"Thou, bairn?" he cried. "What should such as thou do up at Wildwater? There, I'll come safe home, never fear; and keep thou close within doors, meanwhile, for thou'rt over-frail to meet these blustering winds."
She stood there at the door until he had saddled his horse and brought it round from stable; and again she sought to keep him from his errand. But he paid no heed to her, and soon she could hear his hoof-beats dying up the lane.
"God guide him safe," she whispered, and held her breath as the wind rose suddenly and set the hall-door creaking on its hinges.
All morning she wandered up and down the passages, afraid of the dreams that had racked her through the night, doubtful if she had done well to give Ned warning, in hourly dread lest some ill news of him should come from Wildwater. All morning the wind sobbed and wailed, as if there would never again be gladness over the cloud-hidden land. And under the wind's note Mistress Wayne could hear the patter-patter of soft feet, ceaseless and unrestful, till for very dread she wrenched the hall door open once again and went into the courtyard. But the footsteps followed her, and once she sprang aside as if some rough farm-dog had brushed her skirts in passing.
Wild the storm was in this sheltered hollow, but on the open moor it was resistless. The wind's voice in the chimney-stacks, piteous at Marsh, was a scream, a shriek, a trumpet call, up at the naked house of Wildwater, and the walls, square to the harshest of the tempest, shook from roof to the rock that bottomed them, as if they grudged shelter to the sick man whom they harboured. For Nicholas Ratcliffe had taken to his bed on the day that followed his ride to Marsh, and he knew that he would never rise from it again.
He had made them move the bed to the window, from which his eyes could range to the far hill-spaces of the heath; and he lay there this morning, listening to the storm and counting the hours that he had yet to live. As the wind raved out of the north, he could see it plough its green-black furrows across the dripping murk that hugged the ling from sky-line to sky-line; and the sight seemed good to him.
"It fits, it fits!" he murmured. "Lord God, how sweet the storm-song is!"
He was dying hard, undaunted to the last. He had feared naught save Barguest through his sixty years of life; and even the dog-dread now was gone—it had as little terror for him as the grave which showed so close ahead. Nay, a grim sort of smile wrinkled his lips as he lay on his side, and gasped for breath, and heard the wild wind drive the Horses of the North across the waste; for he counted his hours, and he thought they would lengthen till dawn of the next day—or may be noon.
"And by then we shall have made peace with Wayne of Marsh, and with his kin," he muttered; "ay, peace—'tis a fair word after all, methinks, though once I cared so little for it."
His eyes were on the open doorway, and they brightened as Janet crossed the stair-head. "Janet!" he called. "I've a word for that pretty ear of thine; come to the bedside, lass."