"Well?" he asked at last. "There’s marrow i’ what ye said to me a while back, Maister. Sleep ower th’ next day’s wark, an’ ye go wi’ a ready hand to it i’ th’ morn." Wayne, following the motion of Hiram’s foot with impatient spleen, tried to bring his mind round to the matter, but could not. His meeting with Janet had left him out of heart and spent with the old struggle between love and kinship. "Pest take thee, come to me after supper for thy orders," he began. Then, pointing to the stone, "As a start," he added, "thou canst set that ball up on the gateway top. It wears an untidy look, and every day I’ve meant to tell thee of it." "Th’ gate-ball? Ye’ll not know, happen, that it fell on th’ varry day your mother died? An’ th’ owd Maister said ’at it should lig theer, being a sign i’ a way o’ speaking." Hiram could always find excuse for evading a troublesome bit of work; but his words brought a stranger light to the Master’s face than he had looked to see there. Superstitious at all times, the strained order of these latter days had rendered Wayne well-nigh as full of fancies as the Sexton’s wife; the stone here was a sign, and as such he would not tamper with it. "It shall lie there, Hiram," he said slowly, "until the old Master is avenged on those who slew him. ’Tis a token, haply.—Come, little bairn," he added, turning to his stepmother. "Come with me while I put my horse in stable, and then we’ll sup together." Hiram turned over the ball after Wayne had gone. "Lord save us, there’s a power o’ fooil’s talk wends abroad," he growled. "What hes yond lump o’ stone getten to do wi’ th’ feud? A token, is’t? Well, I’m saved a bit o’ sweating, so I’ll noan fratch about it." Mistress Wayne followed Ned quietly, as some dumb favourite might have done, and watched him stable his horse, leaning against the doorway the while and prattling of a hundred foolish matters. Then she fell silent for a space, and Shameless Wayne, glancing up, saw that she was crying bitterly. Angered at his own impotence to help her, he spoke more gruffly than his wont. "Some one has frightened you. Who was ’t?" he said. His peremptoriness seemed to bring back her memory. "’Twas—what call you him?—the man with the hard eyes and the lean face, and one ear clipped level with his cheek. He met me on the road this afternoon——" "What, Nicholas Ratcliffe?" "Ratcliffe—yes. He lives in a great drear house above Wildwater Pool, and once—nay, I cannot recall, ’tis so long ago; but I think he was cruel to me when I went to seek my lover. And to-day he stopped me as I tried to pass him by." Wayne finished rubbing down his horse, then turned quietly. "What said he?" he asked. "Ned, don’t look so stern! It frightens me. And thy voice is hard, too, as it was when I heard thee bid them throw the vault-stone down." "There are matters that make a man hard, little bairn. Was Nicholas Ratcliffe cruel to you?"