Vague rumours began to come to Griff's ears nowadays, and people stared curiously at him as he passed them in the street.
"Look here, Gabriel, what's in the wind?" he asked bluntly, while the preacher and he were taking a walk together one afternoon.
Although the summer was well advanced now, Joe Strangeways, despite his ready acquiescence in the old witch's advice, had but lately summoned resolution enough to take him to Lawyer French's office. But his tongue had not been idle in the meanwhile.
Gabriel was not the man to break any news gently, nor to beat about the bush; he lacked the guile. So he rested a steady eye on Griff, and—"They say that matters are wrong between you and Kate Strangeways," he said.
Lomax met the preacher's eye squarely.
"Do you believe their tales?"
"I want not to. Lad, it would break my heart to believe it of you. Can you give me your word it's false?"
"As false as the liar who set it abroad. You can believe it or not as you like; but we're free of that charge."
Griff was hurt that the story was going abroad—hurt by a remembrance of his part in the scene which was responsible for it, hurt by the preacher's momentary doubt.
"Forgive me, Griff; I might have known," said Gabriel Hirst, and accepted his friend's word for good and all.
A night or two later, as Lomax was coming home from themoor, he saw Joe Strangeways go in at the Bull doorway; the oil-lamp at the corner showed an evil look on the quarrymaster's face. Without pause or hesitation, Griff followed him into the noisy public bar. There was a shuffling of feet, followed by a silence.
"Strangeways, a word with you," said Griff, standing in the middle of the floor.
Joe laughed, and never so much as glanced at his enemy.
"Stand up, and come over here."
Still the quarrymaster did not look up, and Lomax crossed the floor.
"You're a heavy weight to lift, and I'd rather you came without fetching; but——"
Joe abandoned his defiant attitude on a sudden; he remembered that evening when Griff had laid him prone, with his feet on the top, and his head on the bottom, step of the Bull doorway. He got up reluctantly, growling as he went. Griff set him with his face to the company.
"You have heard strange tales of me lately, neighbours?"
A subdued hum was the only answer.
"They came from Joe Strangeways here, if I'm not mistaken. Speak up, Joe! What have you got to say by way of proof?"
"Hannah see'd wi' her own een——" began Joe, then stopped. Lomax was so confoundedly cool about it all.
"Can you swear to that? Or am I right in guessing that Hannah lied to you, and taught you the lie pat off?"
This new suggestion staggered Joe's muddled wits; his knees shook under him, and he could make no answer. Griff waited for a space, nodding meanwhile at the landlord, who had come to the door to hear what was going on.
"Then I think I needn't keep you any longer, friends," he laughed at length. "Landlord, drinks round; it's thirsty work watching a liar try to moisten his tongue."
He turned to leave; and Joe was never the one to neglect the chance afforded by an adversary's back. He seized apewter-pot and hurled it with all his strength across the room. Griff felt it whizz past his ear, turned sharp round, and made for Strangeways in a fit of mad fury. He already had his hands at his throat, when a sudden thought pulled him up—a brute the man might be, and a liar, but he was Kate's husband. Nay, he himself was, in a measure, the quarrymaster's debtor—he had filched a kiss that was rightly his; he had stolen his wife's love from him.
"You were born a liar, Joe Strangeways. I'll leave you to it," he said, and went out.
But a shout followed him through the door.
"I'll be even wi' ye yet, Griff Lummax!" yelled Joe, in impotent fury. "Tha'rt ower big to be talked sense to; but thy wench's body shall pay for what tha's said an' done to me. Ay, by God! we'll see which on us is th' maister up to Teewit House! Twice tha's called me a liar, an' I'll blacken her een for that—one for th' first time ye called me, an' one for th' second."
"Hod thy blethering din!" cried one of his mates, roughly. "Tha'rt nobbut a windbag, Joe, an' a foul-mouthed bag at that."
