"Could we but meet the lad alone in Marshcotes street here," he muttered to his eldest-born.
"Ay, but fortune is no friend to us just now," growled Robert; "and there are those who say he'd match the two of us."
"There are those who say that hawks breed cuckoos. Art thou weakening, Robert, too, because he has won the first poor skirmish?"
"Not I. If I find him in the road, I'll have at him—but meanwhile I am free to think my own thoughts."
"Well, and what are thy thoughts, sirrah?"
"That there's witchery in his sword-arm. I saw him fight in the graveyard, and he was something 'twixt man and devil; ay, he fought as if he had the cursed Dog of Marsh to back him."
The Lean Man gave a laugh—a laugh with little surety in it. "Thou'rt a maid, Robert, to fall soft at such a baby-tale as that," he sneered.
"Yet you have heard of the Dog, sir, and now and then you own to a half belief in him," said Robert, meeting the other's glance fairly. "We have had proof of it aforetime, and—see the woman yonder," he broke off, "moving at us from the corner of the lane. What ails her?"
They had passed the Bull tavern and were nearing the spot where the lane that led to Witherlee's cottage ran into the Ling Crag highway. The Lean Man turning his head impatiently as Robert spoke and following the direction of his finger, saw that the Sexton's wife was standing at the roadside. Nanny was looking through and through him, and the smile on her dry old lips was scarcely one of welcome. At another time Nicholas would have paid no heed to her; but to-day a small thing had power to touch his spleen, and he pulled up sharp in the middle of the roadway.
"I'm called Nicholas Ratcliffe, woman, as perchance thou hast forgotten," he said, leaning toward her and half lifting his hairy fist; "and when I see folk mocking me, I am prone to ask them why."