"Thanks for nowt. Good-day, Hiram. Tha'rt backard i' most things, I'm thinking," said Martha, flouncing out into the yard.
Hiram looked after her awhile, then shook his head. "I war right to go slow," he murmured. "Women's allus so hasty, as if they war bahn to dee to-morn, an' all to get done afore their burial.—Well, I mun see to yond tummit seeds, I reckon; but I wod like to know what Red Ratcliffe war up to; summat he'd getten at th' back on his mind, but what it war beats me."
And something Red Ratcliffe had in mind; but what it was, and how nearly it touched those at Marsh, Hiram was not to learn this side the dawn.
CHAPTER X
WHAT CROSSED THE GARDEN-PATH
Shameless Wayne, returning late on the day which had witnessed Hiram Hey's cautious efforts toward wedlock, found his step-mother standing at the courtyard gate, a look of trouble in her face and her eyes fixed on the rounded spur of moor above. Wayne's heart was growing daily harder against the strong, and softer where any sort of weakness was in case; and the mad woman's plight, her frailty and friendlessness, seemed to strike a fresh note of pity in him at each chance meeting.
"What ails thee, little bairn?" he said, slipping from the saddle and coming close to her.
She put one hand into his, with the trustfulness which only he was sure of winning from her. "I have been frightened, Ned. It was to have been my wedding-morn, and I dressed all in white and went to church—and instead of the altar there was a great grave opened, and men fighting all about it—and I could not understand."
"Never try. 'Tis over and done with long since; the grave is shut down tight,—and all your ghosties with it, little one."
"Is it over and done with?" she said.