"Is there danger for thee at Wildwater?" he whispered, clutching her bridle. "If there be--I tell thee I'll not let thee go."
"Danger? Nay, if thou hadst failed to go to Bents, there might have been; but now they'll think I warned them in good faith."
"But what of the bargain, Janet? The last time we met thou told'st me of some bargain, made by the Lean Man, which touched thy welfare."
She paused, eager to toll him all; but a second glance showed her that he was in no fit state just now to have more troubles thrust on him. Even the effort of lifting her to saddle had blanched his face; the cloth was reddening, too, about his forehead, and he swayed a little as he held her rein. She must find a better time to tell him; for if he learned what that grim bargain was which pledged her to his murderer, he would run headlong against her folk, weak as he was, and find himself outmatched.
"The bargain was of little consequence," she said. "There was a price named for my hand--but such a price as none at Wildwater, I think, will ever claim. There, Ned! Let go my bridle, for that hind of yours is watching all we do."
Still he was not satisfied; but his hand slackened for a moment on the rein, and Janet started forward at the trot. Once she turned, at the bend of the road, and waved to him; and then the moor seemed emptied of its sunlight on the sudden.
Wayne stood looking up the highway long after she had gone, and turned at last to find Hiram's quiet grey eyes upon him.
"Well, Hiram? What art thinking of?" he said, with something between wrath and grudging laughter in his voice.
"Nowt so mich, Maister. 'Twould be a poor farmer as 'ud frame to sow Hawkhill Bog wi' wheat; that war all I hed i' mind. Soil's soil, choose how ye tak it, an' ye cannot alter th' natur on 't. Theer! My thowts do run on farming till I've getten no room seemingly for owt else; an' I niver axed ye how ye came by this red coxcomb o' yourn."
Wayne glanced over Hiram's question as he put his foot in the stirrup. He read the old fellow's meaning clear enough, and it angered him that his love for Janet should be hinted at under cover of this slow farming-talk.
"Soil's soil, Hiram," he said, "and I had as lief sow corn on yond stone wall as look for any crop of kindliness from that dried heart of thine."