"Ay, but it war Red Ratcliffe gav it me, an’ tha knaws what ill money breeds." Nanny made straight for the dresser, putting her goodman to one side with a firm hand. "I know what lack o’ money breeds, Luke Witherlee," she said, as she dropped the coin in her apron pocket. "’Tis nawther right nor kindly to load a harmless bit o’ silver ai’ th’ sins o’ him that owned it, an’ I’ve known good childer come fro’ ill parents." "Not oft," said Witherlee, and fell to on the oven-cake which Nanny had just set down before him. *CHAPTER IV* *ON BOG-HOLE BRINK* The sun was wearing noonward as Shameless Wayne and his sister came out of the Marsh House gates and turned up the pasture-fields that led them to the moor. It was the same morning that had seen the mad woman steal out from Nanny’s cottage in search of the rude welcome awaiting her at Wildwater; but to Nell Wayne it seemed that yesterday was pushed far back into the past. Her visit to the belfry, her lust for vengeance, the quick answer to her prayers that had been given, amid rain-murk and the crash of swords, upon the very stone that was to cover Wayne of Marsh—these seemed all far off to the girl this morning, as if another than she had lived through the tempest of last night’s passion. Behind them, in the Marsh hall, lay her father, still as when she had left him before the fight; and something of the stillness of the end was in the girl’s face, too, as she kept pace with her brother’s slow-moving steps. "There’s no rest for me, Nell, indoors yonder," said the lad, turning troubled eyes to the old house. "Nor for me, nor for any of us, so long as father lies there. Ned, ’tis cruel that we cannot bury our dead clean out of sight soon as the breath has left them. All afternoon our kinsfolk will come, and whisper and pray above the body, and go away—I can see the whole sad ceremony—and we must be there, Ned—and ’twill be bitter hard to remember that the Wayne pride bids neither man nor woman of us show a tearful front to death." He laughed, bitterly a little and very sadly. "The Wayne pride, Nell! Did not that die with father, think’st thou? Or hast forgotten what thou said’st to me last night at the vault-side?" The late stress of grief and fight, had left the girl soft of heart; and Ned had ever held a sure place in her love. "Let that go by, dear," she said. "I was distraught, and my tongue went wandering in my own despite." "Yet thy tongue spoke truth, lass. I shall never be aught but Shameless Wayne henceforth, thou said’st." "Nay, ’twas but a half truth," she said, eagerly. "There’s life before thee, Ned, and swift deeds——" He put a firm hand on her shoulder and forced her to look him in the face. "Nell, I was drinking in the Bull tavern while the bell tolled for father from the kirk-tower. Say, didst think I _knew_ what had chanced at Marsh?"