings. 
 
 It was ten of the next morning when Parson Clare 
 
 295
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 awoke. He rose, dressed without haste, and went, out 
 across the churchyard and through the wicket-gate that 
 led him to the moor. A great peace was on him, and his 
 step was firm. 
 
 Away across the moor he looked ; and he saw the 
 clouds come up from the south-west, fleecy as moorland 
 sheep and shepherded by the fast-rising wind. White 
 clouds they were, but, as he watched, a darkness crept 
 across them. Up and up they came, hurrying as if they 
 feared the shepherd-wind behind them ; and the darkness 
 followed, keeping pace with them ; and the russet moor of 
 yesterday showed as a sad and barren land, where the 
 bracken made only surly patches of dark brown amid 
 the dead acres of the peat. 
 
 Then the first rain-drops fell, and the storm thickened, 
 till at last there was neither hill nor dingle to be seen, 
 but only the blinding sheets of water. And no sound was 
 to be heard, save the wild challenge of the wind as it drove 
 its clouds before it, save the hiss of rain against the sullen 
 ground. 
 
 And then again the wind dropped suddenly, and left 
 the sky close-packed ; and now there was only one sound 
 in heaven and earth that of rain descending in straight, 
 persistent lines. 
 
 The Parson did not heed that he was wet to the skin, 
 that his beaver was dripping like runnels from the eaves 
 of some moor-top farmstead. The glow of a fine victory 
 was on him, and he watched the rain as if it were a well- 
 loved child, tended carefully and grown to manhood to 
 repay his father at the last. 
 
 " 'Tis as though all the tears of all the feuds gone by 
 were gathered to a head," he murmured. 
 
 The words slipped from him un'a wares. Yet he felt, 
 in some dim way, that he had spoken prophecy felt that 
 this challenge he had given, to drown the horse-races, was 
 but the first step of some bigger enterprise. 
 
 " Would they were such tears indeed," he said, standing 
 there in the rain that warmed and heartened him. " Out 
 
 296
 
 How the Rains came to the Moorside 
 
 of tears come charity and peace ah, would to God that 
 they might staunch the feud of Wayne and Ratcliffe ! " 
 
 It was his last prayer, and it was answered ; though 
 may be, in a fiercer and more relentless fashion than he 
 guessed. 
 
 All that day it rained, and all that night ; and, whenever 
 the skies showed signs of clearing, the wind got up again 
 and hurried the clouds into the void above wet Marshcotes 
 Moor. The dingles of the heath were rivers now. The 
 steep and narrow face of Marshcotes street was a running 
 water-way. There was none so hardened now as to deny 
 that Parson Clare had proven his challenge to the hilt ; 
 and the landlord of the Bull, when he rescued bottles from 
 his swimming cellars, to drink with his cronies in the 
 evening, moved softly, like a man afraid. 
 
 Three days and three nights it rained, and the rogues 
 who brought their bare-ribbed racers from the fine, clear 
 weather sleeping over Lancashire were met by such floods 
 as the oldest of them had not seen before. 
 
 The Parson's work was done, and they tell us what 
 surely would have gladdened him, had he foreknown it 
 that Parson's Flood stopped Marshcotes Races once for 
 all. They tell us, too, that the mystery and the terror 
 of those three days' rain were passed on by mothers to their 
 children, so that, when other parsons came in due course 
 to minister at Marshcotes, they found a people, not easy 
 to control, indeed, but softened by three days of insight 
 into another world than theirs. 
 
 But the Parson's work was done ; and when at last 
 the rains were blown abroad, and the fourth day wore to 
 the dusk of a calm and moonlight night, he laid his burden 
 down. Out into the graveyard he crept, for it was quieter 
 here than in the Parsonage, which echoed with the voices 
 of his dead wife and of his daughter lost to him ; and he 
 walked gently to and fro between the graves, stopping at 
 times to look at the unshadowed moon above him, and 
 to see in it an image of his own life at its close. His 
 prayers were said, his deeds in this life finished, and like 
 
 297
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 a brave and simple gentleman he walked with death as 
 with a well-found comrade. 
 
 The Sexton, going to his accustomed haunt, spied the 
 bent figure walking just ahead of him ; and the Parson 
 was moving with great feebleness, he saw, and so he came 
 and thrust a tottering hand through the other's nerveless 
 arm. 
 
 " Parson, I've been thinking," said Witherlee, his dry- 
 leaf voice all broken up with sobs. " We've fratched, an' 
 proper ay, we've fratched but I reckon I've had a 
 queerish sort of liking for ye all along. We're going 
 knocking at the door, ye and me the door 'twixt this 
 world and the next and 'tis a drearsome latch that's 
 lifted to ye, so folk say, at after all your knocking. Mud 
 we be friends-like, Parson, at th' end of all the moil ? " 
 
 " Friends, Witherlee ? Ay, with each other and with 
 all men." 
 
 The Parson laughed, as quietly as a child might when 
 the first of its night's slumbers falls on it ; and Witherlee 
 stole a glance at his face, uplifted to the sky, and saw a 
 rarer light upon it than the moonbeams brought there. 
 Never by moor, or tarn, or coppice, had the Sexton seen 
 this light ; for these things the moor and the tarn and 
 the woodlands are fairer than the men who walk them, 
 until a good man comes to the death-hour and catches the 
 reflected sheen from farther moons, and clearer suns, and 
 brighter and more steadfast stars. 
 
 The Sexton drew Parson Clare there was pathos in 
 the quiet action drew him down to the gravestone near 
 at hand, thinking he would be the better of a rest. It 
 chanced to be the slab on which Little Bairn and he had 
 sat, nights without number, to watch the ghosts at their 
 grim hour of play. 
 
 " Parson, I'm not just easy about this labour o' dying," 
 said Witherlee. " Would rather sweat at burying another 
 for my part. See ye the gravestones all about us ! Each 
 is like a well-kenned bairn to me. I love 'em, Parson, and 
 I'm soon to lose 'em all." 
 
 298
 
 How the Rains came to the Moorside 
 
 " They hide men's bones, Witherlee," came the gentle, 
 well-bred voice in answer. " Look up, and see the stars, 
 and feel the warm comfort of the resting day." 
 
 " Ay," said Witherlee, his wry old humour peeping out 
 again. " But I was reared to grave-digging, Parson, and 
 'tis the only trade I know. Empty o' my hands I'll go 
 into t'other world, where no sexton finds a job ; and I 
 doubt they'll ask me what I've come for." 
 
 He waited for reply ; and then he looked again at his 
 companion, and saw by the drooped shoulders and the 
 fallen head that Parson Clare had found his res ting-day. 
 
 " Well, 'twar coming fast," he muttered, " and yet I'm 
 grieved. Led him a sad dance time and time, did this old 
 Witherlee, and fondlike o' Parson all the while. Reckoned 
 I would bury him, I ! Well, now I haven't strength for 
 it ; and that's the way life laughs at ye, come winter- 
 storm or summer-weather. A sad jumble-up, is life, but 
 Lord knows I cling to it. Give me another four-score years 
 o' rheumatiz and devilment, and I'll ask nothing better." 
 
 It was an hour later judging by the dip of the moon 
 that Little Bairn crept up to find the Sexton, and, after- 
 wards crept back again, and came into the hall where 
 Wayne and Janet were alone. " I went to seek old 
 Witherlee," she said, standing frail within the inner doorway, 
 her gold hair light about her like a mist ; " and he was 
 there, Ned, and I spoke to him. I wanted him to tell me 
 fairy-tales, all made up of gnomes and goblins pranking 
 round about the moor ; but he answered never at all, and 
 I touched him on the arm, and still he did not stir ; and then 
 I touched his cheek, and it was cold, and something told 
 me he was dead." 
 
 Wayne was striding up and down the hall, his mind full 
 of that meeting with Ratcliffe on the moor which the flood 
 had made impossible. 
 
 " Do you not hear me, Ned ? " said Little Bairn, an odd 
 note of command in her lisping baby- voice. It was always 
 to Shameless Wayne that she appealed in times of stress. 
 
 " Why, yes, Bairn," he answered, halting in his wild- 
 
 299
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 brought him to Black House " lads, we are going down 
 to kill. Leave Shameless Wayne to me, and take the 
 others as they come." 
 
 A great shout went up into the sunlit, over-lying sky. 
 It was like the cry of hounds when they see the fox before 
 them a cry that would hearten any leader going into 
 battle. 
 
 " We'll take them as they come ! " they echoed, swinging 
 their uncouth weapons round about their heads. 
 
 " Remember," went on Ratcliffe, forgetting no detail 
 of the fight to come, " remember to strike hard, and quick, 
 and true, or the sword will get the better of you." 
 
 Another cry went up, like the baying of a strong and 
 well-fleshed pack. Then Ratcliffe turned his horse about, 
 and they followed him through the wet and ill-found lands 
 which lay between Black House and Wildwater. 
 
 " Will they come, think ye ? " asked Joseph, whose 
 doubts were always stronger than his faith. " 'Tis foul 
 going for a horse's feet, and they might well tarry for a 
 drier day." 
 
 " Trust Waynes to come, if Ratcliffes can," answered 
 the Master. 
 
 And they rode in silence for, it might be, half a league ; 
 and then Red Ratcliffe saw a company of men riding 
 far-off to meet them. 
 
 " Did I lie, Joseph ? " he asked, pointing down the moor. 
 
 " Nay, thanks be. We couldn't have held these red- 
 heads a day longer, Master. 'Tis lucky they've the chance 
 of striking at other-some instead of us." 
 
 And now they neared each other, the down-riding 
 Ratcliffes and the up-coming Waynes ; and the sky was 
 blue above them, and the gauzy gnats were playing in 
 the sunshine. Yet underfoot there was the voice of many 
 waters, and Parson's Flood, though all the rains were 
 over, was racing down each separate dingle of the moor. 
 
 " A Ratcliffe ! " yelled the Master, soon as they came 
 within hailing-distance of the enemy. 
 
 His lusty rascals took up the cry, as they swept fast 
 
 306
 
 How Waynes met Ratcliffes 
 
 in Ratcliffe's wake ; and the Waynes answered ; and up 
 and down the moor there was a running moil of shouts. 
 
 There was only one who did not lift his voice. Wayne's 
 son, since he had played peace-maker among the mists, 
 had wandered over and about the moor. Day by day 
 his loneliness increased. He was too proud to seek death 
 by his own hand, but he would have welcomed death if 
 it had stolen across the moor to give him rest. Twice 
 Janet and he had met by stealth, and each time that she 
 left him he had felt the lonelier ; and the tragic grief in his 
 mother's eyes would haunt his slumbers afterwards, and 
 he would dream of gallant fights on her behalf dream 
 that he was a man at last, knowing his enemy and Janet's. 
 Then he would wake, with the bracken - scents about 
 him, and the clear stars looking down on him ; and he 
 would realise, always with a keener stab of pain, that he 
 had neither enemy nor friend, for he was half Ratcliffe 
 and half Wayne. 
 
