"Hush, grandfather! I cannot bear it. Hark to the rushes yonder--and the curlews--they've heard your tale, methinks."
"'Tis grim, lass, but what I have to tell thee is grimmer still, so bide in patience. They got to horse again, Anthony Ratcliffe and his men, and they met Wayne of Marsh on the road, riding home with his favourite hound for company. They made at him, and the hound sprang straight and true at Anthony's throat"--the Lean Man halted a moment and wiped the sweat-drops from his forehead--"and nipped the life out of him. One of his folk thrust a spear then through the dog's heart, and the rest fell upon Wayne of Marsh and slew him."
Janet thought of another Wayne of Marsh who had lately been met in just such a fashion up by Dead Lad's Rigg. "Go on, grandfather," she whispered, in an awe-stricken voice.
"Mark well the end of the old tale, girl. A company of Wayne's kinsfolk, riding near to Ludworth Slack soon after the Ratcliffes had set off again for home, heard a hound's baying from across the moor; they followed and the baying went on before them till they reached the spot where Wayne lay dead--and beside him Anthony Ratcliffe, with teeth-marks at his throat--and, a little way off, Wayne's hound, fast stiffening."
The girl had heard the tale not once nor twice before; but it came with a new force to-night, for every mention of the hound brought a spasm of mortal anguish to the Lean Man's face, and in a flash she guessed his secret.
"The hound was dead, mark ye," went on Nicholas, as if compelled to dwell on details that he loathed; "yet the baying never ceased. No round and honest bay it was, but ghostly, wild and long-drawn-out; and it would not let them stay there, but took them on and on until they saw the Ratcliffes far up ahead of them, climbing the hill toward Wildwater. They galloped with a will then, and overtook them at a score yards from the courtyard gate, and left but one alive, who won into safety after desperate hazard."
The moon was silver-gold now and her rays fell coldly on the Lean Man's head, on his twitching mouth and haunted eyes. The curlews never rested from complaint, and the note of many waters seemed, to the girl's strained fancy, the voice of the hound who had bayed, long centuries ago, on Ludworth Slack.