Again Lomax came back. A cold fear seized him, as he caught the drift of the drunkard's threats; he had forgotten that his hasty method of self-defence might place Kate in jeopardy. Again he stood in the middle of the room and looked at the company; but his throat was parched; he was sick with pity, wild with the thought that Kate's name would soon be on every tongue here—would be bandied across this reeking bar, among the shag-smoke, the dirty pots, the beer-droppings on the floor.
"Tha'rt noan so pleased wi' thyseln, seemingly, as tha war a while back," jeered Strangeways, seeing that Griff made no further forward movement, but just stood there like one dazed. "Thee wend home to thy mammy-bird, lad, an' let other fowks's wives alone for th' future."
Still Lomax did not move. The wondering faces to right and left of him showed so many blurred spots of white through the smoke clouds. Every second that he stood there made againstthem—against Kate and himself—yet the words would not come. The quarrymaster grew bolder, and rose to an effort of wit.
"Landlord," said he, taking two greasy coppers from his pocket and laying them on the table, "we're fine an' freehanded i' Marshcotes Parish. 'Drinks round,' says Mr. Lummax; an', 'drinks for Mr. Lummax,' says Joe Strangeways—— Come, Griff," he went on, with brutal familiarity, "we'll sink th' woman i' beer; tak her for gooid an' all if tha wants, an' we'll be mates, thee an' me. Let fowk talk.Ibear thee no malice, lad."
Griff found his tongue at last. The less sober of the company afterwards declared that "it war as if fork-leetning war playing round his face, an' his words came out like thunner."
"Strange ways, I never yet gave my word to a thing and then went back on it. And I promise you now that if you lay a finger on Kate, I'll smash every bone in your body."
"An' swing for 't?" sneered Joe.
"Ay, and swing for it, if need be," Griff answered, his voice falling to a quietness that appalled the quarrymaster.
The landlord followed him into the passage.
"I'm fair sick o' yon Strangeways, sir. He's a surly wastril, as is allus kicking up a row i' my public. Only, ye wouldn't be thinking o' persecuting him for shying that there mug at ye? It 'ud be brought in drunk and disorderly, sure as sure, an' that harms a respectable public."
"Prosecuted?" murmured Griff. "No, of course not."
The landlord turned with a sigh of relief. Truth to tell, Griff scarcely grasped what he had said. He was face to face with a situation which, until now, he had realized but dimly. That swift understanding of the thing called love had so lifted him out and beyond the little world about him, had given him such new forces, new hopes, that he had hardly paused to ask himself "What next?" To-night, though, the matter was practical, urgent. Instinctively he made for Wynyates, quickening his pace with every stride. Gabriel Hirst was coming out of his gate as he passed through Ling Crag.
"Is that you, Griff? I thought it looked like your stride, though it's almost too dark to see."
"Yes, it's I. I'm off for a tramp."
"Where to?" asked the preacher, trying to fall in with his step.
"The devil."
"Griff, Griff, what's this? To speak so to the man who's loved and looked up to you—ay, looked up to you, for all your wild ways. Lad, do you want to—to make an end of our friendship?"
Gabriel had grown very sensitive of late to changes in those he loved.
Griff put out a hand into the darkness and gripped his friend's.
"Don't be a fool, old fellow. It isn't that—only, I want to be alone; I've troubles to think out, and there seems to be no way to it yet."
"Can't you tell them to me, Griff? I might be able to help."
Griff hesitated a moment, then laughed to himself, as he put the thought from him. The preacher was such a baby in women-matters; how could he appeal to him?
"Thanks, Gabriel, but I couldn't explain—not just yet. I'll come to you when the way shows a bit clearer.—Roddick has lived, and he's tough. He ought to be good for something," he added, after he had said good-night to Gabriel, and quickened his stride again.
He reached Wynyates, opened the door without knocking, and stamped into the hall.
"Who's there?" came a voice from the room to his right.
Griff followed the voice. He found Roddick seated at the table, which was covered with a jumble of cold beef, bread, apple-pie, cheese, and beer.
