Contents

CHAPTER

  1. [Once for a Death]
  2. [And Twice for the Slayer's Shrift]
  3. [The Lean Man of Wildwater]
  4. [On Bog-Hole Brink]
  5. [A Love-tryst]
  6. [The Brown Dog's Step]
  7. [The Lean Man's Token]
  8. [A Stormy Burial]
  9. [A Moorside Courtship]
  10. [What Crossed the Garden-Path]
  11. [How the Ratcliffes Rode Out by Stealth]
  12. [How They Fared Back to Wildwater]
  13. [April Snow]
  14. [How Wayne and Ratcliffe Met at Hazel Brigg]
  15. [Mother-wit]
  16. [How Wayne of Marsh Rode up to Bents]
  17. [The Dog-dread]
  18. [The Feud-wind Freshens]
  19. [How Wayne Kept the Pinfold]
  20. [How They Waited at the Boundary-Stone]
  21. [What Chanced at Wildwater]
  22. [And What Chanced at Marsh]
  23. [How Wayne Kept Faith]
  24. [How the Lean Man Fought With Shameless Wayne]
  25. [And How He Drank With Him]
  26. [Mistress Wayne Fares up to Wildwater]
  27. [How the Lean Man Forgot the Feud]

Shameless Wayne

CHAPTER I

ONCE FOR A DEATH

The little old woman sat up in the belfry tower, knitting a woollen stocking and tolling the death bell with her foot. She took two and seventy stitches between each stroke of the bell, and not the church-clock itself could reckon a minute more truly. Sharp of face she was, the Sexton's wife, and her lips were forever moving in time to the click of her knitting-needles.

"By th' Heart, 'tis little care his wife hed for him," she muttered presently. "Nobbut a poor half-hour o' th' bell, an' him wi' a long, cold journey afore him. Does she think a man's soul can racket up to Heaven at that speed? Mebbe 'tis her pocket she cares for—two-an'-sixpence, an' him a Wayne! One o' th' proud Waynes o' Marsh, an' all, th' best-born folk i' th' moorside. Well, there's men an' there's men, mostly wastrils, but we mud weel hev spared another better nor Anthony Wayne, that we could."

Her voice died down again, though her lips still moved and her needles chattered restlessly. The wind raced over the moor and in at the rusty grating, and twice the Sexton's wife ceased knitting to brush away a cobweb, wind-driven against her cheek.

"An' him to hev no more nor a half-hour's tolling, poor mortal!" she said, breaking a long pause. "What 'ull he do when he gets to th' Gate, an' th' bell hes stopped tolling, an' there's no Christian music to waft him in? But theer! What did I say o' th' wife when Anthony Wayne went an' wedded again—a lass no older nor his own daughter, an' not Marshcotes bred nawther. Nay, there's no mak o' gooid in 't—two-an'-sixpence to buy a man's soul God-speed, there niver war ony gooid i' bringing furriners to Marshcotes. Little, milkblooded wench as she is, not fit to stand up agen a puff o' wind. Well, I've a'most done wi' th' ringing—save I war to gi'e him another half-hour for naught, sin' he war a thowt likelier nor th' rest o' th' men-folk."