Her voice died down again, though her lips still moved and her needles chattered restlessly. The wind raced over the moor and in at the rusty grating, and twice the Sexton’s wife ceased knitting to brush away a cobweb, wind-driven against her cheek. "An’ him to hev no more nor a half-hour’s tolling, poor mortal!" she said, breaking a long pause. "What ’ull he do when he gets to th’ Gate, an’ th’ bell hes stopped tolling, an’ there’s no Christian music to waft him in? But theer! What did I say o’ th’ wife when Anthony Wayne went an’ wedded again—a lass no older nor his own daughter, an’ not Marshcotes bred nawther. Nay, there’s no mak o’ gooid in ’t—two-an’-sixpence to buy a man’s soul God-speed, there niver war ony gooid i’ bringing furriners to Marshcotes. Little, milkblooded wench as she is, not fit to stand up agen a puff o’ wind. Well, I’ve a’most done wi’ th’ ringing—save I war to gi’e him another half-hour for naught, sin’ he war a thowt likelier nor th’ rest o’ th’ men-folk." The little old woman smiled mirthlessly. For folk accounted her sharp of tongue and hard of heart, and she would never have done as much for any but a Wayne of Marsh House. Silence fell once again on the belfry tower, broken only by the click-click of the needles, the creak of the rope, the subdued thunder of the bell, the wailing frenzy of the wind as it drove the hailstones against the black old walls. Eerie as the night was in the belfry, it was wilder yet in the bleak kirkyard without, free to the moor as it was, and full of corners where the wind hid itself to pipe a shriller note than it could compass in the open. The wind, a moon three-quarters full, a sky close packed with rain and sleet, fought hard together; and now the moon gained a moment’s victory, shimmering ghostly grey across the wet tombstones; and now the scudding wrack prevailed, hiding the moon outright. The sodden winter leaves were lifted from the mould, and danced to the tune of the raindrops pattering upward from the tombstones. A figure crossed the moor and halted awhile at the church-yard gate—a slim figure, of a lissom strength and upright carriage which marked her as a Wayne of Marsh House. Like a sapling ash the girl had swayed and bent to the hurricane as she fought her way through the storm; but all that the wind could do it had done, and had left her unbroken—breathless only, and glad of the gate’s support for a moment.