"When the Lean Man’s hands are red, and his throat holds laughter, it means but the one thing," muttered Shameless Wayne. "He has killed his man—God pity one of our kin!—and the feud is out before we looked for it. They’ll let the burying get done with—even a Ratcliffe never did less than that; and then ’twill be fast and merry." "Tush! We were not feared," cried Griff, the eldest. "We could have caught him, Ned, the four of us, if we had had swords to our hands." Shameless Wayne laughed quietly. "Ye will learn soon to buckle your sword-belts on whenever ye move abroad," he said. "Listen to me, lads. A house with a dead man in it is no healthy place, and so I bade you go out hawking this morning, and kept what I had to tell you until night. Ye’ve heard of the old feud of Wayne and Ratcliffe?" "Ay, have we!" said Griff. "Such tales old Nanny Witherlee used to tell us of——" "Well, ’twill be out again, belike, soon as your father is buried. The Ratcliffes will kill us whenever they get a chance, and we shall kill a Ratcliffe whenever he shows himself within sword-hail. And ye must take your share of it if ye wish to keep whole skins. Griff, thou canst play a shrewdish blade even now; and what ye lack, the four of you, I’ll teach you by and by." "Hawking will show tame after this," cried Griff, his eyes brightening. "Shall I meet the Lean Man one day, think’st thou, Ned?" "If God spares thee, lad. But no more frolics yet awhile on the Lean Man’s land. Ye must keep close to home, and I will teach you cut and thrust until your arms are stiffened." "Was it a Ratcliffe who killed father?" asked Ralph suddenly. They had no understanding of death, as yet, these youngsters; its sorrow glanced off from them, too vague and dark to oust their lads’ relish of a fight. "Ay—and a Wayne who slew the murderer yesternight." "Why, then, ’twas thou!" cried Griff. "Old Nanny told us that the eldest-born must always fight the father’s enemy. Where didst thrust him, Ned?" Shameless Wayne grew hot, and the blood flushed red to brow and cheeks. "Go seek your suppers, lads," he said, turning on his heel. Going to the kitchen, still bent on finding some dainty that would tempt his step-mother, he found Nanny Witherlee, the Sexton’s wife, talking hard and fast to one of the maids. "Th’ young Maister ’ull noan deny it me, I tell thee," Nanny was saying. "Then ask him, Nanny, and he’ll tell thee quickly whether or not he will deny thee," said Shameless Wayne from the doorway. "Sakes, Maister! I war that thrang wi’ spache—though ’tis noan a habit o’ mine—that I niver heard your step. I’ve comed up fro’ Marshcotes to axe a bit of a kindness, like." "Thou’lt win it, likely, for I’m in a softish mood," said Wayne, half sneering at himself.