"Half her wits have come home from wandering. What when they return altogether?" he muttered. "Nay, she had better be as the bairns are. Our wits do naught for us save teach us that life rings cracked and hollow as a broken bell.—I could swear the sun moves at racing-speed," he broke off, glancing toward the south. "’Twas well I told them to set dinner back a full two hours." The Lean Man, standing in the Wildwater courtyard, was likewise looking toward the south, as he rated three of his kinsfolk into the saddle. "Ye lie-abed, hounds!" he roared. "Does Wayne of Marsh come riding to meet us every day, that ye mean to let noon go by? Up with the stirrup-cup, Janet, and I’ll drain it once again to an errand that is all of thy making." "’Tis scarce past the time for wild geese, sir," put in Red Ratcliffe drily, "and Janet knew it, methinks, when she sent us on this chase." "Marry, why should’st doubt Wayne’s coming?" snapped Nicholas. "But thou wast so from thy birth, lad, so I’ll not rate thee for thy clownishness." "I doubt for reasons that I’ll tell you afterward," said the other, nettled by his comrades’ laughter. "What, when I return with Wayne’s head at my saddle-flap?" "If mares build nests, and lay gold eggs in them, we shall bring back Wayne’s head to-day," growled Red Ratcliffe, and pricked his horse forward out of reach of further gibes. "The young cockerels crow while the old birds fill their crops," laughed Nicholas. "Forward, lads, and mind well that none is to lay hand on Shameless Wayne till I have done with him." Janet watched them move up into the moor, their figures, riding one behind the other, dark against the white, wind-hurried clouds. "A fair journey, sirs!" she cried, soon as they were out of eyeshot. "A fair journey, and fair tempers when ye come back from slaying Wayne of Marsh." Dangers were waiting in plenty for Ned, she knew; but it was enough that he was safe from the peril of the moment, and her heart sang blithely as she told herself that, but for her aid, the Lean Man would have gone to meet him yesterday—and would have found him. What she should say when they returned from their bootless errand, she knew not, nor whether her grandfather would suspect the truth of all the tale she had told him when he found one flaw in it. It did not matter; some way she would coax him back to good humour, as she had done four days ago. Restless in her gaiety, which had a certain fierceness in it, she wandered up and down the house, and out into the garden, and thence to the stables in search of her favourite roan mare. The roan had been ailing lately, and this morning she turned a sadly lack-lustre eye on Janet in answer to the girl’s caresses.