 Then the rains had come ; and first he had sheltered 
 in a cave which lay between Gallows- Rigg and Bouldsworth 
 Hill a cave whose rain -washed entry -way was strewn, 
 had he been minded to observe such matters, with arrow- 
 heads of flint, and like relics of the far-off people who had 
 used the same. The rains increased, and drove him from 
 his shelter ; landless and homeless, he went out, and the 
 storm licked at his face ; and again he raised his bitter 
 cry to God. 
 
 " I am forsaken ! Forsaken utterly ! " 
 
 He found shelter with a kindly farmer while the worst 
 of the rain lasted ; though he got little joy from his re- 
 fuge, knowing that his host, guilty of the death-sin of 
 harbouring an exiled Wayne, went quaking up to bed 
 each night. So, after the floods had ceased, he went out 
 again ; and, when the Waynes' cries and the Ratcliffes' 
 ran across the moor at the dawn of this last fight, he chanced 
 to be little more than half a mile away ; and he heard the 
 wild yapping of the Red Folk, and the answering roar of 
 his dark-headed kin, and he ran to see what was on foot. 
 
 30?
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 HOW WAYNES MET RATCLIFFES ON THE MOOR 
 
 THERE were two women at Black House who, like Janet, 
 had welcomed the storm which to this day is known as 
 Parson's Flood. One was Audrey, the other was Nick 
 o' Trawdon's wife ; and these two, mistress and maid, 
 would meet together secretly, and stand at the case- 
 ment watching the rains descend, and say to each other 
 that no sunshine ever looked so fair for no sunshine 
 could have kept their goodmen to the house. 
 
 But the men-folk moved restlessly all day about the 
 house, and slept restlessly by night ; and it needed all 
 Ratcliffe's over-mastery, all Joseph's wry diplomacy, to 
 keep the Red Folk, their guests, in hand. The lads had 
 been spoiling for a fight since Ratcliffe woke them from 
 their beds to tell how he had sent a message to the Waynes ; 
 and their tempers, little controlled at any time, broke 
 utterly under the long strain of waiting for the rains to 
 cease. 
 
 Yet, somehow, Ratcliffe bridled them, and now at last 
 they were free to-night to look out upon the moonlight 
 and the calm, to hear the Master tell them that with the 
 dawn they should ride out to meet the Waynes. 
 
 Shameless Wayne had sent his kinsmen to their beds, 
 to snatch what sleep they could against the morrow ; but 
 none at Black House could have rested on this night. 
 They waited, and they watched the growing moon ride 
 white and high into the dusk-blue of the void, and they 
 counted the minutes till the dawn. And each man had his 
 weapon, and time and time he fingered it, and time and 
 time he talked to it as if the weapon were a foolish maid 
 and he a want-wit lad. And the moon climbed to the 
 
 302
 
 How Waynes met Ratcliffes 
 
 steepest of her hill o' sky, and started on her easy, down- 
 ward path, and moved farther and ever farther from the 
 eastern hills toward which her mate, the sun, was mounting. 
 
 " 'Twill soon be dawn," said one of the Red Folk to 
 another. 
 
 " Ay, a red dawn," his comrade answered. 
 
 And all their fellows laughed, fingering their weapons ; 
 and the laughter was not good to hear, for it was harsh as 
 the snarl of a dog-fox when he meets you unawares upon 
 the moors and snaps at you in passing. 
 
 Joseph and Red Ratcliffe stood apart, and talked to- 
 gether. 
 
 " I was looking at the bogs to-day," said Joseph. 
 " They've been filling, Master, many and many a year 
 gone by. This storm has worsened them." 
 
 " We'll win across to meet the Waynes ? " asked 
 Ratcliffe anxiously. 
 
 " Oh, ay, for aught that I can tell. Takes more than 
 one storm bad as this one was to hide the track across." 
 
 " We were right to leave these lads their usual weapons, 
 Joseph. You could not have taught them sword-play in 
 a year." 
 
 " No way wanted to," growled Joseph. " Did I teach 
 ye sword-play, master, or did I put the old, big axe instead 
 into your growing hands ? Old times were best, I reckon, 
 and old weapons puzzle these new-fangled men." 
 
 " We may be dead, or we may be living, Joseph, you and 
 I, soon after this dawn comes up. My thanks to you 
 for rearing me to feel the axe-haft fit me like a friendly 
 hand." 
 
 " No thanks wanted. Twas my own pleasure to see a 
 bonnie bairn-child grow big enough to fight the Waynes." 
 
 And so they waited the lads all crowded at the case- 
 ment, and Joseph and the Master talking quietly apart 
 waited till the moon paled down behind the rise of Gallows' 
 Rigg, waited till the fingers of the dawn wove tapestry, all 
 threaded through with pearl and crimson threads, across 
 the wet and smiling moor. 
 
 303
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 Then they went out to saddle ; and presently Bath- 
 sheba brought out the stirrup-cup, and raised it to the 
 Master's hand. 
 
 " Strike hard and handily," she said, " but, for Mary 
 Mother's sake, come home unwounded. I fostered ye, 
 and blood on the body of a foster-child is not good to look 
 upon at all." 
 
 " Bathsheba," said the Master, " I thanked Joseph, 
 just this while gone by, for teaching me the use of foster- 
 brother. Shall I thank you, too, for the red milk you 
 reared me on ? " 
 
 Then Audrey came, and he stooped and kissed her, and 
 she hid her tears. And Nick o' Trawdon's wife was brave 
 as her mistress, when she said farewell to Nick. And the 
 sun leaped up as red as blood, and all the men rode down 
 the hill, and the Red Folk sang some uncouth song of war 
 and victory. 
 
 They came to the path across the bog, and Ratcliffe, 
 as he led the way, could not help heeding how Parson's 
 Flood had altered all this land he knew so well. Some of 
 the green marshes had shifted and grown less ; some of the 
 blacker islands had increased their girth. It was only by 
 instinct that they found their track across at all, since 
 most of the landmarks a bed of rushes here, a strip of 
 cotton-grass there had been over-hidden by the ooze. 
 
 Another change Red Ratcliffe noted, and one that filled 
 him with a sense of woe to come. Among these marshes 
 there had always been what the moor folk called Shudder- 
 ing Bogs sullen, grey-black pools of ooze, that would lie 
 stagnant for a while, then shiver upward from their hidden 
 depths shiver with a quietness terrible to watch. And 
 now there were fifty of these Shuddering Bogs where only 
 one had been before the rains ; and, looking out across 
 this wet land which from of old had been the guardian of 
 Black House, Ratcliffe could see the grey-black patches, 
 score upon score of them, shuddering under the sunlight 
 with what seemed to him a dumb and slothful menace. 
 "D'ye see how all is changed by these three days of 
 
 34
 
 How Waynes met Ratcliffes 
 
 rain ? " he asked, turning round in the saddle to speak 
 with Joseph, who rode close behind him. 
 
 " I reckon I do ! 'Twas one thing to promise ye we'd 
 win over to fight the Waynes, but 'tis another matter, 
 I'm thinking, to say we'll find our way back home again. 
 Lord, how the land has altered, master. I knew the bogs 
 were filling, but never thought 'twould be as bad as this." 
 
 " They'll settle, now the rains are over and here we 
 find good ground again, Joseph." 
 
 They had reached the end of the perilous track ; yet 
 Joseph, as they rode down the moor, kept turning his head 
 about to view the marshes left behind. 
 
 " 'Twould be unchancy queer," he muttered, "if we 
 could find no way back at all. There would be our women 
 up yonder at Black House, and us on this side, and none 
 could get to t'other." 
 
 But Ratcliffe was looking straight ahead, and foster- 
 brother lay naked in his hand. 
 
 " Joseph," said he, with a sober laugh, " suppose that 
 few, or none, are left to seek the homing-track ? " 
 
 " Tuts ! " answered the old man. " Every man thinks, 
 or ought to, that he'll come safe out of any battle. That's 
 how fights are won." 
 
 " Not when he's newly- wedded," thought Red Ratcliffe. 
 " Not when he's wakened out of fairy-land to this grim 
 work of killing." 
 
 Then he put Audrey clean out of mind, and halted for 
 a moment, and faced the wild, Red Folk who followed to 
 the slaying. A strange company they were ; for all the 
 men were near alike in age, and all showed that old, hard 
 look on youthful faces which Red Ratcliffe wore the look 
 of men who in their cradles are taught the lust of battle 
 and the stepmother's charity of winter on the open moor. 
 
 " Lads," he said and he wondered that the softness 
 of late days went from him, like a garment that is shaken 
 off, wondered that now there was neither after nor before, 
 but only the warm blood in his veins, the hot feud in his 
 brain hot as when, years and years ago, his mother had 
 
 u 305
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 brought him to Black House " lads, we are going down 
 to kill. Leave Shameless Wayne to me, and take the 
 others as they come." 
 
 A great shout went up into the sunlit, over-lying sky. 
 It was like the cry of hounds when they see the fox before 
 them a cry that would hearten any leader going into 
 battle. 
 
 " We'll take them as they come ! " they echoed, swinging 
 their uncouth weapons round about their heads. 
 
 " Remember," went on Ratcliffe, forgetting no detail 
 of the fight to come, " remember to strike hard, and quick, 
 and true, or the sword will get the better of you." 
 
 Another cry went up, like the baying of a strong and 
 well-fleshed pack. Then Ratcliffe turned his horse about, 
 and they followed him through the wet and ill-found lands 
 which lay between Black House and Wildwater. 
 
 " Will they come, think ye ? " asked Joseph, whose 
 doubts were always stronger than his faith. " 'Tis foul 
 going for a horse's feet, and they might well tarry for a 
 drier day." 
 
 "Trust Waynes to come, if Ratcliffes can," answered 
 the Master. 
 
 And they rode in silence for, it might be, half a league ; 
 and then Red Ratcliffe saw a company of men riding 
 far-off to meet them. 
 
 " Did I lie, Joseph ? " he asked, pointing down the moor. 
 
 " Nay, thanks be. We couldn't have held these red- 
 heads a day longer, Master. 'Tis lucky they've the chance 
 of striking at other-some instead of us." 
 
 And now they neared each other, the down -riding 
 Ratcliffes and the up -coming Waynes ; and the sky was 
 blue above them, and the gauzy gnats were playing in 
 the sunshine. Yet underfoot there was the voice of many 
 waters, and Parson's Flood, though all the rains were 
 over, was racing down each separate dingle of the moor. 
 
 " A Ratcliffe ! " yelled the Master, soon as they came 
 within hailing-distance of the enemy. 
 
 His lusty rascals took up the cry, as they swept fast 
 
 306
 
 How Waynes met Ratcliffes 
 
 in Ratcliffe's wake ; and the Waynes answered ; and up 
 and down the moor there was a running moil of shouts. 
 
 There was only one who did not lift his voice. Wayne's 
 son, since he had played peace -maker among the mists, 
 had wandered over and about the moor. Day by day 
 his loneliness increased. He was too proud to seek death 
 by his own hand, but he would have welcomed death if 
 it had stolen across the moor to give him rest. Twice 
 Janet and he had met by stealth, and each time that she 
 left him he had felt the lonelier ; and the tragic grief in his 
 mother's eyes would haunt his slumbers afterwards, and 
 he would dream of gallant fights on her behalf dream 
 that he was a man at last, knowing his enemy and Janet's. 
 Then he would wake, with the bracken - scents about 
 him, and the clear stars looking down on him ; and he 
 would realise, always with a keener stab of pain, that he 
 had neither enemy nor friend, for he was half Ratcliffe 
 and half Wayne. 
 
