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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a09d05 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69613 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69613) diff --git a/old/69613-0.txt b/old/69613-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1369f21..0000000 --- a/old/69613-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10984 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Storm, by Halliwell Sutcliffe - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Storm - -Author: Halliwell Sutcliffe - -Release Date: December 23, 2022 [eBook #69613] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Al Haines, John Routh & the online Distributed Proofreaders - Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORM *** - - - - - - - STORM - - BY - - HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE - - AUTHOR OF - “SHAMELESS WAYNE,” “RICROFT OF WITHENS,” - “WRACK OF DOOM,” ETC. - - - FOURTH EDITION - - - London - John Long, Ltd. - 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket - [_All rights reserved_] - - - - - Made and - Printed in - Great Britain - Copyright, 1925, by - John Long, Limited - All Rights Reserved - - - - - CONTENTS - - I. THE THREE GAUNT MEN - II. CAUSLEEN - III. THE END OF A JOURNEY - IV. THE MORROW - V. HEMLOCK - VI. THE EWE-GATHERING - VII. THE BATTLE OF THE FLEECE - VIII. THE GABBLE-RATCHET - IX. THE NIGHT WATCH - X. THE WEAVER OF BASKETS - XI. VENOM - XII. THE SHEEP-SLAYER - XIII. WILL O’ WISP - XIV. NITA - XV. THE HINDERED VENTURE - XVI. A ROPE-END AND A TREE - XVII. FLAME - XVIII. THE RESTLESS DAWN - XIX. GARSYKES - XX. SPITE’S VICTORY - XXI. THE POOL - XXII. THE END OF STORM - XXIII. THE QUIET WEDDING - XXIV. A GAOL DELIVERY - XXV. THE PLAGUE - XXVI. “LOGIE’S DOUBLY SAFE” - - Storm - - - - - CHAPTER I - - - THE THREE GAUNT MEN - - I - -Hardcastle, Master of Logie, came swinging up the last of the stiff -miles that climbed from Norbrigg market-town to the high uplands. -October’s mists had lain heavy on the lowlands, but here on the tops he -strode into sunlight and clean, nipping air. - -Grim and lean, toughened by many sorts of weather, Hardcastle paused to -get breath again, and looked out across the lonely acres that stretched -to the four quarters of a blue and amber sky. Ahead of him, bordering -the roadway, he saw the straggling clumps of houses known as -Weathersett. A brave, storm-battered village, keeping watch above the -mines that once fed its people, it wore a comrade’s look to Hardcastle. -So did the barren pastures, roaming out and over between their grey -stone fences to the gateways that gaped across the hill-tops. - -His thoughts were busy with all that lay hidden in these broken -lands—unfenced mines, their waters brimming deep—caves, wandered -through in boyhood, that had set their spell of mystery and dread on all -his after life. It was a haunted land, as all folk knew, and in its old -mine-workings lurked trolls and ancient goblins. - -His glance roamed down to another village—not reared high like -Weathersett, but skulking in a lowland hollow on the far side of the -benty waste. He forgot trolls and all their phantom kindred. They were -unsubstantial, but the people who lived there in Garsykes village were -flesh and blood and a standing menace to the country-side. - -A strange look stole across Hardcastle’s face. Contempt, antagonism, the -shadow of some restless fear, followed each other as he stood watching -Garsykes; for distrust of its folk had been in his mother’s milk, and in -the tales passed down for generations. - -They had many by-names, like all tribes greatly feared. Men of the -Wilderness, some called them; others the Broken People, or the Lost -Company. Names of that sort were no more than wind in the reeds. - -The stark truth remained that Garsykes village was the abiding-place of -every rogue about the fells. Sheep stealers had foregathered there since -time out of mind—men who had done murder on the high fells—lesser -rogues who had snatched purses at village fairs, and come breathless -from pursuit. Such pursuit ended always on the verge of Garsykes, for -none but vagabonds dared enter. - -Hardcastle remembered his father’s downright struggle against the -tribute these Lost Folk levied on the country-side. They were a small -village then, but had grown big on what they fed on, till nowadays even -strapping farmers paid toll for a safe home-coming. - -Hardcastle swung down the road till a turning of the way showed him -suddenly the whole, wide front of the highlands that stepped out to his -own Logie country. - -Pengables caught the mellow sunlight, and his rocks were softened till -they showed like some misty castle seen in dreams. The brackens were on -fire, and slender rowans crimsoned up to the wise, stalwart pines that -fringed the moor. - -This was a man’s land, wide, free-striding, its shoulders pushing up to -freedom and the sky. It had fathered and mothered his orphaned life. He -knew its every dell and furrow, and from the heart of it a crisp, sweet -breeze ran out in greeting. - -He went down the lone track—past Drumly Ghyll, where Riding Nevison had -leaped his horse from cliff to cliff in half-forgotten days—and came to -the bend that showed Langerton below him, a hamlet clustered round its -water-mill. He could almost hear the mill-wheel droning—a goblin that -toiled underground, to his awed boyish fancy—a goblin still, though -manhood had killed many pleasant, eerie fears of that sort. - -Hardcastle, not knowing why, halted in his stride, and stood looking out -across the waste. If the hills were brown and steadfast washed by rain -and sun, below him lurked the mines, the bogs that sucked a man down, -dragging at him till limb by limb the chill ooze chained him. And there -were the Wilderness Men, whose enmity was a dread thing to earn. - -A stab of fear took him unawares as if one of the Stealthy People had -crept on him from behind. He shook it off, telling himself that the -dread was part of his heritage of Logie. A grown man must learn to shake -off nursery tales. - -The swart, russet face of the land, crowned by Pengables, stood friend -to him as he went down the twisting road; and it was in his heart to -clear these lusty acres of the scum that hindered them. It was in his -heart still when he came past Mathison’s pinfold, where in summer they -gathered flocks for sheep washing. - -Out of the pinfold came three gaunt men, and straddled across the road, -barring it to him. They were unwashen, shifty folk to look at, and they -asked tribute. - -“I owe none,” said Hardcastle, with rough contempt. - -“We’re Wilderness Folk,” said Long Murgatroyd, the tallest of the three. - -Again fear played about the Master of Logie, from long habit—played for -an instant, and was gone. - -“How much would content you?” he asked, as if willing to drive a sober -bargain. - -“As much as you’ve got,” snarled Murgatroyd. - -Hardcastle was beginning to see red, dancing lights between the gaunt -men and himself, was ceasing to count the odds. “You shall have it.” - -The three leered at each other. “What did I tell you?” asked one of -them. “Nobody dare touch the Master of Logie, we said. Oh, we’d best go -wide of the Master, we snivelled. But he’s frog-livered too, like the -rest of his dalesmen.” - -Hardcastle backed quietly to the open gateway of the pinfold, and stood -in front of it. He had room to swing his arms, and the three must come -at him one at a time or not at all. - -“Come, take all I’ve got of muscle,” he said. “It’s waiting for you.” - -The Lost Folk were happier when they fought in numbers against few; but -now the biggest of the three saw, too, the red, dancing lights and made -at Hardcastle. The bleak, well-matched fight went this way and that. -Neither spared nor hoped to be spared. The world was narrowed to the -limit of blows that thudded out into the breeze. Then Hardcastle swept -his left arm round, as it might have been a hammer, and his man went -down, and lay still, and cursed no more. - -The Master of Logie had given tribute, enough and to spare. His face was -wealed and broken, his body hammered out of shape. The men left were -wondering how to take him—for the pinfold wall would not let both make -at him together—when Hardcastle settled all doubts for them. Fury was -on him now. He sprang forward before they guessed his purpose, gripped -them with either hand and brought their heads together with a dizzy -crash. He stood a moment looking at them as they lay beside Long -Murgatroyd, and wondered at his strength. Then he went down the road, -with a song at his heart. Whatever stoop to pride the dalesmen made each -market day when they paid tribute, the pride of Logie went secure. - - II - -Hardcastle halted by and by, for a backward glance at the Wilderness, -and still the glow of victory was with him. Battle was up in earnest now -between Logie and the Broken Folk. There could be no withdrawal, -whichever way it ended. - -“A terrible land for thieves, Master,” said a quiet voice at his elbow. - -Hardcastle turned sharply, to find his own shepherd, Brant, beside him. - -“Why, Stephen, you’re wide of the home pastures—and you’ve a gun for -company, instead of a stick and a grizzled collie.” - -Short, thick-set and sturdy, Brant had the eyes of those who journey on -far hill-tops, living alone with sheep and dogs and weather. - -“You’ve heard of Storm’s doings lately?” - -“News filters through, but I’ve little use for gossip—especially of -friends.” - -“Aye, you were always partial to Storm, and I fair loved the dog myself. -Best of his kind, he was—knew how to round ewes up the pastures like a -marvel—till he fell from grace.” - -“We all do, Stephen, time and time.” - -“You’re partial to him, as I said. But a dog that takes to worrying -sheep, and feeding on ’em, is a cannibal—eats his own flesh-and-blood, -as you might say.” - -“You trained him to be jealous, Brant?” - -“Shepherds do. A dog that’s any man’s dog means as much as a bunch of -windle-straws.” - -“Yet I could always whistle him from your side.” - -“Aye,” growled the shepherd— “and see what comes of it. A -sheep-stealer, he, and me with a gun in my hands. That’s what is coming -to Storm, for I’ve news of him this way.” - -“Then likely he’s back in the Logie country by this time. Either way, -bad luck to your shooting, Stephen.” - -“There seems bad luck to your riding, Master,” said the shepherd dryly, -“or you’d not be footing it from Norbrigg. It’s not natural, like, to -see you without feet in stirrups.” - -“The mare went lame, and I had to leave her.” - -“Was there no nag to be borrowed, then?” - -“There was, but I sit astride my own horse, or none.” - -Brant looked over the wastes, then at the Master’s face. Old days and -new were nagging at him with their memories. - -“Like yourself, and always a little bit liker as the years pass. What of -Garsykes yonder?” he broke off. - -“Well?” asked Hardcastle, blunt and hard. - -“It’s no way well. A festering sore I call’m, and our farmers tame as -lice.” - -“Tamer. They haven’t a bite at all.” - -A silence came to Brant. He had dared to speak of the Lost Folk, here in -the broken lands, and suddenly he remembered boyhood’s days. When he was -spoiling for mischief, he was told he’d be tossed to the Wilderness -Folk, and never come out again. In later years he had heard his elders -speak of paying tribute to the Lost People—_lest worse befell_. And now -the old stealthy menace seemed to creep about him as his glance sought -the broken lands again. - -“The devil take us, Master,” grumbled Brant. - -“It’s likely he will, all in good time—but why just now?” - -Brant scratched his wiry beard and pondered. Hill silences had taught -him to be wary of speech when deep-hidden feelings sought outlet. -“Because we’re content to let this shame go on,” he said at last. “It’s -hard to unravel, this fear of the Lost Folk. I’m small myself, but most -of our men—yeomen, and hinds, and what not—could make a meal of any -two such lean swine as they breed Garsykes way.” - -“Yet they don’t, Brant. They just unfasten their pockets and give -tribute.” - -“They’ll be asking tribute of you one day soon,” said the shepherd, -after another restless silence. “And what then?” - -“_They’ve asked it_, Stephen. Hadn’t you seen my face was a trifle out -of shape?” - -“Oh, I’d seen; but it was not my place to ask what private diversion -you’d been finding Norbrigg way.” - -Hardcastle laughed outright at Brant’s gravity, that hid a dry humour of -its own. “I gave more than I took, Stephen.” - -“Then a bonny mess t’others must be in. Who were they, Master?” - -“Long Murgatroyd and two I didn’t know.” - -Fire kindled suddenly in the shepherd’s eyes. “It _had_ to come, and I’m -glad its come. Garsykes gets past itself these days!” - -“How many will stand for Logie, now the feud’s up?” - -“Me for one, and another here and there. I wouldn’t count on many—but -it’s the staunch few that matter—and, Master, fear will reach you by -and by. Never heed it though it will be cold as east wind before the -snows come.” - -“Fear?” said Hardcastle, body and heart aglow with memory of blows taken -and given for Logie’s honour. - -“Aye, just fear. I’ve heard my fore-elders talk of what happens to a man -that thwarts the Lost Folk. And now I’ll give you good-day. It’s time I -put a dollop of lead into Storm. It would rankle when my time came to -go, if I’d left a sheep-killer rife about the fells.” - - III - -For a mile or so after leaving Brant the glow of victory stayed with -Hardcastle; and after that he thought that his feet began to tire. Soon -he knew it was his heart that was tiring, and his spirit. Already fear -was weaving unclean spells about him. What had his nurse told of the -Lost Folk when they put their token on a man? What had ancient farmers -told him? He was no longer his own master but thrall to terrors bred in -the womb of generations. - -Fancy began to play strange tricks. Hardened to life and weather he -might be; but he was no match for the unseen hordes of fear that came -about him. The sweat broke out on Hardcastle, fighting longer odds than -three men against one. It was only shame of his fear that got some sort -of manhood into him, and a rough courage that was friendless and utterly -alone. He learned then what Brant had meant when he spoke of dread, cold -as east wind with snow behind it. - -“Aye,” growled Hardcastle, “but Brant has his dog with him for comfort, -and I’ve none.” - -He forgot that Brant’s dog had taken lately to unlawful ways, till at a -corner of the road he came face to face with Storm himself—an outlaw, -every inch and line of him, standing at bay. His hide was matted and -uncouth, for pursuit had given him little time to tend himself. His -teeth were bared, and every man his foe. - -They stood there for a moment, not knowing that the whole Dale’s safety -might rest on what came of this chance meeting. - -“Storm,” said Hardcastle, “I’ve no fear of your teeth, my lad.” - -The culprit only growled, till Hardcastle came to him and patted his -tousled head. Then he yielded a little to old liking for this man who -seemed honest, with no snare in wait for him. - -“Best come home with me to Logie. Brant has a gun in his hand out -yonder, and he’s seeking you.” - -Storm glanced about him with restless eyes that looked for peril, and -then sought Hardcastle’s face again. If he had not learned the trick of -human speech, he knew its meaning. He was asked to get into shelter of a -decent homestead, after weeks of vagabond roaming. His limbs were full -of aches, caught in the marshes when he lay hidden from foes too many -for him. He was wearied-out, and there were good meals to be had at -Logie, as he had learned in the prosperous times when Brant used to take -him to the Master’s kitchen. But he was afraid of houses these days. - -“Come,” said Hardcastle, with sharp command. - -The sheep-slayer answered his bidding, and together they went down and -up to the autumn land till they reached Logie Brigg. Its arch stretched -wide and slender over the peat-brown waters of Wharfe River—the bridge -that Clifford of Skipton had crossed long ago on his way to Flodden -Field. - -The Master of Logie could never cross the bridge but he halted for -remembrance of what it meant to him—that old dream of Clifford, hale at -sixty, going into unknown hardship across the Border. The Hardcastle of -that day, with his men, had joined the march, and won renown; and to -this last descendant of the race there was staunch, abiding glamour in -the recollection. Hard, embittered, working grimly forward day by day, -two beacon-lights showed through the gloom—love of Wharfe River, and -memory of Clifford jangling over-bridge with singing Dalesmen. - -He had no joy of these to-day, strive as he might to capture the song of -Logie Brigg. Courage had taken the horsemen and the footmen over, in the -brave days gone. Now he was here—a Hardcastle last of them all—eating -into mind and heart—fear of the Lost Folk he despised. He had given too -much to the battle at Mathison’s pinfold and the back-rush of it left -him weak and spent. The Lost Folk would strike soon or late—strike from -behind—and it would be a dreary waiting time. - -“Storm,” he said, “there’s not a penny to choose between us. We’re both -of us outlawed, and we fear every creak of a tree-branch.” - -The sheep-stealer would not have it so. He had the dog’s instinct for -what went homeward over Logie Brigg, unheard by Hardcastle—tramp of the -feet of Flodden Men, returning to the house of Logie now it was in -peril. He turned to see them pass; a great company. Then he drew closer -still to Hardcastle, and licked his hands, and tried to lick his face. - -“You’re a dreamer, lad,” said Hardcastle. “How can all be well—with -_that_ behind us? There’s Brant with a gun for you—and for me the -Wilderness.” - -Storm only came the closer. On the high fells he had learned the tracks -of innocence and duty. In the lowlands he had garnered stealthy -knowledge of many ways of hide-and-seek. Through clean days and muddy he -had kept one gift safe. - -They fell silent on the Brigg, these two. Wharfe River lapped against -the sturdy arches she had tried, time and again, to batter down at -flood-time. They heard rooks calling from peaceful sycamores, the cry of -a plover not gone south as yet, the song of a farm-lad up the fields. - -All this might be with him to the end of his days, thought Hardcastle. -But it was likelier that all would go, before the Wilderness had done -with him. - -“We’d best be jogging,” he said, turning up hill, Storm close as a -thistle-burr beside him. - -Hardcastle was aware of the magic of this steep, winding roadway, faring -up to his own gate between the woods of Logie. Wise, silent beeches -reddened to their fall of leaf. A chestnut flung its crimson challenge -to the death-in-winter soon to come. The sycamores were sending little -clouds of leaves as playthings for the breeze. Over all, and through -all, was the quick reek of autumn and the smell of wood-fires lazing up -from Logie’s hearths. - -Hardcastle was aware of it all, as of something that had stirred him -once, in his wooing days, when a lass had painted all the country-side -for him. That was far off, a memory bitten-down and ended. He was here -with Storm, with thoughts of what the Lost Folk could do to him and his. -The battle up-fell had put its marks on him. He was hungry and needing -wine at his elbow. - -For all that, when they passed through Logie’s gate and his old -retriever growled at Storm—when the two of them were for each other’s -throats, mad with sudden jealousy—Hardcastle took them by their -collars, and shook them till they whimpered. - -“There’s going to be war outside,” he said; “but, by God, I’ll have -peace among my own.” - - - - - CHAPTER II - - - CAUSLEEN - -A red sun was going down behind the rim of the far-off hills as Pedlar -Donald came to the road-top overlooking Logie Woods, and beyond them the -leagues of moorland roving up into the quiet and misty dusk. - -He shifted the heavy pack from his shoulders, and laid it down awhile. - -“Tired, father?” asked the girl beside him. - -Donald Cameron answered nothing for awhile. He came from Highland glens -and moors; and all the way south his yearning for the homeland had -dragged at his feet as if they were shod with stone. He had bartered and -sold in “foreign” lands, right down through the Scottish lowlands, and -over the border into Northumberland and Durham. Now he could not be done -with looking out and over these blue-purple hills—fold on fold of them, -glamoured like his misty Highlands. - -The girl had fallen silent, too. This land was setting its spell on her, -as on Donald—the first friendly face they had found in exile. She had -ached and sorrowed for the land left behind. And now it was with -her—strength of the striding hills—the sun going down in fire of hope -for the next morrow’s rising—the wide, free liberty of this land of -Logie. - -“We’ve travelled the rough ways down from Inverness,” said Donald, -putting his arm about the girl, “and it’s been hard for you.” - -“Nay, but for you.” Her voice was soft and healing. “My feet are young -to the roads.” - -“Was it worth while to say no to the price they offered us in Inverness? -We could have had ease for the asking.” - -The soft voice grew full of quick and eager fire. “We could have bought -ease—and we’re better as we are.” - -Donald laughed quietly as he shouldered his pack and trudged down the -hill. The lass was bone of his bone, and had no regrets. Sharing honest -exile, they had learnt the strange alchemy of the Pedlar’s Road that -turns much bitterness to gold. A laugh by the wayside here, a vigil -there with stricken folk—no taxes asked of their poverty, and none to -deny them wind and weather—it was a big life, after all, open to the -sky. - -Only when they came to Logie Brigg, and Donald felt his knees grow weak -again, so that he had to rest awhile, he doubted the wisdom of their -days together. He was old and tiring fast. What of his girl if he died -by the way? There was honour of the Road, and she would not lack many -friends among the pedlars and the cheery tinkers and the men who poached -fat hares by night. True—but there were perils for a maid who went -alone. - -“Child,” he said, as they rested on the bridge and heard Wharfe River -croon and swirl below them, “it’s a vagabond’s life, after all—and, -Causleen, I’m weary.” - -“Your mother seems very near to us,” said Donald, his head lifted as if -he heard the pipes calling him up some far hill. “There was the night -she was dying, and you a week-old baby in her arms—how clear it all -returns—and she saw that I hated you.” - -“Hated?” - -“Because you robbed me of a wife.” - -Storm the sheep-stealer had seen ghosts of armed men pass to and fro -across the Brigg, no longer since than yesterday. These two were seeing -the broken years behind them, the slow growing into a comradeship as -strong as the hills that guarded Logie Brigg. - -“She put you into my arms,” went on the pedlar by and by, “and bade me -christen you Causleen. I fear I was rough with you, lass.” The old, -whimsical humour showed in his tired eyes. “Your mother chided me -gently—taught me how to hold you.” - -“Yes?” - -“Again she bade me name you Causleen, because you’d be the Evening Star -to me. She was near to death, and knew—what I came to know—that you’d -be the light of my westering years.” - -A grief too deep for tears came to the girl. Some weakness in the -pedlar’s brave old voice—his looking backward, though all his sturdy -gospel was to front the hills of each day—as they came—his hard -endeavour to get the pack jauntily over his shoulders once again—all -pointed the one way. - -They crossed the bridge in silence, each knowing that they journeyed to -a new life. It might be worse or better than the old. They did not know; -but, either way, it was a stage nearer to the end of this life’s climb. - -As they went up the road, a light blinked out at them from Logie house -across the last glow of twilight that lingered on the hills above. - -“There’ll be a bed for the night up there,” said Donald,—“a bed for you -with the maids.” - -“And the hay-mow for you?” - -“There’s worse lying. You needn’t fret, bairn. Smell of the hay is no -bad company.” - -“We were not born to it, father,” she said, her slim, young body shaken -with passion—not for herself, but for him, fuller of courage than -strength. - -“Aye, but we were, for we’ve come to it, Causleen. Life’s made that way. -The road we trudge, with its ups and downs—it’s the long, grey road we -were meant to tread.” - -Donald was himself again, and the girl’s mood yielded to this -indomitable, half-laughing courage that would not be dismayed. - -“Does the grey road end somewhere?” she asked, linking her arm in his to -help him up the steep. - -“I trust not. When my time comes to go, there’ll surely be other hills -beyond the Brink—winding roads, and further rises, and gloaming skies. -I’d be lonely without them, child.” - -They came to the grey house on the hill, through a rain of beech-leaves -slanting down the breeze. The pedlar’s glance, quick for big things and -little, caught a glint of the after-light on a small, polished thing -that lay on top of the gate. - -“The Wilderness Folk told no lies as we passed through,” said Donald. “I -had speech with two or three, and their talk was all of this.” - -“What is it?” asked Causleen, peering down at the thing lying in the old -man’s palm. - -“Just a token—and I’m wondering what sort of man lives here at Logie. -He’ll need to be dour and staunch, with no fear about him.” - -“They were kind enough to us, those folk,” she said, shivering a little -at the memory; “but they were evil. While we were selling from the pack, -and till we got away into the hills, there was poison round us.” - -“There was. It’s a pity, girl, we haven’t let life dull the Highland -vision. We ought to be toughened by this time.” - -Again she glanced at the little thing in his palm. “Does it go hard with -the man they hate?” - -“It goes so hard that I’d not change places with him for a wealth of -money. Weather is weather; fight in the open is fight; but what they’re -putting on the Master of Logie would chill me to the bone.” - -A dog barked suddenly, then came at them with a low, running growl. - -“Be quit of your nonsense, laddie,” said Donald. “I’ve been through -worse fights than you can give.” - -The dog smelt them round and about to learn more of these tattered -strangers, then put his nose into the pedlar’s hand. - -“His sort were always friendly to us,” laughed the girl—“but what of -his master?” - -“He’s here to answer for himself,” said Hardcastle of Logie, turning at -his own door. - -They saw a big, loose-built man, with a gun under his arm, and a brace -of partridge in his left hand—a man, Donald judged, accustomed to live -alone, resenting all intrusion. - -“Come to heel, Roy,” snapped Hardcastle. “I’ve no use for a dog that -makes easy love to strangers.” - -Causleen’s pride took fire, and her glance met his with sharp hostility. -“Dogs have clearer sight than their masters sometimes—and gentler -breeding.” - -“He’s getting old, and forgets that gentleness and breed are under the -harrow these days. You’ve blundered into a hard country, and I tell you -so.” - -She turned from him with tired disdain. “Come away, father,” she said. -“They are surly here in Yorkshire. He will not buy.” - -“What have you to sell?” asked the Master of Logie, aloof and cold. - -“Favours for the maids,” said the pedlar, his voice soft with -persuasion. He was thinking of Causleen’s safe lodging for the night, as -he opened his pack and praised its wares. She was too tired, poor wean, -to journey further, though he was so used to weariness that a further -tramp through the night was of small account. “Favours for the maids—a -blue mob-cap that sits bonnie enough on a young girl’s hair, with her -eyes bo-peeping under it.” - -“No maids live at Logie. There’s a grey, old woman indoors—a good cook, -and quiet about the house—but she’s past favours.” - -“You’re wrong,” persisted Donald. “If a woman neared her end at ninety, -she’d cry for the pedlar to dress her up for bridegroom death.” - -“Not Rebecca,” said Hardcastle. “I chose her with great care—a -nether-millstone of a woman, without a frill or a furbelow about her.” - -“You know much of women?” asked Causleen. - -“Enough to last me a lifetime.” Something cold and savage showed in his -face for a moment, then was gone. “My housekeeper is like the walls of -Logie—staunch and weathered.” - -“She never loses temper?” The girl was measuring swords with this -self-secure, blunt man who disdained all pedlars. “You never find her -crying her heart out when you come home before she looks for you?” - -“She loses temper,” said Hardcastle, with lazy unconcern. “Not every -day, or every week, but when the time comes for outlet. I’m made that -way myself. We treat it like the ding of storm about a house that’s -outlived many such.” - -“And she never weeps?” - -“She forgot the way of it long since. Life’s salt enough for most of us -as it is.” - -“Let’s leave him with this wonder-woman, who never cries,” said the -girl, with the same quiet mockery. “She wants nothing from us and the -Master of Logie will not buy.” - -Hardcastle stood watching them with grim humour. “He would, if you’d -anything to sell he needed. Pedlars have to carry all things in their -packs for the women. They seldom have the man of the house to reckon -with.” - -“Seldom,” Donald agreed; “but I’ve something to barter for a night’s -lodging.” - -“A wheedling tongue? That never carried far with me.” - -“Something I found on your gate. Gossip blows down all winds to us -tramping folk, and they say the Wilderness People grow busy.” - -The Master was silent. For a moment Causleen, as she watched him, saw -beyond the mask of his hard, impassive face—saw down into his heart, -where fear was dwelling—grey, chilly fear, at war with his manhood and -his lusty strength. - -“They’ve left their token on me? Show it,” he said, with rough command. - -“For the price of a night’s lodging.” - -“Oh, you can have it, man.” - -“Not so hasty. It must be good lodging for my girl, however it goes with -me.” - -The Master glowered down at them from under sullen brows. “I’ve power to -take it without price of any sort.” - -“You have—but not power to use your strength against an aged man. Your -face tells me that.” - -“Well, then, your price is granted—a good lodging for the night.” - -“For both?” asked Causleen. “Father cares little what bed he finds—but -I care for him.” - -“Beggars seem to be choosers these days,” snapped Hardcastle, raw with -trouble. - -“It does seem so,” said Donald gently. “The beggars out there are riding -on your gate already.” - -He opened his palm, and the moonlight glinted on a flint arrow-head, -smooth and polished. - -Do as he would, something near panic took the Master. The men of -Logie-side had paid tribute diligently—till yesterday, when at last it -was asked of a Hardcastle and met with blunt refusal. The fight at the -pinfold had marked him. He was lame and bruised, but that was the -pleasant fruit of victory in single combat against three. - -The thing he looked on now was a token hedged about with dread of the -forefathers. Once, in the twilight days of the Logie country, a man of -the caves had killed his enemy with it, or had slain a wild-fowl for -daily food. Since then it had grown to be what it was to Hardcastle—a -thing of stark terror, known to all since the Lost Folk first bit their -way into an honest country. He would have been less than flesh-and-blood -if he had not weakened to this harsh trial time. - -“They find such in the caves behind their houses, they tell me,” said -Donald. - -“Aye, and lay them on the gates of honest men.” Hardcastle had come to -grips with fear, as he had closed yesterday with the three men at the -pinfold; but dread was a harder foe to meet. As he advanced it withdrew -its phantom regiment, only to loose another on him from behind—quick, -cold shapes that leaped on him and clung. This was the price asked of -him for keeping Logie’s honour safe. He had given no tribute to the Lost -Folk—would give none in the future—and already the creeping stealth of -their revenge was with him. - -“It’s a bleak thing to have at your door for ever, this hate of the -Wilderness Men?” said Donald, watching him. - -Hardcastle, whatever he was feeling, shut a trapdoor on it. His face was -grim again, inscrutable. “A bleak thing, pedlar—but then I was reared -on winter gales.” - -Donald was aware, by some hidden gift that came to him at times, of much -that was to come about the house of Logie. “This gale from the -Wilderness is like to blow for a longish while.” - -“Then I’ll have to weather it for a longish while, and so much for -that.” - -Something stirred in Causleen’s heart against her will. Hardcastle had -given them a churlish welcome. He did not want them at his door, asked -only to be rid of them; but resentment was dulled, because she had seen -the sudden weakness of his fear, his hard recovery. She, too, had known -the broken roads, the dread that walked by night. She, too, had made, -day in and day out, her own hard recovery. They had this in common, she -and the Master of Logie. - -A clank of pattens sounded from the stable-yard, breaking a silence -heavy with the sense of doom, and old Rebecca came into their midst, a -lean, tall figure of a woman. - -“Jacob, the farm-boy, said there was a pedlar here,” she croaked. - -“There is,” said Donald, and in a twinkling unfastened his pack and laid -its wares out in the moonlight that rode high and clear above the russet -beeches. - -Rebecca could not be done with handling them—took up an apron here, a -piece of lace-work there, all as if her youth returned. - -“I’m too old for such-like trash, pedlar, though God knows I like the -feel of it.” - -“Too old? I shouldn’t have guessed it,” purred Donald. “You’ve no mirror -in the house, maybe, to cure you of that fancy.” - -He put a mob-cap into her hands—a cunning thing of lavender, simple -enough till a woman’s eye appraised all the little by-ways of its -blandishment. Against her will, the years fell away from Rebecca. She -hid her grey, scanty locks beneath the cap—donned a lavender apron to -match it—and was away in dreamland, a lass of twenty waiting for her -man. - -It was a good dream while it lasted; but she wearied of it, and searched -restlessly among the strewn litter of the pack till she chanced on odds -and ends of baby-wear—a pair of shoes, the two of them small as the -hollow of a man’s hand, and the little intricate clothes, with daft blue -ribands, threaded in and out about them. All they meant crept round her, -and tears unshed too long found outlet. Donald heard the great broken -heart of life find voice. He was himself a broken man, and knew. Rebecca -came out of that weakness with a temper raw as a file. “Pedlars are -seldom fools,” she snapped, “but you’re the primest that ever stepped -into Logie-side.” - -“What have I done?” asked Donald. - -“You’ve bared sorrow to the bone, when I thought I’d done with grief!” - -Causleen, looking on, felt once again that the end of an old life, the -beginning of a new, had come to them—to tired Donald, and herself. The -moonlight, racing between dappled clouds, shone free above the beeches -on Rebecca—on Hardcastle, grim and silent. From under Logie Bridge, far -below them, Wharfe River sang her slumber-song as she swept between her -high, grey arches. Roy, the old retriever that had snarled at them, was -fidgetting about the Master, and whined as if he scented peril. All was -stealthy trouble, though owls were hooting tranquilly across the woods, -and rooks cawed fitfully through the soft storm of leaves that was -baring their spring nests to sight. - -“That’s the best cure,” said the pedlar gently—“the best for any sort -of wound. Let fresh air into it, though the knife grits down to the -bone.” - -Rebecca stood there, tall and lean. In her eyes was a smouldering fire -that Causleen and the pedlar understood. - -“Maybe you’re no fool after all. I’ve let fresh air into a grief that -was festering inward, and praise the dear God for that. They say you met -three of the Lost Folk yesterday,” she went on, turning to Hardcastle -after a restless silence. - -“Three at the pinfold—yes. They took tribute.” - -“Not of the sort they asked?” - -“Not of the sort they asked,” snarled Hardcastle. - -And now again Causleen knew that she had come into a haunted country and -to a haunted house. They were sorrowing for their dead, slain foully, -Rebecca and the Master—were tending some feud-fire kindled generations -since—and the girl was wrapt away to the Highlands, where pipes were -playing gallantly about the hills and moaning in the glens of slaughter. -They played now about this house of Logie, but with a difference. Up -yonder the strife was ended long since—the forlorn hopes that had -tilted against merchantry, and bribes, and guile. They could only grieve -for what could never come again. But here was a fight in the making. -Hardcastle was resolute for some quarrel close at hand; and she had -learned enough of the Lost Folk, as they went through their evil -country, to know what the strife must mean in the coming days. - -“Would you have the tale, pedlar?” said Rebecca. “I’ve need to excuse -tears shed in sight of any stranger.” - -“Aye, tell it.” - -“I had a man of my own once—a straight lad to his height, and good at -the wooing. We’d had a lover’s tiff, and me too proud to do aught but -send word by roundabouts that he might come and be sorry for his lout’s -ways.” - -Rebecca fought with her grief again, and conquered it. The rooks cawed -fitfully from overhead. A bat fluttered up and down the moonlit -courtyard, and Wharfe River sang old ballads of the peaceful days under -her time-worn bridge. But there was no peace, here at Logie—only the -rasp of Rebecca’s voice as she went on with her tale. - -“Instead of my man, there came news to the gate. Two of the Lost Folk -had met him by the way, and asked tribute. He said he was Hardcastle’s -man, and wouldn’t budge. And they killed him for it.” - -“A good sort of death,” said Hardcastle, and Causleen saw grey fear -creep round him while he spoke. - -The russet gloaming, the quietness of wood and pastures, the silent -front of Logie, grey with travail of the years—all made for the -realities that live beneath the turmoil of each day’s duties. Rebecca -seldom showed any of her heart. She bared it now. - -“You chose to loosen your pack, pedlar,” she said, in harsh, even tones, -“and you loosed the bygone years as well. Every night and all I go to -the gate, and keep tryst with my man that never came. I’d have kissed -him free and full—would have worn my hands to the knuckle for him -through our wedded days—but he couldn’t come.” - -The woman in Causleen answered the break in Rebecca’s voice. “How long -ago was this?” she asked, with soft, Highland pity. - -“I’ve forgotten. Forty years, maybe, but I’ve lost count.” - -Rebecca still wore the mob-cap and the apron, and the moonlight softened -the harsh lines of face and body. It was only when she spoke again, -after long silence, that she seemed old indeed. - -“The Lost Folk killed him, and every night I get to the gate and say my -prayers. For every kiss he might have had, I pray a blight on them. For -every child that might have run about my knees I ask that two of their -heathen brats may die in trouble. They robbed me; and before I die, God -send word to the Wilderness Men that curses stick and sting.” - -“From what I’ve seen of the Wilderness Folk,” said Donald, “they’ll be -dour enemies, stubborn and crafty.” - -“That’s no news,” snapped Hardcastle. - -“Stubborn and dour they’ll be—and I wish I’d a younger pair of arms to -help you.” - -A hard, keen light showed in Rebecca’s eyes. Her thin body quivered with -sudden passion. “There will come a token on the gate, Master.” - -“It’s here.” - -Hardcastle held out his palm, as Donald had done awhile since, and -Rebecca gloated on the sight of the little, brown thing that meant the -end of peace for all at Logie. - -“Through the years I’ve wanted this. What will you do with it, Master?” - -Hardcastle turned, with a hard laugh, and set the arrow-head on the -drip-stone over his door. - -“It stays here—a charm against all alms-giving on Logie roads.” - - - - - CHAPTER III - - - THE END OF A JOURNEY - -When Hardcastle had opened the door to Causleen and her father, and had -thrown his gun and brace of partridge down on the long-settle in the -hall, his hardness left him. These two were guests, whatever chance had -driven them to the bleak roads where pedlars chaffered for a livelihood. - -He brought them into a great, cosy room, aglow with its fire of -pine-logs and fragrant with the smouldering peats that burned below. -Causleen glanced about, with a woman’s quickness to see all—the candles -in their sconces, bringing mellow lights to birth on bees’-waxed -panels—the orderly array of muskets, swords and pistols on the -walls—and, over these, a pike with the red-rust on it of blood shed -long ago. - -Donald saw the pike only. “That was rieved from Scotland once,” he said. - -“No. It went north to Flodden, and returned to its own homestead.” - -Fire kindled in the pedlar’s syes. “Scots’ blood on it?” he challenged, -the years slipping from him like a garment. - -“Scots’ blood—but it’s been drying for the length of ten generations. -Flodden was a fair fight, as my folk passed the tale down—a fight -between the North-born folk. The Southrons came by land and sea; but it -was the Logie Men that ran in at the edge of dusk, and settled that good -battle.” - -“Jaimie the King was slain that day.” - -“Aye, he died well. There’s none in Logie Dale but knows that he died -well. We have the tale from our fathers.” - -The pedlar rose, though every bone in his body was aching for rest -long-denied. “Come, Causleen,” he said. “We’ve no traffic with folk who -slew the king at Flodden.” - -There was nothing whimsical to Hardcastle in this passion that had -survived the centuries. One of his own tenants—a hale farmer-man of -seventy—climbed to the moor-top every morning of his life, to learn if -the Scots came marching south, though raids of that sort were no more by -this time than food for winter gossip by the hearth. Quarrels lived to a -great age here in Yorkshire, as on the far side of the Border; for their -roots bit deep into strong, ancient soils. - -“What is amiss with you, pedlar?” he asked, looking down on these -wayfarers who had come to his gate—by chance, it seemed. In their faces -he read tenacity, strength to endure, something valiant and at war with -exile. “It was a fair and a bonnie fight, I tell you, and I’d have been -proud to have been on either side that day.” - -“That may be,” said Donald restively; “but it’s no house for us to lodge -in. Your welcome was cold at best—we’ll have none of it.” - -He gathered dignity into his aching body, and had neared the door when a -clatter of wooden pattens sounded down the passage, and Rebecca swept -into the room like a gale from the north. - -“Come talk to Geordie Wiseman, Master,” she broke in, without leave -asked or granted. “He’s in the kitchen, roaring for strong ale.” - -“No great news, that. Geordie was born with that sort of roar.” - -“Aye, but I’d have you come. He says the Lost People have left an arrow -on his gate, same as they’ve done on yours.” - -Again Causleen saw little, grey wrinkles creep about Hardcastle’s -battered face, saw him recover with stubborn strength. - -“I’ll come,” he said, after a moment’s silence, “if only to tell him -it’s nothing to make a cry about.” - -When he reached the kitchen, a tough, thick-set farmer was standing by -the hearth, his hair drabbled with the sweat of abject dread, his knees -shaking. - -“They’ve put the token on us, Wiseman,” said the Master. “It had to -come, and better soon than late.” - -“What need had it to come? Three of the Wilderness Men asked tribute. -Well, we’ve payed it for many a year, and the roads have been easy for -us.” - -“A Hardcastle never payed it—and a Hardcastle never will.” - -“You can do what you like with your own skin; but I tell you, plain man -to man, you’d no right to bring all your tenants into this. Better have -given those three all you had in your pockets than us be murdered in our -beds.” - -“As well have given them my soul.” - -“Your soul?” sneered Wiseman, chill with fear. - -“Just that. If I’d bartered it to the Lost Folk, there’d have been the -end of pride for me. And the end of pride is hell.” - -“Then it’s hell either way, it seems; for you’ve brought it close to one -and all of those who farm under you. You didn’t stop to think of that -when they asked tribute?” - -“I didn’t think at all, Wiseman. I just saw the three lousy rogues, -straddling the road in front of me, and I hit them, true and hard.” - -“You had your frolic—and soon they’ll be having theirs. You’ve no wife -to think of, Master.” - -“No,” said Hardcastle, recalling sharply the might-have-been that had -ended long since. - -“I’ve a wife and children myself, like many another they’ll have lain -the token on. If your time at the pinfold came again, you’d remember it -meant war about Logie-side?” - -“I would,” said Hardcastle, as if a clean, lusty wind blew through him, -driving out all dread—“and hit the three men true and hard again. Now, -listen to me. I’ve brought you all into this trouble, and I’ll see you -through it. Take my word as bond for that. You’re needing ale, Rebecca -tells me.” - -“A flood of it, just to get my balance straight.” - -“You can have it by and by. Ale is food for men, but poison to this -cry-baby fit that’s taken you.” - -Geordie Wiseman shifted from foot to foot, and glowered at the Master. -“We’re not all made of boulder-stone and whipcord. It would come easy to -you to face the devil and his witch-hounds—but I’m a usual man, like -most of my neighbours.” - -“They’ve put the token on us, Geordie.” - -“Aye, yammer at it. To be sure they have, and you fancy it a -merry-making.” - -“Listen to me. There’ll be merry-making by and by; but we’ve to mow a -long swathe before then. I’m sick and weary of the Wilderness Folk—sick -of the toll they’re levying on white-blooded men.” - -“My blood’s red enough, Hardcastle of Logie. If you doubt it—why, -here’s my coat off, and off goes yours.” - -“That’s the spirit,” laughed Hardcastle. “You’re readier for what I have -to tell you than you were awhile since.” - -“Aye,” mocked Rebecca from the doorway—“readier than he was just now, -when he rived the door of my kitchen wide, and stepped in with a face -made of tallow. ‘We’ll all be murdered in our beds,’ says he. ‘Not me -for one,’ says I. ‘I’ll be murdered standing, if at all—giving as good -as I get while it lasts.’ That’s what I said to Geordie—and now he’s -prancing up and down like a turkey-cock, with his coat half-off.” - -Wiseman’s wrath against the Master found a new channel. “As for you, -Rebecca, it’s plain you know less than a child what the token means, -left on a man’s gate.” - -“I know as much as my mother taught me, when I was knee-high. There’s -little I need to learn about the Lost Folk.” - -“And you’re blithe, are you, because the Master fought with three, and -left them to stir up their blessed hornets’ nest?” - -“Blithe, if you put it that way—though it’s a queer kind of joy. It’s -time these wastrels were hunted out, like rats about a stable. They -breed like rats, too, and soon they’ll be eating us out of house and -home.” - -“In league with the Master, as you always were.” - -“Yes, Geordie. He’s man enough to hunt the Lost Folk from their -burrows.” - -And now a queer thing happened. The Master and Geordie crossed -themselves by stealth, not knowing why. The Lost Folk had been a running -sore about the country-side in far-off Catholic times, and no man can -deny his ancestors. - -“Popish mummery,” snapped Rebecca, and crossed herself as she spoke -without knowing it. - -There came a sudden, lusty knocking at the door, and Brant the shepherd -followed his knock, bringing the strong, sweet tang of the uplands with -him. - -“Naught to be scared of, Geordie,” said Rebecca. “You fancied three -hundred Wilderness Men were tramping in—or was it a thousand?” - -Brant glanced at Wiseman with kindly tolerance. “You wear a scared look -on your face, Geordie.” - -“Haven’t you heard what’s gathering round us all?” - -“I hear little up yonder, thanks be, save crying of the ewes, and -stillness, and the wind. They’re better gossips than your village-folk -down hereabouts.” - -Rebecca had an old fondness for the shepherd, and the ale that Wiseman -had clamoured for in vain was brought. - -“It’s cold up yonder on the heights,” she said, filling a wide mug for -him. “Dark and lonesome, too, after sundown, with ghosty Brown Men of -the Heather and what not flitting by you. But _you_ were never one to -come with your knees a-wobble.” - -“Meaning me?” said Geordie. - -“Meaning you, or any other man that thinks he’s fitted with his proper -cap.” - -“What’s it all about, Master?” asked Brant. “Is Geordie just in his -cups, with his tale of what’s gathering round us?” - -“Half in and half out. He’s himself most days of the week,” said -Hardcastle dryly. “There’s trouble brewing, though, as he says. An -arrow-head was left on my gate last night, and on Geordie’s. It will -come to yours when they’ve time to get up to your cottage on Gaunt -Fell.” - -“Let it come,” said Brant, his face hard and bright on the sudden. “I’ve -wanted that for many a year.” - -“You would,” Rebecca nodded. “I’ve heard you speak time and again in -this same kitchen of their sheep-stealing tricks. Theft of a sheep to -you is almost like what murder is to other folk.” - -Wry humour came to Hardcastle. “What luck had you with Storm yesterday, -after I left you up at Weathersett? Did you find the four-legged thief?” - -“Not I,” growled Brant. “He’s just a slip of devildom, ravening up and -down the pastures. There are times when I fancy he’s more than a -sheep-dog that’s tasted flesh instead of guarding it—times when he -seems to be Old Nick himself. Foxes at lambing-time? They’re honest, set -side by side with Storm.” - -“For all that, I’m finding a soft spot in my heart for the rogue.” - -Brant took a long draught of ale, wiped the froth from his mouth, and -set down his pewter mug. “Are you, Master? Then harden it. A -sheep-slayer goes cursed from the minute he gets from his lair at dawn -till daylight ends.” - -“Yet you can’t take Storm. He’s hunted from the four quarters of the -sky, day in, day out, and wins through. That’s the sort of dog I -like—and the sort of man.” - -Passion, with Brant, had the stillness of deep pools. His voice lost -little of its quietness; but a hard note sounded in it. “It’s hard to -tell what ewes mean to a shepherd. They’re like children, you might say. -Happen it comes from mothering ’em from the day they first stand up on -their four wambly legs—newborn and bleating at their dams. Happen it -comes of tending ’em later on—blizzards and drifts and what all—comes -of sleeping and waking for ’em. I couldn’t tell all that goes to the -hate of a sheep-killer. But I know what every shepherd feels for every -outlaw dog.” - -“Just so,” said Hardcastle. “It’s for that reason I’m all for Storm—the -lad with never a friend in the country-side.” - -“It’s easy for you to lose a sheep here and there. What does it count if -a few odd ewes are ravaged? Just a few pounds missing from your plenty. -For me, it stands for murdered bairns—bairns I’ve reared and guarded -better than their scant-wit mothers could.” - -“There are good sheep-tenders in the Dale, but none quite like you. You -do it all, Brant—the damned, lonely fight against Logie weather, and -foot-rot, and marauders of all kinds—do it for love of silly sheep that -to me are so much fleece and mutton.” - -“They’re my life to me,” said the shepherd, “and I’m still wondering why -you side with Storm. Best of his kind, he was once—knew how to round -them up the pastures like a marvel. Then he fell from grace, as you -might say, and he’s a hunted dog from this to Weathersett.” - -“Aye, and you and all of mine will know soon what that sort of hunting -means. I’ve a fellow-feeling for old Storm.” - -Hardcastle turned his head sharply. He was still standing just inside -the kitchen door, and behind him was the long passage that led into the -hall. At the far end of the passage was a place under the stairway, half -room, half cupboard, where logs and peats had been stored in earlier -times. It held a fugitive now—a fugitive who was beating against the -worm-eaten door in search of freedom. - -“There’s queer noises in the house,” stuttered Geordie Wiseman. “I told -you what would come of saying no to the Lost Folk.” - -The shepherd had taken a second draught of ale. That, and the cosy -warmth, ripened the dry humour that was never far to seek. “Queer noises -in your head, more like. If I’d slaked thirst as you’ve done -Geordie—all day long, and every day—I would be hearing -smith-hammers—but they’d be ringing in my own headpiece.” - -Down the passage came a running whine, that only Hardcastle and Wiseman -heard. The Master stood silent, but Geordie began to bubble like a child -lost in the dark. - -“And now Barguest’s come. D’ye hear him whining? I warned you what would -come of it.” - -“Oh, be quit of your moonshine,” growled Brant. “Such as you breed fears -like maggots. What we’re up against is enough for sober folk, without -your doldrum fancies.” - -It was well for Logie and all its tenantry that Storm, as he came down -the passage, heard Brant’s voice, and checked his joy in liberty. -Hardcastle felt a rough pressure at his knee, and, looking down, saw the -sheep-thief’s grizzled snout pushed out an inch or two into the -lamplight. His hand went down, to cover even that from the shepherd’s -keen, revengeful eyes. Storm’s nose was hot and dry, his body quivering; -for he always pictured Brant these days as carrying a gun. - -Hardcastle backed into the doorway, keeping the dog behind him. -“Whatever comes, Brant, the Logie Men will fight the Wilderness.” - -“They have to, thanks be,” said the shepherd fervently. “You’ve made -that sure and safe.” - -“He has,” whined Geordie Wiseman, “without asking leave of Logie Men. -Let him be murdered, says I, if he fancies that sort of pastime—but -what have I done?” - -“Naught that I can rightly call to mind,” said the shepherd pensively. -“There’s a tale that you were caught working once, between one -barley-brew and the next—but you must have been younger then.” - -Hardcastle was glad of Rebecca’s cackle of laughter, of Brant’s -absorption in his jest. He nodded a good-night, closed the kitchen door, -and dragged Storm by his collar down the passage. The cupboard under the -stair showed open to the lamplight. The door, with its broken lock, -creaked fitfully as the draught swung it to and fro. - -“You fool, to leave safe quarters,” said the Master savagely. - -Storm feared his wrath, but not as he feared Brant’s. He was with a -friend, and knew it. Quietly, without fuss or protest, he got into his -lair, turned three times according to ancient ritual of his breed, and -settled into wary sleep. - -“Storm,” said the Master. - -Two brown, faithful eyes opened, asking what was needed. - -“It’s no holiday to shelter a broken dog. I’m quit of you if you stir or -whine till Brant has gone.” - -Storm understood. Bred in close intercourse with men, he had their -speech. The brown eyes met Hardcastle’s, loyal in answer, and the Master -closed the door on him, knowing there was no need of the broken lock. - -For the first time, since going to answer for his own part in the coming -warfare, he remembered Pedlar Donald and his girl. The candles were -burnt half down as he went into the big room, but the fire glowed warm -and ruddy on the pike that once had gone to Flodden. There was an odd -silence in the room, and Causleen knelt by the long-settle, where Donald -stretched like a man dead and out of mind. - -“What is it?” he asked sharply. - -Causleen rose and faced him. Proud, even in bitter grief. “We are not -welcome here,” she said. - -“I gave you shelter.” - -“Yes, grudgingly. We do not care for that—but now we have no choice.” - -Hardcastle crossed to the long-settle and stood looking down on Donald; -and Causleen’s eyes softened a little as she met his glance. - -“The end of the journey?” he asked, with rough sympathy. - -“I fear it. His heart beats, but it is fluttering out. Just after you -went his strength left him, and he stumbled to the settle.” - -Two owls were hunting mice in Logie Wood. Their cries sounded loud and -ghostly through the silence. A restless breeze was plucking at the -windows. - -“Oh, let the tears come,” said Hardcastle impatiently, “You’ve need of -ease.” - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - - THE MORROW - -Hardcastle had got to bed somewhere near midnight. There had been a -farm-lad riding for the doctor, the galloping return of both, the -verdict that Donald, with care, might live for a week or two. Old -Rebecca had scolded life and destiny, but had managed with great -deftness to make the pedlar warm and easy on the long-settle, with -blankets under and over him. She had insisted, too, on sharing the watch -with Causleen, after telling the Master there was nothing for a feckless -mule to do by way of help. - -“You ordered early breakfast. Best take a wink or two o’ sleep while -you’ve got the chance.” - -And now Hardcastle was seeking sleep, and finding little. When he dozed, -it was to go in dreams through things suffered at the Lost Folks’ hands -long since, told and re-told till superstition had given them a bigger -terror than their due. When he woke, it was to remember that he and his -stood alone against them. - -He counted his household in the waking hours. Indoors was Rebecca, and -Roy, the old retriever—and out across his acres tenants who numbered a -score, all told. Some of these had five sons, some three or less, and -not all of them up-grown. And among them were a few of Geordie Wiseman’s -kidney, whiners and pay-for-safety folk at any price. - -Then his mind roamed out to the crumpled, limestone wastes that -stretched from Drumly Ghyll to grey Weathersett—the land where the Lost -Folk had their dwelling, in a village bare to every wind of devilry that -blew. They were stealthy, pitiless, spawn of the creeping things that -hunt by night. - -He would doze again, and nightmares led him into the caves he had -explored in boyhood, because forbidden by the father who knew their -peril. Once he had all but been caught there by a Wilderness Man, and -had returned with a glow of adventure in his heart. - -When he woke to restless tossing from one side to another, adventure -loomed close ahead; but it had no glow about it. He recalled Geordie -Wiseman’s complaint that he brought trouble to many a hearth beside his -own. It was true, and doubt took hold of him. What right had he to bring -others into an affair so stark and hard to face? - -He got up at last, weary of the phantoms that creep about a sleepless -bed. Below-stairs he could hear Rebecca scolding and coaxing a lazy fire -to burn; and when he came down a half-hour later, he heard still the -murmur of coaxing and scolding, though she was at war with rashers -crinkling on the fire. It was a heartening note—this chiding tongue of -Rebecca’s, the grey, hard woman who kept his house spotless-clean, and -cooked and laboured for him as if she loved the work. She was rough and -loyal, reared in the older days. - -As he passed the room where Donald lay, he heard the pedlar chattering -quietly, and went through the half-open door. Causleen’s dark head was -pillowed on the horse-blanket covering Donald. The sleep of dire -exhaustion had found her as she knelt by the settle, and even -Hardcastle, roughened long since against any lure of women, was moved to -grudging pity. She was so slender, so helpless, and her loosened hair -lay round her like a cloud of burnished night. - -Then he glanced again at Donald. The pedlar’s eyes were open, and he -talked of glens—talked of Glencoe, and Bannockburn and far Culloden, of -misty sorrows that for ever drenched the hills he loved. Again -Hardcastle was stirred—not by pity now, but by shame. If this ancient -man, his body crumpling into death, could live so bravely with the -long-done battles, counting these heartsease and gain, what had the -younger sort to do with fear? - -Donald did not see him standing there, for his eyes were intent on wider -scenes than this cramped room afforded him. To Hardcastle, as he -listened, a wider country opened, too. The pedlar’s body had forsaken -him so utterly that heart and mind were free to roam at large. The very -throb of Scottish battle-strength seemed gathered into this room at -Logie—the skirl of pipes, the sobbing of women as their dead were -brought home on their shields—the harsh challenge of men facing -treachery in many hidden glens. - -It seemed to Hardcastle that the pedlar was sharing five centuries of -battle. So he was, maybe, for a man’s dead come close when he nears the -borderland, to welcome him across the little gap between them. - -Donald lingered awhile with the feud fights of the clans, with the big -battles and the small; but ever he returned to the tale of how Jaimie -the King went down in splendour when the last, swirling fight at Flodden -closed about him. - -Then the pedlar’s restless glance fell on the pike nailed above the -mantel, and stayed there awhile, and roamed to the big man looking down -at him. For the first time he saw Hardcastle, and came sharply from the -glens of mist. - -“Small wonder I dreamed of Flodden and the king. There’s a pike yonder -with Scots’ blood on it. What could there be but haunted sleep in such a -room?” - -He strove to rise, but all of him from waist to feet refused his -bidding. It was terrible, piteous, to see the struggle of a proud man -anxious to be gone from a house at enmity with his so long ago. - -“I thank you for the lodging,” he murmured, courteous to the last; “but -we must go. Causleen, child, where are you? The mists are gathering over -Ben Crummart, and winds are sobbing in the glens. We must be going.” - -Through the sleep of exhaustion Causleen heard the call. She was on her -feet in a moment, laying the pedlar’s head back and soothing him to -quiet. The quickness of it, the eagerness that gave all and at once to -this wayworn vagabond, brought a rough wonder to Hardcastle. But then -she was a woman, and no doubt there was trickery of some kind under this -show of great affection. - -He longed to go, but could not. If Donald were to die now and here, he -must not leave one slim girl to face the trouble, full of guile though -she might be. He watched her put a hand on the old man’s heart, and wrap -the blankets round him; and still he could not go. - -When she turned and saw him there, shame and pride took fire together. -She glanced at the hair which ran loosened to her knees, and hated him -for the surprise. She glanced, too, as Donald had done, at the pike -above the mantel; her voice was cold and hard. - -“We shall not trouble you for long.” - -A great anger flamed in Hardcastle. “Am I such a churl as that?” - -“You were a churl last night.” - -“How should I know he was an ailing man? There’d have been no doubt of -your welcome then.” - -“In our country all benighted guests are welcome; but you’re a harsher -folk in Yorkshire.” - -He glanced again at Donald. “Shall I send Rebecca to you?” - -“There is no need.” - -The Master turned without a word. She chose to be at war with him, and -he was content enough; better that than the pity she had roused. When a -man began to pity any woman, he had one foot already in the marshes. - -He had reached the door, and was closing it behind him, when she -recalled him. “You, too, were ill last night. Have you recovered?” - -“I’m in rude health, now as then.” - -“Fear is a sickness.” - -Hardcastle glowered down at her, and Causleen learned in that moment -what the strength of his blow would have meant if she had carried a -man’s shape. - -“It may be. I never had much traffic with it.” - -“Until yesterday. We brought the token, and I watched grey fear come to -the Master of Logie as he touched it.” - -Her rancour was less for herself than for the slight put on Donald, sick -and old, who in his prime had known the glow of candlelight on a -well-ordered table, the ruby in the wine of life. And now her father lay -there, a pensioner on the bounty of this dour host—lay dying, with the -Flodden pike sneering at him overhead, and all the room packed with -ghosts of men who had boasted through the generations of what they had -done aforetime to the Scots. - -“Your Highland men have never known fear?” asked Hardcastle. - -She faced him, slender and straight, her dark hair like a glory about -her tattered pedlar’s clothes. “Only its name,” she said, with the same -quiet mockery—“and that they had from the Southrons.” - -“Then God help them for no more than beasts of the field. What courage -could they learn, unless they came to grips with fear?” - -Causleen remembered many journeys, with fortune at its worst and only -the pedlar’s voice to rouse her from the depths. “Fear is a good -whetstone, child,” he would say. “It breaks poor metal, but sharpens -steel.” And now Hardcastle was giving her the same rough gospel. - -“When did you learn so much?” she asked, half-defiant still. - -“Last night—no longer since than that—while I thought of all the -uproar I’d brought to Logie-side.” - -He glanced once more at Donald, then turned and went down the passage. -Rebecca was bustling into the sunlit breakfast-room with a tray that -held many tempting odours for a hungry man. She fussed pleasantly about -the Master’s needs, as of old, but with a new solicitude. - -“Storm-cocks were crying round Logie all the night,” she said, breaking -the silence at last—“or else I dreamed they were.” - -“You dreamed it, likely. This weather’s not for breaking yet.” - -“Maybe not—but the Lost Folks’ weather is.” - -“It had to break,” said Hardcastle. - -Again the silence fell between them—the silence that was more ultimate -than speech. None knew better than these two the staunchness that would -be asked for by and by, when the Wilderness loosed its spite against -them, and only a few were left to stand against the pestilence that -would sweep over Logie-side—the pestilence of dread. - -“Donald is sinking fast, by the look of him,” said the Master presently. - -“He’ll not quit the house till he dies. Not a doubt o’ that; but he may -sink very gradual. I’ve seen such cases.” - -“It was as well I didn’t turn him away last night. He’d not have got -far, poor devil.” - -“As well maybe,” grumbled Rebecca, “though I’ve no stomach for tending -him and the dark-eyed hussie for weeks on end. We’ve lived to ourselves -till now, and I never relished foreigners.” - -“They’re under my roof.” - -“Oh, they’ll be looked after, Master. And, to be sure, it’s as ill to -slight the pedlar-sort as it is to kill a spider. Lucky they are, both -o’ the tribes, if you treat ’em kindly.” - -“Lucky?” said Hardcastle, getting up from table. “Donald found the token -for me, if that spells luck.” - -“It does. We’ll be rid of the Wilderness scum at last.” - -“At last—and may it be a long last,” snapped the Master. - -He had forgotten Storm the sheep-slayer—as he was forgetting many -things in this new day of strife—until he passed the cupboard where he -had housed the culprit over-night. - -Storm was not there. He had watched for this moment, after the -house-doors were opened, and had gone away to the hills by stealth. -Hardcastle laughed soberly. One guest the less under his roof was one -load taken from his shoulders; and the pack promised to be heavy by and -by. - -His own dog, Roy, was waiting for him in the hall—a big retriever, his -coat sleek and gold-red as October on the brackens. His nut-brown eyes -danced as he saw the gun under Hardcastle’s arm, and clouded when the -Master checked him. - -“As far as the gate, lad. There’s only you to guard Logie, and the -Wilderness Folk are out at last.” - -A sharp regret came to Hardcastle as he shut the gate on Roy, a sense -almost of foreboding. It did not seem good to be separate at such a -time, from a friend of ten years’ standing. - -“Guard,” he said. “The Lost Folk are out, I tell you.” - -Roy whimpered as he reared across the closed gate and licked -Hardcastle’s face. He was getting near to old age, as dogs count life; -but the lure of a gun renewed his youth at all times. - -Hardcastle turned as he went down Logie-lane. The dog had his forepaws -on the gate still, and he barked a friendly, dolorous farewell. “Guard, -lad,” said the Master, “the Lost Folk are out, I tell you.” - -His errand lay over Logie Brigg, and up into the wooded roadway that -climbed steeply to Langerton. Beyond Langerton were the Wilderness Folk, -who were out against him to a man—lurking close at hand, maybe, in twos -or threes. Hardcastle paid no heed. He had gone through the sweat of -fear last night, and to-day sunrise was with him after that long battle. -Dread, rooted generations deep, had been fought and thrown in the space -of a night, he fancied. - -At the bend of the road where it strode, over Crooning Water, a quiet, -slender woman sat on the copestone of the bridge. She had a pile of -picked willow-stems at her right hand, and was busy with a half-made -basket lying in her lap. In all the Dale there was no more sequestered -nook than this, none richer with the peace and mellowed glory of -October. Crooning Water, escaped not long since from the prison-house of -Drumly Ghyll—its rocks steep and dark and terrible—raced down with a -bubbling song of liberty, and halted to play round the whirlpool delved -by waters that had gone before and were one by now with the distant -seas. A place of sanctuary, like an old kirk ready with its welcome for -young, honest love. - -The woman on the bridge glanced up at Hardcastle’s approach, and into -her eyes there leaped God knows what of devilry, appeal, regret. And he, -for his part, stood looking at her with a wonder that for a moment was a -boy’s wonder, till he shut the gates on what had been. - -“Still basket-weaving, Nita?” he asked gravely. - -“And still weaving spells about the men of Logie-side.” - -She was provocative, inscrutable, as of old, this girl-woman whose grey -eyes and flower-like face were all in keeping with the russet autumn -peace. - -“About all but one,” said Hardcastle. - -“And that one’s here with me. He’s here with me where we met first. Do -you remember?” - -Hardcastle remembered, in savage earnest. She had not changed in these -five years, so far as slender beauty went, and the nameless charm that -drew men to her—drew all men except one. - -“I was a dreamer then—and younger.” - -“It’s good to dream at times. I weave a good deal of dream-stuff into my -baskets as I make them—and wonder what happens when a simple lass -up-dale sets her arm under the handle. Queer thoughts will come to her.” - -“They will,” said the Master, rough and stubborn—“but the thoughts will -be good for your trade. _Never put all your eggs into one basket, for -fear the withies break._ So they’ll buy two, when next you come.” - -“You’ll never forgive?” said Nita Langrish, her voice soft as Crooning -Water’s where it lapped the archway of the bridge below them. - -“I’ve done better, Nita—I’ve forgotten.” - -She glanced up to learn if it was true. He stood there unyielding, -utterly remote; and a great longing came to Nita to chain and hold this -man who had put her out of his life. - -“You wanted me for your wife once. Is it too late, Hardcastle of Logie?” - -He looked down at her in frank astonishment. - -“Are last year’s nests too late?” - -“I was a fool. Perhaps five years have taught me to be wise. And you’re -harsh these days. Is it love of me that’s hardening you?” - -“No, God be thanked. It’s love of hardness for its own sake.” - -She let him go the length of the bridge and a little beyond, then called -him back. - -“You’re hardy, to come so near the Wilderness Folk, after what we’ve -left on your gate.” - -In spite of his boast not long ago, Hardcastle remembered how he had -once cared for this bonnie slip of devildom, the sleepless nights he had -gone through in that far-off time. - -“Put what you will on my gate,” he said, “except those slim hands of -yours.” - -“Was it not enough to meet three of our men,” she asked, with dangerous -quiet, “and send them bleeding home?” - -“It was good while it lasted.” - -“Yet you want me, too, for enemy.” - -“You’re of the Wilderness these days, Nita.” - -“Was I, a moment since? You would laugh if I told you what I was weaving -into my baskets, before you came and spoiled it all.” - -Hardcastle’s face was grim as the nether-millstone. “I’m past your sort -of guile, Nita. No woman takes me twice in the same net.” - -“But was it guile? Suppose, as I threaded the withies in and out, I was -thinking of Logie—and its Master?” - -“And of twenty other men, no doubt.” - -He had struck home at last. She got to her feet, shaken by a storm of -passion. “Fancies are no crime. I’d have lost every man in the dale for -sake of Hardcastle of Logie—aye, and have burned their houses at a word -from him.” - -Hardcastle felt a touch of her old, bewildering power, but recovered -sharply. “You had me at call once, and tore that dream to tatters.” - -“You were too much at call. I’m of the sort that wearies unless a man’s -escaping me.” - -“You’re frank,” said Hardcastle, shrugging his wide shoulders. “It seems -a long way off, Nita—the time when you would come and make a day hell -or heaven for me. You chose your road.” - -Now she had lost him; she recalled with bitter clearness the way of her -playing with him long since, because he was so big and yet so downright -drowned in love. All the might-have-been turned to venom, though she had -caged her temper and was smiling in quiet mockery. - -“Yes,” she said—“as you chose your road yesterday. The Wilderness Men -you taunted me with just now—I keep them at bay by promising favours to -one and another, and by giving none. When danger gets too close, I set -them at each other’s throats—for your sake, until now.” - -“For my sake?” - -“Men know so little.” Her glance met his in search of weakness or -relenting, and found none. “So now I shall set them all at _your_ -throat, Hardcastle of Logie, and they’ll bring blithe hearts to the -game. You know what follows the token left on a gate? There comes a -shaft out of nowhere, aimed at Logie. Then a spell of quiet, and after -that another shaft. You’ve heard the way of the Lost Folk?” - -“I have,” said the Master, his head lifted sharply. “And now the Lost -Folk are to learn the way of Logie.” - -Nita warmed to the change in this man who had been easy going once, a -slave to her whims. And with the warmth came a new bitterness that she -had lost one who could show this spirit, walking alone as he did so near -the Wilderness that soon would be eating into his courage like a cancer. - -“You’ve a gun under your arm,” she said. “That’s for fear, I take it.” - -“No. It’s for a chance shot at partridge on the way to Michael -Draycott’s. He fancies he’s a day or two from death, and wants his will -made out.” - -“Men do fancy that, if they’ve the toothache or their little finger -smarts. And of course you’re a magistrate these days.” The grey eyes -enticed and mocked him. “I had forgotten. I was back, somehow, in the -times when we roamed Logie Woods together.” - -“They’re gone,” said the Master—“dead and mouldered out of sight by -now.” - -“Are you a man at all, or just an oak-tree going on two feet about -Logie-side?” - -“A man?” echoed Hardcastle, with a quiet laugh. “That’s in the proving.” - -With that he went up the road, and turned in at the gate that opened on -Michael Draycott’s pastures. Nita thought he would glance back once at -least, drawn by old allegiance. She would have forgiven him much for the -glance; but he went up the slope and out of sight, cocking the hammers -of his gun. He was thinking already of partridge, not of the random days -behind. - -She seated herself again on the parapet and took up her basket-work; and -none could have guessed, seeing her tranquil beauty, what thoughts she -was weaving now into the plaited withies. Crooning Water lapped and -gurgled. A curlew was plaining across the fells, and from some wayside -tree a starling was mimicking his note. No other sound broke the -fragrant peace till the scrunch of feet sounded down the highway and a -stocky, undersized man swung round the bend. He stopped on seeing Nita -and touched his cap with rough deference. Bonnie, a temptress who -flouted and smiled on them by turns, Nita had a strange hold on the -regard of the Wilderness Men, though few of their women were of like -mind. The men held her in honour, too; and this was due, maybe, to the -knowledge that more than once she had set them an example of -cold-blooded savagery that none could equal. - -“I met him of Logie up Draycott’s pasture,” said the man, a still look -in his beady eyes. “Walked as if he owned all from this to hell -hereafter. ‘Got a gun with you. You’re wise,’ says I; ‘but why do you go -sporting without a dog?’ and Hardcastle laughs. ‘The dog’s guarding -Logie from such as you.’ ‘Then you’re wise again,’ says I, ‘for Logie -will ask for a lot of guarding by and by.’” - -“Is he a fool altogether?” asked Nita, glancing up from her basket. - -“I wouldn’t say that—not by a long way.” - -“It looks like it. He’s chosen to rouse the Wilderness round him, like a -hive of bees. There can only be one end to that.” - -“That’s true enough; but the ending mayn’t be this year or next. Fight -sinks the fool in Hardcastle. That’s what our three Broken Men said when -they came from the pinfold yesterday, and all the women laughing at -them.” - -“Afraid of him already, are you?” - -“I’m not myself. A darkish night, and me with just enough light to see -where to crack his skull—and Hardcastle riding the lonely roads he’s -fond of——” - -“All in good time.” Nita’s voice was clear as a throstle’s, her fingers -busy with the willows. “Before an end comes to him that way, Jake, we’ll -strike elsewhere.” - -“If you choose. You’re wiser than the rest of us put together.” - -“We’ll maim before we kill. Hardcastle is a fool altogether, I tell you -so. He cares for his own, when wise folk care for themselves.” - -“There’s few enough he cares for these days, I should have said.” - -“So he cares deeper for the few. There’s one close friend the Master -has—and this is what you’ll do, Jake.” - -Then she told her mind to him; and he gaped in admiring wonder for a -while, till she bade him get about his business of the day. And after -that, in the hollow’s tranquil silence, she threaded her withies in and -out as she sat on the bridge—the bridge where Hardcastle had seen her -first. - - - - - CHAPTER V - - - HEMLOCK - -Hardcastle found no partridge in the long pasture that led to Draycott’s -farm; but a hare got up under his feet as he neared the gate. Most shots -came easily to Hardcastle, but from boyhood’s days a hare had roused -always the same surprise, with its lopping stride that seemed slow and -bulky, disguising a strong wind’s speed. - -He missed now with the first barrel—at simple range—and puss got into -a scrub of hazels that climbed the hillside. When she ran through it, -brown against the grey rocks above, she was out of range to all but the -most sanguine fancy. Hardcastle gave her the left barrel at a venture, -and his heart warmed as he saw her sprawl every way at once and lie -still against the rocks. - -When he went to pick her up and found her shot cleanly through the head, -he took it for a good omen. Long hazards seemed to be his luck, and he -needed many kinds of luck these days. - -Old Michael Draycott was sitting up in the great four-poster bed when -Hardcastle went in. The man’s apple-red face was paler than its wont, -but his eyes were keen and shrewd as ever. - -“I’ll know more than you before so very long,” was Draycott’s greeting. - -“You know more already, Michael—the ways of sheep, and land tending, -and things I learned from you as a lad.” - -“Aye, and I could still teach you summat about horses and dogs, though -you’ll differ as to that. But I wasn’t thinking of such matters. Before -long I’ll take a journey no man knows t’other side of—and in a -twinkling I’ll be wiser than all Logie-side. I’m not afraid, you’ll -know—I’m just in a fret to be gone, and know what lies beyond, and be -master of you all.” - -“You’ll not be master yet, for you’re not within sight of dying, -Michael.” - -“You were always very free with your opinions. Why shouldn’t I die, with -all my bones a-tremble, and a wambling back and front of me?” - -“Because your father lived to ninety, and you’re a lad of sixty-five. -He’d think shame of you to creep over the Border at your time of day.” - -“There’s sense in that,” Michael agreed, with a hard, wheezy laugh. -“Come to think of it, there’s a good deal of sense. I never thought of -it in that way.” - -“I’ve left a hare in your porch, against the time you’re needing a -sturdy meal.” - -“It’ll have to hang for a week or more before it’s ripe, but thank you -all the same,” said Michael, wistfully. “I own that the thought of it -gets me back to this side o’ things again. You jug a hare, if it’s to be -treated right, and run a pint of staunch port wine into the stour of it, -and thank the God who made you for the dish.” - -“So you needn’t make your will just yet?” - -“Ah, but I must, though I’m feeling stronger every minute since you -came. It’s this way, Master. I never wedded, as you know—thanks be for -the escapement. All the kin I have is a nephew that’s gone oversea, and -a niece that’s pretending to be a lady in London town. If I knew which I -hated most, I’d will all I have to t’ other.” - -“Then leave it over, Michael, till you’ve got your strength back.” - -“Maybe I might. But I’ve one thing to say to you, Hardcastle of Logie. -They put a token on my gate last night, because I was tenant to you.” - -“That carries to us all,” said the Master, hard and wary on the sudden. - -“Have you thought what it means?” - -“Yes. I’m cold when I think of it—for myself, but more for you of -Logie-side.” - -“Now listen. I built this snug fortune o’ mine from naught at all, as -you might say, and thrived on sheep and cattle, thinking of little else. -But I wouldn’t have built it unless I’d payed tribute to the Lost Folk, -same as my father did before me.” - -“My own father never had that failing,” said Hardcastle, stating a fact -and proud of it. - -“The Wilderness was not so strong then. Staunch as he was, he’d have -sung to another tune these days. They out-number us, I tell you.” - -“He’d have sung to the same tune—but with a lustier voice because the -odds were bigger.” - -The apple-red was glowing again in Draycott’s cheeks. His fancied -ailments were forgotten. “So you take no shame to spread fire and murder -through the country-side?” - -“I take pride for holding my own ground.” - -“Aye, stubborn, like all you Hardcastles; but lord help me to guess -where pride comes in.” - -“What do you pay in tribute now? Twice what it was in my father’s -time—and so on till you’d have been beggared, you tax-paying folk. -That’s where pride comes in, Michael. I’m glad to have set war between -this and the Wilderness.” - -Michael Draycott was prone to coddle his fancied illnesses, but under -the foible lay a heart quick to answer real trouble when it came. He got -out of bed with a speed astonishing in a sick man no longer young, and -stood there in his nightshirt, fronting Hardcastle. - -“There’ll not be many with you among the lazy men of Logie—but there’ll -be me for one. While I get my breeches on, will you pass word to the -kitchen that I’m roaring for a meal?” - -For the first time since they set a token on his gate, the Master -laughed, from his heart upward. Michael had salted the coming days with -humour, and it went with him as he halted at the kitchen door, and saw -inside a red-haired lass who was baking an apple-pie. - -“The master is crying out for breakfast, Susan.” - -She turned a scared face to him. “He was dying awhile since,” she -stammered. - -“He was; but now he’s alive again, like the rest of us. You’ll get used -to these recoveries when you’ve been longer in the house.” - -With that he was gone; and humour stayed with him as he went down the -pasture and out into the highroad. Nita was finishing her basket when he -reached the bridge that girdled Crooning Water, and she glanced at him -with innocent, grey eyes. - -“You are going home to Logie?” she asked. “You’ll have news of a friend -there.” - -Again old bitterness soured laughter and all else in Hardcastle. “The -Wilderness teaches most trades, Nita. You’re for telling the future -nowadays—silver in your parlour, and promise of a dark lady coming?” - -“I’m for telling the present. The friend is no lady, dark or fair—and -he’s waiting for you at the gate.” - -Hardcastle forgot her, forgot even the sharp, slender plough she had -driven across his life, breaking it up. He came to Logie Brigg, and feet -of the marching men sounded in his ears as he strode up the hill to -Logie. In their day fight was easy—march, and camp, and straightforward -ding of blows when battle came—but this modern warfare thrust on him -was a stealthy matter, hard to wage. The old days were better. - -And now Hardcastle heard not only the tread of feet, but song of the -battle-men as they went to whatever chanced. They did not pick their -road, as he was asking to choose it now, did not fall to dreaming of -warfare that had been. The ruts and the hardships had been different -then; but the call to conquer them was the same. - -Hardcastle did not know himself in this mood. His fore-elders were -intent about him—brave, brawny folk who compassed Logie, a regiment of -fighting men. And so in great heart he climbed the hill, and came to his -gate, and found a message scrawled in chalk. - -_Hemlock grows in the Wilderness._ - -That was all, till he tried to open the gate, and felt a weight against -it. He put an impatient shoulder to the topmost bar, and there inside -lay Roy, a dead thing with no joy of welcome. Froth of the death-throes -flecked his jaws and his gold-brown hide. He had watched for the Master -faithfully, and for reward lay here. - -A silence came to Hardcastle, and a great sickness—sickness of heart, -that is the worst to bear. He could not believe for awhile that this -comrade had gone before his time. He had reared him as a puppy—a ball -of golden fluff that played strange antics—had nursed him through -distemper and trained him to the gun. As if he stood at the graveside of -a familiar friend, long thoughts went racing down the years. He recalled -the very smell of the heather when grouse swept cluttering up the moor, -the crisp, frosty silence as they waited for the wild-duck to come over. -They had roused all Logie-land together, good weather and foul, and had -tramped home with happy weariness. - -The trouble went deep. Roy had slept outside his bedroom door, had been -the first to welcome him when he got up for the day’s business, the last -to wag his tail in token of good-night. And Roy had gone. His body was -here—but what of the eager spirit, the loyalty that never faltered, the -eyes that spoke because the tongue was dumb? Many had failed Hardcastle -in his time, but never Roy. - -No longer since than yesterday, Roy had been with him up the pastures, -and now he was away to some far land. What land? With the question came -a swift, wayward hope that he had found moors out yonder, and birds -rising to the gun, and wind among the brackens—a faith that they would -rejoin each other later on, when his time came to die. - -Nothing could ease grief of this sort but remembrance of the second -token on his gate. Hemlock grew in the Wilderness, and they had poisoned -the thing he loved best in the world—the friend that Nita, weaving her -basket where the Brigg crossed Crooning Water, had told him would be -waiting. And now little, crimson lines began to dance before his eyes, -and widened swiftly till he saw nothing but a sheet of fiery red, and -behind it the styes where the Lost Folk housed themselves. It was -battle-sunrise, drinking up the fears of generations; and many never had -known it, from Flodden’s day to this. - -Causleen, spent with watching by the long-settle where her father lay in -deep sleep at last, had come out for a breath of this clean, upland air. -She would go to the gate, and a little beyond, maybe—but not far away -from the sick man who might need her at any moment. - -She got no further than the gate. Her sympathy was quick for dogs; and, -seeing Roy there in all his dead, silent disarray, she knelt beside him -and hid a sudden rush of tears in the coat that had been warm yesterday, -when he growled at her coming and afterwards gave friendship. - -“He was so brave and bonnie—and he’s gone,” she said, glancing up -between wet lashes. - -“Roy needs no praise,” growled Hardcastle, roughened by his loss. “If -you’d known him as I did, you’d let your tongue be still.” - -Her pride took fire. From the first he had been surly and resentful of -her coming. Yet her feet dragged, as she left him with his dead. She -halted and glanced back; and there was Hardcastle, his shoulders bowed -with sorrow. - -“Ah, you cared for him,” she said, her voice low with pity. - -“Cared? He was all left to care for, except Logie.” - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - - THE EWE-GATHERING - -They were gathering their sheep from the fells under Pengables, to bring -them down into the warmer lands below. To a stranger it would have -seemed odd that so many shepherds, and master-farmers with their hinds, -should have chosen the same day. The farmers, indeed, might have done -the work at haphazard, choosing a time here and there as occasion -served; but their shepherds lived nearer the fell-tops where true -weather-lore was taught by countless little signs and tokens. And the -shepherds had decreed that within eight-and-forty hours the wind hounds -of the north would be driving snow before them. - -The Logie country, if it guessed what was to come, made merry with the -time left it. Quiet wisps of cloud lay bosomed on a sky of blue. The -belt of woodland under Pengables—larches, pines and rowans, their feet -set deep in the heather—glowed in the hot sun glare with rich array of -russet and amber, and wide-flung crimson—the riot of it all subdued by -the still majesty of the pines, who kept their burnished livery secure -against all onset of the seasons. - -All the land was filled with uproar—dogs barking their throats hoarse, -sheep crying witless and forlorn, men cursing ewes and dogs and -neighbour-folk in rich upland speech. When each shepherd had only his -own ewes to look after, and his own dog to work them, they went silently -about the business, save for a whistle or a quiet call. But now the dogs -were mad with rivalry. The sudden busy-ness of these quiet fells was to -them what market day in Shepperton meant to the shepherds when they went -there once in a while and were amazed by the town’s confusion. - -Shepherd Brant, a great leader of dogs and ewes, began at last to get -order out of havoc, and all was going well when Michael Draycott—he -that was lying on his death-bed a fortnight since, till Hardcastle -persuaded him to get out of it—came driving a flock of three-score down -the lane the bracken-sledges took. They came plump into a company that -Brant was shepherding along the track to Logie, and a bleak-witted cry -went up to heaven from two hundred sheep that turned all ways at once. - -Brant took command in earnest now. “Durn you, Michael, will you leave -shepherding to shepherds. What’s the use of you, quavering with a stick -and walking as if your toes were on hot bricks? A figure of fun, I call -you.” - -“I’ll leave it to you gladly, Brant,” chuckled Michael, the sweat -dripping from his cheery face. “For my part I’ve had enough and to spare -of the game.” - -“Then get a hand into the collar of that fool-dog of yours, and see how -mine has learned to work.” - -Michael obeyed. Brant and he were old enough in friendship to make small -account of plain speech between them, and the farmer watched the other’s -dog at work with growing approbation—watched him as he drove some of -the ewes in front, thrust others aside, getting his own and those that -did not matter into two companies. - -“A gift, I call it—a fair marvel,” he muttered, talking to the dog he -held by the collar. “See ’em at it—Brant and his snod-haired collie. -We’re a rough couple, lad, when it comes to rounding sheep up.” - -The flocks were separate at last, and Brant’s dog padded up and down -with restless question what was asked of him. - -“Home to Logie,” said the shepherd, “I’ll follow soon.” - -Michael grew wide-eyed with wonderment as he saw the ewes go down the -slope, the collie shepherding a straggler now and then with quiet -persuasion. - -“He can do almost aught but talk, Brant.” - -“And does it better for that lack,” said the shepherd, filling his pipe. -“Dogs have the pull of us there. They work instead of talking. Lordie, -it’s been a warm job, this.” - -“Thanks to you shepherds. What fool’s tale did you come telling, about -north wind and snow?” put in Geordie Wiseman, sauntering to join them -from a neighbouring farm lane. - -“Bide a day or two, and you’ll learn. For myself, I’m glad of a -breathing-time, while Scamp yonder takes ’em home to Logie.” - -“You haven’t a pup of his fathering, Brant?” - -“I have, as it happens, but I’d never trust him to your lowland -training,” growled Brant. - -The shepherd fell into great moodiness, till Michael rallied him. - -“What’s gone amiss?” - -“Storm’s gone amiss,” snapped Brant. “Scamp does well enough—a good -second of the twins I reared—but Storm was known from this to Carlisle -for what he was—the best dog in the north for sheep. And now he’s -tasted flesh, and no cure for him but the barrels of a gun.” - -“A rare dog,” assented Wiseman, “but too clever, as you might say. He -went past himself. You’ve not chanced on him yet, I take it?” - -“Not I. I begin to fancy he’s savaging another man’s flocks by now.” - -Storm, if they had known it, was watching them from above, where he lay -coiled in a clump of bracken under Pengables. For a week and a day, -since Hardcastle first gave him house-room, he had roamed at large, -raiding and sleeping and skulking by turns; and, as he came warily -across the moor this morning, the uproar from the fells below roused -ancient memories. With slow craftiness, his body crouched to take -advantage of such cover as rocks and heather gave him, he had wormed his -way to the foot of Pengables, and now looked on, an outlaw, at the work -speeding forward. - -He had shared that work in other years, had heard men praise him, had -seen his fellow-dogs give jealous homage to his fame. And now he lay -here, with the blood of a late-slain ewe scarce dried on his rough -muzzle. None praised him to-day. He had lost repute, and every hand was -turned against him—even Brant’s, his old master; and across Storm’s -hard, relentless eyes there stole a mist of grief. That weakness passed. -The wolf-lust in him blazed afresh, kindled in the old-time of his -ancestors. He remembered last night’s slaughter—the mad joy of killing, -just for slaughter’s sake. He thought of the night to come. Then he -turned three times in his bracken lair, and his head dropped on his -forepaws. For he was full fed and sleepy. - -Over the same moor that Storm had crossed, Hardcastle of Logie came from -business he had at Nether Helstone. They liked to have him with them at -the ewe-gathering, and he was later than he had meant; but for all that -he halted when he reached the grim rockpile of Pengables, set -four-square like a fortress on the hill-top. He, too, was looking down -on a remembered scene, as Storm had done, and with a sense of utter -loneliness. - -He watched the wild gathering-scene below—the sheep scampering every -way at once, the dogs half-crazied, the men who seemed, most of them, -little surer of their wits. Then he saw order come from the bedevilment, -till at last the whole of the wide fells below him took moving shape. -There was no longer a waste of close-cropped pastures. It was hidden by -long, swaying flocks that glided to their lowland shelter-fields. - -As the grey sheep moved through the day’s heat, the sweat of their -fleeces rose to a sunlight that turned it into rainbow mist; and -Hardcastle stood looking down on old, familiar country changed to -fairyland. The spell of it was on him. He had not known what glamour lay -about this simple Gathering Day. - -He shook himself free of dreams, and glanced across the valley. -Garsykes, the village of the Lost Folk, was sending wood-smoke up into -the quiet sky as if it were a haunt of peace. Yet it had put a token on -his gate, had killed old Roy already, and would burn Logie next, no -doubt. It seemed destined that he should lose the few things left him -nowadays to care for. - -Here on the heights he learned suddenly what Roy’s loss meant to him. -First grief, when he found the dead body at his gate, had been tempered -by the shock that stuns. Through the days that followed he had shut down -the windows of his heart, lest he looked too closely through them. There -were other dogs in plenty to be had. He must buy one to-morrow—or -perhaps the morrow after. So he told himself; but now, as again he -looked across at Garsykes, he hungered just for Roy. If all was in the -losing, because he had battered three men of the Wilderness, he could -have faced it better if Roy had been beside him. He had no fear now. But -he had loneliness, that can bite like east wind into the marrow of a -man. - -The sheep-nibbled grass sloped sharply down on this side of Pengables, -and when he reached the hill-foot—half running and half sliding, as -fell-racers do—he was checked by a sudden growl from the brackens on -his right. Storm’s sleep these days was light as the triggers of -pursuing guns. He was on his feet already, his teeth bared behind the -tell-tale ruddy lips. Then, as he saw who the intruder was, he just -stood and looked at him, his air ludicrously changed. The brown eyes -grew full of deprecation, appeal, assurances that he was a mishandled -and misjudged fugitive. - -Hardcastle laughed quietly. “I believe no word of it, but you’re safe -from me. I give you my word for that. There’s Brant down there.” - -Storm followed his pointing finger, then glanced at his face again. - -“There’s Brant down there—and more fool you to make an uproar when a -friend comes by.” - -And now about these two there came sharp intuition, such as thrives in -times of peril. Storm had always liked the smell of this man who had -saved him twice—once, when he gave him shelter at Logie, and now when -he might have betrayed him to Shepherd Brant below. He thrust his rough -head into the Master’s hand—the head smeared by blood, and packed -within by the Wilderness knew what of guile and wolf-lust—and of -loyalty to his chosen man. - -So then Hardcastle knew that in sober truth he had bought another -dog—but not with money. He bade Storm keep close, and left him in his -lair, and went swinging down the fells. Loneliness had gone, though in -the peaceful days he would have sneered at any man who told him he could -take cheer of heart from an outlaw such as Storm. - -The last swaying companies of sheep went out of sight behind the -shoulder of the track as he strode down. From time to time a man’s voice -sounded, or a collie’s eager yelp, muffled by distance into softer -melody. For the rest there was the intimate and friendly silence of a -land ripe with autumn’s big content. - -That lasted till he neared the road where Shepherd Brant was gossiping -with Michael Draycott and filling another pipe before he took the -home-track to Logie. Then the jar of men’s voices raised in quarrel -killed all peace, and Hardcastle, glancing down, saw five of the -Wilderness Folk confronting the two of Logie. He made light of the -quarter-mile between himself and trouble, and Brant turned at sound of -his coming. - -“We’ve missed you,” he grumbled; “but better late than never.” - -“What is it?” - -“Nay, ask these lean swine from Garsykes.” - -The five were tongue-tied and loutish, till one of them—Jake Bramber, -who had talked with Nita on the bridge and afterwards gone to Logie to -feed old Roy with meat and hemlock—strutted his squat impudence up to -Hardcastle. - -“There’s a dog called Storm,” he said. - -“There is,” Hardcastle agreed, with bitter quiet. - -“He’s taken many sheep of ours. So I just asked Brant if he’d missed any -ewes of his own this morning when he counted the tally. He owned to a -score.” - -“Well?” - -“Nay, you needn’t be so high and mighty about it. They’re in our pinfold -yonder—tribute, as you might say, for what Storm’s done to ours.” - -“There’s a pinfold over Logie way, and three sheep of yours tried to -stop me there. Did I break all their bones, or only half? I’ve often -wondered.” - -And now the five men stared at Hardcastle, marvelling at his hardihood. - -“There’s one of you killed a dog of mine,” said the Master, his eyes -holding Jake’s, “and he’ll pay toll for that.” - -“Seems as if times were changed,” growled the little man, strutting it -still. “D’ye know what it means when the Lost Folk put an arrow on a -gate?” - -“We know,” said Hardcastle—“and, Brant, go down to their pinfold and -bring back our ewes.” - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - - THE BATTLE OF THE FLEECE - -Michael Draycott rubbed his hands together as he saw the five shrink -back. They were not used to such frank and instant challenge. Hardcastle -had reminded them, moreover, of what he had done to certain men of -theirs; and they looked on with sullen wonder as Brant brought up the -twenty ewes. - -It was Jake Bramber who first spoke. “Leave us those ewes, and maybe -we’ll call it quits.” - -“Quits?” - -“There’s been a long peace between you Logie Folk and ours. You wouldn’t -break it for a matter of a few sheep?” - -“He’s talking sense, Master,” quavered Geordie Wiseman. “Let him have -’em, and save us all from being murdered every night of our lives.” - -A laugh went up; but Hardcastle was in no mood for merriment. - -“There are two roads, Geordie,” he said sharply—“to Logie or the -Wilderness. You’ve got to choose. If a tenant of mine gives any sort of -tribute—aye, if it’s a penny to a brat of theirs—he crosses over to -Garsykes. And may hell deal softly with him there.” - -The five men drew further back from Hardcastle. More than his rugged -strength, more than memory of the battered three who had returned they -feared this man’s strength of spirit, revealed suddenly—feared the ring -of his voice, the upright head and brawny shoulders. - -“A hard man, you,” said Jake. - -“Yes, a hard man, I, and God be thanked for that.” - -“But an arrow-head left on a gate? It can weaken the hardest—by -degrees. A blow in the dark say, or a boulder in the road when you and -yours drive home o’ nights—and your women-folk not safe at any -time——” - -“I have no women-folk,” said Hardcastle—“except old Rebecca. And she’s -a match for any two of you.” - -Still Jake laboured to get the better of him. He knew that, if he could -persuade the Master of Logie to buy peace at the small price of twenty -ewes, the Wilderness was free to go its way again, robbing the weak, -never needing to tackle stronger folk than ale-silly drovers and the -like. - -“There’s the house of Logie. They say no woman could ever be to -Hardcastle what Logie is.” - -“That’s true.” - -“We shall come to burn it, on near night.” - -“Thanks for the warning,” said Hardcastle, and told Brant to get busy -with the ewes. - -Wiseman paused for a backward glance, and the Master gripped his arm. -“I’ll not hinder you either way—but, Geordie, you’ve to choose once for -all.” - -So Geordie, as his way was, went with those who had prevailed in the -last battle. And Brant went driving the stolen ewes before him, more -thankful for them than for all the hundreds that had gone before in -safety. And Michael Draycott laughed. - -“I could scarce tell you why,” he said, answering a question in the -Master’s glance. “Perhaps I was thinking of me on my death-bed, and the -bonnier times you kicked me up to share.” - -Storm, the sheep-slayer, watched it all from his lair at the foot of -Pengables. He saw the last of the ewes go in a rainbow-steam round the -wide curve of the track, and with them Brant his enemy, and Hardcastle -his friend—his friend from this till death ended loyalty for one -unwanted dog. - -The land grew quiet again, basking in the tranquil heat, until a whistle -broke the silence. Storm knew the shepherd’s call, the whistle of hale -farm-lads when they climbed the pastures; but this had another note. It -was shrill and sinister. - -He waited. Broken dogs, like broken men, learn a patience that is not -contentment—a patience wide-eyed to observe all details and quick to -interpret them. - -Nothing happened for awhile, till the whistle was repeated. And then -Storm saw the doors of Garsykes open wide, and men pour out from them -and run into the wide, green road the Logie Men had taken. He saw Jake -point first at their empty pinfold, then down the track—heard the deep, -evil roar that died as they went grimly in pursuit. - -Storm understood it all, and a great song came into his blood. He was -not concerned with his own needs now, but with Hardcastle’s. As he went -between the brackens and kept pace with the running folk below, he could -see the men of Logie moving slowly, hidden as yet from the enemy, but -with only a few hundred yards to spare. And they did not know their -peril. - -The song in Storm’s blood had the gale’s speed now. Like all -great-hearted sinners, he was sick of skulking. Reason had nothing to do -with the long, howling wail he gave—a wail like the cry of all the lost -who had ever lived and died in Garsykes—but instinct told him he was -serving Hardcastle. - -Hardcastle himself glanced backward, to learn the meaning of it; and -round the bend he saw a company of the Lost Folk, their shuffling run -stopped for a moment by the eerie cry that still whined and sobbed from -the bracken-lands above. He took advantage of their superstition—they -fancied Guytrash was calling them to death—and glanced ahead again, -down the track the sheep were taking over a grey, narrow bridge. - -“Get the ewes over, Brant,” he said quietly, as if he called him to -supper up at Logie. “Get them over, man, and be quick. We two must hold -the bridge.” - -Sixty years of weather on the heights had only toughened Brant’s lean -body and he warmed to this queer happening. He got the sheep across, and -left them in Geordie Wiseman’s charge. - -“Your knees are all a-twitter, Geordie,” he growled, “but there’s use -enough in you, maybe, to keep a few ewes from straying into what’s to -come.” - -“How will it end, shepherd?” - -“As it will end. What can I tell you more than that?” - -The Wilderness Men were still halting, for Storm’s long-drawn howl had -taken a deeper note. They looked for some ghostly death to overtake -them, till Jake rallied their oozing pluck. - -“It’s naught. We live too near those durned old miners up at -Weathersett, with their talk of trolls and weir-dogs——” - -“Aye, but it’s Guytrash calling us, all the same,” broke in a lad of the -company. “I heard him once, and my father hanged himself that night.” - -“The more fool he,” laughed Jake. “He’d have been hanged any way, soon -or late; but no man should run to meet a halter.” - -Hardcastle, fronting them at the bridge, knew that the odds must -overmaster himself and Brant, once these folk came at them in dead -earnest. They were thirty paces away as yet, irresolute for a moment -that seemed endless, and Hardcastle’s thoughts ran swiftly, like those -of a drowning man. This end was better, after all, than the -long-drawn-out stealthy warfare he had been prepared to meet. And -Logie’s honour would be safe. Yet he felt an odd, wistful regret for -Brant the shepherd. The pity of it that Brant was old, with a heart -reared on upland solitude. The fights he was trained to share were clean -battles between a man and such weather as the skies chose to ding about -his ears. But they were here together and must face it out. - -Brant’s thoughts were busy, too, in this long moment of inaction. The -deep, running cry, that sounded ceaselessly through the brackens up -above, was a cry known to him. It had roused him many a night as he -slept in his hut, up yonder on the roof of the high fells, had got him -out of doors with a gun in his hand to follow a useless hunt in the dark -for a sheep-slayer who yapped and growled across the wastes. He knew -Storm’s voice now, as one knows the voice of his dearest enemy. - -The ewes behind him knew it, and pressed together in a sweat of fright. -Storm the sheep-slayer was among them once again—Storm, who had made -nightmares of their slumber for time out of mind. - -Then Hardcastle’s voice sounded, rough and sturdy, as he answered Jake’s -gibe that no man should run to meet a halter. - -“No man runs to meet my fists, I notice.” - -Still the Wilderness Men held back. Attack in daylight was a trade they -had not learned, and they were clumsy at it. - -Hardcastle’s blood was red in him, as when he had stood above old Roy, -slain foully by these people. The struggle could not last, he knew. Soon -they would gather bastard courage from force of numbers, and there would -be an end to him and Shepherd Brant. But joy was with him. There was a -sharp memory of Logie, the house dearer to him than all else except his -lands. Parting was hard, till he remembered that they would carry him -there a true Hardcastle. Dead or alive, he asked for Logie’s honour. - -Up above this battle that could only have one end, Storm was pressing -through the brackens. He had warned the Master, and afterwards had -watched the score of grey-fleeced ewes. And the old wolf-call had -reached him. - -Storm went on his own business now. He went at speed, but craftily, and -never left cover till he crossed the brook that, further down, ran under -the bridge where Hardcastle fronted the Lost Folk. Then he turned -downhill. He was in the open now, and the sheep that fool Geordie -guarded turned face about as the slayer’s hunting-note came down the -lean, steep pasture-lands. They knew that Storm loved to chase them from -behind before at last he leaped and fastened his teeth in wool and -flesh. So they turned about, with bleating courage to resist, till the -cry of the slayer came near and eager. - -Geordie Wiseman pranced up and down, shouting that the ewes were all -gone daft. Hardcastle and Brant turned to see the frenzied mob of sheep -charge them from behind; and just in time they left the bridge. The -sheep came skeltering over in resistless panic, drove through the -Wilderness Folk and scattered them like chaff to one side and the other -of the road. Fear of man was lost in the wilder dread of what pursued. - -After them came Storm, at a tearing gallop that checked as he neared the -Garsykes Men. The sheep were in front of him, a sure quarry later on; -and here were enemies who had harried him up and down the country-side -for many a day. He bit right and left with savage yelps. He paused to -maul one here and there of those who had been stamped into the -breeze-blown dust of the roadway. Then he passed, as a roaring gale -might do, and followed the grey ewes—out and up, till he was hidden by -a bluff of rock. - -The Garsykes Men were broken. They forgot Hardcastle at the bridge, -forgot all but superstition, and the look of Storm as he went by, with -his fangs bared and his muzzle dripping red with blood of theirs. -Terror-stricken as the sheep whose cries still came fitfully down-wind, -they made for home, some limping as they went. - -Hardcastle passed a hand across his eyes. A moment since he had been -ready for the struggle that was to end all strife for him on this side -of things; and now he was a free man again. It was unbelievable how -sweet life was, with all its harsh ups-and-downs. - -Brant came to his side, and together they stood looking down on the mean -village in the hollow just below them. It was packed with women, and one -of them—a plump, brazen hussy—sent a great laugh up. - -“Good grief, our men come home,” she cried—“_our men_.” - -The laughter spread, till the broken warriors rallied and made for their -own women-folk with ready fists. - -“It’s about time we went,” said Shepherd Brant. “If the men and the -women both come out against us after their fratching’s done—why, God -help us.” - -They took a last look at this village that had conquered Logie-side for -generations, and were turning homewards when a voice hailed them, and -they saw the plump hussy breasting the rise of the pastures up from -Garsykes. - -“You’re Hardcastle of Logie?” she panted. - -“Why, yes.” - -“Then I’ve come to tell you two things. First, that you’ve a queer pluck -of your own, to come so near us after we’ve put the token on Logie’s -gate. A bit of a fool, I should call you.” - -“Like most of us.” - -She stood fronting them, her red arms folded across her ample breasts. -“Aye, laugh while you can; for it’s no easy road you’ve -chosen—’specially by night. Lord, what our men will put on you for this -day’s work.” - -She left them as quickly as she had come, and Brant’s face was sombre as -Hardcastle and he crossed the bridge that would have seen their death if -Storm had not run wild awhile since. - -“I’ve lost twenty ewes. There’s no denying that,” he grumbled. “And -Storm—that old, ancient devil—is with them up the pastures.” - -“He saved you and me, Brant—saved us for Logie and the days to come.” - -“You were always partial to him, as I’ve told you time and again. I’d -rather have died than be saved by a ravisher of ewes.” - -“Maybe—but I’d rather live, to put fear of Logie on these Garsyke -swine.” - -For a mile they went, Hardcastle and his shepherd, in sharp -disagreement. Then Brant turned, with a dry chuckle. - -“There’s sense in that. After the few hundred years they’ve been putting -fear on Logie, it’s time we had our turn. But I cannot thole the thought -o’ Storm, and never will.” - -As they rounded the bend where Widow Dyke’s cottage stood snug and -lonely, its garden-patch ablaze with red butterflies that feasted on the -tall-standing Michaelmas daisies, Nita Langrish met them in the road. A -little, toddling chap had hold of her hand, and she was singing a song -to him. - - _Now grow you big, and grow you tall,_ - _Lad o’ the Wilderness._ - _You’ll give the Logie Folk a call_ - _When nights are dark and drear and all,_ - _Lad o’ the Wilderness._ - -She ceased her singing, and stood fronting Hardcastle. Supple and eager, -a thing radiant as the sunlit day, she brought harsh memories back. He -had been in slavery once to this beguilement, before he learned what lay -behind it. - -“Whose brat have you with you?” he asked. - -“Widow Mathison’s.” Nita’s voice was clear and bell-like as of old, -pleasant to hear. “You felled his uncle at the pinfold, and Murgatroyd -has not recovered yet.” - -“That’s welcome news.” - -She glanced at him with such hope of old dominion that Brant went -forward, disgruntled and at war with life. If the Master liked to be -fooled a second time, that was no concern of a shepherd who had kept his -eyes on the hills, instead of letting them rove women’s way. - -“Have you forgotten Logie Woods?” asked Nita, tears in her grey, -pleading eyes. - -“Except in nightmare. Yes, I’ve forgotten those days, Nita.” - -“Bitter to the end?” - -“Aye, and beyond.” - -She fell to crying; and, when that did not serve, she glanced at him -through long, wet lashes. “If I cared for too many men—it was vanity, -and no more. There was never a man but you.” - -Wrath came to Hardcastle—sudden, heedless tempest, like a north wind -from far, broken hills. “I’ll not say to any woman what’s on my tongue -for you. I gave you—all Logie and myself—gave you my heart to be held, -or played with. Tales came of other men, and I laughed at them—till I -found them true.” - -“It was vanity. No man but you ever took my lips—though many wanted -to.” - -She was weaving gossamer about him, this once again. Charm of the -slender body, supple as the willows she wove into her baskets—lilt of -her voice—the pleading in her eyes—were meshing him into her net. - -He broke through. The new days had hardened him. Up yonder was -threatened Logie; and here was Nita of the Wilderness, wanting him not -for himself, but because he was the one man in the country-side she -could not play with. - -“You were singing a song to Widow Mathison’s brat,” he said. - -“The feud with Logie’s up again. It came out of the olden days, before I -knew.” - -“Teach him a newer song. There’ll be no Garsykes when the lad grows up.” - -Wrath had left him. Gruff and cold, sinewy with field-sports and hard -riding, he would never again be the lover she had known. He was in the -thick of peril, and seemed to have no fear. He was within reach of her -hands and lips, and would not take them. And now fury came to her in -turn, though it ran deep and out of sight. - -“There are three things Hardcastle of Logie cared for,” she said, -counting them on slender fingers—“his house, his dog Roy, his pride. -And Roy has gone the way of hemlock. So two are left him now.” - -“It was you sent one of yours to Roy?” - -“And next I shall send one to fire your house,” laughed Nita gently, -counting the tally on her second finger. “Then there’ll be stillness for -a long while, till your pride takes fright and dies.” - -He grew only a little harder. She had killed his heart long since, and -now had sent hemlock up to Roy. And she was glancing at him with -softened eyes, was reaching out slim hands he would not take. - -“I have the Lost Folk at call—could turn the storm from Logie, if—if -you cared.” - -Hardcastle was no bondsman now to Garsykes Men—still less to thraldom -of any woman who thought to glamour him from that side of the country. - -“You’re asking tribute, Nita,” he said. “Logie gives none to the -Wilderness.” - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - - THE GABBLE-RATCHET - -Causleen was restless about the house of Logie. Her father dozed and -roused himself by turns. Always in his waking moments he glanced at the -pike that had gone to Flodden Field and back, and was eager to leave the -roof that sheltered him. She watched the same pitiful struggle to rise -and get his helpless limbs to ground, the same falling into stupor. - -Near sunset of the day that followed the ewe-gathering, she drifted into -Rebecca’s kitchen, pride and weariness waging a private feud within her. - -“It is always the same tale, Rebecca,” she said. “My father is not well -enough to go just yet, and we overstay our leave.” - -“Who told you that?” asked the other dryly, as she gimped the edge of an -apple-pasty before she set it in the oven. “Not me for one.” - -“Nobody told me—in so many words.” - -Rebecca glanced up. The harsh face that was worth a couple of watch-dogs -to the house—as Hardcastle’s jest had it—was softened now. - -“We’re a stiff folk here, the Master and me. It’s old habit to snap at -foreigners—but once in a while the snap doesn’t mean so much. You’re -very welcome to stay on.” - -“If you’ll let us pay,” said Causleen, fire smouldering in her eyes. -“We’re not beggar-folk, but pedlars—giving for what we get.” - -“All in a fine tantrum, are you? As if Logie couldn’t give a lodging to -a couple of far-spent wanderers.” - -“We haven’t money, but I could help you—to wash up in the kitchen, and -clean the upstairs rooms—” - -“You could,” broke in Rebecca, “if I’d let you. You seem not to know -that it’s joy and pride to me to serve the Master. He’s worth the -while.” - -“So we must go?” - -“So you must stay, seeing how it is with Donald. You’ve enough to do, -and so have I; and that should keep us two from worriting.” - -“Why is the Master so hard?” asked Causleen, watching Rebecca stand away -from the hiss of the opened oven-door before she put the pasty in. - -“He met a fool-lass once, and thought her all made up of what never -could be in this world. Women aren’t shaped out of rainbow-dreams, as -the Master fancied. So he took a fall—and a long, steep fall it was.” - -Tired as she was, Causleen’s interest was roused. Woman-like, she saw -Hardcastle’s gruffness softened a little now that romance was its -excuse. - -“Was she bonnie, Rebecca?” - -“Aye, like a bird you’d like to ’tice from its twig. The devil uses that -sort sometimes. And now there’ll be no heir to Logie.” - -“He’ll never marry?” - -“Not he, unless the time of miracles came back. I’ve no patience with -life, I tell you. Here’s a man as likely-set-up as one here and -there—might pick as he chose—and he lets himself go bachelor all his -days because a lass fooled him once.” - -“He never thinks of the men before him? Seven hundred years the -Hardcastles have been settled here, he told us.” - -“Aye, he thinks of them, I fancy. They nag at him, and small wonder. -It’s a shame and a crying pity that he should let the race die out, for -sake of such as Nita Langrish.” - -“What was she like?” - -“Like nothing honest—a face that put even women in mind of flowers and -such trash—and great, grey eyes—and a heart as dry as Ghyll Beck after -a droughty summer. But she did one good turn to Logie. I’ll own to -that.” - -Rebecca had not paused in her work. Like a mill-wheel, she could chatter -without hindrance to the day’s labour. - -“They go far back, the Hardcastles,” she went on, spreading dough on the -baking-board and rolling it with quiet, unhurried hands. “Yeomen, they, -and content with yeoman’s pride. Then they bought a croft here, a -farmhouse there, till they got to be big in the land.” - -Causleen began to understand many things about Hardcastle, now she held -the key. His grim hostility to women was explained. So, too, was the -rugged, inborn dignity that could meet all men frankly, yet hold them at -a little distance. In days gone by, she had known Highland lairds who -had shown just this will-proud front to clansmen of the misty homeland. - -“And then?” she added, like a child impatient for the end of a -nursery-tale. - -“There come breaks in a line as long as Hardcastle’s—a spendthrift, a -drunkard, one silly in his wits—there must be breaks. The Lord Almighty -favours none, and long-settled folk must take their chances with the -rest.” - -Rebecca was of the homeland, too, to Donald’s girl. The Lord Almighty -favoured none, as all men knew who had lived with mountains and the -storm. - -“She did a good turn to Logie, this Nita Langrish?” asked Causleen. - -“She did. The Master was all for guns and fishing, and letting a farm go -here and there while he played at life. If the likes of her had married -him, she’d have pushed him down to dear-knows-what of mortgages and -ruin. But they quarrelled, thanks be, and the Master went hard as a -flint. I watched him close and proper, I promise you, those first months -after they parted. It bit deep, and might have taken him into any sort -of devilment; but instead it stiffened him.” - -“Soured and roughened him,” flashed Causleen, remembering how Donald and -she had come to Logie first. - -“Maybe. I own that I’d like to hear him laugh about the house -again—just once in the week, say—but then you can’t have everything in -this world. Instead of squandering farms, he’s buying them.” - -Rebecca, rolling the dough out as she talked, remembered suddenly the -pasty already in the oven, and darted to its rescue. - -“There, now,” she scolded, “it would have been burned in another minute. -That comes of your gossip, when you know I like a quiet kitchen. Take -those white cheeks of yours out of doors, girl. You’ve been cluttered up -too long between four walls. Take ’em out, and leave me to my baking.” - -Causleen was learning the difference between the bark and bite of those -at Logie, and Rebecca’s glance was kindly. “There is father,” she said, -glancing wistfully through the open door at the sunlit warmth outside. - -“And me to see to him till you come back. I’m not old enough yet to make -a song about tending my kitchen and one ailing man. Take jobs by turns, -and one’s a rest from t’ other.” - -So Causleen, with a sob of sheer relief, stepped out into the afternoon. -She died by inches in such imprisonment as she had known at Logie, but -her feet seemed shod with fairy-boskins now that she was free to roam a -land that reminded her at every turn of her lost Highlands. Through the -russet sun-glow she went, up into the moors that knew no walls except -the sky’s. The heather was not as tall as in her own country, where she -had waded knee deep through it; but the scent and the friendliness were -the same. When a cock-grouse got up and whirred over rise and hollow of -the untamed lands, she knew his challenge of _go-back, go-back_, for a -note as cheery as Rebecca’s when she had bidden her find an hour of -freedom. - -She left the moor at last, tempted by the lure of Logie Woods below, -with their burnished colours glowing in the heat-haze; and once more, as -she stepped into their cool shelter, the sense of home was with her. -Underfoot the pale gold of fallen larch-leaves shimmered softly in the -silver light that filtered through—a thick carpet, soft to tread. Ripe, -nutty odours were abroad, and peace was sounding her elfin-trumpets -through every brake and hollow. The wise big-hearted autumn was here, as -in far Inverness—a northern autumn, that had fought for this -tranquillity. - -Causleen, in sheer content, followed the winding track, till it led her -to a little, brawling stream, brown with moor-peat and ferned in every -crevice of its banks with greenery for the water-pixies and their kind. -She forgot every footsore step she had taken on the Pedlar’s Road. Here -was the twin-hollow to one in the homeland, where she had grown from -child to woman, dreaming of Highland feuds, and Highland loves, and the -glamour that would come one day when a man’s eyes were steady and honest -with her own, asking all she had to give. - -She stood there, so quiet that a squirrel ran about her feet before he -saw her and raced up a neighbouring fir-bole, pausing to wash fear away -from his face before he glimpsed down on this intruder. As on Logie -Brigg, no longer than two weeks ago, Causleen was aware now of the voice -that spoke without any sort of speech—the little voice within that -never lied. Not in the Highlands, but here in Logie-land, the man of her -dreams would come. - -So by and by she went down the rough bank of the stream, singing a -Gaelic song that was in tune with the water’s voice, and came at last to -the brink of Wharfe River, where it flowed in dappled, sunlit quiet—a -great-bosomed stream, wide between its banks. And now she lost -remembrance of the Highlands. They had rivers there in plenty, but none -like this water that said so little and so much as it swirled -by—lonely, majestic, unafraid. - -She, who had learned in babyhood the language of many waters, big and -little, could make nothing of Wharfe’s speech. Soft as its murmur was, -there were undernotes that baffled her—eerie cries below the flood, and -now and then a roaming whine, as if a fox pursued its prey by night. - -A breeze was stealing now across the warm shelter of the woods—a -moaning breeze, gentle and very cold. The rock-doves, crooning overhead, -grew silent. Chatter of beast and bird ceased in Logie Woods. They knew -what was coming to them from the north and something of their -trepidation began to settle on Causleen. Such dreams as she had been -weaving a moment since seemed empty, foolish, and their warmth had gone -with the woodland glow. - -Wharfe River, as she followed it, lost its breadth of flow; its tranquil -temper. The under-cries grew louder as it swept through the narrows -under grey-brown scuds of foam; and ever as the waters hurried down, the -rocks on either bank set closer teeth on them. - -Causleen, glancing across this place of tumbled strife, saw a man’s -figure come down the wood on the far bank; and a smile of self-derision -played about her lips. How bravely she had dreamed of a lover—and what -a wakening, to find Hardcastle of Logie—Hardcastle the churl, who -grudged Donald and herself each hour they spent under his roof. But at -least he was on the other bank, and there was no bridge for him to -cross. She was glad of that. - -Then she saw him gather himself together, and run a little way, and -leap; and he was on her side now of Wharfe River, laughing up at her -astonished face. - -“It saves the long way round by Logie Brigg,” he said—“but it’s no -short cut for fools to take.” - -She came close to the bank and glanced down, curious to learn how one -leap could bridge a river; and under her she saw the whole tumult of the -upper stream caged into a yard’s span, with Wharfe going silent, fast -and deep between its prison walls. She saw, too, that Hardcastle had -jumped from the low to the higher bank, and that the rock he leaped from -was wet with spray. - -“You took a mad risk,” she said, shivering as she watched the strong, -remorseless flood go by. - -“I said it was no short cut for fools. But Wharfe couldn’t drown me if -she tried. There’s too long caring goes between us.” - -“_Wharfe River._ The name sings to me since I heard it first.” - -“And Wharfe sings—many songs. I’ve known her for thirty years, and -never stale of listening. Soft as a girl one day, and the next a -beldame, riving all her banks to pieces. A woman, all of her.” - -“Why—a woman?” asked Causleen, with quiet mockery. - -“She changes her mind so lightly—croons to you, like the gentlest -stream that ever lapped quiet banks—and you’re half believing it when -the storm-waters come, roaring to pluck you down.” - -“Was it only Wharfe taught you what you know of women?” - -Malice prompted the gibe, but Causleen was bewildered by the answering -fury. She had driven a needle-point into some deep-hidden nerve, and for -a moment she fancied Hardcastle would strike her. He was alive with -rage. She seemed to stand shelterless under a mountain tempest that was -soon to break about her. She did not care. Better to flout him in the -open here than be a tongue-tied and unwelcome guest at Logie. - -As she had watched him gather himself for the slippery leap across the -Strith, she watched him now. He got temper into hand, as if it were a -mettled horse he rode. He conquered the pain of an old wound she had -pricked to life. The face he turned to her at last was grey and quiet. - -“Not only Wharfe,” he said. - -The breeze came sobbing, cold and comfortless, through the woods of -Logie, and the red leaves blew about them in their fall. Again old -griefs came to Hardcastle, and again he laughed, as of old, to drive -them off. - -“Wharfe’s a woman, as I said. She drowned the heir of all these lands -once—a stripling, and his greyhound checked him at the leap. And then -his mother reared the Priory below; and Wharfe slips by the ruins to -this day, gentle as a dove—penitent, you’d think, for what she did up -here.” - -Causleen’s interest was stirred, in spite of herself, by the boldness of -his fancy, the sure, straightforward hold he had on the lore of other -days. At their first coming, when Donald resented the pike hung on the -wall at Logie, the Master spoke of Flodden as if he had shared the -battle lately. Now he talked of what happened in the elder years, before -the shock of Flodden came, as if they, too, were recent. To-day seemed -one with all the yesterdays to this man who loved his country-side and -knew its inner secrets. - -The breeze blew shriller now. Raw and wet, it fluted through the glory -of the woods, plucking a red leaf here and there in passing. - -“Brant was right,” said Hardcastle, “though I fancied his weather-wisdom -had gone astray this once.” - -As he spoke, and while Causleen was thinking bitterly that the prophet -of ill-weather was always on the safe side of life, a great crying -sounded overhead—a harsh, tortured crying, as of human things in -anguish. - -“What is it?” she asked sharply. - -“Rebecca would say it was The Gabble-Ratchet.” - -The first crying overhead had passed into silence, but now another came, -louder and more anguished. - -“Brant was right,” Hardcastle repeated—“and it’s time we both got up to -Logie.” - -She found herself going with him up the steep rise of the woods—found -herself yielding a hand to his when he reached down to help her across -some slippery rock-face—and had no time to wonder that she let her -pride be quiet. There was something in the wet, rising breeze, something -in the Gabble-Ratchet uproar overhead not long since, that made for awe -and need of a man’s hand, whether he was rich or poor in courtesy. - -They went past Ghyll House, where a dog barked at them from behind a -stable-door, and up into the pastures. - -Brant was right, no doubt, as Hardcastle had said. On one side of them, -Pengables thrust his big rock shoulders up into the red sundown and the -warmth; on the other a grey mist came running, like the ewes that Storm -had chased into the Wilderness a few days since. - -And now again there sounded the crying from above, shrill and terrible, -and Causleen looked up to see what seemed a ship go overhead with the -speed of a hurricane behind. It was a long, slender ship, its slenderer -prow driving into the sunlit warmth ahead, and it was chased by the -breeze that was a wind by now, hurrying the grey mists in front of it. -Then Causleen came out of the eeriness that Logie Woods had laid on her. - -“It’s the wild-geese flighting south,” she said, shaking herself free of -omens. - -“It is,” said Hardcastle; “and so many of them come that we’ve time to -get to Logie and no more. Lord Harry only knows what sort of storm is -skelping down.” - -They two knew what sort of storm it was, when they reached the long -pasture that raked up into the Logie highroad. The wind came, and the -snow, and biting hail—came ravening on the track of the wild-geese -fleeing south—and soon there were no landmarks. - -There was a foresters’ hut, he remembered, at his left hand, where the -field ran into the pinewoods. They could find shelter there, if anything -could find it. - -Hardcastle had known the pasture from childhood, but it was lost to him -as if he trod foreign country. In the blackest night he could have found -his way across it, but not through this scudding snow that swirled till -it dizzied brain and sight—through the wind that bit and the hail that -stung. - -He was not making now for Logie. There was a foresters’ hut at the far -end of the pasture where it met the pinewoods. Once he could find it -they could shelter till the snow had ended; for tempests as quick to -come as this, out of a warm October’s quiet, seldom lasted. - -He could not find the hut—could find nothing but snow that was balling -already under his feet—snow that would not let the sky come through. It -was as if he tried to make way through a thicket, not of brambles, but -of cotton-wool. Then a cry reached him. Whether it came from front or -rear, he could not tell, but it was Causleen’s voice. - -“Where are you, child?” he snapped, impatient at his own failure. - -A little sob ran in between one wind-gust and the next. It hurt him -strangely. “Lost. I was tired—I could not keep pace.” - -She was lost indeed, though no more than ten paces from him. For the -wind got up with a screech, and there seemed no space between the -snowflakes. And over the din of it all there sounded, far overhead, the -crying of belated wild-geese, hurrying south. - -Even in that moment of harsh peril, Hardcastle laughed quietly. It was -odd that he, of all men, should be asked to go seeking about for a woman -lost in the snow. These five years past he had been striving to lose all -women, except Rebecca. - -Voice answering voice, they strove to find each other. Sometimes they -came near, and again they called through the sundering distance. And -then at last Hardcastle touched the rough pedlar’s cloak she wore, and -reached down, and got her hand into his. - -“No more straying,” he said roughly, “till we get out of this damned -weather.” - -Her hand lay close in his. He did not know that his own gripped it till -she winced. He knew only that he must get her free of this pasture that -would put the snow-sleep on them if they stayed much longer. - -Causleen’s hand seemed in some strange way to guide him. He moved -quickly, like one who knew his way at last, and presently his knees came -hard against a fence of stone. He had not guessed till now that bruised -knees could be a joy. - -“Keep your hand in mine,” he said, “while I feel my way by the wall.” - -It was a weary enterprise, this feeling the way. The wind was a gale -now, and Hardcastle’s hand followed the wall as a blind man’s might, -with slow caution. - -Together they trudged through the thickening snow till Hardcastle’s -numbed fingers touched something that was not stone. He had found the -rough trunk of the oak-tree that stood this side of the foresters’ hut. - -“Wait,” he said, and clambered up the wall. - -In this whiteness that was worse than midnight, he could not see where -to plant his feet. And, as is the way of dry-built walls, the stones -went under him with a roar like the wind’s note overhead. - -“You are hurt?” came Causleen’s voice—tattered to bits by the wind as -she tried to repeat the frightened question. - -One foot was bruised by a coping-stone of the wall. He could attend to -that later on. - -“No,” he said. “I’ve made a gap for you to come through. That is all.” - -He reached out both hands to draw her up the half-fallen wall; and, as -she climbed the opening, the gale drove her full into Hardcastle’s arms. -He held her fast, and so they came, he carrying her, along one side of -the hut, and round the corner of it, and into shelter of its lee-wall. - -Snow lay thick on either hand. Overhead the wind was yelping. But there -was a clear space in front of them, and the relief from battering of the -tempest was instant, as if they had stepped from winter into June. - -“Now you will free me,” said Causleen, with quiet laughter. - -Hardcastle had forgotten that he still held her in his arms. He was -thinking how nearly they had tasted death while they tramped up and down -a pasture known to him from boyhood. If he had not found the wall in -time to guide himself by it, there would have been rejoicing out at -Garsykes; but the Lost Folk had not done with him as yet. - -The door stood half-open. Sometimes the foresters locked it, but oftener -not; and Hardcastle took it for a good omen that it was ajar to-day. -There would be no need to set a shoulder to it and break it inward. -There was a ready welcome for them here. - -So he thought, till he pushed the door wide-open, and was challenged -roughly. As he had battled to win free of tempest, it seemed he would -have to fight for this shelter of the hut. He put Donald’s girl still -further behind him and took a pace or two indoors. - -“Down, you brute,” he said. “Down, I tell you.” - -Then Hardcastle, to his amazement, heard the savage growling cease, and -felt a rough snout pushed into his hand; and presently he came from the -dimness of the hut into the grey gloom of the space that had snow -overhead, and snow to left and right. He held Storm by the collar, -because he knew his ways were sharp with strangers nowadays. - -“We’ve the sheep-stealer safe. What shall we do with him?” he asked with -grim banter. - -Storm strained at his collar—to be at Causleen’s throat, he fancied, -until the girl ran forward, and took the great, rough muzzle into her -hands, and kissed him with frank abandonment. The dog licked her face, -and after that licked Hardcastle’s. And the wind roared overhead; and -here, on the lee side of the hut, was sanctuary for these three. - -“To kiss a dog with his reputation up and down Logie-side,” said -Hardcastle, and laughed. - -Causleen had not known that he could laugh in this easy, heart-free way. -Till now he had seemed austere as destiny—relentless as the driven snow -they sheltered from. - -“It’s not for the first time—is it, Storm?” she said. - -Hardcastle, when they got indoors, knew his way about the hut—knew -where to find the candles, the fuel, the demijohn of rum, hidden snugly -under the slab that fronted the rough fireplace built of stone. A great -blaze of wood and fir-cones was roaring up the chimney soon, and -Causleen thanked him for it. Their journey up the pasture had been short -in time, but long in suffering, and she was sick with cold. - -She almost cried to him to come back when she saw him open the door and -go out, and was glad when he returned. It would have been lonely here -without him. - -Hardcastle had only gone to fill a kettle from the snowdrift, and soon -this was purring on the fire. She loathed the smell of the brew he -offered her by and by—rum piping-hot in one of the foresters’ mugs—and -turned her head away. - -“I do not like it.” - -“Maybe not; but physic’s better than your death of cold.” - -She loathed the taste of it, too, though presently she was glad of -obedience to compulsion. This physic, nauseous enough, had a strange -gift of bringing warmth and well-being. She no longer shivered. The -strain of that rough journey through the tempest was eased and mellowed, -and already half-forgotten. - -The three of them took their fill of ease. The gale out of doors grew -harsher. It raved and screeched, falling back on itself once every while -in whining, baffled spite. And they knew that, outside their four walls, -the snow was driving thick from Pengables out to Logie, burying sheep -and men, making a jest of landmarks. - -Hardcastle and the girl had fought the gale, and won. By no other road -could they have found the joy in listening to its fury while they hugged -the fireglow. But neither guessed what Storm was making of the respite. -Like them, the sheep-stealer had battled through the tempest, and found -refuge here; but for him it was only one of many nights, with danger -lying in wait at every turn. Here he was safe and warm, and in his sleep -he gave little, snoring cries of joy. - -“When did you two grow friendly?” asked Hardcastle, stirring the dog -lazily with one foot. - -“It was the night we came to Logie. They called you into the kitchen, -and while you were away the illness came on father. I could do nothing -for him except watch beside him while he slept.” - -“I remember.” - -“Then I heard a dog’s feet patter down the passage, and afterwards a -lonely sobbing. And I found Storm in the cupboard under the stair, -crying his big heart out. I was lonely, too, and he knew it.” - -“You know much of dogs,” said the Master, with grudging praise. - -“I should like to know more—and less of my own kind.” - -“You’re young, to be so hard.” - -A faint smile crossed her face. “And you?” - -“Oh, I’m old as the hills. A man needs to be hard, or what’s the use of -him?” - -As he turned to pile fresh logs on the fire, a lull came in the tempest, -and Storm lifted his head sharply from his lazy, stretched-out paws. -Some sound had stolen from the snow outside that only he could hear. He -got up, whining and growling by turns as he laid his nose to a crack in -the door. Then he yapped, and after that he howled; and Hardcastle, who -had thought of opening the door to learn who came, thought better of it. -He knew what the wolf-cry meant. - -“Shame on you, lad,” he said. - -The fire went out of Storm. His tail drooped. He cringed about this new -master of his choice; and, when no blow came, he settled himself by the -hearth again and slept. But now he had muddled dreams for company. