"A match for any four?" muttered the Lean Man. "I'll keep that word in mind when Wayne fares up to Bents. Ay, by the Rood I will let none but myself cross swords with him. Three of my folk I'll take, to equal his, and none shall say that Wayne of Marsh fought against odds when he was slain on the road to Bents Farm."
Janet shuddered to hear her grandfather talk of Wayne's death, as of a fact already well accomplished; glancing at the Lean Man's height and wiry frame, remembering the skill he had in wielding that dread two-handled sword of his, she felt that Wayne of Marsh, for all his lusty youth, would find a match in Nicholas Ratcliffe. And then she laughed her fears away; for was she not sending the slayers on the veriest Jack-o'-lanthorn errand that ever led men into the bogs?
"Take the men with you, sir, for Wayne can be tricky as yourself," she said gravely. "By Our Lady, I think he'll not fare back again from Bents to Marsh."
"Hast a shrewd head on thy pretty shoulders. Gad, yes, thou'rt crafty! Who is't thou callest to mind, girl? Some one out of the musty Book that Parson reads from on the Sabbath. Delilah, was it not, who fooled the long-haired fighter and clipped his locks for him as if he were a sheep at shearing-time?"
"And he could not fight at all, sir, after the shearing was done. 'Tis a good fable," laughed Janet.
"Ay, but how if she is clipping a Ratcliffe poll the while, and fools us into thinking that Wayne's locks, not ours, are underneath the shears?" snapped Red Ratcliffe.
The Lean Man, good-humoured almost now that his quarry was well in view, turned and looked his grandson up and down. "It would take a clever lass, methinks, to clip that rusty head of thine; as well reap a stubble-field for corn," he sneered.--"There! The work speeds merrily, and a little jest suffices for a big laugh. Janet, come draw me a measure of wine, and we'll pledge thy mother-wit."
He moved across the courtyard, and Red Ratcliffe, stepping to Janet's side, laid a hand on her cloak. "I asked this morn who fathered thee," he whispered. "Well, now I know. The devil got thee, and thou'lt not shame him. The game is thine so far--but by the Lord I'll make thee smart when fortune shifts her favours."