Ricroft of Withens

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By the same Author A WAN OF THE /AOORS press ©pinions ' If there i_ one novel of the year about which I stand in duubt, it ib Mr HalUwell Sutcliffe's story, " A Man of the Moors." No recent novel has made !ialf the impression on my mind, and I should not quarrel with anyone who called it distinctly a book of genius. It is a story of the Yorkshire moors, and Mr Sutcliffe has shown himself in its pages to be a worthy successor of the Brontes. Mr Sutcliffe has made himself eminently familiar with the minds of the people, with their answer to the world outside them.' — British Weekly. 'One of the very best and strongest stories that has recently appeared, which should give the author a distinguished place of his own. Mr Sutcliffe . . . has a strong grasp of character, and some of his figures stand out with unusual vividness ; his style is excellent, and the interest of the story is main tained to the very last.' — Sketch. ' There are powerfully conceived scenes and situations ; some of the descrip tions of the moods and aspects of the heath are written with insight and passion, and there is much good village and rural talk.' — Scotsman. ' We are brought face to face with human nature in an elemental, almost pagan, form. . . .

Actors and scenery can be no more dissevered here than in "The Return of the Native," where the sombre influence of Egdon Heath permeates Mr Hardy's whole story. . . . The book is undoubtedly a sincere and powerful piece of work.' — Manchester Guardian. ' Mr Sutcliffe gives proof of a rude fertility and strength which ought to make his mark. . . . He has robust confidence of diction, handling and inven tion, unusual vitality and courage, a whole-hearted enthusiasm for nature.' — Yorkshire Post. 1 Has in a remarkable sense the moorland qualities of freedom from conven tional trammels and of rugged power. . . . Mr Sutcliffe has complete mastery ofthe dialect of his countrypeople.' — Leeds Mercury. ' All the folk of the moors haunt one's memory long after the last page of the book has been turned.' — Daily Graphic. 'A good, solid piece of work. . . .

Contains careful writing, vivid char acterisation, and a wealth of material.' — St James's Gazette. 1 A fresh, vigorous and impressive book . . . saturated with the spirit of the West Riding forty years ago. . . . Well conceived and well worked out, and written with much literary and dramatic force. Like all sterling work, it will bear examination and repay perusal . . . Mr Sutcliffe possesses_a wide range of dramatic insight, and promises to be one ol the most powerful novelists of the day.'— Great Thoughts. 1 Mr Sutcliffe has caught to perfection the keen, racy atmosphere of the Yorkshire moors. . . . As a powerful and life-like sketch of Yorkshire character, the tale deserves unstinted praise, and in this respect it may rank among the very best of recent novels. Mr Sutcliffe has all the narrative and descriptive skill of the born story-teller, and the tale which he here unfolds, both in con ception and in working out, must at once be recognised as a great work, not of promise only, but of actual performance.' — Bookseller.

Chapter I The Master's Wooing

They lived by the bogland, and they were known as the Lonely Folk, because the dwellers by the moorside feared to give them a harsher name. Long before their coming, their stronghold had been known as the Lonely Valley, and the name seemed a well-chosen one to-night. A deep valley it was, with bare walls of sandstone on either hand, shelving inward to the base : at the higher end a narrow pass, shadowed by fir and rowan trees, gave access to the moor ; at the lower, it widened out, merged into a rolling brae of bents and heather, then dropped abruptly into the stagnant, impassable wastes of Hawkhill Bog, which spread round it in a jealous curve, denying all access to the wayfarer. High up in the hollow of the sky an eagle rested on outspread wings, looking for prey ; close at hand a gos-hawk flashed athwart the sunset and vanished into the gloom of the pass.