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - - THE NIGHT WATCH - -As the hours passed, the tempest gained in speed. Stout-built as it was, -the foresters’ hut shook with the gale’s mishandling, and the din out of -doors was as full of cries as if every warlock and hellhound had been -loosed from Langstrothdale to Logie. - -Causleen and Hardcastle sat on the rough benches built on each side of -the hut. They faced each other across the fireglow, and between them -Storm slept on, making the most of luxury. - -“It would be fierce, but could not last at this time of the year,” said -Causleen, with grave, accusing anger. “You promised that.” - -“And could not keep the promise. I’m only the last fool who thought -himself a prophet where Logie weather was concerned.” - -“If the snow has stopped—go see if the snow has stopped—I should not -care for the wind, however hard it blew. We could get up to Logie -somehow.” - -Her eyes were bright—too bright, to Hardcastle’s thinking—and she -seemed to have some stubborn feud with him. - -“How can we, through the drifts? Be glad we’re sheltered here.” - -“Are you a man at all? I bade you go and see if we could get to Logie.” - -To humour her, he went out and looked about him. There was a clear space -still in front of the sheltered doorway, and little stir of wind. The -hut lay in a little harbour of its own, secure; but a little space away -the gale ravened through the snow as Storm at his reddest had never -harried the grey ewes. - -“The snow thickens,” he said, coming in again. - -“Then there is nothing we can do to get to Logie?” - -“Not yet.” - -Quarrel showed in her eyes again. “A beggar-maid’s honour is of no -account. It would not be, to you.” - -He looked at her with puzzled question. To him, this was an adventure -thrust on him by the tricky weather, and he would be glad to see the end -of it. - -“Your honour?” - -“You are so dull, you men of Logie. It’s not you I doubt. I trust -you—dear God, as I’d trust an oak-tree, or a stone. But they will -say——” - -She faltered, ashamed of her thought, dismayed by their imprisonment, -bitterly resentful. - -“_They say_,” snapped Hardcastle, “is the biggest fool in the Dale. -He’ll not hurt us much.” - -“You will not understand. Why did you bring me here?” - -“Why? Would you rather be lying in the pasture?” - -She was angered afresh by the knowledge that she owed her life to him, -by the tolerant wonder in his face, as if he had a child’s absurdities -to answer. - -“Yes. I would rather be lying there.” - -She faced him with frank enmity, and was silent for awhile. - -“Have your Logie Women no nice sense of honour?” she went on. “Are they -not taught that the least breath on it is worse than death?” - -“They are,” said the Master, stung into defence of his own—“and with it -they’re taught common-sense. Logie thinks none the worse of two folk -because a blizzard keeps them safe indoors.” - -“If you had been a Hielandman, and I’d said to him half of what I’ve -said to you——” - -“Well?” - -“He’d have been fighting the drifts outside by now.” - -The challenge was direct—out-facing if he did not take it up—and -Hardcastle glanced at Storm, asleep still between them. The dog would be -a sure guardian for her, if he failed. It was likely he would fail; but -there was just a chance that he could win through to some other shelter. - -He searched in the chest at the far side of the hut, where the woodmen -kept their axes and sundry tools, and found a shovel. Then without a -word he went out, closing the door behind him, and paused a moment to -frame a plan before he left the narrow belt of shelter. - -The trees, instead of giving protection to the ground below, were -gathering even deeper drifts than the naked pastures. In such a storm as -this, their branches—full leaved almost as in summer—trapped the snow -and held it till some fiercer wind-blast sent it scattering down. There -was no chance on that side; but there was hope if he could work round to -the wall that made one side of the hut. Once he reached that, its whole -length would give him the same narrow strip of freedom from wind and -snow that the hut was giving him now. Afterwards he might travel, on the -lee side of this and other walls, until he reached some barn or other. - -Whether the plan failed or carried, he told himself grimly, Causleen’s -good-repute would go white as the swirling storm. She would be found -with a grizzled sheep-stealer for guardian, not with him; and maybe her -restless pride would be content. - -Out of his disdain for women—out of the slur she had put on all but -Highland men—endurance came to him. Between himself and the wall he -sought, a great bulk of snow lay at the corner of the hut, and he drove -at it with his shovel. For the honour of Logie Men he must get through -it, and give the pedlar’s chit her answer. - -The drift could not be more than a few yards thick, he knew, and he -worked hopefully in a lull of the wind. Suddenly, from the white mass in -front, came faint voices raised in protest, and he remembered what Storm -had heard not long since. There were over-blown sheep in the drift -here—part, maybe, of the flock that Storm had hunted yesterday—and -work had a double zest. - -The gale had given him respite in mockery. It swooped on him afresh with -a whistling screech, so that he could scarcely stand to ply his shovel. -Drenched from within by sweat, the snow fell icy on him from the -branches overhead—fell on the track he was carving, foot by foot, -towards the drifted ewes, and half undid his labour. - -Still he toiled, though passionate desire for sleep had joined the -company of his enemies. There seemed no heaven but one, here or -hereafter—a bed in this snow he strove to master. - -Causleen, after she had watched him go, felt the same loneliness, the -same longing to call him back, as when—years ago, it seemed—he had -gone to get a kettleful of snow. She was filled with a great unrest, a -wonder that she had chosen to drive him out. What had he done, except -give her a roof there at Logie, and here in this warm hut? - -Storm was uneasy, too. He got up and flicked a flea or two away from a -hide that had known fouler quarters than the hut, and whined about the -door. Then he glanced back at her. - -She went to the door and opened it. As Hardcastle had done, she halted, -watching the snow, listening to the gale that ceased for a moment and -let a man’s voice through—a harsh, fighting voice. While she stood, -reluctant to plunge into the white hurricane, Storm showed the way to -her. Already snow had drifted over the lane Hardcastle had carved; and -they found him at the corner of the hut, battling forward for the last -yard that would take him to the lee-wall’s shelter. - -Again the wind lulled, and Causleen was aghast to hear the deep, -stubborn curses of this man she had sent out to battle. In simple -earnest he was fighting the snow-sleep; but in fancy it was Garsykes and -its devilry he fought. As he made forward, inch by inch, he cursed Nita -Langrish, rained blows again on the three gaunt men who had met him at -the pinfold; and Causleen could not remember afterwards how she and -Storm got him safely back at last to the hut’s shelter. - -They got him back, and for a while he lay in a dazed sleep, past this -world’s ken. Then little by little he forced himself—by sheer will to -fight on, it seemed—into wakefulness. He glanced at Causleen—at the -fire she had replenished—at grey, old Storm, nosing his knee in quiet -distress. - -“How nightmare plays the devil with a man,” he laughed. “I fancied I was -shovelling snow.” - -He dozed again, and Causleen watched beside him. She had taunted him; -but it seemed there was one man at least in Logie-side. And he might -have died while going her errand. - -The night wore on. Storm was asleep, too, but she sat wakeful, and -listened to the dying tempest. The window of the hut was not blurred by -snowflakes now. The wind no longer roared in glee; it wailed and sobbed, -like a child left out in the dark. Strange noises sounded out of -doors—soft, thick splashings that she knew by and by for melting snow -shed by the forest trees—and across the window-space a keen, sharp -radiance stole. - -Dawn must be here, she thought. Yet anger against him, her fear of -gossip, showed unworthy. She was here with the realities of the big, -open lands, and she smiled, recalling Hardcastle’s rough “_They say_ is -the biggest fool in the Dale.” - -She turned to the window again, glad of the moonlight that meant the end -of tempest; and, as she sat there, her whole body suddenly grew tense -and her eyes wide with terror. She could not cry to Hardcastle for help. -Tongue and limbs seemed chained. - -Framed by the moonlight, a white, big face looked in at her—a face -packed with evil—and then was gone. Hardcastle heard nothing, nor did -Storm; but Causleen listened to the slushing scrunch of feet going over -melted snow. - -That sound ceased, and the door was opened warily till it stood open to -the moonlight and the fireglow. And still Causleen could not stir, or -cry a warning; and Storm snored on. - -It was Hardcastle who woke. With a bound he was up. Murgatroyd, dazed -for a moment by the unexpected greeting, turned just in time, and ran, -and clashed the door behind him. - -Hardcastle followed, Storm silent as he raced behind the Master. The two -of them went forward, over slush of the melting snow, under the scudding -Hunter’s Moon; but Long Murgatroyd was part of the snowy wilderness by -now, lost beyond the night’s finding. - -They came back unwillingly, and to Causleen it seemed that Hardcastle -had never shown his true self till now. Smeared with sweat and -weariness, limping on the foot bruised by the coping-stone, his eyes -were bright as a lad’s. - -“We can get to Logie now,” he said—“and it’s time we went, after losing -Long Murgatroyd. He may be dodging out to Garsykes, to bring the -Wilderness on us.” - -Full moonlight shone on the fast melting snow as they went out. A warm -breeze stole against their faces. Winter’s journey to the Dale had been -hurried, alike in coming and going, as if she feared her welcome. - -At the corner of the hut, where the drift had been, there was no more -than a slender bank of snow, with rivulets playing down its sides. A -shovel lay in front of it, and for the first time Hardcastle recalled, -with a sudden rush of memory, how he had struggled here in a wind that -bit to the bone. - -Storm’s nose was buried already in the slush. He scented the oily reek -that spoke of hunting-days, past and to come; and when he drew his head -back and glanced up at the Master, there was wistfulness in his brown -eyes. - -“Gone away,” laughed Hardcastle. “You’d best come up to Logie, out of -Brant’s reach.” - - - - - CHAPTER X - - - THE WEAVER OF BASKETS - - I - -Before the storm broke that drove Causleen and Hardcastle into shelter -of the foresters’ hut, Long Murgatroyd had been poaching up the moor. He -knew all about the uses of a wire looped at both ends and set across the -tracks the grouse took to their drinking-places; and he laughed as he -gathered his spoils together and turned for home. - -“They’re Hardcastle’s birds,” he chuckled, “and they’ll taste sweeter in -the pot for that.” - -He had got half down the moor when the first of the tempest struck him, -and he ran for the lower country as fast as his great legs would take -him. He reached the first pasture only to be blinded by the swirl of -snow, so that he had to creep forward, feeling his way. His hands -touched stone at last, and he worked his way round to the lee side of a -bield-wall, built two-sided to shelter ewes from the north wind and the -bitter east. In the angle of this he dozed and shivered through the -storm; and afterwards, when the moon shone out on thawing snow, he -picked and slushed his way downhill to Garsykes. - -His way lay past the foresters’ hut, and as he went by he halted, -astonished to see its window shining crimson out across the snow. -Peering in, he saw Causleen there beside the hearth, and no one else. -Drenched to the skin, hungry and shivering, Long Murgatroyd laughed—as -he had laughed when he snared Hardcastle’s birds on the moor. There was -shelter here, and a log-fire, and a lass to share the warmth with him—a -bonny lass, and a prime favourite up at Logie these last days, if all -folk said was true. - -He opened the door, to find Hardcastle rise in menace, to see Storm -bristling at him in rage that seemed gigantic. He banged the door home -and fled. By instinct of the hunted he knew they would catch him in this -hindering broth of snow and water. So he doubled back into the wood. The -snow made silence under his feet. The black firs hid him from the moon. -He was lost utterly to Hardcastle and Storm. - -Murgatroyd watched the moon pale in the dawning sky, and the sun leap -ruddy to the top of old Pengables Hill, before he came in sight of -Garsykes. It was a tedious way for one spent with fright and hunger, and -he lumbered down into the hollow, and looked about him at the closed -doors of the village—especially at the inn-sign, “The Poacher’s Rest,” -that swayed cracked and dirty in the breeze. - -He went in at last, and a flaunting, big-breasted woman answered his -call. - -“Oh, ye, Long Murgatroyd!” she said, her arms akimbo. “What d’ye want?” - -“A dollop of rum, and summat to eat.” - -Widow Mathison pointed to a row of figures on the door. “Nay, you’ll -ruin me. I’m for ever chalking up your slate till I’m tired of you and -your debts.” - -Murgatroyd drew out a brace of grouse from some hidden pockets and -slapped them on the table. “Keep ’em awhile, widow, till they’re like to -drop to bits. You relish ’em that way.” - -“Hardcastle’s birds? Ay, they’ll be toothsome.” - -She busied herself now, with entire goodwill, about the fire; and -Murgatroyd looked up by and by from a steaming dish of eggs and bacon. - -“You’d wipe out your chalks against me, widow, if I told you what I saw -in Logie Woods. But, there, I’m not for telling.” - -“What did ye see?” - -“Nay, another noggin o’ rum wouldn’t draw it from me. There was -Hardcastle of Logie in the woodmen’s hut.” - -“Was there?” asked the widow, filling his glass afresh. - -Murgatroyd took a wide gulp at the measure, and drained it. He was cold -and weary. - -“Not if you filled it afresh—and thank you, widow, for it does drive -the wet out o’ one’s bones.” - -“Hardcastle was in the hut,” said the woman. - -“Aye, he was, in front of a cosy fire, and the pedlar’s lass with him, -sitting on his knee. I saw ’em through the window as I went by.” - -Widow Mathison gave a screech of glee. “For a woman-hater, he frames -fairish well.” - -“Fairish well,” agreed Murgatroyd, with a maudlin leer. “There she was, -and there he was. You wouldn’t say aught could alter that—would you, -now? I opened the door, and I listened—and dang me if they weren’t -cooing like a pair o’ cushats. And she a pedlar’s brat. And him with his -mucky pride.” - -The door swung open, and a squat fellow entered, sallow-faced and -touzled. - -“There’s water in plenty hereabouts,” said the widow, after a shrewd -glance at him; “but it seems to run to waste. One man could lead Jake -Bramber to it, but twenty couldn’t make him wash.” - -“I wasn’t thinking of water specially,” growled Jake. - -“You wouldn’t be. It’s the itch i’ your throat that bothers you at this -time o’ day. And there’s your tally, side by side with Murgatroyd’s. I’m -tired of chalking up your owings.” - -“That’s easy mended, widow. Stop chalking ’em.” - -She bridled at his effrontery, but drew him a measure. Then, “Tell him, -Murgatroyd,” she said. - -Long Murgatroyd told him what he had seen in the foresters’ hut, and -with repetition the tale gathered volume, till all the Garsykes swine -had garbage to wallow in for many a day to come. - -“Nita Langrish will laugh herself to bits when she hears this,” said -Jake. - -“I’m not so sure,” broke in the widow. “Nita may fool you men of -Garsykes—_if_ you’re men, which I begin to doubt—but Hardcastle -escaped her. So she wants him. I’ve known her since she toddled, and -that was always her way. Near died o’ crying for the moon, when she was -three years old. It’s always the thing she hasn’t Nita longs for.” - -“That’s true,” snarled Jake. “Awhile since she was making her baskets on -the Brigg. ‘Jake,’ says she, ‘you’ve a way with dogs.’ ‘I have,’ says I. -‘It’s a birth-gift. They like as they love me, same as if I was one o’ -them.’ And then she told me to put hemlock into a ball o’ meat and take -it up to Logie. Hardcastle’s dog would be waiting for him at the gate, -said Nita. So I went, and friendlied Roy. And I was a sick man, I tell -you, coming home. To poison a dog—it doesn’t bide thinking of—but Nita -made me do it.” - -Long Murgatroyd rose suddenly to his big, shammocky height. He was -shaken by a storm of passion. - -“She’s the devil and all among us, with her basket-making and her eyes -on all four sides at once to fool us. I’ve done with Nita.” - -“No,” said the widow. “You’ve never done with such as Nita.” - -And now feet began to patter up and down the cobbled street. Garsykes -Folk were late to wake, for their work lay mainly with night-time tasks -of poaching and robbery. - -The woman beckoned Long Murgatroyd out of doors. He followed her with -unsteady, shambling feet, and soon they had a company of unwashed folk -about them, listening to the widow’s ribald laughter. - -“There’s news from Logie,” she said. “Tell ’em, Murgatroyd, as you told -it Jake.” - -Long Murgatroyd propped himself against the wall, and looked about him -with a clown’s solemnity. - -“It’s about Hardcastle o’ Logie.” - -“Damn him,” snarled a thin, wolfish man. “He goes abroad as if we’d put -no token on him.” - -“Don’t you worry, my lad,” said Murgatroyd. “We’ll know where to find -him nowadays. He’ll not wander far from pedlar’s brat.” - -So then he told them what he believed by now that he had seen in the -foresters’ hut; and such a storm of applause greeted him that he left -the friendly shelter of the wall behind him, and talked at large as he -strutted to and fro across the street. No tale such as this had come to -Garsykes for many a year, and for the moment they half-liked the Master -of Logie, because he was a backslider like themselves. - -When the tale was done, and the folk began to get about their ways, Nita -Langrish came among them. Used as they were to her young beauty, going -among them from day to day, they never ceased to marvel that such as she -had grown out of Garsykes mire. - -Fresh from her morning bath in a pool she knew of up the fells, gowned -in soft grey that clung about her slender body, she stood like a -creature from some other world among the tattered women of the village. - -“Is there news from Logie?” she asked, in her pleasant voice. “They told -me Hardcastle would be up the moor yesterday, so I persuaded one of ours -to take an errand for me.” - -“There’s not what you might call news from Logie,” laughed Widow -Mathison, “but Murgatroyd here has word of Hardcastle.” - -Long Murgatroyd faced her, and old hunger, old dismay found sudden vent. -“He’s out of your reach, Nita,” he snarled. - -“He always was,” said Nita gently, “after I sent him out.” - -“Same as you’ve sent all of us, one by one?” - -“When you tried to come too close.” - -She stood there, soft as this morning that followed a night of grim -tempest—a radiant thing, knowing herself mistress of them all. - -“Well. Hardcastle’s tied to another apron-string. She’s a bonnie lass, -too, as I glimpsed her in the woodmen’s hut. They made a picture, -sitting by the fire as if they’d set up housekeeping together.” - -A wild-rose flush leaped to Nita’s cheeks. “Who was it?” she asked. - -“The pedlar’s lass. He’s chosen dark and trusty this time, as the saying -is. None of your yellow-haired women again for him, says Hardcastle—and -I don’t wonder.” - -Nita took up the challenge. “You saw them in the hut?” - -“Aye. I opened the door to creep in for shelter, and Hardcastle was -there.” - -“And you ran for your life? To be sure, you’d not forget what he did to -you at the pinfold. None of your masters of Logie again for you, if you -can help it—and I don’t wonder.” - -Her mimicry, the quickness of her answer, raised such a storm of -laughter against Murgatroyd that he gave up the contest; but presently -he followed, as she went by the field-track that led to Logie Brigg, and -overtook her. - -“Nita, my lass,” he said, “you’ve got to stay and listen.” - -“Have I?” - -“Aye, like it or no, you have.” - -In his face she saw the baffled hunger that she had brought to many men. -His voice was rough and harsh, but there was pleading in it—a -headstrong pleading that it was her life’s delight to thwart. - -“Well?” - -“It’s this way. I’m sick and tired o’ my days. Naught matters, save -you—you and your devilments.” - -“I’ve baskets to weave. All up and down the Dale they’re asking for -Nita’s baskets. There’s no time to care for men.” - -He put out a savage hand, to draw her to him. She did not seem to spring -aside, yet suddenly she stood far away, putting her smiling spells on -him afresh. - -“Nita,” he said, sombre and hungry-eyed, “I’m not of the fanciful sort; -but summat or somebody is whispering at my ear. One of us two is going -to die of your devilry—and I don’t care a tinker’s damn which it is, so -long as it comes soon.” - -Across Nita’s young vigour, her joy in torturing men for pastime, a -little, cold wind began to play. Long Murgatroyd was sobered. He was in -dead earnest, and his big, uncouth face was lit as with some fire of -prophecy. - -Then her mood passed. “It will be you to die of it, I think,” she said, -and laughed at him as she took her way to Logie. - - II - -Rebecca was busy in her kitchen up at Logie on the afternoon of the -great snowstorm. She was thinking how wise she had been to send Causleen -“just to get a bit of colour into her cheeks” when the sky began to -darken, till she could scarcely have seen to ply her rolling-pin but for -the ruddy hearth-glow. Now and then she turned on the great, brindled -cat curled up inside the fender - -“You’re a grand ’un for bringing bad weather,” she said, “and that’s why -I named you Jonah. You never sit close to the fire but it means a -storm.” - -The cat stretched himself, and licked his handsome fur, and dozed again. -It was odd to him that human folk had so little knowledge of weather. - -“Just Jonah, you—and an idle vagabones at that I’ve a mind to sweep you -out of my kitchen with the thick end of a besom.” - -Jonah heard the threat without disturbance. He knew the way of Rebecca’s -weather, too. - -She went on with her pastry-making. The Master had a big body to be -filled, and a sweet tooth for pastry after he’d had his fill of strong -meats. Men were all alike. Feed ’em and fill ’em, and they’d be lambs -about a house. And Rebecca never guessed why her hand was light at the -work—and the pastry light, by that token. She had never a man to care -for, except Hardcastle of Logie, and it was a joy to wear herself to the -bone for him. - -The wind got up and snarled, as it snarled by the Strith when Hardcastle -and Causleen listened to the vanguard of the storm piping low through -Logie Wood. And then there came the crying of the wild-geese, winging -high above the house. - -Rebecca dropped her rolling-pin, and went out into the wind-gusts and -the greying light. She was at prayer, of her own sort. - -“The Gabble-Rachet always brought me luck,” she said. “It’s that I live -for.” - -Flight after flight went overhead, with ceaseless uproar. Rebecca was no -longer the practical, deft-handed housekeeper at Logie. She was as -Causleen and old Donald had seen her, when the pedlar showed baby-wear -among the litter of his pack, and she went wild. - -She thought of the lad who was to have married her in the far-off time, -of his death because he would pay no toll to Garsykes. The man who -killed him had died while the Gabble-Ratchet screeched overhead. Years -afterwards his son broke his neck to the self-same music. Luck was in -for her, and out for Garsykes, at such times. - -She had crossed the stable-yard and gone into the field beyond, to get -clearer sight of the wild-geese; and when the last of them had hurried -by, she looked about her. There were signs in plenty of the storm to -come. Just as the brindled cat had sought the fender, sheep were -hurrying to cover of the wall. Rooks, feeding tranquilly an hour since -in upland oat-stubble, sped homeward. In the high thorn-edge, -storm-cocks, that love a tilt at harsh weather, cried lustily. - -Rebecca looked far down the field, and saw a speck move up it. The speck -took man’s shape by and by. A scud of snow was following him up the -hill, and by his shammocky stride she was sure he hailed from Garsykes. -This puzzled her. An attack in force on Logie she could have understood, -but it was not like the Wilderness Folk for one of them to come alone -into a hostile country. - -The snow-scud overtook and hid him for awhile. Then again she saw him -plodding up, and she could distinguish now a bulky sack that swayed -about his shoulders. With a grim face, and a grimmer heart, Rebecca -waited. Jonah the cat, hugging the fire indoors, had claws to show in -time of need. So had she. - -The gale was up in earnest, and snow thickened fast about the man who -hurried up the field. Soon he began to blunder this way and that through -the blinding maze, and a sharp, bitter cry rang up-wind. - -“Damn Nita Langrish. She sent me into this.” - -Rebecca laughed with eerie gentleness. The man came from Garsykes, as -she had guessed, and Nita had sent him on an errand. Already he was -hidden by the on-driving wall of snow, and so much for him. The -wild-geese had flighted to-day, and Logie’s luck was in. - -So intent the woman was on nursing vengeance that the storm was on her, -too, before she found a thought for her own safety. Though scarcely -twenty yards from the gate that led into the stable-yard, it took long -to find it; and afterwards, close to her own kitchen, wind and snow -played blind-man’s-buff with her before she found the door, and opened -it, and had to use all her lean, hard strength to close it against the -in-leaping storm. - -Jonah still slept tranquilly inside the fender, dreaming of rats to be -hunted in the stables when good weather came again. Rebecca’s glance -rested on him, lying plump and sleek there, and wrath descended on her. -She snatched a besom up, and gave him the thick end of it with zest, as -she had promised not long since in idle banter. - -“That’s what I give to vagabones,” she said, and thwacked him again. - -Jonah sprang to the top of the big chair beside the hearth, and spat at -her. His fur was stiff, like an angry dog’s, and he swept down a -wild-cat’s paw at her. - -“Getting to be your own man again?” said Rebecca. “Well, it’s time you -did, now the rats creep up from Garsykes.” - -With that she took up her rolling-pin and went on with the pastry-making -as quietly as if nothing had disturbed the work; but her thoughts were -with the man she had watched creeping up the field. A glance at the -window showed panes crusting ever thicker as the snow drove at them, and -a hard smile played about her lips. - -The brindled cat eyed her with wrath that cooled by slow degrees. He -washed himself all over, as if to clear away the besom’s touch, and -stood on the chair-top in sullen dignity. Then suddenly he jumped to the -floor and up to Rebecca’s shoulder at a bound. They could never quarrel -for long, these two. - -“At your cantrips again,” said Rebecca calmly, “as if you were -kitten-high—and resting all your great, idle weight on a woman that -won’t put up with such-like nonsense.” - -The cat stayed where he was, and presently Rebecca began to talk to him. - -“There’s a Garsykes Man out yonder, Jonah. It must be cold lying. He’ll -never taste kitchen-warmth again, or the crisp of an apple-pasty.” - -Jonah purred against her withered cheek, and watched the rolling-pin go -up and down. - -“I can see him now as he came up the pasture. The snow overtook him, and -he wambled like a drunken man, and dropped. There’ll be his burial-mound -above him—a biggish mound by this time. So there’s another of the foul -brood gone.” - -From within-doors—loud as the wind was screaming at the -windows—Rebecca heard a fretful cry steal down the passage. - -“It’s the pedlar,” she grumbled. “Good sakes. I’d forgotten he was all -on his lonesome—his legs forsaking him, and all.” - -Donald was striving pitifully to rise when she reached the long-settle. -“Where’s Causleen?” he pleaded. “I feel an old, old man, buried out of -sight, when she’s not near.” - -Rebecca wondered, too, where Causleen was. The Master was out in the -storm, but he knew every barn and bield-wall of his country, and would -find shelter somehow. Causleen was a stranger. It might be that she had -met the same white death that the Garsykes Man had found. And she had -sent her out. - -“She’ll be here by and by,” she said, pity stirring at her gnarled old -heart. - -Donald’s glance wandered to the pike that had gone to Flodden Field and -back, and again he tried to rise. “There was so much I had to tell her. -You’re kind, and bid us stay at Logie—but there’s rust of Jaimie the -King’s blood up there. I cannot eat or sleep within the house. Causleen -knows I cannot—and she will not come.” - -“Now I’m tucking the blankets round you,” said Rebecca, her hands deft -and gentle, “and I’m telling you to get to sleep, or give me a reason t’ -other way.” - -Donald yielded to the warmth and rest; and in his dozing his heart -leaped into his lips, and he told in few, poignant words what the years -behind had meant to him. - -“The long, grey roads—the footsore roads—selling Pedlar’s Balsam to -other folk—it’s a weary life. There’s no time for the pedlar to balsam -his own feet.” - -And so they watched beside him through the night, Rebecca and the -brindled cat. From time to time the woman crossed to the window, to see -if there were any sign of the storm’s abating. There was none, and her -fears for Causleen increased. Yet she could do nothing, and fell asleep -at last in the chair drawn up beside the settle. - -The day was up when she awoke. A glance at Donald showed him lying in -childlike slumber, with Jonah curled up on the blankets; and Rebecca -went out into the sunlight, scanning the lower slopes in search of the -Master or Causleen. They did not come, though the thaw had opened out -wide tracks of green between the drifts. - -In her long time at Logie, Rebecca had never known a tempest so quick to -come and go. A wind swift and bitter from the east had driven her -indoors last night. Now a warm, playful breeze played against her face. -The gold and crimson glory of the autumn woods reared itself above great -scuds of snow that melted almost as they fell. And everywhere there was -the cry of waters, big and little; for every dingle of the pastures was -a running beck, and all the glens were rivers, bank-top high with -snow-broth. - -Rebecca heard the rooks come clamouring to their sycamores and ancient -nests—heard a throstle pipe a stave or two, as if he scented spring -after this wild October night—and knew then that the storm would not -return for many days. Rooks and the thrushes were old in weather-lore. - -Still the Master did not come, nor Causleen, and Rebecca wondered if the -Gabble-Ratchet had brought luck to Logie, after all. The pedlar’s girl -meant little to her, but if Hardcastle was dead—if never again she -would sew buttons on for him, or cook his meals, or bear with his gusty -temper—it was near her time to be done with this world and its -foolishness. - -Rebecca glanced downhill again, and when still no sign of life showed -between the brimming waters, her thoughts turned to the man from -Garsykes who had been overtaken by the storm last night. She crossed the -stable-yard and went down the field on the far side of it till she -reached a pile of melting snow. Out of the mound showed a man’s two -hands, limp and glistening-wet. - -No spark of pity or horror touched Rebecca. With fierce, exultant -patience she watched the snow-shroud crumble, till now his arms showed -to the sunlight, then his lean neck with the mouldy kerchief tied about -it. - -Sun and south wind between them were busy with the melting, and -presently the man’s face showed. It had been a coarse face, lined with -slyness; but snow and death had washed it, and it carried a strange look -of peace. - -The sack he had carried lay beside him. She opened it, and knew at last -the object of his journey. It was filled with pine-logs, twigs and -resin. These and the tinder-box in his pocket were enough to set Logie -flaming from end to end of its grey gables. - -The dead man could tell her nothing now; but he had told all yesterday -when, baffled by the storm, he cursed Nita Langrish for bringing him -into this. Rebecca pieced the tale together with shrewd vision. There -was none from this to Langstrothdale who garnered news like Nita the -basket-weaver. Men passed her as she sat on the bridge-wall, her fingers -slender almost as the withies she plaited. They stayed for gossip with a -maid known through the Dale to be a maddener of men, and she ’ticed -their news from them. - -Nita had learned, no doubt, that the Master was from home, and had sent -up this poor, dead fool to fire the house. Rebecca stirred the body with -her foot, in grudging pity. Then the peace in his face—the still -unalterable peace—brought wrath and brimstone round her once again. - -“You’ve found too soft an end,” she grumbled—“too soft by half, my -lad.” - -She was still standing there, the feud raw at her heart, when Causleen -and the Master came up together from their vigil in the foresters’ hut. - -“You’re safe, then, the pair of you,” she said. “I was fearing for the -pedlar’s girl. She’s not used to our rough country.” - -Causleen was ashamed of her own shame, as she heard Hardcastle tell how -he had met her just in time—heard Rebecca’s blunt thankfulness that -they had found a hut to spend the night in, safe from the worst blizzard -ever known on Logie-side. Why had her pride taken fire because -Hardcastle had saved her life? Why had she stooped to think of gossip -and dishonour, when these two saw the past night as a fight against -weather—a fight won by Logie? - -Then Causleen saw the muddled heap that yesterday had been a man—saw -the wet face and hands, the pitiful, threadbare clothes. - -“What is it?” she asked. - -“One from Garsykes that’s dead,” said Rebecca tranquilly. - -“Poor pedlar. What does he carry in that big pack of his?” - -“Enough to burn Logie down from roof to cellar. But he’s dead. And the -Master’s quick. It’s Logie’s turn this time.” - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - - VENOM - -Nita Langrish, later in the day of Hardcastle’s home-coming with the -pedlar’s girl, took her way up to Logie between the melting drifts. -Straight and slim she went, and an old tinker who met her on the road -stood and gaped at her. - -“Begosh, I wish I was younger,” he chuckled. “I’d go a-courting.” - -Nita laughed at him, as if her heart were light as his, and turned -once—in vanity—to be sure that he was watching her go down the hill. -Then she thought of Hardcastle, of what she had heard just now in -Garsykes; and an evil mood got into her blood. - -She came to Logie Brigg and looked down at Wharfe River, swirling in -high flood between the slender arches. Half-frozen packs of snow were -riding here and there above the peat-brown waves. Under her feet the -fierce waters roared and sang their Viking call of kill and spare not. - -It was all in tune with her heart, as she climbed the steep rise to -Logie. The trees were so thick about the house that she could not see -yet whether its walls gaped wide and blackened. The man she had sent to -fire it had not returned with news. He had perished in the storm -likely—after he’d done his work, she hoped. - -When she topped the rise, and came to Logie’s gate, blue wood-smoke was -curling up from peaceful chimneys, and Rebecca stood there talking with -Brant the shepherd. - -“There’s a friend of yours in the Long Pasture yonder.” Rebecca’s voice -was grimly bantering. “The snow has cleaned his face for him, but I’d -have known he came from Garsykes all the same. It couldn’t take the -rabbity smell o’ the man away.” - -Again a little wind of dread stirred at Nita’s heart, as it had chilled -her when Long Murgatroyd had spoken of death for one or other of them. - -“What friend of mine should be in any Logie field?” she asked. - -“Aye, deny your own. It’s like you, Nita. Won’t you go and have a look -at the man?” - -“Why should I go?” - -“He’s not much to look at, I own—but he died running an errand of -yours. He sent a queer sort of cry up when the snow took him—cursed -Nita Langrish for sending him to Logie—so that you must have heard it -out to Garsykes, I’d have fancied.” - -Nita faced her ancient adversary with cool devilry. - -“I’m sorry he died before he fired Logie. He was always a fool, and -clumsy.” - -“You dare own to it?” snapped Rebecca. - -The girl was uncanny in her self-assurance, her eager beauty. “Yes,” she -said. “What has Nita the basket-weaver to fear, when all the men go daft -about her?” - -Rebecca reached a lean hand out across the gate—swift as Jonah the cat -might have flicked a paw—but Nita was too quick for her. She drew back -from all life’s onsets, with soft, elusive speed. - -“All the men but one,” laughed Nita, from the middle of the roadway. - -“Aye, all but the Master. You’ll never fool him twice.” - -“The pedlar’s brat is doing that for me. Have they come home, the pair -of them?” - -“They have, thanks be.” - -“_Thanks be?_” - -Rebecca answered the girl’s scorn with tart assurance. “Why, yes. I sent -that bairn of the pedlar’s out to get a breath o’ fresh air—the dear -knows she needed it—and it would have lain on my conscience if she’d -foundered in the snow. The Master happened on her, luckily.” - -“Garsykes has learned as much. From all we hear, they made themselves -snug enough for the night—blessed the snow for coming, I fancy.” - -“The devil knotted thy whipcord of a tongue, Nita, but its lash doesn’t -hurt us Logie Folk. We keep clean houses hereabout—and cleanish minds. -What else was to be done, save shelter from such an audacious storm?” - -“Well, they sheltered to some purpose. Murgatroyd saw them sitting by -the hearth—she on his knee.” - -“I’ve known Murgatroyd all his life,” broke in Rebecca, “and all his -life he never spoke a true word unless he fell into it by accident. Get -ye back to Garsykes, and feed your pigs on such-like trash.” - -Shepherd Brant had been tugging at his beard, wroth kindling slowly till -its fire was bright and steady. - -“There’s another man o’ Logie doesn’t heed your snares, Nita.” - -“You’re old, shepherd. I’d mistake you for a grey rock if I didn’t see -you move from time to time. Have you shot Storm the sheep-slayer yet?” - -“Not yet. When I do, it’s a sign that Garsykes ends.” - -Then once again some little breeze of fear played about Nita, but she -would not heed it. - -“A gypsy woman came to our village, Brant, not so long since. She had -the Sight.” - -“Oh, aye,” growled the shepherd. - -“She told us of Hardcastle and his fight against Garsykes.” - -“Gleaned that sort o’ news from any man or child about the country-side. -I’m acquainted with all the tricks of Romany—especially -sheep-stealing.” - -“She said an ancient shepherd was seeking a dog named Storm, to kill -him.” - -“It’s true.” - -“That the shepherd would do his best to ruin Logie, by killing Logie’s -luck.” - -“She lied, like all the Romaneys.” - -“I tell you what she told me, shepherd,” said Nita, her grey eyes quiet -and candid. “And I told the gypsy woman that Garsykes would see to -Logie’s ruin.” - -She turned to go down the road again and halted with fearless insolence. - -“When I’m selling my baskets up dale and down—how they’ll laugh at the -tale of how they shared the hut together—Hardcastle and she.” - -With that she went her way, singing the little eerie ballad she had sung -to Widow Mathison’s boy when Hardcastle met her in the road not long -ago. - - _Now grow you big, and grow you tall,_ - _Lad o’ the Wilderness,_ - _You’ll give the Logie Folk a call,_ - _When nights are dark and drear and all,_ - _Lad o’ the Wilderness._ - -Rebecca watched her go, and all her strength to endure grew tough and -sinewy. They were few and lonely, here at Logie, now the feud was up; -and Nita Langrish was a dismaying power about the land, with her beauty -that put men in leading strings. - -“That’s meant for Logie’s funeral song,” she muttered, as they watched -the retreating figure. “Well, shepherd, we’re neither killed nor buried -yet.” - -Nita, half down the steep bend of the road that led to Logie Brigg, saw -Causleen come through the wicket-gate and out into the highway. - -“Looking for the Master?” she asked gently. - -Causleen knew little of the basket-weaver, except that she was an old -love of Hardcastle’s, and read no guile in the question, in the -innocent, soft eyes. - -“Yes. He has ridden for the doctor. My father is—is worse.” - -“It’s as well, maybe.” Nita’s jealousy noted the quiver in the other’s -voice, but did not spare her sorrow. “He may never need hear about the -woodmen’s hut.” - -Causleen stood very still for a moment, looking at Nita Langrish. The -blow was so sudden, the pain of it so like a knife-thrust driven home, -that she was dizzy and bewildered. Then the quick, Highland fire leaped -to her face, showing a wild beauty that angered Nita all afresh. - -“He knows and understands,” she said—“_as you could not_.” - -All that was said and left unsaid in those few words stung Nita like a -lash. This peddling castaway could hold her own, and more than her own. - -“Maybe not. But I can set the whole Dale rocking with the tale Long -Murgatroyd brought home.” - -With that she laughed in Causleen’s face and went her way. Half down the -road, where it wound sheer and stark to Logie Brigg, she met Hardcastle, -urging a hard-driven horse. - -“Your light o’ love is waiting for you,” she said, curtseying in sheer -mockery. - -“One in a lifetime is enough for me, Nita,” he answered grimly, and rode -on. He and his horse had travelled many a hilly mile in pursuit of a -hard-worked doctor, and had not found him; and he was sorry, because -Causleen was tired enough already, after last night’s storm, without -this added trouble of the father who was near to death. - -He came in sight of the wicket-gate, and slipped from saddle, and let -his horse find its own way to stable. Causleen was at the gate, her back -turned to the roadway, and Hardcastle was afraid, somehow, to listen to -the girl’s wild sobbing. It startled and unmanned him. He longed to get -away, yet could not leave her in this plight. - -“I’ve done my best to find the doctor,” he said, putting a kindly hand -on her shoulder, “but he’s away up Amerdale. Is Donald worse?” - -She drew away, as if his touch scorched her. “He is better—just for -awhile—and I ran out to see if you had brought the doctor. And a woman -came instead—so pretty, and with so foul a tongue.” - -Hardcastle remembered Nita’s mocking curtsey—recalled Long Murgatroyd’s -intrusion into the foresters’ hut last night—and the riddle of it all -grew plain. Nita’s tongue had been busy with the pedlar’s girl and he -knew what it could do even to rough men. Something stirred at his -heart—the heart frozen long since, so that it had forgotten how to -suffer, joy or grief. - -“Nobody cares what Nita says. She says, and goes on saying—and folk -laugh.” - -“Yes. Folk often laugh, when they should cry instead. It is not your -fault that we had to shelter from the storm—yet how I loathe you for -it, Hardcastle of Logie.” - -She was on fire with pride, with contempt of Nita Langrish and her power -to wound. And, dimly as yet, Hardcastle understood her passion. “What -else was there to do but shelter?” - -“Nothing; but that does not help us. It was not your fault that we came -to your gate, father and I, and became your pensioners.” - -“My guests,” said Hardcastle, with gruff kindliness. - -“Threadbare guests, forced on you. And what can I do, with father as he -is?” - -“Stay on.” - -Causleen remembered Nita’s words, her laughter as she went down the -road; and the poison festered, as if a snake had bitten her. How could -she stay on, with all the country-side passing Nita’s gossip to and fro? -How could she leave, while her father lay between life and death, -babbling of far Inverness and pipes that skirled about the moorland -glens? - -“I thank and loathe you,” she said, and left him there—muddled, not for -the first time in his life, by the ways of a maid with a man. - -Hardcastle watched her till she was hidden by a shower of red, -fast-falling leaves. He was impatient of some feeling that the girl had -roused, some stirring at the heart he had hardened against intrusion. -The Wilderness had put a slight on her, as it had striven to slight -Logie. She was going in fear of the open, as he went sometimes where -there was nothing doing and he had leisure to remember how strong and -merciless was the hornets’ nest he had roused at Garsykes. - -Then suddenly he understood the bond between them. She was proud and -weary. So was he. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - - THE SHEEP-SLAYER - - I - -For a week the days went at Logie as if Garsykes had no feud with it. -That was the way of the Wilderness Folk, and the nameless dreads that -came at such waiting times began to patter up and down the house. Storm, -after staying for a night and a day, had heard the wolf-call once again, -and was gone. The Master rode much abroad, and would tire two horses out -between dawn and gloaming. That was his way of stifling suspense. -Rebecca’s was to quarrel with the brindled cat who was her shadow and -familiar. - -Donald was neither better nor worse, though both by turns; and Causleen, -whenever she met Hardcastle, baffled him by her chill aloofness. It -seemed to him that she would rather have died in the snow than owe her -life to him. - -Near the end of the week, Brant the shepherd came at nightfall, and -knocked at the kitchen door, and came stamping in, a gun under his arm -and quiet good humour in his face. - -“Draw me a mug of ale, Rebecca,” he said, “for I’ve earned it.” - -“Aye, all men fancy that, at any hour o’ day or night. What have you -done, Stephen?” - -“I’ve shot Storm at last. A son of Belial, I call him, and he skulked to -the last—got away into the brackens, but his hind legs were trailing. -I’d like to have found his carcase.” - -Something hidden in Rebecca leaped into fury: Storm was dear to her, as -to Hardcastle, whatever his backslidings. Jonah and he had been comrades -in old days, the cat sitting on his back and playing pranks with him. -She had fed him by stealth, when the Master brought him home to the -cupboard under the stair, had rated him for the life he was leading -these days—finishing with a “there, you can’t help it, like, and get -sleep and victuals while you can.” - -“There’s no ale for you to-night, Stephen,” she said, gaunt and -truculent. - -“And why, if I might ask?” - -“Because you come boasting you’ve shot the dog that saved you all at -Garsykes. There were few of Logie’s Men, and many of theirs; and he -scattered them for you, to some purpose.” - -“But, woman, he kills sheep.” - -“And saves men, it seems. The Master mightn’t be here—or you either—if -it hadn’t been for Storm.” - -The shepherd was nonplussed for a moment. “That’s true enough,” he -muttered, plucking at his thin, wiry beard. “They were in a mind to kill -us that day, with their women egging them on.” - -“Yet you come here, snug as a toad in its hole, and tell me you’ve -killed Storm. A queer way of showing thankfulness for what life there’s -left in your old bones.” - -“You don’t understand. You never could, not being a shepherd.” - -“Without a heart in his body.” - -“With a heart for ravished ewes. There’s a law among us, fixed as old -Pengables. A dog turned wolf is hunted till he’s shot.” - -“Well, there’s a law in my kitchen, too. No ale for the man that -murdered Storm. I was talking to Jonah here about the uses of a besom -when you stepped in—but I’m minded to thwack you instead.” - -“I’m fairish dry, Rebecca,” said the shepherd, with sudden wistfulness. - -“I hope as much. The drier you get, the better I’ll like it.” - -They stood at bay, regarding each other with dour enmity, till Rebecca -thought of Hardcastle, riding home from Norbrigg market and late to -come. - -“The Garsykes sort lie quiet,” she said, “and it’s getting hard to bear. -I wish the Master would listen to sense, and not go taking his journeys -as if naught had happened at the pinfold.” - -“He’s made that way. An earthquake wouldn’t alter him.” - -“Obstinate, like his father before him.” - -“A rare plucked ’un, like his father. After all, if he’s got to be -killed, he’s wise to seek it in the open. When my time comes, says I, -give me God’s sky to turn my toes to, and curlews singing me to sleep.” - -“Now that’s all nonsense, Brant. You live too lonely on the heights -yonder, and your fancies breed like maggots. When my time comes, give me -a cosy hearth and the taste of a treacle-posset in my throat. That’s how -I’d say my last good-bye to Logie. And here we stand chattering, while -the Master lies murdered, like Storm, somewhere ’twixt here and -Norbrigg.” - -“Nay, now, you’re running to meet trouble before it comes. And as for -Storm, he wasn’t murdered, I’d have you know. Justice was what he got, -and if I’d my way, they’d tar such-like and hang ’em in chains at the -cross-roads, same as human footpads.” - -“Oh, hold your whisht, Stephen. Cannot you see that I’m sick with -wondering why the Master’s late?” - -“So will the pedlar’s girl be, if all they say be true.” - -“When all they say is true, all the geese in the world will be dead—not -one of ’em left to cackle. I was out in that blizzard, and ran fairish -quick for shelter.” - -“So did I, and was near over-blown at that.” - -“And so did Master and Donald’s girl. They were prisoned for the night; -but it’s only Garsykes way they think worse of them for that.” - -Brant fidgetted about the kitchen, warming himself at the fire one -moment, then going to the door as if he listened for some cry of trouble -out of doors. “I’m not easy in mind myself,” he said at last. “Maybe -I’ll step out Norbrigg way and see what’s happening to him. This gun of -mine may come in useful.” - -“That’s the man I thought you,” snapped Rebecca. “Bide till you’ve had a -pull at the ale, then get your best foot forward.” - -Hardcastle himself, an hour before, had ridden up from Norbrigg through -the dusk that showed no more than a glimpse of the track ahead. It was -only when he came through Weathersett village, perched high on top of -the rise, that he rode into keen frosty moonlight. His glance roved over -the broken lands, the grey roads that wound across them. The waiting -time at Logie, for what Garsykes spite could do to him, seemed far-off. -He was not between house-walls now, but in the open. - -Tang of the frosty wind, smell of the uplands, got into his blood. He -plucked his horse to a canter, then checked him as they went by the -pinfold where he had answered three men’s call for tribute. Again he -looked out across the moonlit wastes, and down at the hollow where -Garsykes village lurked. If the Lost Folk needed him, he was here, and -glad of any onset after the quiet of these last days. - -No onset came. The moonlight showed him only a grey-blue land of -sleeping pastures, a glint of white where snow-drifts, still unmelted, -hugged the walls. He felt thwarted of his due, somehow, and it seemed -hard to get safe home again and wait for whatever devilry Garsykes had -in mind. Then his mind yielded to the night’s persuasion as his horse -trotted forward soberly between the heather and the pines. - -Moist, wayward spurts of wind rustled the fallen leaves. The undergrowth -was stealthy with the feet of things that fled, of bigger things that -hunted. A night-jar cried harshly in the thickest of the wood. From the -slopes beyond came the rough call of a buck to his mate, telling her to -get behind him while he met some peril threatening both. - -The streams had their own eerie music, too. Fed by swift-melting snow, -they sobbed and crooned and wailed as they raced to Wharfe River far -below. And the wind would not be still. - -Hardcastle rode through the haunted land with a song at his heart, such -as nothing brought to him these days except night-time on the Logie -roads. They said he would never marry, and he knew they said it. They -lied, as usual, for he had wived these grim and tender lands handed down -to him by generations whose voices lived about the house of Logie. - -The dusk of the forest kept him company till he rode into the open, and -saw the free, spacious road wind up to Logie under the scudding -moonlight. It was good to be alive, with such a heritage. - -Then suddenly his horse blundered. Before he had time to try to break -his fall, he was thrown across the road and into the dark hollow -bordering the wood. One half of him lay soft and wet; the other jarred -on something lean and bony—something that rapped out stifled curses, -and turned under him with writhing fury, and strove to get a grip about -his throat. - -They fought together in the hollow, he and his unseen adversary, till -their hands grew slippery with mud and it was hard to get any sort of -hold. - -“From Garsykes, you?” gasped Hardcastle, feeling for the grip that -should settle all. “Swine love the ditches.” - -No answer came. His enemy was striving, too, for the strangle-hold that -constantly eluded him. The stealthy fight went on. The whole world was -narrowed to this dark corner by the roadway, and the slime sucked and -gurgled under the weight of their striving bodies. - -Then Hardcastle found his chance, and took it. He got one arm under the -man’s thighs, the other round his shoulders, lifted him with savage -strength, and pitched him clear into the roadway. - -When he clambered after him, the moonlight, clear and blue, showed him a -lank figure getting up from the wet, grey road. - -“So it’s you, Long Murgatroyd,” he said. - -“Aye, it’s me.” - -“Be damned to you, why did you hide in a muddy ditch if you wanted -another fight?” - -Murgatroyd, white-faced and spent, glanced at the rope swinging gently -across the road, and the Master saw it for the first time. - -“You’ve come as low as that?” The Master was shaken by passionate -loathing. “As low as that, Murgatroyd?” - -“Well, your blamed luck won’t last for ever. Any but you would have been -pitched on his head when his horse got into the rope—and I’d have -finished you, need being. So now your going to finish me instead.” - -Hardcastle’s riding-whip was lifted to cut the man across the face; but -Murgatroyd was laughing at him in the moonlight—a wan laugh enough, yet -full of dogged will to endure whatever came. - -“Nita sent you on the errand?” he asked sharply. - -“She did, in a way. We know what her tongue is—me and you, we know it. -She said you were my master any day if it came to a fight. So I stepped -up to kill you.” Again he laughed. “I should have told her naught of the -rope, you understand. There’d have been you ligging dead in the road, -and happen she’d have given me a kiss or two for my pains. That’s how it -was. And I’m here, and want to be rid o’ my life.” - -Hardcastle could make nothing of it. Wrath died in him. The man was -rough as a savage, simple beyond belief. He had come up to kill, and, -failing, expected no mercy from his enemy. - -“Oh, damn you all ways, Murgatroyd,” he said, and went to where his -horse stood trembling, and felt its knees. - -Murgatroyd looked on, with dazed wonder. “Broken are they?” - -“Sound as a bell,” growled Hardcastle, as he swung into the saddle. - -Long Murgatroyd watched him out of sight. The Master of Logie was a -fool, no doubt, to leave him ripe for further mischief; but in some -queer way he found a liking for him. He dealt fair with all about the -country-side; and fairness appealed to this chastened mood of his. - -“If only Nita would let him alone, he’d rather see Hardcastle live than -die. _If only Nita would let him alone._” - -The words got into his muddled wits as he looked from the forest to the -misty fells where Garsykes slept in the flooding moonlight. Some uncouth -purpose stirred him. He went and unfastened the rope he had tied from -tree to tree across the road. The knots were tight and his fingers -clumsy; but at last he coiled it into a neat bundle, climbed the wall on -his right, and lopped like a hare down the grey-blue pastures. - -When he neared the little brig that crossed Crooning Water, a clear, -sweet voice drifted up the breeze, singing a song. - - _There came a man to my house,_ - _Love me well, said he;_ - _There came a man to my house,_ - _Nay, said I, I’m free._ - -Murgatroyd halted, swayed between longing and loathing. Then murder got -into his heart again, as he turned the bend of the road. - -Nita Langrish was sitting on the bridge-wall, threading her willows in -and out. - -“Making baskets by moonlight?” he asked. - -“Finishing one for a lass up Dale that’s courting. So it’s only right to -weave moonshine in between the withers.” - -“We’re courting, Nita, you and me.” - -“It takes two for that,” she said, and went on with her work as if she -were alone. - -A great madness came on Murgatroyd. She sat there in the moonlight so -mocking and aloof, yet so enticing, that the helpless rage of years -found tongue. He cursed the day she came into Garsykes first, cursed -every meeting with her since, till his hoarse voice seemed like a flail -about her. For a moment Nita was afraid—of him, and of the stark truth -he spoke. Then she gathered her old dominion round her, her old -self-will and vanity. - -“You’ve been at the drinking again,” she said, with gentle insolence. - -“I have—drinking the dregs, like many another that’s come your way. You -draw your skirts away fro’ Widow Mathison at the inn, same as if she was -dirt. But she’s got what you’ve not—a heart in her feckless body.” - -Nita had finished her basket and stood, slim and straight, looking into -the man’s face with grey, childlike eyes as she waited for what he had -to say. - -“She has a lad of her own—dotes on him, and naught too much to do, -mending and fending for him. _You_ dote on yourself, Nita.” - -The man’s voice had grown quiet, and Nita thought his madness ended, -till he took the rope from under his arm and began to uncoil it with a -leisurely sort of haste. - -“To be sure,” she said, “Garsykes will be smoked out soon, like a -hornet’s nest. Time was when it bred men, not windle-straws. And you’re -for trying how the noose will feel about your neck—when Logie gets -you?” - -“No,” said Murgatroyd, “I’m for fitting it about yours, Nita, and -hanging you to a branch of yond big sycamore.” - -She saw now the steady light of madness in his eyes, the purpose sure -and downright. Fear unsteadied her again, but she remembered bygone -years of blandishment. She came to him, and laid a hand on his sleeve. - -“Could you hurt me? I’m such a little thing, and you’re so big. You -couldn’t hurt me.” - -“Aye, but I could.” The man’s voice was low and harsh as he put her away -from him and fingered the rope with restless fingers. “I could hurt you -to some purpose. Sometimes I fancy there’s naught I want any more.” - -She put both hands on his shoulders now. Her lips were close to his, and -her breath was warm and soft. - -“Naught else?” she asked. - -The old, daft longing stole about him. Little, baffling webs were spun -across his sullen will to make an end of Nita and her devilries. He -reached out his arms to gather her to him—but she had stepped back and -stood smiling at him in the moonlight. - -“To-morrow, maybe, or the next day after,” she said—“when you’ve -forgotten about ropes and sycamores.” - -He watched her go. He was too heartsick even to curse her, or to follow. - -“It’s always to-morrow with her,” he muttered, shivering in the breeze -that whimpered down from Drumly Ghyll. - -Then he leaned over the bridge, listening to the stream as it swirled in -the deep pool below. The water called him. Every sob and gurgle enticed -him to a death found easily. The plunge would be cold, into broth of -melted snow, but after that—well, they said it was a quiet way of going -out. - -Yet he could not take the plunge. For ever Nita’s voice was in his ear, -with its promise of “to-morrow, maybe.” She drew him from the waters. It -was a lying promise, but she drew him. Reluctantly he turned his face -towards Garsykes, and down the fell Nita’s song came with the breeze. - - _There came a man to my house,_ - _Love me well, said he;_ - _There came a man to my house,_ - _Nay, said I, I’m free._ - -Murgatroyd recalled the Master’s farewell to him awhile since. -Hardcastle’s words had a way of sticking, he’d noticed. - -“Damn you all ways, Nita Langrish,” he said, and laughed heavily, and -took the field-track up to Garsykes. - - II - -Hardcastle rode slowly home to Logie, after his encounter in the wayside -ditch. For a week he had been restless, wondering what Garsykes meant to -do with him. Now they had shot their bolt, and he survived. Never in his -life had he known this keen, hard joy that was growing with the feud. -Once they had tried to take him at the pinfold—and once a man had come -to fire his house and been over-blown by snow. Now they had stretched a -rope across the road to hinder him, and he was up in saddle again. -Whatever the future had in store, he had given no tribute to Garsykes, -and would give none. - -At a bend of the road he met Shepherd Brant, who greeted him with -taciturn relief. - -“It’s better to be quick than dead, Master.” - -“It is, Stephen,” said Hardcastle, answering dryness with dryness. - -“Rebecca was in such a rare taking about you—thinking you were murdered -on the Norbrigg road—that I set off in search. Has it been raining in -those parts?” - -“Raining? No.” - -“I only wondered, seeing you dripping-wet.” - -“There was one from Garsykes in a ditch, and I had to get him out of -it—by the scruff of his neck. - -“Oh,” said Brant, lighting his pipe. “And which of ’em was he like to -look at, if I might ask?” - -“He was very like Long Murgatroyd.” - -“And you maimed him for life, and so put him out o’ harm’s way?” - -“The last I saw of him, he was standing like a dazed fool in the -roadway—too soft for a man to hit.” - -“It was like you, Master,” growled Brant, and touched his cap with chill -respect as he turned for home. - -Hardcastle only laughed as he rode forward. He knew Brant as he knew -himself. If Stephen had seen Long Murgatroyd in the roadway, grey-faced -and quavering, the shepherd would have understood. - -They came by High Ghyll Wood, with the merry breeze in their faces, and -the Master’s horse was thinking only of oats in the near-by stable when -he halted in his stride and shied at nothing, so far as Hardcastle could -tell. His head was turned toward the wood, and a shiver ran down his -sturdy flanks. - -Then Hardcastle drew rein, and listened. There might be another ambush -waiting for him before he got to Logie. A horse had quicker hearing than -a man. And now he heard a far-off crying in the wood—the yelping cry of -a beast in pain—and thought a fox had got into one of the foresters’ -many traps. - -As he listened, he knew it was no fox in trouble, but a dog; and he had -a soft heart for all that breed. Riding forward till he came to the gate -near ahead, he tethered his horse to the trunk of a gnarled thorn-bush, -and plunged into the wood. - -The yelping cries were mingled now with fierce, tortured howls that -guided him, step by step, to a clump of brackens where something lay and -writhed, beating down the shelter it had sought in need. The moon shone -clear through the leafless branches of the silver-birches -overhead—shone on a dog’s bloodshot eyes and hairy face. - -“Why, Storm, what ails you?” asked Hardcastle. - -For a moment the sheep-slayer knew him and strove to wriggle to his -hand; then his wounds were rawed again by the wind. He yelped and -growled by turns when Hardcastle approached and felt down his body to -find what limbs were broken; and suddenly a madness seized him. He bit -at the hands that touched his wounds. All of him that was unmaimed was -quick for attack. Hardcastle, to him, was Shepherd Brant, who had -pursued him with a hate that would not let him rest—Brant, who had put -gunshot into him at last. - -Hardcastle had found the second ambush, after all, and one hard to meet. -He strove with Storm, his hands bitten to the bone. This sheep-killer -had come in time of need, when he scattered the Garsykes Men awhile -since. There was a big debt owing by the house of Logie. - -Then Storm’s strength was spent. He let the Master shoulder him, a -dead-weight of weariness, and carry him to the horse tethered to the -thorn-tree. The horse neighed and fidgetted as Hardcastle lifted Storm -to the saddle, and held him there. - -“Get up to Logie,” he said. “There are all jobs in a day, even for a -thoroughbred.” - - III - -Causleen, wandering restlessly about Logie House, heard Shepherd Brant -come into the kitchen with news that he had shot Storm at last. She -heard, too, Rebecca’s talk of danger to the Master on his way from -Norbrigg; and her restlessness increased. - -Storm had found no more than his due, perhaps; but she had made a -comrade of the shaggy culprit, and it seemed a cruel death for any dog. -So little friendship came her way. She would miss his stealthy coming to -the cupboard under the stair, her own stealthy journeys to the larder in -search of a bone for him. - -Then, struggle with the feeling as she might, she began to share -Rebecca’s fears for Hardcastle. Suppose, in sober fact, he was lying -somewhere on the Norbrigg road? Suppose his big, hale body would never -ride the hill-crests again, or taste the savour of keen moorland -weather? She felt the pity of it, and with pity came remembrance of the -tempest they had shared. But for him, she would have died in the snow. -That would have mattered little, for herself; to her father it would -have meant an end of the last consolation left him. - -The pedlar was calling her now. His eyes were bright and eager when she -knelt beside him and took his cold hands into hers. - -“I’m seeing all the Highlands, child—not just Ben Crummock here, or Ben -Ore there—but the good, wild sweep o’ them all.” - -His voice was clear again, vibrant and youthful as when he went -a-Maying. - -“It’s as if I was standing on a high mountain—seeing it all spread out -below me—hearing the pipes sob up from Glencoe, and over Culloden Muir, -and out from the Western Isles.” - -“Never heed their sobbing,” she pleaded. - -“I will, for it heartens me. Where I stand now—” - -A tremor shook him, a dry, harsh coughing; but he was so nearly rid of -his body that his high spirit stormed and conquered it afresh. - -“Where I stand now the after-music sounds. The pipers come, leading our -Highland dead—there’s still a plaining and a sorrow, but the strathspey -sounds.” - -Through blinding tears Causleen saw this courageous father, stalwart to -the end, his vision clear as a boy’s, his faith indomitable. She was -losing him, and soon. Whenever one of her race neared the threshold of -beyond, the pipers summoned them. - -“They sorrowed here. They’ll come by and by into all they fought for in -the narrow glens, and up the braes—cannot you see them, girl?” - -The pedlar strove to rise, because his vision was so urgent, and fell -back, and moaned awhile in helplessness. Then he glanced at Causleen -with quiet humour. - -“Standing on a high hill, was I?” he muttered. “It was a good dream -while it lasted.” - -Then his eyes clouded, and he slept; and Causleen, roaming the winding -passages again, encountered Rebecca. - -“He’ll only come the one way home to Logie,” muttered the woman. “He’ll -only come the one way now—stretched on a gate, with four men carrying -him. It was so they brought my man home, forty odd years since, after -_he_ had said nay to the Garsykes sort.” - -Causleen, awed by the loneliness of corridors and stairs that seemed -peopled with ghosts, followed Rebecca as she went to the door, and -opened it, and stood listening. - -“All’s quiet as yet,” said Rebecca, turning by and by; “but it’ll not be -quiet for long. It’s a queer sort o’ shuffling noise they make—four men -carrying a gate and something heavy stretched on it. Forty years since I -heard it last! It seems like yesterday.” - -The girl yielded to the other’s hard, quiet certainty that Hardcastle -was dead—yielded to the wind’s sobbing in among the half-stripped -branches of the sycamores outside. Again pity touched her—a deeper pity -now. If the Master’s welcome at their first coming had been chilly, he -had bettered it with every day that followed. She and her father had -been nothing but a burden to him from the start, yet he had made them -guests of honour in his own gruff fashion. There was the night, too, at -the woodmen’s hut. She had railed at him for saving her; but now she -understood. And it was too late. - -Rebecca’s lean body grew intent on the sudden. She stepped out into the -moonlight, and presently Causleen heard, too, the pit-a-pat of hoofs -sound up the road. - -“They’re bringing him on horseback, instead of a gate,” said Rebecca, in -the same hard, quiet tone; “but it’s a dead man rides, and that I know.” - -Causleen could think no less. The slow clink of hoofs suggested no -living master, riding home to his own roof-tree and its cheer. -Somewhere—in her heart or mind, she knew not which—there was a sense -of bitter loss. Already, without guessing it, she had grown to lean on -Hardcastle in these days of grief and home-sickness for the Highlands. -And he was gone, all but the husk of him. - -The hoof-beats sounded nearer now, and Rebecca’s stillness broke like -thunder-weather. Forty years was cancelled. It was her own man coming, -so she fancied. In a flash she went through the anguish of that far-off -time—the dead lips making no answer to her kisses, the limp arms that -would never again shield her from life’s tumults. - -She dashed the tears away with a rough, skinny hand, and saw Causleen -there. - -“It’s not your fault, or the pedlar’s,” she snapped, old days and new -mingling, with no gap between them—“but how dare he unfasten his pack -and show me baby-wear?” - -Causleen, young but tried by many footsore journeys, had learned insight -into such moods as this. She understood the other’s wild clinging to -past grief, as to a better thing than present joy. - -“He did not know,” she pleaded softly. - -“To be sure. He didn’t know. But he might as well have put a skewer -through my heart.” - -Then Rebecca forgot the girl. Standing straight to her lean height, she -reached out her arms, and stood there calling to the man killed long -since by the Lost Folk. She bade him come quickly, for she had wakened -from a dream that he was dead—bade him step up and tarry no -more—pretended he was here beside her, and closed her arms about the -emptiness, crooning a girl’s love-welcome. - -The slow pit-a-pat of hoofs had rounded the corner now, and Rebecca woke -as from a trance. - -“Get indoors, lass,” she said. “Dead men are no good sight for young -eyes to see.” - -Causleen answered nothing. She waited, sick with fear. Step by step the -horse brought its burden nearer. There was no pride in her heart now, no -memory of Hardcastle’s curt welcome—was it a few weeks ago, or years? -She did not know—knew only that she would miss something that had come -into her life to stay. - -“The pity of it—oh, the pity,” she cried. - -“I’d rather he died that fashion,” snapped Rebecca, peering out into the -moonlight, “than in a bed he’d bought by giving tribute Garsykes way.” - -She would not go to meet trouble, and Causleen dared not. So Hardcastle -came leading his horse to the door, and was astonished to find two women -there who gazed at him as if he came from under some tomb in the -churchyard. - -“Is it your ghost, Master?” quavered Rebecca. - -“No, it’s my body—and damned tired at that.” - -Causleen, before she could check the impulse, ran forward and touched -his sleeve. Long watching beside her father had weakened her endurance. -So had the suspense that brooded over Logie since the feud was up. - -“Oh, thank God,” she said with a sudden rush of tears. - -Hardcastle glanced at her in frank wonder. It was long since anyone had -given him such a welcome home; yet only yesterday she had shunned him as -if he had the plague. There was the scent of violets in her hair as it -brushed his shoulder—a warm, wet fragrance, born of the night-time -breeze—that unsteadied him. He had thought himself past that sort of -blandishment, since Nita and he shared courting-days; but his heart -found a quicker beat. - -She withdrew sharply, ashamed of her weakness and blaming him for it. -“Rebecca was so sure that you were killed on the way home,” she said. “I -could not comfort her.” - -Rebecca herself was in a fine, gusty rage. She had gone through much in -the last hour, and the relief from foreboding asked for outlet. - -“I will say this, Master, though I let my tongue be still most times. -Outrageous folk, men are. They’ll go pleasuring to market, in spite o’ -Garsykes being out against ’em. They’ll let their women moil and toil -for ’em, and wait their coming—and, like as you might say for frolic, -they’ll come an hour late to supper.” - -Hardcastle could understand her wrath no better than Causleen’s tears. -It seemed to him simply that the two of them were daft. But then most -women were. - -“I was kept,” he said. - -“Aye, you were kept—and the best supper ever cooked is spoiling to a -cinder. And you never stopped to think I should be picturing you dead on -the roadway all this time.” - -The moon was racing through a scud of cloud, and Rebecca peered through -the silver dusk. - -“What have you got on your saddle?” she asked sharply. - -“Storm, poor brute. He fell asleep on the journey, worn out with it -all.” - -Rebecca’s gusty mood pointed south-west now, instead of shrill -nor’-east. “Then I’m glad you’re late. Shepherd Brant was in my kitchen -just now, boasting he’d put lead into Storm at last and that he’d die of -it among the brackens.” - -“He came near it.” - -“Maybe; but a miss is as good as a mile. I sent Brant stamping out, with -a flea in his big, hairy ear—and, as for Storm, poor lamb, we’ll mend -his legs for him.” - -The Master had lifted Storm already from saddle. The dog bit feebly at -him, and writhed in pain; but his growling ceased when he found himself -in the old quarters that had grown to be home and respite to him. - -Rebecca ran in search of linen and a cunning ointment she bought from -the gypsies who came peddling to her door, and then Causleen, wise with -dogs, held the rough head while Hardcastle felt down the maimed -hindquarters. - -“There’s nothing broken,” he said, glancing up, “but Brant fired at -close range, damn him. Storm’s flesh has gaps in it.” - -The sheep-slayer had gone through evil days—hunger while they hunted -him, and after it the straddling out in search of cover after Brant had -left him with two legs to go on instead of four. So he let them do what -they would with him, though Rebecca’s ointment galled his wounds as she -plied them with no gentle fingers. This was ease after hardship—three -folk attentive on him, and a snug lodging for the night. - -The cunning ointment, its bite sharp at first, began to soothe, and -Storm dozed happily. - -“Poor lamb, he’s bettering now,” said Rebecca, wiping her fingers on a -scrap of linen. - -Hardcastle laughed quietly. “There are lambs that were never born -because he slew the ewes. But he’s ours, Rebecca.” - -They stood together in the silence. Peril brooded like thunder-weather -over the house of Logie. The wind, chattering and plucking at the -casements, spoke of stealth, of nameless treacheries closing round about -its walls. The pedlar was crying in his sleep for another glimpse of Ben -Crummock before he died. - -Do as they would, gloom spun its webs about them—little, clinging webs -that hindered courage—till Jonah, the brindled cat, stalked down the -passage. Storm’s protest when they tended the wounds had roused Jonah -from his sleep, and he came to learn what ailed an ancient comrade. His -thick, handsome coat was all a-bristle, his eyes green and combative. - -Jonah paid no heed to Rebecca, but stepped into the cupboard and glanced -at the sheep-slayer, and mewed restlessly. Storm lifted his head -drowsily and growled a welcome, and the brindled cat curled himself into -the dog’s shaggy neck and looked out on all intruders with defiance. -Then they licked each other once or twice and fell into a deep slumber -of content. - -“Listen to him,” said Rebecca, with a cackle of glee. “Listen to -vagabones Jonah. He’s purring as loud as an eight-day clock, Lord bless -him.” - -Their eerie hour of dread was broken. Causleen glanced at the Master, -and for the first time since they shared Logie’s roof they laughed -together. Then she grew wide-eyed and grave again. - -“But your hands are raw!” she cried. - -“Storm did not know me just at first. They’ll heal,” said Hardcastle. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - - WILL O’ WISP - - I - -Near dusk of the quiet November day a man came into Widow Mathison’s inn -at Garsykes and called for a quart of home-brewed. - -“Can you pay?” asked the widow, with her buxom, loose-lipped smile. - -For answer the man took a handful of silver from his pocket and laid it -on the table. - -“That’s right enough, and no offence meant. Time was when I chalked the -tally up on my door—but I tired o’ that.” - -“You would—from all I hear of Garsykes.” - -“Oh, they’re free enough with their money when they have any. It’s just -that they seldom have.” - -The widow, after bustling to serve him, went on with her interrupted -dusting of the china dogs on the mantel, till curiosity got the better -of her. - -“Have you travelled far, like?” she asked over her shoulder. - -“Not so very,” chuckled the stranger, “though I came near to going a -very far way.” - -“You don’t say, now.” - -“Aye, but I do say.” - -“And where might it be you nearly went?” - -“Well, as you ask me—hell.” - -The stranger chuckled afresh as he buried his head in his pewter-pot. -And Long Murgatroyd came striding in. - -“Dry, Murgatroyd?” asked the widow. - -“Like a kiln.” - -“I never knew a man so punctual, as you might say, to a thirst. Tend it, -you do, as a woman tends her babby.” - -Long Murgatroyd was in one of his better moods, and gave as much as he -took in the way of banter before settling himself in the corner by the -ingle-nook. Then he glanced at the stranger. - -“Where do you come from?” he asked. - -“Bless me, the landlady was putting that same question to me a minute -since.” - -“Aye,” snapped the widow, “and all the answer I got for my trouble was -that he’d nearly journeyed further than he relished—journeyed to——” - -“You needn’t be squeamish. Hell was what I said—if there _is_ such a -place.” - -Murgatroyd turned on him with a sudden snarl. “There is. I don’t need to -travel, for I’m in it.” - -The door was pushed open again, and two more Garsykes Men came in, -bringing the smell of a soft, wet breeze across the stale sawdust of the -tavern floor. - -They in turn glanced curiously at the stranger, but he forestalled them. - -“I’m going to be first with a question this time. Is it true that such -as me is safe in Garsykes?” - -“That all depends,” said Murgatroyd, recovering his good humour. “Have -you done aught again the law?” - -“A tidy bit in my time.” - -“Such as?” growled one of the late comers. - -“Well, the last thing I did, as I said, was to come nearer Kingdom Come -than ever I’d been in my life. A running post-boy was due, not a hundred -miles from where we’re sitting, and I wanted what he’d got.” - -“That was no more than reasonable, as you might say.” - -“He’d got more than I bargained for—a pistol and a spirit of his own. I -closed with him just in time—and here’s the mark of the bullet where it -grazed my neck.” - -They saw the red weal he turned to them, then glanced at the silver he -had thrown on the table. - -“Was that all you got for your trouble?” asked Murgatroyd. “You’re not -safe here, my lad, if you show the silver and keep the guineas hid.” - -The stranger got up, and clapped his empty pockets, and bade the men -search him; but his rueful smile made it clear that he was hiding no -ill-gotten gains. - -“I was searching for the guineas when a man galloped over the hill—a -big man—and spat a pistol at me as I ran. That bullet, too, touched -me—on the leg this time. So I took cover, and headed straight for -Garsykes.” - -The three men laughed, and so did Widow Mathison. - -“You did right,” said the widow. “By what you say, it was our masterful -Man o’ Logie rode at you; but even he durst not come seeking you in -Garsykes. We’re seeking him instead.” - -“Carried a pistol, did he?” grumbled Murgatroyd. “Well, there’s one -boast gone from Logie. The Master said he’d face us all with no more -than his two fists and a stick to help him.” - -The stranger called for bread-and-cheese and another pot of ale. - -“Why are you seeking him?” he asked lazily. - -“Because he’s too big for his boots, and always was. So now he’s got all -Garsykes against him.” - -“Then he’s wise to carry a pistol, I should say.” - -“He swore he wouldn’t.” - -“Aye, but I’d have found a quick change o’ mind myself—if Garsykes -pressed me.” - -Murgatroyd eyed him with sombre doubt. “What’s you’re name when you’re -at home, my lad? You seem to know a lot about Garsykes.” - -“I haven’t a home. That’s why I’m known as Will o’ Wisp.” - -“The Master of Logie touched you with a bullet—and you sit grinning -there as if he’d given you ale and crumpets.” - -“I never cry over spilled luck. That’s what the road teaches a -free-striding man. Besides, there was comfort met me on a little, grey -brig o’ stone.” The man’s eyes twinkled with random, inborn gaiety. “I -never saw such a lass in my life—slim and like a posy, and she was -weaving a basket.” - -Long Murgatroyd stirred restlessly, but his neighbour kicked him by -stealth and whispered in his ear. - -“That would be Nita,” said the widow—“Nita, the basket-maker, as we -call her. Poor bairn, she was left an orphan——” - -“That doesn’t trouble her now,” broke in Will o’ Wisp, with his heedless -laugh. “She smiled so kindly as I went by that I asked the way to -Garsykes. And it ended with my sitting on the brig beside her.” - -“It does,” said Murgatroyd, heavily. “It always ends like that.” - -Again his shin was kicked, and Widow Mathison took up the tale they were -spinning round the stranger like a web. - -“She’s of the better sort, you see, and our Garsykes Men are rough. No -wonder that she smiled at the likes of you. I’d have done as much myself -when I was younger.” - -“The widow’s right. Nita’s too trim a lass for such as us. That’s why -she looks over our heads when we think o’ courting.” - -“You don’t court properly, then,” said Will o’ Wisp, with a wink of -infinite zest and roguery. “There’s three ways of courting a pretty -wench, and only three.” - -“Oh, aye?” - -“The first is, be sure of winning. So’s the second. And the third——” - -“What’s the third?” prompted Widow Mathison. - -“Be sure of winning,” Will o’ Wisp chuckled, and buried his face in the -pewter-pot. - -He was so pleased with the hum of laughter that answered his idle -pleasantry—pleased to be safe among Lost Folk again after hunger and -thirst among the righteous—and his tongue wagged freely. - -They plied him with strong ale that night, and Murgatroyd, when he left -him sleeping on the long-settle, went laughing out of the tavern door. -He would watch another go through what he had suffered—would watch, and -gloat. - -Murgatroyd glanced up the grey fells, as he swayed unsteadily for a -moment when the breeze found the ale in him. Then he strode up to his -cottage under Scummer Rigg. - -“Will o’ Wisp courts Will o’ Wisp,” he muttered, with a big, joyous -hiccough. “The devilment there’ll be in Garsykes.” - - II - -About five of that November evening, Hardcastle had come to his house of -Logie and heard a woman’s voice as he stepped into the hall after -stabling his horse. - -“Now, Storm, be quiet,” she chided. “You’ve had two weeks of nursing, -and you’re nearly well. I’ll not have you snap at me. But then all sick -folk are that way,” she went on, coaxing and scolding in the same -breath. - -She was changing the sheep-slayer’s bandages, and glanced up at -Hardcastle with a smile of welcome. - -“He’s strong enough to need a male nurse now. Will you do the rest?” - -Storm tried his fretful temper on the Master, but not for long. He did -not whimper even as the ointment stung and galled before it soothed; for -he knew that the days of his pamperdom were nearly over—and that -Hardcastle knew it, too. - -When he had licked himself for a while, then settled into sleep, -Causleen and Hardcastle stood in the draughty hall, glancing at each -other with the new understanding that had come by stealth to them during -these last days. - -“Donald—how is he?” he asked. - -“A little nearer the end.” - -Hardcastle had driven pity out of his life, had bruised it with his heel -at every turn. He was impatient to find it stirring faintly now. - -“I wish Logie was a safer lodging for you. You’ve trouble enough of your -own.” - -The note in his voice, the haunted look that showed in his eyes for a -moment and was gone, told her of some encounter on the road to-night. - -“Is it Long Murgatroyd again, with a rope across the highway?” - -“What do you know of that?” he snapped. - -“Oh, you hid the news well enough, but gossip brought it. What happened -to-night as you rode from Norbrigg?” - -“Nothing that mattered—for me. But for you and Donald——” - -“It matters for all of us, or none,” she broke in, her glance -questioning and steady. - -“No,” he said roughly. “The end for Logie is sure, so far as I can see. -But I’d hoped the house would last Donald’s time. He’s earned a peaceful -end.” - -Causleen seemed ever to be finding some unexpected waywardness in -Hardcastle. He waged the feud so quietly, with such contempt for his own -safety, that she had thought him deaf to what was no news on Logie-side. -He, too, was aware that his house was doomed, it seemed; yet he found -time to think of Donald. - -“What happened to-night?” she asked again. “I’d rather have the tale -from you than wait for gossip.” - -So then he told her of his ride up-fell from Norbrigg, and how he found -a post-boy holding his own with hardship against a footpad. - -“I sent a bullet after him—and, the last I saw of the rogue, he was -limping hard for Garsykes. It’s only one more count in their tally -against me.” - -“You could buy your house—at a price,” she said. - -“What price?” He was rough and hard on the instant—rough as Storm, -sleeping his sickness off in the cupboard near at hand. - -“You could give them tribute.” - -“And sell Logie’s honour? I couldn’t. Seven hundred years would rive -open the graves down yonder, where dead Hardcastles lie. They’d rise and -flout me.” - -Causleen’s eyes glowed bright and clear. “It would be so easy,” she -said, tempting him, “to pay a little to them every now and then—and -your house safe—and no ropes stretched across night-roads.” - -Hardcastle glowered down at her. “And no peace by day or night. Logie -would know. Her timbers would creak and groan. She’d loose her ancient -ghosts on me—and God knows every house has ghosts enough of that sort. -You’re mad to talk of giving tribute.” - -She had probed to the core of him, as she had meant; and a great need -came to her, out of the weary years behind, to speak of the tribute -asked of Donald and herself—which had been denied in face of odds as -great as he was facing. - -“Two pedlars came to your door,” she said, with a flash of the old -grievance. “You counted us as such, and no more.” - -“And shall never be forgiven.” - -“I’m tired and out of heart, and you have been kind—kinder than you -need have been. And we still intrude.” - -“No,” said Hardcastle. - -That was all; but his denial had a new ring of truth about it, though -she could find no reason for the change. - -“We had lands of our own once,” she went on by and by—“lands and a -house like yours. But they went.” - -There was a tearless grief, too deep for Hardcastle to fathom, in those -three words, “But they went.” Logie was going, unless a miracle arrived; -but he would die with the house, when the last onset of the Garsykes Men -prevailed. He had no such parting to face as Causleen had gone -through—exile from a homestead whose every stone and draughty corridor -was loved like a second self. Logie and he, when their time came, would -face the Trump o’ Doom together. - -“Tell me more,” he said. - -While she halted, fearing that grief would get the better of her, -Rebecca came down the passage with a martial tread. The brindled cat was -on her shoulder, his fur raised in warlike challenge, too. - -“Logie lands breed slack-come-by men these days, Master. Such a twitter -as there’s been in my kitchen. You’d have fancied women were talking, -though they wore breeks.” - -“Who were they, Rebecca?” - -“Phineas Rowbotham first, squealing that he was a man of peace. -Bloodshed was a sin, said he, and why shouldn’t we pay our way with the -Garsykes Folk—living, and letting live. I was dusting his jacket with a -rolling-pin when another steps in with the same tale, and another. So I -swept them out, and barred the door. Jonah spat at ’em from my shoulder, -same as he’s sitting now. Jonah knows men’s flesh and blood from -chicken-meat. Spat and growled at ’em, he did, as a man cat should.” - -Causleen felt a sudden sense of home. Hardcastle had not the Highland -speech, nor Rebecca; but they three were one in the spirit to endure. -And Storm and the brindled cat were with them. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - - NITA - - I - -Garsykes was stirred to grim and crafty mirth during the next weeks. -November had brought its little spell of summer between fall of the -leaves and winter’s onset. Primroses bloomed here and there in favoured -nooks. The sun was constant, from dawn till nightfall, in a blue and -happy sky, and birds began to think of courtship. - -So did Will o’ Wisp. In all his careless, vagabond life he had found -none like Nita; and she smiled at him whenever they met by stream or -coppice. - -“Our men are rough and savage,” she would say. “They frighten me.” - -Then Will o’ Wisp would yield to the slender helplessness of this girl -who showed him open favour. And all Garsykes laughed, to watch the -stranger going the way of many men before him. - -“She has him in her lap,” growled Long Murgatroyd, sitting in the inn -one afternoon among his cronies, “and the Lord knows which o’ them I’d -like to throttle first.” - -“Choose Nita,” they answered, in snarling chorus. - -“Happen I will,” said Murgatroyd, and fell back into the sullen brooding -that shadowed his every thought these days. - -Will o’ Wisp cared nothing at all for what they said of him in Garsykes. -He cared only to be with Nita Langrish, to grow wilder each day for her -elusive beauty. - -On one of these windless, moist afternoons, near dusk, he came from the -benty lands and found her at the bridge that spanned Crooning Water. - -“That’s a fine hare you’re dangling in your hand,” she said, with a -welcoming smile. - -“I was thinking to leave it at your door as I went by.” - -“I’d best come with you, then, as soon as I’ve finished my basket. Hares -left at Garsykes doors don’t stay there long.” - -“They wouldn’t,” agreed Will o’ Wisp, with a random laugh. “I should -have thought of that.” - -“You’d best keep it, after all. What do I know of the way to skin it?” - -“I should have thought of that, too. I’ll bring it dressed for -cooking—and don’t blame me if it looks like a plump, naked cat.” - -She seemed to invite him to sit on the parapet beside her; but when he -tried to put an arm about her, it grasped only empty space. Nita was on -the far side of the bridge, as if by magic, threading her withies. - -“They used to cut the willows for me,” she said by and by, her voice -soft as the breeze that fluted down the stream. “And now I have to cut -them myself. See how rough my hands are.” - -They were held out to him—slim, shapely hands—and he was mad to take -them. But Nita was already standing in the roadway, and laughed as she -dangled the finished basket to and fro. - -“This is for little Tabitha, up dale. Seventy odd and a spinster, she. -The last I made was for a bride. I wonder what drollery will come to -them both, when they take their baskets over-arm?” - -Will o’ Wisp’s crisp good-humour failed him. The girl stood there, all -of her but the grey eyes young as June about these winter highlands; but -the eyes were old, unfathomable. - -“What drollery should come?” he asked. - -“You would not understand. I cannot help it, but I’ve a trick of weaving -spells into my baskets. Whoever I make one for, I get a picture of her -in my mind, and ply the willows in and out with a sort of prayer, you -might say, that my basket will teach her just the daft contrary-wise of -what she thought she was. And it comes true, Will o’ Wisp.” - -Then suddenly the grey eyes were young again, and smiling into his. “Was -I seeing far? It comes of foregathering with gypsies. One of them talked -to me just now of Logie and its Master.” - -“The man who tried to stop me with a bullet?” - -“Do you bear no malice, Will o’ Wisp?” - -“I should do,” he chuckled, “but, thanks be, I harbour none o’ that. -I’ve seen too much of it in my time—eating into men like a plague.” - -“You’d have had the post-boy’s money in your pocket, but for Hardcastle. -And what cause had he to interfere?” - -“His bullet only flicked me. Next time I’ll flick him, maybe, and settle -that little account between us. But, as for malice, I wouldn’t sour -myself with it.” - -“You’re not like the Garsykes sort. They’d gnaw at what Hardcastle did -to you, as a dog gnaws at a bone, never letting it rest.” - -“More fools they. I’m a rogue by nature and choice—a light-hearted -one—and fancied they’d be all like that in Garsykes.” - -“You fancied wrong, Will o’ Wisp. Honour among thieves—Robin Hood and -his merry men—you looked to find all that in Garsykes? You’re young.” - -“And you’re young,” he broke in heedlessly. “You were talking of spells -you wove into your baskets, Nita—as if baskets mattered. You’ve woven -them round a man.” - -“Or half a man?” she mocked. “One who lets Hardcastle pistol him and -daren’t answer.” - -Will o’ Wisp grew taut as a bow-string on the sudden. “_Dare not_ never -shadowed me since I was breeked. I’ve little to boast about except -that.” - -They went together up the road, and turned into the track that led -between lean, benty lands to Garsykes. - -“If Hardcastle had done a wrong to me?” she asked. - -He gripped her shoulder till she winced. “I’d kill him,” he said simply. - -“A man, are you, after all?” - -“I was born one, as it happened.” - -“Oh, it’s not so bad as to ask murder,” said Nita, her voice gentle as a -dove’s. “Hardcastle slighted me—no more than that—took the heart out -of my body and threw it away for frolic.” - -“Did he?” said Will o’ Wisp. - -“Not murder,” she pleaded, her hand like velvet on his arm. - -“That’s as maybe.” - -So then she cried, and he fell to comforting her; and afterwards she set -the width of the roadway between them as they went through Garsykes -village. - -Prying eyes looked out on them from Widow Mathison’s inn, and Long -Murgatroyd fetched a great laugh as he stood looking out of the window. - -“There’s another o’ Nita’s goes by. To-morrow he’ll be where most of us -have been in our time.” - -Murgatroyd spoke truth. On the next day Will o’ Wisp was busy in the -swampy hollow where Nita’s willows grew. The Garsykes Men, when they got -late abroad, did not pause for banter as they passed. They let the -newcomer hang himself in Nita’s silken toils, and so much for him. - -So it went for many days, till Will o’ Wisp began to lose his content -with life as he found it. There were times when he came into the inn and -sat silent on the settle, till at last the widow rallied him. - -“You’re getting heavy as Murgatroyd. What’s amiss with your -easy-go-lucky handling of things as they come?” - -“How should I know? Draw me a quart of ale, and maybe that will cure -me.” - -“Maybe it will—and likely it willun’t. But Nita’s good for my trade, -and always was.” - -“I said naught about Nita.” - -“No. But you were thinking of her. Will o’ Wisp, my lad, I’ve a liking -for you, and I’m old enough to be your mother. Quit Nita Langrish, -before she binds her spell too fast.” - -The rough sympathy was too much for him. He had gone through evil -days—through beguilement that promised all, and gave nothing but the -slant flight of a snipe as it raced down-wind. - -“The spell’s over me, fast and hard,” he said, and laughed—but not with -the old relish. - - II - -The next day Nita came home by way of the Long Spinney that raked down -from Logie to the grey hill-fastness where her village lurked. Her step -was buoyant. She had sold her baskets, and had another man in thrall at -Garsykes. All was well with her, till a gunshot cracked from the -spinney, and Hardcastle came presently down the lane between the -thick-set firs and sycamores, dangling a hare. - -At sight of him—big and careless, as if the world were his—Nita lost -all content. There was one who had escaped her snare, and she coveted -him. - -“The man they call Will o’ Wisp brought me just such a hare—and it was -one of yours, I fancy.” - -“Did he? I’m taking mine to Logie.” - -“For the pedlar’s brat to share?” - -Hardcastle, as yet, knew nothing of his heart; but Nita read it in his -stubborn quietness. - -“What did you say to her, that day you met her on the road?” he asked. - -“Something that brought burning to her cheeks. Do you think, because -you’re Hardcastle of Logie, you can share a hut for the night with a -lass and hear no more about it—snowstorm or no?” - -“There are times,” he said slowly, “when I wonder why one or another of -the Garsykes Men doesn’t cut out that tongue of yours and nail it where -the gamekeeper——” - -“Nails vermin?” said Nita gently. “I witch them, Hardcastle of Logie.” - -Hardcastle longed to pass by, and could not. Surely what they said of -her was false. She was so fresh and innocent, like a morning in -mid-April. - -“I witch them, Dick, and care for none—since you went out of my life.” - -Again she was witching him, too. All that was rough and a man in him had -asked always for a frail thing like Nita to guard—something that would -need his strength and lean on it. - -“They were good days, and I lost them,” she went on. - -It was as if a net of cobwebs hindered him. She was close, and -woe-begone, and pleading. Then he remembered how it had gone long -since—his stormy, honest wooing—and the end of that good dream. He -recalled the barren years, his loathing of all women for Nita’s -sake—Nita’s, who had played him false. - -“You’re of Garsykes,” he said, “and the new days are in.” - -“I might have been of Logie once. I was a fool. Have you no pity, Dick?” -She put a hand on his sleeve. “You’re built out of limestone rock—hard -and unforgiving.” - -“Just hard, Nita.” - -“And buying acres here and there, to add to Logie?” - -“I bought a farm yesterday—Nicholas Wade’s, who died in his bed at -ninety. Yes, I’m buying acres.” - -“Wouldn’t you save them, Dick? I’m of the Wilderness—and there are only -six of yours that do not cringe to Garsykes. You’re almost alone against -us now.” - -“Maybe—but the six are staunch.” - -Nita would have welcomed rage—his hands at her throat, for what she had -done to him in days gone by—but she fretted at this cold hardihood that -was so resolute. - -“Have you no pity?” she asked again. - -“I keep such for Logie these times.” - -Then suddenly he found her hands in his, and the old beguilement was -about him. She had tempted him before, when the feud was new and heady -in his veins, and he had hope of saving Logie. Now he had no hope, -except to face the last assault of Garsykes when it came, and die with -the house whose every rafter-beam he loved. Six of his men had proved -leal. The rest were chaff blowing down the winds of chance—folk -cringing for daily bread to Garsykes, and paying toll as if they cared -not for the shame of licking dirty boots. - -All was in the losing. And here was Nita, her arms soft about him. What -did it matter, if he took and claimed her, and earned restful days for -Logie? - -The fight was over almost before he knew it had begun. Pride played its -own part. He would not yield, though twenty Garsykes came against him. -But, deep under pride, lay some inner depth whose waters had not been -stirred till now. Nita and her spells grew shadowy and weak. He was a -free man again, and some new, undreamed-of world seemed to open out -before him. - -Nita stood at arm’s length now, wondering at the man’s stubbornness. - -“So we’re both fools, it seems,” she said. “I lost Logie once for -vanity—and now you’re losing it for pride.” - -A twig snapped in the wood behind them, and Hardcastle turned sharply. -He saw only a shaking of the pine-branches; but Nita had seen more. - -“Afraid that one from Garsykes would club you from behind?” she mocked. - -“Not afraid—but sure it would be from behind, if at all.” - -“How you loathe us, Dick—and how we loathe you in turn. Listen. I’m as -you see me—not ugly, they say—and there’s a mad-dog fury there in -Garsykes. They want to burn your house to-morrow, and I will not let -them.” - -“Why?” snapped Hardcastle. - -“I hope to be mistress there. Would I let them burn a house I shared?” - -“You’ll never share it,” he said bluntly, stung by her careless trust in -her own beauty and its power. - -Nita stood regarding him for a moment, then laughed—a little, eerie -laugh that had an edge of steel. “I’ll not let them burn the house for -another reason now. It would be too easy a way out for its pride-sick -master. You’re glancing at the wood again? It was no Garsykes face that -peeped between the branches.” - -“Whose was it, then?” - -“Aye, whose? You’ll learn soon enough—and, after all, it’s only one -more trouble to your load.” - -A silence followed, heavy and brooding as thunder-weather brewing up. -Nita, used to swaying men by her lightest smile, had done all to bring -Hardcastle into captivity again. She had failed, and the Master drew -back a pace or two, appalled by what he saw in the girl’s face and -dove-like eyes. - -“I shall teach them the way of better sport with Logie than burning it. -You’d only die once in the flames. For weeks, maybe—or months—the -Wilderness will let you go your ways. A mischance here and there, to let -you know we’re not asleep—the waiting for a blow that will surely come -at last—do you think pride will carry any man through that?” - -“Yes,” said Hardcastle, and went up the pastures, swinging the hare he -carried. - - III - -Nita turned at last, when he was out of sight, and went down the track -to Garsykes. Heart she had none to be wounded, but vanity was touched to -the quick. Hardcastle would never be moved by her spells from this to -the Crack o’ Doom, and with the knowledge came a passionate gust of -hate. - -It was in this mood that she encountered Will o’ Wisp, lumbering to the -inn on heavy feet. - -“You’re not your own merry self,” she said. “What ails you?” - -“Nita Langrish ails me. I get no rest for wanting of you.” - -“Why do all the men go daft for the little basket-weaver? I never ask -it, Will o’ Wisp.” - -“Maybe,” he growled, “but the lord Harry knows you maze us. I could -throttle you where we stand, Nita—just for love of doing it.” - -“You couldn’t. I’d put a hand on your arm—like this—and I’d ask you to -be gentle with little Nita. And, see, you could not hurt me.” - -The man stood there, smiling foolishly, and lost to all but the girl’s -low, pleading voice. And she began to play on his infirmities, as -skilled fingers might touch a fiddle’s strings, till she brought him to -her purpose. It was true that she had checked the Wilderness Men in -their second plot to fire Logie. It had been true, till her meeting with -Logie’s Master, that she had crooned happily to herself as she wove her -baskets, and planned the long do-little time which should break -Hardcastle’s spirit and his pride before they broke his body. But now -she could not wait. - -Vanity, restless and impatient, cried for solace to its wounds. - -“Why do I fret you so, Will o’ Wisp?” - -“That’s past my wits to say. Happen you know yourself, and happen you -don’t.” - -“There’s Hardcastle of Logie, and not one in Garsykes dares bring him -down—for my sake.” - -“For your sake?” - -“Yes. You’re half-men, all of you, or we’d be rid of him. I met him up -the pastures awhile since, and he—he was not kind. If I’d had you with -me, Will o’ Wisp—but you were drinking strong ale, likely, instead of -being at my side.” - -“I was lad-mooning up and down the fields, sick of my fancy for you. And -naught ever comes of it.” - -“Lad-moon no more, Will. Be up and doing.” - -“How?” he asked bluntly. - -“You’re not his match in strength—but little folk are given nimble -wits. He took a pistol to you once.” - -“He did,” muttered Will, urged now by a rancour Nita had fostered -diligently. - -“And it’s turn and turn about in this life. Borrow Murgatroyd’s -fowling-piece to-morrow——” - -“And creep up to Logie with it?” - -“There’s no need. All gossip comes to little Nita, and I can tell you -the way home Hardcastle will be taking, near dusk. It lies yonder, where -the track dips down from Pengables—and, when you’ve fired, Will o’ -Wisp, you’ve no more to do than slip home to Garsykes for your welcome.” - -“What sort of welcome?” - -“You’d find me, for one. What I’d give the man who rid Logie-side of -Hardcastle—but, then, you’re only half-man, maybe, like the rest.” - -With that, Will o’ Wisp was in the toils again; and as they went down to -Garsykes, the basket-weaver nestled close against him. - -Hardcastle, meanwhile, had taken his own grim way to Logie—over the -bridge of many memories and up the winding steep of the road. His gate, -when he reached it, held memories, too, and he fingered the arrow-head -left there as a token before the autumn trees were stripped. He kept it -in his pocket nowadays, for luck. - -A stable-lad, sweeping the lane, touched his forelock as Hardcastle came -by. - -“There’s been Farmer Draycott to see you, Master, but he couldn’t wait -till you came back. You promised to go to Broken Firs to-morrow about -repairs, and he stepped up to remind you.” - -“I’d not forgotten,” said Hardcastle carelessly—“though it’s a long -message for you to carry, William.” - -The lad grinned sheepishly. “It did twist the few wits I’ve got; but I -just kept on saying it over and over—not letting go in a manner o’ -speaking, like as if I stuck to a rope.—And, Master——” - -“Well?” - -“I’d not go if I was you.” - -Hardcastle glanced at him with gruff kindliness; for all Logie humoured -this lad of the strong hands and the lame wits. - -“You wouldn’t go?” - -“Not if Guytrash yelped behind and druv me forrard. I’d choose Trash, I -would, instead o’ Broken Firs. Why d’ye go, Master?” - -“Because I said I’d go—so fret no more, William, and take this hare up -to the kitchen.” - -He missed the wistful, dog-like glance that followed him up the lane. He -was thinking of Nita Langrish—of Causleen, who was a guest thrust on -him against his will. Donald the pedlar wearied him, too, though he -hated himself for the thought that pensioners lingered in their dying. -Surely there was enough to face these days, without useless burdens to -carry on one’s back! What did he owe Donald and his girl? Why were they -here, when Logie asked for all his strength, and no weaklings in the -house? - -Yet, when he came under his own roof, he was aware of loneliness. -Donald, as he glanced into the room, was sleeping tranquilly. Rebecca, -far down the passage, seemed to be at war with Jonah, the brindled cat. - -“A vagabones I call you, lapping cream all day and doing naught,” came -the shrill voice. - -Again Hardcastle wearied of it all. Peril, of the stealthy kind that he -was fighting, had made his body lean and nagged at his spirit till it -was raw with wounds. Something was absent—something he had come to look -for on returning—and he grew restless and impatient. - -Rebecca came down the passage by and by, Jonah perched on her shoulder -after the last of their soon-over quarrels. With swift and savage -intuition she knew what ailed the Master. - -“The pedlar does well enough. Are you worrying about him?” - -“No,” said Hardcastle, tall and sombre. - -“As for his girl, she came in awhile since like a child o’ Belial. After -she’d seen to Donald, she was frost and venom. She wouldn’t speak—I -could have thoyled it better that road—but flounced about in her quiet, -proud way, till I could have bitten her. Then she went out o’ doors—at -this time o’ night, and with all Garsykes stirring for aught we -know—and she’s not come back.” - -Hardcastle turned to the rack, reached for a fowling-piece and looked to -the priming. Then, without a word to Rebecca, he went into the soft -November night and stood listening for the cry of one in trouble. None -came. A sickle moon lay cradled in the tree-tops, shining on a land of -misty quiet; and in that moment Hardcastle learned something of the -heart he had thought walled-up for ever. - -He called, and silence answered. Crying louder and louder still, he went -up and down the pastures, through the home-spinney and out into Chantry -Meadow where the cowslips grew in spring. He began to weave pictures of -Garsykes Men surrounding her from every corner of these empty wastes, -and quickened pace, and went circling hither and thither like a man -distraught. Gusty anger found him, passionate question why she had left -Logie’s shelter—fear reached him, of a kind unknown till now—and again -his cry rang out—his heart’s cry of _Causleen_. - -A bunch of sheep, huddled under the wall, got up and ran bleak-witted -past him. That was the only answer. And now his own littleness appalled -Hardcastle. Measured by the striding loneliness of Logie-land, he seemed -small and of no account. He must get back, and saddle a horse, and rouse -the country-side. If they found Causleen safe—if they found her -safe—his mind stayed there awhile, glad to believe it till he was -half-way back to Logie. - -Then his mind raced forward. If they found her dead, or worse, he’d -gather his roving company into a band that would burn Garsykes from one -end to the other of its styes. Hardcastle, the magistrate who once had -scrupled to carry a gun against the Lost Folk, was growing fast these -days. - -He came to his own door, wrath and fear between them making havoc of -him. And there stood Causleen, looking quietly out across the trees. - -“Surely you heard me call?” snapped Hardcastle, with quick relief. - -“I heard.” - -“Then why the devil, child, didn’t you answer? I’ve been sick with fear -for you.” - -“Is that true?” she asked. “There’s no other could make you sick with -fear of that sort?” - -Hardcastle was no easy man to live with these days. His temper was -brittle as a file, and here was the pedlar’s girl, cross-questioning him -after the turmoil he had gone through. - -“I was a fool,” he said. - -“And why?” - -“To get my heart into my mouth because——” - -“Because, Hardcastle of Logie?” - -“Rebecca told me you’d gone out alone, as if there were no Wilderness -Men skulking round the house.” - -“And you cared to go in search?” - -“I was a fool,” said Hardcastle again. - -She glanced at him once, in the light of the young, keen moon—and -laughed at him with quiet derision—and went indoors, to find Rebecca -waiting. - -“Back, are you? Well, it’s time. The Master’s been daft about you—and -Jonah sits atop o’ your shoulder now, instead o’ mine—so I’m getting -jealous all ways. What made you go?” - -“The owls were hooting in Logie Wood. They seemed to call me,” said -Causleen, aloof and cold. - -“Pack o’ nonsense. Why couldn’t you let the hullets get on with their -decent hunting? It was the dratted voles and rats they were crying for. -And now you’ll want supper, on top of my hard day’s work.” - -“I—I could not eat, Rebecca. So you’re spared that trouble.” - -Rebecca, noting the girl’s sudden pallor, was grimmer than before. - -“Spared more from your pack o’ nonsense, am I? I’ll see to that. It’s a -good, square meal you need, my lass.” - -Causleen faced her with a dignity so aloof that it daunted even tough -Rebecca. “I eat as little as may be of your Master’s food.” - -With that she was gone up the windy stairway, like a Highland storm -across her own far moors; and presently Hardcastle came in, dour and -stubborn. - -“William brought you the hare?” he asked, finding Rebecca still in the -hall, chewing the cud of her defeat at Causleen’s hands. - -“Aye, and more. He prayed me draw you back from going to Broken Firs -to-morrow.” - -“What of that? William’s wits were never strong.” - -“But his far-sight is. Suppose he’s right, Master—and suppose you knew -he was right—would you still go up to Michael Draycott’s?” - -“What else should I do?” - -A lean, hard smile wrinkled the woman’s lips. “Aye,” she said. “Aye. -That’s Logie, through and through.” - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - - THE HINDERED VENTURE - - I - -Michael Draycott was waiting for him at the gate when Hardcastle came -over the moor to Broken Firs the next afternoon, and he nodded a cheery -greeting. - -“You’re on the very stroke of the time you promised, Master.” - -“I have to be, Michael. You’re so often near dying that a minute beyond -might be too late.” - -“Now, I willun’t have that old joke thrown at me,” chuckled the farmer. -“Maybe I have my fancies, like one here and there; but I do get up from -my death-bed wonderful regular.” - -“And then you want to dip into my pockets for repairs. It would pay me -to keep you ill in bed.” - -“Not in the long run, when roofs began to gape and gates dropped all to -bits. There’d be a tidier penny to pay then than now.” - -“Have it your own way, Michael, but remember I’m a poor man.” - -The ancient ritual went its way, as they moved from one corner to -another of the trim farmstead—Hardcastle with shrewd reluctance, -Michael with deep resolve to get all he wanted, and a little more. - -The little more was broached as Hardcastle was leaving, after a -wide-spread meal in the farmstead’s parlour. - -“Talking of mistals——” said Michael. - -“We didn’t happen to be.” - -“No, but we were thinking o’ them. That one yonder would be all the -better if it was doubled in size. The farm’s prospering so, I’ve -scarcely room for my beasts to turn about in.” - -“But, Michael, you’re bound to die soon, in one of those bad turns of -yours. You’d better be thinking of your latter end, instead of -farm-buildings.” - -The man’s weather-red face grew plump with laughter. “I’m not on such -nodding-terms with death as I used to be, Master. There’s summat in this -durned feud with Garsykes that makes me want to live to a hundred and -three.” - -“Six of us feel like that,” said Hardcastle, glancing down to where -Garsykes caught the last of the crimson sun-glow. - -“Aye, and six o’ that sort can be fifty or two-score when need asks. I -couldn’t have thought it—the way old bones grow young in these good -times.” - -All they had shared of peril lay silent between them, but confessed, as -they watched the last glow redden and die out across the Garsykes -hollow, leaving it to a grey, disastrous sleep. - -“I’ll go agateards with you, Master,” said Draycott by and by—“lest -young blood gets the better of you, and you run single-handed into yond -foul stye.” - -“There’s no likelihood, Michael. I’m ready for them if they come to -Logie, and it stands at that.” - -“Ah, but you’re young. And youth can’t bide to wait sometimes.” - -Michael went with him as far as the turn of the track, where the heather -ran down to the pastures; and then he bade him a hale good-night and -God-speed. - -“I’ve a sick heifer needing me, Master—and, forgive me, I was thinking -of the feud instead.” - -Hardcastle swung down the track. The sun had westered now about these -higher slopes, and dusk overtook him as he reached the top of the -sheep-track that wound to Logie. Across the frost-haze of the valley, -lights twinkled out from Garsykes one by one, and he laughed grimly as -he stood and watched them. Tired wayfarers might mistake them for stars -of hope, might blunder out of the hill-top wastes into such welcome as -waited for them there. - -A harsh joy in feud came to him. The end of Logie was sure as anything -could be in this world, but he would hold his good house to the last. -There would be no surrender, and with a quick flash of humour he -pictured Rebecca playing a besom heftily amid the flaming havoc of her -kitchen. And Storm, maybe, after much red sheep-slaying, would kill a -man or two of the Wilderness, and so die an honest dog. - -The old days of peace and money-getting were remote as a dream -remembered on waking to full life. Out there, behind the twinkling -lamp-gleams, were men and women plotting now, no doubt, some crafty -lighter blow before they came in force against the house. - -Death had seemed, in those old days, an end to life, a sorrowful laying -away of folk under green turf that stopped their ears for ever to the -wheeling cries of moor-birds—closed their nostrils to savour of wind -and sun and rain across the striding lands—ended all things and all -joy. - -Now, as he stood looking over the wandering valley mists, he seemed, for -one bewildering moment, to see with clearer vision. For Logie’s honour -he had grappled with the three gaunt men who met him at the pinfold—was -it weeks or years ago?