"By th’ Heart, who iver heard tell o’ folk coming armed to a burying!" cried another. "There mun be summat more going forrard nor we’ve ony notion on. Look at Shameless Wayne! God keep me an’ mine fro’ seeing sich mortal anguish i’ a lad’s face again! He looks fair mad wi’ grief." "He’s getten cause. Hast noan heard that he war droughen while Nanny Witherlee war ringing for his father? Nay, he’s a slow-to-blush un, an’ proper, an’ I wonder he’s getten grace enough to come sober to th’ grave.—Stand back, childer! Willun’t ye be telled? Or mun ye bide i’ th’ gate till they bury ye wi’ th’ coffin?" The children shrank back, curiosity killed by fright, and the bearers moved slowly up the path until the grey church hid them. Tongues were loosened again, and Jonas Feather, coming up with the information he had gleaned from the farmer from Wildwater way, was beset by a clamorous knot of folk. "Ay, I war sure there war summat out o’ th’ ordinary—see’d th Ryecollar Ratcliffes crossing th’ moor, tha says, Jonas?—Well, I mind th’ owd days, but there war nowt so outrageous as this shows like to be—theer, hod thy whisht! They’re coming fro’ th’ kirk." Again a lane was formed, from the porch to the vault where Sexton Witherlee was waiting with his ropes. The wind was at peace, and its soft stir among the budding leaves mingled with song of redbreast and love-pipe of the throstles. A faint odour of lavender crept upward from the vault, suggesting quiet and fragrant hopes for better days to come. Yet the hush that settled over the watching crowd had little rest in it, and it was plain by their laboured breathing, as the coffin was lowered by the creaking ropes, that none looked for a peaceful end to a burial that counted sword and pistol as mourners. Amongst his kin, grouped thirty strong about the vault with set faces and hands on sword-hilts, Shameless Wayne stood noticeable; for his head was bent and the tears streamed down his cheeks unheeded. Not until now had the lad reckoned the full total of his past misdoings, nor known how shame can eat the manhood out of bravery. "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes," said the Parson, in the ringing voice that seemed a challenge to grim Death himself. But another than Death took up the challenge. Swift out of the moor a cry of "Ratcliffe, Ratcliffe!" answered him, and the crowd gave back on the sudden, leaving the thirty-and-one Waynes to turn face about, whipping their swords free of the scabbards. Down through the wicket-gate trooped a score of Ratcliffes, yelling their name-cry as they came. A moment they halted, for they had looked to find the Waynes unarmed; but the Lean Man cursed them forward. Shameless Wayne looked up at the first cry; his pale face went ruddy, his eyes lit up. It was a welcome intrusion, this, on the sour trend of his thoughts, and he, who had shown most womanish among them, was now the leader of them all.