As for Shameless Wayne, he had ceased to wonder that no fresh attack was made on him. He would die when Fate ordained, and nothing could alter that; but the farm-work, meanwhile, at which he laboured as distastefully and keenly as of old, was going grandly forward, and not sour Hiram Hey himself could say that the land had gone backward since he took the charge of it. Janet had been right when she named pride his strongest passion; and even his love for her, self-thwarted, could not rob him of a certain sober joy in raising crops in face of Ratcliffe sword-points and the keen-toothed winds. It was all uphill nowadays for Wayne of Marsh; and each new difficulty overcome gave him hard and sure content such as no wild frolic of his earlier days had brought.
Yet the summer bore hardly on him when he thought of Janet. No farm-hind but was free to couple with his mate; only the Master, it seemed, was doomed to go lonely through these spendthrift days of sun and warm south winds and ripening meadow-grass.
"Art gloomy, Ned, of late. Is it because the Ratcliffes scruple to come down and fight with thee?" said his sister, as they sat in hall one evening and watched the stir of bees among the roses that clambered up the window-panes.
"Nay, for I am always fighting one of them--and never more than after a week's idleness."
Her voice grew cold. "'Tis time thou didst turn from that--and time Marsh had a mistress. Are there no maids, save one, about the moorside?"
"None for me, nor ever will be. Besides, Marsh has its mistress; thou'rt not going to leave us, Nell?"
"By and by I must. Rolf is getting out of hand, and will take the old excuse no longer. Faith, I begin to think he loves me very dearly, for every day he thwarts me more and more."
"Thy place is with him, after all, and I'm a fool to think to keep thee here forever.--Where are the lads, Nell? Hunting still, I'll warrant."
"Ay. They are restless since they fought the Lean Man; each morning they seem to start earlier for the chase, and sundown rarely sees them home again."
"Well, it is making men of them. They are learning a shrewd turn of fence, too, and when their time comes they will know how to parry Ratcliffe cuts.--We wash the sheep to-morrow, Nell; wilt ride with me and watch the scene? If a red sunset be aught to go by, we shall have a cloudless day."