"Oh, you, is it?" said Roddick, cutting himself another slice of beef. "Why the deuce can't you enter in a Christian way? Have some food."
"So I will. I'd clean forgotten supper."
"Forgotten supper, had you?" snapped his host, when he was fairly launched. "A healthy man never does that. What's amiss, Lomax?"
Griff looked at him thoughtfully across the table.
"Something serious. I don't come for advice unless I need it."
"And then you don't take it. You always were a cross-grained beggar. Well?"
"There's a woman in the case."
"Damn the women!" growled Roddick. "Have some more beef."
Griff said no more on the subject till they had turned their chairs to the fire; then he made a plain statement of fact.
"So it's come at last, has it?" said Roddick, gruffly.
Griff flushed.
"Hold hard, Roddick; you're going a bit too far," he muttered, in answer to the spirit rather than the matter of the other's words. "We are innocent, I tell you!"
"Matter of terms, my boy. You kissed her, you say? It amounts to much the same thing."
"It does nothing of the kind. Besides, what fault there was lies at my door; she is not to blame."
"I never insinuated that either of you were to blame. I only said that it amounted to the same thing."
A silence followed, broken at length by Griff.
"It's pretty hopeless, either way," he finished. "If I leave things as they are, she runs a constant danger of being murdered by that brute. If we cut the whole thing, and go away together, it will break mother's heart."
Roddick had been oddly moved during this recital. Twice he had been on the point of blurting out something that lay at the top of his mind; thrice his face had grown soft with pity. It would not have been Roddick if he had allowed these lapses to go without correction.
"Well, you've got to choose," he said bluntly. "We always have to choose when anything serious is at stake. Which is more to you, the lover or the mother?"
Griff frowned at him.
"Roddick," he said, with just the trace of a catch in his voice, "when I speak of my mother, I don't mean any conventional rot. All my life she has been a lover and a friend to me."
The older man softened, and jeered again to hide it.
"You sound like a tract, Lomax. Give the woman up, then, and stick to the feeding-bottle."
"You're a brute!" muttered Griff, savagely, and said no more.
For ten minutes they sat and stared into the fire. The trees without—starveling sentries that challenged the moor winds, but were fain to let them pass—whimpered sorrowfully. A spit or two of rain sounded against the windows.
"God! I ought to have been born up here; I feel like that," cried Roddick, at last, pointing to the window on his right.
Griff had his back to the window and his eyes on the fire. Had he glanced at Roddick, he would have seen the sweat standing out on his forehead; the whole look of the man was changed since that casual glance at the window. But Griff noted nothing; he sat there moodily until his host should find something useful to say.
Roddick recovered himself with an effort.
"Old fellow, if I seem a brute at times, I have very good reason. It is hard, Lomax, to have to go on day after day without telling one's troubles to a living soul.—Your case and mine run on all fours."
"Your case and mine?" repeated Griff. "What do you mean?"
The other checked himself.
"There are some things best left untold. Chuck another log on the fire, will you?"
Another silence followed. Griff could stand it no longer, and rose to leave.
"Man, you're clean daft," he said irritably, "What is the use of asking you what I am to do?"
Roddick gripped the arm of his chair.
"Do?" he cried, with sudden energy. "If you take warning from me, you'll choose the nearest road to happiness, and have done with it. Wait, and wait, and wait, till you're sick with effort and half dead with hunger; yes, wait if you like, and be hanged to you—but you'll regret it."
"I begin to understand," muttered Griff. "Roddick, why did you never hint at this before?"
"Hint? I've hinted at nothing; I can't, for the girl's sake. Look here, Lomax," he added, more sanely, "if your mother is really a friend to you, and as sensible as you think her, she'll give you her blessing. Cut and run—it isn't orthodox advice, but it's level-headed. Cut and run, you fool; and get a look at happiness before you or the woman dies."
Griff moved to the door. Clearly his host was not in a fit state either to give or to take advice, and his suggestions tallied altogether too closely with the promptings of inclination.