 Then the rains had come ; and first he had sheltered 
 in a cave which lay between Gallows-Riggand Boulds worth 
 Hill a cave whose rain -washed entry -way was strewn, 
 had he been minded to observe such matters, with arrow- 
 heads of flint, and like relics of the far-off people who had 
 used the same. The rains increased, and drove him from 
 his shelter ; landless and homeless, he went out, and the 
 storm licked at his face ; and again he raised his bitter 
 cry to God. 
 
 " I am forsaken ! Forsaken utterly ! " 
 
 He found shelter with a kindly farmer while the worst 
 of the rain lasted ; though he got little joy from his re- 
 fuge, knowing that his host, guilty of the death-sin of 
 harbouring an exiled Wayne, went quaking up to bed 
 each night. So, after the floods had ceased, he went out 
 again ; and, when the Waynes' cries and the Ratcliffes' 
 ran across the moor at the dawn of this last fight, he chanced 
 to be little more than half a mile away ; and he heard the 
 wild yapping of the Red Folk, and the answering roar of 
 his dark-headed kin, and he ran to see what was on foot. 
 
 307
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 It was the moment of his life's great agony, when he 
 came to a hillock overlooking the broad, wet space across 
 which the red and the dark horsemen were splashing 
 through the mire to meet each other. All the longings of 
 the years all the keen, well-tempered manhood that was 
 hidden in his ill-shapen body came to a head beneath 
 this crimson dawning of the last day's feud. He yearned 
 to swing his sword aloft, to bite through bone and marrow, 
 to hear his comrades send their plaudits up into the ruddy 
 sky. These things were denied him; for, if he had no 
 friend, he had no enemy. A great sickness came on 
 him, so that for a moment his eyes were hidden by a 
 mist, and he could not see what was chancing yonder on 
 the slope below him. 
 
 He heard Red Ratcliffe cry, " You, Shameless Wayne ! 
 Draw apart, and meet me on the hill. Twice we've met, 
 but the third time pays for all, they say." 
 
 He heard his father's voice keen, and low, and quick 
 go answering Ratcliffe's challenge. " I'm with you, 
 Ratcliffe, I ! " 
 
 And the boy loved his father in that moment ; for he 
 forgot the hardships he had suffered, and heard only the 
 brave, gay voice go singing out across the moorland such 
 a voice as might have been his own, could he have met 
 his enemy with sword-blade and a single heart, as did his 
 father. 
 
 The mist lifted from his eyes, and the splashy beat of 
 hoofs on miry ground ceased suddenly. He looked down 
 the slope, and saw that the Ratcliffes were pulling at the 
 curb of restive horses, that the Waynes sat quietly in their 
 saddles. And first he wondered what had stayed their 
 gallop, and then he saw the Lean Man, filmy as the hound 
 that fawned upon and followed him, go passing up and 
 down between the Waynes and the Ratcliffes. And, be- 
 cause there was a wind abroad which did not stir the dead 
 heather-bells at all a wind from another world, that left 
 men's bodies undisturbed and sought their souls instead 
 because of this, and may be, too, by reason of the dead 
 
 308
 
 How Waynes met Ratcliffes 
 
 Parson's prayers, there was none so dull, Ratcliffe or Wayne, 
 but he saw the Lean Man pass between his foeman and 
 himself, saw the Brown Dog in friendly converse with his 
 new master. 
 
 " Even the Dog's forsaken us ! " cried Wayne, his own 
 son's bitterness upon him. " See how the brute goes 
 fondling at the Lean Man's hand ! We are forsaken, 
 friends." 
 
 " What's come to the Lean Man ? " muttered Joseph 
 in Red Ratcliffe's ear. " Ay, even my old eyes can see 
 him, though I've mocked at ye aforetime touching ghosts 
 and visions. I can see him, Master, and I can see the Dog, 
 and it bodes ill for either side, I'm thinking." 
 
 It was as if a hand had gripped every man ay, gripped 
 the horses, too a hand that plucked them back from 
 meeting one another. Even the wild folk behind Ratcliffe 
 were dismayed a while ; and they faced each other, all 
 these men who had ridden out to battle, and the sky lay 
 fair and quiet and blue above them, and there was no 
 sound through all the barren lands. Such a silence, waiting 
 to give birth to uproar, might well precede the dawn of 
 Judgment Day; and such a terror, likely, would hold 
 every living thing that waited for the dread breaking of 
 the silence. 
 
 Between the silent foemen paced the Lean Man and 
 the Dog ; and then they left the battle-ground and moved 
 up into the moor, Barguest fawning ever on his late-found 
 friend ; and the hearts of the Red Folk came back to them, 
 and they raised their battle-cry again. 
 
 " We hate, we kill ! Down on these cursed Waynes, 
 Ratcliffe the Red ! " 
 
 And all took fire at the new-kindled spark, and the 
 Waynes sent up their cry in turn, and the horses reared 
 and plunged, and curveted like things gone mad. There 
 were three hundred yards or so between the one side and 
 the other ; but Wayne's son, watching from the hill above, 
 did not tarry to see the coming shock of horses against 
 horses, of men against men. Both houses were in part
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 his allies, and to look on at this sort of warfare was to see 
 kinsmen slain, and never by any chance to find joy in 
 victory. 
 
 The boy glanced along the track which Barguest and 
 the Lean Man took across the moor ; and it seemed to 
 him may be his fancy was over-heated, or perhaps he 
 looked forward with that Sight which none can deny when 
 it settles like clear sunshine on a man it seemed that 
 the Lean Man turned and beckoned to him with his 
 unpalsied arm, and asked him to come up across the 
 moor. 
 
 He followed, up and up and up till Wildwater was 
 passed, till he and his ghostly guides were nearing the 
 bogs that lay, like quiet and watchful sentries, round 
 about Black House. And the blue sky was over them, 
 and all was still and happy in the sunshine ; but the 
 echoes of the Red Folk's wild-beast cries, as they swung 
 their wood-and-iron clubs about their heads, pursued him 
 constantly. 
 
 Yet, down yonder where the high lands met the low 
 lands, where Waynes met Ratcliffes for the last big fight, 
 the sun shone never at all, and the sky was black as winter's 
 midnight. 
 
 Surely old Parson Clare, dead beside the Sexton who 
 was helpless now to bury him surely the Parson had not 
 prayed for naught. Out of God's sky the rains had come, 
 and the little briggs of stone, spanning little brooks, had 
 rocked and quavered at the onset of the waters. There were 
 few in Marshcotes dared lay a wager on a horse-race for 
 many a year to come. Yet the rains were the beginning 
 only, and on this day when, soon after dawn, the Ratcliffes 
 met the Waynes upon the moor, a thing more terrible 
 was coming on them all. It was not Waynes against 
 the Ratcliffes on this morn, but the will of the skies against 
 them both; and to this day the moor folk drop their 
 voices when they speak of what came between Parson's 
 Flood and the greater flood to follow. 
 
 Soon after Wayne's son had gone up into the sunlight 
 
 310
 
 How Waynes met Ratcliffes 
 
 of the higher moor, following his phantom guides, and 
 while the Ratcliffes galloped down upon the Waynes, 
 shouting old feud cries as they went, a sudden darkness 
 came across the sun, and, where the light had been a 
 moment since, there was only a blank and empty void. 
 The Red Folk sent their curses up amid the mirk, and the 
 Waynes answered them ; but not the darkest winter's 
 night in man's memory had been as black as this daytime 
 of late autumn, and they could not find each other. Rat- 
 cliffe and Shameless Wayne remembered how the mists 
 had fooled them near this self-same spot not long ago ; 
 yet no fog in this world was dark as the night-in-day which 
 God launched at them, a weapon stronger than their own. 
 
 The darkness spread to Marshcotes and to Cranshaw, 
 so they say, and at Colne the market-day was spoiled 
 because and no man knowing why the sunlight changed 
 on the sudden to what the folk who had buried kindred 
 named " black as any dead man's hearse." 
 
 There was thunder, too, and lightning cleft the sky in 
 twain ; and the thunder's roar was all that broke the 
 silence now, and only the lightning showed hurried glimpses 
 of Waynes and Ratcliffes to each other. And then the 
 Red Folk snarled like wolves, hungering for their enemy ; 
 and the Waynes answered back, but it was useless. In 
 the dread dark they fought, striving each to come to other ; 
 and once a Wayne was struck, and once a Ratcliffe, but 
 the strokes came from their own kin, who could not single 
 out dark heads from red amid the constant mirk, amid 
 the momentary, fitful flashes of the lightning. 
 
 " God's anger lies on us ! " cried Shameless Wayne, after 
 calling uselessly to Red Ratcliffe across the dark. " God's 
 anger is abroad, and He blackens this last day of feud." 
 
 Old Joseph heard his cry, and his voice came rough and 
 harsh across the mirk. " Ye're saying farewell to the Feud, 
 Shameless Wayne ! Ye're sick and weary of it but we are 
 not Bide on, and see this devil's weather lift, and yell 
 find us near ye near, or thereabouts." 
 
 And then Wayne laughed, knowing the reason of his laugh 
 
 3"
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 as little as the folk at Colne knew why the darkness had 
 come down to spoil their market ; and his own men and 
 Red Ratcliffe's heard the laughter, but it did not cheer 
 them ; and still they rode seeking one another, blind men 
 upon blind horses rode through the thunder and the 
 lightning and the dark. 
 
 On the moor above, where Wayne's son followed after 
 the Lean Man and the Dog, it was clear sunlight. No 
 thunder rattled in their ears, and no lightning came to 
 dazzle them. Up in the blue sky rode the sun, and the scent 
 of bracken was sweet in the boy's nostrils. They came near 
 to Black House the Lean Man, and the Dog, and Wayne's 
 son of Marsh ; and up above them was the long, black 
 ridge which marked the limits of the bogs on this side of the 
 Ratcliffe's stronghold. For those marshes lay lower than 
 the house, but higher than the moor in front of them, and 
 only the narrow ridge dammed up their ooze. 
 
 And now Wayne's son heard a roaring as of many waters, 
 though the streams had long ago run off from these, the 
 higher lands ; and the marshes up above were wont to be 
 dumb, he knew, and the wind was quiet ; and yet in his 
 ears there was that constant roar a roar more terrible 
 than any battle-shouting of the Red Folk or the Waynes. 
 The Lean Man seemed to hear it, too, for he looked upward 
 at the marshes ; and the Dog fawned closer on him, whining 
 piteously ; and Wayne's son saw the two of them move, 
 like things afraid, up and up until he lost them at the top- 
 most of the bog-ridge. 
 
 312
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE LAST FIGHT 
 
 WAYNE'S son was alone upon the moor, and awful terror 
 shook him, so that his knees were weak beneath him and he 
 could scarce stand upright. And ever and ever the roar of 
 surly waters rang louder in his ears ; and, while he watched 
 the ridge across which the Lean Man and the Dog had 
 disappeared, he saw the beginning of that second deluge 
 which was the dread and last result of Parson's Storm. 
 It came so suddenly, and the horror of it was so black 
 against the sky, that afterwards he could remember only 
 the one rough, vivid picture. 
 
