In silence they went up the moor, a score and ten of them. The wind, quiet for awhile, was gathering strength again, and its breath was bitter cold. A blurred round of yellow marked where the moon was fighting with the cloud-wrack over Dead Lad’s Rigg. The whole wide moor was dark, and lonely, and afraid. The heather dripped beneath the keen lash of the wind, and over Lostwithens Marsh the blue corpse-candles fluttered. "Are ye feared, Mistress?" said Griff, stooping to the ear of Mistress Wayne when the journey was half over. His voice was jaunty, but in truth his dread of moor-boggarts was keener for the moment than his zest for the battle that was waiting them up yonder on the stormy hill-crest. "I fear the moor always, Griff; ’tis pitiless, like those red folk who dwell at Wildwater," whispered Mistress Wayne, clinging more tightly to him. "Well, there’ll be fewer of them by and by, so keep thy courage warm with that." Nearer and nearer they drew to Wildwater, while Janet Ratcliffe was still kept prisoned in the narrow chamber that overlooked the moor. She had wakened from her swoon in time to hear the last preparations of her folk in the hall behind her, and the Lean Man’s voice was in her ears as she lifted her aching head and heavy limbs. "Do I fit this cursed bier?" he was saying. "Like a gauntlet, sir," answered Red Ratcliffe. "Do I look pale enough? Lord knows I need, for the fight to keep old death at bay shows like to break me. Lads, if only my right arm were whole! I’d take my turn with you, ’od rot me, and have one merry sword-cut for my last. What hour is’t?" "’Tis close on ten of the clock. They should be here by now." "Tie up my chin, then, lest aught be wanting. Poor fools! Poor, courteous fools! To think they come in innocence." Would the dread farce never end, thought Janet? Or would a hand reach out of the moor—the moor that was her friend—and strike the Lean Man in the midst of his cool-ordered devilry? But still their voices sounded through her prison-wall. She listened more intently now, for old Nicholas was talking of herself. "When all is over, bring the girl into hall here—the girl who mocked me and played the harlot with my foes. Spare her no drop of agony; bring her to where Wayne of Marsh lies bloody, and tell her that is the bridal I had set my heart on. God, how deep my hate goes! And"—his voice faltered by a hair’s-breadth—"and once I loved her." He loved her still, thought Janet, and the half-confession touched a strange chord in her. A moment since she had burned with hate of her grandfather; yet now, with the obstinacy of her race, a spark of the old love wakened for this crafty rogue who had spent his last hours in working for her misery. Nay, there was a touch of pride in him, because he kept so staunch a spirit to the end. "Well, time wags. Tie up my chin, I tell thee, Ratcliffe the Red," said the Lean Man after a lengthy silence.