"Good night, old man," he muttered; "we'll talk it over when—when you're more yourself. No, don't bother to come to the door with me; I found my way in without help, and I can go out the same way."
He closed the door after him. Roddick moved swiftly to the window, and peered through. There was nothing to be seen. He rattled his hand against the glass with pitiful impotence.
"You—devil!" he said, slowly.
When Griff opened the front door, a storm of wind and rain struck him full in the face. He pushed his way out with a laugh; wind and rain were staunch old friends, and this sort of horse-play was to his liking. He had barely crossed the threshold, and was about to turn and pull to the door after him, when a thing leaped out of the darkness. Something hard and bony went round his neck; something flabby and wet pressed close to his lips. He put out his arms and grasped a bundle of rags.
"It's cold and dark," said a voice. "And what call have you, Leo, to keep your true love waiting?"
Griff thrust the loathsome thing away, not without effort—those lean arms round his neck gripped like a vice. A hollow laugh went up into the darkness, and from the mingled odours Griff singled out the reek of brandy.
"Oh, I'm drunk," went on the voice; "but you took me for better or worse, Leo; yes, you did, so help me God!—and here you keep me waiting in the cold and the wet—in the cold and the wet. But you'll kiss me just once, Leo? That'll make it all right. Take me in, I tell you, and give me warmth; give me food and drink—drink, yes, drink!"
"Roddick!" shouted Griff. He feared this evil creature as he had never yet feared man.
A shadow came before the hall lamp, and Roddick stood at his side.
"What is it?" he demanded testily.
"A vampire, or a mad witch, or something. Why the devil can't she come into the light and give us a fair chance?"
They heard the sound of heavy footsteps crunching the gravel; the gate opened and clashed again; there was nothing to be seen but darkness, nothing to be felt but the clean, fresh wind.
"You have guessed half my secret now, I fancy—the wrong half," said Roddick, with a harsh laugh. "Good night. I must go and find her."
As Griff was dressing, on the morning after his discovery of Roddick's secret, there flashed into his brain just a single word.
"Divorce!" he cried. "Why did I never think of that before? Why didn't Roddick suggest it last night? If only Strangeways will do it, we shall have our chance of happiness."
So wonderful was the thought of freedom that he scarcely paused to look on the darker side of the question, to realize what it would mean to Kate to be branded for life.
"You are looking better than I have seen you look for a week past," said Mrs. Lomax, when he came down to breakfast.
"I'm feeling better, mother. Things have been a bit askew with me lately, but there are signs of clearing."
"You don't usually keep your troubles from me, Griff." The old lady was watching him keenly.
He hesitated a moment, then—
"I will tell you all about it to-night," he said.
And she was satisfied.
Breakfast over, he went and saddled Lassie, and rode to Peewit. Kate was looking drearily out of the window facing Marshcotes when he came in. He strode across the room and took her face in his two big hands and kissed her; it seemed so natural that she well-nigh forgot to rebuke him.
"I have not been here since—since that night—because I was blind to your need," he began. "I never guessed that matters had gone so far. Little woman, have they bullied you while I was away?"
In her present mood she could not withstand just that kind of tenderness. She crept into his arms, and hid her face, and fondled him nervously with her hands, as if she were afraid of his escaping her.
"Griff, it is hard to bear," she whispered, and broke down utterly. "So long you have kept away from me—it was right, of course—but——"
She looked up after awhile, and dried her eyes, and put him away.
"What are we going to do?" she asked.
He caught at the underlying suggestion, and for the life of him he could not keep the gladness out of his voice.
"Does he mean to apply for a divorce?" he asked.
"Yes."
He pulled himself together. Surely, if he were a man at all, it was the time to think of her needs, not of his own.
"Kate, I have brought all this on you."
But her hands were over his mouth before the words were half out.
"Don't say that, dear. Do you think I didn't help you to it?"
There was no touch of the outside world then. The frank abandonment of that confession left nothing more to be said, or hoped, or striven for.
The feeling passed, and they struggled slowly back to reality, as children make their first tottering attempts to walk.