 The bogs that girdled Black House had burst at last. 
 They had filled and filled during these last days, had pressed 
 and pressed against the ridge that held them in ; and now 
 the victory was theirs, and to Wayne's son it seemed that 
 the whole moor above turned over and down upon him, as 
 deep corn will bend across the sickle to meet the farmer 
 at ripe harvest- time. He could not see the sun, nor the 
 blue sky, though both were over him. He could see only 
 the high wall of ooze that broke across the sky's face, and 
 moved toward him, roaring like a beast in pain. 
 
 He came out of his bewilderment, to find himself running 
 hard and fast downhill. The water hidden in the bog 
 moved faster than the ooze, and already it was swirling 
 cold about his feet. 
 
 He did not care overmuch for life, and had dreamed at 
 times that death was good to look upon ; but now he was 
 obeying every brave man's instinct, and longed to save 
 his life, feeling that, after all, there might chance to be good 
 work waiting for him in the world.
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 It was at Wildwater, with its blackened walls still stand- 
 ing to mark where the fight of twenty years ago had been 
 fought out it was at Wildwater that Wayne's son halted 
 to find his breath again. The flood was racing behind him 
 and before him, but reached no higher than his boot-tops, 
 for he kept to the higher grounds, and the deeper streams 
 were hurrying down the dingles. Behind him half a 
 mile away, may be he could see the ooze come creeping 
 down the moor ; and the roar and fret of loosened water 
 was child's-play when mated against this slow, relentless 
 coming of the bog, unchained at last. It brought great 
 rocks along with it, this ooze that moved no faster than 
 a strong man's walking-stride ; it brought its treasures, 
 hidden through the centuries, of bones of men and sheep 
 and cattle, of tree-trunks buried long before the feud of 
 Wayne and Ratcliffe came to birth ; and, as it brought 
 them, it snapped and growled about them, like a dog who 
 sees a stranger come to steal his bone away. 
 
 And Wayne's son turned and fled once more, afraid of 
 the black tumult that came down upon him, half a league 
 in width, across the heath. On the low side of Wildwater 
 he turned again, and saw the ooze approach across the sun- 
 lit moor, and watched it creep up and up, and round about 
 the ruined house, till all was hid watched it creep down 
 and down, relentless and no way to be resisted watched 
 it, from the higher ground, go seeking the deep and narrow 
 dingle that led to the place where Waynes and Ratcliffes 
 fought. 
 
 He forgot his love of life, remembering only that he might 
 yet find work to-day, though sword-play was forbidden 
 him. He knew nothing of the darkness that had come on 
 the Red and the Black Folk both down yonder ; he judged 
 that most were slain by now ; yet he ran, till his heart went 
 throbbing at his ribs, to tell those still alive that the bog 
 was coming. 
 
 Lone shepherds' huts upon the moor were smothered 
 over by the bog, long after Wildwater lay a twice-ruined 
 token of the feuds gone by. And sheep went bleating to
 
 The Last Fight 
 
 their death, afraid, as their wont is, to flee from any near, 
 unusual disaster. And, if the tales they tell us to this day 
 are more than old wives' gossip, the terror of the bog- 
 flood roved like thunder round about the moor, so that men 
 fell upon their knees and cried to God like frightened 
 children. 
 
 Wayne's son went down across the heath, turning now 
 and then to see how near the bog- flood was. He had found 
 his breath again, and he sought constantly to rescue the 
 Waynes and the Ratcliffes left alive upon the lower lands. 
 But ever the bog pursued him, and the foremost waters 
 trickled round his feet ; and the ooze gained speed, for the 
 slope of the land was steeper now, and twice he thought it 
 would out-distance him and reach his kinsmen first. And 
 then a spur of rising ground stood between pursuer and 
 pursued, and the bog was checked a while. 
 
 The grim race went on, until at last he heard a great 
 shouting down in front of him, and came to the high 
 ground overlooking Waynes and Ratcliffes. And, though 
 he heard the shouts, he could see nothing, for between him 
 and the cries there lay a wall of darkness. On his own side 
 of the moor the sun was shining, but on the lower side there 
 was a straight and upright wall of black, reaching up toward 
 the sky as the sheer and steep face of a precipice might 
 reach. Once in a life- time men see this horror to-day 
 the horror of the moor when light and darkness fight for 
 mastery, and the two are sundered by a clear-cut wall, 
 just as Waynes and Ratcliffes were sundered now from 
 striking each other. It is no good sight to see at any time ; 
 and Wayne's son was strained, and weary, and fearful for 
 his kin ; and he was frightened, hearing the bog roar down 
 from the sunlit upper lands. 
 
 Then, as he watched, the wall of black grew brighter 
 and faded into grey ; and the grey was split asunder by 
 the sun, and suddenly the lower moor was brave with 
 brown o' the bracken once again, save where in the far 
 distance a white mist hugged the cloud-line. 
 
 Wayne's son looked on, and thought himself the only one 
 
 3'5
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 compelled to know that kith and kin of his were warring one 
 against the other, while he was forbidden to take his part 
 in it. Yet at Marsh House the darkness had fallen on 
 Janet also, as she waited lonely for the issue of the fight ; 
 and, because she loved much, she feared overmuch, and 
 it seemed a token, this mid-day's night, that Shameless 
 Wayne had found his death. And she wondered, as folk 
 will ask curious questions of themselves in times of stress, 
 whether she had rather see him he stricken on the moor, 
 or give him home-welcome after he returned from slaying 
 her own kin. She had crossed that gulf of welcome once, 
 and had found the tears and sorrows of twenty years upon 
 the farther side. 
 
 " Is there no middle- way ? " she whispered. " God 
 knows I cannot see it, and yet and yet dear God, if I 
 could only see my husband come bloodless home to Marsh 
 could only see my son his son and mine." 
 
 She halted, her love for the mis-shapen son his son and 
 hers too great for her ; and the darkness lifted round 
 about the house of Marsh, suddenly as it had lifted from 
 the moor above ; and she, persuading herself that this was 
 a new and brighter omen, went out into the bridle-way, 
 and up to Marshcotes, and through the churchyard till 
 she reached the moor. Then she halted, and shaded her 
 eyes against the sunlight ; but no man rode toward her, 
 and far to the crumpled edge of sky she could see no live 
 thing save the peewits and the grouse. Faint in the dis- 
 tance came a softened roar, as of thunder that was break- 
 ing over some less tranquil hill than this ; but Janet did 
 not heed it. 
 
 " Ah, send him back to me ! " she cried, the reserve of 
 years swept clean away. " Send him back to me, in safety 
 and in honour ! " 
 
 Up above, between Marshcotes and Wildwater, her son 
 looked down upon the valley where his kin were facing one 
 another across the lifted darkness. 
 
 The Red Folk, awed for a while, swung up their weapons 
 as he watched, and their wolves'-cry rang across the moor. 
 
 316
 
 The Last Fight 
 
 The Waynes answered ; and, though the lad shouted 
 that the bog was all but on them, none heard him. 
 
 Hard and true the Ratcliffes galloped down upon their 
 enemy, and true and hard the Waynes rode up to meet 
 them. The bog was roaring near at hand ; but the feud 
 cries, and the wind of the battle- madness in men's ears, 
 and the rattle of the onset, as horse met horse and rider 
 struck at rider, deafened all but Wayne's son to the greater 
 battle that awaited them. 
 
 Shameless Wayne had drawn apart to the higher ground, 
 in answer to Red Ratcliffe's challenge ; and foster-brother 
 swirled and twinkled above Ratcliffe's head, and Wayne's 
 sword cut the sunlight into little, running brooks of 
 fire. 
 
 It was then that Wayne's son exiled, faint of heart, 
 hearing ever the roar of the bog above him turned aside 
 from the hill which gave him safety, and ran half down it 
 till he reached the flat round of turf, standing half between 
 the hill-top and the valley, which Wayne and his enemy 
 had chosen for their combat. For him there was no glow 
 of battle, no lusty madness such as comes from sword- 
 blades when they kiss ; it was his part to do well in cold 
 blood, with full remembrance of the horror he had seen up 
 yonder on the moors, with full knowledge, too, that every 
 downhill stride brought him nearer to the track by which 
 alone the bog-flood could make its way into the lower lands. 
 
 Just as Red Ratcliffe swung foster-brother for the third 
 time round his head, just as Wayne was tightening his 
 knee-grip in readiness for the quick onset, the lad leaped 
 down upon their grassy meeting-place. 
 
 " Father you and you, Red Ratcliffe fight if ye will, 
 but first look up into the moor ! " he cried. 
 
 Startled by the sudden cry, both held their horses back ; 
 and Wayne glanced sideways, to see who this intruder 
 was ; and a bitter curse escaped him. 
 
 " May you be damned, boy ! 'Tis the second time you 
 
 come 
 
 " Look look, I tell you ! " broke in the lad, pointing
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 up the moor. " Look, for Mary Mother's sake, and fight 
 afterwards, if ye are minded to ! " 
 
 Something in the boy's voice, in his wild and haggard 
 face, compelled these older men to do his bidding. They 
 looked up the moor, Red Ratcliffe and Wayne of Marsh ; 
 and by this time the bog, checked for a while, had pushed 
 and smitten and thundered at the hill which barred its 
 progress, until the solid ground gave way, and the hill was 
 now no more than a part of the down-racing ooze. Swift 
 it came, and a terror loosened Ratcliffe's knees and Wayne's, 
 just as the boy's knees had been loosened when first he saw 
 this black and steep-walled precipice turn over and down 
 upon him. 
 
 " There's little time ! " cried Wayne's son, giving his 
 commands like one older in experience, while they sat 
 helpless and irresolute in the saddles of their frightened 
 horses. " Run up the hill, ye two and pray that the 
 flood will not win to the top and fight afterwards fight 
 afterwards, Ratcliffe and Wayne, or ye will never fight at 
 all." 
 
 His voice rang shrill, with sobs and laughter in it ; for 
 the boy was strung to fever-pitch, knowing himself no 
 longer an outcast, but the guardian of all these fighting 
 folk. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe turned his horse's bridle without a word ; 
 and Shameless Wayne turned likewise ; and they galloped 
 up the hill. The bog was roaring now at ten-score yards 
 away ; yet, when they won the hill-crest, and looked round 
 to find the lad, they saw that he had not followed them 
 to safety. Further down the hill they looked, these two 
 who now were silent, not eager to pit sword against the 
 sweep of foster-brother ; and they saw the Red Folk 
 fighting with the Waynes, down in the peaty hollow ; 
 and they heard the screams of horses, the cries of wounded 
 men and dying, the wild-wolf yells of those who still were 
 left to fight. They saw, too, Wayne's son leap down 
 among them, heedless of his safety, and heard him cry 
 that the bog was close upon them.
 
 The Last Fight 
 
 Not since Waynes and Ratcliffes fought to the death 
 in the House of Wildwater had men struggled to such a 
 clamorous and desperate end. The Red Folk yelled and 
 snarled, the Waynes sent up their feud-cry ; and the un- 
 couth hammers of the Ratcliffes, long in the haft, went 
 whistling round and about the heads of the Waynes who 
 plied their sword-blades with no less good-will. So fierce 
 the youngsters were, that Joseph and Nick o' Trawdon, 
 striving to get to the forefront of the fight, were constantly 
 thrust back by their own kin, till at the last they found 
 themselves on the outskirts of the battle, not able any 
 way to strike a blow. 
 
