Yet Ned had not killed his shame. He was but battling with it, and the effort to show something like a man, in his own eyes at least, rendered his mood at once strangely tender and strangely savage. But he could find naught save tenderness for Mistress Wayne, as they climbed the wide stairway hand-in-hand and went in at the door of what had been his father’s bed-chamber—his father’s and that of the little woman by his side. She was no longer an unfaithful wife; she was a child, bewildered in the midst of enemies, and she had no friend but him. Mistress Wayne stood in the middle of the room, fearful a little and asking a mute question of her step-son. "This shall be thy room. Nay, there’s naught to fear!" he said. "Peep into the drawers yonder by and by, and thou’lt find pretty clothes to wear; but thou’rt tired now, and must lie down on the bed. So! Now I’ll cover thee snugly up, and bring thee meat. I doubt thou need’st it, bairn." She was passive in his hands, and fell to crooning happily while he drew a great rug of badgerskin across her. "’Tis pleasant to have friends, and to be warm," she murmured. "Unless I hasten, thou’lt be asleep before I bring thee supper!" he cried. "Rest quiet, and be sure I’ll keep the boggarts from the door." He went quietly down again, feeling his own troubles lighter for this fresh claim upon his sympathies; nor did he doubt the dead man’s view of it, since there was scarce man or woman on the moor who did not hold that madness cancelled all back-reckonings. "I will see what is to be found in the kitchen; haply the half of a moor-cock would tempt her appetite," he thought, as he turned down the passage. He was met by his four brothers, just returned from hawking. Their faces were flushed and their sturdy bodies panting with the hard run home. "We’ve had rare sport, Ned! Rare sport!" cried the eldest, a lad of sixteen. And then, remembering who lay not far away, cold forever to sport of hawk or hound, he dropped his head shamefacedly. "It has taken you far, I warrant; for the sun has been down this half-hour past." "Ay, for at the end of all we fell to flying at magpies down the hedgerows toward Heathley, and yond unbacked eyes of mine at which thou jestest trussed seven. Peep in the kitchen, Ned, and see what game we took. We carried the goshawk, too, and she struck a hare up by Wildwater——" "What! Ye have been near Wildwater?" cried Shameless Wayne, his face darkening on the sudden. "Ay, ’twas in one of the Lean Man’s fields we struck the hare—and, Ned, we saw such a queer sight up yonder. Just as I was going to cast at a snipe, Ralph here whispered that the Lean Man himself was coming." "So we hid in the heather," put in Ralph eagerly, "and he passed as close to us, Ned, as thou stand’st to me. He had a great cut across his cheek, and his hands were red, and we could hear him laughing to himself in a way that made us feared."