"Nay, I like as I hed to look after some beasts i' th' High Pasture. 'Tis fine weather, Maister—but a thowt past mating-time, I should hev said."
"Thy ears are big, Hiram, but my hands will cover them."
"Now, look ye! It hes been a failing o' mine wi' th' gentry iver sin' I war a lad; I may speak as civil as ye please, an' I get looks as black as Marshcotes steeple. An' all th' while I war nobbut thinking o' two fond stock-doves that I fund nesting a three-week late up i' Little John's wood."
Janet waited for no more, but beckoned Wayne to lift her to the saddle and touched the roan mare with her whip.
"Is there danger for thee at Wildwater?" he whispered, clutching her bridle. "If there be—I tell thee I'll not let thee go."
"Danger? Nay, if thou hadst failed to go to Bents, there might have been; but now they'll think I warned them in good faith."
"But what of the bargain, Janet? The last time we met thou told'st me of some bargain, made by the Lean Man, which touched thy welfare."
She paused, eager to toll him all; but a second glance showed her that he was in no fit state just now to have more troubles thrust on him. Even the effort of lifting her to saddle had blanched his face; the cloth was reddening, too, about his forehead, and he swayed a little as he held her rein. She must find a better time to tell him; for if he learned what that grim bargain was which pledged her to his murderer, he would run headlong against her folk, weak as he was, and find himself outmatched.
"The bargain was of little consequence," she said. "There was a price named for my hand—but such a price as none at Wildwater, I think, will ever claim. There, Ned! Let go my bridle, for that hind of yours is watching all we do."
Still he was not satisfied; but his hand slackened for a moment on the rein, and Janet started forward at the trot. Once she turned, at the bend of the road, and waved to him; and then the moor seemed emptied of its sunlight on the sudden.