—and since then death had shadowed him. Aye, but -was death more than a stride from one life to another? What if, for men -who had loved the homeland, there were wider moors beyond, and sweeter -winds and lustier joy in strength? - -The thought stayed with him. New horizons widened over widening -hill-spaces. What if death were no wormy end of life, but a beginning of -new days? - -No breeze ruffled these upland wastes. Little frets of night-time life -stirred among the gnarled heather and the bents. The land’s soul was in -a mood as deep and still as Hardcastle’s, and a fine communion held -between the Master who was a lover to his acres, the acres that loved -him. - -He roused himself at last, with another laugh at Garsykes and himself, -and was turning to swing down the sheep-track when a cry broke sharp as -a pistol-shot across the moor. It sounded close at hand. Then a second -cry came—far-off, it seemed—and another. Hardcastle peered through the -dark that had scarcely served to show him a yard of the track ahead. He -could see nothing, but the cries rose to a shriek of terror, and he ran -forward, this way and that, forgetting that the moor was thick with -ambush. Twice he sucked a foot out from the bog, and once he blundered -against a rock that cut deep. - -Still the cries sounded, weaker now. The darkness baffled hearing, as -well as sight, after a fashion of its own. Someone was dying, near at -hand, and Hardcastle could not find him. The failing cries maddened his -will to save—the will that would have gone through six-foot drifts to -save sheep over-blown. - -Then the grey haze lifted. A brave, young moon shone over -Logie-land—over the misty hollow, and across to Garsykes—and, not -twenty paces off, Hardcastle saw a little lad, half of him buried in -green slime. In his haste to get to him, the Master was all but lost -himself; for his heavier weight crashed through the ooze that was less -firm even than true bogland. He sank to his knees before touching firm -ground on the sloping brink of the marsh, then reached forward and -gripped the lad’s upstretched arms; and never afterwards, in trying to -recall what followed, could he remember anything but a struggle that -seemed endless. Each tug, to drag the boy towards him, unsteadied his -own foothold; and, when he had him in his arms, the fight to regain dry -land again brought every muscle thick-standing and near to -breaking-point. - -They came to firm ground at last, and the boy clung about him with -piteous cries. - -“I want my mammy—oh, I want my mammy.” - -“Well, I can’t be that—and, be damned to you, you’re a wet sort of lad -to father. Where d’ye hail from, laddie?” - -“From Garsykes.” - -Hardcastle glanced across the narrow valley, and back again to the boy. -Tired as he was, exasperated by the simple answer, the humour of it all -appealed to him. Apart from peril of other marshes he might blunder -into, how could he let this waif go lonely with his fright across the -mile that would seem endless leagues to him—the mile that stretched -between this and Garsykes? - -There was nothing for it but to go—a fool, knowing the way of the Lost -Folk and their mercies—into the midst of what they had in store for -him. Rebel as he would against suicide of this sort, he could not thrust -aside a lad who shivered as he clung to him. - -So they two went across the moonlit wilderness, picking their way -between the bogs and the broken grounds. It was not easy going. The -light was enough to show them a safe way till clouds came over the -moon’s face now and then, and they were alone with darkness and the -unfenced mines that lurked for heedless feet. - -Hardcastle’s temper grew rusty as a file. He was taking all these pains -for one of Garsykes brats, and the brat was wet and clinging. He wearied -of the lad’s piteous crying for his mother, and cursed himself for -inhumanity. - -They plodded on, till they came half down the slope on his side of the -stream. And now a great hubbub sounded from Garsykes, up above them, and -lanterns were bobbing to and fro. A woman’s voice rose shrill into the -stillness of the night. - -“You’ve got to find my lad, or I’ll know why!” - -“Turning us out o’ doors on a wild-goose chase,” came the answer. - -Hardcastle knew the voice for Long Murgatroyd’s, and his surly protest -was taken up by one and another. - -“The lad will be at High Stellings, where you sent him an hour since. -They’d never let him run a risk of dark o’er-taking him—open mines and -what-all—so they’re keeping him till morn.” - -“Aye. They’re keeping him. So let’s all get back to thy inn, widow, and -chalk up more riches for thee on thy door.” - -“There’ll be neither ale nor chalks till we’ve found Ned. I tell you -he’s lost on the moor. I know it in my bones. And, whisht ye, what was -that?” - -Far-off she had heard the lad’s cry for his mammy, though they were deaf -to its meaning. - -“A peewit, widow—or a curlew, maybe. One of ours must be poaching up -the fells, and started a wild-bird up.” - -But soon the oft-repeated cry, as it came nearer, was plain to all, and -their lanterns went bobbing up and down, each man thinking he knew where -to find the sound, and each baffled constantly by the utter darkness. - -Hardcastle made for the nearest light, and found himself face to face -with Long Murgatroyd, who gaped at him as at a ghost and turned his -lantern from the Master to Ned’s dripping figure. Then he gave a rough, -unsteady chuckle. - -“Here’s the big and little of it come to Garsykes, neighbours. You’ve -got your lad, widow, and we’ve got summat, too, we wanted.” - -The rest came crowding about Murgatroyd. The shivering waif had leaped -at a bound into his mother’s arms, and Hardcastle found himself alone, -confronting half the men of Garsykes. With peril came a sharp, useless -sort of vision for all that made up this wild happening. The half-circle -of lanterns—the scowling faces, part in light and part in shadow—the -dumb, do-nothing darkness of the waste lands—they were part of a scene -he looked on at, as if it were no concern of his. - -That for a moment. Then he gathered his strength, as a man might pull a -bow-string tight. Most of these folk were deep in liquor, and all were -scathing with rancour that had grown by what it fed on since the day he -paid no tribute. - -“We’d best end Logie now,” said Long Murgatroyd—“Logie and its mucky -pride.” - -A wolfish growl answered him, though still some dread of Hardcastle held -them. He had gone like “a ghost-guarded man” through these last weeks of -all that Garsykes could bring to his undoing. They were many—but they -lived in a country haunted by trolls and mine-goblins, and superstition -was in their slackened fibres. - -A breeze got up, quick and merry, from the top of swart Pengables Hill. -The clouds overhead were riven apart, and the eager moon leaped through. -It maddened the Garsykes Men afresh to see Hardcastle standing there -straight to his height and waiting silently for what might follow. - -Widow Mathison, still clutching her boy as if she feared to let him go -again, ran suddenly in front of Hardcastle and loosened her tongue on -the rabble. - -“Where’s your shame, you hulking wastrels? Do as you like to Hardcastle -when you can catch him fair—but not when he’s on this sort of errand. -Ned’s all I have, and can’t you see by the drip of him that he’s been -saved fro’ drowning?” - -“What do we care?” muttered Long Murgatroyd. “Ned’s no bairn of ours.” - -“That makes him the likelier lad,” said the widow, tartly. “And now you -can all pack home, for I willun’t have you touch the man.” - -Appealed to singly, there were men here who would have been pricked by -shame; but they were a mob out of hand, beast-like and robbed of what -wits they ever had. - -“Who’s the widow to come hectoring it over us?” snarled one. - -“Quit talking,” shouted another. “Let drive at Hardcastle instead.” - -The Master stepped quietly in front of Widow Mathison, and they swayed -and jostled, eager to attack, but held for a moment by brutish fear of -his unconcern. In that moment the moon was snapped up by a scudding -cloud, and Hardcastle took his luck as it came. - -His one hope of defence was to attack. Without a pause he ran forward, -lifting the stout stick he carried, and smashed the lanterns one by one. -Then, in the dark of his own making, he rained blows at random into the -midst of the screaming throng. - -Luck could not hold for long, he knew. Already the cloud was passing, -and with clearer light would come the end for him. But meanwhile it was -good to be alive, drawing healthy music from Garsykes skulls. - -When the moon raced free again, it shone on a few fallen men, on others -who yelped like wolves and came at him headlong. He glanced about him, -ran nimbly to a corner where two field-walls protected him from rear -attack, and waited for them. A man had to die once and some day. What -better end could Logie ask of him? - - II - -Will o’ Wisp, lurking beside the track that Hardcastle would take from -Broken Firs, wearied of his job. It had been well enough, with Nita -beside him, to do her bidding; but the silence and the night-time -sobered him. What grudge had he, after all, against the Master of Logie? -The man had taken a random shot at him, long ago, when he tried to rob -the post-boy. That was all in the day’s work of chance and mischance. -But what of this lying in wait, cold-blooded, for a shot that could not -miss its mark? - -Will was a rogue by nature—and from choice because life offered more -frolic along unlicensed roads. Yet decency, of his own sort, travelled -all roads with him, like a faithful comrade, and the longer Hardcastle -tarried in his coming, the chillier grew this enterprise of waiting to -shoot a man as if he were a sitting rabbit. - -What had he heard in the Garsykes tavern? That Nita played with men as -cats play with mice—that the way of her with them all was one and the -same—and the end a long sliding down the slope to hell. They did not -mince matters in their talk, the Garsykes Folk, and Will o’ Wisp thought -of these things now. - -Still Hardcastle did not come down the moor. Nita had pretended to know -the way he would take to-night, the hour of his return. She was wrong, -it seemed, and the rogue felt a stealthy gladness. The breeze sobbed and -fluted through the naked spinney where he crouched. His gun lay chilly -in half-frozen hands. Were they right when they spoke of the little -basket-weaver as of a thing accursed? - -He was too far on the Logie-side of the moor to hear the cries that had -drawn Hardcastle from his home-track past the spinney; and at length he -gave up the errand that had brought him here. - -“Nita has hanged enough men in her garter,” he muttered, stretching his -cramped limbs. - -Then he went down and across the pastures, leaping a wall nimbly here -and there, till he came near Garsykes and its tumult. He saw lanterns -flitting like his namesake Will o’ Wisps about the pastures, heard Widow -Mathison swing her tongue like a flail, and noisy voices answer to the -lash. - -It was all a mystery to him as he pressed forward, halting only when the -clouds raced over from Pengables, hiding one step from the next. Through -the stormy murk, as he listened, came a thunder-din of oaths, a pig-like -screeching from men not used to bear pain silently. - -The moon ran free again, and in the sharp, cold light he saw Hardcastle -standing in the angle of two limestone walls, with half Garsykes -yammering to be at him. - -Will o’ Wisp had no liking for the village he had blundered into weeks -ago. There were degrees of rascaldom, and his own feet went merrily on -the margin of such deeps as Garsykes knew. Something in Hardcastle’s -dour silence as he faced the rabble with uplifted cudgel—some liking, -inborn in him, for a man meeting heavy odds, brought music into Will’s -heart. Moreover, he was in mood to take sides with any man that Nita -hated. - -“What’s this, you Garsykes louts?” he asked. - -They turned on him, ready to tear him to pieces instead of Hardcastle. - -“Here’s Nita’s last favourite, Lord help him,” laughed Long Murgatroyd. - -“He carries a fowling-piece, as it happens—and it’s loaded—and you’re -a timid folk in Garsykes, unless all the luck’s in front of you. No, -Murgatroyd, I wouldn’t stir a foot, if I was you. You’d find it a queer -thing to be dead, with a charge of shot inside you instead of ale.” - -Will o’ Wisp was himself. Free of Nita, free of cold-blooded murder up -the moor, it tickled his fancy to be master of these folk—master too, -of what would happen soon to Hardcastle. - -He took his stand on a moonlit hillock, letting the polished barrel of -his gun glint from one to another of the mob. - -“I’m judge among you,” he said, with his heedless laugh. - -“Are you, now?” growled Murgatroyd. “A likely man, you, to be judge of -any folk.” - -“I know ’em all so well, knowing myself,” chuckled Will. “There’s my -loaded gun, too—and that helps a man to be a judge. What’s all this -moil about, widow?” - -Widow Mathison told him, instead, her mind about all Garsykes Men, born -or unborn—with gusto, now that Hardcastle was safe. That made Will -little the wiser till the lad broke from his mother’s grasp and then ran -back again, afraid of what he had suffered on the fells. - -“I fell into cold water, I did,” he whimpered, “and couldn’t get myself -out. And a big man came and tugged at me, and brought me to my mammy.” - -Will o’ Wisp understood now; and wrath kindled in his lazy mind. - -“You’d kill Hardcastle for that?” - -“Aye,” said Long Murgatroyd. “What do we care for the widow’s brat?” - -Will o’ Wisp let his gun roam quietly from one to another of the -company. And then he spoke. - -“In all my days I never happened on as foul a stye as Garsykes. -Hardcastle o’ Logie saved one of yours—and there’s something you never -learned, it seems.” - -“Oh, aye?” sneered Murgatroyd. - -“There’s fairation. Be dummocked, there’s fairation.” - -Still facing them, he made his way to Hardcastle and nodded cheerily. -“I’m going Logie way myself,” he said, “so we might as well step up -together. Three’s company sometimes, and I’m taking the gun as a parting -gift from Garsykes.” - -Hardcastle fell into step beside him, swinging his cudgel. A pluckier -mob would have rushed the pair of them, knowing that Will’s -fowling-piece could speak only once before they were trodden down. But -each man thought of his own skin, and stood cursing stupidly, and -watched them dip over and down the hill-crest. - -The Master and Will o’ Wisp went in silence through the blue-grey, misty -night, till Hardcastle turned suddenly. - -“There’s no return to Garsykes for you, after this. I’m in your debt.” - -“Nay. I’d meant to go. I’m not their sort of rogue, and never was.” - -“There’s supper and a bed at Logie.” - -“Bless you, I want no thanks. If there was danger to-night I’d come and -gladly. But they’ll let you alone for awhile. I know ’em.” - -Nothing Hardcastle could say persuaded the vagabond to change his mind, -when they came to the hill that swept with a break-neck fall to Logie -Brigg. - -“I’m getting as far as I can from Nita Langrish,” laughed Will. “She’d -be weaving her spells about me to-morrow if I stayed as near as this.” - -With that he borrowed a fill of ’baccy for his pipe, bade Hardcastle a -rollicking farewell, and went his ways into the everywhere that lay -within the night-time forest and beyond. - -Hardcastle chuckled quietly. After all, few strangers had come into -Garsykes, and fared out the better in this world’s gear. Will o’ Wisp -could boast of a good fowling-piece that was his by right of conquest. - -Then the Master turned for home; and the steep of the road brought -anguish to the knee that had blundered against a rock while he was -rescuing the widow’s lad. There had been no time to think of it till -now. - -For very pain he was forced to rest on Logie Brigg, and at these times -life lies in wait for every man. Pride to keep Garsykes at bay was well -enough. So was joy in the lusty strength that had cracked a crown or two -to-night. Now these were gone. He halted on the bridge, as the pedlar -and Causleen had done, before the trees were bare—weary, heartsick and -body-sick, no flame alight on any beacon-hill ahead. It was as if he was -a child again, seeking the mother who had slept these twenty years where -the churchyard listened to the lap of waters round its graves. - -Under him swirled Wharfe River, playmate and comrade and lover through -the peaceful days; and now her voice stole kindly to his ear, talking of -brave days to come. When all seemed in the losing, the river told him, -it was time for the hale-souled sort to gather courage. - -He limped up the hill to Logie with gaining hope, and found it easier -for a lame man to climb than it had been to make the sharp descent that -jarred every step. For all that, he was spent and tired when he came to -his own gate—till he saw Causleen waiting for him there. The moon -showed him a face pale and eager, framed by dark hair that was loose -about it like a glory. - -“You were in danger somewhere, and I could not help you.” The Highland -voice was low and troubled. “There was a crying up the waste lands—your -feet blundered into marshes——” - -“How should you know?” he broke in. - -“The vision came,” she went on, with great simplicity. “I did not ask -for it. It came.” - -Hardcastle’s heart beat faster, for no reason that he knew of. Since -Causleen’s first coming there had been recurring enmity between them -broken by little rifts that let the sunlight through. He had not known -till lately how he had begun to need and seek her comradeship. To-night -he gained a deeper knowledge. Her welcome at the gate was the one thing -he had craved, all the long way from Garsykes, and it was his. - -“You’re glad I’m home again?” - -She grew still and cold. “Glad? Yes. You have been kind to us—two -pedlars tramping to your gate. The vision came, and I spent myself in -sending help to you across the waste—help of the spirit—and, of course -you’ll laugh at fancies—I spent myself, not for your sake, but because -you’d shown us kindness—of your own rough sort. I wished to pay a -debt.” - -Logie’s Master had known mixed weather on the uplands, but never such a -March-tide change from sun to bitter, east-wind spite. The pedlar’s girl -was remote from him as the top of old Pengables Hill, with its head -among the driving sleet. - -“Is it Nita,” he asked clumsily, “and her chatter of the night we spent -down yonder?” - -“It is Nita.” - -The man’s big, simple heart found room at last. Through these last weeks -he had been groping forward to the light. - -“Best marry me,” he said. “I’ve wanted it, Causleen.” - -She answered nothing for awhile. Then sleet came stinging at his face -again. - -“I do not care for pity. Oh, you are clumsy in your kindness! Gossip has -touched us, and you stoop to offer marriage to the beggar-maid. You are -generous.” - -“I want it,” he repeated doggedly. - -“I’ve shame enough to bear as it is. Would I add to it? To sit each day -at table, and look across at you, and know that I owed it all to -pity—would that be happiness?” - -She turned to go, then glanced at his knee as if she had not seen till -now that it was bleeding through the torn cloth of his riding-breeches. - -“You crashed against a rock,” she said softly. “The vision showed me -that, too. Can I wash and bind it for you?” - -“It is of no account.” - -“You mean that Rebecca the paragon would have more skill? She is so -wonderful.” - -Hardcastle could only wonder at her moods. She had seemed to care that -he had taken a hurt, and now she was jealous of Rebecca. And again she -had turned and was looking at him with wide, questioning eyes. - -“You asked if it was Nita. It was—but not her gossip. Why do you lie to -me, Hardcastle of Logie?” - -With that she was gone in earnest, and Hardcastle limped slowly up the -dappled moon-dusk of the road. Near home as he was, a late-found -instinct prompted him to hold his cudgel in readiness for whatever the -swaying shadows of the firs might hide. His left hand swung idly at his -side, till suddenly a wet snout pushed against it and a friendly smell -stole up in greeting. - -“Back again, are you, Storm?” said the Master, with gruff banter. “Red -from the feast, as usual?” - -But the dog’s grey muzzle was innocent of stains. For three days he had -ravened, then had slept off the after-sickness, had lapped greedily at -every stream he passed. No guile showed in the brown, humid eyes. He -knew nothing of repentance, or need of it. It was just that his -wander-lust was over, and somewhere deep in his being was the knowledge -that danger threatened Logie. He was home again, and at his post. - -“It was time you came,” said Hardcastle. “Dogs I know, and horses I -know—but women are beyond me.” - -Storm had the better of him; for a half-hour later Causleen found him in -the cupboard under the stair, and brought him food, and made much of him -before she bent above his tousled head. - -“Oh, Storm,” she said, and cried her heart out. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - - A ROPE-END AND A TREE - - I - -Hardcastle fretted during the next days, because the hurt to his knee -yielded slowly even to Rebecca’s skill with peat and simples and the -right way of handling bandages. The fear was on him constantly that -Garsykes would hear of his infirmity and rush to the attack before his -strength returned to face it. - -There was the pedlar, trusting to the shelter he had promised him—and -Rebecca, old in service—and Causleen. - -There was Causleen. She was aloof and chill whenever they met about the -house. He could make nothing of her whims. Was it his fault that he had -been asked to save her life, and was powerless to rescue her from the -whip of Nita’s tongue, except by marriage? And marriage she disdained. -He tried to reason it all out, not understanding that reason was the -last thing concerned with what had happened to Causleen and himself. - -Always the worst of his fretting returned to her. If those louts from -Garsykes came and he had only one knee to serve him, what would chance? -His mind ran out to the unthinkable—for Causleen. - -“Now, it’s not a bit of good,” said Rebecca on one of these afternoons, -as she was bandaging his knee afresh, “not a bit of good to go about -like a man that thinks the roof will fall because he’s got a pain in his -knee. Men are all alike, Lord help ’em—’specially when they’re mending -nicely, and ought to be giving a thanks-be, instead of glowering like a -thunderstorm. It nags a bit, what I’m rubbing into the raw o’ your -wound? Well, there’s healing goes with nags sometimes.” - -“You don’t know,” grumbled the Master. “I fall lame just when Logie -needs me. There’s you and Donald——” - -“Aye, and there’s Donald’s lass. That’s where your shoe pinches. Times -were different when I was young.” - -She tied the bandage, sewed its edges up and bit the thread off with her -strong, ancient teeth. - -“Different?” asked Hardcastle, impatient of her ministry and all things. - -“Aye. We never doubted Logie’s roof was safe. My lad doesn’t doubt it to -this day. You’re young, Master, and I’m of the elder days, and I tell -you what I know.” - -Rebecca had no more to do with bandages and healing. She was wrapt into -another world—grey and gaunt, a prophetess. - -“War comes to Logie-side. The youngsters fight, and the old see far. -D’ye think I go every night and morning to tryst my lad at the gate and -get nothing for it? He died for Logie once—and it was forty years ago.” - -Jonah the brindled cat, crept into the room and leaped to Rebecca’s -shoulder. He was no hearthside lover now, but wild and bridling. - -“Even Jonah seems to know there’s trouble coming,” went on Rebecca. -“Well, let it come, and we’ll outface it as we’ve always done.” - -“There were fewer men in Garyskes then,” said the Master gloomily—“and -more who were staunch for Logie.” - -Rebecca glanced at him, and even her free speech was checked. She read -his heart, as he could not. The odds against him had not brought this -black mood, but fear for Causleen had. Awhile since she had been jealous -of the girl, resentful of the gaining fear that her own reign at Logie -might be ended soon. Now she feared lest Causleen’s playing with the -Master should ruin all. It was no time “for furbelows and cantrips,” and -how could a man fight his best with half of him wondering if his lass -cared? - -“You’ve been fretting to give that knee o’ yours a taste of the fresh -air,” she said grudgingly. “Have your way, then, for it’s mending fast. -And, of course, you’ll go a mile if I tell you the half is enough and to -spare.” - -Hardcastle went more than the mile. He was unused to the prison of four -walls for days on end, and the wine of the crisp November afternoon got -into his blood with every step he took. In all the years behind he had -seldom seen Logie-land in its full breadth and splendour as he saw it -now. The striding acres, wind-blown and lonely—the last sunset glow on -old Pengables—the sombre forest getting to its sleep—all were like -ancient friends who brought a new, swift welcome. They might be in the -losing, but they were his as yet, and wonderfully dear. - -One moorland track lured him on to another, till he reached the -beech-wood that stepped down to Scawgill Water. Life had done this and -that for him, but had not killed the boy’s romance that would linger -always in this silent place of mystery, with its grave, round-boled -trees, its red-russet drift of leaves that crinkled to the tread. -Squirrels had their tree-top nests here, and badgers lived in the -“earths” beside the stream. A great dreamer, in spite of his hardness, -the Master still peopled the glen with all that country legend had to -tell of water-nixies, trolls and goblins. It was so hushed a place, so -instinct with underfret of the primeval life, that no man could linger -here and fail to know its witchcraft. - -A stifled cry sounded near at hand, and then a groaning, low and -long-drawn-out. Hardcastle, startled out of his dreams, glanced sharply -round. Long since a wandering tinker had come to a foul end here, and -his ghost, they said, was restless time and time. - -The pigeons ceased their crooning in the tree-tops. A cold and slender -wind, prying to the bone, chilled Hardcastle. Far down Logie Dale a -farm-dog yapped and barked, and a roaming fox took up the challenge. - -Hardcastle glanced about him, and up a clearing of the wood saw a body -swinging from a tree. All the boy in him took fright; but the man bade -him go and see what this ghost of a suicide dead fifty years ago was -made of. - -The gloaming filtered through leafless branches and showed him a gaunt, -six-foot body turning and twisting on a rope. The body still groaned, -but with lessening vigour; and there was something pitiful in the feet -that trod helplessly on air, seeking firm ground. - -Hardcastle got out a knife and ripped the cord across. The body tottered -and swayed for an instant, and afterwards it needed all his strength to -check it in its fall and lower it into the withered brackens, Then he -loosed the frowsy shirt and watched the dull purple steal from the man’s -face, giving way to a pallor as of death. - -The slow return of life was terrible to be alone with, and Hardcastle -welcomed the plea for water that came by and by. The stream lay below -them, and he had no vessel of any kind; so he shouldered the -half-lifeless body, carried it to the bank and ladled water in his palms -as best he could. - -“That’s better,” gurgled the man, when at last his choking throat -contrived to swallow a few drops. - -The farm-dog and the yapping fox had roused every house about the fells -by now. From Pengables to Crake Beacon, dogs gave tongue, loud across -the still night-air. And close at hand, in answer, came a scampering of -wild things through the undergrowth. Field voles twittered, and overhead -the flitter-mice cried thinly as they vanned to and fro. - -In the midst of this stealthy terror of the woodland folk, the man -propped against the stream’s bank began to drink greedily and to good -purpose, till Hardcastle denied him more. Then they two looked at each -other, in the light of a moon that shone wanly through the naked -tree-tops. - -“It’s you, Hardcastle o’ Logie?” - -“Yes, Long Murgatroyd—and the devil of a time you’ve given me.” - -“That’s good news.” The man’s slow-witted hatred, nursed in health, -leaped out in this hour of weakness and release from death; “but it’s -naught to what’s waiting for you up at Logie.” - -A madness came on Hardcastle. The sweat of trouble he had given this -lout, dangling between earth and sky awhile since, asked for a word or -two in another key. His hands were itching for the throat that he had -saved. - -“You were minded to spare the hangman trouble later on,” he said at -last, “and so am I. But I’ll leave you to it.” - -Murgatroyd began to laugh, and could not check himself for awhile. Then -he put a hand to his throat, and laughed again, as a dotard might. - -“I came near to hanging myself in Nita’s garter, as that terrible -pranksome fellow, Will o’ Wisp, would say. And so did you, Hardcastle. -What could I do but laugh? We might have been swinging together—me on -one tree, and Logie’s high-almighty on its neighbour. We’d have made a -bonnie picture—with Nita coming to look on.” - -The farm-dogs yelped and barked across the wastes. Fear gained on the -little people of the wood. The breeze sobbed and whimpered, and would -not be still. And Hardcastle feared greatly, too—lest he could keep his -hands no longer from Long Murgatroyd. - -“Are you fit to be left, if I take your rope home with me?” he snapped. - -Murgatroyd was recovering fast. “You needn’t take it. She maddened me so -with her come-and-kiss, and her stand you off, and all the sick -damnation of it, that I fancied a rope’s end more than Nita. That’s -gone.” - -“Gone, has it?” asked Hardcastle, with a sick kind of wonder. - -“Aye. I’ll get my arms about her, soon or late. I promised her no less. -So you run home to Logie, if there’s any Logie standing.” - -“It’s stood against the Garsykes swine for years out of mind. I’m not -for hurrying, Murgatroyd.” - -Deep, sullen hatred showed in the man’s face, mottled with returning -life. To Hardcastle it was as if he looked down into the pit of hell, -seeing a lost man who would not be saved at any cost of trouble from -helping hands above. - -“Nita wanted me to go with them to-night,” said Murgatroyd; “but I told -her I’d rather hang myself in a wood than do her bidding.” - -The man fell into cackling laughter again, then shivered as memory of -the rope returned. - -“We’d have been a bonnie couple, swinging side by side; but ’twas not to -be, it seems.” - - II - -Hardcastle left him there, and swung up the fields to Logie. His pace -quickened with every stride, for Murgatroyd’s tale of peril to the house -had found its mark. If it were true that an attack was planned, he might -already be too late; and he thought ceaselessly of his home—and of -Causleen. - -When he topped the rise that looked down on Logie, he glanced eagerly -up-dale. Prepared to see flames leaping high into the dusk, he saw only -a steady lamplight glow that shone from the window over the -porch—Causleen’s window—and instead of men’s frenzied shouts he heard -only a farm-lad’s song as he went about the business of the mistals. - -The relief was so quick, so urgent, that a sudden “God be thanked” -escaped him. Murgatroyd had lied. He should have known as much, and -saved himself the sick suspense of his journey up the fell. - -“For why should God specially be thanked?” asked a quiet voice at his -elbow. - -Brant the shepherd, a silent man in all his ways, had come noiselessly -to the Master’s side, and was tugging at his wispy beard. - -“Confound you, Stephen, you startled me. They said the Garsykes Men had -come to Logie.” - -“Well, they haven’t, to all appearance; but they come to my sheepfold as -if there was no law in the land. I stepped down to talk about it with -you, Master.” - -“The ewes must take their chance, as we all do these days.” - -“Aye, they mean little to you, and always did. Time was when you -sheltered Storm, though he was a red-jawed outlaw dog. Well, I got Storm -at last.” - -Hardcastle found the grim humour that gave salt and savour to these -harsh days. “You got Storm, poor beast,” he said, thinking of the -cupboard under the stair at Logie—thinking, too, of Causleen and her -way with the backslider. - -“He’ll trouble me no more—but durned if these Garsykes Men aren’t worse -than a kennel-full of such as Storm. They grow outrageous—fair -outrageous.” - -The Master was glad of the chance given him to speak his mind. “There -are six of us leal to the old house, Stephen. The rest are paying -tribute.” - -“Damn ’em, yes.” - -“Get away before Logie goes. I brought you into this, thinking we’d win -through. There’s no need for you to stay.” - -“No,” said Brant—“except that we’re twin and marrow in our love o’ -Logie. Where you bide, I bide.” - -Hardcastle glanced over to the light that shone from Causleen’s window. -All was in the losing, and his wits were keen to save her from the last, -foul uproar. - -“Could we get the pedlar and his girl to your hut on the moor? It’s cold -up yonder at this time o’ year, but there are worse things than cold.” - -“We could. The bracken-sledge would bump old Donald a bit by the way, -but we’d pad him well with hay-trusses.” - -“I’ll have the sledge out to-morrow, with the old grey horse to draw it. -He’s only eating his head off in the stable.” - -“Not so fast, Master,” put in Brant dryly. “That hut o’ mine is well -enough for a rough shepherd, but I’ll fettle it up before a maid can -pretend to be suited with it.” - -“It’s no time to ask whether the maid’s pleased or not,” snapped the -other. “You know what may happen any moment if she stays.” - -Brant was silent as they crossed the last pasture-field. He knew many -things—not least of them the reason that made Hardcastle gloomy and -prone to caution nowadays. It would be better for them all if Causleen -were out of Garsykes’ reach, and the Master’s mind relieved of the -sapping dread lest hurt should come to her. - -“I’ll be ready,” he said, opening the back-gate of Logie for Hardcastle -to pass through. “Then, after we’re free of what you might call -encumbrances, we’ll set about putting the fear of hell into the Lost -Folk.” - -Hardcastle regained his old self at a bound, for no reason that he -guessed. “What’s in that feud-sick mind of yours, Brant?” - -“To gather my stolen ewes from Garsykes. Six of us are staunch, and six -have dogs to round ’em up and back to Logie. We’ve fowling-pieces, too.” - -“But cannot use them, Brant. You should know that I’m a magistrate.” - -Humour answered veiled humour. “To be sure we can’t—save for killing -vermin. That’s allowed by law.” - -A great burden had slipped from the Master’s shoulders. He was free -somehow, to carry a careless heart and fight Logie to the last edge of -what might come. - -“To-morrow, after we’ve got the pedlar safe up-moor?” - -“The sooner the better. Who told you they were coming against Logie -to-night?” - -“Long Murgatroyd.” - -“He’d be a liar if he stood on the brink o’ Kingdom Come.” - -“That’s where he did stand—dangled, I should say—when I found him.” - -“Oh, aye?” asked Brant, with slow curiosity. - -“There are things men don’t think of twice, if they can help it. Come -indoors, and tell Rebecca that winds are dry and thirsty on the -heights.” - -“They are,” said the shepherd, with conviction, “and from this to Hawes -Water there’s no ale as ripe as Logie’s.” - -They parted in the stable-yard, and Hardcastle, coming to the grey, -moonlit front of the house, glanced at the room over the porch. The -light still shone from it, and Causleen, kneeling on the window-seat, -looked down at him. The lamp-glow behind her ran out to meet the -silver-gold, soft moonlight. And both were tender with her beauty. - -“Oh, I’ve waited for you,” she said, her voice soft as one of her own -Highland burns in summer. - -A great joy blazed up in Hardcastle, as if boyhood found its spring -again. “You’ve waited?” he asked sharply. - -“Yes. Rebecca is beyond herself with grief. She sees you lying dead -somewhere on the fells, and sits and croons, saying she ought never to -have let you out of her sight—with your wounded knee, and all the mad -wolves hunting you.” - -“Let them hunt,” said Hardcastle, his dreams shattered suddenly by her -chill laugh of contempt. - -“I will comfort Rebecca, while you go to father. He has been asking for -you.” - -“Is that mockery, too?” - -“None of it is mockery. And Rebecca need not have feared. There’s a mad -wolf glaring up at me—bigger than any of the Garsykes breed.” - -Hardcastle conquered his gusty rage. She was a woman, and his guest. If -the new dreams had to go—well, the old ones had gone, and soon Logie -would be ended, too. Nothing mattered. - -“Donald asks for me?” he questioned. - -“I said it—and we of the Highlands do not lie, as you of Logie do.” - -The Master limped into his own house, forgetting the fret of the knee -that had broken Rebecca’s bandages by now. A yelp of welcome sounded the -moment he set foot indoors, and Storm left his hiding-place and pressed -close against him, clamoring for attention. - -Hardcastle held up a warning hand. “Kennel, lad. There’s Brant in the -house.” - -Storm’s tail fell limp. His whole body seemed to shrink and lessen as he -crept back to the cupboard. He had learned that Brant was a word of evil -meaning. - -“Poor devil,” muttered Hardcastle, “there’s not much left for him in -life, though he saved three of us. Brant or another will get him soon.” - -He went into the room where Donald lay on the settle, his body tethered -by weakness, but his eyes bright and eager. - -“I wanted you,” said the pedlar. “Sit ye down in the chair here, and -I’ll let some of my long thoughts out. They burden me.” - -His glance roved from Hardcastle to the pike that hung above the mantel, -and back again. - -“I’ll not grudge you that any longer,” he went on. “They tell me of your -stand against the Lost Folk, and I care for a man who can make music out -of odds. I would that, here in Yorkshire, you had the pipes to hearten -you.” - -His mind wandered to the glens of home, to unforgotten pibrochs and his -long fight with poverty—wandered to the gorsy braes that he had roamed -with Causleen’s mother. Then he spoke again, smiling gently. - -“When one is chained as I am, there is nothing to be done, except grow -wise. If a man can fight one sort of honest battle, he can fight all. I -wanted you to know that—that your guests have not turned vagabonds for -choice, or for lack of struggle.” - -Hardcastle, wrenched out of old ruts by war and heartache, found a fine -simplicity. He understood all that Donald left unsaid, the grace and -manliness of it. - -“My guests are very welcome,” he said, diffident and gruff. “They should -know as much by this time.” - -“We have fought, Causleen and I. There were no pipes with us, no press -of foemen waiting for attack. There was only poverty—a dumb enemy, cold -and crafty, that lay in wait.” - -Again Donald’s glance wandered to the Flodden pike. - -“Be gentle with an old man who sees before and after, and must ease his -mind. There are cairns in my country, reared to Hielandmen who died with -the broadsword in their hands. There’s not one to speak of those who -fought poverty, the hardest foe of all.” - -Then his restless mind went wandering down the centuries. He told of -Macbeth and Duncan—of Glencoe and its narrow shambles—of Prestonpans -and Derby Town and red Culloden Moor—as of staunch, forthright matters -he had shared. And, whether he lived or died in far-off tumults, there -was constantly the joy of well-worth-while, the thud of blows, the -heartening wonder of the pipes, playing men up the further hills. - -It was only when he came to the tale of his journey from the Highlands -that the song went out of his voice, the light from his eyes. Hardcastle -grew ashamed of his own wealth and ease, as he listened to the slow -recountal of trinkets sold here, to earn a bed for the night—of -fortunes told in an alien country to win the price of a wayside meal. -The tale was so simply told that he, too, felt footsore and heartsore as -he listened. Donald roused himself at last from his journeys down the -years. The quiet, beguiling smile crept once more across the grey -creases of his face. - -“Have I wearied you with my chatter—as I tire you because I’m so long -in dying?” - -“We shall get you strong again——” - -“No,” broke in Donald. “Something tells me the end is even nearer than -you think—a tame end to a life that has dreamed so much of ancient -battles.” - -Hardcastle humoured his mood, garrulous but constantly returning to the -one clouded purpose. For pride’s sake he needed to explain how Causleen -and he came to be travelling the roads, and presently his mind grew -clear. - -“We had ever been Stuart men in the old days—losing, and hoping, and -fighting—till little was left me when my time came to be laird in the -dreadful days of honour and peace. That little went, and Causleen had to -make her choice. There was a rich wooer came. A great name he had, and -nothing against him but the one thing that damned all.” - -“Go on, Donald.” - -“You will not understand. How should you? The Stuarts were discrowned -and out of mind long since, you’d say; but in the Highlands they can -never be discrowned. And the wooer who came was of a clan that had sold -the old allegiance for gold—just for guinea-pieces to jangle in a -purse.” - -The fire of youth kindled in Donald’s voice. Consuming wrath was in his -eyes. And Hardcastle understood better than the pedlar guessed; for -Logie moorlands knew the way of staunchness to their own allegiance. - -“I left the choice to Causleen, though I’d rather have seen the child in -her shroud than linked to him. ‘He can save the house for us with his -gold,’ I said, to prove her. And, ‘He cannot,’ said she, ‘for there’s -Stuart blood on it. A hundred years is not enough to cleanse it.’ So we -took the roads together, she and I.” - -His eyes closed for awhile. One purpose was achieved; but another -clamoured for fulfilment, and he had little time to spare. He was alert -again. - -“She took the roads as bravely as she took her choice—but soon she will -be travelling alone.” - -There was question in the pedlar’s glance—a pleading that was command -almost. And out of doors a breeze plucked and rattled at the windows, as -if to deepen fear of what the lone highways had in store for Causleen. - -Hardcastle watched the lamplight flicker in the draught, looked on the -old, familiar furnishings with new vision—the bell-mouthed -blunder-busses of his father’s time, the pewter polished to dim lustre -by what was known to Rebecca as “elbow grease”—the pike that had given -every son of Logie pause when he was minded to be less than the men who -marched to Flodden long ago. - -He knew what Donald hoped for, and with wry humour he recalled the way -of Causleen since he saved her from the snow—her avoidance of him, or -mockery such as she had showered on him from her window when he came by -to-night. - -“You would have me guard her? Nothing but marriage could give me that -right.” - -“I have watched you, and the laid-by folk see much. It seemed that you -cared, and hope grew apace. That is why I tell you what her proper -station is. My girl would not shame Logie’s pride.” - -There was something wistful in the pedlar’s eagerness, his dignity. He -longed for Causleen’s safety, but would not cringe for it. - -“She will have none of me, Donald—so how can I ease your mind? I’ll ask -no woman twice.” - -A great joy shone in the pedlar’s face. He had had no inkling, till now, -that Hardcastle had forestalled his keen desire. - -“Second thoughts are sometimes best—especially a maid’s. She thought -you offered marriage out of pity, maybe.” - -“Yes. I could not persuade her from it.” - -“You will,” said Donald softly, and drew a long breath of thankfulness, -and dozed awhile. - -When he roused himself, his hold on this world seemed gone. He looked -out before him as if no house-walls and no leagues of foreign country -hid the wild glens of Inverness. He was home again. - -“I had two dreams,” he said, his voice clear and lusty. “One was to know -Causleen safe, and that comes true. The other was a sick man’s fancy. I -dreamed”—he tried to lift himself, and failed—“dreamed that I died a -warrior, instead of Pedlar Donald.” - -With that his eyes closed, and Rebecca, coming to see how it went with -him, stood beside the settle, her grim face softened. - -“Sleeps like a babby, poor soul—and it would be as well if he died in -it, instead of living to be bumped on a bracken-sledge to-morrow. Brant -sits snug by my hearth, and tells me you’re for turning the old man out -o’ doors.” - -“The Garsykes Men are coming. He’s safer up the moor.” - -“His brat is safer, you mean. Why don’t you want to tuck me, too, on the -sledge, if Logie is no place for women? D’ye think that, because I’ve a -face like a hatchet, to scare men with, I’ve a heart after the same -pattern? Ask the lad that keeps tryst with me at the gate, every night -and all.” - -She lowered the lamp, took another look at Donald as if he were an -ailing first-born of her own, and together they went out into the -draughty hall. - -Storm yapped and whimpered from his cupboard, and Hardcastle went in to -quiet him, thinking only of the dog’s peril, not of Logie’s. - -“There’s Brant near by,” he said. - -Storm would not be satisfied. He bared his teeth and growled till -Hardcastle cuffed him. Then the sheep-slayer shivered and lay down—but -not for fear of Brant—and whined, as the rising breeze about the house -sobbed from the lost Garsykes lands. - -When Hardcastle had fastened him in, with a biscuit or two for company, -he went with Rebecca to the kitchen. They found Brant sitting by the -hearth, a stoup of ale beside him. - -“Getting mellow, Stephen?” - -“Mellowish, as you might say.” - -“There’s naught else to do these days, while the waiting-time is on.” - -“He talks of sleeping here to-night,” said Rebecca, harking back to her -grievance, “says he wants to be ready for the sledge-journey you’ve -planned. If you want to kill poor Donald outright—well, bump him to his -death on the bracken-track.” - -Hardcastle, a little afraid of his henchwoman in times of ease, was the -master now. “War has come. Will you put that into your mind once for -all?” - -“I’m not likely to forget it.” - -“They’re coming one day to fire Logie. D’ye think we want to be crippled -by thought of Donald, lying helpless? If he had his choice, would he be -burned in his bed—or risk death on the bracken road, with God’s winds -about him?” - -“God’s winds blow snell and cruel these days Indoors or out, there’s -little to choose, and men like Brant come trapesing in to beg a night’s -lodging. He’s killed Storm, he tells us, and should be content with -that, without adding murder of poor Donald to his Judgment tally.” - -“Killing of Storm won’t worrit me, when my time comes,” chuckled Brant. -“There’ll be a few score ewes to back me up—ewes that might have gone -into his jaws if it hadn’t been for a lucky shot o’ mine. As for Donald, -I’m with the Master. He’s a better chance on the uplands than tied to -his bed at Logie.” - -“Aye, talk at me, now you’re two to one. Beat an old woman down. But -when you’ve killed a lone pedlar—one that’s shared Logie’s salt—don’t -run to my apron for comfort. I’ll give you none.” - -“We shouldn’t look for it,” said the Master dryly. - -Rebecca, taut as a bow-string, was at war with herself and every living -thing about her, because peril did not come. The lad who had trysted her -at the gate these forty years, had told her yesterday of havoc brewing -up. And instead there was a wet breeze sobbing round the house, and -Brant with the ale-froth about his stubbly beard and Hardcastle, dour -and tall and thinking of Causleen. She knew that he was thinking of her, -and heard children, of his getting, shout in play. Forlorn, alone and -jealous, she sought for a grievance, and found it speedily. - -“Your knee’s dripping, Master, and so much for my bandages. A careless -man at all times, you.” - -She went to the cupboard near the hearth, and got out a store of lint, -and herbs that staunched the bleeding. The Master was hers for a little -while, before Causleen stole him from her. - -“It hurts, as I rub it in?” - -“Like the devil, Rebecca. But have your way.” - -A bark sounded down the gusty corridor, and Brant cocked a hairy ear. - -“If Storm wasn’t dead, I’d have sworn I heard him.” - -“His ghost barked,” said Rebecca. “No wonder he’s haunting you from this -to the end of all. Are you sure you killed him?” - -“Aye, I’m sure of that. And, as for his ghost, it needn’t trouble me.” - -Rebecca finished her task, and gave the bandage a rough, ill-tempered -pat. “There! If fire and slaughter’s coming, it’s as well to have two -legs to stand on instead of one. Men are feckless, left to themselves.” - -And now a silence crept about the house, and into the hearts of these -three. They longed for the wind to rattle at the casements; but it, too, -had fallen dumb. Logie was a house aware—its every stone and -rafter-beam—of a peril sinister and urgent. - -The brindled cat, catching the stealthy unrest of the house, had gone to -Storm for comfort, only to find his ancient ally prisoned for the night. -He wandered back to the kitchen now, and sprang to the table. His eyes -were big, his fur stiff and ruffled, as if he waited for rats to come to -Logie. - -Rebecca glanced at him. “You, Jonah? Drat you for another male that’s -stepped into my kitchen, looking warlike—and finding no sort of -battle.” - -She swept him from the table, with a sudden gust of spite, and the cat, -gathering himself up, showed teeth and claws and spat at her. - -Then Rebecca laughed and cried, and gathered the great cat into her -arms. - -“I didn’t mean it, Jonah—but my heart’s just breaking with the trouble -of it all.” - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - - FLAME - -That night they waited in Garsykes village till the moon dipped over -Scummer Rigg and grey-black gloom shrouded heath and pasture-land. Then -every man who had strength to carry a burden reached out for his -well-filled sack. - -Long Murgatroyd came up the hill with his shammocky stride just as they -were shouldering the sacks. He stood awhile in the lamp-glow streaming -from the tavern windows, and they drew away from him as if he had the -plague. There was something unearthly in his white, drawn face, in the -laugh that broke his silence. - -“So I’m in time, after all? It’s better pastime, this, than hanging -yourself in Nita’s garter.” - -The man still felt raw of a hempen cord about his neck—the cord that -Hardcastle had loosed not long ago. Yet he laughed again, as he glanced -from one to another. Once he had lain in wait for Hardcastle, and twice -the Master had given him his life. The memory bit and rankled. - -“Logie flares red as hell to-night,” he said. “Let’s make a start!” - -They went out into a dark that could be felt, soon as the inn’s friendly -gleam was left behind. It reared itself against them like a wall, so -that they feared almost to break themselves against it. Then, as their -eyes grew used to it a little, they picked their way across lean fields, -over marshes yielding to the tread, through woods of pine and larch -whose rustling blackness put slack fear into their limbs. But they -dreaded more the open highway that gave them a ready way to Logie. Deep -in the bones and fibre of the Lost Folk lurked distrust of roads where -honest men might be encountered. - -It was when they came to Logie Brigg that superstition gathered thick -about them. They huddled together, a lack-luster mob, on their side of -the crossing. It was a saying centuries old in Garsykes that luck never -came of hindering a Hardcastle. They might rob or take tribute of -Logie’s tenants, but must not touch its master. - -“Bleating ewes, are you?” snarled Murgatroyd. “There’s all us—and up -yonder only Hardcastle and two women, and an aged man who may be quick -or stiff by now. And you bleat.” - -A rough voice answered him through the murk of the windy night, over the -song of Wharfe River as she raced below. - -“It was you brought the trouble to Garsykes, when you were fool enough -to wait for Hardcastle at the pinfold. There’s been naught but ill-luck -since.” - -The jostling mob, glad of a scapegoat for its panic, turned on -Murgatroyd. - -“Aye, be you first to cross the bridge—if you dare, mad Murgatroyd!” - -His madness came on him in earnest. The broken years of his slavery to -Nita, came to a head. Better any happening up at Logie than Nita’s -laughter if they left the house standing and came back with the tale. - -He forced his way through the press. Shammocky no longer, but grim and -straight and broad he led his Legion of the Lost between the grey, -narrow walls of Logie Brigg. And all men followed him, afraid of the -gaunt figure striding through the gloom. - -They came to the gate of Logie, where Donald had found their token in -the autumn days. Above them the house lay dark and hushed. Starlings -cheeped and scolded in the ivied wall, but no other challenge answered -their intrusion. - -Murgatroyd gave a low chuckle—bleak and terrible as when he had jested -after looking over the brink of death. - -“We’re not expected, though I blabbed to Hardcastle. He fancied, -seemingly, that a liar never can speak truth.” - -Then, with savage zest, he planned the night-surprise, giving them no -time for a second panic. He would lead one half to the main door, while -the rest stole through the stable-yard and attacked the kitchen-entry. - -“Sharp and ready does it, and any man would be a fool to fall soft now. -He’d have Long Murgatroyd to reckon with.” - -Overwhelming weight of numbers was with them. So was the slumber of a -house that did not look for them to-night. But Murgatroyd’s gruff threat -was the steadying note. - -Those chosen for the rear attack crept pad-footed round the yard, and -piled their sacks against the kitchen door with frantic haste till the -woodwork was hidden by a bulging load of fuel. They littered the stone -porch with what bags were left, and fired them. - -The blaze was so fierce and instant that they leaped back into the cool -dark of the night, and waited for those in Logie to be burned in their -beds, or to come through the flames for what waited them. And the first -that those within-doors heard of trouble was Storm’s frenzied barking as -he hurled himself against his cupboard-door, to break it through for -Logie’s sake. - -The Master lay for a moment between sleep and waking. One window of his -room opened on the stable-yard, and below he heard the restless tread of -feet, the crackling of flame. Grey, pungent smoke was drifting in -already across his bed, and he sprang up with an odd sense of -readiness—and of relief. What they had waited for was here at last, to -be met and grappled with. - -Brant, too, had heard the uproar, and they met at the stairway head and -ran down together to the kitchen. Hardcastle was in shirt and breeches, -donned hastily, and the shepherd made a queer figure, his beard splayed -above the top of a woollen nightshirt that reached to his unlaced boots. - -They glanced at each other in the light of the smouldering kitchen-fire. - -“You’ve a fowling-piece, Master?” murmured Brant. “Better have chosen a -likelier gun. From what I’d heard, I fancied they were coming—this -night or the next.” - -He broke off to listen to the roar of flame outside, to watch the door -blister and gape open in wide rents. - -“I borrowed a blunderbuss before I got up to bed,” he went on, in the -same low voice, “and loaded it. It would make you laugh to know what I -crammed into its muzzle—pebbles and rusty nails, and all kinds of -winsome odds and ends.” - -The door they were watching gaped wider, and great joy came to them, -born of the house they loved. Without were fire and all the scum of -Garsykes. Within were two leal men. - -“The odds are with us, Stephen,” said Hardcastle, breaking a silence -that seemed long. “When the door’s down, they’ll be in the glare, and we -in darkness.” - -“You’re getting quick at the uptake,” grunted Brant. - -A light step sounded close behind them, and Causleen stood there, her -hair rippling in a dusky cloud about her night-gear. - -“Oh, go back, child,” said the Master. “There’s trouble.” - -“I’ve faced many kinds. Shall I tell you why I stay, Hardcastle of -Logie?” - -He was daunted by her courage, by the smouldering anger in her face. -Causleen did not seem to hear Brant, or gaping door. - -“I stay to see if you’re better at the fighting than the wooing. A -laggard in one is a laggard at both, they say.” - -It was no time for warfare of the tongue, and Hardcastle turned sharply -to carry her out of harm’s way. He turned again, for the thick, -nail-studded door had crashed inward with a swirl of flame and dancing -faggot-embers. - -Nothing chanced for awhile save fire that drove him back, and stench of -tar and resin. Storm’s barking rang like a wolf-cry through the house, -till suddenly it ceased, and Rebecca stood among them, the dog bristling -by her side. - -“Here’s a queer upset in my kitchen,” she said, glancing from the -blazing doorway to the men’s faces. “I wakened late, I own, but I’d -sense to go and loose Storm first. He might have been burned alive, poor -lamb.” - -Brant and the sheep-slayer eyed each other with slow wonder, as folk who -had not looked for the meeting and did not relish it. Then, with peril -waiting close at hand for both, the shepherd’s full-fed wrath blazed -out. - -“I shot you, Storm. I shot you, d’ye hear, for killing ewes of mine. And -you’re alive!” - -Storm left Rebecca and showed bared teeth to Brant. He was no outlaw -here at Logie, but ripe and ready for what was coming to the house he -guarded. - -“So much for you, Brant,” said Rebecca, with a cackle of wild laughter. -“A word from the Master, and he’ll have his jaws in your lean throat.” - -The flames of the blazing door were lessening now, for kitchen and porch -alike were floored with stone and offered no fresh fuel; and the moment -came that Hardcastle had looked for. The Garsykes Men, when no uproar -sounded from within—though the besieged should be between two fires by -now—grew restless and afraid of some ambush waiting in the dark of the -stable-yard. A common impulse swayed them to dash over the live embers -into the house before the first shock of surprise was over. - -As they came into the ruddy murk of the porch, Hardcastle aimed -point-blank at them. A wild-beast howl followed from men not used to -bearing pain. Then the porch was empty, save for the foremost of the -Garsykes Folk, whose legs were full of shot. - -Outside there was a rough stampede of men who fought each other in their -panic to get out of gun-reach. And Brant the shepherd suddenly went mad -with the blood-lust. Robbed of his chance to fire a shot, he pushed -Hardcastle aside, trod over the fallen body and ran out with a grim oath -in his heart. - -The night was black, impenetrable. Sight aided him nothing, but hearing -did. On the high uplands Brant had learned to see with his ears when -need pressed. The fleeing mob, not far down the road as yet, was making -noise enough to rouse dead men on their gibbets, and Brant’s blunderbuss -bellowed like a stag gone mad at rutting-time. - -A livid shriek of anguish followed, and those in Logie’s kitchen waited -for Brant to return in triumph. - -“Hark to them,” said Rebecca, rubbing her hands together. “They came to -Logie, as my lad told me at the gate—and they go as he fore-warned me. -By the marrow, how they squeal!” - -Causleen thought of her father. He had been asleep when she glanced in -on her way to the kitchen; but the uproar must have roused him, and it -was terrible to picture him lying there, alone and helpless, waiting for -he knew not what. - -The Master’s thoughts were with his shepherd, who did not return. -“Brant’s long in coming,” he muttered restlessly, and had taken a step -toward the porch when he halted, checked by the strangest tumult that -had come to Logie on this night of crashing din. - -He heard a bellow of mingled rage and fear, and knew the voice for Long -Murgatroyd’s. He heard, too, the muffled oaths of other men. He sprang -to Causleen’s side and put her behind him; and now the sharp stench of -fire wisped and eddied down the passage. - -“Go back,” he muttered, hearing her steps close following his. - -She would not, and they ran down the long corridor together till they -reached the open door of the room where Donald lay. And on the threshold -they stood as in a nightmare, aghast at what they saw. - -Long Murgatroyd and a press of Garsykes Men were in the room, their -faces lit by a fire they had piled in the middle of it. The lamp-glow, -stealing through the room where Donald slept, had shown them an easier -way of entry than burning down the main door. They had crashed through -the window, tossed down their sacks pell-mell and lit them. If they had -seen the sleeping man, they took him for dead or helpless and had not -heeded. - -So much was plain to Causleen and Hardcastle, looking on with the -nightmare grip about them still. But the pedlar slept no longer. He was -awake and on his feet. His face caught the fireglow as wrinkled -parchment might—little lines of crimson criss-crossing its ancient -pallor—but the body they had thought chained was alert and strong, -willowy with youth. - -Donald had gone to sleep content. His girl would be safe in Hardcastle’s -hands, and he was free to let dreams take him down the roads of old -romance, when those of his race plied claymores and heard the -battle-din. He woke to see an ill-kempt company lighting a fire at the -far end of the room; and suddenly life raced into his palsied limbs. - -Peril to Logie was mingled in his thoughts with far-off combats up the -glens at home. He stood there, supple and thin and dominant, gathering -the dreams come true at last. And the Garsykes mob gaped at this dead -man who faced them without any weapon but his consuming joy in battle. - -Long Murgatroyd was twitching from one foot to the other. The men behind -him were bound as by a spell. So was Hardcastle, who was aware of deeper -things than he had known till now. The Garsykes Folk saw only Donald. -That was plain, and the pedlar must have his will of this last moment, -till there was need to intervene. - -Donald glanced about, as if in search of something that had shared his -tedious days in this same room. And still Murgatroyd and those behind -were held in thrall. The fire they had kindled blazed and smoked by -turns in the sleepy draught, till Murgatroyd kicked it into flame. - -“The wood’s wet,” he muttered, “and be damned to the fools that gathered -it.” - -“Aye, wet with blood,” shrilled Donald. - -With that, strength came to him. His glance, roving again about the -walls, found the thing he sought. With speed incredible he leaped to get -the pike into his hands—the pike that had gone to Flodden and returned. - -He swung it gently to and fro for one swift moment, as if he doubted -which of its three blades to ply. Then, with a Gaelic battle-shout, he -leaped forward, through and over the fire’s reek, whirling the axe-edge -high above his old, grey head. - -Long Murgatroyd got his skull away from the blow; but the axe clove his -shoulder till it gritted on the bone. - -“I’m done, lads,” he growled, swaying to his fall. “Get about this -madman risen from the dead.” - -No voice answered him. The Garsykes Men had gone the way they came -taking still dread for company. Alone with one who whirled his axe to -strike again, Murgatroyd gathered what strength was left him, and ran -screaming out into the night. - -A great light shone in Donald’s face. There was strength in his body -still, and a pibroch in his soul; and, when Causleen ran to him across -the dwindling fire, he turned happily. - -“It was so they fought in the old days gone. I’m glad you saw me make an -end that way.” - -He toyed with the pike lovingly. He praised Logie for keeping its edges -grouted and sharp through the centuries for this night’s work of his. -Then his strength fell away, a borrowed joy. The pike dropped from his -grasp, clattering into the embers that Hardcastle was stamping out. - -“Your hands, child,” he whispered. - -She guided him to the long-settle that had been his bed for many weary -days, and her tears rained on the blankets she gathered round the -motionless body. Donald opened his eyes once—glad, tender eyes, at -peace with this world and the next—and he found voice, as he had got -strength awhile since to lift the pike. - -“Causleen, little Evening Star, you’ve lit the roads for me. And -now—dear God, there’s sunrise on the hills.” - -The pedlar lay quiet awhile. All that was of this world clamoured round -him. He was saying good-bye to the broken roads he loved. There would be -no to-morrows, with curlews wailing over summer hills and dusk cradling -in purple hollows of the moor—no journeys on blistered feet through the -tang of winter gales. He ached for the northland he must leave, and his -spirit shrank from the last Crossing because the world was full of -lovesome things. Surely he would see once again the shimmer of -buttercups glowing like grace of old allegiance across the ripening -meadows, would hear the storm-cock pipe defiance to the gale. Just once -again he must smell, too, the reek of clover-hay as it came home on -creaking wagons between the briar-rose banks. - -“It grows dark,” he murmured suddenly. “And now the light shines -through—and, child, there’s your mother beckoning from the braes. She’s -just as young and bonnie—as bonnie——” - -It was so the warrior died, and Hardcastle stood with bowed head till -Causleen’s first storm of grief was ended. A strange gentleness came to -him, a softening of the ice-cold years, as he covered Donald’s face and -drew the girl away. - -They stood facing each other in the dim lamplight. A chill breeze blew -through the broken casement, tossing to and fro the reek of the -stamped-out fire. On the floor the pike lay in a little pool of crimson, -darkening fast. Yet nothing prevailed against the austere and tranquil -presence that filled this room of death. - -“Causleen,” he said, by and by, “you need not be lonely.” - -She was feeling like a child lost in mid-winter moors. No words could -have reached her heart as his simple, “you need not be lonely,” did. He -was changed, as she was, by this alchemy of death, into finer metal. - -Then, longing to believe in him, she took a step away. “It is not the -time or place to—to doubt you.” - -“It is the place to tell me why you doubt.” His glance went to the -death-bed. “Could I be false, with your father lying there?” - -“You could not—no—and yet it seems so mean a thing to talk of here.” - -“It divides us, and _he_ did not want that.” - -“I am ashamed either way,” she said, her brave eyes meeting his—“of -you, or of myself for doubting.” - -Little by little he drew the tale from her. She had come to the wood -between Logie and the slope to Wharfe River, weeks ago, and seen him -with Nita’s arms stretched out to him. - -Hardcastle understood now all that had baffled him these late days. He -recalled each detail of that half-forgotten scene—Nita’s alluring -eagerness, the sharp crack of a twig, his glance backward to learn if -one of the Lost Folk was stealing on him from behind. - -“You saw us there,” he said, “and she was an old love of mine. What else -could you have thought?” - -His quietness seemed to rebuke her. All these weeks she had been the -silent accuser, he the shameless culprit. Was he a liar through and -through, under his mask of gruff honesty? - -“We shared the woodmen’s hut for a night,” he went on, “and afterwards -there was trouble. I asked to clear that for you.” - -“From pity.” It was her turn now to glance at the silent figure on the -settle. “We never cared for charity, he and I.” - -“I did not offer charity,” he said, direct and forthright. “While I was -persuading you to that, Nita wove her devilry into it all.” - -“What devilry?” she asked, her eyes grave and questioning. - -He glanced from the shattered casement to Donald’s death-bed, and his -face hardened. - -“She offered me escape from what has come to Logie—and I would not take -it.” - -Causleen’s heart was free at last, as she watched this man whom she had -flouted. He showed greater than his height in the dim lamp-glow that -made flickering lights and shadows through the room. His voice though -hushed in deference to what lay yonder, was vibrant in its simple -candour. He loved her—loved her for herself. - -A gusty weariness came about her, a need to lean on the man who had -caused her sleepless nights and tears as salt as the nether brine-pits. - -“I was afraid—till now,” she whispered, and put her hands into his as -if she gave a kingdom. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - - THE RESTLESS DAWN - -As they stood there, a stifled bark sounded from the doorway. Storm, his -grizzled hide quivering with eagerness, came sidling in. Fire and -gunshot and the night’s swift happenings had opened the windows through -which dogs and horses see things hidden from most men. - -He knew that death was in the room, and cringed his way to Donald’s -side. He crouched for a while, his head on the still body, and whimpered -like a child; for the pedlar and he had shared many an hour of -friendship when life was wrong with both. - -Then the sheep-slayer rose and shook himself. There was no cringeing -now, no sorrow. Self-reliant, strong of body and of courage, he came to -Hardcastle, who knew less than he what was soon to happen on Logie-side. -He looked at the Master with brown, candid eyes—a lingering glance of -sheer affection—and put two hairy paws on his shoulders while he licked -his face. And afterwards he said good-bye to Causleen, and turned once -at the broken casement before passing out into the night. - -“Poor devil,” muttered Hardcastle. “I’d whistle him back, if Brant was -not about the house.” - -“Brant would not shoot him, after all we’ve shared with Storm?” - -“In cold blood. Logie might go, and all of us, if Stephen’s ewes were -safe.” - -“It is a hard country,” said Causleen, clinging to his sleeve with -sharpening dread. - -And now Rebecca came running to the door, and stood like one turned to -stone when she saw these two together. The kingdom of her days at Logie -was ended. That was plain. - -“What is it?” asked the Master. - -“Naught that matters now; but, for my part, I’d have chosen a likelier -time for sweethearting. My kitchen asking a week o’ days to redd it up -again—fire and brimstone on this side o’ the house—and you two -fancying you’re cushat-doves high up in a mating tree. I’ve no -patience.” - -“What is it?” asked Hardcastle again. - -“Naught that would trouble you if I told it. You’re past caring how an -old woman fares, though she’s skin and bone for your sake—wearing her -life out, cooking and scrubbing. And, ‘What is it?’ asks the Master. -It’s this, if you must know. Brant’s not come back, and I’m tired of -guarding my kitchen with a rolling-pin against yond lean swine from -Garsykes. If Brant’s gone, some o’ them are lurking in the stable-yard.” - -Hardcastle put Causleen from him gently. The new peril was harsh enough, -but he was quick these days to face unexpected happenings. - -“Stay here, child,” he said sharply. - -She stayed for one snatched moment to stoop above her father and give -his soul a God-speed. Then she followed Hardcastle, and he felt a hand -steal into his. - -“Oh, get back, child,” he said. “There’s trouble.” - -“So my place is with you.” - -She would not be denied; and when they came into the kitchen, Brant the -shepherd was crossing the doorway. - -“Spared us the need to go in search of you, have you, Stephen?” snapped -Rebecca. “You look moiled, and fuzzy in your wits.” - -“So you’d look,” grumbled Brant, “if you had forgotten there were two -ends to a blunderbuss—one that spat at the Garsykes sort, and t’ other -that knocked me heels over head with the back-kick. I struck against a -rock in falling, and lay silly for a time.” - -“Well, it would be no new feeling to you, Brant.” - -“If I had a tongue like thine, Rebecca, I’d do two things—tie a double -knot in it, then cut it at the root.” - -“Hark to him, Jonah,” shrilled the old woman, gaunt and fiery. “Comes -bringing his saucy ways to Logie’s kitchen, where you and me live.” - -The brindled cat knew his mistress, her every look and change of voice. -His fur had been scorched, moreover, at some time of the wild onset, and -he was in evil temper. He stalked up and down about Brant’s knees, -growling as a dog might. - -“Going Storm’s way, are you?” said the shepherd. “You’ll be for the wild -lands soon, and a dollop of lead to teach you poacher’s shrift.” - -Causleen looked on, wide-eyed and troubled. In her Highland glens they -had sung of far-off battles. She had been suckled in the faith that -warriors returned from victory with glad faces and shouts of triumph. -Yet here at Logie, safe through heavy odds, Rebecca and the shepherd -were snarling at each other, as if all was lost. It was her first taste -of battle and its aftermath. - -“While I was getting up from my dazement, Master,” said Brant by and by, -“I heard another screech and running of the Garsykes Men, and made shift -to follow with the butt-end of the blunderbuss. But they outran me, -like. So I stepped in here, to ask what had happened.” - -“All the world, Stephen—and what’s beyond it.” - -And now Causleen heard the note of victory at last—heard it in his -voice. All that was Hardcastle was hers, and she was his. She thought of -the father lying yonder. He would be content. - -Hardcastle, going to the porch to hear if there were any lurking -Wilderness Folk about the courtyard, lifted a foot instinctively as he -crossed the threshold. He remembered the body that had fallen in answer -to his charge of shot. - -“Aye, he _was_ there,” said Rebecca dryly; “but I took leave to shift -him into the stable-yard. We’ll hoist him over the Long Pasture wall -to-morrow—and the Garsykes sort will steal up to take him off. They’re -like rats in that way, too—attentive to their burials.” - -Dawn crept grey and misty over Logie. And as they stood in Rebecca’s -kitchen—a silent company, waiting for they knew not what—the old house -grew restless. It knew itself secure for a little while. There was -safety as yet, the rout of the Lost Folk. Yet one of their dead lay just -outside the porch, pleading for reprisals. - -Logie was no senseless block of stone and mortar. It had sheltered -Hardcastles through seven hundred years of weather. Its heart and spirit -had grown with the growing generations that romped and married and died -within the kingdom of its stubborn loyalty. It had watched lusty fathers -lick their sons into manhood’s shape—listened to the muffled tread of -bearers as they carried one and another of the race to burial—heard -women groaning in the child-birth, lest there should be none to reign in -Logie-side. - -And to-night Logie did not know what would chance. It had felt the pain -of its flaming door, had been aware of the oaths of prowling men who -threatened walls and rafter-beams. Every nerve and sinew had been racked -by battle, and the end was not yet. The stir of unguessed dreads to come -roamed its corridors, and sorrow piped through every casement. For Logie -had found life strong and sweet of savour, and was loath to die. - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - - GARSYKES - -Nita made sport of the Garsykes Men when they returned from Logie in the -spitting rain of dawn. Slim, and fresh as if she came out of the new -day’s heart, she waited for them in the village. And first there came a -slack-set company of twenty, glancing behind them constantly. - -“Is Logie fired?” asked Nita softly. - -“Aye, we blazed the door through,” came an answering growl. - -The twenty men went their way, and presently another company lumbered -over the hill and down. Most of them went lame, pitted by what Shepherd -Brant had crammed into his blunderbuss. - -“What have they done to you, there at Logie?” - -Nita knew now that all had miscarried, and they snarled in answer to her -spite. For a moment they had in mind to rive her limb from limb; and, -knowing the danger, she faced them with outstretched hands and a -pleading smile that might have been a child’s. - -“Why should you hurt your little basket-weaver?” - -“Because we’re plugged with lead and rusty nails,” grunted a shammocky -rogue whose right arm hung limp. - -“Aye,” said another. “It was you that sent us up to Logie.” - -They were round her now like wolves. Foiled and wounded, they longed to -spring on this new prey, yet could not. Nita had queened it over -Garsykes so long that old experience did not fail her now. She wove -little, wanton spells about them—then pleaded again with frail, -helpless hands—till the old witchcraft stirred about them. The -grumbling oaths grew muffled, and Nita, seeing them half-cowed already, -laughed with stinging mockery. - -“I sent you up to Logie, thinking you were men. Thirty of you went -against Hardcastle and could not take him.” - -The snarling uproar rose afresh, but she held the lash now and wielded -it. - -“You were to bring him—alive, if might be—to little Nita, so she could -teach him many ways of humbling pride. And all you bring is—your -tattered selves.” - -Widow Mathison had joined them—plump and touzled, just as she had left -her bed at sound of the uproar, except for a cloak thrown over her -nightwear. - -“All Garsykes couldn’t lay hands on one man up yonder?” she asked, -rocking to and fro with laughter. “If Hardcastle was minded that way, -I’d risk a second wedding. The more I see of our sort, the deeper I fall -into love with Logie’s Master.” - -“Hardcastle’s got a bonnier wench up there,” said the shammocky rogue, -striving to rally his wilting fellows—“bonnier than Nita, if it comes -to that.” - -The chance shaft found its mark. The girl stood silent for a moment, -gathering years behind and years to come into her hands. When she spoke -at last, they drew away as from some instant menace in their midst; and -each poor fool began to scratch at his wounds afresh and to long for -ale. - -“They couldn’t bring Hardcastle to Garsykes—thirty of our strong men -could not. But little Nita can.” - -Her voice was bitter quiet. She did not seem to see the frowsy press of -men about her. Aloof, hard as mid-winter on the barren uplands, she saw -Hardcastle taken in toils of her devising—and not Hardcastle alone. - -“What will you do?” asked the rogue with the splintered arm. - -“Aye, what will I do? Let him wait, first of all, till he’s sick with -fear for another. Then I’ll put fire of hell into him before ever he -comes to our village in the hills—and afterwards——” - -A man’s full-throated curses broke across the dawn’s stillness, and Long -Murgatroyd came lurching up, his arms thrown about two comrades who -steadied him on either side. They had clapped rough bandages about the -wound that Donald’s pike had given, and he had thought his end was come -till now, in the grey dawn, he saw Nita. - -“A rare warrior, you,” she said, her bitterness let loose afresh. - -The will to live returned to Murgatroyd. Hardihood came back though his -wound dripped and snarled. - -“Aye,” he said—“and I’ll wive you, soon or late.” - -His face was so white and livid in the dawn-light, that Nita drew back -with a sense of sharp foreboding. Twice she had felt this same dread of -Murgatroyd, but it was keener now. Then she rallied her courage. - -“When Garsykes is ended, you’ll wive me, maybe. Can you wait as long?” -she mocked. - -“I can bide,” he said, and limped bravely on till he was out of sight. -Then his head drooped. “Get me home, mates,” he muttered. “I’m sick and -wambly. Get me home.” - -Nita stayed on, alone with the grey mists that eddied over from -Pengables. She thought of Logie, secure after long warfare against -odds—of Hardcastle, who was another’s now—and no winter’s spite, -packed with hurricane and sleet, had ever blown so cold, so merciless, -as the storm in her own heart. - -An old man of the village passed, and glanced at the silent figure. - -“At your dreams, little Nita?” he asked, with grandfatherly indulgence -of a favourite. - -“At my dreams, Tanty.” - -“It’s well to be young while you can,” said he, and went by on rheumy -knees. - -Still Nita halted. She had spun as many webs in her time as she had -woven baskets, but none as strong as these she was binding into a net -for Hardcastle. Like a figure of doom she stood, the wet mists hurrying -by. - -For two weeks and a day thereafter there was peace round Logie. No -attack came on the house, no ambush waited in the roads when dusk crept -down. Farm-servants carried Donald to the kirkyard under the hill, and -none molested the mourners in going or returning. - -Then came afterwards the quiet, half-awed return to usual life that -follows death in any house. Rebecca and the brindled cat got to their -friendship’s bickerings. The Master rode abroad on business of his -lands, or brought game home for the larder. And, as if the skies were in -league with peace, the long warmth-in-winter held. - -Causleen began to fret—not for the father who had ended bravely and in -happiness—but for Hardcastle. He grew lean and gaunt, ate as if he -must, with no relish for what lay on his plate, and left the wine scarce -tasted. Try as she might, she could get no answer to the riddle of his -moodiness, until, one morning near November’s end, he strode restlessly -about the breakfast chamber, and came to a sharp halt before her. - -“Causleen,” he said. “I want you to go up to Shepherd Brant’s. It’s a -rough lodging—but it’s safe.” - -And now she understood; and, for very gladness, she made pretence of -doubt. - -“Tired of me already?” - -“Don’t jest, child.” He was hard, peremptory. “You must go to-day.” - -“And if I will not?” - -“I shall set you on pony-back and take you there.” - -“What is amiss with you?” she asked—knowing, but longing for the spoken -word. - -“Fear,” said Hardcastle. - -“Fear?” she echoed. - -Again he paced up and down, and again came to her side. “I’ve a -lifetime’s knowledge of Garsykes, and I tell you we’re in the thick of -danger. Whenever their silence comes——” - -“It means another firing of the house?” - -“Or worse, now that you’re here at Logie. Will you not understand?” - -“If they took me from you? If you fought till you could do no more, and -they took me?” - -“I should run mad.” - -He was fierce, possessive, as he drew her to him, and she was content. -The lean years of her trudging days—weather, and blistered feet, and -scorn of men for the peddling-sort—were forgotten. Deeper than his love -of Logie—deeper than his love of life for its own good, stalwart -sake—lay fear for her. - -“You’ll go up to Brant’s?” he said by and by, half between entreaty and -command. - -“How can I—now that you care? My place is with you.” - -Then she cried happily against his sleeve, and he could make no further -headway with persuasion. The next day it was the same. Whenever, out of -his stifling dread for her, he tried to get her out of Logie and up into -the trackless hills, she glanced away. - -“They’re rough quarters, I know,” he would begin. - -“That does not trouble me,” she would answer gently. - -“And, of course, there’ll be only an old shepherd-man up there, and -you’d want another woman with you. Rebecca can go.” - -“And what would you do here without her?” - -“Fend for myself.” - -“If we can persuade Rebecca to it, I will go,” she said, her glance -inscrutable and grave. - -And now, as time dragged slowly by, Hardcastle learned much of the ways -of women, and more and more he was reminded of the slant, drooping -flight of plover when their nests are threatened. - -Rebecca’s mind had been his own—to get the girl into safety—till -Causleen’s heart to endure had captured her grim liking. If the Master -must find a wife—and it was time there was an heir to Logie—he might -go further and fare worse. - -“I cannot thoyle it, Jonah,” she would grumble to the brindled cat, “but -I’ve got to. Me and you watching the Master’s goings out and his comings -in—slaves, as you might say, to his will—and a slip of a lass making -all as if it had never been. But she’s hill-born, with a spirit of her -own. That’s so much to be thankful for.” - -When the second week was nearing its end, Hardcastle grew so weary of -the peace brooding like thunder-weather over Logie, so sick with dread -for Causleen, that he strode into Logie like a hurricane. - -Rebecca was in the hall, as it chanced, plying her broom as if it were a -flail she wielded against the Garsykes Men. - -“What is it, Master?” she asked, standing in a dust-storm of her own -making. - -“It’s this, Rebecca. You take her to Brant’s hut to-morrow of your own -will, or by mine.” - -“Afraid they’ll burn the roof over your head? They’ve tried it -twice—and we’ll teach ’em that the third time pays for all.” - -“Are you a fool altogether, woman? There’s Causleen in the house.” - -“Aye, it’s her place. She’d be a poor sort o’ wife for Logie, if she -left you at the pinch.” - -Hardcastle was in no mood for argument. He told her—simply and with -command—that she must take Causleen to Brant’s hut to-morrow. And -Rebecca grew submissive on the sudden. - -“It’s as well she should be away,” she admitted, “if only for your peace -of mind.” - -The next day, however, when Hardcastle came down to breakfast, he was -met by Causleen with news that Rebecca could not stir from her bed and -sent word to the Master that she was “twisted with rheumatics.” - -“She has chosen the worst time she could,” snapped Hardcastle. “If the -woman must have luxuries of that sort let her have them when you’re -safely up at Brant’s, the two of you.” - -Causleen fingered the spray of crimson-berried hawthorn she had gathered -for the breakfast-table in place of flowers. She put it into the jar, -turned it this way and that till she was satisfied, then glanced up at -Hardcastle. - -“You can only be hurt through me nowadays. You care as much as that?” - -“Yes. They can rob me of more than Logie now.” - -“Garsykes knows. Gossip would tell them where you had hidden me—and -what could two women and Brant do against them when they came—to rob -you of me, and me of you?” - -A great cavern opened in the man’s heart. All that was in her eyes, in -the simple, candid words, broke into deeps that had not been stirred -till now. - -“I was sending you out of my reach?” he said, aghast at his own folly. - -She came to him of her own accord, and crept close into his arms. “I -could not bear it. I—I have only you—and we must be together.” - -Hardcastle laughed by and by, soberly. “You’ll have to take charge of my -wits,” he said. “They were never strong.” - -Late that afternoon, Rebecca’s ailment left her as if by magic; and -Hardcastle, returning from a journey up the far moors, encountered her -at the gate. - -“Tied to your bed no longer?” he asked dryly. - -“I can shift rheumatics as well as one here and there, when the Master’s -got rid of his own ailment. But every talk of going to Shepherd Brant’s -will make me bedridden, and so I warn you.” - -They fell silent presently, yielding to the twilight quiet of the place. -Here the flint arrow-head had waited on the gate-top for Hardcastle’s -return when October russeted the woods. Here Rebecca had communed with -her dead lover through forty years of constancy to feud. They seemed to -listen to the rustle of unsubstantial feet. - -“The pedlar’s girl should be proud to be among us now,” said Rebecca, -her voice low and crooning. “All the years Logie has bided—and -vengeance in her hand at last.” - -The Master could not rid himself of dread for Causleen. Fast as he beat -down one attack, another fear came shadowy at him from behind. - -“Garsykes swarms with its scum, and we are few,” he growled. “Who made -you a prophet?” - -A step sounded up the road, and Hardcastle, turning with quick instinct -to defend himself, saw Michael Draycott, his wide, cheery face less full -of colour than its wont. - -“You, Michael? You look peaky, man.” - -“Well, it’s this way. I found my best heifer dead this morning—a fine -little roan she was—and a scrawled token by her side. _Hemlock grows in -the Wilderness._ That was the message.” - -“A mucky folk,” said Rebecca tranquilly. “They were bred mucky. They -couldn’t help it, maybe.” - -“As they’d put that on me, I knew naught else would happen to the -homestead for a bit; so I stepped up to spend the night at Logie, by -your leave.” - -“You’ve heard of something planned?” - -“Not I; but they’ve let you alone so long that it stands to reason -there’s mischief brewing.” - -Rebecca was her bustling self again. “You’re no sort of laggard, -Michael. For a man so death-shy you do very well—and there’s a game-pie -in the oven.” - -They kept watch together that night, the Master and Draycott, with a jug -of October ale between them. They sipped it sparingly, for it was -potent, and they kept wide ears for any sound outside the four stout -walls that sheltered them. - -Causleen, about the middle of the watch, woke from an evil dream, and -shuddered as she lay in the darkness. A rat scampered across the -ceiling. In the silence its feet sounded like the tramp of hurrying men, -and she lifted herself in panic. - -She conquered that. Fear, they had taught her in babyhood, was a -shameful thing to harbour. But with the conquering came blinding -loneliness, a reaching out for the dead father whose voice she would not -hear again. They were kind at Logie, but it was a house of dread. If -only her father were laying below-stairs there, his eyes kindling with -welcome though his body was outworn. If only he were living. But he lay -in the wet earth down yonder, dust to dust. - -A man’s tread came down the passage, and halted at her door. She did not -know what peril was at hand, but roused herself to meet it. - -“Who is it?” she asked sharply. - -“Who should it be?” - -The relief was instant. No voice she had heard till now had been so -strong, so welcome. - -“All’s well with Logie?” - -“Yes,” said Hardcastle. “All’s well.” - -She heard his step go down the corridor, lessening into silence, and a -new world came to dawn, after the nightmare that had been. Outside -Logie’s walls were skulking folk; but within their six-foot bulk was a -man after her own heart. - -Twice that night she heard him come to her door again, and halt and -repeat his quiet “All’s well,” and her heart warmed to his gruff -strength, as she fell into a dreamless sleep. - -Dawn was filtering through the shutters when she woke, and her first -thought was that Hardcastle would be hungry after his long watch. -Dressing hastily she went down, stirred by a simple thrill of joy in the -hope that Rebecca would not be astir as yet. Her own hands should -prepare the Master’s breakfast. - -Smiling gravely at her eagerness, she stepped into the kitchen, and was -chilled, somehow, by what she saw. The fire was dead and grey. Michael -Draycott sat wakeful, the candle by his side guttering in the thin, -peevish draught, and pointed to Hardcastle, who lay back in his hooded -chair, so fast asleep that it seemed he would never wake again. - -“Speak soft, and don’t ye rouse him,” whispered Michael. “He kept up -till the first streak o’ dawn came.” - -“Are you lying to me, Michael? Is—is he dead? I would rather hear the -truth.” - -“You’ll never get less from me. He’s as live as three men put -together—or will be, when he wakens from this strong sleep of his.” - -She glanced about, half between relief and dread. “I came to give him -breakfast.” - -“Give him sleep instead. It’s worth more than all the eggs and bacon -ever reared in Logie Dale.” - -He unbarred the door and beckoned her out into the nipping air that was -like balm after the indoors warmth. - -“I’m glad I stepped up last night,” he said, “though naught’s happened -to Logie, after all. You’re a sensible sort of lass, I fancy.” - -He was so downright that Causleen could only laugh—a wan little laugh -plucked out from hardship. - -“A sensible lass, and not as hard as Rebecca. Well, then, I’ve a warning -for you. The Master, as I told you, held his head up to the very minute -dawn stepped in. That meant no Garsykes sort would come. Daylight and -they were never friends.” - -“Yes, Michael?” - -“Then he fell back in his chair, and sleep came on him like a wolf. He’s -doing too much these days.” - -“Is that news to me? The grey cobwebs run across his face. Sometimes he -falters in his stride as he comes up Logie-lane, for very weariness.” - -“Aye, and he’ll break, one day soon, if he’s not looked after. He never -rests by day—riding, or shooting, or what not—and he seldom sleeps o’ -nights, by the look of him. No man born o’ woman can carry it for long.” - -Causleen remembered the weeks gone by. Her pride had resented -Hardcastle’s aloofness, his fits of moodiness. Now she understood, and -lifted a child’s penitent face. - -“What would you have me do?” she asked. - -The man’s big, shy heart found room to speak. “I’d have you marry him as -soon as maybe. Rebecca tells me you’re both minded that way.—And, -there, I’ve frightened you. An old man had no right to say as much.” - -“Yes,” she said. “Tell me——” - -“It’s you that’s three parts of his trouble.” - -“Then I can go, Michael.” - -“He’d only follow, and bring you back. He’s got to that pass, he’d -rather Logie went than you.” - -They stood together in the stable-yard. Starlings were making a sleepy -din among the ivy, and over old Pengables the red of dawn pushed through -the mists. The day seemed full of grey foreboding, but Causleen did not -ask what was to come. Michael’s blunt simplicity made it sure that he -was speaking truth. “_He’d rather Logie went than you_”—the words were -like a throstle’s song in spring. - -“Then I will stay,” she said, and smiled on him, and went indoors. - -Rebecca had come down, prepared to light the fire and scold her way -through household tasks, but even she stood mute at sight of the Master. -In all her days she had not seen a living man so dead to sound or -motion. There was only the gentle breathing to tell her he was more than -the husk of what had been. - -She started as Causleen entered, then rasped at the girl to cover her -own disquiet. - -“Now, don’t you faint away, or any o’ those maidish cantrips. There’s a -time and season for ’em, and it isn’t now. Fancied he was dead, I -reckon? Well, he’s quick. All the Hardcastles are made that way. -Gluttons for sleep they always were and will be.” - -The brindled cat had learned Rebecca’s mood at a glance and leaped to -the top of a cupboard, where he sat with vain hope that he was safe. -Rebecca, in sore and restless trouble, searched for outlet, and her -roving glance fell on Jonah. With a twist of the long hearth-brush in -her hands, she brought him down, and aimed a wild blow at him in his -flight. - -“That’s for washing yourself like a dandy, same as if naught was amiss -at Logie.” - -Then she lit the fire with vicious haste; and, when she looked up again, -Causleen saw the slow, thin tears of age trickling down. - -“I’m worrited, lass, and don’t ye heed. They can come blazing Logie down -every night and all, and welcome. It’s when Garsykes willun’t come, and -keeps us at full stretch, I get to my nagging.” - -The morning went by on leaden feet. Michael Draycott had gone to the -work waiting for him at Broken Firs. The Master slept on, spent and in -some far land that seemed neighbour to the grave. The wind stole whining -from the moors and through the forest trees. There seemed little hope -for Logie. - -Causleen could bear it no longer. All trouble was easier to face in the -frank open than prisoned by walls that harboured dread. So, when Rebecca -had gone to the dairy for a moment, she stole to Hardcastle’s side. - -“Dick, do you hear me?” she whispered, longing to hear him answer, yet -hoping he would sleep on, to find his strength. - -No answer came, except the _clack-clack_ of Rebecca’s pattens on the -dairy floor. So then she bent and kissed him, and went out—across the -mistal-yard, and up the home pastures, and out into the moors that lay -near to Garsykes. She needed the winds of God about her—needed, too, in -some half-confessed fashion, to be sentry while the Master slept. - -At Logie, Rebecca went on with her cooking and her scouring as if no -inner voice was whispering of havoc, soft-footed, stealthy. All she had -longed for—all she had prayed, through the lonely years that had gone -since they killed her man—was gathering to a head. In her bones she -knew it, as she knew “the rheumatics” that was twisting them out of all -earthly shape. - -It had never been Rebecca’s habit to think that ten thousand such lean -swine as the Garsykes Men could have their will of Logie; but a dark -cloud of doubt lay between her and the further vision. There was -thunder-weather brewing, and it must break before ever Logie came to -safety and its own. - -The teasing doubt stayed with her, till Jonah came in, a full-grown rat -in his mouth, and layed it down before her—in propitiation, as it were. - -“Now, bless you, lad,” she cackled. “If I did dust you with a besom, it -was for your good. Thwack the male sort, say I—thwack ’em true and -often—and they thrive the better for it.” - -Jonah played with the half-dead rat for a while, then came purring and -bridling against the woman’s skirt. - -“Oh, aye, you’ve done well, lad. There never was such a rat for -bigness.” - -The more she praised him the thicker grew Jonah’s fur, till Rebecca -began to laugh shrilly at his antics. She was in a mood to read omens -into little matters, and her spirits had risen with a bound. The -Garsykes Men were rats, and Jonah had just brought in the first fruits -of some coming slaughter. - -The rat began to stir fitfully, and Jonah, with a sudden, growling -spring, was clawing him to bits when a shadow darkened the kitchen. - -Rebecca glanced up to see a little figure standing in the porch, and her -whole body stiffened, as a dog’s might. Danger had passed by Logie -through the night; but every instinct told her it was on the threshold -now. - -“I want no baskets, Nita—leastways, none of your weaving.” - -“Do not be always scolding little Nita,” pleaded the girl. “She has no -baskets to sell this morning—but she has news to give.” - -“I want no news, neither. Cannot you see I’m throng with my cooking?” - -“My news is for the Master. Go tell him, Rebecca.” - -Hardcastle had been stirring in his sleep before she came, and her voice -seemed to probe him like a knife. He got to his feet, as if attacked. -Dishevelled by the night’s vigil, gaunt with all that Garsykes had put -on him since he said them nay, he stood glowering at this flower-fresh -visitor. - -“What news?” he asked. - -“You are all so rough here. I meant it kindly—meant to warn you—but -now I will not. Go find the pedlar’s brat if you can.” - -He stepped forward, drew her indoors and held her there. “Where is she?” - -“Have I fared very well at your hands, that I should tell you? Yet I was -forgiving. I could not bear to think of her—where she is—and you to go -mad when you heard it later.” - -“She’s lying, the lile toad,” said Rebecca, with grim brevity. “She -never had heart to think like that, save for one—herself.” - -So Nita threw the mask off, and smiled at them. “I was lying when I said -that I forgave. I came because I longed to torture Hardcastle of Logie.” - -“Where is she?” - -“If you shake the life out of me, how can I tell you—even if I would?” - -He let her go free, and presently she glanced at him, her grey eyes wide -with malice. - -“Our Garsykes Men are not good at the fighting, so they hatched another -plan. If they could take what Hardcastle holds dearest, and keep her -till he paid tribute at long last——” - -She halted, watching the sweat break out on the man’s haggard face. - -“Where is she?” he repeated. - -“Not in Garsykes. You might rouse even your chicken-livered Logie Men to -ride through us. She’s in the caves behind our village.” - -A gulf seemed to open at Hardcastle’s feet. If this were true—he would -not have it true—and through his dazed sickness sounded Nita’s voice, -gentle as a dove’s. - -“They are long caves and deep. You knew them as a boy?” - -“Yes, by God,” he said, towering above her with still and awful menace, -“and now I’m going to know them as a man.” - -She halted for one last thrust. “It may be too late for paying tribute. -They may be out of hand, now I’m not there to whip them into order.” - -Then she was gone, swift as an east-wind that had struck to the bone and -stayed for no reprisal. The Master halted for a moment, gathering his -strength. - -“You’ll not go?” said Rebecca, her lean arm clutching him. - -“Where she goes, I go, woman. Have you no wits to guide you?” - -Rebecca, fear as she might for him, was glad to see him take the Logie -way—straight to the open, though he went alone. It was only when he had -stepped into the crimson flare of dawn, flooding the porch, that again -she drew him back. - -“Your two hands, and your head up to the stars, won’t carry far these -days. You’d be the better for a gun in your hands, and a candle or two -in your pockets. Caves are darksome places.” - -He had wit left enough to get a fowling-piece and see to the priming, -while she thrust candles and a tinder-box into his pocket. - -Then Rebecca listened to his running stride across the cobble-stones to -the wind that rose in shrill and bitter menace. There was only Jonah of -the men-folk left. He knew it, and sprang to her shoulder. - -“Aye, drive your claws in,” she snapped. “We’re all that’s left of -Logie, you and me.” - -Her glance wandered forlornly round the kitchen till it encountered the -dead rat by the hearth. Then her unalterable strength in hardship found -its token. - -“There’s luck coming, Jonah,” she said, and got about her household -tasks again. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - - SPITE’S VICTORY - -Causleen, when she left Hardcastle asleep in the hooded chair at Logie, -wandered nearer and nearer to the Garsykes country, till she halted at -last on Trolls Hill and stood looking over the barren lands. - -The wind, boisterous now, had scattered the mists, and in the keen, -chilly sunlight Garsykes village showed clear across the hollow. She -could hear voices in its street, and wondered if they were planning some -new devilment. A woman’s raucous laugh sounded. Was that in answer to -the plotting? - -Her courage ebbed low, after the night’s useless vigil. There were so -many of them. What chance had Logie in the last result? Surely -Hardcastle had done enough, and might give up the unequal battle. He had -only to pay tribute, like the rest, to buy his safety. - -She trampled down the thought. If she had half-loved him, that road of -freedom might have brought content. As it was, she could not bear that -he should be less than the Master, whatever came. And yet the odds -against him were pitiful, disastrous. - -Still her glance was drawn to Garsykes, as if the very evil of the place -had cast a spell on her; and she started when Nita Langrish stepped -lightly up the track that led from Logie. - -“Not afraid to be so near our thieves and cut-throats?” said Nita. - -“Logie does not fear such. They came, and had their answer.” - -“Riding a tall horse, are you? Logie does not fear, says Hardcastle’s -wanton, as if she was an honest wife there.” - -The hot blood flamed in Causleen’s face, and pallor followed. If a knife -had been ready to her hand, there would have been murder done, here -where the wind roared and fluted over Trolls Hill. - -“Go,” she said, “back to the styes that bred you!” - -“I will go, little beggar on horseback. If you knew what errand I have -been on—but, then, you do not know.” - -Nita stood poised on slender feet, like a wild deer of the hills, but -tarried. - -“I’m skilled in divination,” she went on, her voice reminding Causleen, -in some haphazard way, of Jonah, the brindled cat when he was playing -with a mouse. “Shall the basket-weaver tell you what is coming?” - -In spite of herself, Causleen felt weak and a child in the other’s -hands. The magic that had kept Garsykes Men in thrall was drawing her -into its webs. She followed Nita’s finger as it pointed to the road -below, where the track from Logie split in two—one grey lane going flat -to Garsykes, the other winding steep and rocky to a cavern gaping -open-mouthed across the green face of the pastures. - -“Do you see where the tracks divide?” purred Nita. “A man will come to -the two-ways by and by, and take the upper road. And you will follow.” - -Causleen remembered Hardcastle asleep at Logie; and he was the one man -in the world she would ever follow willingly. - -“It is not true,” she said, with chill disdain. - -The basket-weaver made no answer. But still she did not go, and her -silence began to mesh Causleen again with unseen nets. Yonder was -Garsykes, foul and a menace centuries old. And close at hand was Nita. -She felt utterly alone, as if friendless leagues divided her from Logie -and her man. - -Strive as she would, panic—headlong, unreasoning panic—was stealing on -her, though the sun shone and the free winds went bristling by. - -Nita kept silence. She, of all living Garsykes Folk, had learned most of -the black magic handed down the generations. It had been her joy to -weave it into the baskets she sold, into the ill-starred deeds her men -did by night and day—and Causleen was given into her hands. She would -half slay her now with dread, then let her go to what they had planned -for the pedlar’s girl and Hardcastle. - -All that was brave and Highland-born in Causleen fought the terror -stealing on her. What sort of wife would she be to Hardcastle, if she -yielded now to this stealthy dread that came like formless mist about -her? - -There came a whimpering through the heather. She did not hear, till a -wet nose was pressed into her hand; and afterwards a tongue red with -sheep-slaying reached up and licked her face. - -Then, as on a night gone by when Storm lay in the cupboard under Logie’s -stair, she threw her arms about him. - -“Storm, you’ve come,” she said, hugging his tousled body, thick with -bracken-splinters that he carried from his past night’s lair. - -Nita drew away. Dogs always distrusted her, and fear of the whole -race—a dread half superstitious—had grown into her life. Yet even now -she could not keep back the bitter gibe. - -“He is a friend of the Master’s, too. Dear grief, Logie keeps odd -company nowadays.” - -Storm, homeless and tired of the wander-lust, had been sending long -thoughts out to Logie as he sat on a spur of the moors and saw Causleen -swing into sight across the Garsykes track. He had bounded -down—slipping and turning a somersault or two on the way—and, now that -he was in touch again with Logie, he was content. He growled at Nita by -habit, and bared his teeth, then turned again to Causleen and yielded -like a puppy to her daft endearments. She smelt of home to Storm. - -Causleen was reliant and herself again. The coming of this four-footed -Ishmael had broken the basket-weaver’s spells. Garsykes mattered no -longer. Out there Hardcastle was sleeping himself into new vigour; and -here was Storm, to guide her safe to the return. - -“Logie always had staunch friends,” she said, her glance meeting Nita’s. - -Nita made no answer, but glanced behind her; and presently her slight -body quivered with eagerness. - -“Did I lie, little wanton? A man comes up the Garsykes road. He’s a -small figure yet—but, see, he grows bigger—and now he nears the -two-ways that I told you of.” - -Causleen was meshed again by webs. She could do no more than follow the -pointing finger, and watch the man till she knew his limber stride, his -way of carrying broad shoulders. - -“He has come to the two-roads now,” said Nita softly—“and now he takes -the higher track. Did I lie?” - -Hardcastle, in the clear light, seemed so near that Causleen cried aloud -to him, entreating his return. The wind drove her voice back. - -“I sent him there—in search of you,” said Nita. “He thinks we have you -in our caves.” - -For one still moment Causleen paused. She knew the agony speeding -Hardcastle to the black mouth that grinned across the pasture-lands. She -knew what leaped from her in answer. - -“You sent him there?” she echoed. - -“Yes—food for our Garsykes wolves.” - -Causleen, with sudden, blinding passion, called to the sheep-slayer -“Storm, kill her. Fasten on her throat, Storm.” - -The dog was far down the slope already. He, too had seen the Master. -Causleen might smell of home, but Hardcastle was Logie’s self. - -The pedlar’s girl raced sure-footed between the wet, gnarled hummocks, -crying as she ran with a warning that the gale caught and drove to -tatters. She came to the parting of the ways, and followed without pause -the grey track that wound upward to the caves. - -Hardcastle’s big figure, far ahead, halted for a brief welcome as Storm -overtook him. As if she stood beside them, she knew what went to that -greeting—the man’s joy that he had a toothed and stubborn friend in -this adventure, the dog’s that he was with the chosen one. - -“Come back,” she cried again—so loud, it seemed to her, that not even -the wind could hinder its sharp bidding. - -Hardcastle did not hear. Like a man possessed he strode forward till he -reached the cave’s mouth. Then they were swallowed by the darkness, -Storm and he, and Causleen knew at last what caring meant. - -She neither wavered nor had fear. Where he went she would follow, by -free-will and by right. - -Nita watched it all from the benty lands above—saw Hardcastle and Storm -go into the trap prepared. Then Causleen went, and was hidden by the -dark. And after that, ten frowsy men got out from the rocks and closed -about the entry. - -The basket-weaver took her way to Garsykes, crooning a song of the Lost -Folk—a low, stealthy ballad, ages old, that reeked of the marshes and -the styes. And, as she came into the village, she found it packed with -men and scolding women. - -They snarled and jeered at her, and Long Murgatroyd’s voice was lifted -in sullen fury. - -“Here comes Nita. She sent us to fire Logie, and then talked big about -doing what we couldn’t. She’s laughed at us too long, the hussy.” - -She faced the answering uproar and laughed afresh at them. “Little Nita -does what she promises,” she said, pointing to the caves above. -“Hardcastle has gone in to find his wanton, and she’s with him there.” - -They fell back then, muttering, and her tongue whipped them as of old. - -“I’ve trapped them for you—and you whine and skulk here asking -questions. They’d be out of the trap by now, if I hadn’t picked ten from -among you to guard the caves—ten who shaped more like men than -rabbits.” - -“Art lying, Nita, as of old?” growled Murgatroyd. - -Again she pointed to the black mouth that gashed the fells. And now in -the keen light they saw ten of theirs moving to and fro about the -cave-front, and a great shout went up. - -In a moment they were racing pell-mell up the slope, save for Nita and -Widow Mathison, who kept the Garsykes inn. - -“You’re coming to see Logie’s end?” asked Nita, looking back after she -had started to follow her men at leisure. - -“No,” said the widow. “I’ve too much flesh on my bones to care for -hill-climbing.” - -A light shone in the basket-weaver’s eyes—the light of thunder skies -that ripen to full-blooded tempest. Merciless, brooding long, her spite -against Logie had come to victory. But more than that went to this mood -of Nita’s. By mother’s milk and father’s training she had been taught -that Garsykes had striven for centuries out of mind to tumble Logie’s -pride to ground. - -“Will you not come, widow?” she asked. “There’ll be such sport as was -never seen.” - -“I’m too fat, I tell you. I should sweat myself to death in climbing.” - -“More’s the pity, for you’d look on at what men long dead in Garsykes -hungered to see. It was left to little Nita to bring Logie down.” - -Then she mocked the widow’s grossness, and went up the breast of the -fells. And Widow Mathison got heavily to a spur of the rising ground -that gave her a better outlook on the caves. She remembered how -Hardcastle had brought her lad from the wet of the slimy marshes and -given him back to her on a night not long gone by. Nothing could ever -bridge that debt she owed him. - -She listened to the roar of Garsykes voices, saw Nita going tireless up -the slope; and the tears ran amain down the furrows of her plump, -good-natured face. - -“We could spare most on Logie-side,” she sobbed, “but not its Master.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - - - THE POOL - -Hardcastle had gone into the black jaws of the cave without pause or -thought of what ambushes might lie in wait. Causleen was here, and -nothing mattered till he reached her. What he had suffered, since first -he declined to give tribute, was child’s play measured by the agony of -question that drove him forward. Causleen was somewhere in the gloom -ahead. He was sure of finding her—yes, but in what evil plight? With -that thought came crimson bands of flame that danced ahead. Nita would -have found vengeance sweet almost to cloying if she had been with him in -this hour. - -Storm pressed close against him as he went with lighted candle along the -narrow track, turning his head constantly to escape the dripping -limestone spears that menaced from the roof. - -No wind stirred in the cavern. It was a breeze of his own making that -flickered the candle-glow this way and that, throwing little, fantastic -shadow-shapes of gnomes and pixies on the rough ground beneath his feet. -He hurried forward, crying to Causleen, and a troop of voices answered -the cry, breaking it into tangled echoes that mocked at him from roof -and slimy walls. - -It seemed to Hardcastle that a year went by before the mockery ceased, -and another voice ran echoing through the cave. - -“Oh, Dick, come back. Come back.” - -He fancied himself distraught. The voice sounded from behind—not from -the shadowed track ahead, where fancy had painted havoc unbelievable. - -Storm, whimpering with joy, left him suddenly, and again he asked -himself if it was all a nightmare. Would he wake in his bed at Logie, -with reek of smoke in his nostrils and knowledge that the Lost Folk were -firing the house again? He longed to wake; for Causleen would be safe -behind him, and all the flames in front. - -As he stood bewildered, Storm’s eager whine sounded close, and then he -came with Causleen into the sputtering candlelight. - -“They told me——” said Hardcastle, and could get no further. - -“Yes, Nita lied—and I’m here—and, Dick, come back before they take us -both.” - -He saw a red gash across her cheek, and drew her to him. “Garskyes did -that?” he snarled, wolfish as any of the Broken Folk. - -“It was so dark when I followed you and Storm, and I blundered against -something cold and hard—it seemed like a knife hanging from the -roof—and I went slowly after that.” - -She let herself shelter awhile in the roomy haven of his arms, then -withdrew restlessly. - -“There’s so little time if we’re to get away. Nita went to rouse the -village, and they may be coming up already.” - -Hardcastle brushed past her in the narrow track, bidding her follow -slowly with Storm as he hurried to the cavern-mouth. He halted on the -threshold. The steep, empty brink-field stretched in front. No sound -came, except the hoarse cry of a hoodie crow wheeling overhead. So then -he stepped into the open. Ten of the Wilderness People, lurking out of -sight, sprang at him in a body, and only his preparedness for some such -ambush saved him. With the alertness of one lighter and more supple in -the build, he leaped back into the cave’s friendly dark. - -One from Garsykes could not check his own forward rush, and followed -willy-nilly. Hardcastle closed with him—the roof was high enough for a -tall man to stand upright—and his grip was so prolonged and terrible -that Causleen could hear the rogue’s bones crack one by one. - -Then Hardcastle took the broken body, using it for shield, and went out -a step or two and threw his burden among the nine who still remained. - -“Firstfruits,” he said, and turned as a wild uproar rang across the -slope. - -The barren pasture was swarming now with men. There was no chance of -escape in front, and again Hardcastle leaped back across the threshold. -A soft hand found his, and a brave voice whispered in his ear. - -“Hurt, Dick? Are you hurt at all?” - -“No; but one of Garsykes is.” - -Her hand withdrew. She feared Hardcastle of Logie—feared his -exultation, the hard breathing, as of a wild-beast that fought for love -of it. - -Outside the cavern, not ten yards from them, a raucous din began, -stilled presently by Nita’s voice. - -“What is this?” - -“It’s what Hardcastle has left of Jake,” came a quavering answer. - -“You fools. I got him caged for you. I left ten to take one as he came -out with the pedlar’s brat, thinking they had a clear run to safety. And -it’s all miscarried at the start.” - -“You bade us take Hardcastle alive,” growled another of the nine. “But -for that, we could have stoned him to death as if he’d been a conie.” - -“An easy death, and I’d planned otherwise.” - -Again Causleen’s hand crept into Hardcastle’s. The bleak venom in Nita’s -voice, the lousy uproar of the mob so near them, put fierce gladness in -her that Hardcastle had gone wild-beast, too. - -The low, purring voice sounded again, daunting the uproar till it -ceased. - -“There was to be sport for Garsykes. If ten had taken one—alive, to -watch the frolic—we’d have seen how he took it when I threw Causleen to -our wolves.” - -Hardcastle, in the darkness of the cave, gripped Causleen to him; and it -was a marvel to her that his fierceness broke no bones this time. The -wet roof dripped on them. Their only hope lay in retreat along dank, -ghost-haunted passages. Yet, deep under all, they tasted swift content. - -“One of the ten is dead,” Nita’s voice was bitter as mid-winter now. -“The nine left shall give us sport.” - -Still closer Causleen’s hand crept into Hardcastle’s. This was no -puppet-game they played, of food and ease and the day’s routine. It was -full life together, with death yapping at a gate they would not yield. - -A babel of question sounded from outside, asking Nita what should be -done with the nine. - -“We shall drive them into the cave—to take him there, if they can.” - -Hardcastle put Causleen behind him—roughly, and with haste—and stooped -for his fowling-piece. And when Storm brushed against him, growling to -be in the thick of what was coming, he forced him back to guard the -mistress. - -A squealing followed, and Hardcastle, looking out into the sunlight, saw -the nine driven forward by their fellows till one by one they plunged -into the cave. - -Then he lifted his fowling-piece, and snapped the trigger. - -The two Garsykes Men in front fell riddled with shot, blocking the -narrow way, and those behind rushed out in panic, a prey for their own -fellows. What fate befell them, Causleen could only guess; but their -shrieks and the roar of ribald oaths were so appalling that she put both -hands about her ears, striving to keep out the din. - -A lull followed, and Hardcastle spoke no word, but stood listening to -the mutterings of the enemy. Once he turned to put his hand on -Causleen’s shoulder, and once to quieten Storm, then returned to silent -waiting. - -Nita’s voice sounded again, peremptory and clear. - -“You’ve tasted blood, my braves, though it’s not Logie’s. And the taste -of blood makes men even out of such poor stuff as you.” - -They growled at her, but Hardcastle knew that she had them at her -bidding—knew, too, that she meant each word to reach the darkness of -his prison, for sapping of his courage. - -“D’ye think he of Logie is built of magic, instead of flesh and sinew? -Is he a giant too big for all Garsykes to keep in a cave, once they’ve -got him there?” - -She mocked them, cajoled, tempted what red blood they shared between -them to mount to fever heat; and Hardcastle, listening, admitted grimly -that her tongue was a she-devil’s. - -“Ten failed me, and they’ll walk Garsykes street no more. They lost you -the sport I promised—but we still have Hardcastle.” - -“And his wanton,” hiccoughed a rough voice. - -“Long Murgatroyd spoke there,” muttered Hardcastle, with still -remembrance of meetings they had shared. - -“And his wanton.” Nita’s laugh was soft and girlish. “It was not the -honeymoon I’d planned, but it does well enough. We shall keep them there -till the ghosts drive them mad—or till thirst and hunger teach them -what a little thing love is. And their flesh will rot, Garsykes Men, -till the water drips on their bare bones at last. And so much for -Logie.” - -“I cannot bear it, Dick,” pleaded Causleen. “She is so evil—so -evil—and God does not strike her down.” - -“Are you ready, child?” asked Hardcastle, with great gentleness. - -“Ready?” - -“Nita spoke truth. There’s no way out of this, except by the mouth -they’re guarding. We shall die, and I’d have it that way, if needs -must—and if we’re together.” - -“Say that again, Dick—_if we’re together_—and, Dick, fear has gone.” - -Quiet absolute held outside, and Hardcastle’s mind went back to many -silences that Garsykes had put on him. Those waiting-times at Logie had -seemed chill and harsh enough, but not as this was terrible. His own -house had been about him then, the forest and the wind-sweet uplands, -and he had liberty to come and go. - -For a long while no stir of life sounded from without, till the frosty -gloaming settled on what little he could see of the brink-field. Then -again he fancied himself in a nightmare’s grip, for the two whose bodies -lay prone at the entry, blocking the lower half, began to move backward -with rough, convulsive twists and turns. - -The horror of it—this watching dead men come to life—yielded to stark -common-sense as muffled curses stole inward and he guessed that some of -the Garsykes sort had crept on hands and knees to draw out his victims. -His re-loaded gun was useless, for the living sheltered behind the dead, -and he could only wait till the cave-mouth was clear, and all the -gloaming pasture empty save for Nita’s voice. - -“It is well done. I may tire of waiting till they die of the ghosts and -hunger. The way must be free.” - -Hardcastle drew Causleen round the first bend of the cave-track. His -wits were keen as a razor’s edge, as he stilled Storm’s yearning to be -out and at the throats of the besiegers. If they could not live, they -three, they must make preparations to die with seemliness. - -“There’s one chance left,” he said. “When dark comes, I’ll take Storm, -and together we’ll stampede them.” - -“And what of me?” - -“You can win out in the confusion, and home to Logie.” - -“Yes, Dick. And what of you?” - -“As if that mattered, child.” - -“But if—if it mattered everything?” - -So they came near to bitter quarrel, there as they waited for the sunset -glow to die across the hills that seemed lost to them for ever. Then -Hardcastle had his way, taking Storm with him round the bend; and she -had her way, following with mute-footed disobedience, till they came in -sight of the cave’s mouth. - -A crimson that was not of dawn or sunset flared through the entry. The -reek of a fire built of pine-wood and heather was blown indoors by a -wet, gusty wind, and its heat drove inward, licking the cave-walls. - -Across the flare and cackle, Hardcastle saw men dancing with women of -the village in frank abandonment. Wild-beast laughter made the music for -their feet, and all that had been in Garsykes, since the first -cut-throat settled there, was loosened down the ladder of the centuries. - -When for a moment they were tired of their devilry, Nita’s voice rang -clear and low across the spurting flames. - -“Shall I sing of Logie to you? Hardcastle flouted me once, but it is my -turn now.” - -With that she sang a ballad in the Garsykes tongue, that was a bastard -child of the true Romany speech, and her people, fantastic in the -fireglow, roared with applause when it was ended. They knew its meaning, -though Hardcastle could only guess how foul and sinister it was. - -Nita laughed at their plaudits, and was grave again. “Why did I want the -cave cleared of its dead? Because every long while I shall persuade one -of ours to go in and see how it fares with our true lovers. Ah, you back -away at that, do you? Then two shall go—carrying one man’s pluck -between them—and they’ll creep forward on unshod feet, making no sound. -Hardcastle will not know when to look for them, and an hour will seem a -month in yonder.” - -Do as he might, fear of the waiting-time ahead was creeping over -Hardcastle like the tide of a quiet sea. Each word of Nita’s reached -him—as she meant it should—with an overmastering sense of prophecy and -doom. - -He took Causleen’s hand in his, and together they went, with slow, -nagging caution, along the twisting track, Storm following. To light a -candle now was to waste what would be needed later on, and would make -them a plain mark for pursuit. They had to feel like blind people for -the rocky spears descending from the roof. They stumbled on rubble -dropped from the same roof, and every now and then a bat brushed their -faces with a sudden, silky dread. - -Hardcastle halted often to ask Storm if he heard aught behind them, and -the dog gave a gruff “all’s well.” Then, as a roar of waters sounded -near ahead, Hardcastle remembered the far-off day when he had come, a -boy, into this forbidden cave. The very thrill of it returned—part -fear, most of it eager courage—as he lit his candle and went forward -warily. - -“It’s a slippery crossing, child,” he said, coming with her to a torrent -that came from heaven knew where on the high moors and dipped into this -underworld with foaming speed. - -She crept closer to him as she looked at the sliding waters, at the -rocky ledge above—scarce a foot’s breadth—that was the only bridge. - -“Courage,” said Hardcastle. “It’s a short way to go.” - -Her hand was brave in his as they made the crossing, with one slip that -nearly hurled them into the bellowing flood below. - -“That’s good so far,” he said. “We’ve put the stream between the -Garsykes Men and us.” - -“And afterwards?” - -“Death, I fancy; but we’re together.” - -Her hand tightened its grip. He was altogether hers, and this evil road -they took tested his caring at every turn. - -Both forgot Storm, till a whimpering came from the far side of the -stream. Fearless in a score of ways, the look of the narrow bridge, wet -in the candlelight, daunted him. Time after time he tried to foot it and -withdrew, afraid of the cauldron underneath. - -Hardcastle gave the flickering candle to Causleen, and crossed the -bridge again, and took Storm on his shoulders, telling him to cease -wriggling unless he meant to overbalance both. - -She watched that crossing, short as it was, as if its length reached -through an eternity of suffering. Storm’s bulk was no light burden for a -man treading slippery rocks. At every step Hardcastle blundered and -recovered—blundered so wildly over the last of the crossing that he had -to take a sheer leap across the torrent, to land safely on the further -brink. - -He shook Storm from his shoulders, and cuffed him soundly. “There’s no -room here for fools, my lad,” he grumbled. “Why could you not keep -still?” - -Storm pressed against him with mute penitence, and after the Master had -stayed to get his breath again the three went forward. The ground -underfoot was so broken now that Hardcastle kept the candle burning, and -by its light they saw presently that they had come to a place of -skulls—human skulls, grinning from a tangled heap of bones. They lay in -a circle to the right of the track, where it widened for a space, and -they were no good sight for folk oppressed already with a sense of doom. - -“How could they harm us?” said Hardcastle, with harsh levity. “They’ve -been dead too long for that.” - -Yet, while he spoke, Storm began to shiver as with ague. His limbs -refused their work, and his bristling hide was dank with sweat. -Causleen, her Highland other-sight stirred suddenly, was next aware that -they stood in an underworld of ghosts, till Hardcastle himself was -shaken, remembering many legends that were rife about the moorside. - -“Come away,” he said, gripping Storm by the collar and dragging him by -force beyond the peopled silence. - -The candle burned more wanly now. The thick, dead air cumbered their -going, and they were drenched as with intolerable heat, though the caves -were damp and chill. - -“Have we far to go?” asked Causleen faintly. - -Hardcastle, seeing a low slab of rock that jutted into the track, guided -her to it and kept his arm about her. - -“I’d forgotten you needed rest,” he said, with grave gentleness. - -The cool air, now that no effort was asked, revived her weariness. “I -have no fear, Dick—except that the journey may be too long for me.” - -“It’s a long journey for us both. There’s no hope at all of winning out, -Causleen.” - -She touched his sleeve with a caress so soft, so all-revealing, that his -hardihood was near to breaking. “Such dreams I’ve had—of us two, and -Logie, and the summer days to come. And now they’re over—but you are -with me, Dick.” - -He dared not break the silence. So steadfastly her spirit marched with -his, that he thought of the rough welcome he had given her when she -first came to Logie. So close they stood together now, that suddenly -death took new shape and substance. If there were to be no mating-days -with Causleen up at Logie, they must find them in some world beyond. - -“Where would you have me go? I am strong again,” she asked by and by. - -Once more, saying no word, he took her by the hand, and they crept -through the dank, lifeless air, over the broken ground. Here and there -the light glinted on flint arrow-heads—fashioned, maybe, by the folk -whose skulls had peered at them not long ago—and his thoughts raced -back to the day when Pedlar Donald found the token on Logie’s gate. - -He was sick with defeat. He had carried his head high above the Garsykes -challenge, had gone through peril of the roads by night and day. And -this was the finish of it all. - -Causleen’s hand gripped his with instant sympathy, answering his mood. -“Logie’s honour still goes safe,” she said. - -“It still goes safe,” was all he answered. - -The track wound downward now, till it turned sharply, and Causleen gave -a stifled cry. They had come to the brink of a lake whose waters glinted -smooth and glossy in the candlelight. The silence they had passed -through seemed almost friendly, compared with the nether dumbness of -this pool, deep beyond knowledge, windless, asleep with its living and -its dead. - -A strange beguiling came about them. Once again they knew what Nita had -meant when she spoke of their death by hunger—or the ghosts. The pool -called them, though the silence was unbroken. Hands reached out to draw -them down, though they saw none. And Storm stood whimpering like a -child. - -Hardcastle, by sheer sweat of will, drew Causleen—and himself—from the -alluring depths. - -“It’s the end of our journey, when worst comes to worst,” he said. - -“Tell me, Dick. It is better I should know—just all.” - -“They’ll creep on us, soon or late. And they shall not have us, child. -The pool is cleaner than the Garsykes sort.” - -He led her over the broad causeway bordering the lake, and as they -neared its end she looked down and recoiled. Hardcastle, following her -glance, saw a stirring of the waters that gathered strength till -wavelets licked the rock-track, and mounted till they broke across their -feet. The flickering light showed them a great, sinewy back that -threshed itself to fury. They glimpsed for a moment the face of -something half fish, half devil, and Hardcastle himself recoiled now, -drawing Causleen close against the wet precipice. He was in the grip of -a cavern that sheltered primeval ghosts and age-old, living things, and -the heart went out of him for one sick moment. - -Whatever monster lurked in the bottomless waters, it had plunged deep -out of sight again, and the back-wash of its going drenched the three of -them with chill, spumey spray. Storm cried piteously, till Hardcastle, -with a rough oath, cuffed him into silence. - -Their candle, held high above the spray, flickered and went out, and -Hardcastle let it fall, knowing his tinder-box was drenched and useless. - -“This is the end of all?” asked Causleen, reaching for his hand. - -“The end. Nita will send her swine—be sure of that—and they might take -you, child, after I was beyond aiming another blow. But it’s in my heart -to kill another Garsykes Man or two before we go.” - -Her grasp tightened. He had spoken quietly, without haste, as if he were -reckoning the chances of the weather when they mowed the hay at Logie. - -“I would not fear the pool, Dick—or the dark—if we’d not seen what -lurked there.” - -“Better even that than Garsykes,” he said. - -She crept nearer to him, and they stood there on the brink of dread, -waiting for death. The lake still lapped and gurgled at its rocks. Storm -whined fitfully, afraid of things more terrible than his second-sight -had ever glimpsed on the wildest moorland nights. He had seen Habatrot -go by, and the Heather Dwarf, and the dog shaggy as himself—the dog -known as Guytrash, that waited on lonely gates and frightened his own -kin, who shuddered by and would have none of usual, honest fight. - -Storm, as he shared this night watch with his chosen two, longed for the -moor-winds and the sky. Nothing he had found there—the worst of it—was -like this sick, clammy air, peopled with foul shapes of the underworld. - -“What is beyond?” asked Causleen by and by. “Cannot we get further down -the track?” - -He knew that she was thinking of the pool’s occupant, was dreading its -return. One hand still held his fowling-piece above the wet. The other -closed on hers with a grip quiet and resolute. - -“A few yards would bring us to the end.” - -He humoured her, and they crept forward slowly round the bend that -Hardcastle remembered from the far-off day when he had travelled the -cave’s length. Then he had had candlelight to help. Now he had none; and -from the very lack, hope came to him. - -As he turned the bend, the darkness seemed to grow less heavy. He crept -on, feeling the way with his one free hand, till a gentle glow began to -steal between the rocks that hemmed them in; and with a bound his mind -returned, as Storm’s had done, to the free moor’s overhead. So it had -been when he set out on stark, mid-winter nights to cross the heath on -foot—nothing at all to see in front at the start, but presently a gleam -of grey that showed a filmy track ahead. - -His grip on Causleen’s hand tightened till she winced. - -“What is it, Dick?” - -“I do not know,” he said, harsh in this moment of swift, unlooked for -hope. He had had many such, and feared to lose it. - -The track brought them soon to the rock-wall that had seemed -impenetrable when Hardcastle, as a lad, had held his candle-flare to its -wet face. The candle’s flame had been stronger than the grey-blue gleams -that broke now into the blank and utter darkness. - -Down the wall’s face they ran, these gleams, in soft, ever-moving -rivulets that were narrow and broad by turns, criss-crossing like the -hurry of a water-slide. - -Fearing almost to put hope to the test, Hardcastle stretched out his -hand into the grey-blue gleam where it ran widest. His hand passed -through it. His eager fingers reached beyond the wall’s fancied -thickness and closed on it. He dragged an inch or two of rotted stone -away, and turned with guarded triumph. - -“We may outwit both Garsykes and the pool,” he said. - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - - - THE END OF STORM - -By her silence, by the sob that followed, Hardcastle learned the measure -of Causleen’s dread of what lay behind them. He learned, too, the depth -of his fear for her—a terror that ate still at his heart and goaded him -to effort. The very chance of release, the nearness of it, made him the -more eager to win through with haste, lest Garsykes came at them just -too soon. - -“The cave drives us mad,” said Causleen, light-headed for a moment -between strain of fear and stress of hope. “How can there be little -threads of light, stealing from outside—from God’s good out of doors, -Dick? It’s night out there, except for the fire that Nita lit, far away. -Surely it was far away. We’ve journeyed many a mile since then.” - -Hardcastle, seeing how it went with her, put a firm hand on hers. “Would -you faint at journey’s end? And where’s your Highland pride?” - -He loathed himself for saying it, though it brought her back from -sickness. - -“Here, Dick,” she said, and was quiet awhile. “Here, Dick,” she said -again, her whole body quivering with release from dread. “There are -Highland pipers stepping down the cave—and pride marches with them. But -we two are mad to dream that light comes from out of doors. How could -it? We watched the sun go down—years since—before Nita lit her fire.” - -Again he was compelled to rally her. She had gone through more than -should be asked of any woman; but needs must that she kept weariness at -bay. - -“There’s a wall to be broken down,” he said sharply. “Take my gun, -Causleen.” - -The command steadied her again. Obediently she took the fowling-piece -and watched him tear at the rock-wall, getting his fingers in where the -grey-blue light rippled at its widest. Piece after piece of wet-worn -rock crumbled to his grasp, till he got his arm through at last. - -Causleen saw a broader stream of light break softly through the dark. -Storm, the sheep-slayer, was pressing his rough snout against her, and -somehow he, like the Master, brought courage home again. - -“How can the light break through?” she asked, as a child might. - -Hardcastle glanced back from the sweat of his toil. “There’s a full moon -on Logie-side, and we’re winning fast to it.” - -“Oh, God be thanked,” said Causleen. “And shall we see the hills again, -Dick, and hear the winds go by?” - -“With luck, we shall,” said Hardcastle, riving at the wall-face afresh. - -He was checked now by a thicker and less yielding slab of rock. Tug as -he would, his grip was powerless to widen the breach, and again the -sense of desperate haste returned. They were so near freedom, but behind -them was all the stealth of Garsykes. - -He felt about in the rubble at his feet till his hands closed on a round -boulder-stone, and with this he hammered feverishly wherever a crack -showed. He was steaming now with the effort, and the slender breeze that -drifted in through the opening he had made, did little to relieve the -cavern’s dank, lifeless air. - -At last there was an answer to his toil. The cracks broadened suddenly, -and the next hard blow brought a mass of splintered stones to ground. - -Hardcastle went at it with fresh, dogged hope. Slow as the work was, he -could get one shoulder through the opening now, and the thought came, -across the dull confusion of his mind, that Causleen needed a narrower -doorway out than he. Another fall like the last, and she could creep -sideways into safety. - -The thought was food and drink to his strength. Once she was safe, the -worst was passed; and Storm and he, surely, could hold this narrow way -till no pursuit could reach her. - -Once more he fell to hammering wherever the blue-grey moonlight showed a -crack, but the reward was long in coming; and, as he rested for a moment -from sheer lack of breath, Storm broke the quiet with a low, purring -growl. - -No ghosts were troubling the sheep-slayer now, So much was plain. His -hide was stiff, not with dread, but with eagerness to be at the throat -of some menace threatening from behind. - -Hardcastle quietened him with one sharp whisper, and took the gun from -Causleen’s hands. Then he pushed his fowling-piece into the gloom, and -waited. - -Twice Storm growled, so low that Hardcastle could scarcely catch the -note. And still they waited—bond-brothers, side by side—for what was -coming through the stealthy dark. - -Then Hardcastle felt a bulk of flesh steal against the muzzle of his -gun, and plucked the trigger. The back-throw—not of the butt against -his shoulder, but the answering uproar of the cave’s low roof—drove him -staggering back. - -Two had come against them, it seemed. He heard Storm’s eager yelp, a -man’s sudden scream of anguish, and an answering howl from Storm. And -then there came a din of falling rocks, a rush of clean, cold wind that -brought a flood of moonlight with it. - -“Are you safe, Causleen?” he cried through his dizziness. - -A low voice answered. “That was your first thought? Yes, I’m safe, -Dick—doubly safe.” - -Her touch made light of hardship. Two more of Nita’s men were blocking -the cavern behind them with their dead, ill-kempt bodies, and there was -time enough now to hack a way through for Causleen and himself. - -When he turned to batter at the rock-face again, he found the work done -already. The gunfire shock that had driven him back and roared loud as -an earthquake in the narrow space, had probed into every crevice of a -barrier near to falling long ago. The way now lay open to them, over -broken rocks that showed fantastic in the moon-glow. - -Hardcastle, exultant, was reaching for her hand, to guide her through -the wreckage, when he remembered Storm and whistled sharply. - -A snout was pushed against his knee, and he reached down to pat the -dog’s rough hide. - -“You’re as drenched with sweat as I am, lad,” he said. - -So Storm was, though he had no speech to tell them that the sweat ran -crimson. He had killed his man, but in the doing had taken a knife-wound -that raked half down his body. - -“Don’t whimper. Storm,” murmured Causleen. “The cave’s full of ghosts, I -know, but we’re free of it.” - -The sheep-slayer whimpered no more. With extreme pain he followed them -across the broken way, till they reached smooth going again. Storm was -not sure that they were free, and to the last edge of his strength he -meant to guard these two. - -Hardcastle saw now a wide arch of moonlight close ahead. He could hazard -no guess as to the corner of Logie-land that it opened on. He did not -care, for beyond it lay the free sky and the fells; and whatever battle -waited would not be clogged by prison walls. - -Before they had covered half the short way to liberty, Causleen’s hand -gripped his with sudden dread. Behind them was a rumble, as of thunder, -followed by a cracking and a rending overhead. Hardcastle, it seemed, -when he first made space enough to get a shoulder through the barrier, -had loosened the frail keystone of the roof, and they were stifled by -the dust and uproar of the falling rocks behind. - -He drew Causleen sharply back and through the moonlit opening, and Storm -had scarcely struggled after them when a second tumult sounded from the -cave behind, and a pile of shattered rocks came crashing to the very -mouth by which they had escaped. - -Then Hardcastle, his arm round Causleen still, drew a deep breath and -glanced in silence at the moonlight flooding all the land in front. He -had not known how sweet and all-sufficing a night wind could be, had -never tasted until now the fullest joy in sight—sight to see the strong -free spaces of his own good country-side. - -For awhile he did not care to ask where they were standing. It was -enough to remember the cave’s unclean nightmare, and to wash in this -swift moorland air. - -“The joy of it,” sobbed Causleen, her head against his sleeve. - -And now he remembered that joy was apt to be short-lived, with Garsykes -as close neighbour. For aught he knew, Nita and the men who watched the -bonfire at the other entry might be close at hand. The track through the -cavern, long as it was, twisted so constantly that it might have led -them back within a stone’s throw of the start. - -He glanced this way and that, listening. No sound came, save the wind’s -voice, till a screech-owl hooted from somewhere far below. A raven’s -sleepy croak answered. That was all. - -They stood on a spur of pasture-land that dipped sharply down in front, -and Hardcastle went forward in search of landmarks. Moonlight is apt to -play strange tricks with the most familiar hills and cloughs; but he -could not mistake the ravine that gaped below, black with shadow under -the radiance that lit its upper banks. - -He saw where it narrowed at Nevison’s Leap, and where it broadened to -the mist-white flats. And, beyond again, Pengables Hill looked out at -him with the gaze of an old and proven friend. - -“We’re in Drumly Ghyll, sweetheart,” he said, “and a clear road home for -us.” - -A yelp of pain sounded from behind—so sharp, so strong with anguish, -that joy in freedom went from them. They turned to see Storm dragging -himself forward, wincing at every step, and Hardcastle ran back. - -The sheep-slayer paused a moment, to gather his failing strength. Then -he got his forepaws up to the Master’s shoulders, with a farewell that -gushed crimson, licked his face once and then fell back. - -“Oh, the good brute,” said Hardcastle, with a grim, sudden oath. “His -hunting days are over.” - -“He’s not dead?” Causleen pleaded, knowing the futility of what she -asked. - -He did not hear, and her own sorrow was checked for a moment at sight of -his. In silence and in grief he stood looking down at this lost comrade -who had been with him through the long, unequal fight of Logie against -the Wilderness. - -“We can’t leave him here to the corbie-crows,” he growled at last—“or -for the Garsykes sort to mock at.” - -Causleen’s tears were running fast as she knelt beside the gaunt, still -body. “Storm, come back,” she whispered. “You’re too brave and dear to -die like this. We need you, Storm.” - -Hardcastle watched her in gloomy silence, till thought of all she had -gone through overmastered him with a sharp rush of pity. He lifted her -with a strength that was persuasion, too, and held her close. - -“I’d rather have it this way, child. He died for Logie—not at Brant’s -hands.” - -She smiled wanly through her tears. “He had his faults—but I—I shall -miss him. He used to come to the cupboard under the stair—so wise and -penitent, Dick, so loyal—and now he’ll never come again.” - -He put her from him, with the same gentle strength, and shouldered what -was left of Storm. Then he went down into Drumly Ghyll, and presently -returned. - -“What have you done with him?” she asked piteously. - -“He lies deep in Cobblers’ Gully, safe from crows and foxes.” - -“Poor Storm,” she said, and was silent. Then, “Did you send a prayer -with him?” she asked. - -“What do I know of praying? He’s gone, and part of me went with him, -somehow.” - -They said no more as they went down together through the midnight of -Drumly Ghyll—its high walls closing round them like another cave of -dread—and out into the moonlit lowlands. It was only when they came -near to Logie Bridge and all its memories that Causleen broke down -again, remembering Storm. - -“He lies so lonely, Dick, up there.” - -“Storm hadn’t much of a life on this side. He was glad to go, maybe.” - -So then Causleen knew that a prayer had gone with the dead dog into -Cobblers’ Gully. - -They went together up the steep, winding road to Logie—its guardian -beeches comely in their winter’s nakedness—and at the bend they -encountered Rebecca—the brindled cat snarling on her shoulder. - -“Is it your ghost, Master?” she quavered. - -“A fairly solid ghost, Rebecca.” - -“Then God be thanked, say I.” - -She was old, and shaken by her vigil. Her hair was driven by the breeze -into grey, wispish threads; but her eyes, even in the tempering -moonlight, showed like pools of living fire. - -“I feared there’d be no home-coming for you two,” she said, the tang -returning to her voice already—“especially when Brant and Michael -Draycott came back with the tale of what they’d seen.” - -“What should they know about the cave?” asked Hardcastle, with tired -wonder. - -“What I chose to tell Brant when he stumped into my kitchen, a half-hour -after you’d gone, and grumbled that Storm had taken another ewe of his -in the night. ‘I wouldn’t worrit about that,’ says I. ‘Garsykes has -taken the Master, and I’m nigh out o’ my wits.’ That sobered the -shepherd.” - -She touched Hardcastle, to make sure that he was in the flesh before -her, then told, in tart, brief speech, how Shepherd Brant had gone to -raise Logie-side against the Wilderness—how all its strapping yeomen, -except Michael Draycott, were at Skipton market—how Michael and Brant -had stolen down to the Garsykes hollow, to see if they could put a fight -up, and had found a company of devils dancing with Nita round a fire at -the cave’s mouth. - -Tired as he was, needing food and drink, and sleep’s forgetting of the -cave, the Master warmed to Rebecca’s tale. There were two men at least -who had cared to rouse the Dale for him and all that Logie stood for. - -“They came back here,” said Rebecca, “for bite and sup before they left -again to meet the Logie Men as they rode home from market. I wouldn’t -daunt their spirit by telling ’em there was a full moon, and our men by -that token would come late, with a plenty of good ale inside them.” - -“That same full moon, Rebecca,” said Hardcastle, with chastened humour, -“showed us the way out.” - -She listened, her lean, old body tense with eagerness, as he told what -had chanced. Then she was no longer the woman who had waited, every fear -on edge, for news that could only be evil, so it had seemed through the -long waiting-time. - -The Master was home again, tall and limber, though his coat was drenched -with blood. His old laugh was in the front of hardship. He was glad, -with a clean, hard joy, to have brought Causleen safe to Logie, after -all, through moil of the Garsykes Men. And Rebecca was glad with -him—fiercely glad that the Wilderness had been outwitted once again. - -Every sorrow she had known, since her own man died for Logie forty years -ago, returned now to this grey henchwoman of the house—the wedded days -she should have had, the bairns that might have been—and hate of -Garsykes swept through her like a tempest. - -Then she saw the Master and Causleen glance at each other with such -silent, all-sufficing knowledge that jealousy chilled her to the bone. -Why should they come in their young, insolent strength, and flaunt their -caring in her face? - -The brindled cat was in ill-humour, too. All day he had wandered from -house to stable-yard in search of his boon-comrade, Storm, and now the -friendly reek of him stole out from Hardcastle’s drenched coat. Jonah -leaped from Rebecca’s shoulder, and purred and growled by turns, -reaching up to sniff the scent that was Storm’s, but with a cold, -dismaying difference. Then the cat neither growled nor purred. All the -life seemed to dwindle in him. The fur, stiff with battle, fell limp and -draggled, and he mewed with piteous appeal. - -“Gone away, Jonah,” said Hardcastle, a queer break in his voice. -“Storm’s sleeping up the fells.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII - - - THE QUIET WEDDING - -The Garsykes Folk had grown tired of guarding the cave mouth. For a -night, and half the next day, Nita’s tongue had whipped them into -watchfulness; and when they were growing out of hand at last, she made -light of what Hardcastle could do to them. - -“Get you in first, Long Murgatroyd,” she gibed. “What with the ghosts -and the silence, we’ve tamed Hardcastle by this time. You needn’t fear.” - -Murgatroyd fetched a laugh up, big as his body. “If you’ll come with -me,” he said. - -The devil in her warmed to what she would find, somewhere along the -track in yonder. To see Hardcastle distraught with fear and hunger—to -have him cringe to her for the means of safety—that was the dream she -had woven into her baskets for many a month gone by. - -She took Murgatroyd’s hand, with a light and eager smile, and together -they went into the cavern whose every winding was known to the rabble -that followed with shrill, raucous jests. - -They had candles in plenty, to scare the ghosts away; but somehow their -laughter grew afraid of itself, and died out in eerie echoes, passed on -from the wet spear-points of rock that came straight, like arrows, from -the roof above. Then the whole cavern was filled with rolling murmurs -that passed on their oaths into the everywhere beyond; but Nita kept -them trudging forward. - -They crossed the torrent. No trace of life showed, no sign of struggle. -And now they reached the lake, and Nita paused at its brink, looking -down into its unstirred waters. Were Hardcastle and the pedlar’s brat -lying there, she wondered? But, if that had chanced, why had two -Garsykes Men not returned—the two she had sent with knives to kill -Hardcastle and torture Causleen? - -One question was answered speedily, as she and Murgatroyd turned the -bend of the track and saw two huddled shapes blocking their way. -Murgatroyd roared with sudden terror, but Nita, laughing at him, held -her candle low above the dismaying sight. - -The man shot by Hardcastle at close quarters showed less ghastly than -his fellow, for the charge had gone through him like a single bullet; -but the other lay face up to the roof, and Storm’s fury was plain about -his tortured throat. - -“What is it?” growled the men behind, catching panic from Murgatroyd’s -bellow of affright. - -“Two of ours that could well be spared,” said Nita, and stepped on the -fallen, and went forward for a pace or two. - -“What is it?” came the uneasy question again as they heard a sharp cry -escape her. - -“The end of Logie. Come see it.” - -They gathered courage from the exultation; and those who could press -into the new cavern, formed to the left hand of the track, lifted a -score of candles to what had been the end of their rock-fastness. The -straight-faced barrier they had known was now a mad confusion of rocks -broken into shapes fantastic, terrible. - -“That’s their marriage-bed,” said Nita, her voice childest in its -gentleness—“Hardcastle’s and his wanton’s. Did I say there’d be an end -of Logie?” - -“The man was always a bit of a fool,” growled Murgatroyd, recovering -from his panic. “I reckon he loosed his fowling-piece on one o’ the two -we trod on. A toddling Garsykes kid could have told him what it ’ud do -to pent-in walls.” - -When Nita, treading on light feet, led her men back through the cave, -and out into the sweet upland air of afternoon, she took them straight -to Widow Mathison’s inn, and left them there. - -“Drink your fill, now Logie’s gone,” she said, and went up into the -fells. - -Near dusk she returned, and called them out from the ale that had -merried them—called them into the cobbled street. - -“Is Nita wise?” she asked softly. “Did she promise Logie’s end?” - -They roared an answer, and suddenly she fell to dancing for their -pleasure. The last crimson of the sunset flared down and over from -Pengables Hill, and lit her slender paces and her slender limbs. As her -fingers wove dark magic into the baskets she sold down and up the Dale, -her whole body now snared and enticed the men she loathed. - -Then once more she left them, going fleet-footed as a deer up the -darkening fells, and came to her cottage where the little fir-wood -rustled in the breeze. She slept as a tired child might, and soon after -dawn went to her bath in the pool within the wood. Then she took the -fell-track to Logie, and came to the open door of Rebecca’s kitchen, and -stood there, darkening the wintry sunlight. - -“The Master has not returned?” she asked softly. - -Rebecca had looked for some such visit, and glanced up from dusting the -china dogs on the chimney-shelf. “Not yet. But what is that to you?” - -“He followed the pedlar’s girl into the cave, they tell me, and neither -will come back, I fear.” - -“Well, there’s still me and the brindled cat left, and we’ll see to -Logie. Tell Garsykes from me, you basket-weaving trollop, that I’ll comb -’em with the thick end of a besom if they try their pranks.” - -Nita could make nothing of the woman, so hard, so unmoved by the -Master’s fate. “Have you no fear?” - -“Aye, for such as you, once my fingers get about you. You’d best be -gone.” - -Nita tarried only for one last shaft before she fled from the other’s -truculence. “The Master’s gone. And old Rebecca’s wits have gone. It’s -the rarest day that Garsykes ever saw.” - -“Maybe,” muttered Rebecca, as she got to her dusting again. - -She knew how, after their safe return from the cave, Hardcastle had left -Causleen in her care while he went up the moonlit road to join Shepherd -Brant in his waiting for the Logie yeomen to return from market. She -knew how he had probed under their lazy tribute-giving by plain recital -of what had happened in the cave, and had pledged them to guard Logie -whenever he himself had need to tide abroad. - -And now the Master had ridden over-hill to Skipton, on an errand that -she guessed; and Causleen herself lay in the room above, in a dead sleep -of weariness that was saving life and reason after the hell she had -passed through in the cavern. - -“You’re the one spoil-sport among us, my brindled cat,” she snapped, as -Jonah mewed about her skirts. “I loved old Storm myself; but he’s gone, -and you can’t mew him back.” - -For an hour she went about her work, then grew as restless as Jonah -himself. It was time the Master was home again, and he tarried. What if, -at the end of his rough journey through the cave, his horse had thrown -him somewhere between this and Skipton? Life, as she knew it, had that -apeish way of letting folk go safe through harsh odds, only to crack -thin skulls against a moorland boulder as they rode quietly home. - -Keenly as Rebecca listened for the tip-tap of hoofs up the road, -Causleen heard it first. She wakened from a sleep befogged by peddling -days, and memories of the harsh greeting she had found once at -Logie—sleep threaded through and through by flame-red memories of -Garsykes and its cavern. - -Far down the road she heard the music of her man’s -returning—_clickety-clack_, faint at first as the tread of elfin feet. -Where had he been, risking his life in these disastrous days? And was he -wounded by a stealthy blow aimed at him by some foul lout from Garsykes -lurking in the heather? - -Need to know how it fared with him drew her from her bed. She put the -frayed cloak about her—the cloak that had been blue as hope once, but -now was like a Jacob’s coat, painted by many kinds of weather—and went -down the stair, and out to Logie’s gate. - -She was in time to open it for Hardcastle, in time to see the light in -his eyes as he got from the saddle, and told his horse to find his own -way to stable. - -“Where have you been?” she asked, fingering his sleeve. - -“To Skipton-in-Craven,” said Hardcastle. “I had business there.” - -She touched his sleeve no longer. “And left me here—alone, except for -Rebecca and a farm-lad? At such a time—after all we’d shared, and with -Garsykes near—_You went on business?_” - -“I left a body-guard. Some of our Logie Men are in the woods—and two by -Logie Brigg, to let none from Garsykes through—except Nita, if she’s a -mind to come.” - -She took a further step away. “You might have stayed, for all that—just -to be near me, Dick.” - -“I went over-hill for the right to keep you near.” - -She had known him taciturn and hard, known the laughter that came rarely -and was far away from joy; but now he was a riddle, as he took her hands -and would not let them go. - -“You left me so soon—for what?” asked Causleen wearily. - -His heart spoke now. By all he said and left unsaid she knew at last the -caring that had come at the end of their uphill, stormy wooing. Garsykes -might be broken, once for all, he told her; but the old, stealthy siege -of Logie might be renewed by slow degrees. Either way, they’d meet the -coming weather as man and wife. The licence would be ready in three -days’ time, and it was no far ride to Skipton Kirk. - -“That was your business?” she asked, her voice brave and vibrant. “And I -chided you—and so, Dick, do what you will with me.” - -When his will was made plain, however, that on the fourth day from now -they would be married, she was submissive no longer, but pleaded for -delay. She had no clothes for her wedding, and would shame him in his -own market-town unless he gave her time. - -“Wear the old cloak over all,” said Hardcastle, “and I’ll be content -enough.” - -So there came a day when Rebecca watched them ride out from Logie. The -Master had not said what their errand was, but she knew; and she scolded -Jonah till he spat at her. And then she gathered him into her arms, and -cried, and cried. - -“Love of a man sees far, when you’ve mothered his cantrips since he was -a babby,” she said by and by, with a smile utterly forlorn. “And -jealousy sees far. But it’s hell’s own spite when the two keep company.” - -Causleen and Hardcastle guessed nothing of all this, as they rode, in -wonder and in silence, over the hill to Skipton. They guessed nothing of -it as they rode home again, drawing rein to glance at the pride of that -one word, _Desormais_, carved high above the grey, stubborn -castle-gateway. - -Long as he had known it—and he rode seldom from Skipton without a -glance at the message overhead—Hardcastle had taken it as a symbol of -his own grim fight for Logie. Now that was changed. He had a wife beside -him, and the feud with Garsykes grew doubly worth the while. - -He glanced at the carved challenge, and made English of it for her. -“_Henceforth_, sweetheart,” he said, and laughed quietly as a conqueror -might. - -In silence they rode past the castle walls and up into the grey, -solitary fells. The track twisted this way and that to lessen the -steepness of the climb, till they breasted the last of the hill and -passed through the rocky gap that was the gateway of the homeland -watered by Wharfe River. - -They drew rein, and could only marvel at the land stretched wide below -them. The winter’s sun shone warm and mellow over the far spaces, -grey-blue with haze. Every striding league of heath, each gully where -leafless rowans waited for the spring, showed to Hardcastle like the map -of his own heart. Pride—big hearted, eager pride—leaped out as he -pointed down the slope. - -“We own most of it, wife. Is it a good bridal-gift?” - -Her eyes filled with tears. He gave all he had, for her to share. And he -named her wife. She had not guessed how all-sufficing the name was, how -real and warm and safe. And somehow, across the chill upland breeze, a -summer fragrance blew, as of clove-pinks and ladslove in a wayside -garden. - -All they had gone through together returned—the stealthy siege of -Logie, the stark, long peril in the cave—and she drew a sharp breath of -thanksgiving that this was the end of nightmare. - -“Life is sweet to hold, Dick,” she said, smiling through her tears. - -They rode in another silence, rich with speech, down the slack of -Storner Bank. And now the wood-reek from Logie’s chimneys eddied up, so -near that they could smell its savour. - -“We’re home,” said Hardcastle, drawing his horse nearer hers. - -Then, as they rounded the bend, he pulled up sharply. Nita Langrish, a -bundle of withies over her shoulder, was standing in the roadway, her -glance fixed on Logie. So intent she was on thoughts of the dead Master -who had flouted her—hidden deep with the pedlar’s brat under the rocks -in Garsykes cave—that she heard no sound of hoofs behind. - -Nita had had her will of them both, and stood there as in a trance. -Vengeance was sweet. She was minded to taste it to the full, looking -down at masterless Logie. Every curling wisp of smoke rose from a hearth -Hardcastle would never know again. No son of his would grow to claim the -heritage. Logie and its seven hundred years ended with old Rebecca and a -brindled cat; and so much for pride. - -A man’s cry of warning roused her, and she turned to see Hardcastle’s -cob rearing scarcely a yard away, his fore-feet perilously close. - -Nita leaped aside, then stood gazing at these two who were buried in the -cave out yonder—these two, who seemed to ride on horseback through the -sunlight and the free moorland wind. - -Hardcastle glanced once at her. It was not his way to fight with women; -but a sullen loathing came. - -“We’re dead in Garsykes cavern,” he said. “It’s only our ghosts that -ride.” - -“Only your ghosts?” asked Nita eagerly, snatching at a straw in this -torrent of dread that raced over her. - -“And Storm’s,” said Hardcastle. “He died with us, and runs close behind, -I fancy.” - -With that they rode on, and Hardcastle’s grim smile died out as he -glanced at Causleen’s face. - -“You’re tired, wife,” he said gently. - -“I was not tired at all until—until she stood there—stood on the -threshold of our home-coming.” - -A shadow crept, too, about Hardcastle and stayed with him as they came -indoors, Causleen and he, and found Rebecca waiting for them. - -“Step forrard,” said Rebecca. “It was time you married, Hardcastle of -Logie.” - -“How did you know?” he asked, wondering that there was no need to break -the news. - -Gaunt and straight, Rebecca stood facing them with a hard, roving -glance. “How did I know, asks he, when I’ve given my life to watching -his ins-and-outs? How could I help but know?” - -On one side of the threshold Nita had met them. On the other stood this -henchwoman, grief and jealousy showing in her sombre eyes. Against their -will, a sense of doom crept out from Logie’s storied walls, chilling -their eager wedlock. - -“I kept young for you, Master,” went on Rebecca, “till you found a bride -for Logie. And now I’ll let myself grow old.” - -“I’d have told you our errand——” - -She cut short his troubled words. “You would, but for thinking of old -Rebecca. The blow would fall softer, you fancied, if you brought a -full-fledged wife, instead of letting me wait all day for a promised -one. Men, poor lambs, are not good at breaking news, and never were.” - -Her tart humour swept him like a moorland breeze through the gloom she -had brought about these two. - -“I’ve the bridal-supper ready, and near spoilt. You were always late to -your vituals, Master.” - -She sat on in the kitchen, after all was served and she had left them to -their meal; and she missed Jonah sorely. The cat had been with her till -the moment when she went to greet the bridal-pair, and now had vanished -like her own joy in serving Hardcastle. All had gone, it seemed, and she -yielded to loneliness utter and complete. - -She threw her apron over her head, and rocked to and fro. Grief had its -way with her. The years behind gathered their hardships to a head, and -tears broke through at last. - -Then by and by she heard the kettle singing on the hob, and made a hefty -brew of tea. And after that she went in search of Jonah. - -They heard her tramping forlornly upstairs and down, and Causleen’s hand -reached out to Hardcastle’s across their wedding-table. - -“She’s old and sorry, Dick—and we’ve so much.” - -Hardcastle found a quick new tenderness for this wife of his. She knew, -as he did, that Rebecca was bone and fibre of his house—one by this -time with its thick-set walls, the people who lived here aforetime—one -to be cherished like a heritage. - -Together they went in search and found Rebecca standing at the cupboard -under the stair. The door was open, and her candle showed the brindled -cat spitting and growling from the lair he had shared with Storm on many -a day gone by. - -The candlelight showed something else to Causleen, her vision sharpened -by this wild home-coming—showed her the shape of Storm, the -sheep-slayer, with a long, brown-red gash across his filmy hide—Storm, -who was dead, returned to Logie and the Master. - -Hardcastle had made a bitter jest to Nita of Storm’s following them, a -ghost. And Storm was here. - -“What d’ye see,” asked Rebecca—“what d’ye see, beyond that dratted cat -o’ mine?” - -“A leal friend, Rebecca.” - -And with that she put a hand in Hardcastle’s, ready for whatever weather -came to Logie. The end of the stark battle was not yet. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV - - - A GAOL DELIVERY - -The Wilderness Folk were aghast, in the days that followed, to see dead -Hardcastle riding with Causleen, man and wife, across the uplands. Flesh -and blood they could not be, for all Garsykes knew that they were buried -in the cave. Yet flesh and blood they were, glad of each other and the -hills. - -Old superstition bred and festered in the Garsykes hovels. It was -ill-luck and always had been, to run counter to a Hardcastle, whatever -toll they took of those farming under him. Strange tales were bandied to -and fro in Widow Mathison’s inn by greybeards of this Lost Village under -the hills—tales of the ancient days, when one and another from Garsykes -had held up a Master of Logie on the road and brought confusion on the -settlement. - -“They’ve the luck, these damned Hardcastles,” the tale would finish -always. “It’s no use trying to meddle with Logie any more.” - -Nita Langrish had shared their gospel for awhile. Then she had rallied -from the shock of seeing Hardcastle ride home with the pedlar’s -girl—the bridal-look about their faces, and both on horseback instead -of lying under piled rocks yonder. - -Each time she met them afterwards, her purpose hardened. She lay awake -o’ nights no longer, wondering how they had won free of the cavern. It -was enough to know that the pedlar’s brat was mistress now at -Logie—reigning where she might have taken pride of place, instead of -weaving baskets for up-Dale folk to buy. Through the weeks and months -she waited, striving to put some sort of courage into her slack-set -people, and telling them always that dead men of theirs cried out for -vengeance against Logie. Memory of these deaths, and the way of them was -too sharp at first; but fear lessened by degrees, and Nita fanned the -dull embers of resentment into life. - -As winter stepped through March gales to springtime, and the fells were -white with lambs newborn, Hardcastle took a lusty hold of life. The lean -years had gone out of mind. The only thought he gave Garsykes was a -warning to Causleen not to roam abroad without him. - -She had little need. On horseback or afoot they were together -constantly; and, as he taught her the lore of ancient lands and storied -bridle-tracks, she lit his heritage with new, fresh wonder, as of dawn -after a long night’s tempest. - -Closer they came together, and closer, as the spring advanced and -cowslips nodded in the meadow-grass. Sometimes Hardcastle would fall -silent, afraid almost of his joy in living; and her hand would slip -through his arm. - -“What is it, Dick?” she would ask. - -“Half of me has come back,” he would answer, smiling down at her—“the -half that’s been missing all these years.” - -Rebecca, too, was in better heart. Jealousy yielded by degrees to a new, -enthralling hope. As she baked, and scrubbed, and churned, a little song -would creep into her mind, and stay there. Logie might have an heir at -last. And she would dandle him on knees hard-worn in Logie’s service. - -When June was well in, and the meadows growing strong for the -scything-time, Shepherd Brant stumped into Rebecca’s kitchen one morning -and sat him down. - -“Well?” she snapped. “What’s wrong this time? I’d as little expect to -see thee without thy shadow, Brant, as without a grievance.” - -“What’s wrong? Why, Garsykes. It’s humming like a hornets’ nest again, -they say.” - -“I guessed as much. Jonah gives me less of his company these days, and -sits a lot in the under-stairs cupboard. So I know Storm’s there.” - -“You and your ghosts, woman. I’ve no patience. Dead men can walk—I’ve -seen a few in my time—but it’s a heathen fancy that the four-footed -sort have spirits.” - -“Some o’ the four-footed have a bigger spirit than some o’ the -two-legged, and have a properer right to walk. But, then, you were -always against Storm, poor martyr,” she added, re-opening their ancient -feud. “It wasn’t enough that he died for the Master.” - -“For a sheep-killer he died fairish well. I’ll own to as much as that,” -broke in the other, tugging at his scanty beard. “But, as for his ghost -coming back to guard the house—I thought you’d better wits than that -Rebecca.” - -Hardcastle, hearing his shepherd’s voice, had come down the passage; -and, standing in the doorway, he laughed suddenly. They were so much a -part of Logie, these two, with their friendly enmity and their strife of -tongues. - -“It’s no time for laughing, if all I hear be true,” said Brant, getting -to his feet with a grim salute. “The Wilderness Folk are ripe for any -sort of mischief.” - -“Aye, but it will get no further than their tongues. I’m glad you’re -here, though, Stephen. I’ve to ride over the tops to Norbrigg, and shall -go easier in mind.” - -“Don’t ye go, Master.” - -“That’s what I’ve been dinning at him,” shrilled Rebecca. “When a man -takes a wife to himself, he’s no right to go pleasuring abroad, with the -Garsykes muck at large.” - -“They’re broken men, I tell you. You with a gun, Brant, and Rebecca with -her rolling-pin—you’re enough to hold the house.” - -“And you’re taking the mistress into it?” - -“Taking her to the hill-winds. She’s stifled in these Logie woods.” - -With that he went down the corridor, buoyant and heedless. A stable-lad -was holding the two horses, and Causleen waited for him. - -“Brant’s here,” he said, as he mounted her. “It’s as well, with Rebecca -thinking fire and slaughter is brewing up.” - -She laughed with him. Laughter was in their hearts, and joy rode -pick-a-back behind them down the winding lane. The bird-cherry trees -were in blossom, their white tassels dusting the sleepy air with -fragrance. From every bush—from the high sycamores whose leaves drowsed -in the summer’s heat—birds were wild with song. Thrushes piped high. -Blackbirds sent out their mellower note, and all the small fry joined in -this wild din of June. - -“Causleen,” said Hardcastle, his voice softened by the wonder of their -days together, “I was surly when you came at first. Dear God, if I had -missed you.” - -“That was not meant. Was there ever a wind that blew but brought us -closer?” - -It was in this mood—sure of each other, with a high pride in -wedlock—that they reached the gate opening on the Norbrigg road. On the -top bar lay a flint arrow, brown and smooth in the sun-glare, and -Hardcastle checked himself as he stooped to unhasp the gate. - -His glance sought Causleen’s. Both were thinking of the first token -found by Pedlar Donald, of all that followed. They were thinking, too, -with sharp revulsion, of the arrow-heads that littered the floor of -Garsykes Cave. - -For a moment their nightmare journey through the cavern clouded the -sunlight, chilled the eager breath of summer. Then Hardcastle put the -token into his pocket, as he had put the earlier one, and said not a -word as they rode up into the hills. It was only when they drew rein to -breathe their horses, and Garsykes showed below them, that he broke the -silence. - -“We’ll go through no second waiting-time, wife,” he said—“waiting for -what the Wilderness is pleased to do.” - -“Yes, Dick?” - -“Brant would have found the Logie Men ready enough to muster, if we’d -been lost that day. They’ll _have_ to muster now, and we’ll make an end -of the swine-styes yonder, once for all.” - -From the strength of their great caring, from the very heart of her -bridal pride, joy quickened in Causleen. Better war, savage and instant, -than to go through another stealthy siege at the hands of Garsykes. - -“Break them outright, Dick,” she said. “For my sake, break them.” - -They rode up and further up into the wide-flung spaces of the fells. No -woodland birds sang here. That lowland litany of joy was out of hearing. -Instead, there came the wheeling cries of hawk and plover, red-shank and -snipe and hoodie-crow—battle-music, swift as a pibroch, keen as the -thin, nipping wind that fought the glaring sun-heat. - -Past Lone Rigg Cross they went—which marked the graves of a lad found -dead in some far-off winter’s gale—and up raking Skircarl Rise, till -they drew rein again to give their sweating nags a rest. - -They were on the roof-top of the Dale now, Moorland and gaunt pastures, -gashed by wild ravines, raked to the further mountains, grey-blue in the -distant, shimmering haze—a haze so drifting that it was hard to know -Pen-y-Gent’s long, sloping crest or Ingleborough’s bluff, upstanding -bulk. - -“A good land, to live or die for,” said Hardcastle, all his love for -this far-striding homeland finding voice. - -Reluctant to go, they gathered the reins at last and were moving forward -at a lagging pace when a traveller came up from the Norbrigg side, over -the steep brink of the hill. He was so tall and lean, so quick and yet -so stumbling in his stride, that they wondered who he was, and how he -came there. The one moving thing on this lone, empty road, he seemed -forlorn, and yet gigantic. - -The man stopped as he neared them and touched a greasy cap. “D’ye know a -place called Garsykes?” he asked. “It should be somewhere near by now.” - -“Yes,” said Hardcastle, with grim humour, “I know a place called -Garsykes. Do you want to get there?” - -“I do, quick as my legs will take me.” - -Hardcastle pointed the way for him, where the lazy track curved down to -the lowlands and the curling smoke below. Then he took the arrow-head -from his pocket and tossed it into the man’s hand. - -“Tell them it comes from Logie,” he said, and rode forward with -Causleen. - -The man stared after them for a moment, then fell again into the lopping -stride that carries tired legs far. Between the heather and the benty -lands he went, and came to Garsykes’ cobbled street, and dropped heavily -on to the stone bench outside the inn. - -Long Murgatroyd was sitting there with a quart mug at his elbow, and he -glanced curiously at the newcomer. - -“And where might you be from?” he asked. - -The stranger sat bunched-up, his sombre eyes staring straight in front -of him. “From York,” he said. “There’s been a gaol delivery—and I’m one -of the delivered.” - -“Take a pull at my mug, lad. You’ve walked a tidy bit too far, by the -look o’ you. There, that’s better. And what did they gaol you for, if a -body might ask?” - -A sullen grin wrinkled the man’s face. “They said it was for robbery on -the highroad; but I knew better. It was for letting myself be fool -enough to be catched at it.” - -Murgatroyd nodded with rough friendliness. “Garsykes is just the spot -for you. You can do as you like, all up and down the country-side, and -nobody dare catch you at it.” - -“I heard as much in gaol. So I stepped over and down, and here I am.” - -Murgatroyd stirred uneasily as a little snatch of song drifted down the -street, and Nita Langrish came picking her way daintily through the -garbage and the litter. - -She stopped at the sight of the stranger. Hope never died in her that -one day a strong man would come from over the hill and help her lead her -wastrels up to Logie for the last, big fight. - -Murgatroyd watched her trying to weave filmy spells about this new -arrival—watched with the old, half-slumbering lust to take her beauty -by the throat and end it—with the old, indolent zest, too, in seeing -yet another fall into her toils. - -The stranger was past blandishment. All that York gaol had done to him, -all the road-sores under his feet and the drumming anguish in his brain, -seemed doubled now that the need to keep going no longer spurred him on. - -He fumbled for his pipe and moleskin pouch, and with them drew from his -pocket a flint arrow-head that tinkled on the cobble-stones. He did not -heed, but Nita saw it lying there and drew back as from a thing she -feared. - -“Where did you find it?” she asked, her voice harsh and shrill. - -“That?” said the vagabond, glancing down. “I’d forgotten it. It was -given me by a big chap, striding a big horse. He told me to carry it to -Garsykes.” - -He lit his pipe with shaking fingers, pulled fiercely at it for awhile, -then threw it down and lay back on the bench. The sweat dripped from -him. His lean body was shaken as with palsy, and his face was red and -ashen-grey by turns. - -“I’m not done yet,” he stammered, groping for the pipe that was his -first and last stand-by. “What sort of fool should I be to give in just -when I’m free of gaol?” - -Long Murgatroyd snarled at Nita, the basket-weaver. “I told you how it -would go,” he said, “when you sent three of us to take Hardcastle at the -pinfold. And now here’s the token back. He knows he’s weathered the -worst of us.” - -“No,” said Nita sharply. “There’ll be worse to come—for Logie.” - -The lean-limbed stranger roused himself. Fever glowed in his eyes and -his voice was hoarse and wolfish. “There’s always worse to come,” he -said, and fell back, the sweat pouring down his haggard face. - - - - - CHAPTER XXV - - - THE PLAGUE - -Hardcastle had sent his challenge to Garsykes by the tramping man who -met them on the Norbrigg road, and was quick to follow the new venture. -The next day he rode with Causleen from farm to farm, and found his -tenantry alert for battle. A changed mood had come to them. They knew -how nearly these two had been lost for ever to Logie-side. They warmed -to the hardihood of their escape from the Garsykes cavern, to their -bridal-gallop over to Skipton and back and the keen, young mating look -they carried. And shame was on them to remember how they had paid -tribute to the skulking folk out yonder. - -The last farm they came to was Michael Draycott’s, and they found him in -the patch of garden fronting the house. He was leaning on a stick—a -sick man and an old, till Hardcastle rallied him. - -“Dying again, Michael?” - -“Well, I wouldn’t say as much as that—though I fancied last night the -end had come. My innards were that wambly you’d scarce believe till I -settled them with a dose of barley-brew. And now I’m getting about -again.” - -“Suppose all Logie was for marching straight through Garsykes street? -How long should we have to wait till you got well, Michael?” - -“A matter of three minutes—or maybe two.” - -“You’re always the same, Michael.” - -“Well, I couldn’t be different, so long as I’m inside my body—like a -bird in a cage, as you might say. Do we bring guns with us, Master?” - -The other’s face hardened. “We do—and we fire Garsykes from end to end. -There’s to be no quarter.” - -“That’s well thought out,” said Michael. “Their thatched roofs will be -like tinder in this heat that’s come to the moor. Years out of mind I’ve -wanted that sort of clearance, and I hope we start to-morrow.” - -“Would God we could,” said Hardcastle, with stormy recollection of the -cave—“but we’ve to make our preparations.” - -“Well, there’s no harm in giving them a taste of what they put on us. -You sent Garsykes the token. Now they can wait, asking each other what’s -to come. _And naught will come_, till they fair get the dithers.” - -Michael’s words stayed with Hardcastle, while he conquered his own -impatience during the next days. Nothing was overlooked in his -preparations for attack. He would have less than fifty to lead against a -village that swarmed with men entrenched in their own walls. The more -need, he told himself, to see that each of his had his weapons in good -order and knew how to use them. - -It was tedious work, but he remembered Causleen’s appeal. “Break them -outright, Dick,” she had said. “For my sake, break them.” And he had -checked his first impulse, to attack at once. There must be no mistake, -no hot-headed leaping against odds that might smother them. The Lost -Folk should be broken, as she asked. - -He drilled his men, mapped out each detail of the coming fight. Aloof -from any care except to make an end of Garsykes—pitiless, save for the -women and children harbouring there—he lived for the one purpose. - -While they drilled, the men growing restless to be into Garsykes street, -the sun blazed each day from a sky that showed nowhere any cloud of -mercy. - -“It’s drying their thatches nicely,” Michael Draycott would growl, with -a glance across the valley. “Let’s pray that no rain comes before the -Master lets us loose.” - -And now a rumour spread through the Logie country. First it was -whispered that a stranger had come into Garsykes and died there of the -plague. That was sinister enough, but soon news followed of further -deaths, till dread took hold of all folk—a colder and a stealthier -dread than ever Garsykes brought on Logie until now. - -Hardcastle drilled his men relentlessly, to keep their minds from -brooding. The thicker the rumours spread, the less he credited them. The -Lost Folk, learning somehow of the coming onslaught, had spread the news -themselves, and under its cover were preparing an attack in force. This -was what he told his people, and by night they doubled the number of -their scouts about the hills. - -None was eager now, except the Master, to press through Garsykes street; -for the very name of plague set each looking at another for the -tell-tale blotches to appear. - -Then a morning came when Hardcastle, looking across the valley, saw a -black shape hovering in the molten sky. It was joined presently by -another, and yet another, and suddenly he understood. - -“We can ease our drilling, Michael,” he said. “Garsykes has not lied -this once—for the corbie-crows are waiting.” - -Garsykes—those still alive in it—saw the same three crows poised above -its sweltering street. Rumour at its wildest could have pictured no -scene more stark with horror; for the stranger who had brought -Hardcastle’s challenge had brought gaol-fever, too, and it had spread -like flame throughout a village ready to receive it. - -The sun beat down from the shelterless fells till the cobbles of the -street were hot to tread. Each festering refuse heap bred flies beyond -number, and in the roadway lay the body of a man that none dared touch. -Gaol-fever, quick to strike, had taken him as he neared home, and he had -found no strength to journey further. It was for him the corbies -watched. - -As though havoc were not doing enough with them, the Lost Folk let in -another adversary—cringing and abject fear—fear that slackened the -muscles and slew their will to live. Every other house was tenanted by -dead or dying, and those free of the plague as yet were journeying up -the fells with bundles slung over-shoulder. It was better to go anywhere -than stay in Garsykes, where plague stalked silent through the buzzing -flies. - -The last fugitive to seek the hills was Widow Mathison, and Nita was at -her cottage-door as she came past with her boy. - -“Afraid, like the rest?” mocked the basket-weaver. - -“Not for myself. I’d have stood by my tavern to the last, but there’s -the little lad to think of. Hardcastle o’ Logie saved him from the bog, -and ’twould be a shame to let him die of Garsykes fever. You don’t like -Hardcastle’s name, I notice. He’s had the laugh of us at the end of -all.” - -With flaunting, half-frightened derision, she gripped her boy’s hand, -and together they went up the track of flight that many Garsykes Folk -had taken—the track marked here and there, as they sped further up the -wilds, by some dying man who raved in anguish, or by a dead woman with a -baby crying at her breasts for food. - -Nita looked down on the steamy haze of Garsykes. Up here, where her -cottage nestled in a dingle of the highlands, the breeze blew clear and -free. Death might ride as he would through a village she despised and -loathed—but how could he touch little Nita, who wove baskets for the -Dale? She glanced far out to Logie, its grey chimneys pushing up above -the lush, green woodlands. Hardcastle and his bride were there, and -already she was weaving snares for them, supple as the willows that were -her stock-in-trade, when a heavy tread sounded close at hand. - -She saw Long Murgatroyd lurching and swaying up the road—saw him steady -himself as he neared her. - -“There were three of us left in Garsykes,” said Murgatroyd. “And now -there’s only two.” - -“How is that?” asked Nita, humouring a man in liquor. - -“I stepped into the widow’s for a drink of ale—hoping she’d forget what -she’d chalked on the inside o’ the door against me. And there wasn’t a -widow there. So I helped myself.” - -“No need to tell me that,” said Nita. - -“The widow’s gone up-fell, like the rest of the living folk. And now -there’s only you and me—and the still ones down yonder. We’ve got all -Garsykes to ourselves, Nita, and the fever couldn’t touch us if it -tried.” - -Even as he spoke, he fell to shivering, and Nita glanced at him with -startled eyes. The widow’s ale had less to do with his wild talk and -wilder bearing than she had fancied. Doubt grew into certainty that the -plague was on him, and yet she could not stir. She could only watch the -dreadful twisting of his body, till the shivering passed. - -“Now we’ll set up together, and own all Garsykes,” said Murgatroyd. “It -will take us a bit to shift the dead, but they’ll not hinder—and the -fever can’t touch us——” - -His voice wandered out in senseless mutterings. Then, as he saw her -recoil, a false strength came on him. She had played with him, flouted -him; but he had known she would be his one day. - -Before she knew his purpose, he had crushed her into his arms and kissed -her, scarce knowing what he did. Fighting like a wild-cat, tooth and -claw, she got away from his fast-waning strength, and fled up the hills, -and out to the hidden pool where she was used to bathe o’ mornings. - -She stripped with haste and plunged into the peat-brown depths, and -scarce dared leave them when her limbs grew chill and cramped. And in -her heart, deep down, was a haunting fear that not all the waters, -welling sweet from out these pastured uplands, could cleanse that -bridal-kiss of plague. - -Long Murgatroyd tottered in pursuit, then came near to falling. He -forgot Nita, forgot all but the instinct of a wounded beast to seek its -lair. Somehow he got to his cottage, and went in, and shut the door. A -great sweat broke over him, and afterwards a chill that nipped him to -the bone. He raked the grey peats on the hearth into a glow, and fed -them with sticks and fir-cones till the chimney roared and bellowed. - -Still he could find no warmth, though his brain was hot as a furnace. He -piled more wood on, and more, till the blazing heap fell over and down, -and licked his clothes, and ran here and there about the coarse matting -on the floor. - -Rebecca, up at Logie, had found no ease that day. Scrub as she would, -bake, or quarrel with the brindled cat, nothing helped to stifle her -restlessness. Old griefs tugged at her memory, and would not be still. -Jealousy of Logie’s mistress rankled with new bitterness. - -She was drawn out of doors at last. The workaday present galled and -fretted. Nothing would serve but communion with her lover, such as she -found only at the gate down yonder—the lover who could not rest in his -grave because his death at Garsykes’ hands went unrequited. - -Before ever she reached the gate, a scud of thin, harsh smoke came down -the rising breeze. She glanced in question across the valley that hid -Wharfe River, flaring under Logie Brigg—glanced up at old Pengables, -swarthy against the molten sky, and down again to the hollow where -Garsykes lay. - -Rebecca caught her breath. Things hoped for, till the heart grows sick, -are not to be believed at first. Yet soon she had to credit what was -doing yonder. She leaned a shoulder down for Jonah, and the cat leaped -nimbly up, spitting and growling at the wisps of smoke. - -“D’ye see it, lad?” she asked, pointing a skinny finger. - -Where Garsykes lay, a running sheet of fire blazed up into the -sun-glare. It stayed for a moment to swallow a cottage, then passed -nimbly forward to the next. The thatched roofs, one by one, broke upward -in a shower of wind-blown flame. And all about the land there was the -startled din of moor-birds, wheeling and crying, afraid for their -nestlings on the heights. - -“Now God be thanked,” said Rebecca, young, happy vigour in her voice. - -Then she fell into a trance. Forty years her man had waited, coming to -the gate each night to ask if Garsykes swine still roamed the land. And -now she felt a hand steal into hers, content at last. And she woke, as -from a marriage-bed, with throstles singing up the new-found dawn. - -“I’m coming soon, my lad,”—her voice was soft and girlish—“after I’ve -settled two young lovers into Logie. They don’t need Rebecca now.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI - - - “LOGIE’S DOUBLY SAFE” - -The weather broke that year in the middle of the hay-harvest, and -Hardcastle, riding with Causleen to see what the past night’s rain had -done with the biggest of the upland meadows, knew that his men could not -get busy with it yet, though the sun shone hot from a quiet and fleecy -sky. - -So they gave themselves a holiday, and rode by many a heather lane till -they came at last to the moor-crest guarded by Pengables’ rocks. - -A soft wind blew. Over the striding fells shadow and sunlight chased -each other like big children let loose for play. They looked across to -Weathersett, grim even in this tender summer-time. And presently, -against their will, they glanced down at the hollow where Garsykes once -had stood. - -The sunlight was merciless with the foul, unkempt horror of this dead -village that festered in its grave. The ravens and the crows had taken -their toll long since of what lay in the street, and had gone to richer -hunting-grounds. No sound came from the fire-swept, broken walls that -leaned against each other like drunkards tottering in a wild embrace. - -It was Causleen who broke the silence. “It will lie like that for ever, -Dick,” she said, with a shudder. “They call it the plague-pit already, -and none dare enter.” - -Hardcastle roused himself from some harsh unrest. There was an end of -Garsykes, that had troubled Logie-side for centuries out of mind. Yet he -was not content. - -“I planned to take our Logie Men, and make an end,” he answered moodily. -“There was the night when Murgatroyd found us snow-bound in the hut. If -only for taking your name on their filthy tongues, I wish it had been -mine to kill and burn.” - -“You must not—Dick, you must not think of it,” she pleaded, her voice -awed and shaken. “Is it not enough—all that lies there? And you are -safe.” - -Still in a black mood, his glance wandered to the hollow of the fells -where Nita’s cottage sent up a tranquil stream of smoke. - -“_She_ survives,” he said grimly. “When first the rumour spread that she -had taken the plague and come through it, I fancied they had seen a -ghost. Few take it and live on.” - -Causleen shivered. The day’s warmth, the joy of their wedded lives—the -news that had trembled on her lips as they drew rein on top of swart -Pengables and the thought of what these wide-flung acres meant to -Hardcastle—all went by. It was as if they stepped together from eager -sunlight into a pine-wood where the breeze blew chill and shrewish and -there was darkness overhead. - -“How dare she stay so near—how dare she, Dick, with Garsykes festering -below? Has she no wit to understand that ghosts of the dead will creep -up to her cottage-door? She was their evil spirit.” - -“Let her be,” broke in Hardcastle. “She goes abroad with her face hidden -when she sells her baskets these days. They say her wits are gone.” - -“Pray God they are,” said Causleen, bitter with remembrance of the day -when Nita had named her light-of-love and wanton. “She needs -forgetfulness.” - -They rode down the fells together, man and wife; but cold was on them, -as if Garsykes still had power to spin webs of dread about their feet. -All that had been gathered close—the slow months, while the Lost Folk -were doing their worst with Logie—the stealthy peril of the caves, and -their winning through into moonlit liberty of Drumly Ghyll—and, after -that, the plague and fire that had swept Garsykes into a death that -could not sleep. - -Causleen longed to give her man the news she had for him, and could not, -though their horses whinnied from sheer joy of the sunlight and the -roving breeze that blew from everywhere, packed with lane-side sweets of -elder-bloom and honeysuckle. - -As they rounded the corner of the road, where it turned sharply down to -Crooning Water, they saw a shrouded figure sitting on the grey parapet. -The slender fingers, browned by sun and wind, were nimble at the -basket-weaving, as of old, and Nita was singing as she worked—singing -one of the eerie ballads handed down in Garsykes to keep warm their hate -of Logie. - -They drew rein, Hardcastle and Causleen, appalled by this venom that had -survived her recovery from the plague—survived the havoc of a village -left derelict till time ended. - -The basket-weaver ceased her song. She drew the hood down from her face, -and laughed with dreadful mockery. - -And now they saw what the plague had done with her. Her body was lissome -as of old, her eyes full of nameless witchery; but the shrunken face was -grey and livid—a dread, unsightly face best hidden from all passers-by. - -“My beauty’s gone, Hardcastle of Logie,” she said, defiant to the last, -“and there’s no Garsykes left. But I still sell baskets up the Dale.” - -“Oh, come away,” pleaded Causleen. “Dick, come away.” - -Hardcastle sat there in saddle for a moment, with sharp recollection of -other days, when Nita’s face was a mask of eager beauty, tempting men. -Then without a word he rode on, Causleen beside him. - -Again the chill was on them, as if they had plunged into a pine-wood -where no free air could roam or wildflowers grow. - -“_She still sells baskets up the Dale_,” said Causleen, awed and -troubled. “You heard her, Dick? It was a threat.” - -They had come to Logie Brigg, and drew rein there, listening to Wharfe -River as she lapped and played about the grey arches underneath. And -suddenly, as if the river sent up a message to him in plain words, -Hardcastle knew that he was home at last. - -“An idle threat,” he said, his voice buoyant and secure. “Garsykes is -ended at long last.” - -They went together up the steep, winding road, ablaze with sunlight and -choired by singing birds, and came to the gate of many memories. Twice -the Garsykes token had been laid on the topmost bar. Rebecca had trysted -her dead lover here, every night through forty weary years. And -remembrance of this tryst gave Causleen heart to speak at last. - -“Logie and the lands are so much to you,” she said, the words tripping -over one another in their haste—“and Rebecca could never be done with -mourning that——” - -“Yes, wife? She was always good at the doldrums.” - -“That Logie had no heir—and, Dick——” - -A great light came into Hardcastle’s face. From under lowered eyelids -she watched it glow and deepen like dawn above Pengables Hill. He was -older and younger both, and his voice a conqueror’s. - -“Now Logie’s doubly safe,” he said. - -From the grey-boled sycamores above them, Logie’s guardian rooks rose in -a great, chattering cloud. They and their fore-elders had nested here -for generations out of mind; and it seemed as if they, too, understood. - - THE END - - JOHN LONG, LTD., PUBLISHERS, LONDON, ENGLAND, 1925 - _Printed in Great Britain at the Athenæum Printing Works, Redhill_ - - - - - TRANSCRIBER NOTES - - -Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been corrected. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Storm</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Halliwell Sutcliffe</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 23, 2022 [eBook #69613]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Al Haines, John Routh & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORM ***</div> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0000' style='width:500px;height:auto;'/> -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='lgc' style='margin-top:3em;margin-bottom:3em;'> <!-- rend=';sb:3;sa:3;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-size:3em;'>STORM</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0'>BY</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0'>HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0'>AUTHOR OF</p> -<p class='line0'>“SHAMELESS WAYNE,” “RICROFT OF WITHENS,”</p> -<p class='line0'>“WRACK OF DOOM,” ETC.</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0' style='margin-top:7em;margin-bottom:1em;'> </p> -<p class='line0'>FOURTH EDITION</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0'>London</p> -<p class='line0'>John Long, Ltd.</p> -<p class='line0'>12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket</p> -<p class='line0'>[<span class='it'>All rights reserved</span>]</p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='lgc' style='margin-top:3em;margin-bottom:3em;'> <!-- rend=';sb:3;sa:3;' --> -<p class='line0'>Made and</p> -<p class='line0'>Printed in</p> -<p class='line0'>Great Britain</p> -<p class='line0'>Copyright, 1925, by</p> -<p class='line0'>John Long, Limited</p> -<p class='line0'>All Rights Reserved</p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<table id='tab1' summary='' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 3.5em;'/> -<col span='1' style='width: 29em;'/> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tab1c1-col2 tdStyle0' colspan='2'><span style='font-size:x-large'>CONTENTS</span></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'></td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'> </td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>I.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap01'>THE THREE GAUNT MEN</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>II.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap02'>CAUSLEEN</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>III.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap03'>THE END OF A JOURNEY</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>IV.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap04'>THE MORROW</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>V.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap05'>HEMLOCK</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>VI.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap06'>THE EWE-GATHERING</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>VII.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap07'>THE BATTLE OF THE FLEECE</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>VIII.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap08'>THE GABBLE-RATCHET</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>IX.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap09'>THE NIGHT WATCH</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>X.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap10'>THE WEAVER OF BASKETS</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XI.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap11'>VENOM</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XII.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap12'>THE SHEEP-SLAYER</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XIII.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap13'>WILL O’ WISP</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XIV.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap14'>NITA</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XV.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap15'>THE HINDERED VENTURE</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XVI.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap16'>A ROPE-END AND A TREE</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XVII.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap17'>FLAME</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XVIII.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap18'>THE RESTLESS DAWN</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XIX.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap19'>GARSYKES</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XX.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap20'>SPITE’S VICTORY</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XXI.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap21'>THE POOL</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XXII.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap22'>THE END OF STORM</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XXIII.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap23'>THE QUIET WEDDING</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XXIV.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap24'>A GAOL DELIVERY</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XXV.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap25'>THE PLAGUE</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle1'>XXVI.</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle2'><a href='#chap26'>“LOGIE’S DOUBLY SAFE”</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:3em;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:2.5em;'>Storm</p> - -<div><h1 class='nobreak' id='chap01'>CHAPTER I</h1></div> - -<h3>THE THREE GAUNT MEN</h3> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, Master of Logie, came swinging -up the last of the stiff miles that climbed from -Norbrigg market-town to the high uplands. -October’s mists had lain heavy on the lowlands, but -here on the tops he strode into sunlight and clean, -nipping air.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Grim and lean, toughened by many sorts of weather, -Hardcastle paused to get breath again, and looked out -across the lonely acres that stretched to the four -quarters of a blue and amber sky. Ahead of him, -bordering the roadway, he saw the straggling clumps -of houses known as Weathersett. A brave, storm-battered -village, keeping watch above the mines that -once fed its people, it wore a comrade’s look to Hardcastle. -So did the barren pastures, roaming out and -over between their grey stone fences to the gateways -that gaped across the hill-tops.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His thoughts were busy with all that lay hidden in -these broken lands—unfenced mines, their waters -brimming deep—caves, wandered through in boyhood, -that had set their spell of mystery and dread on all his -after life. It was a haunted land, as all folk knew, -and in its old mine-workings lurked trolls and ancient -goblins.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His glance roamed down to another village—not -reared high like Weathersett, but skulking in a lowland -hollow on the far side of the benty waste. He forgot -trolls and all their phantom kindred. They were -unsubstantial, but the people who lived there in -Garsykes village were flesh and blood and a standing -menace to the country-side.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A strange look stole across Hardcastle’s face. -Contempt, antagonism, the shadow of some restless -fear, followed each other as he stood watching Garsykes; -for distrust of its folk had been in his mother’s -milk, and in the tales passed down for generations.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They had many by-names, like all tribes greatly -feared. Men of the Wilderness, some called them; -others the Broken People, or the Lost Company. -Names of that sort were no more than wind in the -reeds.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The stark truth remained that Garsykes village was -the abiding-place of every rogue about the fells. Sheep -stealers had foregathered there since time out of mind—men -who had done murder on the high fells—lesser -rogues who had snatched purses at village fairs, and -come breathless from pursuit. Such pursuit ended -always on the verge of Garsykes, for none but vagabonds -dared enter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle remembered his father’s downright -struggle against the tribute these Lost Folk levied on the -country-side. They were a small village then, but had -grown big on what they fed on, till nowadays even -strapping farmers paid toll for a safe home-coming.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle swung down the road till a turning of the -way showed him suddenly the whole, wide front of the -highlands that stepped out to his own Logie country.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Pengables caught the mellow sunlight, and his rocks -were softened till they showed like some misty castle -seen in dreams. The brackens were on fire, and slender -rowans crimsoned up to the wise, stalwart pines that -fringed the moor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This was a man’s land, wide, free-striding, its -shoulders pushing up to freedom and the sky. It had -fathered and mothered his orphaned life. He knew -its every dell and furrow, and from the heart of it -a crisp, sweet breeze ran out in greeting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He went down the lone track—past Drumly Ghyll, -where Riding Nevison had leaped his horse from -cliff to cliff in half-forgotten days—and came to the -bend that showed Langerton below him, a hamlet -clustered round its water-mill. He could almost hear -the mill-wheel droning—a goblin that toiled underground, -to his awed boyish fancy—a goblin still, -though manhood had killed many pleasant, eerie fears -of that sort.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, not knowing why, halted in his stride, -and stood looking out across the waste. If the hills -were brown and steadfast washed by rain and sun, -below him lurked the mines, the bogs that sucked a man -down, dragging at him till limb by limb the chill ooze -chained him. And there were the Wilderness Men, -whose enmity was a dread thing to earn.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A stab of fear took him unawares as if one of the -Stealthy People had crept on him from behind. He -shook it off, telling himself that the dread was part of -his heritage of Logie. A grown man must learn to -shake off nursery tales.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The swart, russet face of the land, crowned by -Pengables, stood friend to him as he went down the -twisting road; and it was in his heart to clear these -lusty acres of the scum that hindered them. It was in -his heart still when he came past Mathison’s pinfold, -where in summer they gathered flocks for sheep -washing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Out of the pinfold came three gaunt men, and straddled -across the road, barring it to him. They were unwashen, -shifty folk to look at, and they asked tribute.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I owe none,” said Hardcastle, with rough contempt.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re Wilderness Folk,” said Long Murgatroyd, -the tallest of the three.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again fear played about the Master of Logie, from -long habit—played for an instant, and was gone.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How much would content you?” he asked, as if -willing to drive a sober bargain.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As much as you’ve got,” snarled Murgatroyd.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle was beginning to see red, dancing lights -between the gaunt men and himself, was ceasing to -count the odds. “You shall have it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The three leered at each other. “What did I tell -you?” asked one of them. “Nobody dare touch the -Master of Logie, we said. Oh, we’d best go wide of the -Master, we snivelled. But he’s frog-livered too, like -the rest of his dalesmen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle backed quietly to the open gateway of -the pinfold, and stood in front of it. He had room to -swing his arms, and the three must come at him one at -a time or not at all.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come, take all I’ve got of muscle,” he said. “It’s -waiting for you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Lost Folk were happier when they fought in -numbers against few; but now the biggest of the three -saw, too, the red, dancing lights and made at Hardcastle. -The bleak, well-matched fight went this way -and that. Neither spared nor hoped to be spared. -The world was narrowed to the limit of blows that -thudded out into the breeze. Then Hardcastle swept -his left arm round, as it might have been a hammer, and -his man went down, and lay still, and cursed no more.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master of Logie had given tribute, enough and -to spare. His face was wealed and broken, his body -hammered out of shape. The men left were wondering -how to take him—for the pinfold wall would not let -both make at him together—when Hardcastle settled -all doubts for them. Fury was on him now. He -sprang forward before they guessed his purpose, -gripped them with either hand and brought their heads -together with a dizzy crash. He stood a moment -looking at them as they lay beside Long Murgatroyd, -and wondered at his strength. Then he went down -the road, with a song at his heart. Whatever stoop to -pride the dalesmen made each market day when they -paid tribute, the pride of Logie went secure.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle halted by and by, for a backward glance -at the Wilderness, and still the glow of victory was with -him. Battle was up in earnest now between Logie and -the Broken Folk. There could be no withdrawal, -whichever way it ended.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A terrible land for thieves, Master,” said a quiet -voice at his elbow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle turned sharply, to find his own shepherd, -Brant, beside him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, Stephen, you’re wide of the home pastures—and -you’ve a gun for company, instead of a stick and a -grizzled collie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Short, thick-set and sturdy, Brant had the eyes of -those who journey on far hill-tops, living alone with -sheep and dogs and weather.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve heard of Storm’s doings lately?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“News filters through, but I’ve little use for gossip—especially -of friends.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, you were always partial to Storm, and I fair -loved the dog myself. Best of his kind, he was—knew -how to round ewes up the pastures like a marvel—till -he fell from grace.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We all do, Stephen, time and time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re partial to him, as I said. But a dog that -takes to worrying sheep, and feeding on ’em, is a -cannibal—eats his own flesh-and-blood, as you might -say.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You trained him to be jealous, Brant?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Shepherds do. A dog that’s any man’s dog means -as much as a bunch of windle-straws.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet I could always whistle him from your side.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye,” growled the shepherd— “and see what -comes of it. A sheep-stealer, he, and me with a gun -in my hands. That’s what is coming to Storm, for I’ve -news of him this way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then likely he’s back in the Logie country by this -time. Either way, bad luck to your shooting, -Stephen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There seems bad luck to your riding, Master,” -said the shepherd dryly, “or you’d not be footing it -from Norbrigg. It’s not natural, like, to see you -without feet in stirrups.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The mare went lame, and I had to leave her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Was there no nag to be borrowed, then?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There was, but I sit astride my own horse, or none.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant looked over the wastes, then at the Master’s -face. Old days and new were nagging at him with -their memories.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Like yourself, and always a little bit liker as the -years pass. What of Garsykes yonder?” he broke off.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well?” asked Hardcastle, blunt and hard.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s no way well. A festering sore I call’m, and -our farmers tame as lice.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Tamer. They haven’t a bite at all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A silence came to Brant. He had dared to speak of -the Lost Folk, here in the broken lands, and suddenly -he remembered boyhood’s days. When he was spoiling -for mischief, he was told he’d be tossed to the Wilderness -Folk, and never come out again. In later years -he had heard his elders speak of paying tribute to the -Lost People—<span class='it'>lest worse befell</span>. And now the old -stealthy menace seemed to creep about him as his -glance sought the broken lands again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The devil take us, Master,” grumbled Brant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s likely he will, all in good time—but why just -now?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant scratched his wiry beard and pondered. Hill -silences had taught him to be wary of speech when -deep-hidden feelings sought outlet. “Because we’re -content to let this shame go on,” he said at last. “It’s -hard to unravel, this fear of the Lost Folk. I’m small -myself, but most of our men—yeomen, and hinds, and -what not—could make a meal of any two such lean -swine as they breed Garsykes way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet they don’t, Brant. They just unfasten their -pockets and give tribute.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’ll be asking tribute of you one day soon,” -said the shepherd, after another restless silence. “And -what then?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>They’ve asked it</span>, Stephen. Hadn’t you seen my -face was a trifle out of shape?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, I’d seen; but it was not my place to ask what -private diversion you’d been finding Norbrigg way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle laughed outright at Brant’s gravity, that -hid a dry humour of its own. “I gave more than I took, -Stephen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then a bonny mess t’others must be in. Who -were they, Master?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Long Murgatroyd and two I didn’t know.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Fire kindled suddenly in the shepherd’s eyes. “It -<span class='it'>had</span> to come, and I’m glad its come. Garsykes gets -past itself these days!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How many will stand for Logie, now the feud’s up?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Me for one, and another here and there. I wouldn’t -count on many—but it’s the staunch few that matter—and, -Master, fear will reach you by and by. Never -heed it though it will be cold as east wind before the -snows come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Fear?” said Hardcastle, body and heart aglow with -memory of blows taken and given for Logie’s honour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, just fear. I’ve heard my fore-elders talk of -what happens to a man that thwarts the Lost Folk. -And now I’ll give you good-day. It’s time I put a -dollop of lead into Storm. It would rankle when my -time came to go, if I’d left a sheep-killer rife about the -fells.”</p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>For a mile or so after leaving Brant the glow of -victory stayed with Hardcastle; and after that he -thought that his feet began to tire. Soon he knew it -was his heart that was tiring, and his spirit. Already -fear was weaving unclean spells about him. What -had his nurse told of the Lost Folk when they put their -token on a man? What had ancient farmers told -him? He was no longer his own master but thrall to -terrors bred in the womb of generations.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Fancy began to play strange tricks. Hardened to life -and weather he might be; but he was no match for the -unseen hordes of fear that came about him. The sweat -broke out on Hardcastle, fighting longer odds than -three men against one. It was only shame of his fear -that got some sort of manhood into him, and a rough -courage that was friendless and utterly alone. He -learned then what Brant had meant when he spoke of -dread, cold as east wind with snow behind it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye,” growled Hardcastle, “but Brant has his -dog with him for comfort, and I’ve none.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He forgot that Brant’s dog had taken lately to -unlawful ways, till at a corner of the road he came face -to face with Storm himself—an outlaw, every inch and -line of him, standing at bay. His hide was matted and -uncouth, for pursuit had given him little time to tend -himself. His teeth were bared, and every man his foe.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They stood there for a moment, not knowing that -the whole Dale’s safety might rest on what came of this -chance meeting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Storm,” said Hardcastle, “I’ve no fear of your -teeth, my lad.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The culprit only growled, till Hardcastle came to him -and patted his tousled head. Then he yielded a little -to old liking for this man who seemed honest, with no -snare in wait for him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Best come home with me to Logie. Brant has a -gun in his hand out yonder, and he’s seeking you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm glanced about him with restless eyes that -looked for peril, and then sought Hardcastle’s face -again. If he had not learned the trick of human -speech, he knew its meaning. He was asked to get -into shelter of a decent homestead, after weeks of -vagabond roaming. His limbs were full of aches, -caught in the marshes when he lay hidden from foes -too many for him. He was wearied-out, and there -were good meals to be had at Logie, as he had learned -in the prosperous times when Brant used to take him -to the Master’s kitchen. But he was afraid of houses -these days.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come,” said Hardcastle, with sharp command.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sheep-slayer answered his bidding, and together -they went down and up to the autumn land till they -reached Logie Brigg. Its arch stretched wide and -slender over the peat-brown waters of Wharfe River—the -bridge that Clifford of Skipton had crossed long -ago on his way to Flodden Field.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master of Logie could never cross the bridge but -he halted for remembrance of what it meant to him—that -old dream of Clifford, hale at sixty, going into -unknown hardship across the Border. The Hardcastle -of that day, with his men, had joined the march, and -won renown; and to this last descendant of the race -there was staunch, abiding glamour in the recollection. -Hard, embittered, working grimly forward day -by day, two beacon-lights showed through the gloom—love -of Wharfe River, and memory of Clifford jangling -over-bridge with singing Dalesmen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had no joy of these to-day, strive as he might to -capture the song of Logie Brigg. Courage had taken -the horsemen and the footmen over, in the brave days -gone. Now he was here—a Hardcastle last of them all—eating -into mind and heart—fear of the Lost Folk he -despised. He had given too much to the battle at -Mathison’s pinfold and the back-rush of it left him -weak and spent. The Lost Folk would strike soon or -late—strike from behind—and it would be a dreary -waiting time.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Storm,” he said, “there’s not a penny to choose -between us. We’re both of us outlawed, and we fear -every creak of a tree-branch.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sheep-stealer would not have it so. He had the -dog’s instinct for what went homeward over Logie -Brigg, unheard by Hardcastle—tramp of the feet of -Flodden Men, returning to the house of Logie now -it was in peril. He turned to see them pass; a -great company. Then he drew closer still to Hardcastle, -and licked his hands, and tried to lick his -face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re a dreamer, lad,” said Hardcastle. “How -can all be well—with <span class='it'>that</span> behind us? There’s Brant -with a gun for you—and for me the Wilderness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm only came the closer. On the high fells he -had learned the tracks of innocence and duty. In the -lowlands he had garnered stealthy knowledge of many -ways of hide-and-seek. Through clean days and -muddy he had kept one gift safe.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They fell silent on the Brigg, these two. Wharfe -River lapped against the sturdy arches she had tried, -time and again, to batter down at flood-time. They -heard rooks calling from peaceful sycamores, the cry -of a plover not gone south as yet, the song of a farm-lad -up the fields.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>All this might be with him to the end of his days, -thought Hardcastle. But it was likelier that all would -go, before the Wilderness had done with him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’d best be jogging,” he said, turning up hill, -Storm close as a thistle-burr beside him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle was aware of the magic of this steep, -winding roadway, faring up to his own gate between -the woods of Logie. Wise, silent beeches reddened -to their fall of leaf. A chestnut flung its crimson -challenge to the death-in-winter soon to come. The -sycamores were sending little clouds of leaves as -playthings for the breeze. Over all, and through all, -was the quick reek of autumn and the smell of wood-fires -lazing up from Logie’s hearths.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle was aware of it all, as of something that -had stirred him once, in his wooing days, when a lass -had painted all the country-side for him. That was -far off, a memory bitten-down and ended. He was -here with Storm, with thoughts of what the Lost Folk -could do to him and his. The battle up-fell had put -its marks on him. He was hungry and needing wine -at his elbow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For all that, when they passed through Logie’s gate -and his old retriever growled at Storm—when the two -of them were for each other’s throats, mad with sudden -jealousy—Hardcastle took them by their collars, and -shook them till they whimpered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s going to be war outside,” he said; “but, -by God, I’ll have peace among my own.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap02'>CHAPTER II</h1></div> - -<h3>CAUSLEEN</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>A red sun was going down behind the rim of -the far-off hills as Pedlar Donald came to -the road-top overlooking Logie Woods, and -beyond them the leagues of moorland roving up into -the quiet and misty dusk.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He shifted the heavy pack from his shoulders, and -laid it down awhile.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Tired, father?” asked the girl beside him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald Cameron answered nothing for awhile. He -came from Highland glens and moors; and all the -way south his yearning for the homeland had dragged -at his feet as if they were shod with stone. He had -bartered and sold in “foreign” lands, right down -through the Scottish lowlands, and over the border -into Northumberland and Durham. Now he could -not be done with looking out and over these blue-purple -hills—fold on fold of them, glamoured like his -misty Highlands.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The girl had fallen silent, too. This land was -setting its spell on her, as on Donald—the first friendly -face they had found in exile. She had ached and -sorrowed for the land left behind. And now it was -with her—strength of the striding hills—the sun -going down in fire of hope for the next morrow’s -rising—the wide, free liberty of this land of Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’ve travelled the rough ways down from -Inverness,” said Donald, putting his arm about the -girl, “and it’s been hard for you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nay, but for you.” Her voice was soft and -healing. “My feet are young to the roads.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Was it worth while to say no to the price they -offered us in Inverness? We could have had ease -for the asking.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The soft voice grew full of quick and eager fire. -“We could have bought ease—and we’re better as -we are.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald laughed quietly as he shouldered his pack -and trudged down the hill. The lass was bone of -his bone, and had no regrets. Sharing honest exile, -they had learnt the strange alchemy of the Pedlar’s -Road that turns much bitterness to gold. A laugh -by the wayside here, a vigil there with stricken folk—no -taxes asked of their poverty, and none to deny -them wind and weather—it was a big life, after all, -open to the sky.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Only when they came to Logie Brigg, and Donald -felt his knees grow weak again, so that he had to -rest awhile, he doubted the wisdom of their days -together. He was old and tiring fast. What of his -girl if he died by the way? There was honour of -the Road, and she would not lack many friends among -the pedlars and the cheery tinkers and the men who -poached fat hares by night. True—but there were -perils for a maid who went alone.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Child,” he said, as they rested on the bridge and -heard Wharfe River croon and swirl below them, “it’s -a vagabond’s life, after all—and, Causleen, I’m weary.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your mother seems very near to us,” said Donald, -his head lifted as if he heard the pipes calling him up -some far hill. “There was the night she was dying, -and you a week-old baby in her arms—how clear it -all returns—and she saw that I hated you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hated?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Because you robbed me of a wife.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm the sheep-stealer had seen ghosts of armed -men pass to and fro across the Brigg, no longer since -than yesterday. These two were seeing the broken -years behind them, the slow growing into a comradeship -as strong as the hills that guarded Logie Brigg.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She put you into my arms,” went on the pedlar -by and by, “and bade me christen you Causleen. -I fear I was rough with you, lass.” The old, whimsical -humour showed in his tired eyes. “Your mother -chided me gently—taught me how to hold you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Again she bade me name you Causleen, because -you’d be the Evening Star to me. She was near -to death, and knew—what I came to know—that you’d -be the light of my westering years.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A grief too deep for tears came to the girl. Some -weakness in the pedlar’s brave old voice—his looking -backward, though all his sturdy gospel was to front -the hills of each day—as they came—his hard endeavour -to get the pack jauntily over his shoulders -once again—all pointed the one way.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They crossed the bridge in silence, each knowing -that they journeyed to a new life. It might be -worse or better than the old. They did not know; -but, either way, it was a stage nearer to the end -of this life’s climb.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As they went up the road, a light blinked out at -them from Logie house across the last glow of twilight -that lingered on the hills above.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’ll be a bed for the night up there,” said -Donald,—“a bed for you with the maids.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And the hay-mow for you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s worse lying. You needn’t fret, bairn. -Smell of the hay is no bad company.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We were not born to it, father,” she said, her -slim, young body shaken with passion—not for -herself, but for him, fuller of courage than strength.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, but we were, for we’ve come to it, Causleen. -Life’s made that way. The road we trudge, with -its ups and downs—it’s the long, grey road we were -meant to tread.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald was himself again, and the girl’s mood yielded -to this indomitable, half-laughing courage that would -not be dismayed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Does the grey road end somewhere?” she asked, -linking her arm in his to help him up the steep.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I trust not. When my time comes to go, there’ll -surely be other hills beyond the Brink—winding -roads, and further rises, and gloaming skies. I’d -be lonely without them, child.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They came to the grey house on the hill, through -a rain of beech-leaves slanting down the breeze. The -pedlar’s glance, quick for big things and little, caught -a glint of the after-light on a small, polished thing -that lay on top of the gate.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The Wilderness Folk told no lies as we passed -through,” said Donald. “I had speech with two or -three, and their talk was all of this.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it?” asked Causleen, peering down at -the thing lying in the old man’s palm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Just a token—and I’m wondering what sort of -man lives here at Logie. He’ll need to be dour and -staunch, with no fear about him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They were kind enough to us, those folk,” she -said, shivering a little at the memory; “but they -were evil. While we were selling from the pack, -and till we got away into the hills, there was poison -round us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There was. It’s a pity, girl, we haven’t let life -dull the Highland vision. We ought to be toughened -by this time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again she glanced at the little thing in his palm. -“Does it go hard with the man they hate?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It goes so hard that I’d not change places with -him for a wealth of money. Weather is weather; -fight in the open is fight; but what they’re putting -on the Master of Logie would chill me to the bone.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A dog barked suddenly, then came at them with -a low, running growl.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Be quit of your nonsense, laddie,” said Donald. -“I’ve been through worse fights than you can give.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The dog smelt them round and about to learn -more of these tattered strangers, then put his nose -into the pedlar’s hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“His sort were always friendly to us,” laughed -the girl—“but what of his master?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s here to answer for himself,” said Hardcastle -of Logie, turning at his own door.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They saw a big, loose-built man, with a gun under -his arm, and a brace of partridge in his left hand—a -man, Donald judged, accustomed to live alone, -resenting all intrusion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come to heel, Roy,” snapped Hardcastle. “I’ve -no use for a dog that makes easy love to strangers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen’s pride took fire, and her glance met his -with sharp hostility. “Dogs have clearer sight than -their masters sometimes—and gentler breeding.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s getting old, and forgets that gentleness and -breed are under the harrow these days. You’ve -blundered into a hard country, and I tell you so.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She turned from him with tired disdain. “Come -away, father,” she said. “They are surly here in -Yorkshire. He will not buy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What have you to sell?” asked the Master of -Logie, aloof and cold.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Favours for the maids,” said the pedlar, his -voice soft with persuasion. He was thinking of -Causleen’s safe lodging for the night, as he opened -his pack and praised its wares. She was too tired, -poor wean, to journey further, though he was so -used to weariness that a further tramp through the -night was of small account. “Favours for the maids—a -blue mob-cap that sits bonnie enough on a young -girl’s hair, with her eyes bo-peeping under it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No maids live at Logie. There’s a grey, old -woman indoors—a good cook, and quiet about the -house—but she’s past favours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re wrong,” persisted Donald. “If a woman -neared her end at ninety, she’d cry for the pedlar -to dress her up for bridegroom death.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not Rebecca,” said Hardcastle. “I chose her -with great care—a nether-millstone of a woman, -without a frill or a furbelow about her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You know much of women?” asked Causleen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Enough to last me a lifetime.” Something cold -and savage showed in his face for a moment, then was -gone. “My housekeeper is like the walls of Logie—staunch -and weathered.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She never loses temper?” The girl was measuring -swords with this self-secure, blunt man who disdained -all pedlars. “You never find her crying her heart -out when you come home before she looks for -you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She loses temper,” said Hardcastle, with lazy -unconcern. “Not every day, or every week, but -when the time comes for outlet. I’m made that -way myself. We treat it like the ding of storm about -a house that’s outlived many such.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And she never weeps?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She forgot the way of it long since. Life’s salt -enough for most of us as it is.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let’s leave him with this wonder-woman, who -never cries,” said the girl, with the same quiet -mockery. “She wants nothing from us and the -Master of Logie will not buy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle stood watching them with grim humour. -“He would, if you’d anything to sell he needed. -Pedlars have to carry all things in their packs for -the women. They seldom have the man of the house -to reckon with.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Seldom,” Donald agreed; “but I’ve something -to barter for a night’s lodging.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A wheedling tongue? That never carried far -with me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Something I found on your gate. Gossip blows -down all winds to us tramping folk, and they say -the Wilderness People grow busy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master was silent. For a moment Causleen, -as she watched him, saw beyond the mask of his hard, -impassive face—saw down into his heart, where fear -was dwelling—grey, chilly fear, at war with his manhood -and his lusty strength.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’ve left their token on me? Show it,” he -said, with rough command.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For the price of a night’s lodging.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, you can have it, man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not so hasty. It must be good lodging for my -girl, however it goes with me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master glowered down at them from under -sullen brows. “I’ve power to take it without price -of any sort.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You have—but not power to use your strength -against an aged man. Your face tells me that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, then, your price is granted—a good lodging -for the night.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For both?” asked Causleen. “Father cares -little what bed he finds—but I care for him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Beggars seem to be choosers these days,” snapped -Hardcastle, raw with trouble.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It does seem so,” said Donald gently. “The -beggars out there are riding on your gate already.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He opened his palm, and the moonlight glinted on -a flint arrow-head, smooth and polished.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Do as he would, something near panic took the -Master. The men of Logie-side had paid tribute -diligently—till yesterday, when at last it was asked -of a Hardcastle and met with blunt refusal. The -fight at the pinfold had marked him. He was lame -and bruised, but that was the pleasant fruit of -victory in single combat against three.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The thing he looked on now was a token hedged -about with dread of the forefathers. Once, in the -twilight days of the Logie country, a man of the caves -had killed his enemy with it, or had slain a wild-fowl -for daily food. Since then it had grown to be what it -was to Hardcastle—a thing of stark terror, known to all -since the Lost Folk first bit their way into an honest -country. He would have been less than flesh-and-blood -if he had not weakened to this harsh trial time.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They find such in the caves behind their houses, -they tell me,” said Donald.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, and lay them on the gates of honest men.” -Hardcastle had come to grips with fear, as he had -closed yesterday with the three men at the pinfold; -but dread was a harder foe to meet. As he advanced -it withdrew its phantom regiment, only to loose -another on him from behind—quick, cold shapes -that leaped on him and clung. This was the price -asked of him for keeping Logie’s honour safe. He -had given no tribute to the Lost Folk—would give -none in the future—and already the creeping stealth -of their revenge was with him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a bleak thing to have at your door for ever, -this hate of the Wilderness Men?” said Donald, -watching him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, whatever he was feeling, shut a trapdoor -on it. His face was grim again, inscrutable. -“A bleak thing, pedlar—but then I was reared on -winter gales.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald was aware, by some hidden gift that came -to him at times, of much that was to come about -the house of Logie. “This gale from the Wilderness -is like to blow for a longish while.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then I’ll have to weather it for a longish while, -and so much for that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Something stirred in Causleen’s heart against her -will. Hardcastle had given them a churlish welcome. -He did not want them at his door, asked only to -be rid of them; but resentment was dulled, because -she had seen the sudden weakness of his fear, his -hard recovery. She, too, had known the broken -roads, the dread that walked by night. She, too, -had made, day in and day out, her own hard recovery. -They had this in common, she and the Master of -Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A clank of pattens sounded from the stable-yard, -breaking a silence heavy with the sense of doom, -and old Rebecca came into their midst, a lean, tall -figure of a woman.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Jacob, the farm-boy, said there was a pedlar -here,” she croaked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There is,” said Donald, and in a twinkling unfastened -his pack and laid its wares out in the moonlight -that rode high and clear above the russet beeches.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca could not be done with handling them—took -up an apron here, a piece of lace-work there, -all as if her youth returned.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m too old for such-like trash, pedlar, though -God knows I like the feel of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Too old? I shouldn’t have guessed it,” purred -Donald. “You’ve no mirror in the house, maybe, -to cure you of that fancy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He put a mob-cap into her hands—a cunning thing -of lavender, simple enough till a woman’s eye -appraised all the little by-ways of its blandishment. -Against her will, the years fell away from Rebecca. -She hid her grey, scanty locks beneath the cap—donned -a lavender apron to match it—and was away -in dreamland, a lass of twenty waiting for her man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was a good dream while it lasted; but she wearied -of it, and searched restlessly among the strewn litter -of the pack till she chanced on odds and ends of baby-wear—a -pair of shoes, the two of them small as the -hollow of a man’s hand, and the little intricate clothes, -with daft blue ribands, threaded in and out about -them. All they meant crept round her, and tears -unshed too long found outlet. Donald heard the -great broken heart of life find voice. He was himself -a broken man, and knew. Rebecca came out of that -weakness with a temper raw as a file. “Pedlars are -seldom fools,” she snapped, “but you’re the primest -that ever stepped into Logie-side.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What have I done?” asked Donald.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve bared sorrow to the bone, when I thought -I’d done with grief!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen, looking on, felt once again that the end -of an old life, the beginning of a new, had come to -them—to tired Donald, and herself. The moonlight, -racing between dappled clouds, shone free above -the beeches on Rebecca—on Hardcastle, grim and -silent. From under Logie Bridge, far below them, -Wharfe River sang her slumber-song as she swept -between her high, grey arches. Roy, the old retriever -that had snarled at them, was fidgetting about the -Master, and whined as if he scented peril. All was -stealthy trouble, though owls were hooting tranquilly -across the woods, and rooks cawed fitfully through -the soft storm of leaves that was baring their spring -nests to sight.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s the best cure,” said the pedlar gently—“the -best for any sort of wound. Let fresh air into -it, though the knife grits down to the bone.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca stood there, tall and lean. In her eyes was a -smouldering fire that Causleen and the pedlar understood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Maybe you’re no fool after all. I’ve let fresh air -into a grief that was festering inward, and praise -the dear God for that. They say you met three of -the Lost Folk yesterday,” she went on, turning to -Hardcastle after a restless silence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Three at the pinfold—yes. They took tribute.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not of the sort they asked?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not of the sort they asked,” snarled Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now again Causleen knew that she had come -into a haunted country and to a haunted house. They -were sorrowing for their dead, slain foully, Rebecca -and the Master—were tending some feud-fire kindled -generations since—and the girl was wrapt away to -the Highlands, where pipes were playing gallantly -about the hills and moaning in the glens of slaughter. -They played now about this house of Logie, but -with a difference. Up yonder the strife was ended -long since—the forlorn hopes that had tilted against -merchantry, and bribes, and guile. They could only -grieve for what could never come again. But here -was a fight in the making. Hardcastle was resolute -for some quarrel close at hand; and she had learned -enough of the Lost Folk, as they went through their -evil country, to know what the strife must mean in -the coming days.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Would you have the tale, pedlar?” said Rebecca. -“I’ve need to excuse tears shed in sight of any -stranger.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, tell it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I had a man of my own once—a straight lad to -his height, and good at the wooing. We’d had a -lover’s tiff, and me too proud to do aught but send -word by roundabouts that he might come and be -sorry for his lout’s ways.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca fought with her grief again, and conquered -it. The rooks cawed fitfully from overhead. A bat -fluttered up and down the moonlit courtyard, and -Wharfe River sang old ballads of the peaceful days -under her time-worn bridge. But there was no -peace, here at Logie—only the rasp of Rebecca’s -voice as she went on with her tale.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Instead of my man, there came news to the gate. -Two of the Lost Folk had met him by the way, -and asked tribute. He said he was Hardcastle’s -man, and wouldn’t budge. And they killed him -for it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A good sort of death,” said Hardcastle, and -Causleen saw grey fear creep round him while he -spoke.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The russet gloaming, the quietness of wood and -pastures, the silent front of Logie, grey with travail -of the years—all made for the realities that live -beneath the turmoil of each day’s duties. Rebecca -seldom showed any of her heart. She bared it now.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You chose to loosen your pack, pedlar,” she said, -in harsh, even tones, “and you loosed the bygone -years as well. Every night and all I go to the gate, -and keep tryst with my man that never came. I’d -have kissed him free and full—would have worn -my hands to the knuckle for him through our wedded -days—but he couldn’t come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The woman in Causleen answered the break in -Rebecca’s voice. “How long ago was this?” she -asked, with soft, Highland pity.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve forgotten. Forty years, maybe, but I’ve -lost count.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca still wore the mob-cap and the apron, -and the moonlight softened the harsh lines of face -and body. It was only when she spoke again, after -long silence, that she seemed old indeed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The Lost Folk killed him, and every night I get -to the gate and say my prayers. For every kiss he -might have had, I pray a blight on them. For every -child that might have run about my knees I ask that -two of their heathen brats may die in trouble. They -robbed me; and before I die, God send word to the -Wilderness Men that curses stick and sting.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“From what I’ve seen of the Wilderness Folk,” -said Donald, “they’ll be dour enemies, stubborn and -crafty.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s no news,” snapped Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Stubborn and dour they’ll be—and I wish I’d a -younger pair of arms to help you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A hard, keen light showed in Rebecca’s eyes. Her -thin body quivered with sudden passion. “There -will come a token on the gate, Master.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle held out his palm, as Donald had done -awhile since, and Rebecca gloated on the sight of the -little, brown thing that meant the end of peace for -all at Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Through the years I’ve wanted this. What will -you do with it, Master?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle turned, with a hard laugh, and set the -arrow-head on the drip-stone over his door.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It stays here—a charm against all alms-giving -on Logie roads.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap03'>CHAPTER III</h1></div> - -<h3>THE END OF A JOURNEY</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>When Hardcastle had opened the door to -Causleen and her father, and had thrown his -gun and brace of partridge down on the -long-settle in the hall, his hardness left him. These -two were guests, whatever chance had driven them -to the bleak roads where pedlars chaffered for a -livelihood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He brought them into a great, cosy room, aglow -with its fire of pine-logs and fragrant with the -smouldering peats that burned below. Causleen -glanced about, with a woman’s quickness to see all—the -candles in their sconces, bringing mellow lights -to birth on bees’-waxed panels—the orderly array of -muskets, swords and pistols on the walls—and, -over these, a pike with the red-rust on it of blood -shed long ago.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald saw the pike only. “That was rieved -from Scotland once,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No. It went north to Flodden, and returned to -its own homestead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Fire kindled in the pedlar’s syes. “Scots’ blood -on it?” he challenged, the years slipping from him -like a garment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Scots’ blood—but it’s been drying for the length -of ten generations. Flodden was a fair fight, as -my folk passed the tale down—a fight between the -North-born folk. The Southrons came by land and -sea; but it was the Logie Men that ran in at the -edge of dusk, and settled that good battle.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Jaimie the King was slain that day.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, he died well. There’s none in Logie Dale -but knows that he died well. We have the tale from -our fathers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The pedlar rose, though every bone in his body -was aching for rest long-denied. “Come, Causleen,” -he said. “We’ve no traffic with folk who slew the -king at Flodden.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was nothing whimsical to Hardcastle in this -passion that had survived the centuries. One of his -own tenants—a hale farmer-man of seventy—climbed -to the moor-top every morning of his life, to learn -if the Scots came marching south, though raids of -that sort were no more by this time than food for -winter gossip by the hearth. Quarrels lived to a -great age here in Yorkshire, as on the far side of -the Border; for their roots bit deep into strong, -ancient soils.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is amiss with you, pedlar?” he asked, -looking down on these wayfarers who had come to -his gate—by chance, it seemed. In their faces he -read tenacity, strength to endure, something valiant -and at war with exile. “It was a fair and a bonnie -fight, I tell you, and I’d have been proud to have -been on either side that day.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That may be,” said Donald restively; “but it’s -no house for us to lodge in. Your welcome was cold -at best—we’ll have none of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He gathered dignity into his aching body, and -had neared the door when a clatter of wooden pattens -sounded down the passage, and Rebecca swept into -the room like a gale from the north.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come talk to Geordie Wiseman, Master,” she broke -in, without leave asked or granted. “He’s in the -kitchen, roaring for strong ale.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No great news, that. Geordie was born with that -sort of roar.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, but I’d have you come. He says the Lost -People have left an arrow on his gate, same as they’ve -done on yours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again Causleen saw little, grey wrinkles creep about -Hardcastle’s battered face, saw him recover with -stubborn strength.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll come,” he said, after a moment’s silence, -“if only to tell him it’s nothing to make a cry about.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he reached the kitchen, a tough, thick-set -farmer was standing by the hearth, his hair drabbled -with the sweat of abject dread, his knees shaking.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’ve put the token on us, Wiseman,” said -the Master. “It had to come, and better soon than -late.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What need had it to come? Three of the Wilderness -Men asked tribute. Well, we’ve payed it for -many a year, and the roads have been easy for us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A Hardcastle never payed it—and a Hardcastle -never will.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You can do what you like with your own skin; -but I tell you, plain man to man, you’d no right -to bring all your tenants into this. Better have -given those three all you had in your pockets than -us be murdered in our beds.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As well have given them my soul.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your soul?” sneered Wiseman, chill with fear.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Just that. If I’d bartered it to the Lost Folk, -there’d have been the end of pride for me. And the -end of pride is hell.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then it’s hell either way, it seems; for you’ve -brought it close to one and all of those who farm -under you. You didn’t stop to think of that when -they asked tribute?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I didn’t think at all, Wiseman. I just saw the -three lousy rogues, straddling the road in front of -me, and I hit them, true and hard.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You had your frolic—and soon they’ll be having -theirs. You’ve no wife to think of, Master.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” said Hardcastle, recalling sharply the might-have-been -that had ended long since.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve a wife and children myself, like many another -they’ll have lain the token on. If your time at the -pinfold came again, you’d remember it meant war -about Logie-side?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I would,” said Hardcastle, as if a clean, lusty -wind blew through him, driving out all dread—“and -hit the three men true and hard again. Now, -listen to me. I’ve brought you all into this trouble, -and I’ll see you through it. Take my word as bond -for that. You’re needing ale, Rebecca tells me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A flood of it, just to get my balance straight.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You can have it by and by. Ale is food for men, -but poison to this cry-baby fit that’s taken you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Geordie Wiseman shifted from foot to foot, and -glowered at the Master. “We’re not all made of -boulder-stone and whipcord. It would come easy -to you to face the devil and his witch-hounds—but -I’m a usual man, like most of my neighbours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’ve put the token on us, Geordie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, yammer at it. To be sure they have, and -you fancy it a merry-making.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Listen to me. There’ll be merry-making by -and by; but we’ve to mow a long swathe before then. -I’m sick and weary of the Wilderness Folk—sick of -the toll they’re levying on white-blooded men.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My blood’s red enough, Hardcastle of Logie. If -you doubt it—why, here’s my coat off, and off goes -yours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s the spirit,” laughed Hardcastle. “You’re -readier for what I have to tell you than you were -awhile since.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye,” mocked Rebecca from the doorway—“readier -than he was just now, when he rived the -door of my kitchen wide, and stepped in with a face -made of tallow. ‘We’ll all be murdered in our beds,’ -says he. ‘Not me for one,’ says I. ‘I’ll be murdered -standing, if at all—giving as good as I get while it -lasts.’ That’s what I said to Geordie—and now he’s -prancing up and down like a turkey-cock, with his -coat half-off.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Wiseman’s wrath against the Master found a new -channel. “As for you, Rebecca, it’s plain you know -less than a child what the token means, left on a -man’s gate.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know as much as my mother taught me, when -I was knee-high. There’s little I need to learn about -the Lost Folk.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And you’re blithe, are you, because the Master -fought with three, and left them to stir up their blessed -hornets’ nest?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Blithe, if you put it that way—though it’s a queer -kind of joy. It’s time these wastrels were hunted -out, like rats about a stable. They breed like rats, too, -and soon they’ll be eating us out of house and home.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In league with the Master, as you always were.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Geordie. He’s man enough to hunt the -Lost Folk from their burrows.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now a queer thing happened. The Master -and Geordie crossed themselves by stealth, not knowing -why. The Lost Folk had been a running sore -about the country-side in far-off Catholic times, and -no man can deny his ancestors.