 " Let's slip round to the back o' them," muttered Nick 
 o' Trawdon, his laugh as careless as when, not long ago, 
 he brought his wife home to Black House. " We'll raise 
 the Ratcliffe cry, and strike, and they'll fancy a fresh 
 batch o' Ratcliffes has ridden in." 
 
 " Thou'st a head screwed on right foremostway, Nick," 
 growled old Joseph ; " though, for all that, I doubt thou'lt 
 be a raffle-coppin till the green sods stop thy mouth." 
 
 " Likely," laughed Nick ; " but I'm stalled of getting 
 no nearer and no nearer to these Waynes our wolf-lads 
 snatching all the frolic meanwhile and I've a fancy, 
 Joseph, we might well take our turn in our own way." 
 
 It was while they reined their horses in the wide half 
 of a circle, down in the peaty hollow which was soon to be 
 a lake of ooze, that Wayne's son ran, shouting as he went, 
 to warn them that the bog was near. And Joseph followed 
 the direction of his finger, and Nick o' Trawdon followed 
 it ; but the Red Folk who fought, and the Black Waynes 
 who met them in the battle-din, were deaf to any calls 
 except their own. Not the bog itself grinding its hidden 
 tree-trunks against its hidden rocks, and thundering down 
 upon them all could rouse the Red Folk from the magic 
 of that battle-lust which had ripened with their manhood. 
 And half the Ratcliffes were dead or wounded ; and a 
 great part of the Waynes lay helpless, stricken by those 
 long-hafted hammers which, like foster-brother, struck 
 
 39
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 once and only once ; and still the fury of the fight re- 
 doubled, and down in the peaty hollow the living yelled 
 above the dead. 
 
 Shameless Wayne looked from the hill-top, and saw 
 the whole wild scene saw his boy racing in among them 
 saw, too, the black, steep wall of ooze that broke like 
 the wave of a sullen sea, turn over, and come down, a 
 present menace, toward the combatants. 
 
 Not long ago the son had learned to love the father ; it 
 was Wayne's moment now to catch, and to hold fast, a 
 moment of clear insight. What this boy was doing was a 
 thing from which older men might well have fled in terror ; 
 his son whom he, God's pity, had despised was halting 
 in the valley, when only on the hill-top there was doubtful 
 safety was halting to save men who would .not listen to 
 his warnings. 
 
 " The bog is on you, Waynes and Ratcliffes ! The bog 
 is on you, fools and deaf that ye are ! " came the boy's 
 shrill voice. And his father started down the hill to rescue 
 him, but was forestalled. 
 
 Nick o' Trawdon, recovering quickly from his panic, as 
 his wont was, looked up again and saw that the black flood 
 was tumbling down on them, scarce three-score yards away. 
 He ran and clutched Wayne's son about the middle, and 
 carried him up the hill ; and his breath came quickly, 
 for the slope was steep, although the lad was light of 
 weight after his lean sojourning in the wilderness. 
 
 " The red wolves and the black will never listen to us, 
 Joseph," he panted over his shoulder. " We'll all die 
 one day, I reckon but not just this day, if I can fend it 
 off. Besides, the lad is brave, and we must spare a few 
 odd 'uns of that breed in an unchancy world." 
 
 Joseph followed him ; he had worked and longed for 
 this last battle, yet in all things he was practical of mind, 
 and it was plain that the bog-wall turning over and down 
 above them might take as many victims as chose to meet 
 it rashly. 
 
 To the hill-top they came, Nick, and Wayne's son, and 
 
 320
 
 The Last Fight 
 
 old Joseph ; and the lad, soon as he was set on solid ground, 
 struck Nick o' Trawdon on the face in helpless rage, and 
 Nick no way resented it. 
 
 " Ah, now, cower quiet, will ye ? " said the ne'er-do- 
 weel, with his easy, rolling laugh. " Better be carried up 
 a hill by a plain man than be drowned by a bonnie bog- 
 flood." 
 
 " I would have forced them to see what was coming 
 I could have made them hear, and saved them " 
 
 " Tuts ! " said Joseph. " 'Twould have taken the 
 Trump o' Doom, let alone a laddie's voice, to waken the 
 Red and the Black down yonder out of their bonnie fight. 
 Yet I fancy the Black has it," he added, with a touch of 
 his sour pleasantry, as he looked down and saw the bog- 
 wall creep and creep toward the fighting men. " The 
 Waynes had ever Devil's luck, and now the bog, we 
 thought so much of, sides wi' them." 
 
 What followed was blurred in outline ever afterwards 
 to those five watchers on the hill. The issue was so tragical 
 and big ; and yet all was over before Joseph and Nick o' 
 Trawdon had well recovered breath. 
 
 The Red Folk were not men at all by now ; and the 
 Waynes grew frenzied in their turn ; and, while they 
 fought, seeing only lines of crimson dance before their 
 eyes, hearing only the surging of the blood about their 
 ear-drums while they fought, the bog came on them, 
 and the five who watched from the hill grew sick and weak, 
 seeing the end of this last fight of all. 
 
 For the ooze had fastened on Waynes and Ratcliffes 
 both fastened quietly, stickily, as the sun-dew plant will 
 wrap a fly round with its leaf before it feeds on it. Yet 
 none looked up or down ; their feet were numbed and 
 chained for the ooze had risen above their horses' stirrups 
 now but each man kept the free use of his arms as yet, 
 and to look down or up, to find the cause of their imprison- 
 ment, was to meet certain death from sword or haften 
 hammer. 
 
 And so the slime of the bog reached up until it numbed 
 x 321
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 their knees, and then their thighs ; for the forward haste 
 it made, after conquering the hill that had barred its 
 progress up above, was slackened now, and, though its 
 lighter waters raced and played ahead of it, the bog 
 moved quietly, as if it took joy from banqueting un- 
 hurriedly. 
 
 And still the Red Folk and the Black Folk fought; 
 they dared do nothing else, though now their hands could 
 scarcely grip their weapons ; for each was looking 
 warily to snatch a blow as best he could. And still the 
 bog fought either side impartially, and rose to the horses' 
 mouths ; and, amid the roar of " A Wayne ! " and the 
 answering roar, " A Ratcliffe ! " there came the death-cry 
 of the beasts who had no fair part in the quarrel a cry 
 exceeding piteous to hear. 
 
 Higher the bog rose ; and one and one they fought 
 together still, though the chattering of their teeth cut 
 half their shouts in twain. And the five upon the hill- 
 top watched, and could do naught to save. And then the 
 bog, pressed hard by a sudden inrush from behind, moved 
 quickly on the sudden, and hid them all ; and the watchers 
 saw that still, above the ooze, the sword-blades and the 
 hafted hammers were pointing to the sky, just as their 
 dead masters had last lifted them. 
 
 And now there was no peaty hollow to be seen, nor 
 horses, nor fighters ravenous to kill ; there was only a 
 wide and ever-deepening river of ooze that licked nearer 
 and always nearer at the high ground from which five 
 had seen the deaths of many. 
 
 " Ratcliffe the Red," said Wayne of Marsh, " the last 
 fight was like the first bitter, and keen, and to the death 
 but there's a difference." 
 
 Ratcliffe fingered the naked edge of foster-brother. Be- 
 wildered he was, and awed, but Joseph's teaching dimmed 
 just a little by Audrey's glamour-lore was not to be gain- 
 said in a moment. 
 
 " How so ? " he asked, still fingering the axe. 
 
 " I've lived hard, they say," Wayne answered, " and 
 
 322
 
 The Last Fight 
 
 lived on a loose rein, and men laugh at such when they 
 talk of God's hand upon them. But I tell you this that 
 God has sent His own to join issue with us in this feud, 
 and there are no longer Waynes and Ratcliffes." 
 
 " There are two," said the other drily, " not counting 
 Joseph yonder, and Nick o' Trawdon. They will stand 
 aside and leave us to it. There's high ground left to fight 
 on yet, Wayne of Marsh." 
 
 " You'll fight with a heartless man, then ; but, if your 
 will's that way " 
 
 " It is," said Ratcliffe simply. 
 
 And now Wayne's son was all distraught, for it seemed 
 the dreads and struggles of the day were to go without 
 reward ; none of those drowned by the bog down yonder 
 had listened to him, and now these two, it seemed, would 
 fight till one or other of the two was slain. Unwillingly 
 his father fought ; but the boy had learned to know that 
 deep note in his voice, half gay, half stern, which always 
 spoke of battle to the death. 
 
 " Master, the bog is rising fast ! " said Joseph sud- 
 denly. For, tough as his hatred of the Waynes was, the 
 down- rush of the flood had sobered and disheartened 
 him. 
 
 " Let it rise," snapped Ratcliffe. " Wayne of Marsh, 
 come on ! You were not wont to be a coward before the 
 soft days weakened you." 
 
 " I am with you," answered Wayne, and touched his 
 horse with either spur. 
 
 Yet even as he spoke there was a second rush of ooze 
 from the high lands of the moor, and in a moment the 
 black edge of the stream was lipping the hill-crest where 
 they stood. On one side was the bog, on the other a slope 
 that fell abruptly into the neighbouring dingle ; if once 
 the stream climbed full to the top of their vantage-ground 
 and filled the valley on their right, they were in no better 
 case than their kin who lay buried in the peaty hollow 
 nay, they were in worse case, for these at the least had 
 died with the heat of battle in their throats. 
 
 323
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 And now Red Ratcliffe owned the stronger hand at last. 
 He saw the ooze come licking upward, ever upward ; he 
 smelt the strong, harsh odour of the bog ; he knew that 
 foster-brother, strike keen and true as he might, could no 
 way meet this silent adversary. 
 
 None spoke, but all watched the bog climb, swift and 
 stealthy as a wild-cat, up to the margin of their feet. 
 
 " If 'twere our last meeting, Ratcliffe the Red ? " said 
 Wayne, astonished that he felt no dread of this up-creeping 
 thing. . , 
 
 Red Ratcliffe groped among the darkness that had 
 fallen on his courage, and knew dimly what was asked of 
 him, yet shrank from denial of the hatred taught him at 
 Bathsheba's knee. 
 
 " Well, and if it were ? " he muttered sullenly. 
 
 " They say there's joy in peace-making when men go 
 near to knocking at the Gate o' Doom." 
 
 Wayne's son forgot the bog. He was looking at his 
 father, and he saw the stains of wine and careless living 
 wiped away saw the man's clean, upright soul go shining 
 like a lamp through the big, crow's-foot-wrinkled face 
 saw the fairest thing, save one, that ever his eyes had 
 chanced upon. And the one fairer thing was Janet, waiting 
 now on the edge of Marshcotes Moor, and shading her eyes 
 against the sunlight in weary hope of seeing Shameless 
 Wayne ride home. 
 
 " Can you and I make peace, Wayne of Marsh ? " said 
 Ratcliffe. " Better this cold death of the bog than peace 
 between a Ratcliffe and a Wayne." 
 
