"Sit thee down beside me, Janet. Thou’lt take no hurt from the warm night. There, lass. And let me put an arm about thee—so. God’s life, how real thou art, after the boggart-company I’ve kept of late." Her cheeks burned at thought of the poor requital she had given his love; but she would not remember Wayne of Marsh, and she waited, her grey eyes pitiful on his, until he should find words to ease his trouble. "We’ll start far back, Janet," he said, slowly, "in the old days before my father, or his father’s father before him, had seen the light. Ratcliffes were at feud then with Waynes, and both were busy sowing the crop which generation after generation was to reap. The tale is old to thee, but thou’lt not grudge to hear it all again?" "Not that tale to-night, grandfather—any tale save that," pleaded the girl. But Nicholas did not hear her. "The tale," he went on, "is of how one Anthony Ratcliffe, dwelling at Wildwater, rode down to Marsh to slay Rupert Wayne. He found there only Wayne’s young wife, and asked where her goodman was. She would not answer; so Anthony Ratcliffe bade his men heat a sword-blade in the fire till it was white, and had the lady of Marsh stripped mother-naked, and marked a broad red scar all down her body between each question and each refusal of an answer. But she would not tell where Wayne had gone—not till she heard the steel hiss for the fifth time on her tender flesh. And then she told that he was riding home over Ludworth Slack; and they left her dying of her wounds." "Hush, grandfather! I cannot bear it. Hark to the rushes yonder—and the curlews—they’ve heard your tale, methinks." "’Tis grim, lass, but what I have to tell thee is grimmer still, so bide in patience. They got to horse again, Anthony Ratcliffe and his men, and they met Wayne of Marsh on the road, riding home with his favourite hound for company. They made at him, and the hound sprang straight and true at Anthony’s throat"—the Lean Man halted a moment and wiped the sweat-drops from his forehead—"and nipped the life out of him. One of his folk thrust a spear then through the dog’s heart, and the rest fell upon Wayne of Marsh and slew him." Janet thought of another Wayne of Marsh who had lately been met in just such a fashion up by Dead Lad’s Rigg. "Go on, grandfather," she whispered, in an awe-stricken voice. "Mark well the end of the old tale, girl. A company of Wayne’s kinsfolk, riding near to Ludworth Slack soon after the Ratcliffes had set off again for home, heard a hound’s baying from across the moor; they followed and the baying went on before them till they reached the spot where Wayne lay dead—and beside him Anthony Ratcliffe, with teeth-marks at his throat—and, a little way off, Wayne’s hound, fast stiffening."