"Hast never seen the Lean Man's anger, that thou talk'st so glibly of it? Pish! Thou'rt a child. If I were so much as to hint that Shameless Wayne met thee by stealth, grandfather would—kill thee, I think."
"That is true, cousin, he would go near to kill me," she said, standing straight and proud with her eyes on his. "And why should I fear that at his hands which I would compass myself rather than be wife to such as thou?"
"Who fathered thee, I wonder?" he sneered. "No Ratcliffe, I'll wager, or thou would'st have died of shame long since to let one of the Wayne hounds foul thee with his touch."
"Wayne of Marsh, cousin, is a better fighter, and of a more cleanly courtesy than thou," said she, with a hard laugh. "No wonder the thought of him is bitter—the carrion crow likes not the eagle, does it?"
He turned on her, his hand uplifted, but she eluded him. And then he let slip, in the heat of jealousy what prudence would have checked.
"The carrion-crow, for all that, will be bosom comrade to him before long," he cried. "'Twas pleasant to see the Lean Man so full of cheeriness? But what did it mean, girl? Why, that he saw a way to snare thy fool of Marsh."
For a moment she faltered; but her pride in Wayne of Marsh, which was comrade always to her love for him, steadied her fear of coming evil. "Ye have hatched plans aforetime," she answered quietly—"at the burial in Marshcotes kirkyard, and when ye got fire to help cold steel at Marsh. And Red Ratcliffe, if I recall, fled each time that Wayne showed a sword-point to him."
His freckled, wind-raw face was ill to look upon, and in among his speech the wildest curses of the hillside slipped and stumbled. "I fled from the Brown Boggart, not from Wayne—but the Dog will sleep one day, and then 'twill be my turn, man to man.—Ay, I'll tell thee just what is afoot, and thou shall have that to give thee courage when the Lean Man rails at thee. Suppose Wayne has a farm called Bents close up to Wildwater? Suppose old Nicholas, passing yester-even, saw that the storms had riven half the roof-slates off, and twitted the farmer with Wayne's slovenliness?"
"'Twould not be like grandfather to pass without such raillery. Ay, sir, go on."
Janet was watching him narrowly, letting his unclean oaths drift past her, and hearkening only to what lay under them. And he, eager to wound her at any cost, went blindly on.