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Popish mummery,” snapped Rebecca, and -crossed herself as she spoke without knowing it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There came a sudden, lusty knocking at the door, -and Brant the shepherd followed his knock, bringing -the strong, sweet tang of the uplands with him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Naught to be scared of, Geordie,” said Rebecca. -“You fancied three hundred Wilderness Men were -tramping in—or was it a thousand?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant glanced at Wiseman with kindly tolerance. -“You wear a scared look on your face, Geordie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Haven’t you heard what’s gathering round us -all?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I hear little up yonder, thanks be, save crying of -the ewes, and stillness, and the wind. They’re better -gossips than your village-folk down hereabouts.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca had an old fondness for the shepherd, and -the ale that Wiseman had clamoured for in vain was -brought.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s cold up yonder on the heights,” she said, -filling a wide mug for him. “Dark and lonesome, -too, after sundown, with ghosty Brown Men of the -Heather and what not flitting by you. But <span class='it'>you</span> were -never one to come with your knees a-wobble.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Meaning me?” said Geordie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Meaning you, or any other man that thinks he’s -fitted with his proper cap.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s it all about, Master?” asked Brant. “Is -Geordie just in his cups, with his tale of what’s gathering -round us?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Half in and half out. He’s himself most days of -the week,” said Hardcastle dryly. “There’s trouble -brewing, though, as he says. An arrow-head was left -on my gate last night, and on Geordie’s. It will come -to yours when they’ve time to get up to your cottage -on Gaunt Fell.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let it come,” said Brant, his face hard and bright -on the sudden. “I’ve wanted that for many a year.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You would,” Rebecca nodded. “I’ve heard you -speak time and again in this same kitchen of their -sheep-stealing tricks. Theft of a sheep to you is -almost like what murder is to other folk.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Wry humour came to Hardcastle. “What luck -had you with Storm yesterday, after I left you up at -Weathersett? Did you find the four-legged thief?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not I,” growled Brant. “He’s just a slip of -devildom, ravening up and down the pastures. There -are times when I fancy he’s more than a sheep-dog -that’s tasted flesh instead of guarding it—times when -he seems to be Old Nick himself. Foxes at lambing-time? -They’re honest, set side by side with Storm.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For all that, I’m finding a soft spot in my heart -for the rogue.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant took a long draught of ale, wiped the froth -from his mouth, and set down his pewter mug. “Are -you, Master? Then harden it. A sheep-slayer goes -cursed from the minute he gets from his lair at dawn -till daylight ends.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet you can’t take Storm. He’s hunted from the -four quarters of the sky, day in, day out, and wins -through. That’s the sort of dog I like—and the sort -of man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Passion, with Brant, had the stillness of deep pools. -His voice lost little of its quietness; but a hard note -sounded in it. “It’s hard to tell what ewes mean to -a shepherd. They’re like children, you might say. -Happen it comes from mothering ’em from the day -they first stand up on their four wambly legs—newborn -and bleating at their dams. Happen it comes -of tending ’em later on—blizzards and drifts and what -all—comes of sleeping and waking for ’em. I couldn’t -tell all that goes to the hate of a sheep-killer. But -I know what every shepherd feels for every outlaw -dog.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Just so,” said Hardcastle. “It’s for that reason -I’m all for Storm—the lad with never a friend in the -country-side.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s easy for you to lose a sheep here and there. -What does it count if a few odd ewes are ravaged? -Just a few pounds missing from your plenty. For me, -it stands for murdered bairns—bairns I’ve reared and -guarded better than their scant-wit mothers could.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There are good sheep-tenders in the Dale, but -none quite like you. You do it all, Brant—the -damned, lonely fight against Logie weather, and foot-rot, -and marauders of all kinds—do it for love of silly -sheep that to me are so much fleece and mutton.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’re my life to me,” said the shepherd, “and -I’m still wondering why you side with Storm. Best of -his kind, he was once—knew how to round them up the -pastures like a marvel. Then he fell from grace, as you -might say, and he’s a hunted dog from this to -Weathersett.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, and you and all of mine will know soon what -that sort of hunting means. I’ve a fellow-feeling for -old Storm.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle turned his head sharply. He was still -standing just inside the kitchen door, and behind him -was the long passage that led into the hall. At the far -end of the passage was a place under the stairway, half -room, half cupboard, where logs and peats had been -stored in earlier times. It held a fugitive now—a -fugitive who was beating against the worm-eaten door -in search of freedom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s queer noises in the house,” stuttered -Geordie Wiseman. “I told you what would come of -saying no to the Lost Folk.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The shepherd had taken a second draught of ale. -That, and the cosy warmth, ripened the dry humour -that was never far to seek. “Queer noises in your -head, more like. If I’d slaked thirst as you’ve done -Geordie—all day long, and every day—I would be -hearing smith-hammers—but they’d be ringing in my -own headpiece.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Down the passage came a running whine, that only -Hardcastle and Wiseman heard. The Master stood -silent, but Geordie began to bubble like a child lost in -the dark.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And now Barguest’s come. D’ye hear him whining? -I warned you what would come of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, be quit of your moonshine,” growled Brant. -“Such as you breed fears like maggots. What we’re -up against is enough for sober folk, without your -doldrum fancies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was well for Logie and all its tenantry that Storm, -as he came down the passage, heard Brant’s voice, -and checked his joy in liberty. Hardcastle felt a -rough pressure at his knee, and, looking down, saw the -sheep-thief’s grizzled snout pushed out an inch or two -into the lamplight. His hand went down, to cover -even that from the shepherd’s keen, revengeful eyes. -Storm’s nose was hot and dry, his body quivering; -for he always pictured Brant these days as carrying a -gun.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle backed into the doorway, keeping the -dog behind him. “Whatever comes, Brant, the Logie -Men will fight the Wilderness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They have to, thanks be,” said the shepherd -fervently. “You’ve made that sure and safe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He has,” whined Geordie Wiseman, “without -asking leave of Logie Men. Let him be murdered, -says I, if he fancies that sort of pastime—but what have -I done?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Naught that I can rightly call to mind,” said the -shepherd pensively. “There’s a tale that you were -caught working once, between one barley-brew and -the next—but you must have been younger then.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle was glad of Rebecca’s cackle of laughter, -of Brant’s absorption in his jest. He nodded a good-night, -closed the kitchen door, and dragged Storm by -his collar down the passage. The cupboard under the -stair showed open to the lamplight. The door, with its -broken lock, creaked fitfully as the draught swung it to -and fro.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You fool, to leave safe quarters,” said the Master -savagely.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm feared his wrath, but not as he feared Brant’s. -He was with a friend, and knew it. Quietly, without -fuss or protest, he got into his lair, turned three times -according to ancient ritual of his breed, and settled into -wary sleep.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Storm,” said the Master.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Two brown, faithful eyes opened, asking what was -needed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s no holiday to shelter a broken dog. I’m quit -of you if you stir or whine till Brant has gone.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm understood. Bred in close intercourse with -men, he had their speech. The brown eyes met -Hardcastle’s, loyal in answer, and the Master closed -the door on him, knowing there was no need of the -broken lock.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For the first time, since going to answer for his own -part in the coming warfare, he remembered Pedlar -Donald and his girl. The candles were burnt half -down as he went into the big room, but the fire glowed -warm and ruddy on the pike that once had gone to -Flodden. There was an odd silence in the room, and -Causleen knelt by the long-settle, where Donald -stretched like a man dead and out of mind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it?” he asked sharply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen rose and faced him. Proud, even in bitter -grief. “We are not welcome here,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I gave you shelter.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, grudgingly. We do not care for that—but -now we have no choice.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle crossed to the long-settle and stood -looking down on Donald; and Causleen’s eyes softened -a little as she met his glance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The end of the journey?” he asked, with rough -sympathy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I fear it. His heart beats, but it is fluttering out. -Just after you went his strength left him, and he -stumbled to the settle.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Two owls were hunting mice in Logie Wood. Their -cries sounded loud and ghostly through the silence. A -restless breeze was plucking at the windows.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, let the tears come,” said Hardcastle impatiently, -“You’ve need of ease.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap04'>CHAPTER IV</h1></div> - -<h3>THE MORROW</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle had got to bed somewhere near -midnight. There had been a farm-lad riding -for the doctor, the galloping return of both, -the verdict that Donald, with care, might live for a -week or two. Old Rebecca had scolded life and -destiny, but had managed with great deftness to make -the pedlar warm and easy on the long-settle, with -blankets under and over him. She had insisted, too, -on sharing the watch with Causleen, after telling the -Master there was nothing for a feckless mule to do by -way of help.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You ordered early breakfast. Best take a wink -or two o’ sleep while you’ve got the chance.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now Hardcastle was seeking sleep, and finding -little. When he dozed, it was to go in dreams through -things suffered at the Lost Folks’ hands long since, -told and re-told till superstition had given them a -bigger terror than their due. When he woke, it was to -remember that he and his stood alone against them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He counted his household in the waking hours. -Indoors was Rebecca, and Roy, the old retriever—and -out across his acres tenants who numbered a score, -all told. Some of these had five sons, some three or -less, and not all of them up-grown. And among them -were a few of Geordie Wiseman’s kidney, whiners and -pay-for-safety folk at any price.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then his mind roamed out to the crumpled, limestone -wastes that stretched from Drumly Ghyll to -grey Weathersett—the land where the Lost Folk had -their dwelling, in a village bare to every wind of devilry -that blew. They were stealthy, pitiless, spawn of the -creeping things that hunt by night.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He would doze again, and nightmares led him into -the caves he had explored in boyhood, because forbidden -by the father who knew their peril. Once he -had all but been caught there by a Wilderness Man, -and had returned with a glow of adventure in his -heart.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he woke to restless tossing from one side to -another, adventure loomed close ahead; but it had -no glow about it. He recalled Geordie Wiseman’s -complaint that he brought trouble to many a hearth -beside his own. It was true, and doubt took hold of -him. What right had he to bring others into an affair -so stark and hard to face?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He got up at last, weary of the phantoms that creep -about a sleepless bed. Below-stairs he could hear -Rebecca scolding and coaxing a lazy fire to burn; and -when he came down a half-hour later, he heard still -the murmur of coaxing and scolding, though she was -at war with rashers crinkling on the fire. It was a -heartening note—this chiding tongue of Rebecca’s, -the grey, hard woman who kept his house spotless-clean, -and cooked and laboured for him as if she loved the -work. She was rough and loyal, reared in the older -days.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As he passed the room where Donald lay, he heard -the pedlar chattering quietly, and went through the -half-open door. Causleen’s dark head was pillowed -on the horse-blanket covering Donald. The sleep of -dire exhaustion had found her as she knelt by the settle, -and even Hardcastle, roughened long since against any -lure of women, was moved to grudging pity. She was -so slender, so helpless, and her loosened hair lay round -her like a cloud of burnished night.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then he glanced again at Donald. The pedlar’s -eyes were open, and he talked of glens—talked of -Glencoe, and Bannockburn and far Culloden, of misty -sorrows that for ever drenched the hills he loved. -Again Hardcastle was stirred—not by pity now, but by -shame. If this ancient man, his body crumpling into -death, could live so bravely with the long-done battles, -counting these heartsease and gain, what had the -younger sort to do with fear?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald did not see him standing there, for his eyes -were intent on wider scenes than this cramped room -afforded him. To Hardcastle, as he listened, a wider -country opened, too. The pedlar’s body had forsaken -him so utterly that heart and mind were free to roam -at large. The very throb of Scottish battle-strength -seemed gathered into this room at Logie—the skirl of -pipes, the sobbing of women as their dead were brought -home on their shields—the harsh challenge of men -facing treachery in many hidden glens.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It seemed to Hardcastle that the pedlar was sharing -five centuries of battle. So he was, maybe, for a man’s -dead come close when he nears the borderland, to -welcome him across the little gap between them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald lingered awhile with the feud fights of the -clans, with the big battles and the small; but ever he -returned to the tale of how Jaimie the King went down -in splendour when the last, swirling fight at Flodden -closed about him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the pedlar’s restless glance fell on the pike -nailed above the mantel, and stayed there awhile, and -roamed to the big man looking down at him. For the -first time he saw Hardcastle, and came sharply from -the glens of mist.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Small wonder I dreamed of Flodden and the king. -There’s a pike yonder with Scots’ blood on it. What -could there be but haunted sleep in such a room?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He strove to rise, but all of him from waist to feet -refused his bidding. It was terrible, piteous, to see the -struggle of a proud man anxious to be gone from a -house at enmity with his so long ago.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I thank you for the lodging,” he murmured, -courteous to the last; “but we must go. Causleen, -child, where are you? The mists are gathering over -Ben Crummart, and winds are sobbing in the glens. We -must be going.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Through the sleep of exhaustion Causleen heard the -call. She was on her feet in a moment, laying -the pedlar’s head back and soothing him to quiet. -The quickness of it, the eagerness that gave all and at -once to this wayworn vagabond, brought a rough -wonder to Hardcastle. But then she was a woman, -and no doubt there was trickery of some kind under -this show of great affection.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He longed to go, but could not. If Donald were -to die now and here, he must not leave one slim girl to -face the trouble, full of guile though she might be. He -watched her put a hand on the old man’s heart, and -wrap the blankets round him; and still he could not go.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When she turned and saw him there, shame and -pride took fire together. She glanced at the hair -which ran loosened to her knees, and hated him for the -surprise. She glanced, too, as Donald had done, at -the pike above the mantel; her voice was cold and hard.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We shall not trouble you for long.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A great anger flamed in Hardcastle. “Am I such a -churl as that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You were a churl last night.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How should I know he was an ailing man? -There’d have been no doubt of your welcome then.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In our country all benighted guests are welcome; -but you’re a harsher folk in Yorkshire.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He glanced again at Donald. “Shall I send Rebecca -to you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There is no need.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master turned without a word. She chose to be -at war with him, and he was content enough; better -that than the pity she had roused. When a man began -to pity any woman, he had one foot already in the -marshes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had reached the door, and was closing it behind -him, when she recalled him. “You, too, were ill last -night. Have you recovered?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m in rude health, now as then.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Fear is a sickness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle glowered down at her, and Causleen -learned in that moment what the strength of his blow -would have meant if she had carried a man’s shape.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It may be. I never had much traffic with it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Until yesterday. We brought the token, and I -watched grey fear come to the Master of Logie as he -touched it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her rancour was less for herself than for the slight -put on Donald, sick and old, who in his prime had -known the glow of candlelight on a well-ordered table, -the ruby in the wine of life. And now her father lay -there, a pensioner on the bounty of this dour host—lay -dying, with the Flodden pike sneering at him overhead, -and all the room packed with ghosts of men who had -boasted through the generations of what they had done -aforetime to the Scots.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your Highland men have never known fear?” -asked Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She faced him, slender and straight, her dark hair -like a glory about her tattered pedlar’s clothes. “Only -its name,” she said, with the same quiet mockery—“and -that they had from the Southrons.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then God help them for no more than beasts of -the field. What courage could they learn, unless they -came to grips with fear?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen remembered many journeys, with fortune -at its worst and only the pedlar’s voice to rouse her -from the depths. “Fear is a good whetstone, child,” -he would say. “It breaks poor metal, but sharpens -steel.” And now Hardcastle was giving her the same -rough gospel.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When did you learn so much?” she asked, half-defiant -still.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Last night—no longer since than that—while I -thought of all the uproar I’d brought to Logie-side.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He glanced once more at Donald, then turned and -went down the passage. Rebecca was bustling into -the sunlit breakfast-room with a tray that held many -tempting odours for a hungry man. She fussed -pleasantly about the Master’s needs, as of old, but with -a new solicitude.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Storm-cocks were crying round Logie all the -night,” she said, breaking the silence at last—“or else -I dreamed they were.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You dreamed it, likely. This weather’s not for -breaking yet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Maybe not—but the Lost Folks’ weather is.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It had to break,” said Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again the silence fell between them—the silence -that was more ultimate than speech. None knew -better than these two the staunchness that would be -asked for by and by, when the Wilderness loosed its -spite against them, and only a few were left to stand -against the pestilence that would sweep over Logie-side—the -pestilence of dread.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Donald is sinking fast, by the look of him,” said the -Master presently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’ll not quit the house till he dies. Not a doubt -o’ that; but he may sink very gradual. I’ve seen such -cases.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was as well I didn’t turn him away last night. -He’d not have got far, poor devil.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As well maybe,” grumbled Rebecca, “though I’ve -no stomach for tending him and the dark-eyed hussie -for weeks on end. We’ve lived to ourselves till now, -and I never relished foreigners.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’re under my roof.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, they’ll be looked after, Master. And, to be -sure, it’s as ill to slight the pedlar-sort as it is to kill a -spider. Lucky they are, both o’ the tribes, if you -treat ’em kindly.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lucky?” said Hardcastle, getting up from table. -“Donald found the token for me, if that spells luck.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It does. We’ll be rid of the Wilderness scum at -last.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“At last—and may it be a long last,” snapped the -Master.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had forgotten Storm the sheep-slayer—as he was -forgetting many things in this new day of strife—until -he passed the cupboard where he had housed the -culprit over-night.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm was not there. He had watched for this -moment, after the house-doors were opened, and had -gone away to the hills by stealth. Hardcastle laughed -soberly. One guest the less under his roof was one load -taken from his shoulders; and the pack promised to -be heavy by and by.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His own dog, Roy, was waiting for him in the hall—a -big retriever, his coat sleek and gold-red as October -on the brackens. His nut-brown eyes danced as he -saw the gun under Hardcastle’s arm, and clouded when -the Master checked him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As far as the gate, lad. There’s only you to guard -Logie, and the Wilderness Folk are out at last.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A sharp regret came to Hardcastle as he shut the gate -on Roy, a sense almost of foreboding. It did not seem -good to be separate at such a time, from a friend of ten -years’ standing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Guard,” he said. “The Lost Folk are out, I tell -you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Roy whimpered as he reared across the closed gate -and licked Hardcastle’s face. He was getting near to -old age, as dogs count life; but the lure of a gun renewed -his youth at all times.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle turned as he went down Logie-lane. -The dog had his forepaws on the gate still, and he -barked a friendly, dolorous farewell. “Guard, lad,” -said the Master, “the Lost Folk are out, I tell -you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His errand lay over Logie Brigg, and up into the -wooded roadway that climbed steeply to Langerton. -Beyond Langerton were the Wilderness Folk, who -were out against him to a man—lurking close at -hand, maybe, in twos or threes. Hardcastle paid -no heed. He had gone through the sweat of fear last -night, and to-day sunrise was with him after that long -battle. Dread, rooted generations deep, had been -fought and thrown in the space of a night, he fancied.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At the bend of the road where it strode, over Crooning -Water, a quiet, slender woman sat on the copestone -of the bridge. She had a pile of picked willow-stems -at her right hand, and was busy with a half-made -basket lying in her lap. In all the Dale there was no -more sequestered nook than this, none richer with the -peace and mellowed glory of October. Crooning -Water, escaped not long since from the prison-house -of Drumly Ghyll—its rocks steep and dark and terrible—raced -down with a bubbling song of liberty, and -halted to play round the whirlpool delved by waters -that had gone before and were one by now with the -distant seas. A place of sanctuary, like an old kirk -ready with its welcome for young, honest love.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The woman on the bridge glanced up at Hardcastle’s -approach, and into her eyes there leaped God knows -what of devilry, appeal, regret. And he, for his part, -stood looking at her with a wonder that for a moment -was a boy’s wonder, till he shut the gates on what -had been.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Still basket-weaving, Nita?” he asked gravely.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And still weaving spells about the men of Logie-side.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was provocative, inscrutable, as of old, this girl-woman -whose grey eyes and flower-like face were all in -keeping with the russet autumn peace.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“About all but one,” said Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And that one’s here with me. He’s here with me -where we met first. Do you remember?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle remembered, in savage earnest. She -had not changed in these five years, so far as slender -beauty went, and the nameless charm that drew men -to her—drew all men except one.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was a dreamer then—and younger.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s good to dream at times. I weave a good deal -of dream-stuff into my baskets as I make them—and -wonder what happens when a simple lass up-dale sets -her arm under the handle. Queer thoughts will come -to her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They will,” said the Master, rough and stubborn—“but -the thoughts will be good for your trade. <span class='it'>Never -put all your eggs into one basket, for fear the withies -break.</span> So they’ll buy two, when next you come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll never forgive?” said Nita Langrish, her -voice soft as Crooning Water’s where it lapped the -archway of the bridge below them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve done better, Nita—I’ve forgotten.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She glanced up to learn if it was true. He -stood there unyielding, utterly remote; and a great -longing came to Nita to chain and hold this man who -had put her out of his life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You wanted me for your wife once. Is it too late, -Hardcastle of Logie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He looked down at her in frank astonishment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are last year’s nests too late?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was a fool. Perhaps five years have taught me -to be wise. And you’re harsh these days. Is it love -of me that’s hardening you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, God be thanked. It’s love of hardness for its -own sake.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She let him go the length of the bridge and a little -beyond, then called him back.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re hardy, to come so near the Wilderness Folk, -after what we’ve left on your gate.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In spite of his boast not long ago, Hardcastle -remembered how he had once cared for this bonnie -slip of devildom, the sleepless nights he had gone -through in that far-off time.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Put what you will on my gate,” he said, “except -those slim hands of yours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Was it not enough to meet three of our men,” she -asked, with dangerous quiet, “and send them bleeding -home?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was good while it lasted.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet you want me, too, for enemy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re of the Wilderness these days, Nita.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Was I, a moment since? You would laugh if I -told you what I was weaving into my baskets, before -you came and spoiled it all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle’s face was grim as the nether-millstone. -“I’m past your sort of guile, Nita. No woman takes -me twice in the same net.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But was it guile? Suppose, as I threaded the withies -in and out, I was thinking of Logie—and its Master?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And of twenty other men, no doubt.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had struck home at last. She got to her feet, -shaken by a storm of passion. “Fancies are no crime. -I’d have lost every man in the dale for sake of Hardcastle -of Logie—aye, and have burned their houses at -a word from him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle felt a touch of her old, bewildering power, -but recovered sharply. “You had me at call once, -and tore that dream to tatters.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You were too much at call. I’m of the sort that -wearies unless a man’s escaping me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re frank,” said Hardcastle, shrugging his -wide shoulders. “It seems a long way off, Nita—the -time when you would come and make a day hell or -heaven for me. You chose your road.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now she had lost him; she recalled with bitter clearness -the way of her playing with him long since, -because he was so big and yet so downright drowned in -love. All the might-have-been turned to venom, -though she had caged her temper and was smiling in -quiet mockery.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” she said—“as you chose your road yesterday. -The Wilderness Men you taunted me with just -now—I keep them at bay by promising favours to one -and another, and by giving none. When danger gets -too close, I set them at each other’s throats—for your -sake, until now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For my sake?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Men know so little.” Her glance met his in search -of weakness or relenting, and found none. “So now -I shall set them all at <span class='it'>your</span> throat, Hardcastle of Logie, -and they’ll bring blithe hearts to the game. You know -what follows the token left on a gate? There comes -a shaft out of nowhere, aimed at Logie. Then a spell -of quiet, and after that another shaft. You’ve heard -the way of the Lost Folk?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have,” said the Master, his head lifted sharply. -“And now the Lost Folk are to learn the way of Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita warmed to the change in this man who had been -easy going once, a slave to her whims. And with the -warmth came a new bitterness that she had lost one -who could show this spirit, walking alone as he did so -near the Wilderness that soon would be eating into his -courage like a cancer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve a gun under your arm,” she said. “That’s -for fear, I take it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No. It’s for a chance shot at partridge on the -way to Michael Draycott’s. He fancies he’s a day or -two from death, and wants his will made out.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Men do fancy that, if they’ve the toothache or -their little finger smarts. And of course you’re a -magistrate these days.” The grey eyes enticed and -mocked him. “I had forgotten. I was back, somehow, -in the times when we roamed Logie Woods -together.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’re gone,” said the Master—“dead and -mouldered out of sight by now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you a man at all, or just an oak-tree going on -two feet about Logie-side?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A man?” echoed Hardcastle, with a quiet laugh. -“That’s in the proving.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that he went up the road, and turned in at the -gate that opened on Michael Draycott’s pastures. -Nita thought he would glance back once at least, -drawn by old allegiance. She would have forgiven -him much for the glance; but he went up the slope -and out of sight, cocking the hammers of his gun. He -was thinking already of partridge, not of the random -days behind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She seated herself again on the parapet and took up -her basket-work; and none could have guessed, seeing -her tranquil beauty, what thoughts she was weaving -now into the plaited withies. Crooning Water lapped -and gurgled. A curlew was plaining across the fells, -and from some wayside tree a starling was mimicking -his note. No other sound broke the fragrant peace -till the scrunch of feet sounded down the highway and -a stocky, undersized man swung round the bend. He -stopped on seeing Nita and touched his cap with rough -deference. Bonnie, a temptress who flouted and -smiled on them by turns, Nita had a strange hold on the -regard of the Wilderness Men, though few of their -women were of like mind. The men held her in honour, -too; and this was due, maybe, to the knowledge that -more than once she had set them an example of cold-blooded -savagery that none could equal.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I met him of Logie up Draycott’s pasture,” said -the man, a still look in his beady eyes. “Walked as -if he owned all from this to hell hereafter. ‘Got a gun -with you. You’re wise,’ says I; ‘but why do you go -sporting without a dog?’ and Hardcastle laughs. -‘The dog’s guarding Logie from such as you.’ ‘Then -you’re wise again,’ says I, ‘for Logie will ask for a lot -of guarding by and by.’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is he a fool altogether?” asked Nita, glancing up -from her basket.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wouldn’t say that—not by a long way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It looks like it. He’s chosen to rouse the Wilderness -round him, like a hive of bees. There can only -be one end to that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s true enough; but the ending mayn’t be this -year or next. Fight sinks the fool in Hardcastle. -That’s what our three Broken Men said when they came -from the pinfold yesterday, and all the women laughing -at them.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Afraid of him already, are you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m not myself. A darkish night, and me with -just enough light to see where to crack his skull—and -Hardcastle riding the lonely roads he’s fond -of——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All in good time.” Nita’s voice was clear as a -throstle’s, her fingers busy with the willows. “Before -an end comes to him that way, Jake, we’ll strike -elsewhere.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you choose. You’re wiser than the rest of us -put together.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’ll maim before we kill. Hardcastle is a fool -altogether, I tell you so. He cares for his own, when -wise folk care for themselves.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s few enough he cares for these days, I -should have said.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So he cares deeper for the few. There’s one close -friend the Master has—and this is what you’ll do, -Jake.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then she told her mind to him; and he gaped in -admiring wonder for a while, till she bade him get about -his business of the day. And after that, in the hollow’s -tranquil silence, she threaded her withies in and out as -she sat on the bridge—the bridge where Hardcastle -had seen her first.</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap05'>CHAPTER V</h1></div> - -<h3>HEMLOCK</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle found no partridge in the long -pasture that led to Draycott’s farm; but a -hare got up under his feet as he neared the gate. -Most shots came easily to Hardcastle, but from boyhood’s -days a hare had roused always the same surprise, -with its lopping stride that seemed slow and -bulky, disguising a strong wind’s speed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He missed now with the first barrel—at simple -range—and puss got into a scrub of hazels that climbed -the hillside. When she ran through it, brown against -the grey rocks above, she was out of range to all but -the most sanguine fancy. Hardcastle gave her the left -barrel at a venture, and his heart warmed as he saw her -sprawl every way at once and lie still against the rocks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he went to pick her up and found her shot -cleanly through the head, he took it for a good omen. -Long hazards seemed to be his luck, and he needed many -kinds of luck these days.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Old Michael Draycott was sitting up in the great -four-poster bed when Hardcastle went in. The man’s -apple-red face was paler than its wont, but his eyes -were keen and shrewd as ever.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll know more than you before so very long,” -was Draycott’s greeting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You know more already, Michael—the ways of -sheep, and land tending, and things I learned from -you as a lad.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, and I could still teach you summat about -horses and dogs, though you’ll differ as to that. But -I wasn’t thinking of such matters. Before long I’ll -take a journey no man knows t’other side of—and in -a twinkling I’ll be wiser than all Logie-side. I’m not -afraid, you’ll know—I’m just in a fret to be gone, and -know what lies beyond, and be master of you all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll not be master yet, for you’re not within -sight of dying, Michael.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You were always very free with your opinions. -Why shouldn’t I die, with all my bones a-tremble, -and a wambling back and front of me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Because your father lived to ninety, and you’re -a lad of sixty-five. He’d think shame of you to creep -over the Border at your time of day.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s sense in that,” Michael agreed, with a hard, -wheezy laugh. “Come to think of it, there’s a good -deal of sense. I never thought of it in that way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve left a hare in your porch, against the time -you’re needing a sturdy meal.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’ll have to hang for a week or more before it’s -ripe, but thank you all the same,” said Michael, -wistfully. “I own that the thought of it gets me back -to this side o’ things again. You jug a hare, if it’s -to be treated right, and run a pint of staunch port -wine into the stour of it, and thank the God who made -you for the dish.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So you needn’t make your will just yet?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, but I must, though I’m feeling stronger every -minute since you came. It’s this way, Master. I -never wedded, as you know—thanks be for the escapement. -All the kin I have is a nephew that’s gone oversea, -and a niece that’s pretending to be a lady in London -town. If I knew which I hated most, I’d will all I -have to t’ other.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then leave it over, Michael, till you’ve got your -strength back.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Maybe I might. But I’ve one thing to say to -you, Hardcastle of Logie. They put a token on my -gate last night, because I was tenant to you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That carries to us all,” said the Master, hard and -wary on the sudden.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you thought what it means?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. I’m cold when I think of it—for myself, -but more for you of Logie-side.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now listen. I built this snug fortune o’ mine -from naught at all, as you might say, and thrived on -sheep and cattle, thinking of little else. But I wouldn’t -have built it unless I’d payed tribute to the Lost -Folk, same as my father did before me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My own father never had that failing,” said -Hardcastle, stating a fact and proud of it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The Wilderness was not so strong then. Staunch -as he was, he’d have sung to another tune these days. -They out-number us, I tell you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’d have sung to the same tune—but with a -lustier voice because the odds were bigger.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The apple-red was glowing again in Draycott’s -cheeks. His fancied ailments were forgotten. “So -you take no shame to spread fire and murder through -the country-side?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I take pride for holding my own ground.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, stubborn, like all you Hardcastles; but lord -help me to guess where pride comes in.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What do you pay in tribute now? Twice what it -was in my father’s time—and so on till you’d have -been beggared, you tax-paying folk. That’s where -pride comes in, Michael. I’m glad to have set war -between this and the Wilderness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Michael Draycott was prone to coddle his fancied -illnesses, but under the foible lay a heart quick to -answer real trouble when it came. He got out of bed -with a speed astonishing in a sick man no longer young, -and stood there in his nightshirt, fronting Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’ll not be many with you among the lazy men -of Logie—but there’ll be me for one. While I get my -breeches on, will you pass word to the kitchen that -I’m roaring for a meal?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For the first time since they set a token on his gate, -the Master laughed, from his heart upward. Michael -had salted the coming days with humour, and it went -with him as he halted at the kitchen door, and saw -inside a red-haired lass who was baking an apple-pie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The master is crying out for breakfast, Susan.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She turned a scared face to him. “He was dying -awhile since,” she stammered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He was; but now he’s alive again, like the rest -of us. You’ll get used to these recoveries when -you’ve been longer in the house.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that he was gone; and humour stayed with -him as he went down the pasture and out into the -highroad. Nita was finishing her basket when he -reached the bridge that girdled Crooning Water, and -she glanced at him with innocent, grey eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You are going home to Logie?” she asked. -“You’ll have news of a friend there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again old bitterness soured laughter and all else -in Hardcastle. “The Wilderness teaches most trades, -Nita. You’re for telling the future nowadays—silver -in your parlour, and promise of a dark lady coming?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m for telling the present. The friend is no -lady, dark or fair—and he’s waiting for you at the -gate.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle forgot her, forgot even the sharp, slender -plough she had driven across his life, breaking it up. -He came to Logie Brigg, and feet of the marching men -sounded in his ears as he strode up the hill to Logie. -In their day fight was easy—march, and camp, and -straightforward ding of blows when battle came—but -this modern warfare thrust on him was a stealthy -matter, hard to wage. The old days were better.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now Hardcastle heard not only the tread of -feet, but song of the battle-men as they went to whatever -chanced. They did not pick their road, as he -was asking to choose it now, did not fall to dreaming -of warfare that had been. The ruts and the hardships -had been different then; but the call to conquer -them was the same.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle did not know himself in this mood. -His fore-elders were intent about him—brave, brawny -folk who compassed Logie, a regiment of fighting men. -And so in great heart he climbed the hill, and came -to his gate, and found a message scrawled in chalk.</p> - -<p class='pindent'><span class='it'>Hemlock grows in the Wilderness.</span></p> - -<p class='pindent'>That was all, till he tried to open the gate, and felt -a weight against it. He put an impatient shoulder -to the topmost bar, and there inside lay Roy, a dead -thing with no joy of welcome. Froth of the death-throes -flecked his jaws and his gold-brown hide. He -had watched for the Master faithfully, and for reward -lay here.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A silence came to Hardcastle, and a great sickness—sickness -of heart, that is the worst to bear. He could -not believe for awhile that this comrade had gone -before his time. He had reared him as a puppy—a ball -of golden fluff that played strange antics—had nursed -him through distemper and trained him to the gun. -As if he stood at the graveside of a familiar friend, -long thoughts went racing down the years. He recalled -the very smell of the heather when grouse swept -cluttering up the moor, the crisp, frosty silence as -they waited for the wild-duck to come over. They -had roused all Logie-land together, good weather and -foul, and had tramped home with happy weariness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The trouble went deep. Roy had slept outside his -bedroom door, had been the first to welcome him -when he got up for the day’s business, the last to wag -his tail in token of good-night. And Roy had gone. -His body was here—but what of the eager spirit, the -loyalty that never faltered, the eyes that spoke because -the tongue was dumb? Many had failed Hardcastle -in his time, but never Roy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No longer since than yesterday, Roy had been with -him up the pastures, and now he was away to some -far land. What land? With the question came a -swift, wayward hope that he had found moors out -yonder, and birds rising to the gun, and wind among -the brackens—a faith that they would rejoin each -other later on, when his time came to die.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nothing could ease grief of this sort but remembrance -of the second token on his gate. Hemlock -grew in the Wilderness, and they had poisoned the -thing he loved best in the world—the friend that -Nita, weaving her basket where the Brigg crossed -Crooning Water, had told him would be waiting. -And now little, crimson lines began to dance before -his eyes, and widened swiftly till he saw nothing but -a sheet of fiery red, and behind it the styes where the -Lost Folk housed themselves. It was battle-sunrise, -drinking up the fears of generations; and many never -had known it, from Flodden’s day to this.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen, spent with watching by the long-settle -where her father lay in deep sleep at last, had come -out for a breath of this clean, upland air. She would -go to the gate, and a little beyond, maybe—but not -far away from the sick man who might need her at -any moment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She got no further than the gate. Her sympathy -was quick for dogs; and, seeing Roy there in all his -dead, silent disarray, she knelt beside him and hid a -sudden rush of tears in the coat that had been warm -yesterday, when he growled at her coming and afterwards -gave friendship.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He was so brave and bonnie—and he’s gone,” -she said, glancing up between wet lashes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Roy needs no praise,” growled Hardcastle, -roughened by his loss. “If you’d known him as I -did, you’d let your tongue be still.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her pride took fire. From the first he had been -surly and resentful of her coming. Yet her feet -dragged, as she left him with his dead. She halted -and glanced back; and there was Hardcastle, his -shoulders bowed with sorrow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, you cared for him,” she said, her voice low -with pity.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Cared? He was all left to care for, except Logie.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap06'>CHAPTER VI</h1></div> - -<h3>THE EWE-GATHERING</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>They were gathering their sheep from the fells -under Pengables, to bring them down into the -warmer lands below. To a stranger it would -have seemed odd that so many shepherds, and master-farmers -with their hinds, should have chosen the same -day. The farmers, indeed, might have done the work -at haphazard, choosing a time here and there as occasion -served; but their shepherds lived nearer the fell-tops -where true weather-lore was taught by countless little -signs and tokens. And the shepherds had decreed -that within eight-and-forty hours the wind hounds of -the north would be driving snow before them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Logie country, if it guessed what was to come, -made merry with the time left it. Quiet wisps of cloud -lay bosomed on a sky of blue. The belt of woodland -under Pengables—larches, pines and rowans, their -feet set deep in the heather—glowed in the hot sun glare -with rich array of russet and amber, and wide-flung -crimson—the riot of it all subdued by the still majesty -of the pines, who kept their burnished livery secure -against all onset of the seasons.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>All the land was filled with uproar—dogs barking -their throats hoarse, sheep crying witless and forlorn, -men cursing ewes and dogs and neighbour-folk in rich -upland speech. When each shepherd had only his own -ewes to look after, and his own dog to work them, they -went silently about the business, save for a whistle or -a quiet call. But now the dogs were mad with rivalry. -The sudden busy-ness of these quiet fells was to them -what market day in Shepperton meant to the shepherds -when they went there once in a while and were amazed -by the town’s confusion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Shepherd Brant, a great leader of dogs and ewes, -began at last to get order out of havoc, and all was going -well when Michael Draycott—he that was lying on his -death-bed a fortnight since, till Hardcastle persuaded -him to get out of it—came driving a flock of three-score -down the lane the bracken-sledges took. They came -plump into a company that Brant was shepherding -along the track to Logie, and a bleak-witted cry went -up to heaven from two hundred sheep that turned all -ways at once.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant took command in earnest now. “Durn you, -Michael, will you leave shepherding to shepherds. -What’s the use of you, quavering with a stick and -walking as if your toes were on hot bricks? A figure -of fun, I call you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll leave it to you gladly, Brant,” chuckled -Michael, the sweat dripping from his cheery face. “For -my part I’ve had enough and to spare of the game.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then get a hand into the collar of that fool-dog of -yours, and see how mine has learned to work.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Michael obeyed. Brant and he were old enough in -friendship to make small account of plain speech -between them, and the farmer watched the other’s -dog at work with growing approbation—watched him -as he drove some of the ewes in front, thrust others -aside, getting his own and those that did not matter -into two companies.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A gift, I call it—a fair marvel,” he muttered, -talking to the dog he held by the collar. “See ’em at -it—Brant and his snod-haired collie. We’re a rough -couple, lad, when it comes to rounding sheep up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The flocks were separate at last, and Brant’s dog -padded up and down with restless question what was -asked of him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Home to Logie,” said the shepherd, “I’ll follow -soon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Michael grew wide-eyed with wonderment as he saw -the ewes go down the slope, the collie shepherding a -straggler now and then with quiet persuasion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He can do almost aught but talk, Brant.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And does it better for that lack,” said the shepherd, -filling his pipe. “Dogs have the pull of us there. -They work instead of talking. Lordie, it’s been a warm -job, this.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thanks to you shepherds. What fool’s tale did -you come telling, about north wind and snow?” put -in Geordie Wiseman, sauntering to join them from a -neighbouring farm lane.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Bide a day or two, and you’ll learn. For myself, -I’m glad of a breathing-time, while Scamp yonder takes -’em home to Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You haven’t a pup of his fathering, Brant?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have, as it happens, but I’d never trust him to -your lowland training,” growled Brant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The shepherd fell into great moodiness, till Michael -rallied him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s gone amiss?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Storm’s gone amiss,” snapped Brant. “Scamp -does well enough—a good second of the twins I reared—but -Storm was known from this to Carlisle for what he -was—the best dog in the north for sheep. And now -he’s tasted flesh, and no cure for him but the barrels -of a gun.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A rare dog,” assented Wiseman, “but too clever, -as you might say. He went past himself. You’ve not -chanced on him yet, I take it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not I. I begin to fancy he’s savaging another -man’s flocks by now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm, if they had known it, was watching them from -above, where he lay coiled in a clump of bracken under -Pengables. For a week and a day, since Hardcastle -first gave him house-room, he had roamed at large, -raiding and sleeping and skulking by turns; and, as he -came warily across the moor this morning, the uproar -from the fells below roused ancient memories. With -slow craftiness, his body crouched to take advantage -of such cover as rocks and heather gave him, he -had wormed his way to the foot of Pengables, -and now looked on, an outlaw, at the work speeding -forward.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had shared that work in other years, had heard -men praise him, had seen his fellow-dogs give jealous -homage to his fame. And now he lay here, with the -blood of a late-slain ewe scarce dried on his rough -muzzle. None praised him to-day. He had lost -repute, and every hand was turned against him—even -Brant’s, his old master; and across Storm’s hard, -relentless eyes there stole a mist of grief. That weakness -passed. The wolf-lust in him blazed afresh, -kindled in the old-time of his ancestors. He remembered -last night’s slaughter—the mad joy of killing, -just for slaughter’s sake. He thought of the night to -come. Then he turned three times in his bracken lair, -and his head dropped on his forepaws. For he was full -fed and sleepy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Over the same moor that Storm had crossed, Hardcastle -of Logie came from business he had at Nether -Helstone. They liked to have him with them at the -ewe-gathering, and he was later than he had meant; -but for all that he halted when he reached the grim rockpile -of Pengables, set four-square like a fortress on the -hill-top. He, too, was looking down on a remembered -scene, as Storm had done, and with a sense of utter -loneliness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He watched the wild gathering-scene below—the -sheep scampering every way at once, the dogs half-crazied, -the men who seemed, most of them, little surer -of their wits. Then he saw order come from the bedevilment, -till at last the whole of the wide fells below -him took moving shape. There was no longer a waste -of close-cropped pastures. It was hidden by long, -swaying flocks that glided to their lowland shelter-fields.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As the grey sheep moved through the day’s heat, -the sweat of their fleeces rose to a sunlight that turned -it into rainbow mist; and Hardcastle stood looking -down on old, familiar country changed to fairyland. -The spell of it was on him. He had not known what -glamour lay about this simple Gathering Day.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He shook himself free of dreams, and glanced across -the valley. Garsykes, the village of the Lost Folk, was -sending wood-smoke up into the quiet sky as if it were -a haunt of peace. Yet it had put a token on his gate, -had killed old Roy already, and would burn Logie next, -no doubt. It seemed destined that he should lose the -few things left him nowadays to care for.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Here on the heights he learned suddenly what Roy’s -loss meant to him. First grief, when he found the dead -body at his gate, had been tempered by the shock that -stuns. Through the days that followed he had shut -down the windows of his heart, lest he looked too closely -through them. There were other dogs in plenty to be -had. He must buy one to-morrow—or perhaps the -morrow after. So he told himself; but now, as again -he looked across at Garsykes, he hungered just for Roy. -If all was in the losing, because he had battered three -men of the Wilderness, he could have faced it better -if Roy had been beside him. He had no fear now. -But he had loneliness, that can bite like east wind into -the marrow of a man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sheep-nibbled grass sloped sharply down on this -side of Pengables, and when he reached the hill-foot—half -running and half sliding, as fell-racers do—he was -checked by a sudden growl from the brackens on his -right. Storm’s sleep these days was light as the -triggers of pursuing guns. He was on his feet already, -his teeth bared behind the tell-tale ruddy lips. Then, -as he saw who the intruder was, he just stood and looked -at him, his air ludicrously changed. The brown eyes -grew full of deprecation, appeal, assurances that he was -a mishandled and misjudged fugitive.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle laughed quietly. “I believe no word of -it, but you’re safe from me. I give you my word for -that. There’s Brant down there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm followed his pointing finger, then glanced at -his face again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s Brant down there—and more fool you to -make an uproar when a friend comes by.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now about these two there came sharp intuition, -such as thrives in times of peril. Storm had always -liked the smell of this man who had saved him twice—once, -when he gave him shelter at Logie, and now when -he might have betrayed him to Shepherd Brant below. -He thrust his rough head into the Master’s hand—the -head smeared by blood, and packed within by the -Wilderness knew what of guile and wolf-lust—and of -loyalty to his chosen man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So then Hardcastle knew that in sober truth he had -bought another dog—but not with money. He bade -Storm keep close, and left him in his lair, and went -swinging down the fells. Loneliness had gone, though -in the peaceful days he would have sneered at any man -who told him he could take cheer of heart from an -outlaw such as Storm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The last swaying companies of sheep went out of -sight behind the shoulder of the track as he strode -down. From time to time a man’s voice sounded, or -a collie’s eager yelp, muffled by distance into softer -melody. For the rest there was the intimate and -friendly silence of a land ripe with autumn’s big content.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>That lasted till he neared the road where Shepherd -Brant was gossiping with Michael Draycott and filling -another pipe before he took the home-track to Logie. -Then the jar of men’s voices raised in quarrel killed all -peace, and Hardcastle, glancing down, saw five of the -Wilderness Folk confronting the two of Logie. He -made light of the quarter-mile between himself and -trouble, and Brant turned at sound of his coming.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’ve missed you,” he grumbled; “but better -late than never.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nay, ask these lean swine from Garsykes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The five were tongue-tied and loutish, till one of -them—Jake Bramber, who had talked with Nita on -the bridge and afterwards gone to Logie to feed old Roy -with meat and hemlock—strutted his squat impudence -up to Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s a dog called Storm,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There is,” Hardcastle agreed, with bitter quiet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s taken many sheep of ours. So I just asked -Brant if he’d missed any ewes of his own this morning -when he counted the tally. He owned to a score.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nay, you needn’t be so high and mighty about it. -They’re in our pinfold yonder—tribute, as you might -say, for what Storm’s done to ours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s a pinfold over Logie way, and three sheep -of yours tried to stop me there. Did I break all their -bones, or only half? I’ve often wondered.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now the five men stared at Hardcastle, marvelling -at his hardihood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s one of you killed a dog of mine,” said the -Master, his eyes holding Jake’s, “and he’ll pay toll for -that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Seems as if times were changed,” growled the little -man, strutting it still. “D’ye know what it means -when the Lost Folk put an arrow on a gate?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We know,” said Hardcastle—“and, Brant, go -down to their pinfold and bring back our ewes.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap07'>CHAPTER VII</h1></div> - -<h3>THE BATTLE OF THE FLEECE</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Michael Draycott rubbed his hands together -as he saw the five shrink back. They -were not used to such frank and instant -challenge. Hardcastle had reminded them, moreover, -of what he had done to certain men of theirs; -and they looked on with sullen wonder as Brant -brought up the twenty ewes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was Jake Bramber who first spoke. “Leave us -those ewes, and maybe we’ll call it quits.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quits?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s been a long peace between you Logie -Folk and ours. You wouldn’t break it for a matter -of a few sheep?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s talking sense, Master,” quavered Geordie -Wiseman. “Let him have ’em, and save us all from -being murdered every night of our lives.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A laugh went up; but Hardcastle was in no mood -for merriment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There are two roads, Geordie,” he said sharply—“to -Logie or the Wilderness. You’ve got to choose. -If a tenant of mine gives any sort of tribute—aye, if -it’s a penny to a brat of theirs—he crosses over to -Garsykes. And may hell deal softly with him there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The five men drew further back from Hardcastle. -More than his rugged strength, more than memory -of the battered three who had returned they feared -this man’s strength of spirit, revealed suddenly—feared -the ring of his voice, the upright head and -brawny shoulders.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A hard man, you,” said Jake.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, a hard man, I, and God be thanked for that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But an arrow-head left on a gate? It can weaken -the hardest—by degrees. A blow in the dark say, -or a boulder in the road when you and yours drive -home o’ nights—and your women-folk not safe at -any time——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have no women-folk,” said Hardcastle—“except -old Rebecca. And she’s a match for any two of you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still Jake laboured to get the better of him. He -knew that, if he could persuade the Master of Logie -to buy peace at the small price of twenty ewes, the -Wilderness was free to go its way again, robbing the -weak, never needing to tackle stronger folk than ale-silly -drovers and the like.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s the house of Logie. They say no woman -could ever be to Hardcastle what Logie is.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s true.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We shall come to burn it, on near night.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thanks for the warning,” said Hardcastle, and -told Brant to get busy with the ewes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Wiseman paused for a backward glance, and the -Master gripped his arm. “I’ll not hinder you either -way—but, Geordie, you’ve to choose once for all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So Geordie, as his way was, went with those who -had prevailed in the last battle. And Brant went -driving the stolen ewes before him, more thankful -for them than for all the hundreds that had gone -before in safety. And Michael Draycott laughed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I could scarce tell you why,” he said, answering -a question in the Master’s glance. “Perhaps I was -thinking of me on my death-bed, and the bonnier -times you kicked me up to share.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm, the sheep-slayer, watched it all from his -lair at the foot of Pengables. He saw the last of the -ewes go in a rainbow-steam round the wide curve -of the track, and with them Brant his enemy, and -Hardcastle his friend—his friend from this till death -ended loyalty for one unwanted dog.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The land grew quiet again, basking in the tranquil -heat, until a whistle broke the silence. Storm knew -the shepherd’s call, the whistle of hale farm-lads -when they climbed the pastures; but this had another -note. It was shrill and sinister.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He waited. Broken dogs, like broken men, learn -a patience that is not contentment—a patience wide-eyed -to observe all details and quick to interpret them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nothing happened for awhile, till the whistle was -repeated. And then Storm saw the doors of Garsykes -open wide, and men pour out from them and run into -the wide, green road the Logie Men had taken. He -saw Jake point first at their empty pinfold, then down -the track—heard the deep, evil roar that died as -they went grimly in pursuit.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm understood it all, and a great song came -into his blood. He was not concerned with his own -needs now, but with Hardcastle’s. As he went between -the brackens and kept pace with the running -folk below, he could see the men of Logie moving -slowly, hidden as yet from the enemy, but with only -a few hundred yards to spare. And they did not -know their peril.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The song in Storm’s blood had the gale’s speed -now. Like all great-hearted sinners, he was sick of -skulking. Reason had nothing to do with the long, -howling wail he gave—a wail like the cry of all the -lost who had ever lived and died in Garsykes—but -instinct told him he was serving Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle himself glanced backward, to learn the -meaning of it; and round the bend he saw a company -of the Lost Folk, their shuffling run stopped for a -moment by the eerie cry that still whined and sobbed -from the bracken-lands above. He took advantage -of their superstition—they fancied Guytrash was -calling them to death—and glanced ahead again, -down the track the sheep were taking over a grey, -narrow bridge.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Get the ewes over, Brant,” he said quietly, as if -he called him to supper up at Logie. “Get them over, -man, and be quick. We two must hold the bridge.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sixty years of weather on the heights had only -toughened Brant’s lean body and he warmed to this -queer happening. He got the sheep across, and left -them in Geordie Wiseman’s charge.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your knees are all a-twitter, Geordie,” he growled, -“but there’s use enough in you, maybe, to keep a -few ewes from straying into what’s to come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How will it end, shepherd?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As it will end. What can I tell you more than -that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Wilderness Men were still halting, for Storm’s -long-drawn howl had taken a deeper note. They -looked for some ghostly death to overtake them, till -Jake rallied their oozing pluck.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s naught. We live too near those durned -old miners up at Weathersett, with their talk of -trolls and weir-dogs——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, but it’s Guytrash calling us, all the same,” -broke in a lad of the company. “I heard him once, -and my father hanged himself that night.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The more fool he,” laughed Jake. “He’d have -been hanged any way, soon or late; but no man -should run to meet a halter.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, fronting them at the bridge, knew that -the odds must overmaster himself and Brant, once -these folk came at them in dead earnest. They were -thirty paces away as yet, irresolute for a moment -that seemed endless, and Hardcastle’s thoughts ran -swiftly, like those of a drowning man. This end was -better, after all, than the long-drawn-out stealthy -warfare he had been prepared to meet. And Logie’s -honour would be safe. Yet he felt an odd, wistful -regret for Brant the shepherd. The pity of it that -Brant was old, with a heart reared on upland solitude. -The fights he was trained to share were clean battles -between a man and such weather as the skies chose -to ding about his ears. But they were here together -and must face it out.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant’s thoughts were busy, too, in this long moment -of inaction. The deep, running cry, that sounded -ceaselessly through the brackens up above, was a -cry known to him. It had roused him many a night -as he slept in his hut, up yonder on the roof of the -high fells, had got him out of doors with a gun in his -hand to follow a useless hunt in the dark for a sheep-slayer -who yapped and growled across the wastes. -He knew Storm’s voice now, as one knows the voice -of his dearest enemy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The ewes behind him knew it, and pressed together -in a sweat of fright. Storm the sheep-slayer was -among them once again—Storm, who had made -nightmares of their slumber for time out of mind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Hardcastle’s voice sounded, rough and sturdy, -as he answered Jake’s gibe that no man should run -to meet a halter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No man runs to meet my fists, I notice.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still the Wilderness Men held back. Attack in -daylight was a trade they had not learned, and they -were clumsy at it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle’s blood was red in him, as when he had -stood above old Roy, slain foully by these people. -The struggle could not last, he knew. Soon they -would gather bastard courage from force of numbers, -and there would be an end to him and Shepherd -Brant. But joy was with him. There was a sharp -memory of Logie, the house dearer to him than all else -except his lands. Parting was hard, till he remembered -that they would carry him there a true Hardcastle. -Dead or alive, he asked for Logie’s honour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Up above this battle that could only have one end, -Storm was pressing through the brackens. He had -warned the Master, and afterwards had watched the -score of grey-fleeced ewes. And the old wolf-call had -reached him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm went on his own business now. He went -at speed, but craftily, and never left cover till he -crossed the brook that, further down, ran under the -bridge where Hardcastle fronted the Lost Folk. -Then he turned downhill. He was in the open now, -and the sheep that fool Geordie guarded turned face -about as the slayer’s hunting-note came down the -lean, steep pasture-lands. They knew that Storm -loved to chase them from behind before at last he -leaped and fastened his teeth in wool and flesh. So -they turned about, with bleating courage to resist, -till the cry of the slayer came near and eager.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Geordie Wiseman pranced up and down, shouting -that the ewes were all gone daft. Hardcastle and -Brant turned to see the frenzied mob of sheep charge -them from behind; and just in time they left the -bridge. The sheep came skeltering over in resistless -panic, drove through the Wilderness Folk and scattered -them like chaff to one side and the other of the road. -Fear of man was lost in the wilder dread of what -pursued.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After them came Storm, at a tearing gallop that -checked as he neared the Garsykes Men. The sheep -were in front of him, a sure quarry later on; and -here were enemies who had harried him up and down -the country-side for many a day. He bit right and -left with savage yelps. He paused to maul one here -and there of those who had been stamped into the -breeze-blown dust of the roadway. Then he passed, -as a roaring gale might do, and followed the grey -ewes—out and up, till he was hidden by a bluff of -rock.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Garsykes Men were broken. They forgot -Hardcastle at the bridge, forgot all but superstition, -and the look of Storm as he went by, with his fangs -bared and his muzzle dripping red with blood of theirs. -Terror-stricken as the sheep whose cries still came -fitfully down-wind, they made for home, some limping -as they went.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle passed a hand across his eyes. A -moment since he had been ready for the struggle that -was to end all strife for him on this side of things; -and now he was a free man again. It was unbelievable -how sweet life was, with all its harsh ups-and-downs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant came to his side, and together they stood -looking down on the mean village in the hollow just -below them. It was packed with women, and one -of them—a plump, brazen hussy—sent a great laugh up.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Good grief, our men come home,” she cried—“<span class='it'>our -men</span>.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The laughter spread, till the broken warriors rallied -and made for their own women-folk with ready fists.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s about time we went,” said Shepherd Brant. -“If the men and the women both come out against -us after their fratching’s done—why, God help us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They took a last look at this village that had -conquered Logie-side for generations, and were turning -homewards when a voice hailed them, and they saw -the plump hussy breasting the rise of the pastures -up from Garsykes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re Hardcastle of Logie?” she panted.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, yes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then I’ve come to tell you two things. First, -that you’ve a queer pluck of your own, to come so -near us after we’ve put the token on Logie’s gate. -A bit of a fool, I should call you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Like most of us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She stood fronting them, her red arms folded across -her ample breasts. “Aye, laugh while you can; for it’s -no easy road you’ve chosen—’specially by night. Lord, -what our men will put on you for this day’s work.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She left them as quickly as she had come, and -Brant’s face was sombre as Hardcastle and he crossed -the bridge that would have seen their death if Storm -had not run wild awhile since.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve lost twenty ewes. There’s no denying that,” -he grumbled. “And Storm—that old, ancient devil—is -with them up the pastures.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He saved you and me, Brant—saved us for Logie -and the days to come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You were always partial to him, as I’ve told you -time and again. I’d rather have died than be saved -by a ravisher of ewes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Maybe—but I’d rather live, to put fear of Logie -on these Garsyke swine.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For a mile they went, Hardcastle and his shepherd, -in sharp disagreement. Then Brant turned, with a -dry chuckle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s sense in that. After the few hundred -years they’ve been putting fear on Logie, it’s time -we had our turn. But I cannot thole the thought o’ -Storm, and never will.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As they rounded the bend where Widow Dyke’s -cottage stood snug and lonely, its garden-patch ablaze -with red butterflies that feasted on the tall-standing -Michaelmas daisies, Nita Langrish met them in the -road. A little, toddling chap had hold of her hand, -and she was singing a song to him.</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>Now grow you big, and grow you tall,</span></p> -<p class='line0'>  <span class='it'>Lad o’ the Wilderness.</span></p> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>You’ll give the Logie Folk a call</span></p> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>When nights are dark and drear and all,</span></p> -<p class='line0'>  <span class='it'>Lad o’ the Wilderness.</span></p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>She ceased her singing, and stood fronting Hardcastle. -Supple and eager, a thing radiant as the sunlit -day, she brought harsh memories back. He had -been in slavery once to this beguilement, before he -learned what lay behind it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Whose brat have you with you?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Widow Mathison’s.” Nita’s voice was clear and bell-like -as of old, pleasant to hear. “You felled his uncle -at the pinfold, and Murgatroyd has not recovered yet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s welcome news.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She glanced at him with such hope of old -dominion that Brant went forward, disgruntled -and at war with life. If the Master liked to be -fooled a second time, that was no concern of a -shepherd who had kept his eyes on the hills, instead -of letting them rove women’s way.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you forgotten Logie Woods?” asked Nita, -tears in her grey, pleading eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Except in nightmare. Yes, I’ve forgotten those -days, Nita.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Bitter to the end?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, and beyond.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She fell to crying; and, when that did not serve, -she glanced at him through long, wet lashes. “If I -cared for too many men—it was vanity, and no more. -There was never a man but you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Wrath came to Hardcastle—sudden, heedless -tempest, like a north wind from far, broken hills. -“I’ll not say to any woman what’s on my tongue for -you. I gave you—all Logie and myself—gave you -my heart to be held, or played with. Tales came of -other men, and I laughed at them—till I found them -true.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was vanity. No man but you ever took my -lips—though many wanted to.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was weaving gossamer about him, this once -again. Charm of the slender body, supple as the -willows she wove into her baskets—lilt of her voice—the -pleading in her eyes—were meshing him into -her net.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He broke through. The new days had hardened -him. Up yonder was threatened Logie; and here -was Nita of the Wilderness, wanting him not for -himself, but because he was the one man in the country-side -she could not play with.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You were singing a song to Widow Mathison’s -brat,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The feud with Logie’s up again. It came out -of the olden days, before I knew.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Teach him a newer song. There’ll be no Garsykes -when the lad grows up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Wrath had left him. Gruff and cold, sinewy with -field-sports and hard riding, he would never again -be the lover she had known. He was in the thick of -peril, and seemed to have no fear. He was within -reach of her hands and lips, and would not take them. -And now fury came to her in turn, though it ran deep -and out of sight.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There are three things Hardcastle of Logie cared -for,” she said, counting them on slender fingers—“his -house, his dog Roy, his pride. And Roy has -gone the way of hemlock. So two are left him now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was you sent one of yours to Roy?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And next I shall send one to fire your house,” -laughed Nita gently, counting the tally on her second -finger. “Then there’ll be stillness for a long while, -till your pride takes fright and dies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He grew only a little harder. She had killed his -heart long since, and now had sent hemlock up to -Roy. And she was glancing at him with softened -eyes, was reaching out slim hands he would not take.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have the Lost Folk at call—could turn the storm -from Logie, if—if you cared.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle was no bondsman now to Garsykes Men—still -less to thraldom of any woman who thought to -glamour him from that side of the country.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re asking tribute, Nita,” he said. “Logie -gives none to the Wilderness.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap08'>CHAPTER VIII</h1></div> - -<h3>THE GABBLE-RATCHET</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen was restless about the house of Logie. -Her father dozed and roused himself by turns. -Always in his waking moments he glanced -at the pike that had gone to Flodden Field and back, -and was eager to leave the roof that sheltered him. -She watched the same pitiful struggle to rise and get -his helpless limbs to ground, the same falling into -stupor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Near sunset of the day that followed the ewe-gathering, -she drifted into Rebecca’s kitchen, pride -and weariness waging a private feud within her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is always the same tale, Rebecca,” she said. -“My father is not well enough to go just yet, and we -overstay our leave.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Who told you that?” asked the other dryly, as she -gimped the edge of an apple-pasty before she set it -in the oven. “Not me for one.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nobody told me—in so many words.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca glanced up. The harsh face that was worth -a couple of watch-dogs to the house—as Hardcastle’s -jest had it—was softened now.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re a stiff folk here, the Master and me. It’s -old habit to snap at foreigners—but once in a while -the snap doesn’t mean so much. You’re very welcome -to stay on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you’ll let us pay,” said Causleen, fire smouldering -in her eyes. “We’re not beggar-folk, but pedlars—giving -for what we get.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All in a fine tantrum, are you? As if Logie -couldn’t give a lodging to a couple of far-spent wanderers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We haven’t money, but I could help you—to -wash up in the kitchen, and clean the upstairs rooms—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You could,” broke in Rebecca, “if I’d let you. -You seem not to know that it’s joy and pride to me to -serve the Master. He’s worth the while.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So we must go?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So you must stay, seeing how it is with Donald. -You’ve enough to do, and so have I; and that should -keep us two from worriting.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why is the Master so hard?” asked Causleen, -watching Rebecca stand away from the hiss of the -opened oven-door before she put the pasty in.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He met a fool-lass once, and thought her all made -up of what never could be in this world. Women -aren’t shaped out of rainbow-dreams, as the Master -fancied. So he took a fall—and a long, steep fall it -was.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Tired as she was, Causleen’s interest was roused. -Woman-like, she saw Hardcastle’s gruffness softened -a little now that romance was its excuse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Was she bonnie, Rebecca?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, like a bird you’d like to ’tice from its twig. -The devil uses that sort sometimes. And now there’ll -be no heir to Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’ll never marry?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not he, unless the time of miracles came back. -I’ve no patience with life, I tell you. Here’s a man -as likely-set-up as one here and there—might pick as -he chose—and he lets himself go bachelor all his days -because a lass fooled him once.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He never thinks of the men before him? Seven -hundred years the Hardcastles have been settled here, -he told us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, he thinks of them, I fancy. They nag at -him, and small wonder. It’s a shame and a crying -pity that he should let the race die out, for sake of -such as Nita Langrish.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What was she like?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Like nothing honest—a face that put even women -in mind of flowers and such trash—and great, grey eyes—and -a heart as dry as Ghyll Beck after a droughty -summer. But she did one good turn to Logie. I’ll -own to that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca had not paused in her work. Like a mill-wheel, -she could chatter without hindrance to the -day’s labour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They go far back, the Hardcastles,” she went on, -spreading dough on the baking-board and rolling it -with quiet, unhurried hands. “Yeomen, they, and -content with yeoman’s pride. Then they bought a -croft here, a farmhouse there, till they got to be big -in the land.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen began to understand many things about -Hardcastle, now she held the key. His grim hostility -to women was explained. So, too, was the rugged, -inborn dignity that could meet all men frankly, yet -hold them at a little distance. In days gone by, she -had known Highland lairds who had shown just this -will-proud front to clansmen of the misty homeland.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And then?” she added, like a child impatient for -the end of a nursery-tale.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There come breaks in a line as long as Hardcastle’s—a -spendthrift, a drunkard, one silly in his wits—there -must be breaks. The Lord Almighty favours -none, and long-settled folk must take their chances -with the rest.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca was of the homeland, too, to Donald’s -girl. The Lord Almighty favoured none, as all men -knew who had lived with mountains and the storm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She did a good turn to Logie, this Nita Langrish?” -asked Causleen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She did. The Master was all for guns and fishing, -and letting a farm go here and there while he played at -life. If the likes of her had married him, she’d have -pushed him down to dear-knows-what of mortgages -and ruin. But they quarrelled, thanks be, and the -Master went hard as a flint. I watched him close -and proper, I promise you, those first months after they -parted. It bit deep, and might have taken him into -any sort of devilment; but instead it stiffened him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Soured and roughened him,” flashed Causleen, remembering -how Donald and she had come to Logie first.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Maybe. I own that I’d like to hear him laugh -about the house again—just once in the week, say—but -then you can’t have everything in this world. -Instead of squandering farms, he’s buying them.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca, rolling the dough out as she talked, remembered -suddenly the pasty already in the oven, and -darted to its rescue.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There, now,” she scolded, “it would have been -burned in another minute. That comes of your -gossip, when you know I like a quiet kitchen. Take -those white cheeks of yours out of doors, girl. You’ve -been cluttered up too long between four walls. Take -’em out, and leave me to my baking.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen was learning the difference between the -bark and bite of those at Logie, and Rebecca’s glance -was kindly. “There is father,” she said, glancing wistfully -through the open door at the sunlit warmth outside.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And me to see to him till you come back. I’m -not old enough yet to make a song about tending my -kitchen and one ailing man. Take jobs by turns, and -one’s a rest from t’ other.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So Causleen, with a sob of sheer relief, stepped out -into the afternoon. She died by inches in such -imprisonment as she had known at Logie, but her feet -seemed shod with fairy-boskins now that she was free -to roam a land that reminded her at every turn of -her lost Highlands. Through the russet sun-glow she -went, up into the moors that knew no walls except the -sky’s. The heather was not as tall as in her own -country, where she had waded knee deep through it; -but the scent and the friendliness were the same. -When a cock-grouse got up and whirred over rise and -hollow of the untamed lands, she knew his challenge -of <span class='it'>go-back, go-back</span>, for a note as cheery as Rebecca’s -when she had bidden her find an hour of freedom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She left the moor at last, tempted by the lure of -Logie Woods below, with their burnished colours -glowing in the heat-haze; and once more, as she -stepped into their cool shelter, the sense of home was -with her. Underfoot the pale gold of fallen larch-leaves -shimmered softly in the silver light that filtered -through—a thick carpet, soft to tread. Ripe, nutty -odours were abroad, and peace was sounding her -elfin-trumpets through every brake and hollow. The -wise big-hearted autumn was here, as in far Inverness—a -northern autumn, that had fought for this tranquillity.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen, in sheer content, followed the winding -track, till it led her to a little, brawling stream, brown -with moor-peat and ferned in every crevice of its banks -with greenery for the water-pixies and their kind. -She forgot every footsore step she had taken on the -Pedlar’s Road. Here was the twin-hollow to one in -the homeland, where she had grown from child to -woman, dreaming of Highland feuds, and Highland -loves, and the glamour that would come one day when -a man’s eyes were steady and honest with her own, -asking all she had to give.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She stood there, so quiet that a squirrel ran about -her feet before he saw her and raced up a neighbouring -fir-bole, pausing to wash fear away from his face before -he glimpsed down on this intruder. As on Logie -Brigg, no longer than two weeks ago, Causleen was -aware now of the voice that spoke without any sort -of speech—the little voice within that never lied. Not -in the Highlands, but here in Logie-land, the man of -her dreams would come.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So by and by she went down the rough bank of the -stream, singing a Gaelic song that was in tune with the -water’s voice, and came at last to the brink of Wharfe -River, where it flowed in dappled, sunlit quiet—a -great-bosomed stream, wide between its banks. And -now she lost remembrance of the Highlands. They -had rivers there in plenty, but none like this water -that said so little and so much as it swirled by—lonely, -majestic, unafraid.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She, who had learned in babyhood the language -of many waters, big and little, could make nothing of -Wharfe’s speech. Soft as its murmur was, there were -undernotes that baffled her—eerie cries below the -flood, and now and then a roaming whine, as if a fox -pursued its prey by night.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A breeze was stealing now across the warm shelter -of the woods—a moaning breeze, gentle and very cold. -The rock-doves, crooning overhead, grew silent. -Chatter of beast and bird ceased in Logie Woods. -They knew what was coming to them from the north -and something of their trepidation began to settle on -Causleen. Such dreams as she had been weaving -a moment since seemed empty, foolish, and their -warmth had gone with the woodland glow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Wharfe River, as she followed it, lost its breadth of -flow; its tranquil temper. The under-cries grew -louder as it swept through the narrows under grey-brown -scuds of foam; and ever as the waters hurried -down, the rocks on either bank set closer teeth on them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen, glancing across this place of tumbled strife, -saw a man’s figure come down the wood on the far -bank; and a smile of self-derision played about her -lips. How bravely she had dreamed of a lover—and -what a wakening, to find Hardcastle of Logie—Hardcastle -the churl, who grudged Donald and herself -each hour they spent under his roof. But at least he -was on the other bank, and there was no bridge for -him to cross. She was glad of that.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then she saw him gather himself together, and run -a little way, and leap; and he was on her side now of -Wharfe River, laughing up at her astonished face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It saves the long way round by Logie Brigg,” he -said—“but it’s no short cut for fools to take.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She came close to the bank and glanced down, -curious to learn how one leap could bridge a river; and -under her she saw the whole tumult of the upper stream -caged into a yard’s span, with Wharfe going silent, fast -and deep between its prison walls. She saw, too, that -Hardcastle had jumped from the low to the higher -bank, and that the rock he leaped from was wet with -spray.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You took a mad risk,” she said, shivering as she -watched the strong, remorseless flood go by.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I said it was no short cut for fools. But Wharfe -couldn’t drown me if she tried. There’s too long -caring goes between us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>Wharfe River.</span> The name sings to me since I -heard it first.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And Wharfe sings—many songs. I’ve known her -for thirty years, and never stale of listening. Soft as -a girl one day, and the next a beldame, riving all her -banks to pieces. A woman, all of her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why—a woman?” asked Causleen, with quiet -mockery.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She changes her mind so lightly—croons to you, -like the gentlest stream that ever lapped quiet banks—and -you’re half believing it when the storm-waters -come, roaring to pluck you down.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Was it only Wharfe taught you what you know of -women?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Malice prompted the gibe, but Causleen was bewildered -by the answering fury. She had driven a needle-point -into some deep-hidden nerve, and for a moment -she fancied Hardcastle would strike her. He was -alive with rage. She seemed to stand shelterless under -a mountain tempest that was soon to break about her. -She did not care. Better to flout him in the open -here than be a tongue-tied and unwelcome guest -at Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As she had watched him gather himself for the -slippery leap across the Strith, she watched him now. -He got temper into hand, as if it were a mettled horse -he rode. He conquered the pain of an old wound -she had pricked to life. The face he turned to her at -last was grey and quiet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not only Wharfe,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The breeze came sobbing, cold and comfortless, -through the woods of Logie, and the red leaves blew -about them in their fall. Again old griefs came to -Hardcastle, and again he laughed, as of old, to drive -them off.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Wharfe’s a woman, as I said. She drowned the -heir of all these lands once—a stripling, and his greyhound -checked him at the leap. And then his mother -reared the Priory below; and Wharfe slips by the ruins -to this day, gentle as a dove—penitent, you’d think, -for what she did up here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen’s interest was stirred, in spite of herself, -by the boldness of his fancy, the sure, straightforward -hold he had on the lore of other days. At their first -coming, when Donald resented the pike hung on the -wall at Logie, the Master spoke of Flodden as if he -had shared the battle lately. Now he talked of what -happened in the elder years, before the shock of Flodden -came, as if they, too, were recent. To-day seemed one -with all the yesterdays to this man who loved his -country-side and knew its inner secrets.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The breeze blew shriller now. Raw and wet, it -fluted through the glory of the woods, plucking a red -leaf here and there in passing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Brant was right,” said Hardcastle, “though I -fancied his weather-wisdom had gone astray this once.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As he spoke, and while Causleen was thinking bitterly -that the prophet of ill-weather was always on the safe -side of life, a great crying sounded overhead—a harsh, -tortured crying, as of human things in anguish.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it?” she asked sharply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Rebecca would say it was The Gabble-Ratchet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The first crying overhead had passed into silence, -but now another came, louder and more anguished.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Brant was right,” Hardcastle repeated—“and it’s -time we both got up to Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She found herself going with him up the steep rise -of the woods—found herself yielding a hand to his -when he reached down to help her across some slippery -rock-face—and had no time to wonder that she let -her pride be quiet. There was something in the wet, -rising breeze, something in the Gabble-Ratchet uproar -overhead not long since, that made for awe and need -of a man’s hand, whether he was rich or poor in courtesy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They went past Ghyll House, where a dog barked at -them from behind a stable-door, and up into the -pastures.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant was right, no doubt, as Hardcastle had said. -On one side of them, Pengables thrust his big rock -shoulders up into the red sundown and the warmth; -on the other a grey mist came running, like the ewes -that Storm had chased into the Wilderness a few days -since.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now again there sounded the crying from above, -shrill and terrible, and Causleen looked up to see what -seemed a ship go overhead with the speed of a hurricane -behind. It was a long, slender ship, its slenderer prow -driving into the sunlit warmth ahead, and it was -chased by the breeze that was a wind by now, hurrying -the grey mists in front of it. Then Causleen came out -of the eeriness that Logie Woods had laid on her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s the wild-geese flighting south,” she said, -shaking herself free of omens.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is,” said Hardcastle; “and so many of them -come that we’ve time to get to Logie and no more. -Lord Harry only knows what sort of storm is skelping -down.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They two knew what sort of storm it was, when -they reached the long pasture that raked up into the -Logie highroad. The wind came, and the snow, and -biting hail—came ravening on the track of the wild-geese -fleeing south—and soon there were no landmarks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was a foresters’ hut, he remembered, at -his left hand, where the field ran into the pinewoods. -They could find shelter there, if anything could -find it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle had known the pasture from childhood, -but it was lost to him as if he trod foreign country. -In the blackest night he could have found his way -across it, but not through this scudding snow that -swirled till it dizzied brain and sight—through the -wind that bit and the hail that stung.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was not making now for Logie. There was a -foresters’ hut at the far end of the pasture where it -met the pinewoods. Once he could find it they could -shelter till the snow had ended; for tempests as -quick to come as this, out of a warm October’s quiet, -seldom lasted.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He could not find the hut—could find nothing but -snow that was balling already under his feet—snow -that would not let the sky come through. It was -as if he tried to make way through a thicket, not of -brambles, but of cotton-wool. Then a cry reached -him. Whether it came from front or rear, he could -not tell, but it was Causleen’s voice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where are you, child?” he snapped, impatient -at his own failure.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A little sob ran in between one wind-gust and the -next. It hurt him strangely. “Lost. I was tired—I -could not keep pace.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was lost indeed, though no more than ten -paces from him. For the wind got up with a screech, -and there seemed no space between the snowflakes. -And over the din of it all there sounded, far overhead, -the crying of belated wild-geese, hurrying south.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Even in that moment of harsh peril, Hardcastle -laughed quietly. It was odd that he, of all men, -should be asked to go seeking about for a woman -lost in the snow. These five years past he had been -striving to lose all women, except Rebecca.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Voice answering voice, they strove to find each -other. Sometimes they came near, and again they -called through the sundering distance. And then at -last Hardcastle touched the rough pedlar’s cloak she -wore, and reached down, and got her hand into his.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No more straying,” he said roughly, “till we -get out of this damned weather.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her hand lay close in his. He did not know that -his own gripped it till she winced. He knew only -that he must get her free of this pasture that would put -the snow-sleep on them if they stayed much longer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen’s hand seemed in some strange way to -guide him. He moved quickly, like one who knew -his way at last, and presently his knees came hard -against a fence of stone. He had not guessed till -now that bruised knees could be a joy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Keep your hand in mine,” he said, “while I feel -my way by the wall.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was a weary enterprise, this feeling the way. -The wind was a gale now, and Hardcastle’s hand -followed the wall as a blind man’s might, with slow -caution.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Together they trudged through the thickening -snow till Hardcastle’s numbed fingers touched something -that was not stone. He had found the rough -trunk of the oak-tree that stood this side of the -foresters’ hut.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Wait,” he said, and clambered up the wall.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In this whiteness that was worse than midnight, -he could not see where to plant his feet. And, as -is the way of dry-built walls, the stones went under -him with a roar like the wind’s note overhead.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You are hurt?” came Causleen’s voice—tattered -to bits by the wind as she tried to repeat the frightened -question.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One foot was bruised by a coping-stone of the wall. -He could attend to that later on.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” he said. “I’ve made a gap for you to come -through. That is all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He reached out both hands to draw her up the -half-fallen wall; and, as she climbed the opening, -the gale drove her full into Hardcastle’s arms. He -held her fast, and so they came, he carrying her, along -one side of the hut, and round the corner of it, and -into shelter of its lee-wall.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Snow lay thick on either hand. Overhead the wind -was yelping. But there was a clear space in front -of them, and the relief from battering of the tempest -was instant, as if they had stepped from winter into -June.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now you will free me,” said Causleen, with quiet -laughter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle had forgotten that he still held her in -his arms. He was thinking how nearly they had -tasted death while they tramped up and down a -pasture known to him from boyhood. If he had -not found the wall in time to guide himself by it, -there would have been rejoicing out at Garsykes; -but the Lost Folk had not done with him as yet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The door stood half-open. Sometimes the foresters -locked it, but oftener not; and Hardcastle took it -for a good omen that it was ajar to-day. There -would be no need to set a shoulder to it and break -it inward. There was a ready welcome for them -here.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So he thought, till he pushed the door wide-open, -and was challenged roughly. As he had battled to -win free of tempest, it seemed he would have to fight -for this shelter of the hut. He put Donald’s girl -still further behind him and took a pace or two indoors.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Down, you brute,” he said. “Down, I tell you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Hardcastle, to his amazement, heard the -savage growling cease, and felt a rough snout pushed -into his hand; and presently he came from the dimness -of the hut into the grey gloom of the space that -had snow overhead, and snow to left and right. He -held Storm by the collar, because he knew his ways -were sharp with strangers nowadays.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’ve the sheep-stealer safe. What shall we do -with him?” he asked with grim banter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm strained at his collar—to be at Causleen’s -throat, he fancied, until the girl ran forward, and -took the great, rough muzzle into her hands, and -kissed him with frank abandonment. The dog -licked her face, and after that licked Hardcastle’s. -And the wind roared overhead; and here, on the lee side -of the hut, was sanctuary for these three.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To kiss a dog with his reputation up and down -Logie-side,” said Hardcastle, and laughed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen had not known that he could laugh in this -easy, heart-free way. Till now he had seemed austere -as destiny—relentless as the driven snow they sheltered -from.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s not for the first time—is it, Storm?” she -said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, when they got indoors, knew his way -about the hut—knew where to find the candles, the -fuel, the demijohn of rum, hidden snugly under the -slab that fronted the rough fireplace built of stone. -A great blaze of wood and fir-cones was roaring up -the chimney soon, and Causleen thanked him for -it. Their journey up the pasture had been short in -time, but long in suffering, and she was sick with -cold.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She almost cried to him to come back when she saw -him open the door and go out, and was glad when -he returned. It would have been lonely here without -him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle had only gone to fill a kettle from the -snowdrift, and soon this was purring on the fire. -She loathed the smell of the brew he offered her by -and by—rum piping-hot in one of the foresters’ mugs—and -turned her head away.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I do not like it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Maybe not; but physic’s better than your death -of cold.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She loathed the taste of it, too, though presently -she was glad of obedience to compulsion. This -physic, nauseous enough, had a strange gift of bringing -warmth and well-being. She no longer shivered. -The strain of that rough journey through the tempest -was eased and mellowed, and already half-forgotten.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The three of them took their fill of ease. The gale -out of doors grew harsher. It raved and screeched, -falling back on itself once every while in whining, -baffled spite. And they knew that, outside their -four walls, the snow was driving thick from Pengables -out to Logie, burying sheep and men, making a jest -of landmarks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle and the girl had fought the gale, and -won. By no other road could they have found the -joy in listening to its fury while they hugged the -fireglow. But neither guessed what Storm was -making of the respite. Like them, the sheep-stealer -had battled through the tempest, and found refuge -here; but for him it was only one of many nights, -with danger lying in wait at every turn. Here he -was safe and warm, and in his sleep he gave little, -snoring cries of joy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When did you two grow friendly?” asked Hardcastle, -stirring the dog lazily with one foot.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was the night we came to Logie. They called -you into the kitchen, and while you were away the -illness came on father. I could do nothing for him -except watch beside him while he slept.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I remember.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then I heard a dog’s feet patter down the passage, -and afterwards a lonely sobbing. And I found Storm -in the cupboard under the stair, crying his big heart -out. I was lonely, too, and he knew it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You know much of dogs,” said the Master, with -grudging praise.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I should like to know more—and less of my own -kind.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re young, to be so hard.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A faint smile crossed her face. “And you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, I’m old as the hills. A man needs to be -hard, or what’s the use of him?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As he turned to pile fresh logs on the fire, a lull -came in the tempest, and Storm lifted his head sharply -from his lazy, stretched-out paws. Some sound had -stolen from the snow outside that only he could -hear. He got up, whining and growling by turns -as he laid his nose to a crack in the door. Then he -yapped, and after that he howled; and Hardcastle, -who had thought of opening the door to learn who -came, thought better of it. He knew what the wolf-cry -meant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Shame on you, lad,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The fire went out of Storm. His tail drooped. -He cringed about this new master of his choice; -and, when no blow came, he settled himself by the -hearth again and slept. But now he had muddled -dreams for company.</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap09'>CHAPTER IX</h1></div> - -<h3>THE NIGHT WATCH</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>As the hours passed, the tempest gained in speed. -Stout-built as it was, the foresters’ hut shook -with the gale’s mishandling, and the din out of -doors was as full of cries as if every warlock and hellhound -had been loosed from Langstrothdale to Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen and Hardcastle sat on the rough benches -built on each side of the hut. They faced each other -across the fireglow, and between them Storm slept on, -making the most of luxury.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It would be fierce, but could not last at this time of -the year,” said Causleen, with grave, accusing anger. -“You promised that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And could not keep the promise. I’m only the last -fool who thought himself a prophet where Logie weather -was concerned.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If the snow has stopped—go see if the snow has -stopped—I should not care for the wind, however hard -it blew. We could get up to Logie somehow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her eyes were bright—too bright, to Hardcastle’s -thinking—and she seemed to have some stubborn feud -with him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How can we, through the drifts? Be glad we’re -sheltered here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you a man at all? I bade you go and see if -we could get to Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To humour her, he went out and looked about him. -There was a clear space still in front of the sheltered -doorway, and little stir of wind. The hut lay in a little -harbour of its own, secure; but a little space away the -gale ravened through the snow as Storm at his reddest -had never harried the grey ewes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The snow thickens,” he said, coming in again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then there is nothing we can do to get to Logie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not yet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quarrel showed in her eyes again. “A beggar-maid’s -honour is of no account. It would not be, to -you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He looked at her with puzzled question. To him, -this was an adventure thrust on him by the tricky -weather, and he would be glad to see the end of it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your honour?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You are so dull, you men of Logie. It’s not you I -doubt. I trust you—dear God, as I’d trust an oak-tree, -or a stone. But they will say——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She faltered, ashamed of her thought, dismayed by -their imprisonment, bitterly resentful.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>They say</span>,” snapped Hardcastle, “is the biggest -fool in the Dale. He’ll not hurt us much.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You will not understand. Why did you bring -me here?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why? Would you rather be lying in the -pasture?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was angered afresh by the knowledge that she -owed her life to him, by the tolerant wonder in his -face, as if he had a child’s absurdities to answer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. I would rather be lying there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She faced him with frank enmity, and was silent for -awhile.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have your Logie Women no nice sense of honour?” -she went on. “Are they not taught that the least -breath on it is worse than death?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They are,” said the Master, stung into defence of -his own—“and with it they’re taught common-sense. -Logie thinks none the worse of two folk because a -blizzard keeps them safe indoors.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you had been a Hielandman, and I’d said to him -half of what I’ve said to you——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’d have been fighting the drifts outside by now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The challenge was direct—out-facing if he did not -take it up—and Hardcastle glanced at Storm, asleep -still between them. The dog would be a sure guardian -for her, if he failed. It was likely he would fail; but -there was just a chance that he could win through to -some other shelter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He searched in the chest at the far side of the hut, -where the woodmen kept their axes and sundry tools, -and found a shovel. Then without a word he went out, -closing the door behind him, and paused a moment to -frame a plan before he left the narrow belt of shelter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The trees, instead of giving protection to the ground -below, were gathering even deeper drifts than the naked -pastures. In such a storm as this, their branches—full -leaved almost as in summer—trapped the snow and -held it till some fiercer wind-blast sent it scattering -down. There was no chance on that side; but there -was hope if he could work round to the wall that made -one side of the hut. Once he reached that, its whole -length would give him the same narrow strip of freedom -from wind and snow that the hut was giving him now. -Afterwards he might travel, on the lee side of this and -other walls, until he reached some barn or other.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Whether the plan failed or carried, he told himself -grimly, Causleen’s good-repute would go white as the -swirling storm. She would be found with a grizzled -sheep-stealer for guardian, not with him; and maybe -her restless pride would be content.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Out of his disdain for women—out of the slur she had -put on all but Highland men—endurance came to him. -Between himself and the wall he sought, a great bulk -of snow lay at the corner of the hut, and he drove at it -with his shovel. For the honour of Logie Men he must -get through it, and give the pedlar’s chit her answer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The drift could not be more than a few yards thick, -he knew, and he worked hopefully in a lull of the wind. -Suddenly, from the white mass in front, came faint -voices raised in protest, and he remembered what Storm -had heard not long since. There were over-blown -sheep in the drift here—part, maybe, of the flock that -Storm had hunted yesterday—and work had a double -zest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The gale had given him respite in mockery. It -swooped on him afresh with a whistling screech, -so that he could scarcely stand to ply his shovel. -Drenched from within by sweat, the snow fell icy on -him from the branches overhead—fell on the track he -was carving, foot by foot, towards the drifted ewes, -and half undid his labour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still he toiled, though passionate desire for sleep had -joined the company of his enemies. There seemed no -heaven but one, here or hereafter—a bed in this snow -he strove to master.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen, after she had watched him go, felt the -same loneliness, the same longing to call him back, as -when—years ago, it seemed—he had gone to get a -kettleful of snow. She was filled with a great unrest, -a wonder that she had chosen to drive him out. What -had he done, except give her a roof there at Logie, and -here in this warm hut?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm was uneasy, too. He got up and flicked a -flea or two away from a hide that had known fouler -quarters than the hut, and whined about the door. -Then he glanced back at her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She went to the door and opened it. As Hardcastle -had done, she halted, watching the snow, listening to -the gale that ceased for a moment and let a man’s -voice through—a harsh, fighting voice. While she -stood, reluctant to plunge into the white hurricane, -Storm showed the way to her. Already snow had -drifted over the lane Hardcastle had carved; and they -found him at the corner of the hut, battling forward for -the last yard that would take him to the lee-wall’s shelter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again the wind lulled, and Causleen was aghast to -hear the deep, stubborn curses of this man she had sent -out to battle. In simple earnest he was fighting the -snow-sleep; but in fancy it was Garsykes and its devilry -he fought. As he made forward, inch by inch, he -cursed Nita Langrish, rained blows again on the three -gaunt men who had met him at the pinfold; and Causleen -could not remember afterwards how she and Storm -got him safely back at last to the hut’s shelter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They got him back, and for a while he lay in a dazed -sleep, past this world’s ken. Then little by little he -forced himself—by sheer will to fight on, it seemed—into -wakefulness. He glanced at Causleen—at the fire -she had replenished—at grey, old Storm, nosing his knee -in quiet distress.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How nightmare plays the devil with a man,” he -laughed. “I fancied I was shovelling snow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He dozed again, and Causleen watched beside him. -She had taunted him; but it seemed there was one man -at least in Logie-side. And he might have died while -going her errand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The night wore on. Storm was asleep, too, but she -sat wakeful, and listened to the dying tempest. The -window of the hut was not blurred by snowflakes now. -The wind no longer roared in glee; it wailed and sobbed, -like a child left out in the dark. Strange noises -sounded out of doors—soft, thick splashings that she -knew by and by for melting snow shed by the forest -trees—and across the window-space a keen, sharp -radiance stole.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dawn must be here, she thought. Yet anger against -him, her fear of gossip, showed unworthy. She was -here with the realities of the big, open lands, and she -smiled, recalling Hardcastle’s rough “<span class='it'>They say</span> is the -biggest fool in the Dale.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She turned to the window again, glad of the moonlight -that meant the end of tempest; and, as she sat -there, her whole body suddenly grew tense and her eyes -wide with terror. She could not cry to Hardcastle for -help. Tongue and limbs seemed chained.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Framed by the moonlight, a white, big face looked -in at her—a face packed with evil—and then was gone. -Hardcastle heard nothing, nor did Storm; but Causleen -listened to the slushing scrunch of feet going over -melted snow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>That sound ceased, and the door was opened warily -till it stood open to the moonlight and the fireglow. -And still Causleen could not stir, or cry a warning; and -Storm snored on.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was Hardcastle who woke. With a bound he was -up. Murgatroyd, dazed for a moment by the unexpected -greeting, turned just in time, and ran, and -clashed the door behind him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle followed, Storm silent as he raced behind -the Master. The two of them went forward, over slush -of the melting snow, under the scudding Hunter’s -Moon; but Long Murgatroyd was part of the snowy -wilderness by now, lost beyond the night’s finding.