"We can fight them, Kate, if we will. They have no evidence," said Griff, with an effort.
"They have evidence. Hannah saw us in the parlour that night."
"There was little to see; and in any case her word won't stand alone."
"No; but Joe is ready to swear—— Griff, I will not tell you. You can guess, can't you? He came back in time to see you—and he means to swear that he saw more. Griff, Griff, how can you make me tell you such things?"
"Are you sure of this, Kate?"
"Yes; quite. He blurted it all out to me a few nightsago in one of his drunken fits. The Marshcotes lawyer has told him what to say, so as best to help Hannah's evidence, and I don't see how we can face it."
A long pause.
"Kate, are you sorry?"
She looked at him—once. A heartful of neglected yearnings came to the front with a rush, and swept her away with them.
"No, no, no," she sobbed.
"Kate," he said, "come back with me to mother. It is the only way. I daren't leave you here an hour longer."
"But, Griff, I can't! Think of how your mother would take it if—— No; I can't! I won't!"
"It's not safe for you here, child; and you are coming," he said peremptorily.
She yielded at last. There did, indeed, seem to be no other way, and she could not bear to let Griff leave her. So together they set off across that well-known strip of heath, Griff leading Lassie by the bridle. Mrs. Lomax was just going out at the Manor gates when they arrived.
"Mother," said Griff, simply, "I have brought Kate to you. You will not bother her with questions, will you? She is tired and ill, and I'll tell you all about it later, as I promised. Will you take her upstairs, and get her to lie down a bit?"
Mrs. Lomax, feeling that some grave trouble was in the air, turned without a word. She took Kate up to her own room, and, because Griff had asked it, she would not let her make excuse of any kind, but forced her to lie down on the bed, with its dimity hangings and its quaint, old-world fragrance of lavender.
"Get to sleep if you can, my dear; you look wearied, and it will be the best thing for you," she said, and went downstairs to Griff.
He was turning a sheet of blue foolscap over and over in his hands. It had come while he was away, and was lying on the hall table when he followed the women indoors. He passed it over to his mother.
"Read that, and don't be shocked, mother," he said quietly.
She settled her spectacles carefully on her nose, and waded through the legal formulæ.
"I didn't think it of you, Griff," was all she said, as she laid the paper down.
But the lines on her old face were working pitiably, and Griff knew what she was suffering.
He made a clean breast of it then, and the cloud on the mother's face lifted a little.
"We shall not defend the action," he finished.
Again the lines of pain struck across the woman's forehead and about her eyes.
"But why, Griff? Surely, after what you have told me, you are not——"
"Guilty? No; but in the eyes of any court we are. The servant was spying on us—Kate told me so to-day. She saw enough to prejudice our case from the start. Then Strangeways returned in time to see me at Peewit the next morning, so the evidence as to my passing the night there is clear enough."
"Yes; but you can prove that it was impossible for you to get home."
"I can; but why was I there as late as eight o'clock—the snow didn't fall thickly till then—with her husband away? Don't you see, mother, everything tells against us? Besides, we have burnt our bridges now; there can be no return for Kate."
She was silent for a space, then—
"Do you want Strangeways to get the divorce, Griff?" she flashed.
"Honestly, yes. But we have no choice in the matter; the verdict is bound to go against us, and it will spare Kate a great deal if we don't appear at all."
Again Mrs. Lomax was silent.
"Griff," she said, with another sudden glance, "do you intend to marry her?"
"I do, mother."
"Look me straight in the eyes, dear. I don't mean to doubt you, you know, if you will only answer me one question. You kissed each other that night; it was a grave wrong-doing. Was there no worse sin than that, Griff? Are you trying to shield the woman by lying to your mother?"
"Mother, mother! Have I ever lied to you?" There was keen reproach in his voice.
"Never, Griff; but, then, you have never been in love before."
"With my mother—always. I swear to you that we are innocent."
"Thank God for that, dear! I am behind the times in such things. It would have killed me, Griff, to think that you could stoop——"
"Hush, mother! Kate is above it, whatever I may be."
