"There's more nor one storm brewing; I said as mich," he muttered, and hobbled to the wicket to see the flying trail of dust and rain that marked the rider's headlong course.
The wind rose on the sudden. The rain-drops fell by twos now where lately they had fallen singly. A far rumble of thunder crept dull through the leaden sky-wrack.
"Gallop, thou laggard, gallop!" muttered Wayne to his mare, as Ling Crag village swirled by and the rough track to Wildwater stretched clear ahead.
The village folk came out of their houses as he passed, but they were slow of foot, and all that they reaped for their trouble was the fast-dying beat of horse-hoofs down the wind.
"Wayne, 'tis Shameless Wayne. Who but him carries Judgment-fire i' his hoss's heels?" they said.
Past Blackshaw Hall and through the Conie Crag ravine swept Wayne the Shameless; past the three wells of Robin Hood and Little John and Will Scarlett, and up into the naked moor. The land lay flat to the sky up here, and through the thickening rain-sheets Wayne could see his enemy's lean figure rising and falling to the trot of his lean bay horse. Soon the track crept timorous round the bog, and under foot the water splashed and creamed; but still Wayne plied his mare with tongue and spur. The thunder-throb grew nearer, and muttered all along the murky sky-edge and down the dun moor-fastnesses. Earth and sky, bog and peat and cloud-wrack, were wakeful and at war; the starveling moor-birds fled on down-drooping wings, and from the under-deeps the Brown Folk chattered restlessly.
Wayne's heart was lifted to the storm's pitch as he rode. Ahead was the man who had made a shameful bargain touching Janet, the man who had perilled his sister's honour and warred with malice unceasing against his house. There was but a quarter-mile between them—and now but ten-score yards—yet Wildwater lay over yonder slope.
"Dost crawl, I tell thee, just when I need thy speed. Gallop, thou fool!" he muttered, then rose in the stirrups and raised a cry that might have roused the slumber of dead men in Marshcotes kirkyard.
The Lean Man checked when he heard the cry, and looked behind; and Wayne lessened by the half the distance between horse and mare.
"Who calls?" yelled Nicholas Ratcliffe.