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They came back unwillingly, and to Causleen it -seemed that Hardcastle had never shown his true self -till now. Smeared with sweat and weariness, limping -on the foot bruised by the coping-stone, his eyes were -bright as a lad’s.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We can get to Logie now,” he said—“and it’s time -we went, after losing Long Murgatroyd. He may be -dodging out to Garsykes, to bring the Wilderness on us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Full moonlight shone on the fast melting snow as they -went out. A warm breeze stole against their faces. -Winter’s journey to the Dale had been hurried, alike -in coming and going, as if she feared her welcome.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At the corner of the hut, where the drift had been, -there was no more than a slender bank of snow, with -rivulets playing down its sides. A shovel lay in front -of it, and for the first time Hardcastle recalled, with a -sudden rush of memory, how he had struggled here in a -wind that bit to the bone.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm’s nose was buried already in the slush. He -scented the oily reek that spoke of hunting-days, past -and to come; and when he drew his head back and -glanced up at the Master, there was wistfulness in his -brown eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Gone away,” laughed Hardcastle. “You’d best -come up to Logie, out of Brant’s reach.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap10'>CHAPTER X</h1></div> - -<h3>THE WEAVER OF BASKETS</h3> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Before the storm broke that drove Causleen -and Hardcastle into shelter of the foresters’ -hut, Long Murgatroyd had been poaching up -the moor. He knew all about the uses of a wire -looped at both ends and set across the tracks the -grouse took to their drinking-places; and he laughed -as he gathered his spoils together and turned for home.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’re Hardcastle’s birds,” he chuckled, “and -they’ll taste sweeter in the pot for that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had got half down the moor when the first of -the tempest struck him, and he ran for the lower -country as fast as his great legs would take him. -He reached the first pasture only to be blinded by -the swirl of snow, so that he had to creep forward, -feeling his way. His hands touched stone at last, -and he worked his way round to the lee side of a -bield-wall, built two-sided to shelter ewes from the -north wind and the bitter east. In the angle of this -he dozed and shivered through the storm; and -afterwards, when the moon shone out on thawing -snow, he picked and slushed his way downhill to -Garsykes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His way lay past the foresters’ hut, and as he -went by he halted, astonished to see its window -shining crimson out across the snow. Peering in, -he saw Causleen there beside the hearth, and no -one else. Drenched to the skin, hungry and shivering, -Long Murgatroyd laughed—as he had laughed when -he snared Hardcastle’s birds on the moor. There -was shelter here, and a log-fire, and a lass to share -the warmth with him—a bonny lass, and a prime -favourite up at Logie these last days, if all folk said -was true.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He opened the door, to find Hardcastle rise in -menace, to see Storm bristling at him in rage that -seemed gigantic. He banged the door home and -fled. By instinct of the hunted he knew they would -catch him in this hindering broth of snow and water. -So he doubled back into the wood. The snow made -silence under his feet. The black firs hid him from the -moon. He was lost utterly to Hardcastle and Storm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd watched the moon pale in the dawning -sky, and the sun leap ruddy to the top of old Pengables -Hill, before he came in sight of Garsykes. It was a -tedious way for one spent with fright and hunger, -and he lumbered down into the hollow, and looked -about him at the closed doors of the village—especially -at the inn-sign, “The Poacher’s Rest,” that swayed -cracked and dirty in the breeze.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He went in at last, and a flaunting, big-breasted -woman answered his call.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, ye, Long Murgatroyd!” she said, her arms -akimbo. “What d’ye want?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A dollop of rum, and summat to eat.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Widow Mathison pointed to a row of figures on -the door. “Nay, you’ll ruin me. I’m for ever chalking -up your slate till I’m tired of you and your debts.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd drew out a brace of grouse from some -hidden pockets and slapped them on the table. -“Keep ’em awhile, widow, till they’re like to drop -to bits. You relish ’em that way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hardcastle’s birds? Ay, they’ll be toothsome.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She busied herself now, with entire goodwill, about -the fire; and Murgatroyd looked up by and by from -a steaming dish of eggs and bacon.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’d wipe out your chalks against me, widow, -if I told you what I saw in Logie Woods. But, there, -I’m not for telling.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What did ye see?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nay, another noggin o’ rum wouldn’t draw it -from me. There was Hardcastle of Logie in the woodmen’s -hut.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Was there?” asked the widow, filling his glass afresh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd took a wide gulp at the measure, and -drained it. He was cold and weary.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not if you filled it afresh—and thank you, widow, -for it does drive the wet out o’ one’s bones.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hardcastle was in the hut,” said the woman.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, he was, in front of a cosy fire, and the pedlar’s -lass with him, sitting on his knee. I saw ’em through -the window as I went by.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Widow Mathison gave a screech of glee. “For a -woman-hater, he frames fairish well.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Fairish well,” agreed Murgatroyd, with a maudlin -leer. “There she was, and there he was. You -wouldn’t say aught could alter that—would you, -now? I opened the door, and I listened—and dang -me if they weren’t cooing like a pair o’ cushats. And -she a pedlar’s brat. And him with his mucky pride.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The door swung open, and a squat fellow entered, -sallow-faced and touzled.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s water in plenty hereabouts,” said the -widow, after a shrewd glance at him; “but it seems -to run to waste. One man could lead Jake Bramber -to it, but twenty couldn’t make him wash.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wasn’t thinking of water specially,” growled -Jake.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You wouldn’t be. It’s the itch i’ your throat -that bothers you at this time o’ day. And there’s -your tally, side by side with Murgatroyd’s. I’m tired -of chalking up your owings.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s easy mended, widow. Stop chalking ’em.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She bridled at his effrontery, but drew him a -measure. Then, “Tell him, Murgatroyd,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd told him what he had seen in the -foresters’ hut, and with repetition the tale gathered -volume, till all the Garsykes swine had garbage to -wallow in for many a day to come.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nita Langrish will laugh herself to bits when she -hears this,” said Jake.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m not so sure,” broke in the widow. “Nita -may fool you men of Garsykes—<span class='it'>if</span> you’re men, which -I begin to doubt—but Hardcastle escaped her. So -she wants him. I’ve known her since she toddled, -and that was always her way. Near died o’ crying -for the moon, when she was three years old. It’s -always the thing she hasn’t Nita longs for.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s true,” snarled Jake. “Awhile since she -was making her baskets on the Brigg. ‘Jake,’ says -she, ‘you’ve a way with dogs.’ ‘I have,’ says I. -‘It’s a birth-gift. They like as they love me, same as -if I was one o’ them.’ And then she told me to put -hemlock into a ball o’ meat and take it up to Logie. -Hardcastle’s dog would be waiting for him at the -gate, said Nita. So I went, and friendlied Roy. And -I was a sick man, I tell you, coming home. To -poison a dog—it doesn’t bide thinking of—but Nita -made me do it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd rose suddenly to his big, shammocky -height. He was shaken by a storm of passion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She’s the devil and all among us, with her basket-making -and her eyes on all four sides at once to fool -us. I’ve done with Nita.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” said the widow. “You’ve never done with -such as Nita.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now feet began to patter up and down the -cobbled street. Garsykes Folk were late to wake, -for their work lay mainly with night-time tasks of -poaching and robbery.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The woman beckoned Long Murgatroyd out of -doors. He followed her with unsteady, shambling -feet, and soon they had a company of unwashed folk -about them, listening to the widow’s ribald laughter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s news from Logie,” she said. “Tell ’em, -Murgatroyd, as you told it Jake.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd propped himself against the wall, -and looked about him with a clown’s solemnity.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s about Hardcastle o’ Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Damn him,” snarled a thin, wolfish man. “He -goes abroad as if we’d put no token on him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t you worry, my lad,” said Murgatroyd. -“We’ll know where to find him nowadays. He’ll -not wander far from pedlar’s brat.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So then he told them what he believed by now -that he had seen in the foresters’ hut; and such a -storm of applause greeted him that he left the friendly -shelter of the wall behind him, and talked at large -as he strutted to and fro across the street. No tale -such as this had come to Garsykes for many a year, -and for the moment they half-liked the Master of -Logie, because he was a backslider like themselves.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the tale was done, and the folk began to -get about their ways, Nita Langrish came among -them. Used as they were to her young beauty, -going among them from day to day, they never ceased to -marvel that such as she had grown out of Garsykes mire.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Fresh from her morning bath in a pool she knew -of up the fells, gowned in soft grey that clung about -her slender body, she stood like a creature from some -other world among the tattered women of the village.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is there news from Logie?” she asked, in her -pleasant voice. “They told me Hardcastle would -be up the moor yesterday, so I persuaded one of ours -to take an errand for me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s not what you might call news from -Logie,” laughed Widow Mathison, “but Murgatroyd -here has word of Hardcastle.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd faced her, and old hunger, old -dismay found sudden vent. “He’s out of your -reach, Nita,” he snarled.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He always was,” said Nita gently, “after I sent -him out.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Same as you’ve sent all of us, one by one?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When you tried to come too close.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She stood there, soft as this morning that followed -a night of grim tempest—a radiant thing, knowing -herself mistress of them all.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well. Hardcastle’s tied to another apron-string. -She’s a bonnie lass, too, as I glimpsed her in the -woodmen’s hut. They made a picture, sitting by the -fire as if they’d set up housekeeping together.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A wild-rose flush leaped to Nita’s cheeks. “Who -was it?” she asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The pedlar’s lass. He’s chosen dark and trusty -this time, as the saying is. None of your yellow-haired -women again for him, says Hardcastle—and -I don’t wonder.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita took up the challenge. “You saw them in -the hut?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye. I opened the door to creep in for shelter, -and Hardcastle was there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And you ran for your life? To be sure, you’d -not forget what he did to you at the pinfold. None -of your masters of Logie again for you, if you can -help it—and I don’t wonder.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her mimicry, the quickness of her answer, raised -such a storm of laughter against Murgatroyd that -he gave up the contest; but presently he followed, -as she went by the field-track that led to Logie Brigg, -and overtook her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nita, my lass,” he said, “you’ve got to stay -and listen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have I?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, like it or no, you have.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In his face she saw the baffled hunger that she -had brought to many men. His voice was rough -and harsh, but there was pleading in it—a headstrong -pleading that it was her life’s delight to thwart.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s this way. I’m sick and tired o’ my days. -Naught matters, save you—you and your devilments.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve baskets to weave. All up and down the -Dale they’re asking for Nita’s baskets. There’s no -time to care for men.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He put out a savage hand, to draw her to him. -She did not seem to spring aside, yet suddenly she -stood far away, putting her smiling spells on him -afresh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nita,” he said, sombre and hungry-eyed, “I’m -not of the fanciful sort; but summat or somebody -is whispering at my ear. One of us two is going to -die of your devilry—and I don’t care a tinker’s damn -which it is, so long as it comes soon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Across Nita’s young vigour, her joy in torturing -men for pastime, a little, cold wind began to play. -Long Murgatroyd was sobered. He was in dead -earnest, and his big, uncouth face was lit as with -some fire of prophecy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then her mood passed. “It will be you to die -of it, I think,” she said, and laughed at him as she -took her way to Logie.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca was busy in her kitchen up at Logie on -the afternoon of the great snowstorm. She was -thinking how wise she had been to send Causleen -“just to get a bit of colour into her cheeks” when -the sky began to darken, till she could scarcely have -seen to ply her rolling-pin but for the ruddy hearth-glow. -Now and then she turned on the great, brindled -cat curled up inside the fender</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re a grand ’un for bringing bad weather,” -she said, “and that’s why I named you Jonah. You -never sit close to the fire but it means a storm.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The cat stretched himself, and licked his handsome -fur, and dozed again. It was odd to him that human -folk had so little knowledge of weather.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Just Jonah, you—and an idle vagabones at that -I’ve a mind to sweep you out of my kitchen with -the thick end of a besom.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Jonah heard the threat without disturbance. He -knew the way of Rebecca’s weather, too.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She went on with her pastry-making. The Master -had a big body to be filled, and a sweet tooth for -pastry after he’d had his fill of strong meats. Men -were all alike. Feed ’em and fill ’em, and they’d -be lambs about a house. And Rebecca never guessed -why her hand was light at the work—and the pastry -light, by that token. She had never a man to care -for, except Hardcastle of Logie, and it was a joy -to wear herself to the bone for him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The wind got up and snarled, as it snarled by the -Strith when Hardcastle and Causleen listened to the -vanguard of the storm piping low through Logie -Wood. And then there came the crying of the wild-geese, -winging high above the house.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca dropped her rolling-pin, and went out into -the wind-gusts and the greying light. She was at -prayer, of her own sort.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The Gabble-Rachet always brought me luck,” -she said. “It’s that I live for.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Flight after flight went overhead, with ceaseless uproar. -Rebecca was no longer the practical, deft-handed -housekeeper at Logie. She was as Causleen -and old Donald had seen her, when the pedlar showed -baby-wear among the litter of his pack, and she went -wild.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She thought of the lad who was to have married -her in the far-off time, of his death because he would -pay no toll to Garsykes. The man who killed him -had died while the Gabble-Ratchet screeched overhead. -Years afterwards his son broke his neck to -the self-same music. Luck was in for her, and out -for Garsykes, at such times.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She had crossed the stable-yard and gone into the -field beyond, to get clearer sight of the wild-geese; -and when the last of them had hurried by, she looked -about her. There were signs in plenty of the storm -to come. Just as the brindled cat had sought the -fender, sheep were hurrying to cover of the wall. -Rooks, feeding tranquilly an hour since in upland -oat-stubble, sped homeward. In the high thorn-edge, -storm-cocks, that love a tilt at harsh weather, -cried lustily.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca looked far down the field, and saw a speck -move up it. The speck took man’s shape by and -by. A scud of snow was following him up the hill, -and by his shammocky stride she was sure he hailed -from Garsykes. This puzzled her. An attack in -force on Logie she could have understood, but it -was not like the Wilderness Folk for one of them to -come alone into a hostile country.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The snow-scud overtook and hid him for awhile. -Then again she saw him plodding up, and she could -distinguish now a bulky sack that swayed about his -shoulders. With a grim face, and a grimmer heart, -Rebecca waited. Jonah the cat, hugging the fire -indoors, had claws to show in time of need. So -had she.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The gale was up in earnest, and snow thickened -fast about the man who hurried up the field. Soon -he began to blunder this way and that through the -blinding maze, and a sharp, bitter cry rang up-wind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Damn Nita Langrish. She sent me into this.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca laughed with eerie gentleness. The man -came from Garsykes, as she had guessed, and Nita -had sent him on an errand. Already he was hidden -by the on-driving wall of snow, and so much for him. -The wild-geese had flighted to-day, and Logie’s luck -was in.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So intent the woman was on nursing vengeance -that the storm was on her, too, before she found a -thought for her own safety. Though scarcely twenty -yards from the gate that led into the stable-yard, -it took long to find it; and afterwards, close to her -own kitchen, wind and snow played blind-man’s-buff -with her before she found the door, and opened it, -and had to use all her lean, hard strength to close -it against the in-leaping storm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Jonah still slept tranquilly inside the fender, dreaming -of rats to be hunted in the stables when good -weather came again. Rebecca’s glance rested on -him, lying plump and sleek there, and wrath descended -on her. She snatched a besom up, and gave him the -thick end of it with zest, as she had promised not -long since in idle banter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s what I give to vagabones,” she said, and -thwacked him again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Jonah sprang to the top of the big chair beside the -hearth, and spat at her. His fur was stiff, like an -angry dog’s, and he swept down a wild-cat’s paw -at her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Getting to be your own man again?” said -Rebecca. “Well, it’s time you did, now the rats -creep up from Garsykes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that she took up her rolling-pin and went -on with the pastry-making as quietly as if nothing -had disturbed the work; but her thoughts were with -the man she had watched creeping up the field. A -glance at the window showed panes crusting ever -thicker as the snow drove at them, and a hard smile -played about her lips.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The brindled cat eyed her with wrath that cooled -by slow degrees. He washed himself all over, as -if to clear away the besom’s touch, and stood on -the chair-top in sullen dignity. Then suddenly he -jumped to the floor and up to Rebecca’s shoulder at -a bound. They could never quarrel for long, these two.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“At your cantrips again,” said Rebecca calmly, -“as if you were kitten-high—and resting all your -great, idle weight on a woman that won’t put up with -such-like nonsense.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The cat stayed where he was, and presently Rebecca -began to talk to him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s a Garsykes Man out yonder, Jonah. It -must be cold lying. He’ll never taste kitchen-warmth -again, or the crisp of an apple-pasty.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Jonah purred against her withered cheek, and -watched the rolling-pin go up and down.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can see him now as he came up the pasture. -The snow overtook him, and he wambled like a -drunken man, and dropped. There’ll be his burial-mound -above him—a biggish mound by this time. -So there’s another of the foul brood gone.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>From within-doors—loud as the wind was screaming -at the windows—Rebecca heard a fretful cry steal -down the passage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s the pedlar,” she grumbled. “Good sakes. -I’d forgotten he was all on his lonesome—his legs -forsaking him, and all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald was striving pitifully to rise when she -reached the long-settle. “Where’s Causleen?” he -pleaded. “I feel an old, old man, buried out of -sight, when she’s not near.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca wondered, too, where Causleen was. The -Master was out in the storm, but he knew every -barn and bield-wall of his country, and would find -shelter somehow. Causleen was a stranger. It might -be that she had met the same white death that the -Garsykes Man had found. And she had sent her -out.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She’ll be here by and by,” she said, pity stirring -at her gnarled old heart.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald’s glance wandered to the pike that had -gone to Flodden Field and back, and again he tried -to rise. “There was so much I had to tell her. -You’re kind, and bid us stay at Logie—but there’s -rust of Jaimie the King’s blood up there. I cannot -eat or sleep within the house. Causleen knows I -cannot—and she will not come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now I’m tucking the blankets round you,” said -Rebecca, her hands deft and gentle, “and I’m telling -you to get to sleep, or give me a reason t’ other way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald yielded to the warmth and rest; and in -his dozing his heart leaped into his lips, and he told -in few, poignant words what the years behind had -meant to him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The long, grey roads—the footsore roads—selling -Pedlar’s Balsam to other folk—it’s a weary life. -There’s no time for the pedlar to balsam his own -feet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And so they watched beside him through the night, -Rebecca and the brindled cat. From time to time -the woman crossed to the window, to see if there were -any sign of the storm’s abating. There was none, -and her fears for Causleen increased. Yet she could -do nothing, and fell asleep at last in the chair drawn -up beside the settle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The day was up when she awoke. A glance at -Donald showed him lying in childlike slumber, with -Jonah curled up on the blankets; and Rebecca went -out into the sunlight, scanning the lower slopes in -search of the Master or Causleen. They did not -come, though the thaw had opened out wide tracks -of green between the drifts.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In her long time at Logie, Rebecca had never known -a tempest so quick to come and go. A wind swift -and bitter from the east had driven her indoors last -night. Now a warm, playful breeze played against -her face. The gold and crimson glory of the autumn -woods reared itself above great scuds of snow that -melted almost as they fell. And everywhere there -was the cry of waters, big and little; for every dingle -of the pastures was a running beck, and all the glens -were rivers, bank-top high with snow-broth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca heard the rooks come clamouring to their -sycamores and ancient nests—heard a throstle pipe -a stave or two, as if he scented spring after this wild -October night—and knew then that the storm would -not return for many days. Rooks and the thrushes -were old in weather-lore.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still the Master did not come, nor Causleen, and -Rebecca wondered if the Gabble-Ratchet had brought -luck to Logie, after all. The pedlar’s girl meant -little to her, but if Hardcastle was dead—if never -again she would sew buttons on for him, or cook -his meals, or bear with his gusty temper—it was -near her time to be done with this world and its -foolishness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca glanced downhill again, and when still -no sign of life showed between the brimming waters, -her thoughts turned to the man from Garsykes who -had been overtaken by the storm last night. She -crossed the stable-yard and went down the field -on the far side of it till she reached a pile of melting -snow. Out of the mound showed a man’s two hands, -limp and glistening-wet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No spark of pity or horror touched Rebecca. With -fierce, exultant patience she watched the snow-shroud -crumble, till now his arms showed to the sunlight, -then his lean neck with the mouldy kerchief tied -about it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sun and south wind between them were busy with -the melting, and presently the man’s face showed. -It had been a coarse face, lined with slyness; but -snow and death had washed it, and it carried a strange -look of peace.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sack he had carried lay beside him. She -opened it, and knew at last the object of his journey. -It was filled with pine-logs, twigs and resin. These -and the tinder-box in his pocket were enough to set -Logie flaming from end to end of its grey gables.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The dead man could tell her nothing now; but -he had told all yesterday when, baffled by the storm, -he cursed Nita Langrish for bringing him into this. -Rebecca pieced the tale together with shrewd vision. -There was none from this to Langstrothdale who -garnered news like Nita the basket-weaver. Men -passed her as she sat on the bridge-wall, her fingers -slender almost as the withies she plaited. They -stayed for gossip with a maid known through the -Dale to be a maddener of men, and she ’ticed their -news from them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita had learned, no doubt, that the Master was -from home, and had sent up this poor, dead fool -to fire the house. Rebecca stirred the body with her -foot, in grudging pity. Then the peace in his face—the -still unalterable peace—brought wrath and -brimstone round her once again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve found too soft an end,” she grumbled—“too -soft by half, my lad.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was still standing there, the feud raw at her -heart, when Causleen and the Master came up together -from their vigil in the foresters’ hut.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re safe, then, the pair of you,” she said. -“I was fearing for the pedlar’s girl. She’s not used -to our rough country.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen was ashamed of her own shame, as she -heard Hardcastle tell how he had met her just in time—heard -Rebecca’s blunt thankfulness that they had -found a hut to spend the night in, safe from the worst -blizzard ever known on Logie-side. Why had her -pride taken fire because Hardcastle had saved her -life? Why had she stooped to think of gossip and -dishonour, when these two saw the past night as -a fight against weather—a fight won by Logie?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Causleen saw the muddled heap that yesterday -had been a man—saw the wet face and hands, -the pitiful, threadbare clothes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it?” she asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“One from Garsykes that’s dead,” said Rebecca -tranquilly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Poor pedlar. What does he carry in that big -pack of his?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Enough to burn Logie down from roof to cellar. -But he’s dead. And the Master’s quick. It’s Logie’s -turn this time.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap11'>CHAPTER XI</h1></div> - -<h3>VENOM</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita Langrish, later in the day of Hardcastle’s -home-coming with the pedlar’s girl, took her -way up to Logie between the melting drifts. -Straight and slim she went, and an old tinker who met -her on the road stood and gaped at her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Begosh, I wish I was younger,” he chuckled. “I’d -go a-courting.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita laughed at him, as if her heart were light as his, -and turned once—in vanity—to be sure that he was -watching her go down the hill. Then she thought of -Hardcastle, of what she had heard just now in Garsykes; -and an evil mood got into her blood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She came to Logie Brigg and looked down at Wharfe -River, swirling in high flood between the slender arches. -Half-frozen packs of snow were riding here and there -above the peat-brown waves. Under her feet the -fierce waters roared and sang their Viking call of kill and -spare not.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was all in tune with her heart, as she climbed the -steep rise to Logie. The trees were so thick about the -house that she could not see yet whether its walls gaped -wide and blackened. The man she had sent to fire it -had not returned with news. He had perished in the -storm likely—after he’d done his work, she hoped.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When she topped the rise, and came to Logie’s -gate, blue wood-smoke was curling up from peaceful -chimneys, and Rebecca stood there talking with Brant -the shepherd.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s a friend of yours in the Long Pasture -yonder.” Rebecca’s voice was grimly bantering. -“The snow has cleaned his face for him, but I’d have -known he came from Garsykes all the same. It -couldn’t take the rabbity smell o’ the man away.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again a little wind of dread stirred at Nita’s heart, -as it had chilled her when Long Murgatroyd had spoken -of death for one or other of them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What friend of mine should be in any Logie field?” -she asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, deny your own. It’s like you, Nita. Won’t -you go and have a look at the man?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why should I go?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s not much to look at, I own—but he died -running an errand of yours. He sent a queer sort of -cry up when the snow took him—cursed Nita Langrish -for sending him to Logie—so that you must have heard -it out to Garsykes, I’d have fancied.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita faced her ancient adversary with cool devilry.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m sorry he died before he fired Logie. He was -always a fool, and clumsy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You dare own to it?” snapped Rebecca.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The girl was uncanny in her self-assurance, her eager -beauty. “Yes,” she said. “What has Nita the basket-weaver -to fear, when all the men go daft about her?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca reached a lean hand out across the gate—swift -as Jonah the cat might have flicked a paw—but -Nita was too quick for her. She drew back from -all life’s onsets, with soft, elusive speed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All the men but one,” laughed Nita, from the -middle of the roadway.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, all but the Master. You’ll never fool him -twice.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The pedlar’s brat is doing that for me. Have they -come home, the pair of them?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They have, thanks be.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>Thanks be?</span>”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca answered the girl’s scorn with tart assurance. -“Why, yes. I sent that bairn of the pedlar’s -out to get a breath o’ fresh air—the dear knows she -needed it—and it would have lain on my conscience if -she’d foundered in the snow. The Master happened -on her, luckily.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Garsykes has learned as much. From all we hear, -they made themselves snug enough for the night—blessed -the snow for coming, I fancy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The devil knotted thy whipcord of a tongue, Nita, -but its lash doesn’t hurt us Logie Folk. We keep clean -houses hereabout—and cleanish minds. What else was -to be done, save shelter from such an audacious storm?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, they sheltered to some purpose. Murgatroyd -saw them sitting by the hearth—she on his knee.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve known Murgatroyd all his life,” broke in -Rebecca, “and all his life he never spoke a true word -unless he fell into it by accident. Get ye back to -Garsykes, and feed your pigs on such-like trash.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Shepherd Brant had been tugging at his beard, -wroth kindling slowly till its fire was bright and steady.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s another man o’ Logie doesn’t heed your -snares, Nita.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re old, shepherd. I’d mistake you for a grey -rock if I didn’t see you move from time to time. Have -you shot Storm the sheep-slayer yet?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not yet. When I do, it’s a sign that Garsykes -ends.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then once again some little breeze of fear played -about Nita, but she would not heed it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A gypsy woman came to our village, Brant, not so -long since. She had the Sight.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, aye,” growled the shepherd.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She told us of Hardcastle and his fight against -Garsykes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Gleaned that sort o’ news from any man or child -about the country-side. I’m acquainted with all the -tricks of Romany—especially sheep-stealing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She said an ancient shepherd was seeking a dog -named Storm, to kill him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s true.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That the shepherd would do his best to ruin Logie, -by killing Logie’s luck.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She lied, like all the Romaneys.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I tell you what she told me, shepherd,” said Nita, -her grey eyes quiet and candid. “And I told the -gypsy woman that Garsykes would see to Logie’s ruin.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She turned to go down the road again and halted -with fearless insolence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When I’m selling my baskets up dale and down—how -they’ll laugh at the tale of how they shared the -hut together—Hardcastle and she.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that she went her way, singing the little eerie -ballad she had sung to Widow Mathison’s boy when -Hardcastle met her in the road not long ago.</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>Now grow you big, and grow you tall,</span></p> -<p class='line0'>  <span class='it'>Lad o’ the Wilderness,</span></p> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>You’ll give the Logie Folk a call,</span></p> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>When nights are dark and drear and all,</span></p> -<p class='line0'>  <span class='it'>Lad o’ the Wilderness.</span></p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca watched her go, and all her strength to -endure grew tough and sinewy. They were few and -lonely, here at Logie, now the feud was up; and Nita -Langrish was a dismaying power about the land, with -her beauty that put men in leading strings.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s meant for Logie’s funeral song,” she muttered, -as they watched the retreating figure. “Well, -shepherd, we’re neither killed nor buried yet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita, half down the steep bend of the road that led -to Logie Brigg, saw Causleen come through the wicket-gate -and out into the highway.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Looking for the Master?” she asked gently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen knew little of the basket-weaver, except -that she was an old love of Hardcastle’s, and read no -guile in the question, in the innocent, soft eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. He has ridden for the doctor. My father -is—is worse.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s as well, maybe.” Nita’s jealousy noted the -quiver in the other’s voice, but did not spare her sorrow. -“He may never need hear about the woodmen’s hut.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen stood very still for a moment, looking at -Nita Langrish. The blow was so sudden, the pain of it -so like a knife-thrust driven home, that she was dizzy and -bewildered. Then the quick, Highland fire leaped to her -face, showing a wild beauty that angered Nita all afresh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He knows and understands,” she said—“<span class='it'>as you -could not</span>.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>All that was said and left unsaid in those few words -stung Nita like a lash. This peddling castaway could -hold her own, and more than her own.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Maybe not. But I can set the whole Dale rocking -with the tale Long Murgatroyd brought home.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that she laughed in Causleen’s face and went -her way. Half down the road, where it wound sheer -and stark to Logie Brigg, she met Hardcastle, urging a -hard-driven horse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your light o’ love is waiting for you,” she said, -curtseying in sheer mockery.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“One in a lifetime is enough for me, Nita,” he -answered grimly, and rode on. He and his horse had -travelled many a hilly mile in pursuit of a hard-worked -doctor, and had not found him; and he was sorry, -because Causleen was tired enough already, after last -night’s storm, without this added trouble of the father -who was near to death.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He came in sight of the wicket-gate, and slipped -from saddle, and let his horse find its own way to stable. -Causleen was at the gate, her back turned to the roadway, -and Hardcastle was afraid, somehow, to listen to -the girl’s wild sobbing. It startled and unmanned him. -He longed to get away, yet could not leave her in this -plight.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve done my best to find the doctor,” he said, -putting a kindly hand on her shoulder, “but he’s away -up Amerdale. Is Donald worse?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She drew away, as if his touch scorched her. “He -is better—just for awhile—and I ran out to see if you -had brought the doctor. And a woman came instead—so -pretty, and with so foul a tongue.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle remembered Nita’s mocking curtsey—recalled -Long Murgatroyd’s intrusion into the foresters’ -hut last night—and the riddle of it all grew plain. -Nita’s tongue had been busy with the pedlar’s girl and -he knew what it could do even to rough men. Something -stirred at his heart—the heart frozen long since, -so that it had forgotten how to suffer, joy or grief.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nobody cares what Nita says. She says, and goes -on saying—and folk laugh.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. Folk often laugh, when they should cry -instead. It is not your fault that we had to shelter -from the storm—yet how I loathe you for it, Hardcastle -of Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was on fire with pride, with contempt of Nita -Langrish and her power to wound. And, dimly as yet, -Hardcastle understood her passion. “What else was -there to do but shelter?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nothing; but that does not help us. It was not -your fault that we came to your gate, father and I, and -became your pensioners.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My guests,” said Hardcastle, with gruff kindliness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Threadbare guests, forced on you. And what can I -do, with father as he is?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Stay on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen remembered Nita’s words, her laughter as -she went down the road; and the poison festered, as if -a snake had bitten her. How could she stay on, with -all the country-side passing Nita’s gossip to and fro? -How could she leave, while her father lay between life -and death, babbling of far Inverness and pipes that -skirled about the moorland glens?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I thank and loathe you,” she said, and left him -there—muddled, not for the first time in his life, by the -ways of a maid with a man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle watched her till she was hidden by a -shower of red, fast-falling leaves. He was impatient of -some feeling that the girl had roused, some stirring at -the heart he had hardened against intrusion. The -Wilderness had put a slight on her, as it had striven to -slight Logie. She was going in fear of the open, as he -went sometimes where there was nothing doing and he -had leisure to remember how strong and merciless was -the hornets’ nest he had roused at Garsykes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then suddenly he understood the bond between -them. She was proud and weary. So was he.</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap12'>CHAPTER XII</h1></div> - -<h3>THE SHEEP-SLAYER</h3> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>For a week the days went at Logie as if Garsykes -had no feud with it. That was the way of the -Wilderness Folk, and the nameless dreads that -came at such waiting times began to patter up and -down the house. Storm, after staying for a night and -a day, had heard the wolf-call once again, and was gone. -The Master rode much abroad, and would tire two -horses out between dawn and gloaming. That was his -way of stifling suspense. Rebecca’s was to quarrel -with the brindled cat who was her shadow and -familiar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald was neither better nor worse, though both by -turns; and Causleen, whenever she met Hardcastle, -baffled him by her chill aloofness. It seemed to him -that she would rather have died in the snow than owe -her life to him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Near the end of the week, Brant the shepherd came -at nightfall, and knocked at the kitchen door, and came -stamping in, a gun under his arm and quiet good -humour in his face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Draw me a mug of ale, Rebecca,” he said, “for -I’ve earned it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, all men fancy that, at any hour o’ day or night. -What have you done, Stephen?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve shot Storm at last. A son of Belial, I call him, -and he skulked to the last—got away into the brackens, -but his hind legs were trailing. I’d like to have found -his carcase.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Something hidden in Rebecca leaped into fury: -Storm was dear to her, as to Hardcastle, whatever his -backslidings. Jonah and he had been comrades in old -days, the cat sitting on his back and playing pranks -with him. She had fed him by stealth, when the -Master brought him home to the cupboard under the -stair, had rated him for the life he was leading these -days—finishing with a “there, you can’t help it, like, -and get sleep and victuals while you can.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s no ale for you to-night, Stephen,” she said, -gaunt and truculent.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And why, if I might ask?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Because you come boasting you’ve shot the dog -that saved you all at Garsykes. There were few of -Logie’s Men, and many of theirs; and he scattered -them for you, to some purpose.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, woman, he kills sheep.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And saves men, it seems. The Master mightn’t be -here—or you either—if it hadn’t been for Storm.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The shepherd was nonplussed for a moment. -“That’s true enough,” he muttered, plucking at his -thin, wiry beard. “They were in a mind to kill us that -day, with their women egging them on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet you come here, snug as a toad in its hole, and -tell me you’ve killed Storm. A queer way of showing -thankfulness for what life there’s left in your old -bones.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You don’t understand. You never could, not -being a shepherd.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Without a heart in his body.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“With a heart for ravished ewes. There’s a law -among us, fixed as old Pengables. A dog turned wolf -is hunted till he’s shot.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, there’s a law in my kitchen, too. No ale for -the man that murdered Storm. I was talking to Jonah -here about the uses of a besom when you stepped in—but -I’m minded to thwack you instead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m fairish dry, Rebecca,” said the shepherd, with -sudden wistfulness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I hope as much. The drier you get, the better I’ll -like it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They stood at bay, regarding each other with dour -enmity, till Rebecca thought of Hardcastle, riding home -from Norbrigg market and late to come.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The Garsykes sort lie quiet,” she said, “and it’s -getting hard to bear. I wish the Master would listen -to sense, and not go taking his journeys as if naught -had happened at the pinfold.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s made that way. An earthquake wouldn’t -alter him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Obstinate, like his father before him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A rare plucked ’un, like his father. After all, if -he’s got to be killed, he’s wise to seek it in the open. -When my time comes, says I, give me God’s sky to -turn my toes to, and curlews singing me to sleep.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now that’s all nonsense, Brant. You live too -lonely on the heights yonder, and your fancies breed -like maggots. When my time comes, give me a cosy -hearth and the taste of a treacle-posset in my throat. -That’s how I’d say my last good-bye to Logie. And -here we stand chattering, while the Master lies murdered, -like Storm, somewhere ’twixt here and Norbrigg.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nay, now, you’re running to meet trouble before it -comes. And as for Storm, he wasn’t murdered, I’d -have you know. Justice was what he got, and if I’d my -way, they’d tar such-like and hang ’em in chains at the -cross-roads, same as human footpads.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, hold your whisht, Stephen. Cannot you see -that I’m sick with wondering why the Master’s late?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So will the pedlar’s girl be, if all they say be true.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When all they say is true, all the geese in the world -will be dead—not one of ’em left to cackle. I was out -in that blizzard, and ran fairish quick for shelter.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So did I, and was near over-blown at that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And so did Master and Donald’s girl. They were -prisoned for the night; but it’s only Garsykes way they -think worse of them for that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant fidgetted about the kitchen, warming himself -at the fire one moment, then going to the door as if he -listened for some cry of trouble out of doors. “I’m -not easy in mind myself,” he said at last. “Maybe -I’ll step out Norbrigg way and see what’s happening -to him. This gun of mine may come in useful.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s the man I thought you,” snapped Rebecca. -“Bide till you’ve had a pull at the ale, then get your -best foot forward.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle himself, an hour before, had ridden up -from Norbrigg through the dusk that showed no more -than a glimpse of the track ahead. It was only when -he came through Weathersett village, perched high on -top of the rise, that he rode into keen frosty moonlight. -His glance roved over the broken lands, the grey roads -that wound across them. The waiting time at Logie, -for what Garsykes spite could do to him, seemed far-off. -He was not between house-walls now, but in the -open.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Tang of the frosty wind, smell of the uplands, got -into his blood. He plucked his horse to a canter, then -checked him as they went by the pinfold where he had -answered three men’s call for tribute. Again he looked -out across the moonlit wastes, and down at the hollow -where Garsykes village lurked. If the Lost Folk -needed him, he was here, and glad of any onset after the -quiet of these last days.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No onset came. The moonlight showed him only a -grey-blue land of sleeping pastures, a glint of white -where snow-drifts, still unmelted, hugged the walls. -He felt thwarted of his due, somehow, and it seemed -hard to get safe home again and wait for whatever -devilry Garsykes had in mind. Then his mind yielded -to the night’s persuasion as his horse trotted forward -soberly between the heather and the pines.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Moist, wayward spurts of wind rustled the fallen -leaves. The undergrowth was stealthy with the feet -of things that fled, of bigger things that hunted. A -night-jar cried harshly in the thickest of the wood. -From the slopes beyond came the rough call of a buck -to his mate, telling her to get behind him while he met -some peril threatening both.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The streams had their own eerie music, too. Fed -by swift-melting snow, they sobbed and crooned and -wailed as they raced to Wharfe River far below. And -the wind would not be still.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle rode through the haunted land with a -song at his heart, such as nothing brought to him these -days except night-time on the Logie roads. They said -he would never marry, and he knew they said it. They -lied, as usual, for he had wived these grim and tender -lands handed down to him by generations whose voices -lived about the house of Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The dusk of the forest kept him company till he rode -into the open, and saw the free, spacious road wind up -to Logie under the scudding moonlight. It was good -to be alive, with such a heritage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then suddenly his horse blundered. Before he had -time to try to break his fall, he was thrown across the -road and into the dark hollow bordering the wood. -One half of him lay soft and wet; the other jarred on -something lean and bony—something that rapped out -stifled curses, and turned under him with writhing -fury, and strove to get a grip about his throat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They fought together in the hollow, he and his -unseen adversary, till their hands grew slippery with -mud and it was hard to get any sort of hold.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“From Garsykes, you?” gasped Hardcastle, feeling -for the grip that should settle all. “Swine love the -ditches.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No answer came. His enemy was striving, too, for -the strangle-hold that constantly eluded him. The -stealthy fight went on. The whole world was narrowed -to this dark corner by the roadway, and the slime sucked -and gurgled under the weight of their striving bodies.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Hardcastle found his chance, and took it. He -got one arm under the man’s thighs, the other round -his shoulders, lifted him with savage strength, and -pitched him clear into the roadway.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he clambered after him, the moonlight, clear -and blue, showed him a lank figure getting up from the -wet, grey road.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So it’s you, Long Murgatroyd,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, it’s me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Be damned to you, why did you hide in a muddy -ditch if you wanted another fight?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd, white-faced and spent, glanced at the -rope swinging gently across the road, and the Master -saw it for the first time.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve come as low as that?” The Master was -shaken by passionate loathing. “As low as that, -Murgatroyd?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, your blamed luck won’t last for ever. Any -but you would have been pitched on his head when his -horse got into the rope—and I’d have finished you, -need being. So now your going to finish me instead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle’s riding-whip was lifted to cut the man -across the face; but Murgatroyd was laughing at him -in the moonlight—a wan laugh enough, yet full of -dogged will to endure whatever came.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nita sent you on the errand?” he asked sharply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She did, in a way. We know what her tongue is—me -and you, we know it. She said you were my master -any day if it came to a fight. So I stepped up to kill -you.” Again he laughed. “I should have told her -naught of the rope, you understand. There’d have -been you ligging dead in the road, and happen she’d -have given me a kiss or two for my pains. That’s how -it was. And I’m here, and want to be rid o’ my life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle could make nothing of it. Wrath died -in him. The man was rough as a savage, simple -beyond belief. He had come up to kill, and, failing, -expected no mercy from his enemy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, damn you all ways, Murgatroyd,” he said, and -went to where his horse stood trembling, and felt its -knees.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd looked on, with dazed wonder. -“Broken are they?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sound as a bell,” growled Hardcastle, as he swung -into the saddle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd watched him out of sight. The -Master of Logie was a fool, no doubt, to leave him ripe -for further mischief; but in some queer way he -found a liking for him. He dealt fair with all -about the country-side; and fairness appealed to -this chastened mood of his.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If only Nita would let him alone, he’d rather see -Hardcastle live than die. <span class='it'>If only Nita would let him -alone.</span>”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The words got into his muddled wits as he looked -from the forest to the misty fells where Garsykes slept -in the flooding moonlight. Some uncouth purpose -stirred him. He went and unfastened the rope he had -tied from tree to tree across the road. The knots were -tight and his fingers clumsy; but at last he coiled it into -a neat bundle, climbed the wall on his right, and lopped -like a hare down the grey-blue pastures.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he neared the little brig that crossed Crooning -Water, a clear, sweet voice drifted up the breeze, singing -a song.</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>There came a man to my house,</span></p> -<p class='line0'>  <span class='it'>Love me well, said he;</span></p> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>There came a man to my house,</span></p> -<p class='line0'>  <span class='it'>Nay, said I, I’m free.</span></p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd halted, swayed between longing and -loathing. Then murder got into his heart again, as he -turned the bend of the road.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita Langrish was sitting on the bridge-wall, threading -her willows in and out.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Making baskets by moonlight?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Finishing one for a lass up Dale that’s courting. -So it’s only right to weave moonshine in between the -withers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re courting, Nita, you and me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It takes two for that,” she said, and went on with -her work as if she were alone.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A great madness came on Murgatroyd. She sat -there in the moonlight so mocking and aloof, yet so -enticing, that the helpless rage of years found tongue. -He cursed the day she came into Garsykes first, cursed -every meeting with her since, till his hoarse voice -seemed like a flail about her. For a moment Nita was -afraid—of him, and of the stark truth he spoke. Then -she gathered her old dominion round her, her old self-will -and vanity.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve been at the drinking again,” she said, with -gentle insolence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have—drinking the dregs, like many another -that’s come your way. You draw your skirts away -fro’ Widow Mathison at the inn, same as if she was dirt. -But she’s got what you’ve not—a heart in her feckless -body.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita had finished her basket and stood, slim and -straight, looking into the man’s face with grey, childlike -eyes as she waited for what he had to say.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She has a lad of her own—dotes on him, and naught -too much to do, mending and fending for him. <span class='it'>You</span> -dote on yourself, Nita.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The man’s voice had grown quiet, and Nita thought -his madness ended, till he took the rope from under his -arm and began to uncoil it with a leisurely sort of haste.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To be sure,” she said, “Garsykes will be smoked out -soon, like a hornet’s nest. Time was when it bred men, -not windle-straws. And you’re for trying how the -noose will feel about your neck—when Logie gets -you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” said Murgatroyd, “I’m for fitting it about -yours, Nita, and hanging you to a branch of yond big -sycamore.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She saw now the steady light of madness in his eyes, -the purpose sure and downright. Fear unsteadied her -again, but she remembered bygone years of blandishment. -She came to him, and laid a hand on his sleeve.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Could you hurt me? I’m such a little thing, and -you’re so big. You couldn’t hurt me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, but I could.” The man’s voice was low and -harsh as he put her away from him and fingered the -rope with restless fingers. “I could hurt you to some -purpose. Sometimes I fancy there’s naught I want any -more.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She put both hands on his shoulders now. Her lips -were close to his, and her breath was warm and soft.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Naught else?” she asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The old, daft longing stole about him. Little, baffling -webs were spun across his sullen will to make an -end of Nita and her devilries. He reached out his arms -to gather her to him—but she had stepped back and -stood smiling at him in the moonlight.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To-morrow, maybe, or the next day after,” she -said—“when you’ve forgotten about ropes and -sycamores.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He watched her go. He was too heartsick even to -curse her, or to follow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s always to-morrow with her,” he muttered, -shivering in the breeze that whimpered down from -Drumly Ghyll.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then he leaned over the bridge, listening to the -stream as it swirled in the deep pool below. The water -called him. Every sob and gurgle enticed him to a -death found easily. The plunge would be cold, into -broth of melted snow, but after that—well, they said -it was a quiet way of going out.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet he could not take the plunge. For ever Nita’s -voice was in his ear, with its promise of “to-morrow, -maybe.” She drew him from the waters. It was a -lying promise, but she drew him. Reluctantly he -turned his face towards Garsykes, and down the fell -Nita’s song came with the breeze.</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>There came a man to my house,</span></p> -<p class='line0'>  <span class='it'>Love me well, said he;</span></p> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>There came a man to my house,</span></p> -<p class='line0'>  <span class='it'>Nay, said I, I’m free.</span></p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd recalled the Master’s farewell to him -awhile since. Hardcastle’s words had a way of sticking, -he’d noticed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Damn you all ways, Nita Langrish,” he said, -and laughed heavily, and took the field-track up to -Garsykes.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle rode slowly home to Logie, after his -encounter in the wayside ditch. For a week he had -been restless, wondering what Garsykes meant to do -with him. Now they had shot their bolt, and he survived. -Never in his life had he known this keen, hard -joy that was growing with the feud. Once they had -tried to take him at the pinfold—and once a man had -come to fire his house and been over-blown by snow. -Now they had stretched a rope across the road to hinder -him, and he was up in saddle again. Whatever the -future had in store, he had given no tribute to Garsykes, -and would give none.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At a bend of the road he met Shepherd Brant, who -greeted him with taciturn relief.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s better to be quick than dead, Master.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is, Stephen,” said Hardcastle, answering dryness -with dryness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Rebecca was in such a rare taking about you—thinking -you were murdered on the Norbrigg road—that -I set off in search. Has it been raining in those -parts?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Raining? No.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I only wondered, seeing you dripping-wet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There was one from Garsykes in a ditch, and I had -to get him out of it—by the scruff of his neck.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh,” said Brant, lighting his pipe. “And which -of ’em was he like to look at, if I might ask?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He was very like Long Murgatroyd.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And you maimed him for life, and so put him out -o’ harm’s way?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The last I saw of him, he was standing like a dazed -fool in the roadway—too soft for a man to hit.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was like you, Master,” growled Brant, and -touched his cap with chill respect as he turned for home.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle only laughed as he rode forward. He -knew Brant as he knew himself. If Stephen had seen -Long Murgatroyd in the roadway, grey-faced and -quavering, the shepherd would have understood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They came by High Ghyll Wood, with the merry -breeze in their faces, and the Master’s horse was thinking -only of oats in the near-by stable when he halted in -his stride and shied at nothing, so far as Hardcastle -could tell. His head was turned toward the wood, and -a shiver ran down his sturdy flanks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Hardcastle drew rein, and listened. There -might be another ambush waiting for him before he -got to Logie. A horse had quicker hearing than a man. -And now he heard a far-off crying in the wood—the -yelping cry of a beast in pain—and thought a fox had -got into one of the foresters’ many traps.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As he listened, he knew it was no fox in trouble, but -a dog; and he had a soft heart for all that breed. -Riding forward till he came to the gate near ahead, he -tethered his horse to the trunk of a gnarled thorn-bush, -and plunged into the wood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The yelping cries were mingled now with fierce, -tortured howls that guided him, step by step, to a clump -of brackens where something lay and writhed, beating -down the shelter it had sought in need. The moon -shone clear through the leafless branches of the silver-birches -overhead—shone on a dog’s bloodshot eyes and -hairy face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, Storm, what ails you?” asked Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For a moment the sheep-slayer knew him and strove -to wriggle to his hand; then his wounds were rawed -again by the wind. He yelped and growled by turns -when Hardcastle approached and felt down his body -to find what limbs were broken; and suddenly a madness -seized him. He bit at the hands that touched his -wounds. All of him that was unmaimed was quick for -attack. Hardcastle, to him, was Shepherd Brant, who -had pursued him with a hate that would not let him -rest—Brant, who had put gunshot into him at last.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle had found the second ambush, after all, -and one hard to meet. He strove with Storm, his -hands bitten to the bone. This sheep-killer had come -in time of need, when he scattered the Garsykes Men -awhile since. There was a big debt owing by the -house of Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Storm’s strength was spent. He let the Master -shoulder him, a dead-weight of weariness, and carry -him to the horse tethered to the thorn-tree. The horse -neighed and fidgetted as Hardcastle lifted Storm to -the saddle, and held him there.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Get up to Logie,” he said. “There are all jobs in -a day, even for a thoroughbred.”</p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen, wandering restlessly about Logie House, -heard Shepherd Brant come into the kitchen with news -that he had shot Storm at last. She heard, too, -Rebecca’s talk of danger to the Master on his way from -Norbrigg; and her restlessness increased.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm had found no more than his due, perhaps; -but she had made a comrade of the shaggy culprit, and -it seemed a cruel death for any dog. So little friendship -came her way. She would miss his stealthy coming to -the cupboard under the stair, her own stealthy journeys -to the larder in search of a bone for him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then, struggle with the feeling as she might, she -began to share Rebecca’s fears for Hardcastle. Suppose, -in sober fact, he was lying somewhere on the -Norbrigg road? Suppose his big, hale body would -never ride the hill-crests again, or taste the savour of -keen moorland weather? She felt the pity of it, and -with pity came remembrance of the tempest they had -shared. But for him, she would have died in the snow. -That would have mattered little, for herself; to her -father it would have meant an end of the last consolation -left him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The pedlar was calling her now. His eyes were -bright and eager when she knelt beside him and took his -cold hands into hers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m seeing all the Highlands, child—not just Ben -Crummock here, or Ben Ore there—but the good, wild -sweep o’ them all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His voice was clear again, vibrant and youthful as -when he went a-Maying.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s as if I was standing on a high mountain—seeing -it all spread out below me—hearing the pipes -sob up from Glencoe, and over Culloden Muir, and out -from the Western Isles.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Never heed their sobbing,” she pleaded.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I will, for it heartens me. Where I stand now—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A tremor shook him, a dry, harsh coughing; but he -was so nearly rid of his body that his high spirit stormed -and conquered it afresh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where I stand now the after-music sounds. The -pipers come, leading our Highland dead—there’s still -a plaining and a sorrow, but the strathspey sounds.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Through blinding tears Causleen saw this courageous -father, stalwart to the end, his vision clear as a boy’s, -his faith indomitable. She was losing him, and soon. -Whenever one of her race neared the threshold of -beyond, the pipers summoned them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They sorrowed here. They’ll come by and by into -all they fought for in the narrow glens, and up the braes—cannot -you see them, girl?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The pedlar strove to rise, because his vision was so -urgent, and fell back, and moaned awhile in helplessness. -Then he glanced at Causleen with quiet humour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Standing on a high hill, was I?” he muttered. -“It was a good dream while it lasted.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then his eyes clouded, and he slept; and Causleen, -roaming the winding passages again, encountered -Rebecca.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’ll only come the one way home to Logie,” -muttered the woman. “He’ll only come the one way -now—stretched on a gate, with four men carrying him. -It was so they brought my man home, forty odd years -since, after <span class='it'>he</span> had said nay to the Garsykes sort.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen, awed by the loneliness of corridors and -stairs that seemed peopled with ghosts, followed -Rebecca as she went to the door, and opened it, and -stood listening.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All’s quiet as yet,” said Rebecca, turning by and -by; “but it’ll not be quiet for long. It’s a queer sort -o’ shuffling noise they make—four men carrying a gate -and something heavy stretched on it. Forty years -since I heard it last! It seems like yesterday.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The girl yielded to the other’s hard, quiet certainty -that Hardcastle was dead—yielded to the wind’s -sobbing in among the half-stripped branches of the -sycamores outside. Again pity touched her—a deeper -pity now. If the Master’s welcome at their first -coming had been chilly, he had bettered it with every -day that followed. She and her father had been -nothing but a burden to him from the start, yet he had -made them guests of honour in his own gruff fashion. -There was the night, too, at the woodmen’s hut. She -had railed at him for saving her; but now she understood. -And it was too late.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca’s lean body grew intent on the sudden. She -stepped out into the moonlight, and presently Causleen -heard, too, the pit-a-pat of hoofs sound up the road.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’re bringing him on horseback, instead of a -gate,” said Rebecca, in the same hard, quiet tone; -“but it’s a dead man rides, and that I know.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen could think no less. The slow clink of -hoofs suggested no living master, riding home to his -own roof-tree and its cheer. Somewhere—in her heart -or mind, she knew not which—there was a sense of -bitter loss. Already, without guessing it, she had -grown to lean on Hardcastle in these days of grief and -home-sickness for the Highlands. And he was gone, -all but the husk of him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The hoof-beats sounded nearer now, and Rebecca’s -stillness broke like thunder-weather. Forty years was -cancelled. It was her own man coming, so she fancied. -In a flash she went through the anguish of that far-off -time—the dead lips making no answer to her kisses, -the limp arms that would never again shield her from -life’s tumults.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She dashed the tears away with a rough, skinny -hand, and saw Causleen there.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s not your fault, or the pedlar’s,” she snapped, -old days and new mingling, with no gap between them—“but -how dare he unfasten his pack and show me -baby-wear?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen, young but tried by many footsore journeys, -had learned insight into such moods as this. She -understood the other’s wild clinging to past grief, as to -a better thing than present joy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He did not know,” she pleaded softly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To be sure. He didn’t know. But he might as -well have put a skewer through my heart.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Rebecca forgot the girl. Standing straight to -her lean height, she reached out her arms, and stood -there calling to the man killed long since by the Lost -Folk. She bade him come quickly, for she had wakened -from a dream that he was dead—bade him step up and -tarry no more—pretended he was here beside her, and -closed her arms about the emptiness, crooning a girl’s -love-welcome.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The slow pit-a-pat of hoofs had rounded the corner -now, and Rebecca woke as from a trance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Get indoors, lass,” she said. “Dead men are no -good sight for young eyes to see.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen answered nothing. She waited, sick with -fear. Step by step the horse brought its burden -nearer. There was no pride in her heart now, no -memory of Hardcastle’s curt welcome—was it a few -weeks ago, or years? She did not know—knew only -that she would miss something that had come into her -life to stay.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The pity of it—oh, the pity,” she cried.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’d rather he died that fashion,” snapped Rebecca, -peering out into the moonlight, “than in a bed he’d -bought by giving tribute Garsykes way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She would not go to meet trouble, and Causleen dared -not. So Hardcastle came leading his horse to the door, -and was astonished to find two women there who gazed -at him as if he came from under some tomb in the -churchyard.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is it your ghost, Master?” quavered Rebecca.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, it’s my body—and damned tired at that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen, before she could check the impulse, ran -forward and touched his sleeve. Long watching -beside her father had weakened her endurance. So -had the suspense that brooded over Logie since the -feud was up.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, thank God,” she said with a sudden rush of tears.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle glanced at her in frank wonder. It was -long since anyone had given him such a welcome home; -yet only yesterday she had shunned him as if he had the -plague. There was the scent of violets in her hair as -it brushed his shoulder—a warm, wet fragrance, born -of the night-time breeze—that unsteadied him. He -had thought himself past that sort of blandishment, -since Nita and he shared courting-days; but his heart -found a quicker beat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She withdrew sharply, ashamed of her weakness and -blaming him for it. “Rebecca was so sure that you -were killed on the way home,” she said. “I could not -comfort her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca herself was in a fine, gusty rage. She had -gone through much in the last hour, and the relief from -foreboding asked for outlet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I will say this, Master, though I let my tongue be -still most times. Outrageous folk, men are. They’ll -go pleasuring to market, in spite o’ Garsykes being out -against ’em. They’ll let their women moil and toil for -’em, and wait their coming—and, like as you might say -for frolic, they’ll come an hour late to supper.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle could understand her wrath no better -than Causleen’s tears. It seemed to him simply that -the two of them were daft. But then most women -were.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was kept,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, you were kept—and the best supper ever -cooked is spoiling to a cinder. And you never stopped -to think I should be picturing you dead on the roadway -all this time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The moon was racing through a scud of cloud, and -Rebecca peered through the silver dusk.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What have you got on your saddle?” she asked -sharply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Storm, poor brute. He fell asleep on the journey, -worn out with it all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca’s gusty mood pointed south-west now, -instead of shrill nor’-east. “Then I’m glad you’re -late. Shepherd Brant was in my kitchen just now, -boasting he’d put lead into Storm at last and that he’d -die of it among the brackens.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He came near it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Maybe; but a miss is as good as a mile. I sent -Brant stamping out, with a flea in his big, hairy ear—and, -as for Storm, poor lamb, we’ll mend his legs for -him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master had lifted Storm already from saddle. -The dog bit feebly at him, and writhed in pain; but his -growling ceased when he found himself in the old -quarters that had grown to be home and respite to him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca ran in search of linen and a cunning ointment -she bought from the gypsies who came peddling -to her door, and then Causleen, wise with dogs, held the -rough head while Hardcastle felt down the maimed -hindquarters.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s nothing broken,” he said, glancing up, -“but Brant fired at close range, damn him. Storm’s -flesh has gaps in it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sheep-slayer had gone through evil days—hunger -while they hunted him, and after it the straddling out -in search of cover after Brant had left him with two legs -to go on instead of four. So he let them do what they -would with him, though Rebecca’s ointment galled his -wounds as she plied them with no gentle fingers. This -was ease after hardship—three folk attentive on him, -and a snug lodging for the night.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The cunning ointment, its bite sharp at first, began to -soothe, and Storm dozed happily.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Poor lamb, he’s bettering now,” said Rebecca, -wiping her fingers on a scrap of linen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle laughed quietly. “There are lambs that -were never born because he slew the ewes. But he’s -ours, Rebecca.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They stood together in the silence. Peril brooded -like thunder-weather over the house of Logie. The -wind, chattering and plucking at the casements, spoke of -stealth, of nameless treacheries closing round about its -walls. The pedlar was crying in his sleep for another -glimpse of Ben Crummock before he died.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Do as they would, gloom spun its webs about them—little, -clinging webs that hindered courage—till Jonah, -the brindled cat, stalked down the passage. Storm’s -protest when they tended the wounds had roused Jonah -from his sleep, and he came to learn what ailed an -ancient comrade. His thick, handsome coat was all -a-bristle, his eyes green and combative.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Jonah paid no heed to Rebecca, but stepped into the -cupboard and glanced at the sheep-slayer, and mewed -restlessly. Storm lifted his head drowsily and growled -a welcome, and the brindled cat curled himself into the -dog’s shaggy neck and looked out on all intruders with -defiance. Then they licked each other once or twice -and fell into a deep slumber of content.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Listen to him,” said Rebecca, with a cackle of glee. -“Listen to vagabones Jonah. He’s purring as loud as -an eight-day clock, Lord bless him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Their eerie hour of dread was broken. Causleen -glanced at the Master, and for the first time since they -shared Logie’s roof they laughed together. Then she -grew wide-eyed and grave again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But your hands are raw!” she cried.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Storm did not know me just at first. They’ll heal,” -said Hardcastle.</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap13'>CHAPTER XIII</h1></div> - -<h3>WILL O’ WISP</h3> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Near dusk of the quiet November day a man came -into Widow Mathison’s inn at Garsykes and -called for a quart of home-brewed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Can you pay?” asked the widow, with her buxom, -loose-lipped smile.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For answer the man took a handful of silver from his -pocket and laid it on the table.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s right enough, and no offence meant. Time -was when I chalked the tally up on my door—but I -tired o’ that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You would—from all I hear of Garsykes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, they’re free enough with their money when -they have any. It’s just that they seldom have.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The widow, after bustling to serve him, went on with -her interrupted dusting of the china dogs on the mantel, -till curiosity got the better of her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you travelled far, like?” she asked over her -shoulder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not so very,” chuckled the stranger, “though I -came near to going a very far way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You don’t say, now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, but I do say.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And where might it be you nearly went?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, as you ask me—hell.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The stranger chuckled afresh as he buried his head -in his pewter-pot. And Long Murgatroyd came -striding in.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dry, Murgatroyd?” asked the widow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Like a kiln.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I never knew a man so punctual, as you might say, -to a thirst. Tend it, you do, as a woman tends her -babby.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd was in one of his better moods, and -gave as much as he took in the way of banter before -settling himself in the corner by the ingle-nook. Then -he glanced at the stranger.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where do you come from?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Bless me, the landlady was putting that same -question to me a minute since.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye,” snapped the widow, “and all the answer I -got for my trouble was that he’d nearly journeyed -further than he relished—journeyed to——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You needn’t be squeamish. Hell was what I said—if -there <span class='it'>is</span> such a place.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd turned on him with a sudden snarl. -“There is. I don’t need to travel, for I’m in it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The door was pushed open again, and two more -Garsykes Men came in, bringing the smell of a soft, -wet breeze across the stale sawdust of the tavern -floor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They in turn glanced curiously at the stranger, but -he forestalled them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m going to be first with a question this time. Is -it true that such as me is safe in Garsykes?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That all depends,” said Murgatroyd, recovering his -good humour. “Have you done aught again the -law?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A tidy bit in my time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Such as?” growled one of the late comers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, the last thing I did, as I said, was to come -nearer Kingdom Come than ever I’d been in my life. A -running post-boy was due, not a hundred miles from -where we’re sitting, and I wanted what he’d got.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That was no more than reasonable, as you might -say.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’d got more than I bargained for—a pistol and a -spirit of his own. I closed with him just in time—and -here’s the mark of the bullet where it grazed my -neck.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They saw the red weal he turned to them, then -glanced at the silver he had thrown on the table.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Was that all you got for your trouble?” asked -Murgatroyd. “You’re not safe here, my lad, if you -show the silver and keep the guineas hid.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The stranger got up, and clapped his empty pockets, -and bade the men search him; but his rueful smile made -it clear that he was hiding no ill-gotten gains.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was searching for the guineas when a man galloped -over the hill—a big man—and spat a pistol at me -as I ran. That bullet, too, touched me—on the leg -this time. So I took cover, and headed straight for -Garsykes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The three men laughed, and so did Widow Mathison.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You did right,” said the widow. “By what you say, -it was our masterful Man o’ Logie rode at you; but even -he durst not come seeking you in Garsykes. We’re -seeking him instead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Carried a pistol, did he?” grumbled Murgatroyd. -“Well, there’s one boast gone from Logie. The -Master said he’d face us all with no more than his two -fists and a stick to help him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The stranger called for bread-and-cheese and another -pot of ale.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why are you seeking him?” he asked lazily.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Because he’s too big for his boots, and always was. -So now he’s got all Garsykes against him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then he’s wise to carry a pistol, I should say.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He swore he wouldn’t.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, but I’d have found a quick change o’ mind -myself—if Garsykes pressed me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd eyed him with sombre doubt. “What’s -you’re name when you’re at home, my lad? You -seem to know a lot about Garsykes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I haven’t a home. That’s why I’m known as Will -o’ Wisp.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The Master of Logie touched you with a bullet—and -you sit grinning there as if he’d given you ale and -crumpets.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I never cry over spilled luck. That’s what the -road teaches a free-striding man. Besides, there was -comfort met me on a little, grey brig o’ stone.” The -man’s eyes twinkled with random, inborn gaiety. “I -never saw such a lass in my life—slim and like a posy, -and she was weaving a basket.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd stirred restlessly, but his neighbour -kicked him by stealth and whispered in his ear.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That would be Nita,” said the widow—“Nita, the -basket-maker, as we call her. Poor bairn, she was left -an orphan——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That doesn’t trouble her now,” broke in Will o’ -Wisp, with his heedless laugh. “She smiled so kindly -as I went by that I asked the way to Garsykes. And -it ended with my sitting on the brig beside her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It does,” said Murgatroyd, heavily. “It always -ends like that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again his shin was kicked, and Widow Mathison took -up the tale they were spinning round the stranger like a -web.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She’s of the better sort, you see, and our Garsykes -Men are rough. No wonder that she smiled at the likes of -you. I’d have done as much myself when I was younger.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The widow’s right. Nita’s too trim a lass for such -as us. That’s why she looks over our heads when we -think o’ courting.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You don’t court properly, then,” said Will o’ Wisp, -with a wink of infinite zest and roguery. “There’s -three ways of courting a pretty wench, and only three.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, aye?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The first is, be sure of winning. So’s the second. -And the third——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s the third?” prompted Widow Mathison.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Be sure of winning,” Will o’ Wisp chuckled, and -buried his face in the pewter-pot.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was so pleased with the hum of laughter that -answered his idle pleasantry—pleased to be safe among -Lost Folk again after hunger and thirst among the -righteous—and his tongue wagged freely.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They plied him with strong ale that night, and -Murgatroyd, when he left him sleeping on the long-settle, -went laughing out of the tavern door. He -would watch another go through what he had suffered—would -watch, and gloat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd glanced up the grey fells, as he swayed -unsteadily for a moment when the breeze found the ale -in him. Then he strode up to his cottage under -Scummer Rigg.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Will o’ Wisp courts Will o’ Wisp,” he muttered, -with a big, joyous hiccough. “The devilment there’ll -be in Garsykes.”</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>About five of that November evening, Hardcastle -had come to his house of Logie and heard a woman’s -voice as he stepped into the hall after stabling his horse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now, Storm, be quiet,” she chided. “You’ve had -two weeks of nursing, and you’re nearly well. I’ll not -have you snap at me. But then all sick folk are that -way,” she went on, coaxing and scolding in the same -breath.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was changing the sheep-slayer’s bandages, and -glanced up at Hardcastle with a smile of welcome.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s strong enough to need a male nurse now. -Will you do the rest?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm tried his fretful temper on the Master, but not -for long. He did not whimper even as the ointment -stung and galled before it soothed; for he knew that -the days of his pamperdom were nearly over—and that -Hardcastle knew it, too.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he had licked himself for a while, then settled -into sleep, Causleen and Hardcastle stood in the -draughty hall, glancing at each other with the new -understanding that had come by stealth to them -during these last days.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Donald—how is he?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A little nearer the end.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle had driven pity out of his life, had -bruised it with his heel at every turn. He was impatient -to find it stirring faintly now.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wish Logie was a safer lodging for you. You’ve -trouble enough of your own.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The note in his voice, the haunted look that showed -in his eyes for a moment and was gone, told her of some -encounter on the road to-night.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is it Long Murgatroyd again, with a rope across the -highway?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What do you know of that?” he snapped.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, you hid the news well enough, but gossip -brought it. What happened to-night as you rode from -Norbrigg?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nothing that mattered—for me. But for you and -Donald——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It matters for all of us, or none,” she broke in, her -glance questioning and steady.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” he said roughly. “The end for Logie is sure, -so far as I can see. But I’d hoped the house would last -Donald’s time. He’s earned a peaceful end.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen seemed ever to be finding some unexpected -waywardness in Hardcastle. He waged the feud so -quietly, with such contempt for his own safety, that -she had thought him deaf to what was no news on Logie-side. -He, too, was aware that his house was doomed, -it seemed; yet he found time to think of Donald.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What happened to-night?” she asked again. -“I’d rather have the tale from you than wait for -gossip.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So then he told her of his ride up-fell from Norbrigg, -and how he found a post-boy holding his own with -hardship against a footpad.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I sent a bullet after him—and, the last I saw of the -rogue, he was limping hard for Garsykes. It’s only -one more count in their tally against me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You could buy your house—at a price,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What price?” He was rough and hard on the -instant—rough as Storm, sleeping his sickness off in the -cupboard near at hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You could give them tribute.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And sell Logie’s honour? I couldn’t. Seven -hundred years would rive open the graves down yonder, -where dead Hardcastles lie. They’d rise and flout me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen’s eyes glowed bright and clear. “It would -be so easy,” she said, tempting him, “to pay a little to -them every now and then—and your house safe—and -no ropes stretched across night-roads.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle glowered down at her. “And no peace -by day or night. Logie would know. Her timbers -would creak and groan. She’d loose her ancient -ghosts on me—and God knows every house has ghosts -enough of that sort. You’re mad to talk of giving -tribute.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She had probed to the core of him, as she had meant; -and a great need came to her, out of the weary years -behind, to speak of the tribute asked of Donald and -herself—which had been denied in face of odds as great -as he was facing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Two pedlars came to your door,” she said, with a -flash of the old grievance. “You counted us as such, -and no more.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And shall never be forgiven.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m tired and out of heart, and you have been kind—kinder -than you need have been. And we still -intrude.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” said Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>That was all; but his denial had a new ring of truth -about it, though she could find no reason for the change.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We had lands of our own once,” she went on by and -by—“lands and a house like yours. But they went.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was a tearless grief, too deep for Hardcastle -to fathom, in those three words, “But they went.” -Logie was going, unless a miracle arrived; but he would -die with the house, when the last onset of the Garsykes -Men prevailed. He had no such parting to face as -Causleen had gone through—exile from a homestead -whose every stone and draughty corridor was loved like -a second self. Logie and he, when their time came, -would face the Trump o’ Doom together.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Tell me more,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>While she halted, fearing that grief would get the -better of her, Rebecca came down the passage with a -martial tread. The brindled cat was on her shoulder, -his fur raised in warlike challenge, too.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Logie lands breed slack-come-by men these days, -Master. Such a twitter as there’s been in my kitchen. -You’d have fancied women were talking, though they -wore breeks.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Who were they, Rebecca?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Phineas Rowbotham first, squealing that he was a -man of peace. Bloodshed was a sin, said he, and why -shouldn’t we pay our way with the Garsykes Folk—living, -and letting live. I was dusting his jacket with -a rolling-pin when another steps in with the same tale, -and another. So I swept them out, and barred the -door. Jonah spat at ’em from my shoulder, same as -he’s sitting now. Jonah knows men’s flesh and blood -from chicken-meat. Spat and growled at ’em, he did, -as a man cat should.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen felt a sudden sense of home. Hardcastle -had not the Highland speech, nor Rebecca; but they -three were one in the spirit to endure. And Storm -and the brindled cat were with them.</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap14'>CHAPTER XIV</h1></div> - -<h3>NITA</h3> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Garsykes was stirred to grim and crafty mirth -during the next weeks. November had brought -its little spell of summer between fall of the -leaves and winter’s onset. Primroses bloomed here -and there in favoured nooks. The sun was constant, -from dawn till nightfall, in a blue and happy sky, -and birds began to think of courtship.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So did Will o’ Wisp. In all his careless, vagabond -life he had found none like Nita; and she smiled at -him whenever they met by stream or coppice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Our men are rough and savage,” she would say. -“They frighten me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Will o’ Wisp would yield to the slender helplessness -of this girl who showed him open favour. -And all Garsykes laughed, to watch the stranger -going the way of many men before him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She has him in her lap,” growled Long Murgatroyd, -sitting in the inn one afternoon among his cronies, -“and the Lord knows which o’ them I’d like to throttle -first.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Choose Nita,” they answered, in snarling chorus.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Happen I will,” said Murgatroyd, and fell back -into the sullen brooding that shadowed his every -thought these days.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Will o’ Wisp cared nothing at all for what they -said of him in Garsykes. He cared only to be with -Nita Langrish, to grow wilder each day for her elusive -beauty.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On one of these windless, moist afternoons, near -dusk, he came from the benty lands and found her -at the bridge that spanned Crooning Water.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s a fine hare you’re dangling in your hand,” -she said, with a welcoming smile.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was thinking to leave it at your door as I went -by.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’d best come with you, then, as soon as I’ve -finished my basket. Hares left at Garsykes doors -don’t stay there long.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They wouldn’t,” agreed Will o’ Wisp, with a -random laugh. “I should have thought of that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’d best keep it, after all. What do I know -of the way to skin it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I should have thought of that, too. I’ll bring it -dressed for cooking—and don’t blame me if it looks -like a plump, naked cat.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She seemed to invite him to sit on the parapet -beside her; but when he tried to put an arm about her, -it grasped only empty space. Nita was on the far -side of the bridge, as if by magic, threading her withies.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They used to cut the willows for me,” she said by -and by, her voice soft as the breeze that fluted down -the stream. “And now I have to cut them myself. -See how rough my hands are.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They were held out to him—slim, shapely hands—and -he was mad to take them. But Nita was already -standing in the roadway, and laughed as she dangled -the finished basket to and fro.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This is for little Tabitha, up dale. Seventy odd -and a spinster, she. The last I made was for a bride. -I wonder what drollery will come to them both, when -they take their baskets over-arm?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Will o’ Wisp’s crisp good-humour failed him. The -girl stood there, all of her but the grey eyes young as -June about these winter highlands; but the eyes were -old, unfathomable.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What drollery should come?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You would not understand. I cannot help it, -but I’ve a trick of weaving spells into my baskets. -Whoever I make one for, I get a picture of her in my -mind, and ply the willows in and out with a sort of -prayer, you might say, that my basket will teach her -just the daft contrary-wise of what she thought she -was. And it comes true, Will o’ Wisp.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then suddenly the grey eyes were young again, -and smiling into his. “Was I seeing far? It comes -of foregathering with gypsies. One of them talked -to me just now of Logie and its Master.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The man who tried to stop me with a bullet?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you bear no malice, Will o’ Wisp?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I should do,” he chuckled, “but, thanks be, I -harbour none o’ that. I’ve seen too much of it in -my time—eating into men like a plague.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’d have had the post-boy’s money in your -pocket, but for Hardcastle. And what cause had -he to interfere?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“His bullet only flicked me. Next time I’ll flick -him, maybe, and settle that little account between -us. But, as for malice, I wouldn’t sour myself with -it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re not like the Garsykes sort. They’d gnaw -at what Hardcastle did to you, as a dog gnaws at a -bone, never letting it rest.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“More fools they. I’m a rogue by nature and choice—a -light-hearted one—and fancied they’d be all like -that in Garsykes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You fancied wrong, Will o’ Wisp. Honour among -thieves—Robin Hood and his merry men—you looked -to find all that in Garsykes? You’re young.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And you’re young,” he broke in heedlessly. “You -were talking of spells you wove into your baskets, -Nita—as if baskets mattered. You’ve woven them -round a man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Or half a man?” she mocked. “One who lets -Hardcastle pistol him and daren’t answer.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Will o’ Wisp grew taut as a bow-string on the sudden. -“<span class='it'>Dare not</span> never shadowed me since I was breeked. -I’ve little to boast about except that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They went together up the road, and turned into -the track that led between lean, benty lands to -Garsykes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If Hardcastle had done a wrong to me?” she -asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He gripped her shoulder till she winced. “I’d -kill him,” he said simply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A man, are you, after all?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was born one, as it happened.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, it’s not so bad as to ask murder,” said Nita, -her voice gentle as a dove’s. “Hardcastle slighted -me—no more than that—took the heart out of my -body and threw it away for frolic.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Did he?” said Will o’ Wisp.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not murder,” she pleaded, her hand like velvet -on his arm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s as maybe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So then she cried, and he fell to comforting her; -and afterwards she set the width of the roadway -between them as they went through Garsykes village.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Prying eyes looked out on them from Widow Mathison’s -inn, and Long Murgatroyd fetched a great laugh -as he stood looking out of the window.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s another o’ Nita’s goes by. To-morrow -he’ll be where most of us have been in our time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd spoke truth. On the next day Will o’ -Wisp was busy in the swampy hollow where Nita’s -willows grew. The Garsykes Men, when they got -late abroad, did not pause for banter as they passed. -They let the newcomer hang himself in Nita’s silken -toils, and so much for him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So it went for many days, till Will o’ Wisp began to -lose his content with life as he found it. There were -times when he came into the inn and sat silent on the -settle, till at last the widow rallied him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re getting heavy as Murgatroyd. What’s -amiss with your easy-go-lucky handling of things as -they come?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How should I know? Draw me a quart of ale, -and maybe that will cure me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Maybe it will—and likely it willun’t. But -Nita’s good for my trade, and always was.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I said naught about Nita.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No. But you were thinking of her. Will o’ -Wisp, my lad, I’ve a liking for you, and I’m old enough -to be your mother. Quit Nita Langrish, before she -binds her spell too fast.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The rough sympathy was too much for him. He -had gone through evil days—through beguilement -that promised all, and gave nothing but the slant -flight of a snipe as it raced down-wind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The spell’s over me, fast and hard,” he said, and -laughed—but not with the old relish.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>The next day Nita came home by way of the Long -Spinney that raked down from Logie to the grey hill-fastness -where her village lurked. Her step was -buoyant. She had sold her baskets, and had another -man in thrall at Garsykes. All was well with her, -till a gunshot cracked from the spinney, and Hardcastle -came presently down the lane between the -thick-set firs and sycamores, dangling a hare.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At sight of him—big and careless, as if the world -were his—Nita lost all content. There was one who -had escaped her snare, and she coveted him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The man they call Will o’ Wisp brought me just -such a hare—and it was one of yours, I fancy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Did he? I’m taking mine to Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For the pedlar’s brat to share?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, as yet, knew nothing of his heart; -but Nita read it in his stubborn quietness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What did you say to her, that day you met her -on the road?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Something that brought burning to her cheeks. -Do you think, because you’re Hardcastle of Logie, -you can share a hut for the night with a lass and hear -no more about it—snowstorm or no?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There are times,” he said slowly, “when I wonder -why one or another of the Garsykes Men doesn’t cut -out that tongue of yours and nail it where the gamekeeper——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nails vermin?” said Nita gently. “I witch -them, Hardcastle of Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle longed to pass by, and could not. Surely -what they said of her was false. She was so fresh -and innocent, like a morning in mid-April.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I witch them, Dick, and care for none—since -you went out of my life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again she was witching him, too. All that was -rough and a man in him had asked always for a frail -thing like Nita to guard—something that would need -his strength and lean on it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They were good days, and I lost them,” she went on.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was as if a net of cobwebs hindered him. She -was close, and woe-begone, and pleading. Then he -remembered how it had gone long since—his stormy, -honest wooing—and the end of that good dream. -He recalled the barren years, his loathing of all women -for Nita’s sake—Nita’s, who had played him false.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re of Garsykes,” he said, “and the new days -are in.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I might have been of Logie once. I was a fool. -Have you no pity, Dick?” She put a hand on his -sleeve. “You’re built out of limestone rock—hard -and unforgiving.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Just hard, Nita.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And buying acres here and there, to add to Logie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I bought a farm yesterday—Nicholas Wade’s, who -died in his bed at ninety. Yes, I’m buying acres.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Wouldn’t you save them, Dick? I’m of the -Wilderness—and there are only six of yours that do -not cringe to Garsykes. You’re almost alone against -us now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Maybe—but the six are staunch.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita would have welcomed rage—his hands at her -throat, for what she had done to him in days gone -by—but she fretted at this cold hardihood that was -so resolute.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you no pity?” she asked again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I keep such for Logie these times.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then suddenly he found her hands in his, and the old -beguilement was about him. She had tempted him -before, when the feud was new and heady in his veins, -and he had hope of saving Logie. Now he had no -hope, except to face the last assault of Garsykes when -it came, and die with the house whose every rafter-beam -he loved. Six of his men had proved leal. -The rest were chaff blowing down the winds of chance—folk -cringing for daily bread to Garsykes, and paying -toll as if they cared not for the shame of licking dirty -boots.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>All was in the losing. And here was Nita, her arms -soft about him. What did it matter, if he took and -claimed her, and earned restful days for Logie?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The fight was over almost before he knew it had -begun. Pride played its own part. He would not -yield, though twenty Garsykes came against him. -But, deep under pride, lay some inner depth whose -waters had not been stirred till now. Nita and her -spells grew shadowy and weak. He was a free man -again, and some new, undreamed-of world seemed to -open out before him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita stood at arm’s length now, wondering at the -man’s stubbornness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So we’re both fools, it seems,” she said. “I lost -Logie once for vanity—and now you’re losing it for -pride.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A twig snapped in the wood behind them, and Hardcastle -turned sharply. He saw only a shaking of the -pine-branches; but Nita had seen more.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Afraid that one from Garsykes would club you -from behind?” she mocked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not afraid—but sure it would be from behind, -if at all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How you loathe us, Dick—and how we loathe you in -turn. Listen. I’m as you see me—not ugly, they -say—and there’s a mad-dog fury there in Garsykes. -They want to burn your house to-morrow, and I will -not let them.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why?” snapped Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I hope to be mistress there. Would I let them -burn a house I shared?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll never share it,” he said bluntly, stung by -her careless trust in her own beauty and its power.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita stood regarding him for a moment, then laughed—a -little, eerie laugh that had an edge of steel. “I’ll -not let them burn the house for another reason now. -It would be too easy a way out for its pride-sick -master. You’re glancing at the wood again? It was -no Garsykes face that peeped between the branches.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Whose was it, then?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, whose? You’ll learn soon enough—and, -after all, it’s only one more trouble to your load.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A silence followed, heavy and brooding as thunder-weather -brewing up. Nita, used to swaying men by -her lightest smile, had done all to bring Hardcastle -into captivity again. She had failed, and the Master -drew back a pace or two, appalled by what he saw in -the girl’s face and dove-like eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I shall teach them the way of better sport with -Logie than burning it. You’d only die once in the -flames. For weeks, maybe—or months—the Wilderness -will let you go your ways. A mischance here and -there, to let you know we’re not asleep—the waiting -for a blow that will surely come at last—do you think -pride will carry any man through that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” said Hardcastle, and went up the pastures, -swinging the hare he carried.</p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita turned at last, when he was out of sight, and -went down the track to Garsykes. Heart she had -none to be wounded, but vanity was touched to the -quick. Hardcastle would never be moved by her -spells from this to the Crack o’ Doom, and with the -knowledge came a passionate gust of hate.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was in this mood that she encountered Will o’ -Wisp, lumbering to the inn on heavy feet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re not your own merry self,” she said. “What -ails you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nita Langrish ails me. I get no rest for wanting -of you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why do all the men go daft for the little basket-weaver? -I never ask it, Will o’ Wisp.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Maybe,” he growled, “but the lord Harry knows -you maze us. I could throttle you where we stand, -Nita—just for love of doing it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You couldn’t. I’d put a hand on your arm—like -this—and I’d ask you to be gentle with little Nita. -And, see, you could not hurt me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The man stood there, smiling foolishly, and lost -to all but the girl’s low, pleading voice. And she -began to play on his infirmities, as skilled fingers -might touch a fiddle’s strings, till she brought him -to her purpose. It was true that she had checked -the Wilderness Men in their second plot to fire Logie. -It had been true, till her meeting with Logie’s Master, -that she had crooned happily to herself as she wove -her baskets, and planned the long do-little time which -should break Hardcastle’s spirit and his pride before -they broke his body. But now she could not wait.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Vanity, restless and impatient, cried for solace -to its wounds.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why do I fret you so, Will o’ Wisp?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s past my wits to say. Happen you know -yourself, and happen you don’t.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s Hardcastle of Logie, and not one in -Garsykes dares bring him down—for my sake.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For your sake?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. You’re half-men, all of you, or we’d be rid -of him. I met him up the pastures awhile since, -and he—he was not kind. If I’d had you with me, -Will o’ Wisp—but you were drinking strong ale, -likely, instead of being at my side.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was lad-mooning up and down the fields, sick -of my fancy for you. And naught ever comes of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lad-moon no more, Will. Be up and doing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How?” he asked bluntly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re not his match in strength—but little folk -are given nimble wits. He took a pistol to you once.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He did,” muttered Will, urged now by a rancour -Nita had fostered diligently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And it’s turn and turn about in this life. Borrow -Murgatroyd’s fowling-piece to-morrow——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And creep up to Logie with it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s no need. All gossip comes to little Nita, -and I can tell you the way home Hardcastle will be -taking, near dusk. It lies yonder, where the track -dips down from Pengables—and, when you’ve fired, -Will o’ Wisp, you’ve no more to do than slip home to -Garsykes for your welcome.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What sort of welcome?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’d find me, for one. What I’d give the man -who rid Logie-side of Hardcastle—but, then, you’re -only half-man, maybe, like the rest.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that, Will o’ Wisp was in the toils again; -and as they went down to Garsykes, the basket-weaver -nestled close against him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, meanwhile, had taken his own grim way -to Logie—over the bridge of many memories and up -the winding steep of the road. His gate, when he -reached it, held memories, too, and he fingered the -arrow-head left there as a token before the autumn -trees were stripped. He kept it in his pocket nowadays, -for luck.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A stable-lad, sweeping the lane, touched his forelock -as Hardcastle came by.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s been Farmer Draycott to see you, Master, -but he couldn’t wait till you came back. You -promised to go to Broken Firs to-morrow about -repairs, and he stepped up to remind you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’d not forgotten,” said Hardcastle carelessly—“though -it’s a long message for you to carry, William.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The lad grinned sheepishly. “It did twist the few -wits I’ve got; but I just kept on saying it over and -over—not letting go in a manner o’ speaking, like as -if I stuck to a rope.—And, Master——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’d not go if I was you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle glanced at him with gruff kindliness; -for all Logie humoured this lad of the strong hands and -the lame wits.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You wouldn’t go?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not if Guytrash yelped behind and druv me forrard. -I’d choose Trash, I would, instead o’ Broken Firs. -Why d’ye go, Master?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Because I said I’d go—so fret no more, William, -and take this hare up to the kitchen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He missed the wistful, dog-like glance that followed -him up the lane. He was thinking of Nita Langrish—of -Causleen, who was a guest thrust on him against -his will. Donald the pedlar wearied him, too, though -he hated himself for the thought that pensioners -lingered in their dying. Surely there was enough to -face these days, without useless burdens to carry on -one’s back! What did he owe Donald and his girl? -Why were they here, when Logie asked for all his -strength, and no weaklings in the house?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet, when he came under his own roof, he was -aware of loneliness. Donald, as he glanced into the -room, was sleeping tranquilly. Rebecca, far down -the passage, seemed to be at war with Jonah, the -brindled cat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A vagabones I call you, lapping cream all day -and doing naught,” came the shrill voice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again Hardcastle wearied of it all. Peril, of the -stealthy kind that he was fighting, had made his body -lean and nagged at his spirit till it was raw with wounds. -Something was absent—something he had come to -look for on returning—and he grew restless and -impatient.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca came down the passage by and by, Jonah -perched on her shoulder after the last of their soon-over -quarrels. With swift and savage intuition she -knew what ailed the Master.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The pedlar does well enough. Are you worrying -about him?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” said Hardcastle, tall and sombre.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As for his girl, she came in awhile since like a -child o’ Belial. After she’d seen to Donald, she was -frost and venom. She wouldn’t speak—I could have -thoyled it better that road—but flounced about in her -quiet, proud way, till I could have bitten her. Then -she went out o’ doors—at this time o’ night, and with -all Garsykes stirring for aught we know—and she’s -not come back.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle turned to the rack, reached for a fowling-piece -and looked to the priming. Then, without a -word to Rebecca, he went into the soft November -night and stood listening for the cry of one in trouble. -None came. A sickle moon lay cradled in the tree-tops, -shining on a land of misty quiet; and in that -moment Hardcastle learned something of the heart -he had thought walled-up for ever.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He called, and silence answered. Crying louder and -louder still, he went up and down the pastures, through -the home-spinney and out into Chantry Meadow where -the cowslips grew in spring. He began to weave -pictures of Garsykes Men surrounding her from every -corner of these empty wastes, and quickened pace, -and went circling hither and thither like a man distraught. -Gusty anger found him, passionate question -why she had left Logie’s shelter—fear reached him, of -a kind unknown till now—and again his cry rang -out—his heart’s cry of <span class='it'>Causleen</span>.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A bunch of sheep, huddled under the wall, got up -and ran bleak-witted past him. That was the only -answer. And now his own littleness appalled Hardcastle. -Measured by the striding loneliness of Logie-land, -he seemed small and of no account. He must -get back, and saddle a horse, and rouse the country-side. -If they found Causleen safe—if they found -her safe—his mind stayed there awhile, glad to believe -it till he was half-way back to Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then his mind raced forward. If they found her -dead, or worse, he’d gather his roving company into -a band that would burn Garsykes from one end to -the other of its styes. Hardcastle, the magistrate who -once had scrupled to carry a gun against the Lost -Folk, was growing fast these days.