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.