"They say a Cranshaw Wayne fears nowt, man nor devil," went on the Sexton’s wife—"but there’s one thing ’at maks his heart beat like th’ clapper of a bell—an’ ye dursn’t cross what ligs on th’ door-stun." He put his hand on the door and flung it wide; and the incoming wind drove the flames of the death-candles slant-wise toward the further wall. The moonlight lay quiet and empty on the threshold, and overhead the firs were plaining fitfully. "There’s naught lies there," said he with a chill laugh, and went to fetch his horse from stable. But Nanny’s eyes were fixed on the door long after Wayne of Cranshaw had pulled it to behind him—long after she had heard his horse trot up the road—and she seemed to see there more than the candle-light sufficed to show. "Is there aught I can get thee, Nanny, before I wend to bed?" said Shameless Wayne, entering a half-hour later. "Nowt, an’ thank ye. I’ve getten company, an’ they’ll keep me wake, I warrant." "_They_, say’st thou? God’s truth, Nanny, but thy eyes are fain of the doorway yonder!" "Ay, I’ve getten th’ owd Maister, an’ I’ve getten Barguest. Get ye to bed, Maister, for I tell ye there’ll be need o’ ye to-morn. Ye’re ower late as ’tis." "Mistress Wayne would have me go and sit by her; she could no way sleep, poor bairn, and it seemed to comfort her to have me at the bedside and to hold my hand. She’s sleeping now." He bent over the dead, and whispered something; and when he lifted his face it showed deep lines of purpose clean-chiselled in the youthful features. "Good-night, nurse. God rest thee, and all of us," he said, with unwonted piety. The candles were guttering in their sockets, and Nanny replaced them soon as the lad’s foot had ceased to creak on the stair. All were abed now, save Nanny Witherlee—save Nanny, and the rats behind the wainscoting, and something that scraped restlessly at the stout door of oak. "Why are they feared o’ Barguest?" muttered the Sexton’s wife. "He niver yet did hurt to a Wayne or ony friends o’ th’ Waynes; nay, he’s that jealous for their safety ’at he can no way bide still when mischief’s brewing. Whisht, lad, whisht! Owd Nanny hearkens, an’ she’ll mind ’at th’ Waynes go armed to th’ burial to-morn." It might be twelve o’clock of that night, while Nanny sat still as the body she watched by, that Shameless Wayne, trying to win sleep from a hard pillow, heard a horseman ride up to the hall door. There were three strokes, as of a hammer on a nail, and then, before he had well leaped from bed, a voice came from the moonlight under his window. "Ride hard to Cranshaw Rigg. There’s somebody waits thee there, Wayne the Shameless." It was Nicholas Ratcliffe’s voice, hard and thin and high-pitched.