Beyond these, there was no sign of life from edge to edge of the silent moorland, save the shrilling of a grouse, the chirp of a moor-tit, or the call of a brink-ousel. To the east of the Valley and the bogland, at half a league's distance, stood the House of Withens, bleak and rain-bespattered, amid its ten score acres of well tended intake. Intaken land has never the look of A natural meadow or pasture; and here, both moor and field looked wilder for their closeness — there was a stern air about them, as of foes who kept guard perpetual the one against the other. Between the two, the House and the Valley, lay a dreary place of marsh and silent flowing streams, where the curlew's complaint among the bog-reeds was oftener heard than any voice of man. Away toward Lancashire swept the dry heather-land and peat, billow on billow, till the desolate edge of the sky vvas gained ; then came the wet land, where the bog had not grown to a head as yet — where it was filling, as the moor folk say ; and below that again there was Hawkhill Bog, twisting like a lake of pitch round the foot of the Lonely Valley.

To the right of the bridle path ran a streamway, through which the water slipped, with a curious lithe noiselessness, between its banks of peat. And it vvas a thing to make a man's blood run cold, this deep silence of the water — the water, which is the last thing in all nature to hold its voice for awe. Very broad, very deep was the bed of the stream, and the peat on either bank showed naked — red at the surface, brown below that, and under that again a layer of close-pressed black. Here and there a rough trunk of bog-oak stood out from the peat, like a massive tooth set in the jaw of the streamway. Well might the Lonely Folk have filched from this Lonely Land, not its name alone, but something, too, of its awesomeness. Well might they seem a Titan brood to those who dwelt within hail of the Valley, and have grown almost to be of the elfin band — the Sorrow ful Woman, the Guytrash, and the Man in Heather Brown — which lived in the tales of the countryside when cheery hearths and potent liquor moved the greybeards to unlock their tongues.

The sun vvas dropping behind the purpled waste of heath on this August night, as Christopher Ricroft rattled merrily out of the gateway of Withens House and down the bridle-track that led to Ling Crag. He had a sturdy, well-knit figure, had the Master of Withens, and as fair a seat on horseback as a man need wish to see ; his face was knotty and square, and his body was built for fighting work and tillage. The Master checked his mare for a moment on the hill-crest and looked down the swart length of the Lonely Valley, then went forward again at a brisk trot. ' Men these Lonely Folk may be, but the devil had a hand in the making of them,' he muttered. Nor would he listen to a slow, dour music that sounded from near at hand ; for the note of gallows-chains is no good sound to hear when they rock disconsolately in the evening wind, and the horseman found kindlier company on the way in thoughts of the sweet lass who had brought him to-night across the moor.

Now a man might trade in written speech for fifty years, yet never catch the trick of drawing Jessie Thorne aright. Such a wealth of russet-brown hair she had ; a face so soft with tenderness, and laughter, and saucy dimples ; a straight figure and a limber, such as promised a trim seat in the saddle. Yet, though it be hard to tell of the witchery of a maid, it has ever been easy to feel the same ; and the Marshcotes and Ling Crag gallants swarmed thick as bees in June about old Blackshaw Hall. But Mistress Thorne, knowing that a maid has only one heart to give, and only once in all her life to give it, was not minded to be over hasty toward wedlock ; and the lads were free to come and, longing, keep their distance, until Jessie had had a longer time in which to look at life. She was standing by the orchard gate as Kit Ricroft cantered down the stream-side, and across the narrow bridge, and up the stony road that linked old Blackshaw Hall with the outer world.

The smell of the country lay warm on the quiet garden-place, and the half-grown bullaces above the lass's head caught a yellowish gleam from the sunset, as if in prophecy of the ripe time to come. There was one odour from the three-acre clover field behind the orchard, another from the garden flowers; while the good rich reek of the mistals at milking-time mingled with the keener breath of the peatland above. Over all sounded the shrill singing of the linnets, the mellow flute-note of the merle, or a hoarse challenge from some white - and - sable peewit, wheeling high above the grey old roofs. There was no thought of the Lonely Folk in Kit's mind as he leaped from his horse and tied the bridle to a ring in the orchard wall. What were Carlesses and gallows trees, now that he held Jessie's two slim hands in his across the wicket gate ? ' I scarce expected thee to-night, Cousin Kit,' laughed the girl, and glanced and glanced away again, to tell him that she missed the truth. ' If I had wit to match my heart, Jessie — wit to invent excuses thrice a day — thou'dst see me here — ' ' How often, Kit ? ' 'Just thrice a day — and once besides, without excuse at all' ' Ah, then, pray keep thy wits as dull as may be.

