"What! Ye have been near Wildwater?" cried Shameless Wayne, his face darkening on the sudden.
"Ay, 'twas in one of the Lean Man's fields we struck the hare—and, Ned, we saw such a queer sight up yonder. Just as I was going to cast at a snipe, Ralph here whispered that the Lean Man himself was coming."
"So we hid in the heather," put in Ralph eagerly, "and he passed as close to us, Ned, as thou stand'st to me. He had a great cut across his cheek, and his hands were red, and we could hear him laughing to himself in a way that made us feared."
"When the Lean Man's hands are red, and his throat holds laughter, it means but the one thing," muttered Shameless Wayne. "He has killed his man—God pity one of our kin!—and the feud is out before we looked for it. They'll let the burying get done with—even a Ratcliffe never did less than that; and then 'twill be fast and merry."
"Tush! We were not feared," cried Griff, the eldest. "We could have caught him, Ned, the four of us, if we had had swords to our hands."
Shameless Wayne laughed quietly. "Ye will learn soon to buckle your sword-belts on whenever ye move abroad," he said. "Listen to me, lads. A house with a dead man in it is no healthy place, and so I bade you go out hawking this morning, and kept what I had to tell you until night. Ye've heard of the old feud of Wayne and Ratcliffe?"
"Ay, have we!" said Griff. "Such tales old Nanny Witherlee used to tell us of——"
"Well, 'twill be out again, belike, soon as your father is buried. The Ratcliffes will kill us whenever they get a chance, and we shall kill a Ratcliffe whenever he shows himself within sword-hail. And ye must take your share of it if ye wish to keep whole skins. Griff, thou canst play a shrewdish blade even now; and what ye lack, the four of you, I'll teach you by and by."
"Hawking will show tame after this," cried Griff, his eyes brightening. "Shall I meet the Lean Man one day, think'st thou, Ned?"
"If God spares thee, lad. But no more frolics yet awhile on the Lean Man's land. Ye must keep close to home, and I will teach you cut and thrust until your arms are stiffened."