 Nick o' Trawdon felt the ooze about his feet, and, near 
 to death, he found a little laughter, as his wont was, to 
 soften trouble. " Foster-brother will soon be resting," he 
 said, nodding at Red Ratcliffe. " Well, we can never tell, 
 somehow but 'tis pity all these years o' polishing, and 
 sharpening on the grindstone, and what not, should go 
 for naught, Joseph. Look ye, sirs, we're on the edge o' 
 death, or thereabout ; cannot we no way raise a laugh 
 betwixt us ? And cannot we let a Wayne join in this 
 
 3 2 4
 
 The Last Fight 
 
 once or so, seeing none will know a red head from a black 
 when once the bog is over us ? " 
 
 And now a silence fell upon them, for none had heart 
 to answer Nick o' Trawdon. And the bog crept, it may 
 be, a half- foot higher. And suddenly -the clearer waters, 
 which came after and before the more slowly-moving ooze, 
 swirled round about their horses' knees ; and, when they 
 trickled from the steep ground on which the five remaining 
 stood, they showed something which the bog, surfeited 
 with food, had cast up at the feet of Shameless Wayne. 
 
 The worst of the flood was over now, and sullenly the 
 bog moved forward, spent with its climb to the hill-top 
 and growing shallower moment by moment. But that 
 which it had thrown up at Wayne's feet, it left, and Wayne 
 and Red Ratcliffe were staring down at the new-comer in 
 wonderment and dread. 
 
 The body of a man, it was ; and, as they watched, there 
 came another swirl of clearer water, which played about 
 the dead man's face, washing it clean of peat and mud 
 as if in tenderness. And Wayne of Marsh looked down 
 into the open eyes of Wayne of Cranshaw eyes so calm, 
 with courage and with hope, that it was hard to believe 
 them blind to this world's sights. 
 
 " Red Ratcliffe, see'st thou him ? " Wayne muttered 
 hoarsely. 
 
 " Ay," answered Ratcliffe and foster-brother dropped 
 quietly from his hands, and the feud-hunger left him, he 
 knew not why. " I see him, Wayne of Marsh. 'Tis he 
 I killed between Black House and the marshes ; and I 
 buried him among the bogs ; and now he's come to make 
 me sure that the deed was no glory, but a shame. It was 
 so I felt it when I buried him, but I would not heed such 
 daft-man's tenderness." 
 
 Ratcliffe's voice had now no sullenness or fight in it. 
 Like a broken man he spoke, easing his heart by some sort 
 of confession, yet scarce knowing what he said. And 
 Shameless Wayne, who more than once had crossed the 
 threshold of a like despair, let his sword drop among the 
 
 325
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 sodden ling, where it lay cheek by jowl with foster-brother ; 
 and he reined his horse close in to Ratcliffe's, and put a hand 
 upon his shoulder, and the younger man heard the voice 
 of many sorrows, of many troubles bravely overcome, go 
 ringing though Wayne's simple words. 
 
 " Do not fret, lad. We fret too much in this queer life. 
 'Twas not you, but the feud, that slew Wayne of Cran- 
 shaw." 
 
 " The axe and the hand were mine. Wayne, Wayne, 
 d'ye see the forgiveness in his quiet, dead eyes ? Let's 
 pick our weapons up, and fight, or else I'll cry like a lad- 
 kin at his mother's knee." 
 
 Wayne's son looked on. Such griefs and tears had been 
 his portion, time out of mind ; it was news to him that 
 well-fleshed, fighting folk could feel the same, and in some 
 odd way of his own he was cheered and comforted. He 
 was learning that adversity finds out our friends for us 
 friends who lie hiding in the ling so long as we are 
 prosperous. 
 
 But Joseph snarled. For danger from the bog was 
 past its ooze was dwindling, dwindling down the peaty 
 hollow and working havoc on the lower farmsteads and 
 the man's hard-bitten love of feud was reawakened. 
 
 " By the Heart, there's room enough for those two 
 pap-babes to fight ! " he growled. " Peace ? I never 
 heard peace did lasting good to man or beast." 
 
 " Oh, whisht ! " said Nick o' Trawdon, with unwonted 
 gravity. " We've been spared, Joseph, from a worser and 
 a colder death than I can bear to think on. And I've a 
 wife, Joseph, lad, and no wife gets warm comfort from a 
 corpse." 
 
 " Tuts ! " said Joseph wearily. " I've a wife myself, 
 for that matter not just so young as thine, and may be 
 by that token I love her all the better. But there's summat 
 more in life, Nick, than wives and love-making and foolish- 
 ness. I bred yond red lad to the feud, and now he's all for 
 peace." 
 
 Nick o' Trawdon pointed to the peaty hollow, where 
 
 326
 
 The Last Fight 
 
 the ooze crept up and down in grey-black, sullen currents. 
 " There's enough o' both sides given to the feud," he said. 
 " Let be, Joseph, and think upon your sins instead." 
 
 " Nay, lad," answered Joseph and for the first time 
 he laughed " I'd liefer think o' bonnier things. Well, 
 then, 'tis peace I see it coming, unless I run in and crack 
 this Wayne upon the crown." 
 
 " Ye'll not do that," said Nick o' Trawdon drily, " for 
 I'm watching ye, and, peace or war, these two are going 
 to settle their own business for themselves." 
 
 There was another watching Nick o' Trawdon and old 
 Joseph, too, had they but known it. For Wayne's son 
 had his right hand on his sword-hilt, and he knew at last 
 which side to take the side that first interfered between 
 Red Ratcliffe and his father. 
 
 3*7
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 AND AFTERWARDS 
 
 As for Red Ratcliffe, he felt Wayne's touch upon his arm, 
 and looked into the big, kindly face, and wondered why 
 the enmity of years went by him like a God-forsaken wind. 
 
 " The axe and the hand were yours," said Shameless 
 Wayne ; " but 'twas the feud that guided them. Oh, 
 boy, make friends ! " he broke off passionately. " Make 
 friends amid the wreckage and disaster. If we fight, 'tis 
 not just you and I, but all the devils out of hell that lit 
 the feud-fire first." 
 
 " So Wayne of Cranshaw said ; " Red Ratcliffe answered, 
 in a dull, affrighted voice. " See his -dead eyes that 
 harbour all forgiveness ! As he lay dying at the call of 
 foster-brother, he said that the death-wound was not mine 
 at all, but given by the generations buried long ago." 
 
 " He spoke a true word," said Shameless Wayne. 
 
 " Ay, but the charity in those up-staring eyes ! I had 
 rather have seen hatred than forgiveness there, Wayne of 
 Marsh." 
 
 Again Wayne touched him on the shoulder. 
 
 " So would we all. 'Tis always hard to meet forgiveness, 
 lad hard to take mercy at another's hands, moreover, as 
 I did from yours at Colne." 
 
 And now it was plain to Ratcliffe that half at least of 
 Wayne's reluctance for the combat was owing to his 
 courtesy, in that he counted his life, after that day at 
 Colne, as a debt which his enemy might bid him pay at 
 any hour. 
 
 " You were unarmed. How could I kill you ? " said 
 Red Ratcliffe vehemently, striving constantly to remember 
 Joseph's teaching, though his heart was weak toward peace. 
 
 325
 
 And Afterwards 
 
 " Now 'tis different and we stand upon high ground 
 and your sword lies neighbour to my axe." 
 
 So then Wayne laughed, the chastened laugh of one who 
 stands for a moment looking with clear eyes through life's 
 perplexities and bickerings and ill-intents. 
 
 " Pick up your axe, then, Ratcliffe," he said, " and I am 
 with you." 
 
 And Ratcliffe stooped ; but, as Wayne had guessed, he 
 turned from the axe to look at the dead face of Wayne 
 of Marsh, and he could not pluck his glance away. 
 
 " He he will not let me," stammered Ratcliffe, with a 
 sideway look. 
 
 " Likely. Such as he do not die idly, or for naught. 
 See how he died, Ratcliffe the Red ! In grief and agony, 
 and shame of knowing himself defeated yet see the brave 
 look on his face." 
 
 " Tis the brave look that haunts me that, and the 
 forgiveness in it. Wayne, Wayne, d'ye wish me to go 
 mad for grief, or will you fight ? " 
 
 Old Joseph was not snarling now ; he, and Nick o' 
 Trawdon, and Wayne's ill-shapen son, were gathered in 
 a knot about them ; and they saw Ratcliffe stoop and 
 fumble for his axe, time and again, while ever his eyes 
 sought those of Wayne of Cranshaw. Deeper and wilder 
 than the bog-burst was this strife of men, reared up in 
 feud, who found the way of peace come hardly to them. 
 
 " I was unarmed at Colne, you say," Wayne's voice 
 broke in. " What are we now, Ratcliffe, the two of us ? 
 You cannot lift your axe, and I've no heart to pick my 
 sword up. I tell you, this cloven bog, that but swept us 
 down into the valleys, is bigger than the feud." 
 
 And now there was silence ; and something snapped 
 and broke, near to Red Ratcliffe's heart, as a bow-string 
 snaps when the archer's arm is stronger than his weapon. 
 He did not fear the dead man's forgiveness now ; straight 
 into the eyes of the living he looked, and he saw a hungry 
 pity, a hungry pride, a hungry love of charity, reflected 
 in Wayne's face. 
 
 3 2 9
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " Wayne of Marsh," he said, " my mother bore me to 
 the feud." 
 
 " As mine did," answered Wayne ; " but the God who 
 sits above the moor is fuller of knowledge than our mothers, 
 Ratcliffe." 
 
 " Wayne, Wayne ! " the lad's cry rang out and he 
 called, not to an enemy now, but with the voice which 
 fathers know when their boys come sorrowing to them. 
 " Wayne, I was left a legacy ! We hate, we kill. For 
 God's sake, get your sword into your hand, for all else is 
 perplexity and doubt." 
 
 " I'll get your hand into my hand," said Wayne. " If 
 this dead face of Wayne of Cranshaw preaches peace for 
 naught, you may take the debt I've owed you since that 
 day at Colne. See my hand, Ratcliffe clasp it, or hew it 
 off, according to your will." 
 
 Red Ratcliffe looked about him ; saw the ooze melt 
 downward through the peaty hollow, and the waters race 
 before it and behind ; saw the stark moorland glimmer in 
 the sun ; saw everywhere the wreckage boulders and 
 trees and blocks of the drier peat left stranded that 
 marked the road taken by the bog. He heard, moreover 
 and the sound touched the better man in him heard 
 a lark, high up toward the sun, go singing bravely above 
 the ruin and disaster of the flood. For the first time he 
 saw the feud at something near to its true height and 
 girth ; it was no longer a giant, towering huge before him 
 and shutting out the starlight and the sun ; it was a 
 pigmy now, accursed and evil, that shrank from true men's 
 sight and sought a hiding-place. Nay, it was dwarfed 
 beyond its due, for out of the bog-flood, so it seemed, a 
 cleaner flood had come to sweep Ratcliffe beyond his 
 depth ; and, where this morning there was war, and only 
 war, he now could see only the welcome lands of peace. 
 Shameless Wayne was watching the lad's face ; it was 
 all one to him at this moment whether he lived or died, 
 whether he fought or made peace ; the struggles and the 
 backslidings of the years, the fights and fevers and re- 
 
 33
 
 And Afterwards 
 
 pentances, lay stretched before the older man as the moor 
 stretched out before him, a broken land of turmoil with 
 Janet's voice somewhere among the blue of heaven, like 
 the lark's, threading disaster through with silver threads. 
 All rested with Red Ratcliffe now ; and Wayne watched 
 his face, and saw it soften, line by line, into a comeliness 
 unusual to it. 
 