We are busy folk at the farm, whatever ye may be at Withens.' ' Nay, my wits are past praying for ; duller they cannot be, and prayer will scarce serve to sharpen them. There is a custom, Jessie, between cousins — ' he broke off, with a sudden movement of his head across the frontier gate. ' Yes, sir, the custom of keeping each on his own side of the gate,' said she, and moved a pace or two away. ' But, Jessie, I have ridden far for it.' ' No wonder, then, thou blamest thy wits. To ride far for one silly kiss — ' ' Maybe I counted on two, or three, even.' ' Then thou art mad, altogether mad, Cousin Kit, and should'st know better than to move abroad when the moon is near at full.' He leaned against the wall, scraping his riding-boots awkwardly one against the other. Jessie, it was plain, was in one of her sportive moods, and it were easier to chase a Jack-o'-lanthorn across the bog than pursue this pretty light-of-heart when such a mood was on her. ' Hark, Jessie, I have a tale to tell thee,' he began, with a sheepish set of face and a sort of fright in his eyes. ' And I have a cow to milk,' she answered, plucking at a bush of ruddy marigolds. ' Nay, look not so black, Kit ; it is plain truth.

The dappled cow will not brook any hand but mine at her udders now that her calf has been taken from her, and she has been calling me to the mistal this half-hour past. 'Tis cruel of thee, Kit, to grudge the poor beast relief.' Her face was grave and tender, as if the dappled cow were all in all to her ; yet at the corners of her mouth there lurked a world of drollery. ' Thou'rt right,' cried Kit, opening the gate with a sudden jerk, and holding it open for her to pass through. ' We must keep her waiting no longer, and I will watch thee milk her.' ' She does not like strangers ; she holds her milk when men-folk pry about the mistal.' ' No matter ; come with thee I must, cousin, unless thou'lt give a fair exchange for what I lose.' ' Nay, not that, Kit — I will not ! Come, then, if thou must show thyself so stupid as to follow where no one wants thee.' She turned at the mistal door to mock him, and he caught her face in his two swarthy hands and held it so awhile. ' Does no one want me ?

Once thou didst speak truth, Jessie.' ' Well, scarcely anyone, I should think. The dappled cow does not, for one ; see how distrustfully she eyes thee from her stall ! ' 'But thou?' ' Oh, I ? What are a poor maid's wishes, once she lets fancy stray beyond the milking stool?' She lifted her eyes and dropped them. There vvas that in Kit's face which she had never yet seen there in all the years that they had known each other. ' Life is not all a summer's day, Jessie. Wilt trifle with me to the end ? ' said he, with rough, impatient tenderness. He was weary unto death of this light give-and-take of banter. ' I — I know not what thou meanest, Kit. Let me go — I have no heart to love with — how often shall I teach thee that hard lesson ? ' He let go her face, as if the cool, fresh touch of it had burned him.

And she, with a disquieted laugh, reached down a lanthorn from its peg and lit it. •Now, Kit, this is not right of thee,' she pouted, 'to have kept old Dewlap waiting till after candle time. Father would cry shame on me if he should get to know.' ' 'Twas none of my doing. I did not keep thee at the wicket gate all the while thou wast waiting there before I came — ' Surely the devil was in this winsome lass ; for she gave him a look out of her eyes — big, with the candle light nestling in their depths — and she swayed her body toward him a little, slenderly, and, ' Art sure ? ' she asked. And then, before he had time to catch this fresh mood, she vvas seated at Dewlap's udders, milking skilfully and well, with an air that denied intrusion to all matters save the warm splash-splash of milk into the pail.