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He came to his own door, wrath and fear between -them making havoc of him. And there stood Causleen, -looking quietly out across the trees.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Surely you heard me call?” snapped Hardcastle, -with quick relief.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I heard.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then why the devil, child, didn’t you answer? -I’ve been sick with fear for you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is that true?” she asked. “There’s no other -could make you sick with fear of that sort?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle was no easy man to live with these days. -His temper was brittle as a file, and here was the pedlar’s -girl, cross-questioning him after the turmoil he had -gone through.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was a fool,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And why?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To get my heart into my mouth because——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Because, Hardcastle of Logie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Rebecca told me you’d gone out alone, as if there -were no Wilderness Men skulking round the house.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And you cared to go in search?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was a fool,” said Hardcastle again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She glanced at him once, in the light of the young, -keen moon—and laughed at him with quiet derision—and -went indoors, to find Rebecca waiting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Back, are you? Well, it’s time. The Master’s -been daft about you—and Jonah sits atop o’ your -shoulder now, instead o’ mine—so I’m getting jealous -all ways. What made you go?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The owls were hooting in Logie Wood. They -seemed to call me,” said Causleen, aloof and cold.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Pack o’ nonsense. Why couldn’t you let the -hullets get on with their decent hunting? It was the -dratted voles and rats they were crying for. And now -you’ll want supper, on top of my hard day’s work.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I—I could not eat, Rebecca. So you’re spared -that trouble.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca, noting the girl’s sudden pallor, was grimmer -than before.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Spared more from your pack o’ nonsense, am I? -I’ll see to that. It’s a good, square meal you need, -my lass.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen faced her with a dignity so aloof that it -daunted even tough Rebecca. “I eat as little as -may be of your Master’s food.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that she was gone up the windy stairway, -like a Highland storm across her own far moors; and -presently Hardcastle came in, dour and stubborn.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“William brought you the hare?” he asked, finding -Rebecca still in the hall, chewing the cud of her defeat -at Causleen’s hands.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, and more. He prayed me draw you back -from going to Broken Firs to-morrow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What of that? William’s wits were never strong.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But his far-sight is. Suppose he’s right, Master—and -suppose you knew he was right—would you -still go up to Michael Draycott’s?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What else should I do?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A lean, hard smile wrinkled the woman’s lips. -“Aye,” she said. “Aye. That’s Logie, through and -through.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap15'>CHAPTER XV</h1></div> - -<h3>THE HINDERED VENTURE</h3> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Michael Draycott was waiting for him -at the gate when Hardcastle came over the -moor to Broken Firs the next afternoon, and -he nodded a cheery greeting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re on the very stroke of the time you promised, -Master.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have to be, Michael. You’re so often near dying -that a minute beyond might be too late.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now, I willun’t have that old joke thrown at me,” -chuckled the farmer. “Maybe I have my fancies, -like one here and there; but I do get up from my -death-bed wonderful regular.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And then you want to dip into my pockets for -repairs. It would pay me to keep you ill in bed.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not in the long run, when roofs began to gape and -gates dropped all to bits. There’d be a tidier penny -to pay then than now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have it your own way, Michael, but remember -I’m a poor man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The ancient ritual went its way, as they moved -from one corner to another of the trim farmstead—Hardcastle -with shrewd reluctance, Michael with deep -resolve to get all he wanted, and a little more.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The little more was broached as Hardcastle was -leaving, after a wide-spread meal in the farmstead’s -parlour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Talking of mistals——” said Michael.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We didn’t happen to be.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, but we were thinking o’ them. That one -yonder would be all the better if it was doubled in size. -The farm’s prospering so, I’ve scarcely room for my -beasts to turn about in.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, Michael, you’re bound to die soon, in one of -those bad turns of yours. You’d better be thinking -of your latter end, instead of farm-buildings.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The man’s weather-red face grew plump with laughter. -“I’m not on such nodding-terms with death as -I used to be, Master. There’s summat in this durned -feud with Garsykes that makes me want to live to a -hundred and three.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Six of us feel like that,” said Hardcastle, glancing -down to where Garsykes caught the last of the crimson -sun-glow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, and six o’ that sort can be fifty or two-score -when need asks. I couldn’t have thought it—the -way old bones grow young in these good times.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>All they had shared of peril lay silent between them, -but confessed, as they watched the last glow redden -and die out across the Garsykes hollow, leaving it to -a grey, disastrous sleep.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll go agateards with you, Master,” said Draycott -by and by—“lest young blood gets the better of you, -and you run single-handed into yond foul stye.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s no likelihood, Michael. I’m ready for -them if they come to Logie, and it stands at that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, but you’re young. And youth can’t bide to -wait sometimes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Michael went with him as far as the turn of the track, -where the heather ran down to the pastures; and then -he bade him a hale good-night and God-speed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve a sick heifer needing me, Master—and, forgive -me, I was thinking of the feud instead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle swung down the track. The sun had -westered now about these higher slopes, and dusk overtook -him as he reached the top of the sheep-track that -wound to Logie. Across the frost-haze of the valley, -lights twinkled out from Garsykes one by one, and he -laughed grimly as he stood and watched them. Tired -wayfarers might mistake them for stars of hope, -might blunder out of the hill-top wastes into such -welcome as waited for them there.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A harsh joy in feud came to him. The end of Logie -was sure as anything could be in this world, but he -would hold his good house to the last. There would be -no surrender, and with a quick flash of humour he -pictured Rebecca playing a besom heftily amid the -flaming havoc of her kitchen. And Storm, maybe, -after much red sheep-slaying, would kill a man or two -of the Wilderness, and so die an honest dog.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The old days of peace and money-getting were -remote as a dream remembered on waking to full life. -Out there, behind the twinkling lamp-gleams, were -men and women plotting now, no doubt, some crafty -lighter blow before they came in force against the -house.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Death had seemed, in those old days, an end to life, -a sorrowful laying away of folk under green turf that -stopped their ears for ever to the wheeling cries of -moor-birds—closed their nostrils to savour of wind -and sun and rain across the striding lands—ended all -things and all joy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now, as he stood looking over the wandering valley -mists, he seemed, for one bewildering moment, to see -with clearer vision. For Logie’s honour he had grappled -with the three gaunt men who met him at the -pinfold—was it weeks or years ago?—and since then -death had shadowed him. Aye, but was death more -than a stride from one life to another? What if, -for men who had loved the homeland, there were wider -moors beyond, and sweeter winds and lustier joy in -strength?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The thought stayed with him. New horizons -widened over widening hill-spaces. What if death -were no wormy end of life, but a beginning of new days?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No breeze ruffled these upland wastes. Little -frets of night-time life stirred among the gnarled -heather and the bents. The land’s soul was in a mood -as deep and still as Hardcastle’s, and a fine communion -held between the Master who was a lover to his acres, -the acres that loved him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He roused himself at last, with another laugh at -Garsykes and himself, and was turning to swing down -the sheep-track when a cry broke sharp as a pistol-shot -across the moor. It sounded close at hand. -Then a second cry came—far-off, it seemed—and -another. Hardcastle peered through the dark that -had scarcely served to show him a yard of the track -ahead. He could see nothing, but the cries rose to a -shriek of terror, and he ran forward, this way and that, -forgetting that the moor was thick with ambush. -Twice he sucked a foot out from the bog, and once he -blundered against a rock that cut deep.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still the cries sounded, weaker now. The darkness -baffled hearing, as well as sight, after a fashion of -its own. Someone was dying, near at hand, and -Hardcastle could not find him. The failing cries -maddened his will to save—the will that would have -gone through six-foot drifts to save sheep over-blown.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the grey haze lifted. A brave, young moon -shone over Logie-land—over the misty hollow, and -across to Garsykes—and, not twenty paces off, Hardcastle -saw a little lad, half of him buried in green slime. -In his haste to get to him, the Master was all but lost -himself; for his heavier weight crashed through the -ooze that was less firm even than true bogland. He -sank to his knees before touching firm ground on the -sloping brink of the marsh, then reached forward and -gripped the lad’s upstretched arms; and never afterwards, -in trying to recall what followed, could he -remember anything but a struggle that seemed endless. -Each tug, to drag the boy towards him, unsteadied -his own foothold; and, when he had him in his arms, -the fight to regain dry land again brought every muscle -thick-standing and near to breaking-point.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They came to firm ground at last, and the boy clung -about him with piteous cries.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I want my mammy—oh, I want my mammy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, I can’t be that—and, be damned to you, -you’re a wet sort of lad to father. Where d’ye hail -from, laddie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“From Garsykes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle glanced across the narrow valley, and -back again to the boy. Tired as he was, exasperated -by the simple answer, the humour of it all appealed -to him. Apart from peril of other marshes he might -blunder into, how could he let this waif go lonely with -his fright across the mile that would seem endless -leagues to him—the mile that stretched between this -and Garsykes?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was nothing for it but to go—a fool, knowing -the way of the Lost Folk and their mercies—into the -midst of what they had in store for him. Rebel as -he would against suicide of this sort, he could not -thrust aside a lad who shivered as he clung to him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So they two went across the moonlit wilderness, -picking their way between the bogs and the broken -grounds. It was not easy going. The light was -enough to show them a safe way till clouds came over -the moon’s face now and then, and they were alone -with darkness and the unfenced mines that lurked -for heedless feet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle’s temper grew rusty as a file. He was -taking all these pains for one of Garsykes brats, and -the brat was wet and clinging. He wearied of the lad’s -piteous crying for his mother, and cursed himself -for inhumanity.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They plodded on, till they came half down the slope -on his side of the stream. And now a great hubbub -sounded from Garsykes, up above them, and lanterns -were bobbing to and fro. A woman’s voice rose shrill -into the stillness of the night.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve got to find my lad, or I’ll know why!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Turning us out o’ doors on a wild-goose chase,” -came the answer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle knew the voice for Long Murgatroyd’s, -and his surly protest was taken up by one and another.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The lad will be at High Stellings, where you sent -him an hour since. They’d never let him run a risk -of dark o’er-taking him—open mines and what-all—so -they’re keeping him till morn.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye. They’re keeping him. So let’s all get back -to thy inn, widow, and chalk up more riches for thee -on thy door.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’ll be neither ale nor chalks till we’ve found -Ned. I tell you he’s lost on the moor. I know it in -my bones. And, whisht ye, what was that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Far-off she had heard the lad’s cry for his mammy, -though they were deaf to its meaning.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A peewit, widow—or a curlew, maybe. One -of ours must be poaching up the fells, and started a -wild-bird up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But soon the oft-repeated cry, as it came nearer, -was plain to all, and their lanterns went bobbing up -and down, each man thinking he knew where to find -the sound, and each baffled constantly by the utter -darkness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle made for the nearest light, and found -himself face to face with Long Murgatroyd, who gaped -at him as at a ghost and turned his lantern from the -Master to Ned’s dripping figure. Then he gave a -rough, unsteady chuckle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Here’s the big and little of it come to Garsykes, -neighbours. You’ve got your lad, widow, and we’ve -got summat, too, we wanted.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The rest came crowding about Murgatroyd. The -shivering waif had leaped at a bound into his mother’s -arms, and Hardcastle found himself alone, confronting -half the men of Garsykes. With peril came a sharp, -useless sort of vision for all that made up this wild -happening. The half-circle of lanterns—the scowling -faces, part in light and part in shadow—the dumb, -do-nothing darkness of the waste lands—they were part -of a scene he looked on at, as if it were no concern of -his.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>That for a moment. Then he gathered his strength, -as a man might pull a bow-string tight. Most of these -folk were deep in liquor, and all were scathing with -rancour that had grown by what it fed on since the day -he paid no tribute.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’d best end Logie now,” said Long Murgatroyd—“Logie -and its mucky pride.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A wolfish growl answered him, though still some -dread of Hardcastle held them. He had gone like -“a ghost-guarded man” through these last weeks of -all that Garsykes could bring to his undoing. They -were many—but they lived in a country haunted by -trolls and mine-goblins, and superstition was in their -slackened fibres.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A breeze got up, quick and merry, from the top of -swart Pengables Hill. The clouds overhead were riven -apart, and the eager moon leaped through. It maddened -the Garsykes Men afresh to see Hardcastle -standing there straight to his height and waiting -silently for what might follow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Widow Mathison, still clutching her boy as if she -feared to let him go again, ran suddenly in front of -Hardcastle and loosened her tongue on the rabble.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where’s your shame, you hulking wastrels? Do -as you like to Hardcastle when you can catch him -fair—but not when he’s on this sort of errand. Ned’s -all I have, and can’t you see by the drip of him that -he’s been saved fro’ drowning?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What do we care?” muttered Long Murgatroyd. -“Ned’s no bairn of ours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That makes him the likelier lad,” said the widow, -tartly. “And now you can all pack home, for I -willun’t have you touch the man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Appealed to singly, there were men here who would -have been pricked by shame; but they were a mob out -of hand, beast-like and robbed of what wits they -ever had.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Who’s the widow to come hectoring it over us?” -snarled one.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quit talking,” shouted another. “Let drive at -Hardcastle instead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master stepped quietly in front of Widow -Mathison, and they swayed and jostled, eager to attack, -but held for a moment by brutish fear of his unconcern. -In that moment the moon was snapped up by a -scudding cloud, and Hardcastle took his luck as it -came.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His one hope of defence was to attack. Without a -pause he ran forward, lifting the stout stick he carried, -and smashed the lanterns one by one. Then, in the -dark of his own making, he rained blows at random into -the midst of the screaming throng.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Luck could not hold for long, he knew. Already the -cloud was passing, and with clearer light would come -the end for him. But meanwhile it was good to be -alive, drawing healthy music from Garsykes skulls.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the moon raced free again, it shone on a few -fallen men, on others who yelped like wolves and came -at him headlong. He glanced about him, ran nimbly -to a corner where two field-walls protected him from -rear attack, and waited for them. A man had to die -once and some day. What better end could Logie -ask of him?</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Will o’ Wisp, lurking beside the track that Hardcastle -would take from Broken Firs, wearied of his -job. It had been well enough, with Nita beside him, -to do her bidding; but the silence and the night-time -sobered him. What grudge had he, after all, against -the Master of Logie? The man had taken a random shot -at him, long ago, when he tried to rob the post-boy. -That was all in the day’s work of chance and mischance. -But what of this lying in wait, cold-blooded, for a shot -that could not miss its mark?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Will was a rogue by nature—and from choice -because life offered more frolic along unlicensed roads. -Yet decency, of his own sort, travelled all roads with -him, like a faithful comrade, and the longer Hardcastle -tarried in his coming, the chillier grew this -enterprise of waiting to shoot a man as if he were a -sitting rabbit.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>What had he heard in the Garsykes tavern? That -Nita played with men as cats play with mice—that the -way of her with them all was one and the same—and -the end a long sliding down the slope to hell. They -did not mince matters in their talk, the Garsykes Folk, -and Will o’ Wisp thought of these things now.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still Hardcastle did not come down the moor. -Nita had pretended to know the way he would take -to-night, the hour of his return. She was wrong, it -seemed, and the rogue felt a stealthy gladness. The -breeze sobbed and fluted through the naked spinney -where he crouched. His gun lay chilly in half-frozen -hands. Were they right when they spoke of the -little basket-weaver as of a thing accursed?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was too far on the Logie-side of the moor to hear -the cries that had drawn Hardcastle from his home-track -past the spinney; and at length he gave up the -errand that had brought him here.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nita has hanged enough men in her garter,” he -muttered, stretching his cramped limbs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then he went down and across the pastures, leaping -a wall nimbly here and there, till he came near -Garsykes and its tumult. He saw lanterns flitting -like his namesake Will o’ Wisps about the pastures, -heard Widow Mathison swing her tongue like a flail, -and noisy voices answer to the lash.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was all a mystery to him as he pressed forward, -halting only when the clouds raced over from Pengables, -hiding one step from the next. Through the -stormy murk, as he listened, came a thunder-din of -oaths, a pig-like screeching from men not used to bear -pain silently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The moon ran free again, and in the sharp, cold -light he saw Hardcastle standing in the angle of two -limestone walls, with half Garsykes yammering to -be at him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Will o’ Wisp had no liking for the village he had -blundered into weeks ago. There were degrees of -rascaldom, and his own feet went merrily on the margin -of such deeps as Garsykes knew. Something in Hardcastle’s -dour silence as he faced the rabble with uplifted -cudgel—some liking, inborn in him, for a man -meeting heavy odds, brought music into Will’s heart. -Moreover, he was in mood to take sides with any man -that Nita hated.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s this, you Garsykes louts?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They turned on him, ready to tear him to pieces -instead of Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Here’s Nita’s last favourite, Lord help him,” -laughed Long Murgatroyd.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He carries a fowling-piece, as it happens—and it’s -loaded—and you’re a timid folk in Garsykes, unless -all the luck’s in front of you. No, Murgatroyd, I -wouldn’t stir a foot, if I was you. You’d find it a -queer thing to be dead, with a charge of shot inside you -instead of ale.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Will o’ Wisp was himself. Free of Nita, free of cold-blooded -murder up the moor, it tickled his fancy to -be master of these folk—master too, of what would -happen soon to Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He took his stand on a moonlit hillock, letting the -polished barrel of his gun glint from one to another of -the mob.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m judge among you,” he said, with his heedless -laugh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you, now?” growled Murgatroyd. “A likely -man, you, to be judge of any folk.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know ’em all so well, knowing myself,” chuckled -Will. “There’s my loaded gun, too—and that helps -a man to be a judge. What’s all this moil about, -widow?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Widow Mathison told him, instead, her mind about -all Garsykes Men, born or unborn—with gusto, now -that Hardcastle was safe. That made Will little the -wiser till the lad broke from his mother’s grasp and -then ran back again, afraid of what he had suffered -on the fells.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I fell into cold water, I did,” he whimpered, “and -couldn’t get myself out. And a big man came and -tugged at me, and brought me to my mammy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Will o’ Wisp understood now; and wrath kindled -in his lazy mind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’d kill Hardcastle for that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye,” said Long Murgatroyd. “What do we care -for the widow’s brat?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Will o’ Wisp let his gun roam quietly from one to -another of the company. And then he spoke.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In all my days I never happened on as foul a stye -as Garsykes. Hardcastle o’ Logie saved one of yours—and -there’s something you never learned, it seems.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, aye?” sneered Murgatroyd.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s fairation. Be dummocked, there’s fairation.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still facing them, he made his way to Hardcastle -and nodded cheerily. “I’m going Logie way myself,” -he said, “so we might as well step up together. Three’s -company sometimes, and I’m taking the gun as a -parting gift from Garsykes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle fell into step beside him, swinging his -cudgel. A pluckier mob would have rushed the pair -of them, knowing that Will’s fowling-piece could speak -only once before they were trodden down. But each -man thought of his own skin, and stood cursing -stupidly, and watched them dip over and down the -hill-crest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master and Will o’ Wisp went in silence through -the blue-grey, misty night, till Hardcastle turned -suddenly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s no return to Garsykes for you, after this. -I’m in your debt.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nay. I’d meant to go. I’m not their sort of -rogue, and never was.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s supper and a bed at Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Bless you, I want no thanks. If there was danger -to-night I’d come and gladly. But they’ll let you -alone for awhile. I know ’em.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nothing Hardcastle could say persuaded the vagabond -to change his mind, when they came to the hill -that swept with a break-neck fall to Logie Brigg.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m getting as far as I can from Nita Langrish,” -laughed Will. “She’d be weaving her spells about me -to-morrow if I stayed as near as this.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that he borrowed a fill of ’baccy for his pipe, -bade Hardcastle a rollicking farewell, and went his -ways into the everywhere that lay within the night-time -forest and beyond.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle chuckled quietly. After all, few strangers -had come into Garsykes, and fared out the better -in this world’s gear. Will o’ Wisp could boast of a -good fowling-piece that was his by right of conquest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the Master turned for home; and the steep of -the road brought anguish to the knee that had blundered -against a rock while he was rescuing the widow’s lad. -There had been no time to think of it till now.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For very pain he was forced to rest on Logie Brigg, -and at these times life lies in wait for every man. -Pride to keep Garsykes at bay was well enough. So -was joy in the lusty strength that had cracked a crown -or two to-night. Now these were gone. He halted -on the bridge, as the pedlar and Causleen had done, -before the trees were bare—weary, heartsick and body-sick, -no flame alight on any beacon-hill ahead. It was -as if he was a child again, seeking the mother who had -slept these twenty years where the churchyard listened -to the lap of waters round its graves.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Under him swirled Wharfe River, playmate and -comrade and lover through the peaceful days; and -now her voice stole kindly to his ear, talking of brave -days to come. When all seemed in the losing, the -river told him, it was time for the hale-souled sort to -gather courage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He limped up the hill to Logie with gaining hope, and -found it easier for a lame man to climb than it had -been to make the sharp descent that jarred every step. -For all that, he was spent and tired when he came to -his own gate—till he saw Causleen waiting for him there. -The moon showed him a face pale and eager, framed -by dark hair that was loose about it like a glory.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You were in danger somewhere, and I could not -help you.” The Highland voice was low and troubled. -“There was a crying up the waste lands—your feet -blundered into marshes——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How should you know?” he broke in.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The vision came,” she went on, with great simplicity. -“I did not ask for it. It came.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle’s heart beat faster, for no reason that -he knew of. Since Causleen’s first coming there had -been recurring enmity between them broken by little -rifts that let the sunlight through. He had not known -till lately how he had begun to need and seek her -comradeship. To-night he gained a deeper knowledge. -Her welcome at the gate was the one thing he had -craved, all the long way from Garsykes, and it was his.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re glad I’m home again?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She grew still and cold. “Glad? Yes. You -have been kind to us—two pedlars tramping to your -gate. The vision came, and I spent myself in sending -help to you across the waste—help of the spirit—and, -of course you’ll laugh at fancies—I spent myself, not -for your sake, but because you’d shown us kindness—of -your own rough sort. I wished to pay a debt.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Logie’s Master had known mixed weather on the -uplands, but never such a March-tide change from sun -to bitter, east-wind spite. The pedlar’s girl was -remote from him as the top of old Pengables Hill, -with its head among the driving sleet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is it Nita,” he asked clumsily, “and her chatter -of the night we spent down yonder?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is Nita.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The man’s big, simple heart found room at last. -Through these last weeks he had been groping forward -to the light.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Best marry me,” he said. “I’ve wanted it, -Causleen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She answered nothing for awhile. Then sleet came -stinging at his face again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I do not care for pity. Oh, you are clumsy in your -kindness! Gossip has touched us, and you stoop to -offer marriage to the beggar-maid. You are -generous.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I want it,” he repeated doggedly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve shame enough to bear as it is. Would I add -to it? To sit each day at table, and look across at -you, and know that I owed it all to pity—would that -be happiness?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She turned to go, then glanced at his knee as if she -had not seen till now that it was bleeding through the -torn cloth of his riding-breeches.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You crashed against a rock,” she said softly. -“The vision showed me that, too. Can I wash and -bind it for you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is of no account.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You mean that Rebecca the paragon would have -more skill? She is so wonderful.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle could only wonder at her moods. She had -seemed to care that he had taken a hurt, and now -she was jealous of Rebecca. And again she had -turned and was looking at him with wide, questioning -eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You asked if it was Nita. It was—but not her -gossip. Why do you lie to me, Hardcastle of Logie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that she was gone in earnest, and Hardcastle -limped slowly up the dappled moon-dusk of the road. -Near home as he was, a late-found instinct prompted -him to hold his cudgel in readiness for whatever the -swaying shadows of the firs might hide. His left hand -swung idly at his side, till suddenly a wet snout pushed -against it and a friendly smell stole up in greeting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Back again, are you, Storm?” said the Master, -with gruff banter. “Red from the feast, as usual?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the dog’s grey muzzle was innocent of stains. -For three days he had ravened, then had slept off the -after-sickness, had lapped greedily at every stream he -passed. No guile showed in the brown, humid eyes. -He knew nothing of repentance, or need of it. It was -just that his wander-lust was over, and somewhere -deep in his being was the knowledge that danger -threatened Logie. He was home again, and at his -post.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was time you came,” said Hardcastle. “Dogs -I know, and horses I know—but women are beyond -me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm had the better of him; for a half-hour later -Causleen found him in the cupboard under the stair, -and brought him food, and made much of him before -she bent above his tousled head.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, Storm,” she said, and cried her heart out.</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap16'>CHAPTER XVI</h1></div> - -<h3>A ROPE-END AND A TREE</h3> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle fretted during the next days, -because the hurt to his knee yielded slowly -even to Rebecca’s skill with peat and simples -and the right way of handling bandages. The fear -was on him constantly that Garsykes would hear of -his infirmity and rush to the attack before his strength -returned to face it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was the pedlar, trusting to the shelter he had -promised him—and Rebecca, old in service—and -Causleen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was Causleen. She was aloof and chill whenever -they met about the house. He could make nothing -of her whims. Was it his fault that he had been -asked to save her life, and was powerless to rescue her -from the whip of Nita’s tongue, except by marriage? -And marriage she disdained. He tried to reason it -all out, not understanding that reason was the last -thing concerned with what had happened to Causleen -and himself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Always the worst of his fretting returned to her. If -those louts from Garsykes came and he had only one -knee to serve him, what would chance? His mind -ran out to the unthinkable—for Causleen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now, it’s not a bit of good,” said Rebecca on one -of these afternoons, as she was bandaging his knee -afresh, “not a bit of good to go about like a man that -thinks the roof will fall because he’s got a pain in his -knee. Men are all alike, Lord help ’em—’specially -when they’re mending nicely, and ought to be giving -a thanks-be, instead of glowering like a thunderstorm. -It nags a bit, what I’m rubbing into the raw o’ your -wound? Well, there’s healing goes with nags sometimes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You don’t know,” grumbled the Master. “I fall -lame just when Logie needs me. There’s you and -Donald——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, and there’s Donald’s lass. That’s where your -shoe pinches. Times were different when I was young.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She tied the bandage, sewed its edges up and bit -the thread off with her strong, ancient teeth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Different?” asked Hardcastle, impatient of her -ministry and all things.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye. We never doubted Logie’s roof was safe. -My lad doesn’t doubt it to this day. You’re young, -Master, and I’m of the elder days, and I tell you what -I know.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca had no more to do with bandages and healing. -She was wrapt into another world—grey and -gaunt, a prophetess.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“War comes to Logie-side. The youngsters fight, -and the old see far. D’ye think I go every night and -morning to tryst my lad at the gate and get nothing for -it? He died for Logie once—and it was forty years -ago.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Jonah the brindled cat, crept into the room and -leaped to Rebecca’s shoulder. He was no hearthside -lover now, but wild and bridling.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Even Jonah seems to know there’s trouble coming,” -went on Rebecca. “Well, let it come, and we’ll -outface it as we’ve always done.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There were fewer men in Garyskes then,” said the -Master gloomily—“and more who were staunch for -Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca glanced at him, and even her free speech -was checked. She read his heart, as he could not. -The odds against him had not brought this black mood, -but fear for Causleen had. Awhile since she had been -jealous of the girl, resentful of the gaining fear that her -own reign at Logie might be ended soon. Now she -feared lest Causleen’s playing with the Master should -ruin all. It was no time “for furbelows and cantrips,” -and how could a man fight his best with half -of him wondering if his lass cared?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve been fretting to give that knee o’ yours a -taste of the fresh air,” she said grudgingly. “Have -your way, then, for it’s mending fast. And, of course, -you’ll go a mile if I tell you the half is enough and to -spare.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle went more than the mile. He was -unused to the prison of four walls for days on end, and -the wine of the crisp November afternoon got into his -blood with every step he took. In all the years -behind he had seldom seen Logie-land in its full breadth -and splendour as he saw it now. The striding acres, -wind-blown and lonely—the last sunset glow on old -Pengables—the sombre forest getting to its sleep—all -were like ancient friends who brought a new, swift -welcome. They might be in the losing, but they were -his as yet, and wonderfully dear.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One moorland track lured him on to another, till he -reached the beech-wood that stepped down to Scawgill -Water. Life had done this and that for him, but had -not killed the boy’s romance that would linger always -in this silent place of mystery, with its grave, round-boled -trees, its red-russet drift of leaves that crinkled -to the tread. Squirrels had their tree-top nests here, -and badgers lived in the “earths” beside the stream. -A great dreamer, in spite of his hardness, the Master -still peopled the glen with all that country legend had -to tell of water-nixies, trolls and goblins. It was so -hushed a place, so instinct with underfret of the primeval -life, that no man could linger here and fail to know its -witchcraft.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A stifled cry sounded near at hand, and then a -groaning, low and long-drawn-out. Hardcastle, -startled out of his dreams, glanced sharply round. -Long since a wandering tinker had come to a foul -end here, and his ghost, they said, was restless time -and time.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The pigeons ceased their crooning in the tree-tops. -A cold and slender wind, prying to the bone, chilled -Hardcastle. Far down Logie Dale a farm-dog yapped -and barked, and a roaming fox took up the challenge.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle glanced about him, and up a clearing -of the wood saw a body swinging from a tree. All the -boy in him took fright; but the man bade him go and -see what this ghost of a suicide dead fifty years ago -was made of.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The gloaming filtered through leafless branches and -showed him a gaunt, six-foot body turning and twisting -on a rope. The body still groaned, but with lessening -vigour; and there was something pitiful in the feet -that trod helplessly on air, seeking firm ground.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle got out a knife and ripped the cord -across. The body tottered and swayed for an instant, -and afterwards it needed all his strength to check it -in its fall and lower it into the withered brackens, -Then he loosed the frowsy shirt and watched the dull -purple steal from the man’s face, giving way to a pallor -as of death.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The slow return of life was terrible to be alone with, -and Hardcastle welcomed the plea for water that came -by and by. The stream lay below them, and he had -no vessel of any kind; so he shouldered the half-lifeless -body, carried it to the bank and ladled water in -his palms as best he could.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s better,” gurgled the man, when at last his -choking throat contrived to swallow a few drops.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The farm-dog and the yapping fox had roused every -house about the fells by now. From Pengables to -Crake Beacon, dogs gave tongue, loud across the still -night-air. And close at hand, in answer, came a -scampering of wild things through the undergrowth. -Field voles twittered, and overhead the flitter-mice -cried thinly as they vanned to and fro.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the midst of this stealthy terror of the woodland -folk, the man propped against the stream’s bank began -to drink greedily and to good purpose, till Hardcastle -denied him more. Then they two looked at each -other, in the light of a moon that shone wanly through -the naked tree-tops.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s you, Hardcastle o’ Logie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Long Murgatroyd—and the devil of a time -you’ve given me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s good news.” The man’s slow-witted hatred, -nursed in health, leaped out in this hour of weakness -and release from death; “but it’s naught to what’s -waiting for you up at Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A madness came on Hardcastle. The sweat of -trouble he had given this lout, dangling between earth -and sky awhile since, asked for a word or two in -another key. His hands were itching for the throat -that he had saved.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You were minded to spare the hangman trouble -later on,” he said at last, “and so am I. But I’ll -leave you to it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd began to laugh, and could not check -himself for awhile. Then he put a hand to his throat, -and laughed again, as a dotard might.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I came near to hanging myself in Nita’s garter, -as that terrible pranksome fellow, Will o’ Wisp, would -say. And so did you, Hardcastle. What could I -do but laugh? We might have been swinging together—me -on one tree, and Logie’s high-almighty on its -neighbour. We’d have made a bonnie picture—with -Nita coming to look on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The farm-dogs yelped and barked across the wastes. -Fear gained on the little people of the wood. The -breeze sobbed and whimpered, and would not be still. -And Hardcastle feared greatly, too—lest he could keep -his hands no longer from Long Murgatroyd.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you fit to be left, if I take your rope home with -me?” he snapped.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd was recovering fast. “You needn’t -take it. She maddened me so with her come-and-kiss, -and her stand you off, and all the sick damnation of -it, that I fancied a rope’s end more than Nita. That’s -gone.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Gone, has it?” asked Hardcastle, with a sick -kind of wonder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye. I’ll get my arms about her, soon or late. -I promised her no less. So you run home to Logie, -if there’s any Logie standing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s stood against the Garsykes swine for years -out of mind. I’m not for hurrying, Murgatroyd.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Deep, sullen hatred showed in the man’s face, -mottled with returning life. To Hardcastle it was as -if he looked down into the pit of hell, seeing a lost man -who would not be saved at any cost of trouble from -helping hands above.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nita wanted me to go with them to-night,” said -Murgatroyd; “but I told her I’d rather hang myself -in a wood than do her bidding.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The man fell into cackling laughter again, then -shivered as memory of the rope returned.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’d have been a bonnie couple, swinging side -by side; but ’twas not to be, it seems.”</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle left him there, and swung up the fields -to Logie. His pace quickened with every stride, for -Murgatroyd’s tale of peril to the house had found its -mark. If it were true that an attack was planned, -he might already be too late; and he thought ceaselessly -of his home—and of Causleen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he topped the rise that looked down on Logie, -he glanced eagerly up-dale. Prepared to see flames -leaping high into the dusk, he saw only a steady -lamplight glow that shone from the window over the -porch—Causleen’s window—and instead of men’s -frenzied shouts he heard only a farm-lad’s song as he -went about the business of the mistals.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The relief was so quick, so urgent, that a sudden -“God be thanked” escaped him. Murgatroyd had -lied. He should have known as much, and saved -himself the sick suspense of his journey up the fell.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For why should God specially be thanked?” -asked a quiet voice at his elbow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant the shepherd, a silent man in all his ways, -had come noiselessly to the Master’s side, and was -tugging at his wispy beard.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Confound you, Stephen, you startled me. They -said the Garsykes Men had come to Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, they haven’t, to all appearance; but they -come to my sheepfold as if there was no law in the land. -I stepped down to talk about it with you, Master.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The ewes must take their chance, as we all do -these days.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, they mean little to you, and always did. Time -was when you sheltered Storm, though he was a red-jawed -outlaw dog. Well, I got Storm at last.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle found the grim humour that gave salt -and savour to these harsh days. “You got Storm, -poor beast,” he said, thinking of the cupboard under -the stair at Logie—thinking, too, of Causleen and her -way with the backslider.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’ll trouble me no more—but durned if these -Garsykes Men aren’t worse than a kennel-full of such -as Storm. They grow outrageous—fair outrageous.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master was glad of the chance given him to -speak his mind. “There are six of us leal to the old -house, Stephen. The rest are paying tribute.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Damn ’em, yes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Get away before Logie goes. I brought you into -this, thinking we’d win through. There’s no need for -you to stay.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” said Brant—“except that we’re twin and -marrow in our love o’ Logie. Where you bide, I -bide.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle glanced over to the light that shone from -Causleen’s window. All was in the losing, and his -wits were keen to save her from the last, foul uproar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Could we get the pedlar and his girl to your hut -on the moor? It’s cold up yonder at this time o’ -year, but there are worse things than cold.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We could. The bracken-sledge would bump old -Donald a bit by the way, but we’d pad him well with -hay-trusses.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll have the sledge out to-morrow, with the old -grey horse to draw it. He’s only eating his head off -in the stable.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not so fast, Master,” put in Brant dryly. -“That hut o’ mine is well enough for a rough -shepherd, but I’ll fettle it up before a maid can pretend -to be suited with it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s no time to ask whether the maid’s pleased or -not,” snapped the other. “You know what may -happen any moment if she stays.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant was silent as they crossed the last pasture-field. -He knew many things—not least of them the -reason that made Hardcastle gloomy and prone to -caution nowadays. It would be better for them all -if Causleen were out of Garsykes’ reach, and the Master’s -mind relieved of the sapping dread lest hurt should -come to her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll be ready,” he said, opening the back-gate of -Logie for Hardcastle to pass through. “Then, -after we’re free of what you might call encumbrances, -we’ll set about putting the fear of hell into the Lost -Folk.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle regained his old self at a bound, for no -reason that he guessed. “What’s in that feud-sick -mind of yours, Brant?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To gather my stolen ewes from Garsykes. Six -of us are staunch, and six have dogs to round ’em up -and back to Logie. We’ve fowling-pieces, too.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But cannot use them, Brant. You should know -that I’m a magistrate.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Humour answered veiled humour. “To be sure -we can’t—save for killing vermin. That’s allowed by -law.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A great burden had slipped from the Master’s -shoulders. He was free somehow, to carry a careless -heart and fight Logie to the last edge of what might -come.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To-morrow, after we’ve got the pedlar safe up-moor?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The sooner the better. Who told you they were -coming against Logie to-night?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Long Murgatroyd.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’d be a liar if he stood on the brink o’ Kingdom -Come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s where he did stand—dangled, I should -say—when I found him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, aye?” asked Brant, with slow curiosity.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There are things men don’t think of twice, if they -can help it. Come indoors, and tell Rebecca that -winds are dry and thirsty on the heights.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They are,” said the shepherd, with conviction, -“and from this to Hawes Water there’s no ale as ripe -as Logie’s.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They parted in the stable-yard, and Hardcastle, -coming to the grey, moonlit front of the house, glanced -at the room over the porch. The light still shone from -it, and Causleen, kneeling on the window-seat, looked -down at him. The lamp-glow behind her ran out to -meet the silver-gold, soft moonlight. And both were -tender with her beauty.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, I’ve waited for you,” she said, her voice soft -as one of her own Highland burns in summer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A great joy blazed up in Hardcastle, as if boyhood -found its spring again. “You’ve waited?” he asked -sharply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. Rebecca is beyond herself with grief. She -sees you lying dead somewhere on the fells, and sits -and croons, saying she ought never to have let you out -of her sight—with your wounded knee, and all the mad -wolves hunting you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let them hunt,” said Hardcastle, his dreams -shattered suddenly by her chill laugh of contempt.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I will comfort Rebecca, while you go to father. He -has been asking for you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is that mockery, too?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“None of it is mockery. And Rebecca need not -have feared. There’s a mad wolf glaring up at me—bigger -than any of the Garsykes breed.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle conquered his gusty rage. She was a -woman, and his guest. If the new dreams had to go—well, -the old ones had gone, and soon Logie would be -ended, too. Nothing mattered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Donald asks for me?” he questioned.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I said it—and we of the Highlands do not lie, as -you of Logie do.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master limped into his own house, forgetting -the fret of the knee that had broken Rebecca’s bandages -by now. A yelp of welcome sounded the moment -he set foot indoors, and Storm left his hiding-place -and pressed close against him, clamoring for -attention.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle held up a warning hand. “Kennel, -lad. There’s Brant in the house.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm’s tail fell limp. His whole body seemed to -shrink and lessen as he crept back to the cupboard. -He had learned that Brant was a word of evil meaning.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Poor devil,” muttered Hardcastle, “there’s not -much left for him in life, though he saved three of us. -Brant or another will get him soon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He went into the room where Donald lay on the -settle, his body tethered by weakness, but his eyes -bright and eager.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wanted you,” said the pedlar. “Sit ye down in -the chair here, and I’ll let some of my long thoughts -out. They burden me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His glance roved from Hardcastle to the pike that -hung above the mantel, and back again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll not grudge you that any longer,” he went on. -“They tell me of your stand against the Lost Folk, -and I care for a man who can make music out of odds. -I would that, here in Yorkshire, you had the pipes to -hearten you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His mind wandered to the glens of home, to unforgotten -pibrochs and his long fight with poverty—wandered -to the gorsy braes that he had roamed with -Causleen’s mother. Then he spoke again, smiling -gently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When one is chained as I am, there is nothing to -be done, except grow wise. If a man can fight one -sort of honest battle, he can fight all. I wanted you -to know that—that your guests have not turned -vagabonds for choice, or for lack of struggle.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, wrenched out of old ruts by war and -heartache, found a fine simplicity. He understood -all that Donald left unsaid, the grace and manliness -of it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My guests are very welcome,” he said, diffident and -gruff. “They should know as much by this time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We have fought, Causleen and I. There were no -pipes with us, no press of foemen waiting for attack. -There was only poverty—a dumb enemy, cold and -crafty, that lay in wait.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again Donald’s glance wandered to the Flodden -pike.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Be gentle with an old man who sees before and -after, and must ease his mind. There are cairns in -my country, reared to Hielandmen who died with the -broadsword in their hands. There’s not one to speak -of those who fought poverty, the hardest foe of all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then his restless mind went wandering down the -centuries. He told of Macbeth and Duncan—of -Glencoe and its narrow shambles—of Prestonpans and -Derby Town and red Culloden Moor—as of staunch, -forthright matters he had shared. And, whether he -lived or died in far-off tumults, there was constantly -the joy of well-worth-while, the thud of blows, the -heartening wonder of the pipes, playing men up the -further hills.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was only when he came to the tale of his journey -from the Highlands that the song went out of his voice, -the light from his eyes. Hardcastle grew ashamed of -his own wealth and ease, as he listened to the slow -recountal of trinkets sold here, to earn a bed for the -night—of fortunes told in an alien country to win the -price of a wayside meal. The tale was so simply told -that he, too, felt footsore and heartsore as he listened. -Donald roused himself at last from his journeys down -the years. The quiet, beguiling smile crept once more -across the grey creases of his face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have I wearied you with my chatter—as I tire -you because I’m so long in dying?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We shall get you strong again——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” broke in Donald. “Something tells me -the end is even nearer than you think—a tame -end to a life that has dreamed so much of ancient -battles.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle humoured his mood, garrulous but -constantly returning to the one clouded purpose. -For pride’s sake he needed to explain how Causleen -and he came to be travelling the roads, and presently -his mind grew clear.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We had ever been Stuart men in the old days—losing, -and hoping, and fighting—till little was left -me when my time came to be laird in the dreadful days -of honour and peace. That little went, and Causleen -had to make her choice. There was a rich wooer came. -A great name he had, and nothing against him but the -one thing that damned all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Go on, Donald.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You will not understand. How should you? -The Stuarts were discrowned and out of mind long -since, you’d say; but in the Highlands they can never -be discrowned. And the wooer who came was of a -clan that had sold the old allegiance for gold—just -for guinea-pieces to jangle in a purse.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The fire of youth kindled in Donald’s voice. Consuming -wrath was in his eyes. And Hardcastle understood -better than the pedlar guessed; for Logie -moorlands knew the way of staunchness to their own -allegiance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I left the choice to Causleen, though I’d rather have -seen the child in her shroud than linked to him. ‘He -can save the house for us with his gold,’ I said, to prove -her. And, ‘He cannot,’ said she, ‘for there’s Stuart -blood on it. A hundred years is not enough to cleanse -it.’ So we took the roads together, she and I.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His eyes closed for awhile. One purpose was -achieved; but another clamoured for fulfilment, and -he had little time to spare. He was alert again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She took the roads as bravely as she took her -choice—but soon she will be travelling alone.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was question in the pedlar’s glance—a pleading -that was command almost. And out of doors a breeze -plucked and rattled at the windows, as if to deepen -fear of what the lone highways had in store for Causleen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle watched the lamplight flicker in the -draught, looked on the old, familiar furnishings with -new vision—the bell-mouthed blunder-busses of his -father’s time, the pewter polished to dim lustre by -what was known to Rebecca as “elbow grease”—the -pike that had given every son of Logie pause when he -was minded to be less than the men who marched to -Flodden long ago.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He knew what Donald hoped for, and with wry -humour he recalled the way of Causleen since he saved -her from the snow—her avoidance of him, or mockery -such as she had showered on him from her window -when he came by to-night.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You would have me guard her? Nothing but -marriage could give me that right.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have watched you, and the laid-by folk see much. -It seemed that you cared, and hope grew apace. That -is why I tell you what her proper station is. My girl -would not shame Logie’s pride.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was something wistful in the pedlar’s eagerness, -his dignity. He longed for Causleen’s safety, -but would not cringe for it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She will have none of me, Donald—so how can -I ease your mind? I’ll ask no woman twice.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A great joy shone in the pedlar’s face. He had had -no inkling, till now, that Hardcastle had forestalled -his keen desire.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Second thoughts are sometimes best—especially -a maid’s. She thought you offered marriage out of -pity, maybe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. I could not persuade her from it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You will,” said Donald softly, and drew a long -breath of thankfulness, and dozed awhile.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he roused himself, his hold on this world -seemed gone. He looked out before him as if no -house-walls and no leagues of foreign country hid the -wild glens of Inverness. He was home again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I had two dreams,” he said, his voice clear and -lusty. “One was to know Causleen safe, and that comes -true. The other was a sick man’s fancy. I dreamed”—he -tried to lift himself, and failed—“dreamed -that I died a warrior, instead of Pedlar Donald.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that his eyes closed, and Rebecca, coming -to see how it went with him, stood beside the settle, -her grim face softened.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sleeps like a babby, poor soul—and it would be as -well if he died in it, instead of living to be bumped on a -bracken-sledge to-morrow. Brant sits snug by my -hearth, and tells me you’re for turning the old man -out o’ doors.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The Garsykes Men are coming. He’s safer up -the moor.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“His brat is safer, you mean. Why don’t you want -to tuck me, too, on the sledge, if Logie is no place for -women? D’ye think that, because I’ve a face like -a hatchet, to scare men with, I’ve a heart after the -same pattern? Ask the lad that keeps tryst with -me at the gate, every night and all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She lowered the lamp, took another look at Donald -as if he were an ailing first-born of her own, and together -they went out into the draughty hall.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm yapped and whimpered from his cupboard, -and Hardcastle went in to quiet him, thinking only of -the dog’s peril, not of Logie’s.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s Brant near by,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm would not be satisfied. He bared his teeth -and growled till Hardcastle cuffed him. Then the -sheep-slayer shivered and lay down—but not for fear -of Brant—and whined, as the rising breeze about the -house sobbed from the lost Garsykes lands.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When Hardcastle had fastened him in, with a biscuit -or two for company, he went with Rebecca to the -kitchen. They found Brant sitting by the hearth, a -stoup of ale beside him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Getting mellow, Stephen?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Mellowish, as you might say.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s naught else to do these days, while the -waiting-time is on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He talks of sleeping here to-night,” said Rebecca, -harking back to her grievance, “says he wants to be -ready for the sledge-journey you’ve planned. If -you want to kill poor Donald outright—well, bump -him to his death on the bracken-track.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, a little afraid of his henchwoman in -times of ease, was the master now. “War has come. -Will you put that into your mind once for all?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m not likely to forget it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’re coming one day to fire Logie. D’ye -think we want to be crippled by thought of Donald, -lying helpless? If he had his choice, would he be -burned in his bed—or risk death on the bracken road, -with God’s winds about him?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“God’s winds blow snell and cruel these days -Indoors or out, there’s little to choose, and men like -Brant come trapesing in to beg a night’s lodging. He’s -killed Storm, he tells us, and should be content with -that, without adding murder of poor Donald to his -Judgment tally.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Killing of Storm won’t worrit me, when my time -comes,” chuckled Brant. “There’ll be a few score -ewes to back me up—ewes that might have gone into -his jaws if it hadn’t been for a lucky shot o’ mine. -As for Donald, I’m with the Master. He’s a better -chance on the uplands than tied to his bed at Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, talk at me, now you’re two to one. Beat an -old woman down. But when you’ve killed a lone -pedlar—one that’s shared Logie’s salt—don’t run -to my apron for comfort. I’ll give you none.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We shouldn’t look for it,” said the Master dryly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca, taut as a bow-string, was at war with herself -and every living thing about her, because peril -did not come. The lad who had trysted her at the -gate these forty years, had told her yesterday of havoc -brewing up. And instead there was a wet breeze -sobbing round the house, and Brant with the ale-froth -about his stubbly beard and Hardcastle, dour and tall -and thinking of Causleen. She knew that he was -thinking of her, and heard children, of his getting, -shout in play. Forlorn, alone and jealous, she sought -for a grievance, and found it speedily.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your knee’s dripping, Master, and so much for -my bandages. A careless man at all times, you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She went to the cupboard near the hearth, and got -out a store of lint, and herbs that staunched the -bleeding. The Master was hers for a little while, -before Causleen stole him from her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It hurts, as I rub it in?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Like the devil, Rebecca. But have your way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A bark sounded down the gusty corridor, and Brant -cocked a hairy ear.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If Storm wasn’t dead, I’d have sworn I heard him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“His ghost barked,” said Rebecca. “No wonder -he’s haunting you from this to the end of all. Are -you sure you killed him?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, I’m sure of that. And, as for his ghost, it -needn’t trouble me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca finished her task, and gave the bandage a -rough, ill-tempered pat. “There! If fire and slaughter’s -coming, it’s as well to have two legs to stand on instead -of one. Men are feckless, left to themselves.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now a silence crept about the house, and into -the hearts of these three. They longed for the wind -to rattle at the casements; but it, too, had fallen -dumb. Logie was a house aware—its every stone and -rafter-beam—of a peril sinister and urgent.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The brindled cat, catching the stealthy unrest of -the house, had gone to Storm for comfort, only to -find his ancient ally prisoned for the night. He -wandered back to the kitchen now, and sprang to the -table. His eyes were big, his fur stiff and ruffled, as -if he waited for rats to come to Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca glanced at him. “You, Jonah? Drat -you for another male that’s stepped into my kitchen, -looking warlike—and finding no sort of battle.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She swept him from the table, with a sudden gust -of spite, and the cat, gathering himself up, showed -teeth and claws and spat at her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Rebecca laughed and cried, and gathered the -great cat into her arms.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I didn’t mean it, Jonah—but my heart’s just -breaking with the trouble of it all.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap17'>CHAPTER XVII</h1></div> - -<h3>FLAME</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>That night they waited in Garsykes village -till the moon dipped over Scummer Rigg -and grey-black gloom shrouded heath and -pasture-land. Then every man who had strength to -carry a burden reached out for his well-filled sack.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd came up the hill with his shammocky -stride just as they were shouldering the sacks. -He stood awhile in the lamp-glow streaming from the -tavern windows, and they drew away from him as if -he had the plague. There was something unearthly -in his white, drawn face, in the laugh that broke his -silence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So I’m in time, after all? It’s better pastime, -this, than hanging yourself in Nita’s garter.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The man still felt raw of a hempen cord about his -neck—the cord that Hardcastle had loosed not long -ago. Yet he laughed again, as he glanced from one -to another. Once he had lain in wait for Hardcastle, -and twice the Master had given him his life. The -memory bit and rankled.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Logie flares red as hell to-night,” he said. “Let’s -make a start!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They went out into a dark that could be felt, soon -as the inn’s friendly gleam was left behind. It reared -itself against them like a wall, so that they feared -almost to break themselves against it. Then, as their -eyes grew used to it a little, they picked their way -across lean fields, over marshes yielding to the tread, -through woods of pine and larch whose rustling -blackness put slack fear into their limbs. But they -dreaded more the open highway that gave them a -ready way to Logie. Deep in the bones and fibre -of the Lost Folk lurked distrust of roads where honest -men might be encountered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was when they came to Logie Brigg that superstition -gathered thick about them. They huddled -together, a lack-luster mob, on their side of the crossing. -It was a saying centuries old in Garsykes that -luck never came of hindering a Hardcastle. They -might rob or take tribute of Logie’s tenants, but -must not touch its master.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Bleating ewes, are you?” snarled Murgatroyd. -“There’s all us—and up yonder only Hardcastle and -two women, and an aged man who may be quick or -stiff by now. And you bleat.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A rough voice answered him through the murk of -the windy night, over the song of Wharfe River as -she raced below.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was you brought the trouble to Garsykes, -when you were fool enough to wait for Hardcastle -at the pinfold. There’s been naught but ill-luck -since.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The jostling mob, glad of a scapegoat for its panic, -turned on Murgatroyd.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, be you first to cross the bridge—if you dare, -mad Murgatroyd!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His madness came on him in earnest. The broken -years of his slavery to Nita, came to a head. Better -any happening up at Logie than Nita’s laughter if -they left the house standing and came back with the -tale.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He forced his way through the press. Shammocky -no longer, but grim and straight and broad he led his -Legion of the Lost between the grey, narrow walls of -Logie Brigg. And all men followed him, afraid of the -gaunt figure striding through the gloom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They came to the gate of Logie, where Donald had -found their token in the autumn days. Above them -the house lay dark and hushed. Starlings cheeped -and scolded in the ivied wall, but no other challenge -answered their intrusion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd gave a low chuckle—bleak and terrible -as when he had jested after looking over the brink of -death.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re not expected, though I blabbed to Hardcastle. -He fancied, seemingly, that a liar never can -speak truth.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then, with savage zest, he planned the night-surprise, -giving them no time for a second panic. He -would lead one half to the main door, while the rest -stole through the stable-yard and attacked the kitchen-entry.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sharp and ready does it, and any man would be -a fool to fall soft now. He’d have Long Murgatroyd -to reckon with.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Overwhelming weight of numbers was with them. -So was the slumber of a house that did not look for -them to-night. But Murgatroyd’s gruff threat was -the steadying note.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Those chosen for the rear attack crept pad-footed -round the yard, and piled their sacks against the -kitchen door with frantic haste till the woodwork -was hidden by a bulging load of fuel. They littered -the stone porch with what bags were left, and fired -them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The blaze was so fierce and instant that they leaped -back into the cool dark of the night, and waited for -those in Logie to be burned in their beds, or to come -through the flames for what waited them. And the -first that those within-doors heard of trouble was -Storm’s frenzied barking as he hurled himself against -his cupboard-door, to break it through for Logie’s sake.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master lay for a moment between sleep and -waking. One window of his room opened on the -stable-yard, and below he heard the restless tread of -feet, the crackling of flame. Grey, pungent smoke -was drifting in already across his bed, and he sprang -up with an odd sense of readiness—and of relief. -What they had waited for was here at last, to be met -and grappled with.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant, too, had heard the uproar, and they met at -the stairway head and ran down together to the -kitchen. Hardcastle was in shirt and breeches, -donned hastily, and the shepherd made a queer figure, -his beard splayed above the top of a woollen nightshirt -that reached to his unlaced boots.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They glanced at each other in the light of the -smouldering kitchen-fire.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve a fowling-piece, Master?” murmured -Brant. “Better have chosen a likelier gun. From -what I’d heard, I fancied they were coming—this -night or the next.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He broke off to listen to the roar of flame outside, -to watch the door blister and gape open in wide rents.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I borrowed a blunderbuss before I got up to bed,” -he went on, in the same low voice, “and loaded it. -It would make you laugh to know what I crammed -into its muzzle—pebbles and rusty nails, and all -kinds of winsome odds and ends.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The door they were watching gaped wider, and -great joy came to them, born of the house they loved. -Without were fire and all the scum of Garsykes. -Within were two leal men.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The odds are with us, Stephen,” said Hardcastle, -breaking a silence that seemed long. “When the door’s -down, they’ll be in the glare, and we in darkness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re getting quick at the uptake,” grunted -Brant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A light step sounded close behind them, and Causleen -stood there, her hair rippling in a dusky cloud -about her night-gear.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, go back, child,” said the Master. “There’s -trouble.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve faced many kinds. Shall I tell you why I -stay, Hardcastle of Logie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was daunted by her courage, by the smouldering -anger in her face. Causleen did not seem to hear -Brant, or gaping door.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I stay to see if you’re better at the fighting than -the wooing. A laggard in one is a laggard at both, -they say.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was no time for warfare of the tongue, and Hardcastle -turned sharply to carry her out of harm’s way. -He turned again, for the thick, nail-studded door had -crashed inward with a swirl of flame and dancing -faggot-embers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nothing chanced for awhile save fire that drove -him back, and stench of tar and resin. Storm’s -barking rang like a wolf-cry through the house, till -suddenly it ceased, and Rebecca stood among them, -the dog bristling by her side.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Here’s a queer upset in my kitchen,” she said, -glancing from the blazing doorway to the men’s faces. -“I wakened late, I own, but I’d sense to go and loose -Storm first. He might have been burned alive, poor -lamb.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Brant and the sheep-slayer eyed each other with -slow wonder, as folk who had not looked for the meeting -and did not relish it. Then, with peril waiting -close at hand for both, the shepherd’s full-fed wrath -blazed out.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I shot you, Storm. I shot you, d’ye hear, for -killing ewes of mine. And you’re alive!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm left Rebecca and showed bared teeth to -Brant. He was no outlaw here at Logie, but ripe -and ready for what was coming to the house he -guarded.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So much for you, Brant,” said Rebecca, with a -cackle of wild laughter. “A word from the Master, -and he’ll have his jaws in your lean throat.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The flames of the blazing door were lessening now, -for kitchen and porch alike were floored with stone -and offered no fresh fuel; and the moment came that -Hardcastle had looked for. The Garsykes Men, -when no uproar sounded from within—though the -besieged should be between two fires by now—grew -restless and afraid of some ambush waiting in the -dark of the stable-yard. A common impulse swayed -them to dash over the live embers into the house before -the first shock of surprise was over.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As they came into the ruddy murk of the porch, -Hardcastle aimed point-blank at them. A wild-beast -howl followed from men not used to bearing pain. -Then the porch was empty, save for the foremost of -the Garsykes Folk, whose legs were full of shot.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Outside there was a rough stampede of men who -fought each other in their panic to get out of gun-reach. -And Brant the shepherd suddenly went mad -with the blood-lust. Robbed of his chance to fire a -shot, he pushed Hardcastle aside, trod over the fallen -body and ran out with a grim oath in his heart.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The night was black, impenetrable. Sight aided -him nothing, but hearing did. On the high uplands -Brant had learned to see with his ears when need -pressed. The fleeing mob, not far down the road as -yet, was making noise enough to rouse dead men on -their gibbets, and Brant’s blunderbuss bellowed like -a stag gone mad at rutting-time.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A livid shriek of anguish followed, and those in -Logie’s kitchen waited for Brant to return in triumph.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hark to them,” said Rebecca, rubbing her hands -together. “They came to Logie, as my lad told me -at the gate—and they go as he fore-warned me. By -the marrow, how they squeal!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen thought of her father. He had been asleep -when she glanced in on her way to the kitchen; but -the uproar must have roused him, and it was terrible -to picture him lying there, alone and helpless, waiting -for he knew not what.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master’s thoughts were with his shepherd, who -did not return. “Brant’s long in coming,” he muttered -restlessly, and had taken a step toward the porch -when he halted, checked by the strangest tumult that -had come to Logie on this night of crashing din.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He heard a bellow of mingled rage and fear, and knew -the voice for Long Murgatroyd’s. He heard, too, -the muffled oaths of other men. He sprang to Causleen’s -side and put her behind him; and now the sharp -stench of fire wisped and eddied down the passage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Go back,” he muttered, hearing her steps close -following his.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She would not, and they ran down the long corridor -together till they reached the open door of the room -where Donald lay. And on the threshold they stood -as in a nightmare, aghast at what they saw.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd and a press of Garsykes Men were -in the room, their faces lit by a fire they had piled in -the middle of it. The lamp-glow, stealing through the -room where Donald slept, had shown them an easier -way of entry than burning down the main door. They -had crashed through the window, tossed down their -sacks pell-mell and lit them. If they had seen the -sleeping man, they took him for dead or helpless and -had not heeded.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So much was plain to Causleen and Hardcastle, -looking on with the nightmare grip about them still. -But the pedlar slept no longer. He was awake -and on his feet. His face caught the fireglow as -wrinkled parchment might—little lines of crimson -criss-crossing its ancient pallor—but the body they -had thought chained was alert and strong, willowy -with youth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald had gone to sleep content. His girl would -be safe in Hardcastle’s hands, and he was free to let -dreams take him down the roads of old romance, -when those of his race plied claymores and heard the -battle-din. He woke to see an ill-kempt company -lighting a fire at the far end of the room; and suddenly -life raced into his palsied limbs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Peril to Logie was mingled in his thoughts with -far-off combats up the glens at home. He stood there, -supple and thin and dominant, gathering the dreams -come true at last. And the Garsykes mob gaped at -this dead man who faced them without any weapon -but his consuming joy in battle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd was twitching from one foot to -the other. The men behind him were bound as by a -spell. So was Hardcastle, who was aware of deeper -things than he had known till now. The Garsykes -Folk saw only Donald. That was plain, and the pedlar -must have his will of this last moment, till there was -need to intervene.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Donald glanced about, as if in search of something -that had shared his tedious days in this same room. -And still Murgatroyd and those behind were held in -thrall. The fire they had kindled blazed and smoked -by turns in the sleepy draught, till Murgatroyd kicked -it into flame.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The wood’s wet,” he muttered, “and be damned -to the fools that gathered it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, wet with blood,” shrilled Donald.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that, strength came to him. His glance, -roving again about the walls, found the thing he -sought. With speed incredible he leaped to get the -pike into his hands—the pike that had gone to Flodden -and returned.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He swung it gently to and fro for one swift moment, -as if he doubted which of its three blades to ply. Then, -with a Gaelic battle-shout, he leaped forward, through -and over the fire’s reek, whirling the axe-edge high -above his old, grey head.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd got his skull away from the blow; -but the axe clove his shoulder till it gritted on the -bone.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m done, lads,” he growled, swaying to his fall. -“Get about this madman risen from the dead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No voice answered him. The Garsykes Men had -gone the way they came taking still dread for company. -Alone with one who whirled his axe to strike -again, Murgatroyd gathered what strength was left -him, and ran screaming out into the night.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A great light shone in Donald’s face. There was -strength in his body still, and a pibroch in his soul; -and, when Causleen ran to him across the dwindling -fire, he turned happily.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was so they fought in the old days gone. I’m -glad you saw me make an end that way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He toyed with the pike lovingly. He praised -Logie for keeping its edges grouted and sharp through -the centuries for this night’s work of his. Then his -strength fell away, a borrowed joy. The pike dropped -from his grasp, clattering into the embers that Hardcastle -was stamping out.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your hands, child,” he whispered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She guided him to the long-settle that had been his -bed for many weary days, and her tears rained on the -blankets she gathered round the motionless body. -Donald opened his eyes once—glad, tender eyes, at -peace with this world and the next—and he found voice, -as he had got strength awhile since to lift the pike.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Causleen, little Evening Star, you’ve lit the roads -for me. And now—dear God, there’s sunrise on the -hills.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The pedlar lay quiet awhile. All that was of this -world clamoured round him. He was saying good-bye -to the broken roads he loved. There would be no -to-morrows, with curlews wailing over summer hills -and dusk cradling in purple hollows of the moor—no -journeys on blistered feet through the tang of winter -gales. He ached for the northland he must leave, -and his spirit shrank from the last Crossing because -the world was full of lovesome things. Surely he -would see once again the shimmer of buttercups -glowing like grace of old allegiance across the ripening -meadows, would hear the storm-cock pipe defiance -to the gale. Just once again he must smell, too, the -reek of clover-hay as it came home on creaking wagons -between the briar-rose banks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It grows dark,” he murmured suddenly. “And -now the light shines through—and, child, there’s your -mother beckoning from the braes. She’s just as young -and bonnie—as bonnie——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was so the warrior died, and Hardcastle stood with -bowed head till Causleen’s first storm of grief was -ended. A strange gentleness came to him, a softening -of the ice-cold years, as he covered Donald’s face and -drew the girl away.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They stood facing each other in the dim lamplight. -A chill breeze blew through the broken casement, -tossing to and fro the reek of the stamped-out fire. -On the floor the pike lay in a little pool of crimson, -darkening fast. Yet nothing prevailed against the -austere and tranquil presence that filled this room of -death.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Causleen,” he said, by and by, “you need not be -lonely.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was feeling like a child lost in mid-winter moors. -No words could have reached her heart as his simple, -“you need not be lonely,” did. He was changed, -as she was, by this alchemy of death, into finer metal.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then, longing to believe in him, she took a step away. -“It is not the time or place to—to doubt you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is the place to tell me why you doubt.” His -glance went to the death-bed. “Could I be false, -with your father lying there?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You could not—no—and yet it seems so mean a -thing to talk of here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It divides us, and <span class='it'>he</span> did not want that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I am ashamed either way,” she said, her brave -eyes meeting his—“of you, or of myself for doubting.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Little by little he drew the tale from her. She had -come to the wood between Logie and the slope to -Wharfe River, weeks ago, and seen him with Nita’s -arms stretched out to him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle understood now all that had baffled -him these late days. He recalled each detail of that -half-forgotten scene—Nita’s alluring eagerness, the -sharp crack of a twig, his glance backward to learn if -one of the Lost Folk was stealing on him from behind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You saw us there,” he said, “and she was an -old love of mine. What else could you have -thought?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His quietness seemed to rebuke her. All these weeks -she had been the silent accuser, he the shameless culprit. -Was he a liar through and through, under his mask -of gruff honesty?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We shared the woodmen’s hut for a night,” he -went on, “and afterwards there was trouble. I asked -to clear that for you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“From pity.” It was her turn now to glance at -the silent figure on the settle. “We never cared for -charity, he and I.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I did not offer charity,” he said, direct and forthright. -“While I was persuading you to that, Nita -wove her devilry into it all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What devilry?” she asked, her eyes grave and -questioning.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He glanced from the shattered casement to Donald’s -death-bed, and his face hardened.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She offered me escape from what has come to -Logie—and I would not take it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen’s heart was free at last, as she watched -this man whom she had flouted. He showed greater -than his height in the dim lamp-glow that made -flickering lights and shadows through the room. His -voice though hushed in deference to what lay yonder, -was vibrant in its simple candour. He loved her—loved -her for herself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A gusty weariness came about her, a need to lean -on the man who had caused her sleepless nights and -tears as salt as the nether brine-pits.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was afraid—till now,” she whispered, and put -her hands into his as if she gave a kingdom.</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap18'>CHAPTER XVIII</h1></div> - -<h3>THE RESTLESS DAWN</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>As they stood there, a stifled bark sounded from -the doorway. Storm, his grizzled hide quivering -with eagerness, came sidling in. Fire and gunshot -and the night’s swift happenings had opened the -windows through which dogs and horses see things -hidden from most men.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He knew that death was in the room, and cringed -his way to Donald’s side. He crouched for a while, -his head on the still body, and whimpered like a child; -for the pedlar and he had shared many an hour of -friendship when life was wrong with both.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the sheep-slayer rose and shook himself. There -was no cringeing now, no sorrow. Self-reliant, strong -of body and of courage, he came to Hardcastle, who -knew less than he what was soon to happen on Logie-side. -He looked at the Master with brown, candid -eyes—a lingering glance of sheer affection—and put -two hairy paws on his shoulders while he licked his -face. And afterwards he said good-bye to Causleen, -and turned once at the broken casement before passing -out into the night.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Poor devil,” muttered Hardcastle. “I’d whistle -him back, if Brant was not about the house.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Brant would not shoot him, after all we’ve shared -with Storm?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In cold blood. Logie might go, and all of us, if -Stephen’s ewes were safe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is a hard country,” said Causleen, clinging to -his sleeve with sharpening dread.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now Rebecca came running to the door, and -stood like one turned to stone when she saw these two -together. The kingdom of her days at Logie was -ended. That was plain.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it?” asked the Master.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Naught that matters now; but, for my part, I’d -have chosen a likelier time for sweethearting. My -kitchen asking a week o’ days to redd it up again—fire -and brimstone on this side o’ the house—and you -two fancying you’re cushat-doves high up in a mating -tree. I’ve no patience.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it?” asked Hardcastle again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Naught that would trouble you if I told it. You’re -past caring how an old woman fares, though she’s -skin and bone for your sake—wearing her life out, cooking -and scrubbing. And, ‘What is it?’ asks the -Master. It’s this, if you must know. Brant’s not -come back, and I’m tired of guarding my kitchen with -a rolling-pin against yond lean swine from Garsykes. -If Brant’s gone, some o’ them are lurking in the stable-yard.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle put Causleen from him gently. The new -peril was harsh enough, but he was quick these days -to face unexpected happenings.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Stay here, child,” he said sharply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She stayed for one snatched moment to stoop above -her father and give his soul a God-speed. Then she -followed Hardcastle, and he felt a hand steal into his.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, get back, child,” he said. “There’s trouble.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So my place is with you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She would not be denied; and when they came into -the kitchen, Brant the shepherd was crossing the -doorway.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Spared us the need to go in search of you, have you, -Stephen?” snapped Rebecca. “You look moiled, -and fuzzy in your wits.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So you’d look,” grumbled Brant, “if you had -forgotten there were two ends to a blunderbuss—one -that spat at the Garsykes sort, and t’ other that -knocked me heels over head with the back-kick. I -struck against a rock in falling, and lay silly for a -time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, it would be no new feeling to you, Brant.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If I had a tongue like thine, Rebecca, I’d do two -things—tie a double knot in it, then cut it at the root.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hark to him, Jonah,” shrilled the old woman, -gaunt and fiery. “Comes bringing his saucy ways -to Logie’s kitchen, where you and me live.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The brindled cat knew his mistress, her every look -and change of voice. His fur had been scorched, -moreover, at some time of the wild onset, and he was -in evil temper. He stalked up and down about -Brant’s knees, growling as a dog might.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Going Storm’s way, are you?” said the shepherd. -“You’ll be for the wild lands soon, and a dollop of -lead to teach you poacher’s shrift.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen looked on, wide-eyed and troubled. In -her Highland glens they had sung of far-off battles. -She had been suckled in the faith that warriors returned -from victory with glad faces and shouts of triumph. -Yet here at Logie, safe through heavy odds, Rebecca -and the shepherd were snarling at each other, as if all -was lost. It was her first taste of battle and its aftermath.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“While I was getting up from my dazement, Master,” -said Brant by and by, “I heard another screech -and running of the Garsykes Men, and made shift to -follow with the butt-end of the blunderbuss. But -they outran me, like. So I stepped in here, to ask -what had happened.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All the world, Stephen—and what’s beyond it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now Causleen heard the note of victory at last—heard -it in his voice. All that was Hardcastle -was hers, and she was his. She thought of the father -lying yonder. He would be content.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, going to the porch to hear if there were -any lurking Wilderness Folk about the courtyard, -lifted a foot instinctively as he crossed the threshold. -He remembered the body that had fallen in answer -to his charge of shot.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, he <span class='it'>was</span> there,” said Rebecca dryly; “but I -took leave to shift him into the stable-yard. We’ll -hoist him over the Long Pasture wall to-morrow—and -the Garsykes sort will steal up to take him off. -They’re like rats in that way, too—attentive to their -burials.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dawn crept grey and misty over Logie. And as -they stood in Rebecca’s kitchen—a silent company, -waiting for they knew not what—the old house grew -restless. It knew itself secure for a little while. -There was safety as yet, the rout of the Lost Folk. -Yet one of their dead lay just outside the porch, -pleading for reprisals.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Logie was no senseless block of stone and mortar. -It had sheltered Hardcastles through seven hundred -years of weather. Its heart and spirit had grown -with the growing generations that romped and married -and died within the kingdom of its stubborn loyalty. -It had watched lusty fathers lick their sons into manhood’s -shape—listened to the muffled tread of bearers -as they carried one and another of the race to burial—heard -women groaning in the child-birth, lest there -should be none to reign in Logie-side.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And to-night Logie did not know what would -chance. It had felt the pain of its flaming door, had -been aware of the oaths of prowling men who threatened -walls and rafter-beams. Every nerve and sinew had -been racked by battle, and the end was not yet. The -stir of unguessed dreads to come roamed its corridors, -and sorrow piped through every casement. For -Logie had found life strong and sweet of savour, and -was loath to die.</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap19'>CHAPTER XIX</h1></div> - -<h3>GARSYKES</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita made sport of the Garsykes Men when they -returned from Logie in the spitting rain of -dawn. Slim, and fresh as if she came out -of the new day’s heart, she waited for them in the -village. And first there came a slack-set company of -twenty, glancing behind them constantly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is Logie fired?” asked Nita softly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, we blazed the door through,” came an answering -growl.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The twenty men went their way, and presently -another company lumbered over the hill and down. -Most of them went lame, pitted by what Shepherd -Brant had crammed into his blunderbuss.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What have they done to you, there at Logie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita knew now that all had miscarried, and they -snarled in answer to her spite. For a moment they -had in mind to rive her limb from limb; and, knowing -the danger, she faced them with outstretched hands -and a pleading smile that might have been a child’s.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why should you hurt your little basket-weaver?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Because we’re plugged with lead and rusty nails,” -grunted a shammocky rogue whose right arm hung -limp.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye,” said another. “It was you that sent us up -to Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They were round her now like wolves. Foiled and -wounded, they longed to spring on this new prey, -yet could not. Nita had queened it over Garsykes so -long that old experience did not fail her now. She -wove little, wanton spells about them—then pleaded -again with frail, helpless hands—till the old witchcraft -stirred about them. The grumbling oaths grew -muffled, and Nita, seeing them half-cowed already, -laughed with stinging mockery.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I sent you up to Logie, thinking you were men. -Thirty of you went against Hardcastle and could not -take him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The snarling uproar rose afresh, but she held the -lash now and wielded it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You were to bring him—alive, if might be—to -little Nita, so she could teach him many ways of -humbling pride. And all you bring is—your tattered -selves.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Widow Mathison had joined them—plump and -touzled, just as she had left her bed at sound of the -uproar, except for a cloak thrown over her nightwear.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All Garsykes couldn’t lay hands on one man up -yonder?” she asked, rocking to and fro with laughter. -“If Hardcastle was minded that way, I’d risk a second -wedding. The more I see of our sort, the deeper I -fall into love with Logie’s Master.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hardcastle’s got a bonnier wench up there,” said -the shammocky rogue, striving to rally his wilting -fellows—“bonnier than Nita, if it comes to that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The chance shaft found its mark. The girl stood -silent for a moment, gathering years behind and years -to come into her hands. When she spoke at last, -they drew away as from some instant menace in their -midst; and each poor fool began to scratch at his -wounds afresh and to long for ale.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They couldn’t bring Hardcastle to Garsykes—thirty -of our strong men could not. But little Nita -can.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her voice was bitter quiet. She did not seem to -see the frowsy press of men about her. Aloof, hard -as mid-winter on the barren uplands, she saw Hardcastle -taken in toils of her devising—and not Hardcastle -alone.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What will you do?” asked the rogue with the -splintered arm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, what will I do? Let him wait, first of all, -till he’s sick with fear for another. Then I’ll put -fire of hell into him before ever he comes to our village -in the hills—and afterwards——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A man’s full-throated curses broke across the dawn’s -stillness, and Long Murgatroyd came lurching up, -his arms thrown about two comrades who steadied -him on either side. They had clapped rough bandages -about the wound that Donald’s pike had given, and -he had thought his end was come till now, in the grey -dawn, he saw Nita.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A rare warrior, you,” she said, her bitterness -let loose afresh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The will to live returned to Murgatroyd. Hardihood -came back though his wound dripped and -snarled.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye,” he said—“and I’ll wive you, soon or late.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His face was so white and livid in the dawn-light, -that Nita drew back with a sense of sharp foreboding. -Twice she had felt this same dread of Murgatroyd, -but it was keener now. Then she rallied her -courage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When Garsykes is ended, you’ll wive me, maybe. -Can you wait as long?” she mocked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can bide,” he said, and limped bravely on till he -was out of sight. Then his head drooped. “Get -me home, mates,” he muttered. “I’m sick and -wambly. Get me home.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita stayed on, alone with the grey mists that eddied -over from Pengables. She thought of Logie, secure -after long warfare against odds—of Hardcastle, who -was another’s now—and no winter’s spite, packed -with hurricane and sleet, had ever blown so cold, so -merciless, as the storm in her own heart.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>An old man of the village passed, and glanced at -the silent figure.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“At your dreams, little Nita?” he asked, with -grandfatherly indulgence of a favourite.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“At my dreams, Tanty.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s well to be young while you can,” said he, -and went by on rheumy knees.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still Nita halted. She had spun as many webs in -her time as she had woven baskets, but none as strong -as these she was binding into a net for Hardcastle. -Like a figure of doom she stood, the wet mists hurrying -by.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For two weeks and a day thereafter there was peace -round Logie. No attack came on the house, no -ambush waited in the roads when dusk crept down. -Farm-servants carried Donald to the kirkyard under -the hill, and none molested the mourners in going -or returning.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then came afterwards the quiet, half-awed return -to usual life that follows death in any house. Rebecca -and the brindled cat got to their friendship’s bickerings. -The Master rode abroad on business of his -lands, or brought game home for the larder. And, -as if the skies were in league with peace, the long -warmth-in-winter held.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen began to fret—not for the father who had -ended bravely and in happiness—but for Hardcastle. -He grew lean and gaunt, ate as if he must, with no -relish for what lay on his plate, and left the wine -scarce tasted. Try as she might, she could get no -answer to the riddle of his moodiness, until, one -morning near November’s end, he strode restlessly -about the breakfast chamber, and came to a sharp -halt before her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Causleen,” he said. “I want you to go up to Shepherd -Brant’s. It’s a rough lodging—but it’s safe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now she understood; and, for very gladness, -she made pretence of doubt.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Tired of me already?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t jest, child.” He was hard, peremptory. -“You must go to-day.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And if I will not?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I shall set you on pony-back and take you there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is amiss with you?” she asked—knowing, -but longing for the spoken word.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Fear,” said Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Fear?” she echoed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again he paced up and down, and again came to -her side. “I’ve a lifetime’s knowledge of Garsykes, -and I tell you we’re in the thick of danger. Whenever -their silence comes——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It means another firing of the house?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Or worse, now that you’re here at Logie. Will -you not understand?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If they took me from you? If you fought till you -could do no more, and they took me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I should run mad.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was fierce, possessive, as he drew her to him, -and she was content. The lean years of her trudging -days—weather, and blistered feet, and scorn of men -for the peddling-sort—were forgotten. Deeper than -his love of Logie—deeper than his love of life for its -own good, stalwart sake—lay fear for her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll go up to Brant’s?” he said by and by, half -between entreaty and command.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How can I—now that you care? My place is -with you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then she cried happily against his sleeve, and he -could make no further headway with persuasion. The -next day it was the same. Whenever, out of his -stifling dread for her, he tried to get her out of Logie -and up into the trackless hills, she glanced away.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’re rough quarters, I know,” he would -begin.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That does not trouble me,” she would answer -gently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And, of course, there’ll be only an old shepherd-man -up there, and you’d want another woman with -you. Rebecca can go.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And what would you do here without her?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Fend for myself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If we can persuade Rebecca to it, I will go,” she -said, her glance inscrutable and grave.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now, as time dragged slowly by, Hardcastle -learned much of the ways of women, and more and -more he was reminded of the slant, drooping flight of -plover when their nests are threatened.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca’s mind had been his own—to get the girl -into safety—till Causleen’s heart to endure had captured -her grim liking. If the Master must find a wife—and -it was time there was an heir to Logie—he -might go further and fare worse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I cannot thoyle it, Jonah,” she would grumble to -the brindled cat, “but I’ve got to. Me and you -watching the Master’s goings out and his comings in—slaves, -as you might say, to his will—and a slip of a -lass making all as if it had never been. But she’s -hill-born, with a spirit of her own. That’s so much -to be thankful for.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the second week was nearing its end, Hardcastle -grew so weary of the peace brooding like thunder-weather -over Logie, so sick with dread for Causleen, -that he strode into Logie like a hurricane.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca was in the hall, as it chanced, plying her -broom as if it were a flail she wielded against the -Garsykes Men.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it, Master?” she asked, standing in a -dust-storm of her own making.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s this, Rebecca. You take her to Brant’s hut -to-morrow of your own will, or by mine.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Afraid they’ll burn the roof over your head? -They’ve tried it twice—and we’ll teach ’em that the -third time pays for all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you a fool altogether, woman? There’s -Causleen in the house.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, it’s her place. She’d be a poor sort o’ wife for -Logie, if she left you at the pinch.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle was in no mood for argument. He told -her—simply and with command—that she must take -Causleen to Brant’s hut to-morrow. And Rebecca -grew submissive on the sudden.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s as well she should be away,” she admitted, -“if only for your peace of mind.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The next day, however, when Hardcastle came down -to breakfast, he was met by Causleen with news that -Rebecca could not stir from her bed and sent word -to the Master that she was “twisted with rheumatics.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She has chosen the worst time she could,” snapped -Hardcastle. “If the woman must have luxuries of -that sort let her have them when you’re safely up at -Brant’s, the two of you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen fingered the spray of crimson-berried -hawthorn she had gathered for the breakfast-table -in place of flowers. She put it into the jar, turned it -this way and that till she was satisfied, then glanced -up at Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You can only be hurt through me nowadays. -You care as much as that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. They can rob me of more than Logie now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Garsykes knows. Gossip would tell them where -you had hidden me—and what could two women and -Brant do against them when they came—to rob you -of me, and me of you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A great cavern opened in the man’s heart. All that -was in her eyes, in the simple, candid words, broke -into deeps that had not been stirred till now.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was sending you out of my reach?” he said, -aghast at his own folly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She came to him of her own accord, and crept close -into his arms. “I could not bear it. I—I have -only you—and we must be together.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle laughed by and by, soberly. “You’ll -have to take charge of my wits,” he said. “They -were never strong.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Late that afternoon, Rebecca’s ailment left her as -if by magic; and Hardcastle, returning from a journey -up the far moors, encountered her at the gate.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Tied to your bed no longer?” he asked dryly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can shift rheumatics as well as one here and -there, when the Master’s got rid of his own ailment. -But every talk of going to Shepherd Brant’s will make -me bedridden, and so I warn you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They fell silent presently, yielding to the twilight -quiet of the place. Here the flint arrow-head had -waited on the gate-top for Hardcastle’s return when -October russeted the woods. Here Rebecca had -communed with her dead lover through forty years of -constancy to feud. They seemed to listen to the rustle -of unsubstantial feet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The pedlar’s girl should be proud to be among us -now,” said Rebecca, her voice low and crooning. -“All the years Logie has bided—and vengeance in her -hand at last.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master could not rid himself of dread for Causleen. -Fast as he beat down one attack, another fear -came shadowy at him from behind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Garsykes swarms with its scum, and we are few,” -he growled. “Who made you a prophet?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A step sounded up the road, and Hardcastle, turning -with quick instinct to defend himself, saw Michael -Draycott, his wide, cheery face less full of colour -than its wont.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You, Michael? You look peaky, man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, it’s this way. I found my best heifer dead -this morning—a fine little roan she was—and a -scrawled token by her side. <span class='it'>Hemlock grows in the -Wilderness.</span> That was the message.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A mucky folk,” said Rebecca tranquilly. “They -were bred mucky. They couldn’t help it, maybe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As they’d put that on me, I knew naught else -would happen to the homestead for a bit; so I stepped -up to spend the night at Logie, by your leave.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve heard of something planned?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not I; but they’ve let you alone so long that it -stands to reason there’s mischief brewing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca was her bustling self again. “You’re no -sort of laggard, Michael. For a man so death-shy -you do very well—and there’s a game-pie in the oven.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They kept watch together that night, the Master -and Draycott, with a jug of October ale between them. -They sipped it sparingly, for it was potent, and they -kept wide ears for any sound outside the four stout -walls that sheltered them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen, about the middle of the watch, woke from -an evil dream, and shuddered as she lay in the darkness. -A rat scampered across the ceiling. In the -silence its feet sounded like the tramp of hurrying men, -and she lifted herself in panic.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She conquered that. Fear, they had taught her -in babyhood, was a shameful thing to harbour. But -with the conquering came blinding loneliness, a reaching -out for the dead father whose voice she would not -hear again. They were kind at Logie, but it was a -house of dread. If only her father were laying below-stairs -there, his eyes kindling with welcome though -his body was outworn. If only he were living. But he -lay in the wet earth down yonder, dust to dust.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A man’s tread came down the passage, and halted -at her door. She did not know what peril was at -hand, but roused herself to meet it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Who is it?” she asked sharply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Who should it be?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The relief was instant. No voice she had heard till -now had been so strong, so welcome.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All’s well with Logie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” said Hardcastle. “All’s well.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She heard his step go down the corridor, lessening -into silence, and a new world came to dawn, after the -nightmare that had been. Outside Logie’s walls -were skulking folk; but within their six-foot bulk was -a man after her own heart.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Twice that night she heard him come to her door -again, and halt and repeat his quiet “All’s well,” and -her heart warmed to his gruff strength, as she fell into -a dreamless sleep.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dawn was filtering through the shutters when she -woke, and her first thought was that Hardcastle -would be hungry after his long watch. Dressing hastily -she went down, stirred by a simple thrill of joy in -the hope that Rebecca would not be astir as yet. -Her own hands should prepare the Master’s breakfast.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Smiling gravely at her eagerness, she stepped into -the kitchen, and was chilled, somehow, by what she -saw. The fire was dead and grey. Michael Draycott -sat wakeful, the candle by his side guttering in the -thin, peevish draught, and pointed to Hardcastle, -who lay back in his hooded chair, so fast asleep that it -seemed he would never wake again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Speak soft, and don’t ye rouse him,” whispered -Michael. “He kept up till the first streak o’ dawn -came.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you lying to me, Michael? Is—is he dead? -I would rather hear the truth.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll never get less from me. He’s as live as -three men put together—or will be, when he wakens -from this strong sleep of his.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She glanced about, half between relief and dread. -“I came to give him breakfast.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Give him sleep instead. It’s worth more than all -the eggs and bacon ever reared in Logie Dale.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He unbarred the door and beckoned her out into the -nipping air that was like balm after the indoors warmth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m glad I stepped up last night,” he said, “though -naught’s happened to Logie, after all. You’re a sensible -sort of lass, I fancy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was so downright that Causleen could only laugh—a -wan little laugh plucked out from hardship.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A sensible lass, and not as hard as Rebecca. Well, -then, I’ve a warning for you. The Master, as I told -you, held his head up to the very minute dawn stepped -in. That meant no Garsykes sort would come. Daylight -and they were never friends.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Michael?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then he fell back in his chair, and sleep came on -him like a wolf. He’s doing too much these days.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is that news to me? The grey cobwebs run -across his face. Sometimes he falters in his stride -as he comes up Logie-lane, for very weariness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, and he’ll break, one day soon, if he’s not looked -after. He never rests by day—riding, or shooting, -or what not—and he seldom sleeps o’ nights, by the -look of him. No man born o’ woman can carry it -for long.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen remembered the weeks gone by. Her -pride had resented Hardcastle’s aloofness, his fits of -moodiness. Now she understood, and lifted a child’s -penitent face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What would you have me do?” she asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The man’s big, shy heart found room to speak. -“I’d have you marry him as soon as maybe. Rebecca -tells me you’re both minded that way.—And, there, -I’ve frightened you. An old man had no right to say -as much.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” she said. “Tell me——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s you that’s three parts of his trouble.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then I can go, Michael.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’d only follow, and bring you back. He’s got -to that pass, he’d rather Logie went than you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They stood together in the stable-yard. Starlings -were making a sleepy din among the ivy, and over old -Pengables the red of dawn pushed through the mists. -The day seemed full of grey foreboding, but Causleen -did not ask what was to come. Michael’s blunt -simplicity made it sure that he was speaking truth. -“<span class='it'>He’d rather Logie went than you</span>”—the words were -like a throstle’s song in spring.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then I will stay,” she said, and smiled on him, -and went indoors.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca had come down, prepared to light the fire -and scold her way through household tasks, but even -she stood mute at sight of the Master. In all her days -she had not seen a living man so dead to sound or -motion. There was only the gentle breathing to tell -her he was more than the husk of what had been.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She started as Causleen entered, then rasped at the -girl to cover her own disquiet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now, don’t you faint away, or any o’ those -maidish cantrips. There’s a time and season for ’em, -and it isn’t now. Fancied he was dead, I reckon? -Well, he’s quick. All the Hardcastles are made that -way. Gluttons for sleep they always were and will be.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The brindled cat had learned Rebecca’s mood at -a glance and leaped to the top of a cupboard, where -he sat with vain hope that he was safe. Rebecca, in -sore and restless trouble, searched for outlet, and -her roving glance fell on Jonah. With a twist of the -long hearth-brush in her hands, she brought him -down, and aimed a wild blow at him in his flight.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s for washing yourself like a dandy, same -as if naught was amiss at Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then she lit the fire with vicious haste; and, when -she looked up again, Causleen saw the slow, thin -tears of age trickling down.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m worrited, lass, and don’t ye heed. They -can come blazing Logie down every night and all, -and welcome. It’s when Garsykes willun’t come, -and keeps us at full stretch, I get to my nagging.