The Sexton’s wife dared not look at him, lest he should see how she itched to set her hands about his throat; but her voice confessed as much. "’Tis easy to scoff, Maister, when ye’ve no clouds across your sun, an’ there’s a mony doubts nowadays. Ay, there’s them as doubts Barguest even—afore he’s crossed their path." She shot a sideways glance at him, and saw that she had aimed true. "He has never crossed mine, woman, so I’ll be on the doubting side yet awhile," he answered, after a silence. "Well, ye’ll know best; but ye’ve crossed Barguest, if he’s noan crossed ye, an’ they say it’s mich like wedlock, is crossing th’ Brown Dog—him an’ ye till death do ye part. But theer! I’ve telled ye as mich afore, an’ happen I’m full o’ fancies, for ye say ye’ve niver seen him sin’ that neet." Nicholas Ratcliffe wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve, and gave one quick glance behind him. Whichever way he turned, it seemed he could not rid him of these folk who talked of Barguest. "Devil take thee!" he cried. "There’s no such thing—and if there were I’d fight him with a dozen Waynes to back him. Get to your healing, Mistress Wayne; you are fit company for Nanny Witherlee." Mistress Wayne eyed him doubtfully. "No such thing as Barguest?" she said gravely. "Sir, I have seen him—just before the fires were lit about the Marsh doorways, it was, and I was in the garden with Ned, and the Brown Dog came and fawned on him,—his coat was shaggy—brown against Ned’s clothes. And he whimpered so; and I think it was because he was cold and in trouble that he lit a fire to warm himself." The Lean Man’s anger melted; something awesome there was about this woman’s quiet recountal that compelled belief. "You—you saw him?" he whispered. Then his old spirit quelled the rising terror, and he gripped the saddle afresh with his knees. "Tell him from me then, since you’re friendly to him," he sneered, jerking the snaffle, "tell him that Nicholas Ratcliffe fears neither ghost nor man, and if Barguest cares to visit him at Wildwater—" The rest was drowned by the clatter of his horse’s feet as he galloped down the lane. "Neither ghost nor man?" echoed Nanny. "Ye’re th’ far side o’ th’ truth, there, Maister. I niver heard that ye feared man born o’ woman—but ony one can see that Barguest hes getten his teeth in." "Sakes, ’tis fearsome talk; I wish tha’d hod thy whisht, Nanny, that I do," twittered Bet Earnshaw. But Nanny was no bustling housewife now, with a ready hand for whatever was to be done and a ready tongue to answer any speech; she was the same dream-eyed woman who had rung the bell for Wayne of Marsh, who had watched Wayne’s body the night through and listened to the speech of other worlds.