"Ay, if he has a shrewd hand ever on his shoulder; but if the master plays at work, Hiram will play, too, with the best, soon as the old habit wears——" Nell could not keep back a smile. "As well set beggars on horseback, Ned, as put thee to farming. Hadst never patience for it, nor liking." "Liking? Good faith, I loathe the sight of tillage tools, and the greasy stench of sheep, and the slow rearing of crops for every storm to play the wanton with. But must is must, Nell, lass, and naught will alter it.—Look at Marshcotes kirk yonder?" he broke off, pointing over the moor as they gained the hill-crest. "It is broad day now, and ’tis hard to understand how lately there was fight beneath yond grey old tower." Nell shuddered. "Was it a dream, think’st thou, after all? Just a dream, Ned, born of the moon-rays and the wildness of the night?" "’Twas no dream, lass, for I carry the marks of it.—God’s pity, what can have chanced to Mistress Wayne, I wonder? I left her on the vault last night, after pleading with her vainly to return with me to Marsh; and half toward home I turned again, shamed at the thought of leaving her in such a plight—and she was gone." "Thou didst plead with her to come back to Marsh?" said Nell, her face hardening. "What place has she at Marsh?" "The place that any homeless bairn might claim there; and, by the Heart, I’ll find her if I can and give her shelter. Fool that I was to leave her there last night! She may have wandered to her death among the moors." "And I for one would gladden to hear of it," cried the girl. "She brought father to where he is; she made our honour light through all the country-side; ’tis treachery to the dead to pity her." "We’ll not fall out, Nell, thou and I; there are quarrels enough to fight through as it is," said Wayne steadily. "Wilt come to Bog-hole brink with me? The last words ever I heard from father was about yond field; next after thee, I think he doted most on the lean fields he had rescued from the heather, and ’twould please him if we could whisper in his ear at home-going that the work was speeding." His sister glanced curiously at him, scarce crediting the change that one night’s agony had wrought in this careless lad, nor knowing whether his tenderness or his purposeful, quiet talk of ways and means were more to be wondered at. "Is’t safe, Ned?" she asked. "The road to Wildwater crosses over beyond Bog-hole brink, and Nicholas Ratcliffe has a pair of hawk’s eyes in his weasel face." "’Twill be as safe now as ever it will; and who knows but a chance may come to square last night’s account?" She turned and walked beside him up the fields; and, after they had crossed the stile that opened on the moor, she broke silence for the first time. "Ned, what of Janet Ratcliffe?" she said suddenly. Wayne flushed, and paled again; but his voice was quiet when he spoke. "I have thought that over, too—and—love sickens when it crosses kinship, Nell."