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The morning went by on leaden feet. Michael -Draycott had gone to the work waiting for him at -Broken Firs. The Master slept on, spent and in -some far land that seemed neighbour to the grave. -The wind stole whining from the moors and through -the forest trees. There seemed little hope for -Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen could bear it no longer. All trouble was -easier to face in the frank open than prisoned by walls -that harboured dread. So, when Rebecca had gone -to the dairy for a moment, she stole to Hardcastle’s -side.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dick, do you hear me?” she whispered, longing -to hear him answer, yet hoping he would sleep on, -to find his strength.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No answer came, except the <span class='it'>clack-clack</span> of Rebecca’s -pattens on the dairy floor. So then she bent and -kissed him, and went out—across the mistal-yard, -and up the home pastures, and out into the moors -that lay near to Garsykes. She needed the winds -of God about her—needed, too, in some half-confessed -fashion, to be sentry while the Master slept.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At Logie, Rebecca went on with her cooking and -her scouring as if no inner voice was whispering of -havoc, soft-footed, stealthy. All she had longed for—all -she had prayed, through the lonely years that had -gone since they killed her man—was gathering to -a head. In her bones she knew it, as she knew -“the rheumatics” that was twisting them out of all -earthly shape.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It had never been Rebecca’s habit to think that -ten thousand such lean swine as the Garsykes Men -could have their will of Logie; but a dark cloud of -doubt lay between her and the further vision. There -was thunder-weather brewing, and it must break -before ever Logie came to safety and its own.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The teasing doubt stayed with her, till Jonah came -in, a full-grown rat in his mouth, and layed it down -before her—in propitiation, as it were.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now, bless you, lad,” she cackled. “If I did -dust you with a besom, it was for your good. Thwack -the male sort, say I—thwack ’em true and often—and -they thrive the better for it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Jonah played with the half-dead rat for a while, -then came purring and bridling against the woman’s -skirt.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, aye, you’ve done well, lad. There never was -such a rat for bigness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The more she praised him the thicker grew Jonah’s -fur, till Rebecca began to laugh shrilly at his antics. -She was in a mood to read omens into little matters, -and her spirits had risen with a bound. The Garsykes -Men were rats, and Jonah had just brought in the -first fruits of some coming slaughter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The rat began to stir fitfully, and Jonah, with a -sudden, growling spring, was clawing him to bits -when a shadow darkened the kitchen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca glanced up to see a little figure standing -in the porch, and her whole body stiffened, as a dog’s -might. Danger had passed by Logie through the -night; but every instinct told her it was on the -threshold now.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I want no baskets, Nita—leastways, none of your -weaving.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do not be always scolding little Nita,” pleaded -the girl. “She has no baskets to sell this morning—but -she has news to give.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I want no news, neither. Cannot you see I’m -throng with my cooking?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My news is for the Master. Go tell him, Rebecca.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle had been stirring in his sleep before -she came, and her voice seemed to probe him like a -knife. He got to his feet, as if attacked. Dishevelled -by the night’s vigil, gaunt with all that Garsykes -had put on him since he said them nay, he stood -glowering at this flower-fresh visitor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What news?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You are all so rough here. I meant it kindly—meant -to warn you—but now I will not. Go find -the pedlar’s brat if you can.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He stepped forward, drew her indoors and held -her there. “Where is she?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have I fared very well at your hands, that I -should tell you? Yet I was forgiving. I could not -bear to think of her—where she is—and you to go -mad when you heard it later.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She’s lying, the lile toad,” said Rebecca, with -grim brevity. “She never had heart to think like that, -save for one—herself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So Nita threw the mask off, and smiled at them. -“I was lying when I said that I forgave. I came -because I longed to torture Hardcastle of Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where is she?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you shake the life out of me, how can I tell -you—even if I would?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He let her go free, and presently she glanced at -him, her grey eyes wide with malice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Our Garsykes Men are not good at the fighting, -so they hatched another plan. If they could take -what Hardcastle holds dearest, and keep her till he -paid tribute at long last——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She halted, watching the sweat break out on the -man’s haggard face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where is she?” he repeated.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not in Garsykes. You might rouse even your -chicken-livered Logie Men to ride through us. She’s -in the caves behind our village.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A gulf seemed to open at Hardcastle’s feet. If -this were true—he would not have it true—and -through his dazed sickness sounded Nita’s voice, gentle -as a dove’s.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They are long caves and deep. You knew them -as a boy?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, by God,” he said, towering above her with -still and awful menace, “and now I’m going to know -them as a man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She halted for one last thrust. “It may be too -late for paying tribute. They may be out of hand, -now I’m not there to whip them into order.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then she was gone, swift as an east-wind that -had struck to the bone and stayed for no reprisal. -The Master halted for a moment, gathering his -strength.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll not go?” said Rebecca, her lean arm -clutching him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where she goes, I go, woman. Have you no -wits to guide you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca, fear as she might for him, was glad to -see him take the Logie way—straight to the open, -though he went alone. It was only when he had -stepped into the crimson flare of dawn, flooding the -porch, that again she drew him back.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your two hands, and your head up to the stars, -won’t carry far these days. You’d be the better -for a gun in your hands, and a candle or two in your -pockets. Caves are darksome places.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had wit left enough to get a fowling-piece and -see to the priming, while she thrust candles and a -tinder-box into his pocket.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Rebecca listened to his running stride across -the cobble-stones to the wind that rose in shrill and -bitter menace. There was only Jonah of the men-folk -left. He knew it, and sprang to her shoulder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, drive your claws in,” she snapped. “We’re -all that’s left of Logie, you and me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her glance wandered forlornly round the kitchen -till it encountered the dead rat by the hearth. Then -her unalterable strength in hardship found its token.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s luck coming, Jonah,” she said, and got -about her household tasks again.</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap20'>CHAPTER XX</h1></div> - -<h3>SPITE’S VICTORY</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen, when she left Hardcastle asleep in -the hooded chair at Logie, wandered nearer -and nearer to the Garsykes country, till she -halted at last on Trolls Hill and stood looking over -the barren lands.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The wind, boisterous now, had scattered the mists, -and in the keen, chilly sunlight Garsykes village -showed clear across the hollow. She could hear voices -in its street, and wondered if they were planning some -new devilment. A woman’s raucous laugh sounded. -Was that in answer to the plotting?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her courage ebbed low, after the night’s useless -vigil. There were so many of them. What chance -had Logie in the last result? Surely Hardcastle had -done enough, and might give up the unequal battle. -He had only to pay tribute, like the rest, to buy his -safety.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She trampled down the thought. If she had half-loved -him, that road of freedom might have brought -content. As it was, she could not bear that he should -be less than the Master, whatever came. And yet the -odds against him were pitiful, disastrous.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still her glance was drawn to Garsykes, as if the very -evil of the place had cast a spell on her; and she -started when Nita Langrish stepped lightly up the -track that led from Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not afraid to be so near our thieves and cut-throats?” -said Nita.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Logie does not fear such. They came, and had -their answer.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Riding a tall horse, are you? Logie does not fear, -says Hardcastle’s wanton, as if she was an honest -wife there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The hot blood flamed in Causleen’s face, and pallor -followed. If a knife had been ready to her hand, -there would have been murder done, here where the -wind roared and fluted over Trolls Hill.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Go,” she said, “back to the styes that bred you!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I will go, little beggar on horseback. If you knew -what errand I have been on—but, then, you do not -know.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita stood poised on slender feet, like a wild deer of -the hills, but tarried.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m skilled in divination,” she went on, her voice -reminding Causleen, in some haphazard way, of -Jonah, the brindled cat when he was playing with a -mouse. “Shall the basket-weaver tell you what is -coming?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In spite of herself, Causleen felt weak and a child -in the other’s hands. The magic that had kept -Garsykes Men in thrall was drawing her into its webs. -She followed Nita’s finger as it pointed to the road -below, where the track from Logie split in two—one -grey lane going flat to Garsykes, the other winding -steep and rocky to a cavern gaping open-mouthed -across the green face of the pastures.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you see where the tracks divide?” purred -Nita. “A man will come to the two-ways by and by, -and take the upper road. And you will follow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen remembered Hardcastle asleep at Logie; -and he was the one man in the world she would ever -follow willingly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is not true,” she said, with chill disdain.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The basket-weaver made no answer. But still -she did not go, and her silence began to mesh Causleen -again with unseen nets. Yonder was Garsykes, foul -and a menace centuries old. And close at hand was -Nita. She felt utterly alone, as if friendless leagues -divided her from Logie and her man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Strive as she would, panic—headlong, unreasoning -panic—was stealing on her, though the sun shone and -the free winds went bristling by.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita kept silence. She, of all living Garsykes Folk, -had learned most of the black magic handed down the -generations. It had been her joy to weave it into the -baskets she sold, into the ill-starred deeds her men -did by night and day—and Causleen was given into -her hands. She would half slay her now with dread, -then let her go to what they had planned for the -pedlar’s girl and Hardcastle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>All that was brave and Highland-born in Causleen -fought the terror stealing on her. What sort of wife -would she be to Hardcastle, if she yielded now to this -stealthy dread that came like formless mist about her?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There came a whimpering through the heather. -She did not hear, till a wet nose was pressed into her -hand; and afterwards a tongue red with sheep-slaying -reached up and licked her face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then, as on a night gone by when Storm lay in the -cupboard under Logie’s stair, she threw her arms about -him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Storm, you’ve come,” she said, hugging his tousled -body, thick with bracken-splinters that he carried from -his past night’s lair.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita drew away. Dogs always distrusted her, and -fear of the whole race—a dread half superstitious—had -grown into her life. Yet even now she could not keep -back the bitter gibe.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He is a friend of the Master’s, too. Dear grief, -Logie keeps odd company nowadays.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm, homeless and tired of the wander-lust, had -been sending long thoughts out to Logie as he sat on a -spur of the moors and saw Causleen swing into sight -across the Garsykes track. He had bounded down—slipping -and turning a somersault or two on the way—and, -now that he was in touch again with Logie, he -was content. He growled at Nita by habit, and bared -his teeth, then turned again to Causleen and yielded -like a puppy to her daft endearments. She smelt of -home to Storm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen was reliant and herself again. The coming -of this four-footed Ishmael had broken the basket-weaver’s -spells. Garsykes mattered no longer. Out -there Hardcastle was sleeping himself into new -vigour; and here was Storm, to guide her safe to the -return.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Logie always had staunch friends,” she said, her -glance meeting Nita’s.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita made no answer, but glanced behind her; -and presently her slight body quivered with eagerness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Did I lie, little wanton? A man comes up the -Garsykes road. He’s a small figure yet—but, see, he -grows bigger—and now he nears the two-ways that -I told you of.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen was meshed again by webs. She could do -no more than follow the pointing finger, and watch the -man till she knew his limber stride, his way of carrying -broad shoulders.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He has come to the two-roads now,” said Nita -softly—“and now he takes the higher track. Did I -lie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, in the clear light, seemed so near that -Causleen cried aloud to him, entreating his return. The -wind drove her voice back.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I sent him there—in search of you,” said Nita. -“He thinks we have you in our caves.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For one still moment Causleen paused. She knew -the agony speeding Hardcastle to the black mouth -that grinned across the pasture-lands. She knew -what leaped from her in answer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You sent him there?” she echoed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes—food for our Garsykes wolves.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen, with sudden, blinding passion, called to -the sheep-slayer “Storm, kill her. Fasten on her -throat, Storm.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The dog was far down the slope already. He, too -had seen the Master. Causleen might smell of home, -but Hardcastle was Logie’s self.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The pedlar’s girl raced sure-footed between the wet, -gnarled hummocks, crying as she ran with a warning -that the gale caught and drove to tatters. She came -to the parting of the ways, and followed without pause -the grey track that wound upward to the caves.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle’s big figure, far ahead, halted for a brief -welcome as Storm overtook him. As if she stood -beside them, she knew what went to that greeting—the -man’s joy that he had a toothed and stubborn -friend in this adventure, the dog’s that he was with -the chosen one.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come back,” she cried again—so loud, it seemed to -her, that not even the wind could hinder its sharp -bidding.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle did not hear. Like a man possessed he -strode forward till he reached the cave’s mouth. Then -they were swallowed by the darkness, Storm and he, -and Causleen knew at last what caring meant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She neither wavered nor had fear. Where he went -she would follow, by free-will and by right.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita watched it all from the benty lands above—saw -Hardcastle and Storm go into the trap prepared. -Then Causleen went, and was hidden by the dark. -And after that, ten frowsy men got out from the rocks -and closed about the entry.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The basket-weaver took her way to Garsykes, -crooning a song of the Lost Folk—a low, stealthy -ballad, ages old, that reeked of the marshes and the -styes. And, as she came into the village, she found it -packed with men and scolding women.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They snarled and jeered at her, and Long Murgatroyd’s -voice was lifted in sullen fury.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Here comes Nita. She sent us to fire Logie, and -then talked big about doing what we couldn’t. She’s -laughed at us too long, the hussy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She faced the answering uproar and laughed afresh -at them. “Little Nita does what she promises,” she -said, pointing to the caves above. “Hardcastle has -gone in to find his wanton, and she’s with him there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They fell back then, muttering, and her tongue -whipped them as of old.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve trapped them for you—and you whine and -skulk here asking questions. They’d be out of the -trap by now, if I hadn’t picked ten from among you to -guard the caves—ten who shaped more like men than -rabbits.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Art lying, Nita, as of old?” growled Murgatroyd.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again she pointed to the black mouth that gashed -the fells. And now in the keen light they saw ten of -theirs moving to and fro about the cave-front, and a -great shout went up.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In a moment they were racing pell-mell up the slope, -save for Nita and Widow Mathison, who kept the -Garsykes inn.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re coming to see Logie’s end?” asked Nita, -looking back after she had started to follow her men -at leisure.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” said the widow. “I’ve too much flesh on -my bones to care for hill-climbing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A light shone in the basket-weaver’s eyes—the light -of thunder skies that ripen to full-blooded tempest. -Merciless, brooding long, her spite against Logie had -come to victory. But more than that went to this -mood of Nita’s. By mother’s milk and father’s -training she had been taught that Garsykes had -striven for centuries out of mind to tumble Logie’s -pride to ground.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Will you not come, widow?” she asked. -“There’ll be such sport as was never seen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m too fat, I tell you. I should sweat myself -to death in climbing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“More’s the pity, for you’d look on at what men long -dead in Garsykes hungered to see. It was left to -little Nita to bring Logie down.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then she mocked the widow’s grossness, and went -up the breast of the fells. And Widow Mathison got -heavily to a spur of the rising ground that gave her a -better outlook on the caves. She remembered how -Hardcastle had brought her lad from the wet of the -slimy marshes and given him back to her on a night -not long gone by. Nothing could ever bridge that -debt she owed him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She listened to the roar of Garsykes voices, saw Nita -going tireless up the slope; and the tears ran amain -down the furrows of her plump, good-natured face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We could spare most on Logie-side,” she sobbed, -“but not its Master.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap21'>CHAPTER XXI</h1></div> - -<h3>THE POOL</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle had gone into the black jaws of -the cave without pause or thought of what -ambushes might lie in wait. Causleen was -here, and nothing mattered till he reached her. What -he had suffered, since first he declined to give tribute, -was child’s play measured by the agony of question -that drove him forward. Causleen was somewhere -in the gloom ahead. He was sure of finding her—yes, -but in what evil plight? With that thought came -crimson bands of flame that danced ahead. Nita -would have found vengeance sweet almost to cloying -if she had been with him in this hour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm pressed close against him as he went with -lighted candle along the narrow track, turning his -head constantly to escape the dripping limestone -spears that menaced from the roof.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No wind stirred in the cavern. It was a breeze of -his own making that flickered the candle-glow this -way and that, throwing little, fantastic shadow-shapes -of gnomes and pixies on the rough ground beneath -his feet. He hurried forward, crying to Causleen, and a -troop of voices answered the cry, breaking it into -tangled echoes that mocked at him from roof and slimy -walls.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It seemed to Hardcastle that a year went by before -the mockery ceased, and another voice ran echoing -through the cave.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, Dick, come back. Come back.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He fancied himself distraught. The voice sounded -from behind—not from the shadowed track ahead, -where fancy had painted havoc unbelievable.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm, whimpering with joy, left him suddenly, -and again he asked himself if it was all a nightmare. -Would he wake in his bed at Logie, with reek of smoke -in his nostrils and knowledge that the Lost Folk were -firing the house again? He longed to wake; for -Causleen would be safe behind him, and all the flames -in front.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As he stood bewildered, Storm’s eager whine sounded -close, and then he came with Causleen into the sputtering -candlelight.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They told me——” said Hardcastle, and could -get no further.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Nita lied—and I’m here—and, Dick, come back -before they take us both.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He saw a red gash across her cheek, and drew her -to him. “Garskyes did that?” he snarled, wolfish -as any of the Broken Folk.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was so dark when I followed you and Storm, and -I blundered against something cold and hard—it -seemed like a knife hanging from the roof—and I went -slowly after that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She let herself shelter awhile in the roomy haven of -his arms, then withdrew restlessly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s so little time if we’re to get away. Nita -went to rouse the village, and they may be coming up -already.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle brushed past her in the narrow track, -bidding her follow slowly with Storm as he hurried to -the cavern-mouth. He halted on the threshold. The -steep, empty brink-field stretched in front. No sound -came, except the hoarse cry of a hoodie crow wheeling -overhead. So then he stepped into the open. Ten -of the Wilderness People, lurking out of sight, sprang -at him in a body, and only his preparedness for some -such ambush saved him. With the alertness of one -lighter and more supple in the build, he leaped back -into the cave’s friendly dark.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One from Garsykes could not check his own forward -rush, and followed willy-nilly. Hardcastle closed with -him—the roof was high enough for a tall man to -stand upright—and his grip was so prolonged and terrible -that Causleen could hear the rogue’s bones crack -one by one.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Hardcastle took the broken body, using it for -shield, and went out a step or two and threw his burden -among the nine who still remained.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Firstfruits,” he said, and turned as a wild uproar -rang across the slope.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The barren pasture was swarming now with men. -There was no chance of escape in front, and again -Hardcastle leaped back across the threshold. A soft -hand found his, and a brave voice whispered in his -ear.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hurt, Dick? Are you hurt at all?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No; but one of Garsykes is.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her hand withdrew. She feared Hardcastle of -Logie—feared his exultation, the hard breathing, as of -a wild-beast that fought for love of it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Outside the cavern, not ten yards from them, -a raucous din began, stilled presently by Nita’s -voice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is this?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s what Hardcastle has left of Jake,” came a -quavering answer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You fools. I got him caged for you. I left ten -to take one as he came out with the pedlar’s brat, -thinking they had a clear run to safety. And it’s -all miscarried at the start.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You bade us take Hardcastle alive,” growled -another of the nine. “But for that, we could have -stoned him to death as if he’d been a conie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“An easy death, and I’d planned otherwise.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again Causleen’s hand crept into Hardcastle’s. -The bleak venom in Nita’s voice, the lousy uproar of -the mob so near them, put fierce gladness in her that -Hardcastle had gone wild-beast, too.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The low, purring voice sounded again, daunting the -uproar till it ceased.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There was to be sport for Garsykes. If ten had -taken one—alive, to watch the frolic—we’d have -seen how he took it when I threw Causleen to our -wolves.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, in the darkness of the cave, gripped -Causleen to him; and it was a marvel to her that his -fierceness broke no bones this time. The wet roof -dripped on them. Their only hope lay in retreat -along dank, ghost-haunted passages. Yet, deep under -all, they tasted swift content.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“One of the ten is dead,” Nita’s voice was bitter -as mid-winter now. “The nine left shall give us sport.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still closer Causleen’s hand crept into Hardcastle’s. -This was no puppet-game they played, of food and -ease and the day’s routine. It was full life together, -with death yapping at a gate they would not yield.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A babel of question sounded from outside, asking -Nita what should be done with the nine.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We shall drive them into the cave—to take him -there, if they can.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle put Causleen behind him—roughly, and -with haste—and stooped for his fowling-piece. And -when Storm brushed against him, growling to be in the -thick of what was coming, he forced him back to guard -the mistress.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A squealing followed, and Hardcastle, looking out -into the sunlight, saw the nine driven forward by their -fellows till one by one they plunged into the cave.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then he lifted his fowling-piece, and snapped the -trigger.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The two Garsykes Men in front fell riddled with shot, -blocking the narrow way, and those behind rushed out -in panic, a prey for their own fellows. What fate -befell them, Causleen could only guess; but their -shrieks and the roar of ribald oaths were so appalling -that she put both hands about her ears, striving to -keep out the din.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A lull followed, and Hardcastle spoke no word, but -stood listening to the mutterings of the enemy. Once -he turned to put his hand on Causleen’s shoulder, and -once to quieten Storm, then returned to silent waiting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita’s voice sounded again, peremptory and clear.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ve tasted blood, my braves, though it’s not -Logie’s. And the taste of blood makes men even out -of such poor stuff as you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They growled at her, but Hardcastle knew that she -had them at her bidding—knew, too, that she meant -each word to reach the darkness of his prison, for sapping -of his courage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“D’ye think he of Logie is built of magic, instead of -flesh and sinew? Is he a giant too big for all Garsykes -to keep in a cave, once they’ve got him there?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She mocked them, cajoled, tempted what red blood -they shared between them to mount to fever heat; and -Hardcastle, listening, admitted grimly that her tongue -was a she-devil’s.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ten failed me, and they’ll walk Garsykes street no -more. They lost you the sport I promised—but we -still have Hardcastle.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And his wanton,” hiccoughed a rough voice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Long Murgatroyd spoke there,” muttered Hardcastle, -with still remembrance of meetings they had -shared.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And his wanton.” Nita’s laugh was soft and -girlish. “It was not the honeymoon I’d planned, but -it does well enough. We shall keep them there till the -ghosts drive them mad—or till thirst and hunger teach -them what a little thing love is. And their flesh will -rot, Garsykes Men, till the water drips on their bare -bones at last. And so much for Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I cannot bear it, Dick,” pleaded Causleen. “She -is so evil—so evil—and God does not strike her down.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you ready, child?” asked Hardcastle, with -great gentleness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ready?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nita spoke truth. There’s no way out of this, -except by the mouth they’re guarding. We shall die, -and I’d have it that way, if needs must—and if we’re -together.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Say that again, Dick—<span class='it'>if we’re together</span>—and, Dick, -fear has gone.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Quiet absolute held outside, and Hardcastle’s mind -went back to many silences that Garsykes had put on -him. Those waiting-times at Logie had seemed chill -and harsh enough, but not as this was terrible. His -own house had been about him then, the forest and -the wind-sweet uplands, and he had liberty to come -and go.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For a long while no stir of life sounded from without, -till the frosty gloaming settled on what little he could -see of the brink-field. Then again he fancied himself -in a nightmare’s grip, for the two whose bodies lay -prone at the entry, blocking the lower half, began to -move backward with rough, convulsive twists and -turns.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The horror of it—this watching dead men come to -life—yielded to stark common-sense as muffled curses -stole inward and he guessed that some of the Garsykes -sort had crept on hands and knees to draw out his -victims. His re-loaded gun was useless, for the living -sheltered behind the dead, and he could only wait till -the cave-mouth was clear, and all the gloaming pasture -empty save for Nita’s voice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is well done. I may tire of waiting till they -die of the ghosts and hunger. The way must be -free.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle drew Causleen round the first bend of the -cave-track. His wits were keen as a razor’s edge, as he -stilled Storm’s yearning to be out and at the throats of -the besiegers. If they could not live, they three, they -must make preparations to die with seemliness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s one chance left,” he said. “When dark -comes, I’ll take Storm, and together we’ll stampede -them.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And what of me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You can win out in the confusion, and home to -Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Dick. And what of you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As if that mattered, child.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But if—if it mattered everything?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So they came near to bitter quarrel, there as they -waited for the sunset glow to die across the hills that -seemed lost to them for ever. Then Hardcastle had his -way, taking Storm with him round the bend; and she -had her way, following with mute-footed disobedience, -till they came in sight of the cave’s mouth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A crimson that was not of dawn or sunset flared -through the entry. The reek of a fire built of pine-wood -and heather was blown indoors by a wet, -gusty wind, and its heat drove inward, licking the -cave-walls.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Across the flare and cackle, Hardcastle saw men -dancing with women of the village in frank abandonment. -Wild-beast laughter made the music for their -feet, and all that had been in Garsykes, since the first -cut-throat settled there, was loosened down the ladder -of the centuries.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When for a moment they were tired of their devilry, -Nita’s voice rang clear and low across the spurting -flames.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Shall I sing of Logie to you? Hardcastle flouted -me once, but it is my turn now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that she sang a ballad in the Garsykes tongue, -that was a bastard child of the true Romany speech, -and her people, fantastic in the fireglow, roared with -applause when it was ended. They knew its meaning, -though Hardcastle could only guess how foul and -sinister it was.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita laughed at their plaudits, and was grave again. -“Why did I want the cave cleared of its dead? Because -every long while I shall persuade one of ours to go -in and see how it fares with our true lovers. Ah, you -back away at that, do you? Then two shall go—carrying -one man’s pluck between them—and they’ll -creep forward on unshod feet, making no sound. -Hardcastle will not know when to look for them, and an -hour will seem a month in yonder.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Do as he might, fear of the waiting-time ahead was -creeping over Hardcastle like the tide of a quiet sea. -Each word of Nita’s reached him—as she meant it -should—with an overmastering sense of prophecy and -doom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He took Causleen’s hand in his, and together they -went, with slow, nagging caution, along the twisting -track, Storm following. To light a candle now was to -waste what would be needed later on, and would make -them a plain mark for pursuit. They had to feel like -blind people for the rocky spears descending from the -roof. They stumbled on rubble dropped from the same -roof, and every now and then a bat brushed their faces -with a sudden, silky dread.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle halted often to ask Storm if he heard -aught behind them, and the dog gave a gruff “all’s -well.” Then, as a roar of waters sounded near ahead, -Hardcastle remembered the far-off day when he had -come, a boy, into this forbidden cave. The very thrill -of it returned—part fear, most of it eager courage—as -he lit his candle and went forward warily.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a slippery crossing, child,” he said, coming with -her to a torrent that came from heaven knew where on -the high moors and dipped into this underworld with -foaming speed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She crept closer to him as she looked at the sliding -waters, at the rocky ledge above—scarce a foot’s -breadth—that was the only bridge.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Courage,” said Hardcastle. “It’s a short way to -go.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her hand was brave in his as they made the crossing, -with one slip that nearly hurled them into the bellowing -flood below.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s good so far,” he said. “We’ve put the -stream between the Garsykes Men and us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And afterwards?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Death, I fancy; but we’re together.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her hand tightened its grip. He was altogether -hers, and this evil road they took tested his caring at -every turn.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Both forgot Storm, till a whimpering came from the -far side of the stream. Fearless in a score of ways, the -look of the narrow bridge, wet in the candlelight, -daunted him. Time after time he tried to foot it and -withdrew, afraid of the cauldron underneath.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle gave the flickering candle to Causleen, -and crossed the bridge again, and took Storm on his -shoulders, telling him to cease wriggling unless he -meant to overbalance both.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She watched that crossing, short as it was, as if its -length reached through an eternity of suffering. -Storm’s bulk was no light burden for a man treading -slippery rocks. At every step Hardcastle blundered -and recovered—blundered so wildly over the last of the -crossing that he had to take a sheer leap across the -torrent, to land safely on the further brink.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He shook Storm from his shoulders, and cuffed him -soundly. “There’s no room here for fools, my lad,” -he grumbled. “Why could you not keep still?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm pressed against him with mute penitence, and -after the Master had stayed to get his breath again the -three went forward. The ground underfoot was so -broken now that Hardcastle kept the candle burning, -and by its light they saw presently that they had come -to a place of skulls—human skulls, grinning from a -tangled heap of bones. They lay in a circle to the right -of the track, where it widened for a space, and they were -no good sight for folk oppressed already with a sense -of doom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How could they harm us?” said Hardcastle, -with harsh levity. “They’ve been dead too long -for that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet, while he spoke, Storm began to shiver as with -ague. His limbs refused their work, and his bristling -hide was dank with sweat. Causleen, her Highland -other-sight stirred suddenly, was next aware that they -stood in an underworld of ghosts, till Hardcastle himself -was shaken, remembering many legends that were -rife about the moorside.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come away,” he said, gripping Storm by the -collar and dragging him by force beyond the peopled -silence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The candle burned more wanly now. The thick, -dead air cumbered their going, and they were drenched -as with intolerable heat, though the caves were damp -and chill.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have we far to go?” asked Causleen faintly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, seeing a low slab of rock that jutted -into the track, guided her to it and kept his arm -about her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’d forgotten you needed rest,” he said, with grave -gentleness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The cool air, now that no effort was asked, revived -her weariness. “I have no fear, Dick—except that -the journey may be too long for me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a long journey for us both. There’s no hope -at all of winning out, Causleen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She touched his sleeve with a caress so soft, so all-revealing, -that his hardihood was near to breaking. -“Such dreams I’ve had—of us two, and Logie, and the -summer days to come. And now they’re over—but -you are with me, Dick.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He dared not break the silence. So steadfastly her -spirit marched with his, that he thought of the rough -welcome he had given her when she first came to Logie. -So close they stood together now, that suddenly death -took new shape and substance. If there were to be no -mating-days with Causleen up at Logie, they must find -them in some world beyond.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where would you have me go? I am strong again,” -she asked by and by.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Once more, saying no word, he took her by the hand, -and they crept through the dank, lifeless air, over the -broken ground. Here and there the light glinted on -flint arrow-heads—fashioned, maybe, by the folk -whose skulls had peered at them not long ago—and his -thoughts raced back to the day when Pedlar Donald -found the token on Logie’s gate.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was sick with defeat. He had carried his head -high above the Garsykes challenge, had gone through -peril of the roads by night and day. And this was the -finish of it all.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen’s hand gripped his with instant sympathy, -answering his mood. “Logie’s honour still goes safe,” -she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It still goes safe,” was all he answered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The track wound downward now, till it turned -sharply, and Causleen gave a stifled cry. They had -come to the brink of a lake whose waters glinted smooth -and glossy in the candlelight. The silence they had -passed through seemed almost friendly, compared with -the nether dumbness of this pool, deep beyond knowledge, -windless, asleep with its living and its dead.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A strange beguiling came about them. Once again -they knew what Nita had meant when she spoke of -their death by hunger—or the ghosts. The pool called -them, though the silence was unbroken. Hands reached -out to draw them down, though they saw none. And -Storm stood whimpering like a child.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, by sheer sweat of will, drew Causleen—and -himself—from the alluring depths.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s the end of our journey, when worst comes to -worst,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Tell me, Dick. It is better I should know—just -all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’ll creep on us, soon or late. And they shall -not have us, child. The pool is cleaner than the -Garsykes sort.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He led her over the broad causeway bordering the -lake, and as they neared its end she looked down and -recoiled. Hardcastle, following her glance, saw a stirring -of the waters that gathered strength till wavelets -licked the rock-track, and mounted till they broke -across their feet. The flickering light showed them a -great, sinewy back that threshed itself to fury. They -glimpsed for a moment the face of something half fish, -half devil, and Hardcastle himself recoiled now, drawing -Causleen close against the wet precipice. He was -in the grip of a cavern that sheltered primeval ghosts -and age-old, living things, and the heart went out of -him for one sick moment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Whatever monster lurked in the bottomless waters, -it had plunged deep out of sight again, and the -back-wash of its going drenched the three of them -with chill, spumey spray. Storm cried piteously, -till Hardcastle, with a rough oath, cuffed him into -silence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Their candle, held high above the spray, flickered and -went out, and Hardcastle let it fall, knowing his tinder-box -was drenched and useless.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This is the end of all?” asked Causleen, reaching -for his hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The end. Nita will send her swine—be sure of -that—and they might take you, child, after I was -beyond aiming another blow. But it’s in my heart to -kill another Garsykes Man or two before we go.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her grasp tightened. He had spoken quietly, without -haste, as if he were reckoning the chances of the -weather when they mowed the hay at Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I would not fear the pool, Dick—or the dark—if -we’d not seen what lurked there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Better even that than Garsykes,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She crept nearer to him, and they stood there on the -brink of dread, waiting for death. The lake still lapped -and gurgled at its rocks. Storm whined fitfully, afraid -of things more terrible than his second-sight had ever -glimpsed on the wildest moorland nights. He had seen -Habatrot go by, and the Heather Dwarf, and the dog -shaggy as himself—the dog known as Guytrash, that -waited on lonely gates and frightened his own kin, who -shuddered by and would have none of usual, honest -fight.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Storm, as he shared this night watch with his chosen -two, longed for the moor-winds and the sky. Nothing -he had found there—the worst of it—was like this -sick, clammy air, peopled with foul shapes of the -underworld.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is beyond?” asked Causleen by and by. -“Cannot we get further down the track?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He knew that she was thinking of the pool’s occupant, -was dreading its return. One hand still held his -fowling-piece above the wet. The other closed on hers -with a grip quiet and resolute.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A few yards would bring us to the end.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He humoured her, and they crept forward slowly -round the bend that Hardcastle remembered from the -far-off day when he had travelled the cave’s length. -Then he had had candlelight to help. Now he had -none; and from the very lack, hope came to him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As he turned the bend, the darkness seemed to grow -less heavy. He crept on, feeling the way with his one -free hand, till a gentle glow began to steal between the -rocks that hemmed them in; and with a bound his -mind returned, as Storm’s had done, to the free moor’s -overhead. So it had been when he set out on stark, -mid-winter nights to cross the heath on foot—nothing -at all to see in front at the start, but presently a gleam -of grey that showed a filmy track ahead.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His grip on Causleen’s hand tightened till she winced.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it, Dick?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I do not know,” he said, harsh in this moment of -swift, unlooked for hope. He had had many such, and -feared to lose it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The track brought them soon to the rock-wall that -had seemed impenetrable when Hardcastle, as a lad, had -held his candle-flare to its wet face. The candle’s flame -had been stronger than the grey-blue gleams that broke -now into the blank and utter darkness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Down the wall’s face they ran, these gleams, in -soft, ever-moving rivulets that were narrow and -broad by turns, criss-crossing like the hurry of a -water-slide.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Fearing almost to put hope to the test, Hardcastle -stretched out his hand into the grey-blue gleam where -it ran widest. His hand passed through it. His -eager fingers reached beyond the wall’s fancied -thickness and closed on it. He dragged an inch -or two of rotted stone away, and turned with -guarded triumph.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We may outwit both Garsykes and the pool,” he -said.</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap22'>CHAPTER XXII</h1></div> - -<h3>THE END OF STORM</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>By her silence, by the sob that followed, Hardcastle -learned the measure of Causleen’s dread of what -lay behind them. He learned, too, the depth -of his fear for her—a terror that ate still at his heart -and goaded him to effort. The very chance of release, -the nearness of it, made him the more eager to win -through with haste, lest Garsykes came at them just -too soon.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The cave drives us mad,” said Causleen, light-headed -for a moment between strain of fear and stress -of hope. “How can there be little threads of light, -stealing from outside—from God’s good out of doors, -Dick? It’s night out there, except for the fire that -Nita lit, far away. Surely it was far away. We’ve -journeyed many a mile since then.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, seeing how it went with her, put a firm -hand on hers. “Would you faint at journey’s end? -And where’s your Highland pride?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He loathed himself for saying it, though it brought -her back from sickness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Here, Dick,” she said, and was quiet awhile. -“Here, Dick,” she said again, her whole body quivering -with release from dread. “There are Highland pipers -stepping down the cave—and pride marches with -them. But we two are mad to dream that light -comes from out of doors. How could it? We -watched the sun go down—years since—before Nita -lit her fire.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again he was compelled to rally her. She had gone -through more than should be asked of any woman; but -needs must that she kept weariness at bay.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s a wall to be broken down,” he said sharply. -“Take my gun, Causleen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The command steadied her again. Obediently she -took the fowling-piece and watched him tear at the -rock-wall, getting his fingers in where the grey-blue -light rippled at its widest. Piece after piece of wet-worn -rock crumbled to his grasp, till he got his arm -through at last.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen saw a broader stream of light break softly -through the dark. Storm, the sheep-slayer, was -pressing his rough snout against her, and somehow he, -like the Master, brought courage home again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How can the light break through?” she asked, as -a child might.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle glanced back from the sweat of his toil. -“There’s a full moon on Logie-side, and we’re winning -fast to it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, God be thanked,” said Causleen. “And shall -we see the hills again, Dick, and hear the winds go by?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“With luck, we shall,” said Hardcastle, riving at the -wall-face afresh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was checked now by a thicker and less yielding -slab of rock. Tug as he would, his grip was powerless -to widen the breach, and again the sense of desperate -haste returned. They were so near freedom, but behind -them was all the stealth of Garsykes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He felt about in the rubble at his feet till his hands -closed on a round boulder-stone, and with this he -hammered feverishly wherever a crack showed. He -was steaming now with the effort, and the slender -breeze that drifted in through the opening he had -made, did little to relieve the cavern’s dank, lifeless -air.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At last there was an answer to his toil. The cracks -broadened suddenly, and the next hard blow brought -a mass of splintered stones to ground.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle went at it with fresh, dogged hope. Slow -as the work was, he could get one shoulder through -the opening now, and the thought came, across the dull -confusion of his mind, that Causleen needed a narrower -doorway out than he. Another fall like the last, and -she could creep sideways into safety.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The thought was food and drink to his strength. -Once she was safe, the worst was passed; and Storm -and he, surely, could hold this narrow way till no pursuit -could reach her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Once more he fell to hammering wherever the blue-grey -moonlight showed a crack, but the reward was -long in coming; and, as he rested for a moment from -sheer lack of breath, Storm broke the quiet with a low, -purring growl.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No ghosts were troubling the sheep-slayer now, -So much was plain. His hide was stiff, not with dread, -but with eagerness to be at the throat of some menace -threatening from behind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle quietened him with one sharp whisper, -and took the gun from Causleen’s hands. Then -he pushed his fowling-piece into the gloom, and -waited.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Twice Storm growled, so low that Hardcastle could -scarcely catch the note. And still they waited—bond-brothers, -side by side—for what was coming through -the stealthy dark.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Hardcastle felt a bulk of flesh steal against the -muzzle of his gun, and plucked the trigger. The back-throw—not -of the butt against his shoulder, but the -answering uproar of the cave’s low roof—drove him -staggering back.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Two had come against them, it seemed. He heard -Storm’s eager yelp, a man’s sudden scream of anguish, -and an answering howl from Storm. And then there -came a din of falling rocks, a rush of clean, cold wind -that brought a flood of moonlight with it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you safe, Causleen?” he cried through his -dizziness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A low voice answered. “That was your first -thought? Yes, I’m safe, Dick—doubly safe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her touch made light of hardship. Two more of -Nita’s men were blocking the cavern behind them with -their dead, ill-kempt bodies, and there was time -enough now to hack a way through for Causleen -and himself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he turned to batter at the rock-face again, he -found the work done already. The gunfire shock that -had driven him back and roared loud as an earthquake -in the narrow space, had probed into every crevice of a -barrier near to falling long ago. The way now lay open -to them, over broken rocks that showed fantastic in the -moon-glow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, exultant, was reaching for her hand, to -guide her through the wreckage, when he remembered -Storm and whistled sharply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A snout was pushed against his knee, and he reached -down to pat the dog’s rough hide.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re as drenched with sweat as I am, lad,” he -said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So Storm was, though he had no speech to tell them -that the sweat ran crimson. He had killed his man, -but in the doing had taken a knife-wound that raked -half down his body.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t whimper. Storm,” murmured Causleen. -“The cave’s full of ghosts, I know, but we’re free -of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sheep-slayer whimpered no more. With extreme -pain he followed them across the broken way, till they -reached smooth going again. Storm was not sure that -they were free, and to the last edge of his strength he -meant to guard these two.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle saw now a wide arch of moonlight close -ahead. He could hazard no guess as to the corner of -Logie-land that it opened on. He did not care, -for beyond it lay the free sky and the fells; and -whatever battle waited would not be clogged by -prison walls.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Before they had covered half the short way to liberty, -Causleen’s hand gripped his with sudden dread. Behind -them was a rumble, as of thunder, followed by a -cracking and a rending overhead. Hardcastle, it -seemed, when he first made space enough to get a -shoulder through the barrier, had loosened the frail -keystone of the roof, and they were stifled by the dust -and uproar of the falling rocks behind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He drew Causleen sharply back and through the -moonlit opening, and Storm had scarcely struggled -after them when a second tumult sounded from -the cave behind, and a pile of shattered rocks came -crashing to the very mouth by which they had -escaped.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Hardcastle, his arm round Causleen still, drew -a deep breath and glanced in silence at the moonlight -flooding all the land in front. He had not known -how sweet and all-sufficing a night wind could be, -had never tasted until now the fullest joy in sight—sight -to see the strong free spaces of his own good -country-side.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For awhile he did not care to ask where they were -standing. It was enough to remember the cave’s -unclean nightmare, and to wash in this swift moorland -air.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The joy of it,” sobbed Causleen, her head against -his sleeve.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now he remembered that joy was apt to be -short-lived, with Garsykes as close neighbour. For -aught he knew, Nita and the men who watched the -bonfire at the other entry might be close at hand. The -track through the cavern, long as it was, twisted so -constantly that it might have led them back within a -stone’s throw of the start.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He glanced this way and that, listening. No sound -came, save the wind’s voice, till a screech-owl hooted -from somewhere far below. A raven’s sleepy croak -answered. That was all.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They stood on a spur of pasture-land that dipped -sharply down in front, and Hardcastle went forward -in search of landmarks. Moonlight is apt to play -strange tricks with the most familiar hills and cloughs; -but he could not mistake the ravine that gaped below, -black with shadow under the radiance that lit its upper -banks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He saw where it narrowed at Nevison’s Leap, and -where it broadened to the mist-white flats. And, -beyond again, Pengables Hill looked out at him with -the gaze of an old and proven friend.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re in Drumly Ghyll, sweetheart,” he said, “and -a clear road home for us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A yelp of pain sounded from behind—so sharp, so -strong with anguish, that joy in freedom went from -them. They turned to see Storm dragging himself -forward, wincing at every step, and Hardcastle ran -back.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sheep-slayer paused a moment, to gather -his failing strength. Then he got his forepaws -up to the Master’s shoulders, with a farewell that -gushed crimson, licked his face once and then fell -back.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, the good brute,” said Hardcastle, with a grim, -sudden oath. “His hunting days are over.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s not dead?” Causleen pleaded, knowing the -futility of what she asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He did not hear, and her own sorrow was checked for -a moment at sight of his. In silence and in grief he -stood looking down at this lost comrade who had been -with him through the long, unequal fight of Logie -against the Wilderness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We can’t leave him here to the corbie-crows,” -he growled at last—“or for the Garsykes sort to -mock at.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen’s tears were running fast as she knelt beside -the gaunt, still body. “Storm, come back,” she -whispered. “You’re too brave and dear to die like -this. We need you, Storm.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle watched her in gloomy silence, till -thought of all she had gone through overmastered -him with a sharp rush of pity. He lifted her with -a strength that was persuasion, too, and held her -close.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’d rather have it this way, child. He died for -Logie—not at Brant’s hands.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She smiled wanly through her tears. “He had -his faults—but I—I shall miss him. He used to -come to the cupboard under the stair—so wise and -penitent, Dick, so loyal—and now he’ll never come -again.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He put her from him, with the same gentle -strength, and shouldered what was left of Storm. -Then he went down into Drumly Ghyll, and presently -returned.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What have you done with him?” she asked -piteously.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He lies deep in Cobblers’ Gully, safe from crows and -foxes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Poor Storm,” she said, and was silent. Then, -“Did you send a prayer with him?” she asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What do I know of praying? He’s gone, and part -of me went with him, somehow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They said no more as they went down together -through the midnight of Drumly Ghyll—its high walls -closing round them like another cave of dread—and out -into the moonlit lowlands. It was only when they -came near to Logie Bridge and all its memories -that Causleen broke down again, remembering -Storm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He lies so lonely, Dick, up there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Storm hadn’t much of a life on this side. He was -glad to go, maybe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So then Causleen knew that a prayer had gone with -the dead dog into Cobblers’ Gully.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They went together up the steep, winding road to -Logie—its guardian beeches comely in their winter’s -nakedness—and at the bend they encountered Rebecca—the -brindled cat snarling on her shoulder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is it your ghost, Master?” she quavered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A fairly solid ghost, Rebecca.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then God be thanked, say I.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was old, and shaken by her vigil. Her hair was -driven by the breeze into grey, wispish threads; but her -eyes, even in the tempering moonlight, showed like -pools of living fire.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I feared there’d be no home-coming for you two,” -she said, the tang returning to her voice already—“especially -when Brant and Michael Draycott came -back with the tale of what they’d seen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What should they know about the cave?” asked -Hardcastle, with tired wonder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What I chose to tell Brant when he stumped into -my kitchen, a half-hour after you’d gone, and grumbled -that Storm had taken another ewe of his in the night. -‘I wouldn’t worrit about that,’ says I. ‘Garsykes -has taken the Master, and I’m nigh out o’ my wits.’ -That sobered the shepherd.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She touched Hardcastle, to make sure that he was -in the flesh before her, then told, in tart, brief speech, -how Shepherd Brant had gone to raise Logie-side -against the Wilderness—how all its strapping yeomen, -except Michael Draycott, were at Skipton market—how -Michael and Brant had stolen down to the Garsykes -hollow, to see if they could put a fight up, and had -found a company of devils dancing with Nita round a -fire at the cave’s mouth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Tired as he was, needing food and drink, and sleep’s -forgetting of the cave, the Master warmed to Rebecca’s -tale. There were two men at least who had cared to -rouse the Dale for him and all that Logie stood for.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They came back here,” said Rebecca, “for bite -and sup before they left again to meet the Logie Men -as they rode home from market. I wouldn’t daunt -their spirit by telling ’em there was a full moon, and -our men by that token would come late, with a plenty -of good ale inside them.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That same full moon, Rebecca,” said Hardcastle, -with chastened humour, “showed us the way out.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She listened, her lean, old body tense with eagerness, -as he told what had chanced. Then she was no longer -the woman who had waited, every fear on edge, for news -that could only be evil, so it had seemed through the -long waiting-time.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Master was home again, tall and limber, though -his coat was drenched with blood. His old laugh was -in the front of hardship. He was glad, with a clean, -hard joy, to have brought Causleen safe to Logie, after -all, through moil of the Garsykes Men. And Rebecca -was glad with him—fiercely glad that the Wilderness -had been outwitted once again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Every sorrow she had known, since her own man died -for Logie forty years ago, returned now to this grey -henchwoman of the house—the wedded days she should -have had, the bairns that might have been—and hate -of Garsykes swept through her like a tempest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then she saw the Master and Causleen glance at each -other with such silent, all-sufficing knowledge that -jealousy chilled her to the bone. Why should they -come in their young, insolent strength, and flaunt their -caring in her face?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The brindled cat was in ill-humour, too. All day he -had wandered from house to stable-yard in search of his -boon-comrade, Storm, and now the friendly reek of him -stole out from Hardcastle’s drenched coat. Jonah -leaped from Rebecca’s shoulder, and purred and -growled by turns, reaching up to sniff the scent that was -Storm’s, but with a cold, dismaying difference. Then -the cat neither growled nor purred. All the life -seemed to dwindle in him. The fur, stiff with battle, -fell limp and draggled, and he mewed with piteous -appeal.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Gone away, Jonah,” said Hardcastle, a queer break -in his voice. “Storm’s sleeping up the fells.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap23'>CHAPTER XXIII</h1></div> - -<h3>THE QUIET WEDDING</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>The Garsykes Folk had grown tired of guarding the -cave mouth. For a night, and half the next -day, Nita’s tongue had whipped them into -watchfulness; and when they were growing out of hand -at last, she made light of what Hardcastle could do to -them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Get you in first, Long Murgatroyd,” she gibed. -“What with the ghosts and the silence, we’ve tamed -Hardcastle by this time. You needn’t fear.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd fetched a laugh up, big as his body. -“If you’ll come with me,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The devil in her warmed to what she would find, -somewhere along the track in yonder. To see Hardcastle -distraught with fear and hunger—to have him -cringe to her for the means of safety—that was the -dream she had woven into her baskets for many a -month gone by.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She took Murgatroyd’s hand, with a light and eager -smile, and together they went into the cavern whose -every winding was known to the rabble that followed -with shrill, raucous jests.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They had candles in plenty, to scare the ghosts away; -but somehow their laughter grew afraid of itself, and -died out in eerie echoes, passed on from the wet spear-points -of rock that came straight, like arrows, from the -roof above. Then the whole cavern was filled with -rolling murmurs that passed on their oaths into the -everywhere beyond; but Nita kept them trudging -forward.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They crossed the torrent. No trace of life showed, -no sign of struggle. And now they reached the lake, -and Nita paused at its brink, looking down into its -unstirred waters. Were Hardcastle and the pedlar’s -brat lying there, she wondered? But, if that had -chanced, why had two Garsykes Men not returned—the -two she had sent with knives to kill Hardcastle and -torture Causleen?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One question was answered speedily, as she and Murgatroyd -turned the bend of the track and saw two -huddled shapes blocking their way. Murgatroyd -roared with sudden terror, but Nita, laughing at him, -held her candle low above the dismaying sight.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The man shot by Hardcastle at close quarters showed -less ghastly than his fellow, for the charge had gone -through him like a single bullet; but the other lay face -up to the roof, and Storm’s fury was plain about his -tortured throat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it?” growled the men behind, catching -panic from Murgatroyd’s bellow of affright.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Two of ours that could well be spared,” said Nita, -and stepped on the fallen, and went forward for a pace -or two.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it?” came the uneasy question again as -they heard a sharp cry escape her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The end of Logie. Come see it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They gathered courage from the exultation; and -those who could press into the new cavern, formed to -the left hand of the track, lifted a score of candles to -what had been the end of their rock-fastness. The -straight-faced barrier they had known was now a mad -confusion of rocks broken into shapes fantastic, terrible.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s their marriage-bed,” said Nita, her voice -childest in its gentleness—“Hardcastle’s and his -wanton’s. Did I say there’d be an end of Logie?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The man was always a bit of a fool,” growled -Murgatroyd, recovering from his panic. “I reckon he -loosed his fowling-piece on one o’ the two we trod on. -A toddling Garsykes kid could have told him what it -’ud do to pent-in walls.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When Nita, treading on light feet, led her men back -through the cave, and out into the sweet upland air of -afternoon, she took them straight to Widow Mathison’s -inn, and left them there.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Drink your fill, now Logie’s gone,” she said, and -went up into the fells.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Near dusk she returned, and called them out from the -ale that had merried them—called them into the -cobbled street.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is Nita wise?” she asked softly. “Did she -promise Logie’s end?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They roared an answer, and suddenly she fell to -dancing for their pleasure. The last crimson of the -sunset flared down and over from Pengables Hill, and -lit her slender paces and her slender limbs. As her -fingers wove dark magic into the baskets she sold down -and up the Dale, her whole body now snared and enticed -the men she loathed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then once more she left them, going fleet-footed as a -deer up the darkening fells, and came to her cottage -where the little fir-wood rustled in the breeze. She -slept as a tired child might, and soon after dawn went -to her bath in the pool within the wood. Then she took -the fell-track to Logie, and came to the open door of -Rebecca’s kitchen, and stood there, darkening the -wintry sunlight.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The Master has not returned?” she asked softly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca had looked for some such visit, and glanced -up from dusting the china dogs on the chimney-shelf. -“Not yet. But what is that to you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He followed the pedlar’s girl into the cave, they tell -me, and neither will come back, I fear.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, there’s still me and the brindled cat left, and -we’ll see to Logie. Tell Garsykes from me, you basket-weaving -trollop, that I’ll comb ’em with the thick end -of a besom if they try their pranks.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita could make nothing of the woman, so hard, so -unmoved by the Master’s fate. “Have you no -fear?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, for such as you, once my fingers get about you. -You’d best be gone.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita tarried only for one last shaft before she fled -from the other’s truculence. “The Master’s gone. -And old Rebecca’s wits have gone. It’s the rarest -day that Garsykes ever saw.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Maybe,” muttered Rebecca, as she got to her -dusting again.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She knew how, after their safe return from the cave, -Hardcastle had left Causleen in her care while he went -up the moonlit road to join Shepherd Brant in his -waiting for the Logie yeomen to return from market. -She knew how he had probed under their lazy tribute-giving -by plain recital of what had happened in the cave, -and had pledged them to guard Logie whenever he -himself had need to tide abroad.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now the Master had ridden over-hill to Skipton, -on an errand that she guessed; and Causleen herself -lay in the room above, in a dead sleep of weariness that -was saving life and reason after the hell she had passed -through in the cavern.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re the one spoil-sport among us, my brindled -cat,” she snapped, as Jonah mewed about her skirts. -“I loved old Storm myself; but he’s gone, and you -can’t mew him back.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For an hour she went about her work, then grew as -restless as Jonah himself. It was time the Master was -home again, and he tarried. What if, at the end of his -rough journey through the cave, his horse had thrown -him somewhere between this and Skipton? Life, as -she knew it, had that apeish way of letting folk -go safe through harsh odds, only to crack thin skulls -against a moorland boulder as they rode quietly -home.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keenly as Rebecca listened for the tip-tap of hoofs -up the road, Causleen heard it first. She wakened from -a sleep befogged by peddling days, and memories of the -harsh greeting she had found once at Logie—sleep -threaded through and through by flame-red memories -of Garsykes and its cavern.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Far down the road she heard the music of her man’s -returning—<span class='it'>clickety-clack</span>, faint at first as the tread of -elfin feet. Where had he been, risking his life in these -disastrous days? And was he wounded by a stealthy -blow aimed at him by some foul lout from Garsykes -lurking in the heather?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Need to know how it fared with him drew her from -her bed. She put the frayed cloak about her—the -cloak that had been blue as hope once, but now was -like a Jacob’s coat, painted by many kinds of -weather—and went down the stair, and out to Logie’s -gate.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was in time to open it for Hardcastle, in time to -see the light in his eyes as he got from the saddle, and -told his horse to find his own way to stable.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where have you been?” she asked, fingering his -sleeve.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To Skipton-in-Craven,” said Hardcastle. “I had -business there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She touched his sleeve no longer. “And left me -here—alone, except for Rebecca and a farm-lad? At -such a time—after all we’d shared, and with Garsykes -near—<span class='it'>You went on business?</span>”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I left a body-guard. Some of our Logie Men are -in the woods—and two by Logie Brigg, to let none from -Garsykes through—except Nita, if she’s a mind to -come.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She took a further step away. “You might have -stayed, for all that—just to be near me, Dick.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I went over-hill for the right to keep you near.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She had known him taciturn and hard, known the -laughter that came rarely and was far away from joy; -but now he was a riddle, as he took her hands and would -not let them go.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You left me so soon—for what?” asked Causleen -wearily.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His heart spoke now. By all he said and left unsaid -she knew at last the caring that had come at the end of -their uphill, stormy wooing. Garsykes might be -broken, once for all, he told her; but the old, stealthy -siege of Logie might be renewed by slow degrees. -Either way, they’d meet the coming weather as man -and wife. The licence would be ready in three days’ -time, and it was no far ride to Skipton Kirk.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That was your business?” she asked, her voice brave -and vibrant. “And I chided you—and so, Dick, do -what you will with me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When his will was made plain, however, that on the -fourth day from now they would be married, she was -submissive no longer, but pleaded for delay. She had -no clothes for her wedding, and would shame him in his -own market-town unless he gave her time.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Wear the old cloak over all,” said Hardcastle, -“and I’ll be content enough.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So there came a day when Rebecca watched them -ride out from Logie. The Master had not said what -their errand was, but she knew; and she scolded Jonah -till he spat at her. And then she gathered him into her -arms, and cried, and cried.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Love of a man sees far, when you’ve mothered -his cantrips since he was a babby,” she said by and -by, with a smile utterly forlorn. “And jealousy sees -far. But it’s hell’s own spite when the two keep -company.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen and Hardcastle guessed nothing of all this, -as they rode, in wonder and in silence, over the hill to -Skipton. They guessed nothing of it as they rode home -again, drawing rein to glance at the pride of that one -word, <span class='it'>Desormais</span>, carved high above the grey, stubborn -castle-gateway.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long as he had known it—and he rode seldom from -Skipton without a glance at the message overhead—Hardcastle -had taken it as a symbol of his own grim -fight for Logie. Now that was changed. He had a -wife beside him, and the feud with Garsykes grew -doubly worth the while.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He glanced at the carved challenge, and made -English of it for her. “<span class='it'>Henceforth</span>, sweetheart,” he said, -and laughed quietly as a conqueror might.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In silence they rode past the castle walls and up into -the grey, solitary fells. The track twisted this way and -that to lessen the steepness of the climb, till they -breasted the last of the hill and passed through the -rocky gap that was the gateway of the homeland -watered by Wharfe River.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They drew rein, and could only marvel at the land -stretched wide below them. The winter’s sun shone -warm and mellow over the far spaces, grey-blue with -haze. Every striding league of heath, each gully where -leafless rowans waited for the spring, showed to Hardcastle -like the map of his own heart. Pride—big -hearted, eager pride—leaped out as he pointed down -the slope.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We own most of it, wife. Is it a good bridal-gift?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her eyes filled with tears. He gave all he had, for -her to share. And he named her wife. She had not -guessed how all-sufficing the name was, how real and -warm and safe. And somehow, across the chill upland -breeze, a summer fragrance blew, as of clove-pinks and -ladslove in a wayside garden.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>All they had gone through together returned—the -stealthy siege of Logie, the stark, long peril in the cave—and -she drew a sharp breath of thanksgiving that this -was the end of nightmare.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Life is sweet to hold, Dick,” she said, smiling -through her tears.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They rode in another silence, rich with speech, down -the slack of Storner Bank. And now the wood-reek -from Logie’s chimneys eddied up, so near that they -could smell its savour.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re home,” said Hardcastle, drawing his horse -nearer hers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then, as they rounded the bend, he pulled up -sharply. Nita Langrish, a bundle of withies over her -shoulder, was standing in the roadway, her glance fixed -on Logie. So intent she was on thoughts of the dead -Master who had flouted her—hidden deep with the -pedlar’s brat under the rocks in Garsykes cave—that -she heard no sound of hoofs behind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita had had her will of them both, and stood there -as in a trance. Vengeance was sweet. She was -minded to taste it to the full, looking down at masterless -Logie. Every curling wisp of smoke rose from a hearth -Hardcastle would never know again. No son of his -would grow to claim the heritage. Logie and its seven -hundred years ended with old Rebecca and a brindled -cat; and so much for pride.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A man’s cry of warning roused her, and she turned -to see Hardcastle’s cob rearing scarcely a yard away, -his fore-feet perilously close.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita leaped aside, then stood gazing at these two who -were buried in the cave out yonder—these two, who -seemed to ride on horseback through the sunlight and -the free moorland wind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle glanced once at her. It was not his way -to fight with women; but a sullen loathing came.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re dead in Garsykes cavern,” he said. “It’s -only our ghosts that ride.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Only your ghosts?” asked Nita eagerly, snatching -at a straw in this torrent of dread that raced -over her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And Storm’s,” said Hardcastle. “He died with -us, and runs close behind, I fancy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that they rode on, and Hardcastle’s grim smile -died out as he glanced at Causleen’s face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re tired, wife,” he said gently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was not tired at all until—until she stood there—stood -on the threshold of our home-coming.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A shadow crept, too, about Hardcastle and stayed -with him as they came indoors, Causleen and he, and -found Rebecca waiting for them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Step forrard,” said Rebecca. “It was time you -married, Hardcastle of Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How did you know?” he asked, wondering that -there was no need to break the news.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gaunt and straight, Rebecca stood facing them with -a hard, roving glance. “How did I know, asks he, -when I’ve given my life to watching his ins-and-outs? -How could I help but know?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On one side of the threshold Nita had met them. -On the other stood this henchwoman, grief and jealousy -showing in her sombre eyes. Against their will, a -sense of doom crept out from Logie’s storied walls, -chilling their eager wedlock.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I kept young for you, Master,” went on Rebecca, -“till you found a bride for Logie. And now I’ll let -myself grow old.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’d have told you our errand——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She cut short his troubled words. “You would, but -for thinking of old Rebecca. The blow would fall -softer, you fancied, if you brought a full-fledged wife, -instead of letting me wait all day for a promised one. -Men, poor lambs, are not good at breaking news, and -never were.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her tart humour swept him like a moorland -breeze through the gloom she had brought about -these two.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve the bridal-supper ready, and near spoilt. You -were always late to your vituals, Master.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She sat on in the kitchen, after all was served and she -had left them to their meal; and she missed Jonah -sorely. The cat had been with her till the moment -when she went to greet the bridal-pair, and now had -vanished like her own joy in serving Hardcastle. All -had gone, it seemed, and she yielded to loneliness utter -and complete.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She threw her apron over her head, and rocked to and -fro. Grief had its way with her. The years behind -gathered their hardships to a head, and tears broke -through at last.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then by and by she heard the kettle singing on the -hob, and made a hefty brew of tea. And after that she -went in search of Jonah.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They heard her tramping forlornly upstairs and -down, and Causleen’s hand reached out to Hardcastle’s -across their wedding-table.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She’s old and sorry, Dick—and we’ve so much.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle found a quick new tenderness for this wife -of his. She knew, as he did, that Rebecca was bone -and fibre of his house—one by this time with its thick-set -walls, the people who lived here aforetime—one to -be cherished like a heritage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Together they went in search and found Rebecca -standing at the cupboard under the stair. The door -was open, and her candle showed the brindled cat spitting -and growling from the lair he had shared with -Storm on many a day gone by.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The candlelight showed something else to Causleen, -her vision sharpened by this wild home-coming—showed -her the shape of Storm, the sheep-slayer, -with a long, brown-red gash across his filmy hide—Storm, -who was dead, returned to Logie and the -Master.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle had made a bitter jest to Nita of -Storm’s following them, a ghost. And Storm was -here.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What d’ye see,” asked Rebecca—“what d’ye see, -beyond that dratted cat o’ mine?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A leal friend, Rebecca.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And with that she put a hand in Hardcastle’s, ready -for whatever weather came to Logie. The end of the -stark battle was not yet.</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap24'>CHAPTER XXIV</h1></div> - -<h3>A GAOL DELIVERY</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>The Wilderness Folk were aghast, in the days that -followed, to see dead Hardcastle riding with -Causleen, man and wife, across the uplands. -Flesh and blood they could not be, for all Garsykes -knew that they were buried in the cave. Yet flesh and -blood they were, glad of each other and the hills.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Old superstition bred and festered in the Garsykes -hovels. It was ill-luck and always had been, to run -counter to a Hardcastle, whatever toll they took of -those farming under him. Strange tales were bandied -to and fro in Widow Mathison’s inn by greybeards of -this Lost Village under the hills—tales of the ancient -days, when one and another from Garsykes had held -up a Master of Logie on the road and brought confusion -on the settlement.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’ve the luck, these damned Hardcastles,” the -tale would finish always. “It’s no use trying to -meddle with Logie any more.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita Langrish had shared their gospel for awhile. -Then she had rallied from the shock of seeing Hardcastle -ride home with the pedlar’s girl—the bridal-look about -their faces, and both on horseback instead of lying -under piled rocks yonder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Each time she met them afterwards, her purpose -hardened. She lay awake o’ nights no longer, wondering -how they had won free of the cavern. It was -enough to know that the pedlar’s brat was mistress now -at Logie—reigning where she might have taken pride -of place, instead of weaving baskets for up-Dale folk -to buy. Through the weeks and months she waited, -striving to put some sort of courage into her slack-set -people, and telling them always that dead men of theirs -cried out for vengeance against Logie. Memory of -these deaths, and the way of them was too sharp at -first; but fear lessened by degrees, and Nita fanned -the dull embers of resentment into life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As winter stepped through March gales to springtime, -and the fells were white with lambs newborn, Hardcastle -took a lusty hold of life. The lean years had -gone out of mind. The only thought he gave Garsykes -was a warning to Causleen not to roam abroad without -him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She had little need. On horseback or afoot they -were together constantly; and, as he taught her the lore -of ancient lands and storied bridle-tracks, she lit his -heritage with new, fresh wonder, as of dawn after a -long night’s tempest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Closer they came together, and closer, as the spring -advanced and cowslips nodded in the meadow-grass. -Sometimes Hardcastle would fall silent, afraid almost -of his joy in living; and her hand would slip through -his arm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it, Dick?” she would ask.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Half of me has come back,” he would answer, smiling -down at her—“the half that’s been missing all these -years.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca, too, was in better heart. Jealousy yielded -by degrees to a new, enthralling hope. As she baked, -and scrubbed, and churned, a little song would creep -into her mind, and stay there. Logie might have an -heir at last. And she would dandle him on knees hard-worn -in Logie’s service.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When June was well in, and the meadows growing -strong for the scything-time, Shepherd Brant stumped -into Rebecca’s kitchen one morning and sat him down.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well?” she snapped. “What’s wrong this time? -I’d as little expect to see thee without thy shadow, -Brant, as without a grievance.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s wrong? Why, Garsykes. It’s humming -like a hornets’ nest again, they say.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I guessed as much. Jonah gives me less of his -company these days, and sits a lot in the under-stairs -cupboard. So I know Storm’s there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You and your ghosts, woman. I’ve no patience. -Dead men can walk—I’ve seen a few in my time—but -it’s a heathen fancy that the four-footed sort have -spirits.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Some o’ the four-footed have a bigger spirit than -some o’ the two-legged, and have a properer right to -walk. But, then, you were always against Storm, -poor martyr,” she added, re-opening their ancient feud. -“It wasn’t enough that he died for the Master.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For a sheep-killer he died fairish well. I’ll own to -as much as that,” broke in the other, tugging at his -scanty beard. “But, as for his ghost coming back to -guard the house—I thought you’d better wits than that -Rebecca.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle, hearing his shepherd’s voice, had come -down the passage; and, standing in the doorway, he -laughed suddenly. They were so much a part of Logie, -these two, with their friendly enmity and their strife of -tongues.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s no time for laughing, if all I hear be true,” said -Brant, getting to his feet with a grim salute. “The -Wilderness Folk are ripe for any sort of mischief.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aye, but it will get no further than their tongues. -I’m glad you’re here, though, Stephen. I’ve to ride -over the tops to Norbrigg, and shall go easier in -mind.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t ye go, Master.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s what I’ve been dinning at him,” shrilled -Rebecca. “When a man takes a wife to himself, he’s -no right to go pleasuring abroad, with the Garsykes -muck at large.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’re broken men, I tell you. You with a gun, -Brant, and Rebecca with her rolling-pin—you’re -enough to hold the house.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And you’re taking the mistress into it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Taking her to the hill-winds. She’s stifled in these -Logie woods.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that he went down the corridor, buoyant and -heedless. A stable-lad was holding the two horses, -and Causleen waited for him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Brant’s here,” he said, as he mounted her. “It’s -as well, with Rebecca thinking fire and slaughter is -brewing up.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She laughed with him. Laughter was in their hearts, -and joy rode pick-a-back behind them down the winding -lane. The bird-cherry trees were in blossom, their -white tassels dusting the sleepy air with fragrance. -From every bush—from the high sycamores whose -leaves drowsed in the summer’s heat—birds were wild -with song. Thrushes piped high. Blackbirds sent out -their mellower note, and all the small fry joined in this -wild din of June.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Causleen,” said Hardcastle, his voice softened by -the wonder of their days together, “I was surly -when you came at first. Dear God, if I had missed -you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That was not meant. Was there ever a wind that -blew but brought us closer?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was in this mood—sure of each other, with a high -pride in wedlock—that they reached the gate opening -on the Norbrigg road. On the top bar lay a flint arrow, -brown and smooth in the sun-glare, and Hardcastle -checked himself as he stooped to unhasp the gate.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His glance sought Causleen’s. Both were thinking -of the first token found by Pedlar Donald, of all that -followed. They were thinking, too, with sharp revulsion, -of the arrow-heads that littered the floor of -Garsykes Cave.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For a moment their nightmare journey through the -cavern clouded the sunlight, chilled the eager breath of -summer. Then Hardcastle put the token into his -pocket, as he had put the earlier one, and said not a word -as they rode up into the hills. It was only when they -drew rein to breathe their horses, and Garsykes showed -below them, that he broke the silence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’ll go through no second waiting-time, wife,” -he said—“waiting for what the Wilderness is pleased to -do.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Dick?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Brant would have found the Logie Men ready -enough to muster, if we’d been lost that day. They’ll -<span class='it'>have</span> to muster now, and we’ll make an end of the swine-styes -yonder, once for all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>From the strength of their great caring, from the -very heart of her bridal pride, joy quickened in Causleen. -Better war, savage and instant, than to go through -another stealthy siege at the hands of Garsykes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Break them outright, Dick,” she said. “For my -sake, break them.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They rode up and further up into the wide-flung -spaces of the fells. No woodland birds sang here. -That lowland litany of joy was out of hearing. Instead, -there came the wheeling cries of hawk and plover, -red-shank and snipe and hoodie-crow—battle-music, -swift as a pibroch, keen as the thin, nipping wind that -fought the glaring sun-heat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Past Lone Rigg Cross they went—which marked the -graves of a lad found dead in some far-off winter’s gale—and -up raking Skircarl Rise, till they drew rein again -to give their sweating nags a rest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They were on the roof-top of the Dale now, Moorland -and gaunt pastures, gashed by wild ravines, raked to -the further mountains, grey-blue in the distant, shimmering -haze—a haze so drifting that it was hard to -know Pen-y-Gent’s long, sloping crest or Ingleborough’s -bluff, upstanding bulk.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A good land, to live or die for,” said Hardcastle, -all his love for this far-striding homeland finding voice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Reluctant to go, they gathered the reins at last and -were moving forward at a lagging pace when a traveller -came up from the Norbrigg side, over the steep brink -of the hill. He was so tall and lean, so quick and yet so -stumbling in his stride, that they wondered who he was, -and how he came there. The one moving thing on this -lone, empty road, he seemed forlorn, and yet gigantic.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The man stopped as he neared them and touched a -greasy cap. “D’ye know a place called Garsykes?” -he asked. “It should be somewhere near by now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” said Hardcastle, with grim humour, “I know -a place called Garsykes. Do you want to get there?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I do, quick as my legs will take me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle pointed the way for him, where the lazy -track curved down to the lowlands and the curling -smoke below. Then he took the arrow-head from his -pocket and tossed it into the man’s hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Tell them it comes from Logie,” he said, and rode -forward with Causleen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The man stared after them for a moment, then fell -again into the lopping stride that carries tired legs far. -Between the heather and the benty lands he went, and -came to Garsykes’ cobbled street, and dropped heavily -on to the stone bench outside the inn.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd was sitting there with a quart -mug at his elbow, and he glanced curiously at the newcomer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And where might you be from?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The stranger sat bunched-up, his sombre eyes staring -straight in front of him. “From York,” he said. -“There’s been a gaol delivery—and I’m one of the -delivered.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Take a pull at my mug, lad. You’ve walked a tidy -bit too far, by the look o’ you. There, that’s better. -And what did they gaol you for, if a body might -ask?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A sullen grin wrinkled the man’s face. “They said -it was for robbery on the highroad; but I knew better. -It was for letting myself be fool enough to be catched at -it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd nodded with rough friendliness. “Garsykes -is just the spot for you. You can do as you like, -all up and down the country-side, and nobody dare -catch you at it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I heard as much in gaol. So I stepped over and -down, and here I am.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd stirred uneasily as a little snatch of song -drifted down the street, and Nita Langrish came picking -her way daintily through the garbage and the litter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She stopped at the sight of the stranger. Hope -never died in her that one day a strong man would come -from over the hill and help her lead her wastrels up to -Logie for the last, big fight.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Murgatroyd watched her trying to weave filmy spells -about this new arrival—watched with the old, half-slumbering -lust to take her beauty by the throat and -end it—with the old, indolent zest, too, in seeing yet -another fall into her toils.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The stranger was past blandishment. All that York -gaol had done to him, all the road-sores under his feet -and the drumming anguish in his brain, seemed doubled -now that the need to keep going no longer spurred -him on.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He fumbled for his pipe and moleskin pouch, and -with them drew from his pocket a flint arrow-head that -tinkled on the cobble-stones. He did not heed, but -Nita saw it lying there and drew back as from a thing -she feared.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Where did you find it?” she asked, her voice harsh -and shrill.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That?” said the vagabond, glancing down. “I’d -forgotten it. It was given me by a big chap, striding a -big horse. He told me to carry it to Garsykes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He lit his pipe with shaking fingers, pulled fiercely at -it for awhile, then threw it down and lay back on the -bench. The sweat dripped from him. His lean body -was shaken as with palsy, and his face was red and -ashen-grey by turns.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m not done yet,” he stammered, groping for the -pipe that was his first and last stand-by. “What sort -of fool should I be to give in just when I’m free of gaol?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd snarled at Nita, the basket-weaver. -“I told you how it would go,” he said, “when you -sent three of us to take Hardcastle at the pinfold. And -now here’s the token back. He knows he’s weathered -the worst of us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” said Nita sharply. “There’ll be worse to -come—for Logie.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The lean-limbed stranger roused himself. Fever -glowed in his eyes and his voice was hoarse and wolfish. -“There’s always worse to come,” he said, and fell back, -the sweat pouring down his haggard face.</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap25'>CHAPTER XXV</h1></div> - -<h3>THE PLAGUE</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle had sent his challenge to Garsykes -by the tramping man who met them on the -Norbrigg road, and was quick to follow the new -venture. The next day he rode with Causleen from -farm to farm, and found his tenantry alert for battle. -A changed mood had come to them. They knew -how nearly these two had been lost for ever to Logie-side. -They warmed to the hardihood of their escape -from the Garsykes cavern, to their bridal-gallop over to -Skipton and back and the keen, young mating look they -carried. And shame was on them to remember how -they had paid tribute to the skulking folk out yonder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The last farm they came to was Michael Draycott’s, -and they found him in the patch of garden fronting the -house. He was leaning on a stick—a sick man and an -old, till Hardcastle rallied him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dying again, Michael?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, I wouldn’t say as much as that—though I -fancied last night the end had come. My innards were -that wambly you’d scarce believe till I settled them -with a dose of barley-brew. And now I’m getting -about again.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Suppose all Logie was for marching straight -through Garsykes street? How long should we have -to wait till you got well, Michael?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A matter of three minutes—or maybe two.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re always the same, Michael.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, I couldn’t be different, so long as I’m inside -my body—like a bird in a cage, as you might say. Do -we bring guns with us, Master?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The other’s face hardened. “We do—and we fire -Garsykes from end to end. There’s to be no quarter.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s well thought out,” said Michael. “Their -thatched roofs will be like tinder in this heat that’s -come to the moor. Years out of mind I’ve wanted -that sort of clearance, and I hope we start to-morrow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Would God we could,” said Hardcastle, with -stormy recollection of the cave—“but we’ve to make -our preparations.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, there’s no harm in giving them a taste of what -they put on us. You sent Garsykes the token. Now -they can wait, asking each other what’s to come. <span class='it'>And -naught will come</span>, till they fair get the dithers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Michael’s words stayed with Hardcastle, while he -conquered his own impatience during the next days. -Nothing was overlooked in his preparations for attack. -He would have less than fifty to lead against a village -that swarmed with men entrenched in their own walls. -The more need, he told himself, to see that each of his -had his weapons in good order and knew how to use -them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was tedious work, but he remembered Causleen’s -appeal. “Break them outright, Dick,” she had said. -“For my sake, break them.” And he had checked his -first impulse, to attack at once. There must be no -mistake, no hot-headed leaping against odds that might -smother them. The Lost Folk should be broken, as she -asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He drilled his men, mapped out each detail of the -coming fight. Aloof from any care except to make an -end of Garsykes—pitiless, save for the women and -children harbouring there—he lived for the one purpose.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>While they drilled, the men growing restless to be -into Garsykes street, the sun blazed each day from a sky -that showed nowhere any cloud of mercy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s drying their thatches nicely,” Michael Draycott -would growl, with a glance across the valley. “Let’s -pray that no rain comes before the Master lets us loose.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now a rumour spread through the Logie country. -First it was whispered that a stranger had come into -Garsykes and died there of the plague. That was -sinister enough, but soon news followed of further -deaths, till dread took hold of all folk—a colder and a -stealthier dread than ever Garsykes brought on Logie -until now.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle drilled his men relentlessly, to keep their -minds from brooding. The thicker the rumours spread, -the less he credited them. The Lost Folk, learning -somehow of the coming onslaught, had spread the news -themselves, and under its cover were preparing an -attack in force. This was what he told his people, and -by night they doubled the number of their scouts -about the hills.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>None was eager now, except the Master, to press -through Garsykes street; for the very name of plague -set each looking at another for the tell-tale blotches to -appear.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then a morning came when Hardcastle, looking -across the valley, saw a black shape hovering in the -molten sky. It was joined presently by another, and -yet another, and suddenly he understood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We can ease our drilling, Michael,” he said. -“Garsykes has not lied this once—for the corbie-crows -are waiting.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Garsykes—those still alive in it—saw the same three -crows poised above its sweltering street. Rumour at -its wildest could have pictured no scene more stark -with horror; for the stranger who had brought Hardcastle’s -challenge had brought gaol-fever, too, and it -had spread like flame throughout a village ready to -receive it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sun beat down from the shelterless fells till the -cobbles of the street were hot to tread. Each festering -refuse heap bred flies beyond number, and in the roadway -lay the body of a man that none dared touch. -Gaol-fever, quick to strike, had taken him as he neared -home, and he had found no strength to journey further. -It was for him the corbies watched.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As though havoc were not doing enough with them, -the Lost Folk let in another adversary—cringing and -abject fear—fear that slackened the muscles and slew -their will to live. Every other house was tenanted by -dead or dying, and those free of the plague as yet were -journeying up the fells with bundles slung over-shoulder. -It was better to go anywhere than stay in Garsykes, -where plague stalked silent through the buzzing flies.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The last fugitive to seek the hills was Widow Mathison, -and Nita was at her cottage-door as she came past -with her boy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Afraid, like the rest?” mocked the basket-weaver.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not for myself. I’d have stood by my tavern to -the last, but there’s the little lad to think of. Hardcastle -o’ Logie saved him from the bog, and ’twould be -a shame to let him die of Garsykes fever. You don’t -like Hardcastle’s name, I notice. He’s had the laugh -of us at the end of all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With flaunting, half-frightened derision, she gripped -her boy’s hand, and together they went up the track of -flight that many Garsykes Folk had taken—the track -marked here and there, as they sped further up the -wilds, by some dying man who raved in anguish, or by a -dead woman with a baby crying at her breasts for food.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nita looked down on the steamy haze of Garsykes. -Up here, where her cottage nestled in a dingle of the -highlands, the breeze blew clear and free. Death -might ride as he would through a village she despised -and loathed—but how could he touch little Nita, who -wove baskets for the Dale? She glanced far out to -Logie, its grey chimneys pushing up above the lush, -green woodlands. Hardcastle and his bride were there, -and already she was weaving snares for them, supple as -the willows that were her stock-in-trade, when a heavy -tread sounded close at hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She saw Long Murgatroyd lurching and swaying up -the road—saw him steady himself as he neared her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There were three of us left in Garsykes,” said Murgatroyd. -“And now there’s only two.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How is that?” asked Nita, humouring a man in -liquor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I stepped into the widow’s for a drink of ale—hoping -she’d forget what she’d chalked on the inside o’ -the door against me. And there wasn’t a widow there. -So I helped myself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No need to tell me that,” said Nita.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The widow’s gone up-fell, like the rest of the living -folk. And now there’s only you and me—and the still -ones down yonder. We’ve got all Garsykes to ourselves, -Nita, and the fever couldn’t touch us if it tried.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Even as he spoke, he fell to shivering, and Nita -glanced at him with startled eyes. The widow’s ale -had less to do with his wild talk and wilder bearing than -she had fancied. Doubt grew into certainty that the -plague was on him, and yet she could not stir. She -could only watch the dreadful twisting of his body, till -the shivering passed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now we’ll set up together, and own all Garsykes,” -said Murgatroyd. “It will take us a bit to shift the -dead, but they’ll not hinder—and the fever can’t touch -us——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His voice wandered out in senseless mutterings. -Then, as he saw her recoil, a false strength came on him. -She had played with him, flouted him; but he had -known she would be his one day.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Before she knew his purpose, he had crushed her into -his arms and kissed her, scarce knowing what he did. -Fighting like a wild-cat, tooth and claw, she got away -from his fast-waning strength, and fled up the hills, and -out to the hidden pool where she was used to bathe o’ -mornings.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She stripped with haste and plunged into the peat-brown -depths, and scarce dared leave them when her -limbs grew chill and cramped. And in her heart, deep -down, was a haunting fear that not all the waters, welling -sweet from out these pastured uplands, could -cleanse that bridal-kiss of plague.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Long Murgatroyd tottered in pursuit, then came -near to falling. He forgot Nita, forgot all but the -instinct of a wounded beast to seek its lair. Somehow -he got to his cottage, and went in, and shut the door. -A great sweat broke over him, and afterwards a chill -that nipped him to the bone. He raked the grey peats -on the hearth into a glow, and fed them with sticks -and fir-cones till the chimney roared and bellowed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still he could find no warmth, though his brain was -hot as a furnace. He piled more wood on, and more, -till the blazing heap fell over and down, and licked his -clothes, and ran here and there about the coarse matting -on the floor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca, up at Logie, had found no ease that day. -Scrub as she would, bake, or quarrel with the brindled -cat, nothing helped to stifle her restlessness. Old -griefs tugged at her memory, and would not be still. -Jealousy of Logie’s mistress rankled with new bitterness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was drawn out of doors at last. The workaday -present galled and fretted. Nothing would serve but -communion with her lover, such as she found only at -the gate down yonder—the lover who could not rest -in his grave because his death at Garsykes’ hands went -unrequited.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Before ever she reached the gate, a scud of thin, -harsh smoke came down the rising breeze. She glanced -in question across the valley that hid Wharfe River, -flaring under Logie Brigg—glanced up at old Pengables, -swarthy against the molten sky, and down again to the -hollow where Garsykes lay.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rebecca caught her breath. Things hoped for, till -the heart grows sick, are not to be believed at first. Yet -soon she had to credit what was doing yonder. She -leaned a shoulder down for Jonah, and the cat leaped -nimbly up, spitting and growling at the wisps of -smoke.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“D’ye see it, lad?” she asked, pointing a skinny -finger.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Where Garsykes lay, a running sheet of fire blazed up -into the sun-glare. It stayed for a moment to swallow -a cottage, then passed nimbly forward to the next. -The thatched roofs, one by one, broke upward in a -shower of wind-blown flame. And all about the land -there was the startled din of moor-birds, wheeling and -crying, afraid for their nestlings on the heights.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now God be thanked,” said Rebecca, young, happy -vigour in her voice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then she fell into a trance. Forty years her man -had waited, coming to the gate each night to ask if -Garsykes swine still roamed the land. And now she -felt a hand steal into hers, content at last. And she -woke, as from a marriage-bed, with throstles singing -up the new-found dawn.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m coming soon, my lad,”—her voice was soft and -girlish—“after I’ve settled two young lovers into Logie. -They don’t need Rebecca now.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='chap26'>CHAPTER XXVI</h1></div> - -<h3>“LOGIE’S DOUBLY SAFE”</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>The weather broke that year in the middle of the -hay-harvest, and Hardcastle, riding with Causleen -to see what the past night’s rain had done -with the biggest of the upland meadows, knew that his -men could not get busy with it yet, though the sun -shone hot from a quiet and fleecy sky.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So they gave themselves a holiday, and rode by many -a heather lane till they came at last to the moor-crest -guarded by Pengables’ rocks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A soft wind blew. Over the striding fells shadow -and sunlight chased each other like big children let -loose for play. They looked across to Weathersett, -grim even in this tender summer-time. And presently, -against their will, they glanced down at the hollow -where Garsykes once had stood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sunlight was merciless with the foul, unkempt -horror of this dead village that festered in its grave. -The ravens and the crows had taken their toll long since -of what lay in the street, and had gone to richer hunting-grounds. -No sound came from the fire-swept, -broken walls that leaned against each other like -drunkards tottering in a wild embrace.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was Causleen who broke the silence. “It will lie -like that for ever, Dick,” she said, with a shudder. -“They call it the plague-pit already, and none dare -enter.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle roused himself from some harsh unrest. -There was an end of Garsykes, that had troubled Logie-side -for centuries out of mind. Yet he was not content.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I planned to take our Logie Men, and make an -end,” he answered moodily. “There was the night -when Murgatroyd found us snow-bound in the hut. -If only for taking your name on their filthy tongues, I -wish it had been mine to kill and burn.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You must not—Dick, you must not think of it,” -she pleaded, her voice awed and shaken. “Is it not -enough—all that lies there? And you are safe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still in a black mood, his glance wandered to the -hollow of the fells where Nita’s cottage sent up a -tranquil stream of smoke.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>She</span> survives,” he said grimly. “When first the -rumour spread that she had taken the plague and come -through it, I fancied they had seen a ghost. Few take -it and live on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen shivered. The day’s warmth, the joy of -their wedded lives—the news that had trembled on her -lips as they drew rein on top of swart Pengables and the -thought of what these wide-flung acres meant to -Hardcastle—all went by. It was as if they stepped -together from eager sunlight into a pine-wood where -the breeze blew chill and shrewish and there was -darkness overhead.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How dare she stay so near—how dare she, Dick, -with Garsykes festering below? Has she no wit to -understand that ghosts of the dead will creep up to her -cottage-door? She was their evil spirit.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let her be,” broke in Hardcastle. “She goes -abroad with her face hidden when she sells her baskets -these days. They say her wits are gone.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Pray God they are,” said Causleen, bitter with -remembrance of the day when Nita had named her -light-of-love and wanton. “She needs forgetfulness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They rode down the fells together, man and wife; -but cold was on them, as if Garsykes still had power to -spin webs of dread about their feet. All that had been -gathered close—the slow months, while the Lost Folk -were doing their worst with Logie—the stealthy peril -of the caves, and their winning through into moonlit -liberty of Drumly Ghyll—and, after that, the plague -and fire that had swept Garsykes into a death that -could not sleep.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Causleen longed to give her man the news she had for -him, and could not, though their horses whinnied from -sheer joy of the sunlight and the roving breeze that -blew from everywhere, packed with lane-side sweets -of elder-bloom and honeysuckle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As they rounded the corner of the road, where it -turned sharply down to Crooning Water, they saw a -shrouded figure sitting on the grey parapet. The -slender fingers, browned by sun and wind, were nimble -at the basket-weaving, as of old, and Nita was singing -as she worked—singing one of the eerie ballads handed -down in Garsykes to keep warm their hate of Logie.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They drew rein, Hardcastle and Causleen, appalled -by this venom that had survived her recovery from the -plague—survived the havoc of a village left derelict till -time ended.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The basket-weaver ceased her song. She drew the -hood down from her face, and laughed with dreadful -mockery.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now they saw what the plague had done with her. -Her body was lissome as of old, her eyes full of nameless -witchery; but the shrunken face was grey and livid—a -dread, unsightly face best hidden from all passers-by.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My beauty’s gone, Hardcastle of Logie,” she said, -defiant to the last, “and there’s no Garsykes left. But -I still sell baskets up the Dale.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, come away,” pleaded Causleen. “Dick, come -away.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Hardcastle sat there in saddle for a moment, with -sharp recollection of other days, when Nita’s face was -a mask of eager beauty, tempting men. Then without -a word he rode on, Causleen beside him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again the chill was on them, as if they had plunged -into a pine-wood where no free air could roam or wildflowers -grow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>She still sells baskets up the Dale</span>,” said Causleen, -awed and troubled. “You heard her, Dick? It was -a threat.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They had come to Logie Brigg, and drew rein -there, listening to Wharfe River as she lapped -and played about the grey arches underneath. -And suddenly, as if the river sent up a message to -him in plain words, Hardcastle knew that he was -home at last.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“An idle threat,” he said, his voice buoyant and -secure. “Garsykes is ended at long last.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They went together up the steep, winding road, -ablaze with sunlight and choired by singing birds, and -came to the gate of many memories. Twice the Garsykes -token had been laid on the topmost bar. Rebecca -had trysted her dead lover here, every night -through forty weary years. And remembrance of this -tryst gave Causleen heart to speak at last.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Logie and the lands are so much to you,” she said, -the words tripping over one another in their haste—“and -Rebecca could never be done with mourning -that——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, wife? She was always good at the doldrums.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That Logie had no heir—and, Dick——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A great light came into Hardcastle’s face. From -under lowered eyelids she watched it glow and deepen -like dawn above Pengables Hill. He was older and -younger both, and his voice a conqueror’s.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now Logie’s doubly safe,” he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>From the grey-boled sycamores above them, Logie’s -guardian rooks rose in a great, chattering cloud. They -and their fore-elders had nested here for generations -out of mind; and it seemed as if they, too, understood.</p> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:3em;'>THE END</p> - -<p class='line'> </p> - -<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' --> -<p class='line'>JOHN LONG, LTD., PUBLISHERS, LONDON, ENGLAND, 1925</p> -<p class='line'><span class='it'>Printed in Great Britain at the Athenæum Printing Works, Redhill</span></p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<div><h1>TRANSCRIBER NOTES</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been corrected. 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