All laughed at the grim banter, save Janet, sitting white and cold at her grandfather’s side. Once she glanced at Red Ratcliffe, who strove hardily to meet her scorn; and then something of the Lean Man’s spirit came to her. "That shall be a bargain, sir," said she, with a low laugh. "If any kills Shameless Wayne, he shall wed me—but by’r Lady, I think the marriage will not be this year, nor next." Nicholas half minded to rail at her, thought better of it. "’Twill be within the month, or my word goes for naught; but thou dost well, girl, to mock at them. See Red Ratcliffe glowering at thee there; yet last night he dared not look the Master of Marsh between the eyes." "I’ll look any man between the eyes,—but not when a boggart sits upon his shoulder and strikes for him," growled Red Ratcliffe. The Lean Man shivered, as if the hall were draughtier than its wont, and rose abruptly. "Come, there’s a long day’s work to be got through," he said. All was bustle for awhile, until the men had set out on their usual business of farming or of bringing game home for the larder. The women, after they had gone, stayed to chatter of this and that, and then they, too, went about their work—to the spinning-wheel, the dairy or the kitchen. But Janet, who had always lived apart from the common run of life at Wildwater, stood idly at the wide northward window of the hall, and looked out on the greening waste of moor. "Was not the feud bad enough?" she murmured. "Was there too little stood between Shameless Wayne and me, but this must be added to the rest? God’s pity, but they could not have struck at me more cruelly, and Red Ratcliffe knew it when he made the bargain. _To be wedded to him who kills Shameless Wayne_." She lifted her head suddenly, and it was strange to mark how once again the Lean Man’s hardiness showed plainly in her face. "Nay, but it needs two for any bargain," she cried, and cold steel, even in a maid’s hand, can always right a quarrel. Yet she was full of dread for Shameless Wayne. What chance had he, with the Lean Man’s craft and all the strength of Wildwater against him? He would not budge from Marsh, folk said, and he had but four weak lads to help him there. And she could do nothing. Instinctively she looked to the moor for help—the moor, that had been friend and playmate to her through her score years of life. Flat to the cloud-streaked sky it stretched, and the bending heather-tops seemed moving toward her with kindly invitation. Reaching down her cloak from behind the door, she hurried out and turned her back on Wildwater, with its surly stretch of intake, its blackened, frowning gables, its guardian pool. Little by little her step grew firmer; the sky and the wind were close about her, and the fret begotten of house walls slackened with each mile that took her further away from men.