 Suddenly Red Ratcliffe pointed to the sundered moor, 
 then up to the middle-blue where the lark was singing. 
 " Audrey's God must have been tarrying here," he said. 
 " She spoke a true word, Wayne of Marsh, when she told 
 me, only yestre'en, that there were bigger things than 
 feud." 
 
 And then the older and the younger man looked each 
 other in the face again ; and neither found reason to mis- 
 like the other ; and Ratcliffe's hand crept out to Wayne's, 
 and they brought their fretting horses to a stand, and 
 gave the clasp of friendship. 
 
 " May the bog cover us each in turn," said Ratcliffe, 
 " when there is aught but peace 'twixt you and me." 
 
 " The bog has buried our dead," Wayne answered 
 simply, " and a new day will dawn above the moor." 
 
 Then Ratcliffe turned to the three who looked on at 
 this strife between the leaders of the peace-in-feud. 
 " Joseph," he said peremptorily, " make thy peace, as I 
 have done." 
 
 " I'm old, Master sadly old and I've lived only to 
 see ye kill yond black hillock of a man. Tis light for ye 
 to go a-peace-making, seeing ye've known the feud a short 
 score years or so. I've known it longer, Master, and I hate 
 the Waynes, root and branch of the whole damned breed." 
 Wayne's laugh came deep and heartsome. "No breed 
 is altogether damned, old Joseph, for men of all breeds 
 have suffered in their time. Say, were I called a Ratcliffe, 
 would you find so much amiss with me ? " 
 
 It was Wayne's son who broke into their talk. 
 " Father ! " he cried, pointing down the moor. " The 
 danger is not over-past ! See where the bog is flowing." 
 
 33*
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 They looked and saw the ooze a river half-a-league 
 in width shine dully in the sunlight far below ; and the 
 track it took was along the sloping ground that dipped 
 and fell abruptly into Hazel Dene; and at the foot of 
 Hazel Dene lay Wayne's own house of Marsh. 
 
 And now it was Wayne's turn to be afraid, though he 
 had met fearlessly all the terrors and mischances of the 
 day. 
 
 " Janet is waiting for me yonder ! " he muttered. And 
 then he turned to his son, and the lad's face kindled as he 
 listened to the first word of praise that he had heard from 
 Shameless Wayne. " You're a proven man. Borrow a 
 horse from one of these Ratcliffe friends, and you and I 
 will race the flood." 
 
 " Shall we ride with you, Wayne of Marsh ? " asked 
 Red Ratcliffe. 
 
 " No. Get back to your wife, Ratcliffe, and tell her 
 there is peace. I only ask to have my son beside me." 
 
 So Ratcliffe quickly got from saddle, and snatched 
 Wayne's son about the middle and set him on his own 
 fleet horse ; and neither Wayne nor his son halted to give 
 thanks, but galloped down along the ridge which this day 
 had saved their lives. 
 
 " Would have fain made peace, after all," growled 
 Joseph. " He's summat like a man, or thereabouts, is 
 Shameless Wayne." 
 
 They watched the horsemen gallop till horses and men 
 were only specks upon the ravished moor ; and they knew 
 the danger of this ride across land, which, high as it was, 
 was sodden with the ooze and water that had trickled to 
 its top ; and, when at last the riders disappeared, still 
 safely in the saddle, Red Ratcliffe gave a quick, fierce 
 sigh. 
 
 " They will tell of Wayne and his son, and of their 
 ride," he said, " when you and I are dead and stiff, old 
 Joseph. Good hap to them, say I, and would that I rode 
 withithem ! " 
 
 But Wayne and his son said nothing. Their knees 
 
 332
 
 And Afterwards 
 
 were riveted into their saddles, and the flying ooze got 
 up from under the horses' hoofs, and fell like heavy rain 
 behind them. And still the good beasts galloped, as if, 
 like the men who rode them, they saw the bigness of the 
 issue, and by disdaining peril conquered it. 
 
 The river of ooze grew near and nearer to them, for the 
 slope of its fall was gentle, and it moved as if surfeited 
 with food and slaughter. And now they passed it 
 keeping to the high lands still and turned into the dry 
 and grassy hollow where there was good going for a horse. 
 Past Hill End Farm they rode shouting a warning to 
 the farmer as they galloped by and down to the House 
 of Marsh, whose windows winked untroubled at the sun. 
 
 If fire were licking at the gables, their case could not 
 well have been more desperate. They had passed the 
 bog ; but, soon as it reached the steep fall into Hazel 
 Dene, its speed would be a gallop like their own. 
 
 They did not heed. Wayne's courage and his son's 
 sat cool upon them, and they dismounted at the door as 
 if they came to pledge each other in a cup of wine. 
 
 " Janet, Janet ! " cried Wayne, so loudly that the 
 serving- women ran from dairy and from kitchen. Serving- 
 men there were none, for these had gone out to fight, and 
 the bog was carrying their bodies all too swiftly down to 
 their old home. 
 
 " She went up" to] Marshcotes, some hour ago," said 
 one of the women. 
 
 " Thank God for that," cried Wayne. " Look ye, 
 wenches, the bog has burst, and naught can save this 
 house of Marsh. Look to yourselves." 
 
 The women huddled close against each other, like 
 frightened sheep. And then they fell to crying, and one 
 lass, weaker than the rest, was taken with tears and 
 laughter mingled. 
 
 1 Tis Parson's Storm ! " she whimpered. " Oh, Lord 
 o' mercy, wenches, did I say 'twas no way overed-with 
 when God's rains ceased ? Did I say there was worse to 
 follow ? " 
 
 333
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " Fool ! " snapped Wayne. " There'll be worse unless 
 you get up the road that leads to Marshcotes, and get 
 there quickly." 
 
 So then they followed him foolish and crying, still 
 like so many sheep and Wayne and his son took their 
 horses by the bridles, and led the way. 
 
 Half up the hill a woman clutched Wayne's arm. " I 
 Avas dazed and all forgetful-like, Master. There's Priscilla 
 old and bed-ridden, left in the upper chamber." 
 
 Now Priscilla had grown old in service of the Waynes, 
 and in his young, hot days, had often soothed and mothered 
 Wayne of Marsh when he came home with shame and too 
 much wine upon him. And Wayne was apt to remember 
 such-like matters ; and, though he heard the thunder of 
 the bog as it rolled and crashed into the depths of Hazel 
 Dene, he got to saddle and turned, and shouted to his 
 son to lead the women safely into Marshcotes. 
 
 "Not I ! " cried the lad. " We'll live or we'll die, 
 father but it must be together." 
 
 " Good lad ! " said Wayne, the words slipping from him 
 unawares. " I've wronged you through the years but 
 we're together now." 
 
 The women, scared and helpless, turned to follow them, 
 but Wayne moved in the saddle and looked at the huddled, 
 daft-wit flock. 
 
 "Go up to Marshcotes," he said peremptorily, " or the 
 bog will have you in its teeth." 
 
 Sheep-witted, fearing everything that it is possible to fear 
 in life, and terrified by Wayne's threat of danger, they 
 went up the steep and narrow lane. But Wayne and his 
 son rode down the lane, dismounted once again at the 
 hall-door, each keeping headlong pace with the other, to 
 find Priscilla. And, high up Hazel Dene, they heard the 
 flood's roar coming down on them, and marked the sharp, 
 quick cries and groanings of the trees as they were riven 
 from their roots. 
 
 Up the stair they went, and they found Priscilla in the 
 little chamber above the porch. 
 
 334
 
 And Afterwards 
 
 " There's ruin coming on the house," said Wayne. 
 " Fear naught, but let me carry you down the stair." 
 
 And now the aged woman laughed, none asking her the 
 reason ; and her toothless gums went moving swiftly, and 
 at last she found the words she sought. 
 
 " I should die, Master, if my roots were snapped away 
 from the old house. Let ruin come then, and let it wanton 
 not for the first time since I grew to love ye, Master. 
 Eh, eh, I mind ! The wine came on ye like a cloud, and 
 the wine lifted always soon as there was work to do, and 
 ye were ever the bairn-child of my heart. I'm wandering, 
 belike, for I remember listening for your footstep, as folk 
 listen for the wind o' spring when winter's all but over. 
 'Tis nearly time for old Priscilla to go oh, ay, 'tis nearly 
 time but I'd love, and dearly love, to hear your step go 
 sounding on the courtyards of the farther life." 
 
 So then Wayne wrapped the blanket round about her 
 and snatched her up, and went down the stair with no 
 word in reply. Priscilla was lean and shrivelled, and 
 should have been an easy load ; but, on the other hand, 
 she went unwillingly, and for that cause all the little 
 weight she had lay dead and heavy in Wayne's arms. 
 
 The bog-roar sounded near at hand when they came 
 out into the courtyard. Wayne set his burden on the 
 fore-front of the saddle and leaped into his seat behind it, 
 and at the moment the splintered crash of trees again 
 came to them came from the wood which guarded Marsh 
 House from the moor winds at scarce ten-score yards 
 away. 
 
 " You ride lighter than I, son of mine," panted Wayne. 
 " Gallop, and leave me to win out and up as best I can." 
 
 " Not so," the boy answered, and the glow of a forth- 
 right courage meeting forthright danger lit up his face, so 
 that the likeness to his father was strangely marked. 
 
 " 'Tis a grim death, boy, and only one of us need risk 
 it." 
 
 " Pace for pace I go with you, father 'tis both or 
 neither of us." 
 
 335
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 So then Wayne saw the lad's will was stubborn ; and, 
 between a glance at the horror of the down-coming bog 
 and a glance at the hill-front which they must climb at 
 once or not at all, he found space to thank God for this 
 son whom he had once despised. And the boy's insistence 
 saved his life, as it chanced ; for it heartened Wayne to 
 coax and force his beast to do its utmost, seeing that not 
 Priscilla's life and his alone were at stake, but his son's 
 also. 
 
 Between the splintered wood and Marsh House there 
 was a steepish fall smooth pasture-land, with not a 
 hillock or a boulder to stay the bog's on-coming. With 
 thunder and with wrath it turned over and down, as it 
 had done at Black House, and it filled the pastured hollow, 
 and before Wayne could win the last few strides to safety, 
 the ooze swept half to his horse's knees and clung there. 
 
 " Ride on, boy, I tell you ! " he yelled. 
 
 But his son had seen how short a length of hill stretched 
 between safety and the bog's upcoming. He had not kept 
 stride for stride, as he had promised, but had ridden a 
 little forward ; and now he turned about his own horse 
 just beyond the ooze's greedy lips and reached out and 
 clutched his father's bridle. And Wayne of Marsh gave 
 a ringing cry, such as his beast understood ; and Red 
 Ratcliffe's borrowed horse strained like a mad thing up 
 the hill ; and between them they won free of this last 
 desperate attack, compared with which 'twas mercy to be 
 slain by Ratcliffes' weapons. 
 
