"Well," cried Witherlee, "yond lad at Marsh is making as grand a fight as ony Wayne that's gone afore him, an' we're all fain, I reckon, to see him win i' th' end.—What say ye, Mistress?" he broke off, turning to the little woman who sat apart, hearkening to their gossip but taking no share in it.
"He will win, Sexton," she answered quietly. "Dost doubt it?"
Nanny softened for a moment, as she, too, glanced at Mistress Wayne. "Not wi' ye beside him. By th' Heart, Mistress, but I'd be flaired for Shameless Wayne if he'd no friend sich as ye to keep him fro' ill hap."
"Nay, I can do naught—save sit with hands in lap sometimes, and read the future, and see Ned moving safe through bloodshed and through glint of swords."
"Do nowt?" echoed the Sexton's wife. "Ye said as mich when Bet Earnshaw axed ye to go an' touch her bairn. Did ye do nowt that day, Mistress, or is it thanks to ye that th' little un mended fro' th' minute ye set hand on her?"
"'Tis something that goes out of me—I know not what," murmured the little woman. "It is strange, is it not, that such as I should have the gift of healing when wise men have failed?"
"Book-learning never cured a cough, as they say i' Marshcotes," put in Nanny.—"Who's that at th' moor-gate? Why, if it isn't Mistress Ratcliffe herseln! My sakes, it's a full kirkyard this morn. What mud she be after, think ye? She's hitching her horse to th' gate-post, mark ye—an' now she's coming down wi' that long, lad-like stride o' hers, as if she war varry full o' some business.—I'd rarely like to know what brings her so far afield."
Janet stopped on seeing the chattering group of rustics, with Mistress Wayne sitting quiet and motionless behind them; then, finding that Earnshaw was among the gossips, the girl went down to him. The Sexton's wife eyed her narrowly as she approached, and nodded her head with a gesture which said, more plainly than words could have done, that beauty and a free carriage were dust in the balance when weighed against the damning fact that she was born a Ratcliffe.
"Earnshaw, I want thee to come and doctor that roan mare of mine," said Janet.
"Doan't axe him to do owt he could call wark, Mistress," cried Nanny, missing no opportunity to gibe. "Call it laking, an' he'll come like a hare; but reckon it's wark, an' ye may whistle a twelve-month for him."