"I’m coming, fast as legs ’ull tak me," said Witherlee, scrambling to his feet. "An’ as for th’ dumplings—I’d as lief hev ’em cold as warm; it’s all one when they’ve gone down a body’s throat." "Hearken to him! All one, says he—he’ll be telling me next there’s nowt to choose ’twixt to-day an’ yesterday. Is’t all one whether _tha_’rt warm, or cold as one o’ yond coffin-chaps under sod?—Ay, an’ now there’s Earnshaw coming. Well, well, if him an’ thee once get together, there’ll nowt less than a thunderstorm skift ye, an’ that I’ll warrant." Earnshaw, coming up from the Bull tavern, met them as they turned the corner of the pathway. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets, and he wore his usual air of shiftless cheeriness. "Blowing rain, I fancy," said Earnshaw, standing square across the path. "Blowing fiddlesticks," snapped Nanny, who was in one of her worst fratching moods. "Get out o’ th’ gate, Earnshaw, an’ let busier folk pass by. It’s weel to be thee, or Witherlee here—nowt to do save put hands i’ pockets, an’ tak ’em out again." "Nay, now, tha’rt allus so bustling, Nanny. Tak life at a fair, easy pace, say I, an’ ye’ll noan need Witherlee’s pick an’ shovel this side o’ three-score years an’ ten. Hast heard th’ news, like?" The Sexton’s wife could not resist that simple query. "News? What’s agate?" she said, half turning about. "Why, th’ Wildwater farm-lads is getting past all. There’s no day goes by now, so Hiram Hey telled me, but what they come to words or blows wi’ th’ Marsh lot. It means summat: like master, like man, an’ I warrant they’ve ta’en example fro’ th’ Lean Man hisseln. What mak o’ chance lies Shameless Wayne, that’s what I want to knaw?" "Tha wert up at Wildwater thyseln awhile back?" said the Sexton, still with one eye on his wife. "Ay, for sure. I war in an’ amang ’em while I war doing yond walling job for th’ Lean Man; an’ they war allus clevering then about what th’ Ratcliffes war bahn to do, an’ allus striving to pick a quarrel wi’ ony o’ th’ Marsh lads ’at came handy. I tak no sides myseln——" "I’ll warrant tha doesn’t. He’d nearly as lief wark as fight, wod slack-back Earnshaw," put in Nanny. "Well," cried Witherlee, "yond lad at Marsh is making as grand a fight as ony Wayne that’s gone afore him, an’ we’re all fain, I reckon, to see him win i’ th’ end.—What say ye, Mistress?" he broke off, turning to the little woman who sat apart, hearkening to their gossip but taking no share in it. "He will win, Sexton," she answered quietly. "Dost doubt it?" Nanny softened for a moment, as she, too, glanced at Mistress Wayne. "Not wi’ ye beside him. By th’ Heart, Mistress, but I’d be flaired for Shameless Wayne if he’d no friend sich as ye to keep him fro’ ill hap." "Nay, I can do naught—save sit with hands in lap sometimes, and read the future, and see Ned moving safe through bloodshed and through glint of swords."