 They were safe on the hill-top now, and halted while 
 their beasts fetched sobbing breaths. And old Priscilla 
 stirred in her master's arms, and her laugh was like an owl's 
 hoot when the night is still. 
 
 " Best have left me, Master, best have left me ! The 
 Mistress will go jeering at you, to have ridden down to save 
 an old, bed-cumbered scarecrow like myseln." 
 
 But Wayne answered nothing. The brute splendour 
 of the flood, the new-found stress of fathership, the know- 
 ledge that Janet was waiting for his safe return these 
 
 336
 
 And Afterwards 
 
 things were big upon him, so that he dwelt for a while in 
 the farther lands of insight. 
 
 They came to the square which fronted the Bull Tavern. 
 And all the village was agog, as it had been when Ratcliffe 
 fought with foster-brother on the churchyard steps. Men, 
 snatching their lives at hazard from the bog, had run in 
 to tell of what had happened on the moor ; and all the folk 
 were chattering, asking foolish questions as to why and 
 wherefore ; and some were crying that the flood might 
 climb to the top of Marshcotes village, were telling their 
 neighbours plainly that they might all have lived better 
 lives in years gone by. 
 
 Wayne found the landlord of the Bull at his door, and 
 with scant ceremony put old Priscilla into the man's arms. 
 
 " Look well to her, or I'll leave no bone whole in your 
 fat body, Jabez," he said, and reined his horse about. 
 
 " Where do we ride, father ? " asked his son. 
 
 " To the moor, lad. I've a fancy that your mother has 
 gone to look for me." 
 
 So the villagers made way, and they passed the church- 
 yard on their left, and rode up the wide half-circle of the 
 bridle- track that lost itself among the ling. And Janet 
 was watching still, as Wayne had guessed, both hands 
 above her eyes to shield the sunlight from them. 
 
 " Janet," he said, dismounting before he reached her, 
 and fetching a compass so that she should see him come 
 from the looked-for quarter, " Janet, the big fight is over." 
 
 " And you're unwounded, lad ? " she said, her hands 
 going motherlike about him to feel that he was whole. 
 
 " Ay, by God's charity." 
 
 " I heard a roar far up the heath, Ned, and it seemed to 
 bode no good." 
 
 " Dost not know, then, that the bog has broken down ? 
 'Twas that you heard, lass and no Wayne, save I and 
 another, will ever sup in hall again. The last fight was the 
 bog's, Janet, and it has taken all save me save me, and a 
 better man than I." 
 
 So then Janet looked behind, and saw her son standing 
 
 v 337
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 mute beside a sweating horse, a horse whose owner was 
 Red Ratcliffe. And she ran to the lad, and was foolish 
 with him, and the tears went flooding down her cheeks. 
 
 " Better you and he, Ned, than all who supped at Marsh," 
 she cried. 
 
 " The dead are dead, Janet, and I speak no ill of them 
 but the boy is worth them all." 
 
 It was in this wise, so they tell us, that those three, 
 lonely on the lonely moor, came to their own at last ; and 
 the great love that had been Wayne's and Janet's, and the 
 great sin which each had expiated by long and grievous 
 toil, and this final sense of all- forgiveness, were near the 
 hearts of each as their glances met, and lingered, and 
 returned to the son who had greatly suffered. 
 
 As the flood had dwindled down into the valleys, so had 
 the uproar and unrest of twenty years gone by them 
 leaving scars, indeed, that they would carry to the end, 
 but showing a land that they might tread with safety. 
 
 And Wayne's son looked from one to the other, and found 
 life dawn for him, remembering that Shameless Wayne had 
 named him worthy. 
 
 And now the short October day drew on to gloaming ; 
 and the dusk moved with silent feet, and all the raking sky- 
 line of the moor was silver-grey, and the row of naked 
 thorn-trees on this side the churchyard glistened in the after- 
 light. A light, sweet touch of coming frost was in the air, 
 and all was quiet, save for the shouting of the Marshcotes 
 folk as they ran down to see the havoc that had overtaken 
 the House of Marsh. 
 
 They found no house there now, these villagers who 
 snatched courage to follow in the flood's wake. They saw 
 a half-acre covered with walls and roofing-stones ; they saw 
 broken limbs of trees strewn random-wise, and a shallow 
 depth of ooze that marked the passing of the bog. They 
 saw, too, here and there, great, sodden bulks from which 
 they turned their eyes away, knowing they were good 
 men's bodies. 
 
 " This comes o' pride-sickness and feud," said one 
 
 338
 
 And Afterwards 
 
 a little, wry-mouthed fellow, the Marshcotes cobbler. 
 " Where are the Waynes to-night, friends all ? The bog 
 has carried them back to Marsh House but not to sup 
 nay, not for wine and devilment, I fancy." 
 
 " The Waynes are in a better place than thou'lt come to 
 at thy latter end," answered a comrade, who had looked 
 on the dead men, on the riven stones, on the toothed, 
 upstanding branches of the trees had looked and read their 
 message fearlessly. " They met death face- foremost. I 
 reckon I doubt ye'll not do just as much, Cobbler Dick." 
 
 And now the moon rode up above the gloaming, and her 
 light was pencilled on the branches of the trees left stand- 
 ing on the higher grounds ; and the frost grew sharper, 
 cleaner, till it was like the sweetness of a harp when maiden 
 fingers touch the strings. 
 
 Red Ratcliffe and his two remaining folk had long ago 
 gone up the higher ridges, seeking the best foothold they 
 could find. They had come, at long last, to the bog- 
 land which had lain like a watch-dog at the gates of Black 
 House, and had found their home defenceless. Marshes, 
 shuddering bogs, and all the sly defences made for them by 
 the moor, were cleansed by this last, sudden flood. Wet 
 going it was, and sticky for men's feet or for horses', but 
 danger there was none. 
 
 " We've lost our bogs," growled Joseph, as they went 
 soft-footed over what had been the perilous land. " I 
 allus loved 'em they were so friendly-like, and always 
 sucked those damned Waynes under." 
 
 Young as he was and perhaps because he knew his wife 
 was waiting for him Red Ratcliffe understood at last the 
 over-lordship of God's moor and sky. 
 
 " Joseph," said he, "we do not go needing our bog 
 now. There is peace, thanks be to Audrey's God, and 
 Wayne's hand has lain in mine." 
 
 " Tuts ! " said Joseph. " He's well enough, but should'st 
 have cracked him on the crown and have done wi't." 
 
 " I had rather he lived, Joseph," was all the Master's 
 answer. 
 
 339
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 And with the word he crossed the last of the sticky 
 bogland, and went up the hill ; and Audrey stood, shading 
 her eyes, as Wayne's wife had done, and looking for her 
 goodman's home-return. And from the terrors of that 
 day the bog thundering wide almost at her feet and 
 carrying all her safeguards down it was Audrey's turn 
 to pluck the rosemary that grows on the steep hills of 
 battle. 
 
 Not only Audrey watched ; for Nick o' Trawdon's wife, 
 who had been comforting her mistress as best she might 
 throughout the day, looked out likewise, and feared her 
 goodman would not come. 
 
 " Tuts ! " growled Joseph, looking on. " Bathsheba 
 and me's too old for such young-blooded foolishness." 
 
 Yet he rode forward, and found Bathsheba somewhere 
 near the dairy, her apron close about her head to hide her 
 fears ; and he was glad to come safely to Black House. 
 
 On Waynes and Ratcliffes such as were left of them 
 the moon rose high into the crisp October sky. Fragrant 
 as violets in spring the frost crept in among the dingles, 
 and its fingers traced patterns, never woven yet by hands 
 of men, about the bog-ooze and the trickling waters. 
 
 Far down in the valley lands, the flood was racing on ; 
 and we know to-day what bridges broke apart, what 
 huddled masses of the drier peat went riding down the 
 valley rivers. They had clear weather in the valleys, and 
 each man asked his neighbour why the floods were on 
 them : and only after many days the tale of Parson's Flood 
 came down, along the road of gossip, to tell them why the 
 waters had come so suddenly from the moors of which 
 they knew naught, or little. 
 
 Meanwhile, the moon rode blue above the moor, 
 and the frost grew keener and more wholesome in men's 
 nostrils. And Wayne, standing near his wife, remembered 
 his own happiness, and with remembrance came the 
 memory of one forgotten until now. 
 
 " Janet, what of Little Bairn ? " he cried. " I forgot 
 her, remembering only you." 
 
 340
 
 And Afterwards 
 
 " She was in the kirkyard when I came up, Ned. Shall 
 we go find her you, and the boy, and I ? " 
 
 They crossed into the place of graves, and there on her 
 wonted headstone sat Little Bairn, weaving fairies' gar- 
 ments from the loom of fancy. The moon, blue and crisp 
 and no way troubled, shone upon her hair, making it like 
 thread of gold ; and just as Wayne had for a while for- 
 gotten her, she no way at this moment missed the Sexton, 
 her dead and buried playmate. 
 
 " The moor was red not long ago," she said, looking up 
 at him with her child's glance ; " and now 'tis violet- 
 blue, and all's secure. Will you listen to my wisdom, 
 Wayne of Marsh, and Janet, and the son ye treated 
 ill?" 
 
 " We will listen ! " came the answer, and it was the son 
 they had not treated well who answered, there among the 
 graves, where the moon lay soft and blue upon the lichens. 
 
 " Then hearken ! The moor ran red, but all is over 
 now. Naught matters, Wayne of Marsh naught matters 
 any way. Will ye not hearken ? " 
 
 The bog-flood was wrecking the valleys lower down ; 
 but here its force was spent, and Janet gripped Wayne's 
 hand amid the silence and the peace. 
 
 " Little Bairn is right," she whispered. " Naught 
 matters, Ned naught matters now that you have brought 
 the boy to me." 
 
 Yet Little Bairn was passing her hand before her eyes, 
 as if she sought to clear away some troublous vision. 
 
 " And yet and yet I seem to see dead folk go passing 
 by me," she murmured. " And some have faces crimsoned 
 o'er, and others of the faces are dark and hidden, as if the 
 peat-bog lay over them. Ah, may be some things matter, 
 after all ! It is not a light thing, is it, Ned, that men should 
 die?" 
 
 And Wayne bethought him of what this day had shown ; 
 and he bent his head, and the ghosts of all those slain since 
 first the feud began seemed to pass by with dumb, tired 
 feet and faces half-averted.
 
 Red o' the Feud 
 
 " I am weary, Ned," said Little Bairn, peremptory as 
 a child. " Take me home to Marsh." 
 
 ' 'T vould be to sleep among the ooze to go there, 
 Bairn," Wayne answered gently. " I must seek some 
 likelier bed for thee." 
 
 So the four went to find a resting-place ; and three of 
 them were silent, but Little Bairn was plucking next 
 year's primroses, all the way down the kirkyard, though 
 only she could see them. In the garden of her fancy she 
 was playing, where soft winds roamed ; but Wayne, and 
 Janet, and their son, felt only the gathering frost that 
 came to clean the pathway of the bog. 
 
 THE RIVERSIDE 'PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH.
 
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