Kit Ricroft shouldered the narrow doorway, and watched his cousin as her deft, strong fingers moved to a sort of merry tune, the keynote of which was set by the linnets and the blackbirds in the bullace trees with out. It was a time to make a man all heart, this gloam ing-tide, filled as it was with unsubstantial fancies and the sound of sweet, accustomed things. And a silence, almost of content, held Christopher Ricroft. The girl glanced up at the broad figure that hid the last of the daylight from her. 'Where is thy tongue, Kit ?' ' Lost, like my heart,' he growled, jarred out of his communing with the shadows. ' Ah, so. Poor Kit ! Is it lost on the moor, think ye? 'Tis not like any heath-bred thing to go astray like that — unless there be snow on the ground.' ' Nay, 'twas lost in a well-tilled valley, cousin.' ' Foolish heart !

What a stupid fellow thou showest thyself, cousin, at times. Art too broad and big by half for such fond talk.' ' Art too bonnie and slender by half, cousin, to give a man any rest from foolishness.' Mistress Thorne made a quick, impatient movement, and Dewlap, the dappled cow, who was not of a sweet temper at the best of times, took umbrage and kicked the milking pail face downward on the mistal floor ; and all among the rush litter ran creamy, smoking rivulets. ' She hates to have a man within earshot ; I told thee so,' said Jessie, vexedly. ' Dewlap has little sympathy with her mistress, then,' retorted Kit, with sudden bravery. The lassie made no answer, but set the pail on end again and went forward with her milking. Ricroft ceased leaning against the doorway, and seemed in two minds whether to cross to his cousin's side or keep his place. ' Three quarts of our best milk have been lost through thee,' said Jessie, presently. ' We get better milk at Withens ; and if thou'lt come with me, I'll give thee three quarts, and three again, to make the reckoning straight — ' ' Better milk at Withens ?

A likely tale — a very likely tale, Cousin Kit. Ask all Marshcotes where the best cows are to be found, and they will tell thee — Blackshaw Hall.' ' Art jealous, pretty cousin ? Fie ! ' ' We shall quarrel,' pouted Mistress Thorne. ' Have it as thou wilt, then, Jessie,' he laughed. ' I grant that our Withens kine are less merry with their feet.' Whereat his cousin, having finished the last of the dappled cow's udders, drew herself up with dignity and stood with one arm resting on the stout oak of the stall. ' I had two visitors yestre'en,' she said. He scowled, in a way that matched his open features mighty ill. ' Men or women ? ' said he, like any gawkish boy. ' Well, not men exactly, and certainly not women. Lads, I should call them ; such pretty faces they had, Kit, and figures — and as near alike as two peas from a single pod.' ' Lads ! ' said he, shrugging his shoulders. ' Canst find no likelier sport, Jessie ? ' Her eyes dropped innocently. ' Nay, there is no sport to me, nor ever vvas, in watching men folk, lads or grown, make want-wits of themselves.

They seemed to think me well favoured, Kit.' ' I should not wonder ; thou hast a trick of setting folk's sight awry.' ' They were kinder than thee, too. All sorts of soft speeches they made me ; and would have made more, but father called me indoors.' ' Who were they, curse them ? ' muttered the Master, knowing that she was bent on teasing him, yet angry all the same that she should remember for four-and-twenty hours the lightness of two giddy lads. ' Two of the Carlesses — the Lonely Folk, as the fanciful moor people name them. David and Jonathan, they were called, out of mockery of their being twins. Kit, thou should'st have seen them ! Such a foreign turn of grace they had.' ' Art of too good a Ling Crag breed to care for foreign make-believes.' ' It was a change.' She sighed a little, in mock regret that she had only Kit's clumsiness to divert her now.

On a sudden her lover shook himself out of his spleen, as he remembered how the story had run, through seventy long years, of a Carless with a maid. ' Lass, they mean thee no good ! Keep close at home for a while, and when next these precious twins come roving, hide thyself within doors sharply.' ' They mean no harm. Why, what a foolish Kit thou art ! It was I, a while back, who was jealous, and now 'tis thee — jealous of two striplings that have no wit to bend a woman beyond the first unmeaning steps. Nay, Kit, I had thought thee fuller of sense than that ! ' He came close up to her, and laid a rough hand on her shoulder. ' See, lass, thou'rt too blithe of heart to think ill of anyone. But I tell thee— and I know that book too well— they are devils all, from the cradle, these Carlesses. Their mothers sing them to sleep, when they are wee bairns, with songs of rape and lust and bloody murders.

