"The luck has veered at last," he said quietly. "Wayne will begin to fear for himself, now that he has thee to unman him. His pluck will get tied to thy apron, lass, and he will quaver a little in his sword-strokes—what, did I say thou hadst broken my heart? I lied. Thou hast put new heart in me."
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW THE LEAN MAN FOUGHT WITH SHAMELESS WAYNE
Sexton Witherlee moved unsubstantial among his graves, stopping here to pull up a tuft of weed and there to rub a sprig of lavender or rosemary between his shrivelled fingers. He looked old beyond belief, and the afternoon sun, hot in a sweltering sky, traced crow's feet of sadness across his cheeks, and in among the sunken hollows underneath his eyes.
"What's amiss wi' me?" he murmured. "Here hev I been gay as a throstle all through this God-sent-weather—going about my business wi' a quiet sort o' pleasure i' seeing this little garden-place look so green, like, an' trim-fashioned—so green an' trim—an' now, all i' a minute, I'm sick-like an' sorry. Ay, I could cry like any bairn, an' niver a reason for 't, save it be this thunner-weather that's coming up fro' ower Dead Lad's Rigg.—Well, I mun hev a bit of a smoke, an' see what that 'ull do for me."
He lit his pipe, then fetched a broom from the tool-house and began to sweep the path of the leaves which had fallen, curled and brown, during the long spell of drought. But he desisted soon and sat him down on the nearest grave-stone.
"Nay, I've sweated ower long at helping th' living to bury their dead out o' mind, till now there's no lovesome sight, nor sound, nor smell of sweetbriar, say—but what it leads my crazy thoughts to th' one bourne—th' one bourne—an' that's a blackish hole, measuring six feet by length an' three by breadth. Lord God, I'm stalled, fair stalled! Hevn't I toiled enough at life? An' th' Lord God knaws how fain I am to be ligging flesh to earth myseln."
He sat silent for a long while, and his favourite robin came and perched on his shoulder, asking him to dig up its evening meal; but Witherlee paid no heed to the bird.
"I reckon it's a sight o' little Mistress Wayne I'm sickening for," he went on presently. "When she war fairy-kist, she niver let day pass without heving her bit of a crack wi' th' Sexton; but now she's fund her wits again—why, she hesn't mich need o' th' likes o' me, seemingly. Eh, but I wod like to hear her butter-soft voice again! There's peace in 't, somehow, to my thinking."
"Oh, tha'rt theer, art 'a?" put in Nanny's voice at his elbow.