A long silence, broken by the patter of sleet against the window.
"You might have married well, Griff."
"Mother, that is not like you. Leave distinctions of that kind to people who cannot claim five hundred years of moor life."
The old lady rose abruptly and went to the window. Blurred eyes saw through blurred panes some gallant hopes she had entertained on her son's behalf—saw the wife she had planned for him; saw jealousy, too, the fierce resentment of a mother who is robbed of her young; saw, finally, the way that meant happiness for Griff.
"You are right, dear," she said, turning and taking his hands in her own lean, weather-stained palms. "If you will always follow your heart, I don't think it will take you far wrong."
The divorce suit was the talk of the artistic sets in London that winter. Griff's society friends chattered about it; the little people who had fumed at his success laughed stridently at his fall.
"Mr. Lomax," purred Belgravia. "Griff Lomax, you know. Of course you have heard? Isn't itshocking? To think thata man of his genius should stoop to an intrigue with a low quarryman's wife!"
"Kissing an' sich; it's fair shameful," muttered Jose Binns to his cows. "Ye mark my words, beästies, there'll no gooid come on 't."
But it was not a matter of the public to Griff Lomax. It was between the woman, the moors, and himself; and he saw full life before him.
"Well?" growled Mother Strangeways, as her grandson pushed his way in between the rickety doorposts of Sorrowstones Spring.
"Well, it's ower an' done wi', for sartin sure. Kate's gone off wi' Griff Lummax."
The old hag toasted her claws at the red peat ashes and chuckled.
"Gone wi' him, didst 'a say? Afore iver yon lawyer chap hed sent 'em his bits o' paper? They mun ha' getten it on their minds, an' proper, not to bide till th' law set 'em free."
Joe shuffled uneasily towards the hearth.
"I misdoubt it, mother; ay, I misdoubt it. Sure as there's a fooil aboon ground, it's young Lummax. He meäns to wed her, an' she'll live off th' fat o' th' land. It war just what they wanted, it war."
"Tha'rt a bonny un, Joe, wi' thy dog i' th' manger ways," croaked the grandmother. "Tha'll be shut o' thy wife for gooid an' all, an' here tha'rt come whining 'cos Kate's made thee a free man."
"But it war just what they wanted, it war," persisted Joe, doggedly. "Without ever a 'by your leave' comes Lummax to Teewit yester morn, an' cuddles an' kisses Kate, an' away they wend to Marshcotes Manor, same as if a man's wife war fair ony fowks's belonging but hisn what wedded her. Ay, an' th' mother took 'em in, too."
"Joe, tha's been lang i' coming. Why didn't 'a slip across th' moor yestreen to tell a body?"
"'Cos I war ower drunk, if tha wants to know." A long-tried sense of the efficacy of this excuse had made it almost a formula with Joe.
She looked at him with a grin of good fellowship; yet under the grin was a touch of wistfulness, a weird, abortive echo of the yearning which had once centred itself round Joe's mother.
"It taks a lot to bring thee to thy grandam, lad. Tha willun't wend a step out o' thy way to clap een on her, without tha's harder set to 't nor or'nary. Tha mud ha' getten drunk here, Joe, if tha'd fashed thyseln to come for 't," she finished, in a plaintive key.
Joe's face cleared perceptibly.
"Hast 'a getten owt to sup, mother?"
Mother Strangeways scrambled to the cupboard, and took out a black bottle.
"Rum, begow!" muttered the son. "Fetch us a mug, mother, an' let's be making a start."
He did make a start, in good earnest, and the old witch joined him. There was but one pewter-pot in the cottage, and this they passed freely from one to the other. The glowing peat lit up their faces, as they sat on either side of the hearth. A little soughing wind was creeping round the chimney-stack.
"It's fine an' lonely up here," said Mother Strangeways at last. "Canst 'a hear th' wind a-sobbing i' th' chimbley, lad? Oh ay, it's easy to mak free wi' th' devil, come storm or calm.' She hugged the bottle to her breast, waiting till Joe should have finished the last of the mugful.