Have a care, Jessie, for God's sake, and put a fair space between thee and any of the Lonely Folk.' ' Ah, well, I would not fret thee, Kit, about so small a matter,' laughed Jessie. ' And they will find a fresh face to take their fancy before the moon has passed her full. Like butterflies they are, these lads ; they rush to each fresh flower that catches the sunlight on its petals.' Kit looked awhile in silence at his cousin ; then — ' Jessie,' he said, in a tone that stilled her mockery, ' 'tis a hard thing to read, a woman's heart. Wilt love me a little, lass, and trust that the love will grow with my care of thee ? ' Straight and strong she stood away from his touch, and looked him in the face. Across her eyes, where the laughter had so lately claimed a right of place, there crept a haze of tears, not understandable of us knotty hearted men. ' I have told thee, Kit,' she said, in a voice between impatience and tenderness. ' I have told thee — as often as the seasons change, I think — that a woman can never love while there is doubt.

Kit, do something ! Strike, and crush the quick life out of a man — anything, so only thou canst melt this stubborn heart of mine. Love thee ? Nay ! But under the hard shell there is a very perfect kernel. Kit, wilt never learn how to crack the shell ? ' ' Canst teach me ? ' he said, softly. ' Teach thee? If I could — ah, but that is folly again. Thou must find the way for thyself, and when thou hast found it, there is one who will give thee thanks. Kit, dost not think me hard ? Sometimes, if it were not for the inner voice, I am minded to tell thee " yes," and have done with it, so full of tenderness I am for thee. But we must wait — wait — dear, it is wild to pluck a fruit half-ripened.' Kit looked down at the rushes, wet with Dewlap's milk, and a dim understanding crept into his mind. Yet it was bitter.

So long he had waited, and the end seemed far off as ever. He lifted his eyes at last. ' As thou wilt, Jessie. I will wait,' he said. And soon thereafter he mounted his horse and cantered down the stony, steep-faced road, with a heaven-guarded carelessness of his neck. And Jessie, watching from the horsing-steps that fronted the old Hall courtyard, felt loth to let him go, and sad a little ; and why, she knew not, save that Kit and she must wait until the order of things appointed set them on their proper road. There was much in the Master's heart, too, as he rode home across the moor thinking of Jessie's words. The moon, three-quarters full, had come up above the far-off, quiet skyline, and the lusty, barbarous purple of the heather was turned to a lack-lustre blue. ' The lass has a heart of stone,' he muttered, ' and she will trifle with me to the end.

Strike, and crush the quick life out of a man, said she. Ay, and willingly, if it were more than a whim with her. God help me, why was I not driven to set heart on a softer maid ? ' For the hundredth time he had gone over the old beaten road of thought, when ahead of him showed the grim stretch of bog that guarded the bottom of the Lonely Valley. A man would never have guessed that superstition could sap the hearty redness from his face, had he seen the Master of Withens a mile away from the bog; yet he swayed in the saddle, and blanched, and held himself as a weakling might, as he watched a mad pair of corpse-lights dancing in and out across each other's paths. For the moor folk, gentle and simple, held that these will-o'-the-wisps waited the Sorrowful Woman's rising from the ooze to light her on her death flight.

There was one sound, neither of bird nor stream, that broke the stillness. Across the road, set on a heather-cumbered hillock, stood two great trunks of oak, with cross-beams of the same, and a headless cross of stone set dourly at their foot ; and one of these gallows was singing softly in the wind, as the sweet west breeze played lightly with its burden. Glancing to left of him, the Master stopped mare Cowslip midway in her stride ; for the chains had been empty when he rode past in the sunset glare, and now the moonlight shone full on the body of a man, dangling nakedly 'twixt sky and heath. The Master looked up into the dead man's face ; and he fell sick on the sudden, for they were the features of a Ricroft and a kinsman that met his gaze. ' Lad, lad, wast too good a fellow for this rough shrift,' he groaned.

