The Black Tor Part 62

"I'm more disposed to cry; to think of such a stout, brave lad as you should believe such nonsense."

"Nonsense?" cried Dummy. "What, don't you be--believe in ghosts and bor--bogies, Master Mark?"

"Do I look as if I did?" cried Mark contemptuously. "You wait till I get well, and if you tell me then that you believe in such silly old women's tales, I'll kick you."

Dummy grinned.

"You wouldn't," he said. "But I say, Master Mark, think old Purlrose will haunt me?"

"Bah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mark. "There, come along; I want to get home and let Master Rayburn do something to my bit of a wound. It hurts so I can hardly walk."

"Here, let me carry you, Master Mark. Pig-a-back. I can."

"No, no, Dummy, old lad; but you come to the castle to-morrow, and say you are to walk up and see me. I shall have to be put to bed, I expect, in the same room with young Ralph Darley."

"Then I shan't come," said the boy, scowling.

"Why?"

"'Cause I don't like him, and I don't like to see his father and their girl took there as if they were friends."

"They are now, Dum, and there isn't going to be any more fighting in the vale."

It was a strange scene when the slow procession wound its way up the zigzag, at the top of which Mary Eden and Master Rayburn were waiting with the women and the tiny wounded garrison to receive the fresh party of injured folk.

Mary ran to her wounded father to embrace him, and then to Minnie Darley, to whom she held out her hands, and the people cheered as the two girls kissed.

Mary was about to lead the trembling girl in, but she shook her head and went to her father's side; and then Mary looked round for her brother, and ran to him, as he came up leaning upon Dummy's arm.

"Oh, Mark, darling! hurt?" she cried, flinging her arms about his neck.

"Just a bit," he said, with a sickly smile. "You do as Minnie Darley did. Never mind me; go and stay with father. He's more hurt than he'll own to. Ah, Master Rayburn! brought you some more work, but we've burnt out the wasps."

"My brave boy!" cried the old man, wringing his hands. "There, I'll come to you as soon as I can. I must go to those who are worse."

"Yes, yes," said Mark; "I've got my doctor here. But tell me--young Ralph?"

"Recovered his senses, and asked about his father and sister."

"Come along, Dummy," said Mark faintly; "let's go and tell him we've brought them safe; and then you shall wash and bind up my cut."

He uttered a faint "Ah!" and would have fallen but for the boy's ready arm; and the next minute he was being borne up the steps, pig-a-back after all, though he had scouted the offer before. He had fainted dead away.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

A DEAD FEUD.

Time glided away as fast in the days of James the First as it does in the reign of our gentle Queen; and a year had gone by in the quiet peaceful vale, where, to a man, all who had been in the great trouble had more or less quickly recovered from their wounds.

The prisoners were the worst sufferers, and in the great friendly peace brought about between the old lords of the land, partly by their own manly feeling and the love that had somehow sprung up among their children, the greatest of all the Christian virtues took deep root, and flourished in a way that would have put the proverbial green bay tree to shame.

Hence it was that, as very slowly one by one the miserable crippled prisoners, so many wrecks, diseased by their own reckless life and crippled by their wounds, struggled back slowly to a condition in which perhaps a few years were left them for a better life, they were left entirely in Master Rayburn's hands; and first one and then another was sent off with a little money and a haversack of food to seek his friends and trouble the peaceful valley no more.

It took nearly the year before the last of the wretched crew bade farewell to the place, grateful or ungrateful, according to his nature, after going through a long course of physical suffering; and by that time Cliff Castle was pretty well restored, and the two lads, after a long absence, were back home again to the land of mighty cliff, green forest, and purling stream.

It was on one of those glorious early summer mornings when the air seems full of joy, and it is a delight even to exist, that, as the sycamores and beeches in their early green were alive with song, there came a rattle of tiny bits of spar against Mark Eden's cas.e.m.e.nt window, and he sprang out of bed to throw it open and look down upon Ralph Darley, armed with lissom rod over his shoulder and creel on back.

"Oh, I say," he cried, "asleep, and on a morning like this!"

"Yes, but you're too soon."

"Soon? Why, I'm a quarter of an hour late. Be quick, the May-fly are up, and the trout feeding like mad, and as for the grayling, I saw the biggest--oh! do make haste."

"Shan't be long."

"And Mark, tell Mary that father is going to bring Min up about twelve, and they are to meet us with the dinner-basket up by the alder weir.

Well, why don't you make haste and dress?"

"I was thinking," said Mark, with a broad smile.

"What about?"

"Oh, here's Dummy with the net," cried Mark. "Hi! you sir! why didn't you come and call me at the proper time?"

"Morn', Master Ralph," said the lad, with a friendly grin. Then with an ill-used look up at the window:

"'Tis proper time. You said six, and it aren't that yet."

"There," cried Mark; "you are too soon."

"Very well. It was so fine; but I say, what were you thinking about?"

Mark grinned again.

"Is it so very comic?" said Ralph impatiently.

"That depends on what you say."

"Well, let's hear."

"I was thinking that you and I have never finished that fight."

"No; you haven't been down to steal our ravens. I say, Mark, what do you say? Shall we? They're building there again."

"Let 'em," said Mark, "in peace."

THE END.