Nanny turned suddenly, a queer smile pinching her thin old face. "As if th’ Dog war after him," she finished. "I knew how ’twould be—ay, I knew." "Well, I niver see’d Barguest myseln, an’ I doan’t fancy I iver shall," said Hiram drily. "But there’s a change come to th’ Lean Man, for sure, an’ iverybody is beginning to tak notice o’ ’t. Sometimes he’s his old self, an’ sometimes he fair dithers—an’ by that token he’s i’ Marshcotes this morn, for I catched a sight of his back as I cam up th’ hill." "I may hev my own opinion o’ th’ Lean Man," broke in Bet Earnshaw, "but my man Earnshaw hes part work fro’ Wildwater this winter, an’ there’ll mebbe be another spell i’ store for him, now ’at there’s so mich walling to be done on th’ new intaken land." "Earnshaw get work? Why, whativer would he do wi’ ’t, if he got it?" cried Hiram, with well-feigned amazement. "He’d drop it, I’m thinking, same as if ’twere a ferret, for fear it ’ud bite him." "Now, Hiram—" began Bet. But Hiram looked at her with large and fatherly contempt over the edge of his pewter, and his low deep voice vanquished the other’s thinner note. "Well, th’ young Maister is weel out o’ what chanced to-neet at Marsh," he went on. "Yond bother all came of his marlaking wi’ a Ratcliffe wench, an’ I said to myseln afore iver th’ Ratcliffes come. ’There’ll be a judgment follow on sich light ways,’ I says." "A bonnie un tha art to talk," said Nanny. "What’s this about thee an’ Martha?" Hiram fidgetted from one foot to the other. "What should there be?" he said. "Nay, that’s for thee to say. It’s all ower Marshcotes ’at tha’rt looking after her; an’ some says she willun’t hev thee, being keen set on shepherd Jose." "Owd fooil! She’s niver looked twice his way—no, nor will do while Hiram Hey stands i’ th’ forefront of her een." "Oh, so there’s summat in ’t, then?" said Nanny sharply. Hiram, driven to bay, scratched his thinning crown and muttered that he was "allus backard i’ coming forrard." "Begow, there’s little Mistress Wayne!" cried Nanny on the sudden as her busy eyes caught sight of a cloaked figure going past her window to the graveyard. "What a day for th’ likes o’ her to be out o’ doors. There’s snow coming up wi’ th’ wind, an’ fond as she is to hev her bit of a crack wi’ Witherlee, she mud better hev stopped i’ th’ house to-day. It’ll save thee going to Marsh, howsiver, Bet; tha can axe her what tha wants, an’ nowt no more about it." "Tha’rt right, Nanny. I’ll watch for her coming back—she willun’t be long, I warrant, on sich a day as this. They say she spends a lot o’ time i’ th’ kirkyard, poor soul." "Ay, Witherlee an’ her is birds of a feather—fuller o’ dreams nor life, an’ i’ touch, so to say, wi’ th’ ghosties. He tells her tales by th’ hour together o’ what he’s seen i’ th’ kirkyard; an’ she listens like a bairn, saying a word now an’ then, but mostly sitting dumb-like wi’ her een fixed on his face."