Janet laughed on the sudden, as she crossed the rough stretch of moor that lay this side of Withens. She was to see Shameless Wayne before the sun went down, and to do him a last service; and the lark’s song overhead found a blithe answer in her heart. Then, too, the moor was in joyous mood, and no upland tarn ever reflected the sky’s face more faithfully than Janet echoed the shifting humours of this big-little world of hers. No year went by but she learned all afresh how rare and bewildering a thing was springtime on the moor; so warm it was, so full of a thousand clean-cut scents, of wind and peat, of ling and standing waters. The bilberries, with their green and crimson leaves, lay bushy to the sunlight, which shone reflected in tints of amethyst or ruby, pearl or daintiest saffron. The crowberries, which had shown a surly green the winter through, put on new livery, and all down their serried stems the brown-red blossoms peeped. A stray bee loitered down the wind, and cloudlets lay like snow above the blue edge of the heath. It was the time of year when Janet ceased looking across the endless spaces of the moor, and turned her eyes to the lesser miracles that showed at every step. Month after month the waste had shown itself a giant of awful majesty, whose breath was storm, whose heart was pitiless; and now—lo, this moor was full of little housewife’s cares, cleaning her floors of last year’s litter, suckling her young like any human mother, neglecting no hidden corner where blade or flower was thirsting for her milk. Past Robin Hood’s Well the girl went, and across the beck, and over the moor this side of Withens; and as she went she thought that surely Wayne of Marsh must lose a little of his sternness under such skies as these. Nay, she smiled as she looked toward the far-off brink of moor under which Marsh House lay hidden. "If not for myself, he’ll love me for my news, may be," she said, and smiled again as she thought of what might chance when she knocked at the door of the Marsh House and asked for Shameless Wayne. How if his sister Nell should open to her and ask her business? Once already they had met, she and Nell, since the feud broke out; and Nell had taunted her with outright bitterness; and they had not parted till deep wounds had been given and received on either side. "Were she to open to me," murmured Janet, "she would rive a spear down from the walls and thrust me out, for fear another than she should help Ned into safety. Well, I must risk that, too—but I had liefer meet the Lean Man than this same Mistress Nell. Love is jealous, they say—but for madness it is naught to this quiet, sisterly affection."