"Likely. 'Tis all the lad is good for, curse him! Dick was ever the weakling of the breed."
"Aye, but there's a use for weaklings, when all is said," chuckled the old man. "They fear dishonour worse than aught that can chance to them, these Waynes, and when first I learned that Dick was playing kiss-i'-the-dark with yon milk-faced wife of Wayne's, I gave him rope enough to strangle the Marsh pride."
"He starts well!" laughed one of the youngsters from the breakfast board.
"He starts well," said the Lean Man. "First to make a cuckold of the husband, and then to run him through—he's half a Ratcliffe, this shiftless Dick-o'-lanthorn, after all."
"Why did you let him go with the wench, father?" put in Robert. "Dick can wield a sword if he's forced to it, and scabbards will need to be empty in a while."
"Pish! We can spare one arm, I warrant, and 'twas sweet to cry Wayne's wife up and down the country-side for what she is. The lad will wed her soon as they get free of Marshcotes, she thinks—but I know different; and 'twill eat the heart out of the Waynes to know—what, Janet! Thou look'st scared as a moor-tit," he broke off, as a trim lassie came in through the parlour door and stood at the elbow of his chair.
Janet Ratcliffe, the youngest of all the Wildwater clan, was the only one among them who could touch the old man's heart; some said it was because she was the comeliest of the women, and others vowed it was that her raven hair had caught her grandfather's fancy by contrast with the ruddy colouring and freckled cheeks that nearly every other Ratcliffe in the moorside boasted. But sure it was that whenever the Lean Man's brittle temper had to be tried, Janet was sent as tale-bearer.
"There's one would speak with you, grandfather," said the girl, coming to the elbow of his chair.
"Then bid him enter. Any man can come into Wildwater—'tis for us to say whether we let them out again."
"Nay, but 'tis a—a woman, sir. I found her wandering up and down the garden, plucking the daisies and singing to herself."