"Ay, but—and 'but' again in thy teeth. We have him, I tell thee—Red Ratcliffe should be somewhere hereabouts by now, learning what I have sent him out to learn."
"We can learn all that, and yet not use the knowledge right," said Robert sullenly. Even yet he could see Nanny's face, could hear her voice, and he was angered by the fear they bred in him.
"That's as may be," said Nicholas grimly—"but if he brings the news I think he will the devil keep young Wayne of Marsh, for he'll need some such sort of aid.—Who is yond lubberly farm-hind, climbing up the wall this side the road? His slouch is woundily familiar." Like his son, the Lean Man had felt the sting of Nanny's words, though he was minded to make light of it; and no better proof of his humour was needed than the quick ill-tempered eye he had for trifles.
"It looks like Hiram Hey—one of Wayne's folk, and a pesty fellow with his tongue. We've found him more than once cutting peats from the Wildwater land, and more than once we've fallen foul of him."
"Have ye?" said Nicholas quietly. "Well, he did us a service there, may be; and the more peats they coane at Marsh, the better 'twill be for us to-night.—Come, lad; 'tis gallop now, and a truce to that old wife's foolery."
Hiram Hey, meanwhile, was going his leisurely way, glancing curiously at the Lean Man as he went by, but not guessing that he was furnishing him with food for talk. He slouched along the pasture-fields stopping at every other step to watch the sport of heifers, to note a broken piece of walling, or to berate some luckless farm-lad whom he found at play.
"I wodn't call it a fair day, for we've not done wi' 't yet," he murmured. "Nay, I wodn't call it a fair day, an' that's Gospel, till I see how it behaves itseln. We mud varry weel hev snow afore it wears to neet, or else thunner—or both, likely."
He leaned over a three-barred gate and eyed the long furrows climbing to the hill-crest—sleek furrows, with dust lying grey on the sun-side of the upturned sods. And while he lazied there, a milking-song came clear and crisp from over the wall that hid the High meadow from him.
"That's Martha," he cried, brightening on the sudden. "She sings like ony bird, does th' lass. What should she be doing, I wonder, so far fro' Marsh on a working-day?"
His step had an unwonted briskness in it, his carriage was almost jaunty, as he moved along the wall-side to the stile at the corner. A milk-pail was showing now above the top step of the stile, with a cherry-ripe face and trim, short skirted figure under it. Martha halted on seeing Hiram Hey, and set two round, brown arms to the pail, and lifted it down to the wall; then leaned with one hand on it while she dropped a saucy curtsey.