But Wayne was already out in the courtyard and had stepped to the roan mare's head. The roan ceased pawing at sight of him, and came and thrust her muzzle close against the master's cheek; and Wayne with one clean vault was in the saddle.
But his step-mother had all the cunning of the fairy-kist. Quick as himself she had followed him into the yard. The flaring torch-light showed her Griff's boyish figure and eager, laughing face on the outskirts of the throng.
"Griff, I must ride with thee to Wildwater," she said, laying a hand on his saddle.
The lad started. He was a little afraid of his step-mother in these latter days, as youngsters are of those they cannot understand.
"Why, Mistress?" he asked bluntly.
"'Tis a whim of mine—nay, 'tis a crying need. Ask no more, Griff; it is for thy brother's sake—and if thou wilt not take me, I'll run beside thy stirrup till I drop."
Puzzled, liking neither to take her nor to refuse a plea so urgent, Griff stooped at last and swung her to his crupper. "The Lord knows how it will fare with you at Wildwater," he muttered, as his brother's call to start rang through the courtyard.
In silence they went up the moor, a score and ten of them. The wind, quiet for awhile, was gathering strength again, and its breath was bitter cold. A blurred round of yellow marked where the moon was fighting with the cloud-wrack over Dead Lad's Rigg. The whole wide moor was dark, and lonely, and afraid. The heather dripped beneath the keen lash of the wind, and over Lostwithens Marsh the blue corpse-candles fluttered.
"Are ye feared, Mistress?" said Griff, stooping to the ear of Mistress Wayne when the journey was half over. His voice was jaunty, but in truth his dread of moor-boggarts was keener for the moment than his zest for the battle that was waiting them up yonder on the stormy hill-crest.
"I fear the moor always, Griff; 'tis pitiless, like those red folk who dwell at Wildwater," whispered Mistress Wayne, clinging more tightly to him.