"Well, there’s one gooid thing ’ull come on ’t, ony way," answered the Sexton. "Th’ Lean Man o’ Wildwater is like to get wet to th’ bone afore he wins across th’ moor. An’ ye can niver tell but what a wetting may tak a man off—I’ve knawn mony a——" Wayne swung his horse round sharply. "The Lean Man! Hast seen him, then?" he cried. "Not ten minutes agone. He crossed up aboon there at a gooidish trot." "What, by the moor-track?" "Nay, his face war set for th’ Ling Crag road; he war hurrying, an’ wanted better foot-hold for his horse, I reckon, nor th’ peat ’ud gi’e him." Mistress Wayne was at the wall-side now. "Ned, thou’lt not ride after him?" she pleaded. "’Tis Nell’s wedding-day to-morrow—she’ll think it a drear omen." But Wayne was already gathering the reins more firmly into his hand. "Nell will want a wedding-gift, little bairn—and, by the Red Heart, I’ll bring her one of the choicest.—Sexton, shall I overtake him before he gets within hail of Wildwater?" "Wi’ that mare’s belly betwixt your legs, Maister, ye’d catch him six times ower." Wayne stopped for no more, but touched the mare once with his heels and swung up the field and round the bend of the Ling Crag road. The Sexton looked after him and nodded soberly; and it was strange to see his old eyes brighten, as if at the grave-edge he were turning back to see this one last fight. "There’s more nor one storm brewing; I said as mich," he muttered, and hobbled to the wicket to see the flying trail of dust and rain that marked the rider’s headlong course. The wind rose on the sudden. The rain-drops fell by twos now where lately they had fallen singly. A far rumble of thunder crept dull through the leaden sky-wrack. "Gallop, thou laggard, gallop!" muttered Wayne to his mare, as Ling Crag village swirled by and the rough track to Wildwater stretched clear ahead. The village folk came out of their houses as he passed, but they were slow of foot, and all that they reaped for their trouble was the fast-dying beat of horse-hoofs down the wind. "Wayne, ’tis Shameless Wayne. Who but him carries Judgment-fire i’ his hoss’s heels?" they said. Past Blackshaw Hall and through the Conie Crag ravine swept Wayne the Shameless; past the three wells of Robin Hood and Little John and Will Scarlett, and up into the naked moor. The land lay flat to the sky up here, and through the thickening rain-sheets Wayne could see his enemy’s lean figure rising and falling to the trot of his lean bay horse. Soon the track crept timorous round the bog, and under foot the water splashed and creamed; but still Wayne plied his mare with tongue and spur. The thunder-throb grew nearer, and muttered all along the murky sky-edge and down the dun moor-fastnesses. Earth and sky, bog and peat and cloud-wrack, were wakeful and at war; the starveling moor-birds fled on down-drooping wings, and from the under-deeps the Brown Folk chattered restlessly.