But the dead man and the moor disdained to break the stillness. Mare Cowslip, quick to shift to the Master's mood, drooped her bonnie head and set back her slim hind quarters ; and little beaded sweat-drops of terror came out on her red-brown coat, like dew upon an autumn leaf. But still Kit did not move. Mechanically he let his glance rest upon the legend cut deep into the Headless Cross — Carless we come into the world, careless we go out of it. It was the gage thrown down by the Lonely Folk to all the world. They feared no God ; they honoured no king save old Adrian, their leader, a man grown old in rapine and in misplaced tenderness of heart. And here, in the face of the solemn heath, in the face of the silent sky, they had mocked God and king alike by using a headless cross, wantonly defaced by them in times past, to voice their right to a private gallows tree.

It vvas long, though, since either of their gallows had been tenanted, and even in the old days they had rarely housed better guests than a stray sheriff's-man and members of his posse ; a new thing it vvas, and a signi ficant, that they should turn their hand against the gentry of Ling Crag, and flaunt their dead in the public eye in this Year of Grace seventeen hundred and forty-five. A change came over the Master as he sat there. Something stirred at the heart of him — something strange, and quick, and eager to claim a hearing. The first touch of resistance was roused ; his inborn dread of the Lonely Folk gave place to a steady glow of anger and resentment. For dear as Jessie Thorne herself was his sense of kinship, and it galled him to the quick, as an insult offered to himself might not have done, to see a Ricroft so dishonoured.

Twice he made to unloose the chains, and twice he glanced down the road toward the fir-screened entry to the Lonely Valley ; and from that to the gallows, climbing sheer into the sky ; and the Master swore that he would not leave his kinsman in such cold case, though it was madness to make his first reprisal on the Carlesses with their sentry not fifty yards below him. With as little noise as might be he took down the body, set it across the mare's saddle, and led her over the hill-crest to Withens. Just as he started there came a lusty call, ko-ree, ko-koree, from the sentry in the pass, and Kit's hand sought his sword-hilt as he turned about, expecting pursuit ; but no figures left the darkness of the Lonely Valley, and the cry was only repeated once, as a fresh sentry came to relieve his fellow.

The Master lifted his burden into the hall soon as he reached Withens, and stood for a moment looking at the quiet face. His eyes fell on a stain at the right hand of the breast, and it eased him to know that his kinsman had been slain by a sword-thrust, that it vvas his dead body only which had been hoisted to the gallows. A thought of his own safety came to him. What should he do with this spoil of which he had robbed the Carlesses? He might take it across for burial in Marshcotes kirkyard on the morrow. Ay, but there was graver risk in that than the dead had a right to ask from the living. It was no time to stand on such nice points of decency as were observed in peaceful times. The Master took his resolution, and acted on it without delay. ' Lad,' he said, 'wilt not bear me ill-will if I put thee undersod without priest or prayer?

I had as lief no tongues were set wagging, for I live over close to the Valley, and they will miss thee when morning light comes.' Whatever Kit felt of pity, he lacked time to show it now. Quietly, promptly, as if this were a wonted part of the day's work, he lit a lanthorn — the farm servants being all long since in bed — closed the hall door behind him, and fetched a spade from the laithe. Then he crossed to the moor on the far side of his land, where the peat was deep and soft for digging. The moon dipped behind the highest ridge of moor while he worked on, with a steady, unceasing swing of the spade. The grave vvas made at last, and Kit went back for the body. A less man might have found the carrying a hard matter ; but the Master returned with a long, easy stride, as if he were unburdened by what lay in his arms. ' Poor lad ! ' was all he said, as he straightened the peat above his kinsman, and set two great stones at his head and feet to mark his resting-place.