"Ay, an' ye'll cure her, Mistress," put in Witherlee, with quiet assurance.
"Why do all the folk come running to me, Sexton, when their friends are sick?" asked Mistress Wayne. "I am so weak and can do nothing for them, and yet—" She stopped and clutched the old man. "Look who rides toward us!" she cried, shrinking behind Bet's bulky figure. "His face is scarred as if hot iron had played across it, and he lacks an ear. I know him, Sexton; he was cruel to me once—but where? 'Tis long ago, and I forget."
"Th' Lean Man, begow!" muttered Nanny. "Hiram said he war i' Marshcotes, but I niver thowt he'd foul my door-stun wi' his face.—Ay, he looks daunted a bit; he's not half th' man he war a two-week sin'," she added, eyeing the horseman narrowly and not guessing that Hiram Hey himself had added his straw to the sum of the Lean Man's burden.
Nicholas, seeing the women grouped round the door, drew rein and snapped his words out as he always did when talking to the country-folk—a habit that had earned him a good half of their ill-concealed dislike.
"Where is thy man Earnshaw? I want him," he said, frowning down on Bet.
"Earnshaw, Maister? I'm sure I cannot tell ye. He's hed no wark these two weeks past, an' happen he gets into loosish ways when——"
"Well, tell him from me that we're short of hands for the walling beyond Wildwater, and the sooner he can come with a stiff back to the work, the better I shall be suited. If he knows of half-a-dozen other stout fellows, he can bring them with him." He was turning away when his eyes fell on little Mistress Wayne, shrinking close behind Bet Earnshaw. "Oh, is it you, Mistress?" he cried. "What brings you out of doors on such a day? Marry, the wind will mistake you for a bit of thistle-down unless you have a care."
"I—I am going to heal a sick child," stammered Mistress Wayne. Still she could not remember when she had last seen this grim-faced man, nor in what way he had shown her cruelty; but instinctively she feared that he would do her some fresh hurt.
Nicholas laughed mightily. "By the Mass, so there's healing in your touch? Would I had known that the other night, when your kin at Marsh planted these pretty love-tokens on my face." He pointed to the scarce-healed scars. "Come, now, that should bolster the Wayne pride—to have a wise woman in the family to set against a foolish master."
The Sexton's wife dared not look at him, lest he should see how she itched to set her hands about his throat; but her voice confessed as much. "'Tis easy to scoff, Maister, when ye've no clouds across your sun, an' there's a mony doubts nowadays. Ay, there's them as doubts Barguest even—afore he's crossed their path." She shot a sideways glance at him, and saw that she had aimed true.