She crept still closer to him, shivering as with cold. "Ned, I saw thy father as he lay in hall here, long ago—saw his still look, and the candle-shadows slanted by the wind across his face."
Her glance, as Wayne's had done, sought the place where the bier had rested; and he wondered why his thoughts and hers should run on the same theme to-night.
"Let the dream rest there, bairn," he said.
She did not heed him, but went on, with wrapt, still face. "And then the dream shifted, Ned, and it was the Lean Man lay there—the Lean Man, with one ear shorn level with the cheek and the dreadful scars upon his face. Ned, 'twas fearsome! For Nicholas Ratcliffe sat him up and scowled at me as he does when he meets me on the moor—as he did when first I went to Wildwater and was turned forth of doors by him. And his hands crept out toward me, Ned, till they closed about my throat; and then I woke; and I could not bear it, Ned, so I came down to thee."
"Never heed such dreams," he whispered soothingly. "Thou'rt over-weary, that is all."
"It may be so—yet they were so real, Ned! So real." Again she glanced across the hall. "Thrice I saw thy father lying there—and once, Ned, thou stood'st beside him, so I thought, and pleaded with him. Thou had'st kept well thy oath, thou said'st; was't not enough?"
Wayne's hand tightened on her own. It was not the first time that she had touched, as with a magic wand, the hidden burden of his thoughts; yet never had she aimed so surely to the mark as now.
"And what said he—what said the dead man on the bier?" he queried eagerly.
"What said he? He opened his eyes, Ned, and looked thee through and through. ''Tis not enough, save all be slain,' he answered, in a voice that was faint as the echo of a bell. 'I weary of it, father,' thou said'st. 'Yet wilt thou keep the vow, though thou think'st 'tis done with,' said the dead man, and closed his eyes. And then—Ned, there was a whimper and a crying at the door, and thy father stirred in sleep, and lifted himself, and cried Wayne and the Dog, so clear that it was ringing in my ears when I awoke."
Wayne answered nothing for a space. For not his father only, but his father's fathers, lifted their shrouds and gazed at him—gazed mercilessly and told him that the feud was not his, to be staunched or fought at pleasure, that it was a heritage which he must bear as best he could, passing it on when his turn came to die.