"Pish! We can spare one arm, I warrant, and ’twas sweet to cry Wayne’s wife up and down the country-side for what she is. The lad will wed her soon as they get free of Marshcotes, she thinks—but I know different; and ’twill eat the heart out of the Waynes to know—what, Janet! Thou look’st scared as a moor-tit," he broke off, as a trim lassie came in through the parlour door and stood at the elbow of his chair. Janet Ratcliffe, the youngest of all the Wildwater clan, was the only one among them who could touch the old man’s heart; some said it was because she was the comeliest of the women, and others vowed it was that her raven hair had caught her grandfather’s fancy by contrast with the ruddy colouring and freckled cheeks that nearly every other Ratcliffe in the moorside boasted. But sure it was that whenever the Lean Man’s brittle temper had to be tried, Janet was sent as tale-bearer. "There’s one would speak with you, grandfather," said the girl, coming to the elbow of his chair. "Then bid him enter. Any man can come into Wildwater—’tis for us to say whether we let them out again." "Nay, but ’tis a—a woman, sir. I found her wandering up and down the garden, plucking the daisies and singing to herself." "By the Lord, we do not have so queer a guest every day! Let her come in, Janet, and we’ll give her the bottoms of the ale-flagons if her song be a good one." "But, sir—she bears a name that is not welcome here—and she talks so wildly that I fear her wits are gone." "What name?" snarled the old man. "She is wife to Wayne of Marsh—and her clothes are dripping—and she speaks all in riddles——" Nicholas laughed grimly. "Bring her to me," he said—"though, ’tis no new thing, my faith, to talk to a Wayne who is scant of wit." "There’s something untoward in this," muttered Robert. "What should she want at Wildwater, if Dick’s plans had not miscarried?" "Why, he grew weary of her, belike, ’twixt here and Saxilton, and set her down by the wayside. Thou know’st the lad’s fancies—they go as fast as they come in that addle-pate of his. By the Heart, what have we here?" Old Nicholas stopped, and pointed to the doorway; and the lads who were at breakfast let fall their knives with a clatter on the board. And in truth Mistress Wayne was a wild and sorry spectacle enough, and one to hold a man in doubt whether he should shrink from her or laugh outright. "Where is the Lean Man of Wildwater? I want a word with him," she said, and looked blankly round the hall. Nicholas Ratcliffe smiled cruelly upon her, and, "Mistress," said he, "I fear the last night’s storm has used you ill. _I_ am the Lean Man you ask for. What would you?" She carried a half-dozen daisies in her hand, plucked from the Wildwater garden, and these she held out to Nicholas with a pretty air of confidence. "I was weaving daisy-chains—red daisies, that grew out of a great vault-stone—and while I wove them my lover fell asleep."