"Yet—dost mind what I saw, too, that night in the garden?" said Mistress Wayne. "Brown, blunt-headed—I can see him yet, Ned, as he fawned against thy side."
Wayne did not answer, though he paled a little, and soon he made excuse to leave them.
"Where art going, Ned? We've fifty tales to tell thee of the day's sport," cried Griff.
"But have I idleness enough to listen, ye careless rascals?" laughed Wayne from the door. "I must see Hiram Hey and make all ready against to-morrow's work."
"Thou'lt not find him, for he was going into the Friendly Inn with shepherd Jose as we passed through Ling Crag."
"Was he?" growled the other. "Hiram is a poor drinker by his own showing, and a man with no spare time on his hands—but he has worn many a tavern threshold bare, I'll warrant, since he first learned to set lips to pewter."
And, indeed, Hiram wore a leisurely air enough at the moment. Stretched at his ease on the wide lang-settle of the Friendly Inn, he was handling a mug of home-brewed and watching the crumbling faces in the peat-fire, while shepherd Jose talked idly to him from the window.
"There's somebody got four gooid legs under him," said Jose, as the racket of horse-hoofs came up the road.
"Ay, by th' sound. Who is't, Jose?" answered Hiram lazily.
"Why, Mistress Janet fro' Wildwater. She's a tidy seat i' th' saddle, hes th' lass," said the shepherd, pressing his face closer to the glass to see the last of her.