Hiram, after a curt nod to Witherlee, went to his horse’s head. "There’ll be enough to fill Nanny’s kitchen without me, I’m thinking," he muttered; "an’ I niver could bide so many women all dickering together—nay, begow, I’d liefer hev snow an’ dust an’ all th’ winds i’ th’ sky." A horseman came trotting round the bend of the street, and shouted to Hiram to cease backing his horse and leave him room to pass. But the farm-man could be as deaf as a stone when it suited his purpose; he had seen the rust-grey head and lean body of the horseman, and he kept on his way, backing the cart more slowly than was needful until he gained the open high-road. The Lean Man was holding his big bay horse on the curb and scarce could keep him in. "Art deaf, fellow?" he snapped, swinging the butt of his riding whip toward the other’s head. Hiram went quietly to the other side of his horse and looked across at the Lean Man of Wildwater. "My hearing is noan what it war, Maister. War it ye shouting to me up th’ loin?" "Ay, was it. Dost think I’m minded on such a day as this, to stand shivering at the lane-end while thou block’st the way?—So, ’tis thou, is it?" he broke off, with a sharper glance at Hiram. "I thought that slouch of thine was woundily familiar. Art minded to boast of the great store of peats ye have at Marsh, as thou didst not long since to my grandson?" Hiram winced, for it was bitter to him still to think how easily Red Ratcliffe had outwitted him, and Nanny’s late banter had rubbed an old wound raw. "We’ve fewer peats, Maister," he said slowly—"but th’ owd house stands, I’ve noticed. Ay, ’tis proof agen fire an’ sword, they say." Old Nicholas could make nothing of the farm-man’s stolid front. "Cherish that belief, and teach it to thy Master," he said. "Nay, he needs no teaching. He knaws, weel as I can tell him, that a Brown Dog ligs on th’ threshold, an’——" The Lean Man loosed the curb on a sudden and rode into the snowstorm that blew dusty up the lane. "I thowt he wodn’t stay to hear no more," said Hiram to his horse. "Get on, old lad, an’ if we find Shameless Wayne at Marsh, we’ll tell him what we said to Nicholas Weasel-toppin. He’s flaired is th’ Lean Man—flaired." Bet the slattern had moved to the cottage-door soon as she saw Mistress Wayne come through the churchyard gate with Witherlee. "There’s summat I want to axe of ye, Mistress," she said, twisting an apron-corner in her feckless hands. "I’ve getten a little un as is like to dee o’ th’ Brown Titus, an’ I thowt mebbe ye’d step in next door here an’ gi’e th’ bairn a touch o’ your hand—they like as they pike up, so to say, when they feel a softer hand on ’em nor us that wark for our bread hev getten."