And then he lay back, listening to the spit-spit of the rain, the falling cadence of the wind. And a smile, as of hardly-won content, played round about his hollow face.
Red Ratcliffe was waiting at the stair-foot when Janet came down into the hall.
"How goes it with the dotard?" he cried.
She made no answer, but brushed past him toward the door.
"Ay, go where thou wilt," sneered Ratcliffe, watching her put on cloak and hood; "so long as the Lean Man lives, I'll lay no finger on thee, for there's a devil in him that only the grave can kill. But what after that?"
"After that, Ratcliffe the Red," she cried, turning suddenly to face him, "after that I shall put my safety in the keeping of one thou know'st."
"Wayne of Marsh, I take it? Shameless Wayne, who drank his own father's quarrel away, who——"
"Who goes abroad with a cry of Wayne and the Dog. Hast ever heard the cry, Red Ratcliffe?"
He winced, remembering how often he had fled panic-stricken with the cry behind him; and Janet, turning from him in disdain, crossed to the stables through the misty drizzle that was scattered from the skirts of the late storm.
It might be a half-hour later, as she dipped down the Ling Crag hill, that she met Shameless Wayne galloping hard up the stiff rise. He checked on seeing her and brought his mare on to her haunches.