Red Ratcliffe helped him up, marvelling to find that Nicholas, who was wont to be active as the best of them, had no spring in his body, no knee-grip when at last his feet were in the stirrups. He stole many a glance at the old man’s face as they rode up the moor, and marked a change in it—a palpable change, which he could not understand, but which added a new dread to the heaviness that was already weighing on him. "Robert is dead, I take it?" said Nicholas, as they passed the square-topped stone that marked one boundary of the Wildwater lands. "Dead? Ay, for the lad cleft his skull in two clean halves." Robert was the Lean Man’s eldest-born; but if he had any touch of fatherly sorrow for the dead, he would not show it. "’Tis a pity," was all he said; "he had the best hand of all you younger breed.—The miles crawl past, lad, and the thirst of Hell is on me; get thee down and fill thy hat in the stream yonder." Red Ratcliffe brought the water, and the old man stooped eagerly to it, then glanced behind him on the sudden and stifled a low groan. "What is’t?" cried his grandson. "See, sir, the water’s trickling through; there’ll be none left unless you drink." "I—I thought—" stammered Nicholas, and pulled himself together with an effort. "’Twas only a fresh dizziness. There! Fill up again; the water will clear my wits, belike." He drank greedily, and his knees were firmer on the saddle-flaps when they rode on. "I’ll fight the pair of them, God rot them," he mumbled, slipping clumsily to ground as they gained the door of Wildwater. Janet, hearing them ride under her chamber window, woke from a troubled sleep and ran to open the casement. All day her grandfather had worn the air of grim gaiety which she had learned to fear, and the lateness of his home-coming told her which way his errand had lain. "They have made a night-attack," she murmured, fumbling blindly with the window-fastening. "And what of Shameless Wayne? If—if aught has chanced to him——" She wrenched the window open and peered down into the courtyard. The moon, dropping toward the high land that stretched from Wildwater to the four corners of the sky, gave light enough to show her Nicholas and close behind him Red Ratcliffe with the bridle of a riderless horse in his right hand. These were her folk; but the girl’s heart leaped at sight of the empty saddle, at the slowness of the Lean Man’s movements, for these things told her that defeat had ridden home across the moor with them. Nicholas, hearing the creak of the casement above, glanced sharply up. "Is’t thou, Janet?" he called. "Ay, grandfather. Have ye—have ye been a-hunting again?" He fetched a hollow laugh. "Ay, down by Marsh; but the fox slipped cover before we were aware."