"Then—then 'twas not Wayne of Marsh?"
He glanced at her curiously; but it was plain that he shared none of Red Ratcliffe's suspicion touching her tenderness for Wayne.
"Nay, it was not Wayne of Marsh—for the reason that, seek as I would, I could not find the lad," he answered, as he turned to go indoors.
"'Tis not Ned after all," murmured Janet. "Thank God he kept the tryst with me."
CHAPTER VI
THE BROWN DOG'S STEP
Marsh House lay lower than Wildwater, and it had a softer look with it, though built much after the same pattern so far as roominess and stout building went. The trees grew big about it and a pleasant orchard ran from the garden to the chattering stream; yet was it ghostly, in a quiet fashion of its own, and not all its trees and sheltered garden-nooks could rob it of a certain eeriness, scarce felt but not to be gainsaid. On either hand the gateway two balls of stone had lately topped the uprights; but one of these had fallen and lay unheeded in the courtyard—a quiet and moss-grown mourner, so it seemed, for the lost pride of the Waynes of Marsh. Behind the house, leading up to the sloping shoulder of the moor, ran a narrow, grass-grown way, scarce wide enough to let a horseman through and lined on either hand by grassy banks and lichened walls of sandstone; they called it Barguest lane, and the Spectre Hound who was at once the terror of the moorside and the guardian spirit of the Waynes, was said to roam up and down between the moor and Marsh House whenever trouble was blowing in the wind.
And true it was that at certain times—oftenest when the air was still, and dusk of late evening or dark of night brooded quiet over house and garden—a wild music would sweep down the lane, not crisp and sharp-defined, but softened like the echo of a hound's baying far away. The hardier folk were wont to laugh at Barguest, with a backward turn of the head to make sure he was not close behind them, and these vowed that the Brown Dog of Marsh was no more than the voice of the stream which ran in a straitened channel underneath the road; water had strange tricks of mimicry, they said, when it swept through hollow places, and the deep elfin note that haunted Barguest lane was own brother to many a bubbling cry and groan that they had hearkened to amongst the stream-ways of the moor. And this son of talk was well enough when treacle posset was simmering on some tap-room hearth; but abroad, and especially if gloaming-tide surprised them within hail of old Marsh House, they found no logic apt enough to meet their terror of the Spectre Hound. As for the Waynes, there were some among them who pretended to disclaim their guardian Dog; yet there was not one who would oust tradition from his veins—not one who failed to loosen his sword-blade in the scabbard if any told him that Barguest had lately given tongue.
The spirit of the homestead was strong on Shameless Wayne to-night, as he sat alone in the hall, watching the dead and thinking his own remorseful thoughts. All that was left of his father rested, gaunt and still, on the bier in the centre of the hall, where it was laid out in state with candles burning low at head and feet. Mistress Nell and the serving-wenches were all in the back part of the house; the lads had not returned from hawking in the lowland pastures; the last of the day's visitors had bidden the corpse farewell and had gone home again, leaving the new master of Marsh House to watch the closed eyes of his forerunner.
A ray of fading sunlight crept across the hall and rested on the dead man's face, which showed white as the cere-cloth that bound his jaws.