"Doan't! Nay, doan't," he pleaded, with a shiver. "I war niver so fearful fond o' th' devil, an' he flairs me."
"Flairs thee, tha sawny? He's a better mak of a stay-by, let me tell thee, than this God 'at th' pious folk prate on. He made th' marsh, I tak it, what grows a herb to cure all ills. He made th' snaw an' th' frost—ay, th' snaw an' th' frost, what taks th' gentlefolk off now an' again."
She paused to chew the cud of some tasty reminiscence. Then she glanced furtively towards the grandfather's clockthat stood in the corner. Whatever the size of the cottage, and mean as its every other appointment might be, there was always a brave old eight-day clock to be seen in the dwellings on Marshcotes Moor.
The beldame pointed one hand at the clock, while the fingers of the other went scrabbling up and down her ragged skirt.
"Sitha, lad! It wobbles summat fearful, does th' owd clock. First to right, then to left, it wobbles reg'lar.Tick-tack, tick-tack, goes th' inside—an'tick-tack, tick-tackgoes th' outside, keeping time. It's a sign, Joe; I'm noan long for this world, now that th' owd clock hes ta'en to wobbling. Five an' eighty year we've bided together—tick-tack, tick-tack, me an' th' clock—an' now it's started to dither. Tha'll noan hev a grandam sooin, Joe."
"Tha'rt drunk," muttered Strangeways, succinctly.
She set her hands on her hips, and grinned into Joe's face.
"Drunk, babby, sayst 'a? Me drunk while tha's sober, tha kittling? Nay, it taks a bottle or two to come it ower Mother Strangeways. I tell thee it wobbles, does th' eight-day clock. Lad, tha mud do thy grandam a sarvice." Her eyes grew bright with a sudden earnestness. "Bring a two or three screw-nails wi' thee th' next time tha comes, an' fasten th' clock to th' wall; it'll happen keep me a while longer."
"Tha'rt feared o' th' grave, seemingly, if tha'rt noan feared o' th' devil," sneered the man.
She was quiet for awhile; then she kicked the smouldering peat into a whirr of angry sparks.
"Ay, that I am, till I've settled old scores wi' them Lummaxes. It's little rest there'd be for Rachel Strangeways, ligging i' her grave, if Griff an' his mother war laughing aboon sod. An' all to be done by myseln," she added reflectively; "me eighty an' more, wi' only a misbegotten fooil of a man to help me—an' him sitting, stark-witted, wi' his clumsy hands i' his pockets. Joe, durst 'a kill young Griff, if tha'd getten him safe to grund, nobbut wanting a stamp o' thy foot to finish him?"
"I durst that; thee bide till I've getten th' chance; thee bide a bit."
"I've bided ower long a'ready."
They fell into a moody silence. A gleam of triumph shot into Rachel's skinny face.
"Lad, it's th' best news I've heärd for mony a long day, this o' young Lummax's wedding Kate. Let 'em be, an' Griff 'ull find his mistake out; she's noan his sort, an' he's noan hers—they'll fratch, an' proper, after a two or three week. Teed by th' tail, teed by th' tail; lad, they'll scrat each other's een out!"
The bottle was finished, and Joe felt no further inducement to stay.
"Good neet, mother. I'm wishing tha'd talk a bit less an' do a bit more."
Rachel gave vent to her tongue at that, and rated him till her face went purple. But she changed her key just as Joe was shutting the door behind him.
"Joe, lad!" she called.
He pushed his head round the corner.
"Hast a' nearly done wi' thy foulness, or how like?" he demanded.
"Ay, I've done. Tha willun't forget th' screw-nails, wilt 'a? Day in an' day out th' owd clock wobbles summat fearful."
"I'll noan forget." And he shuffled off into the moonlight.
About the time that Mother Strangeways was cursing her grandson by every epithet known to the brisk upland vocabulary, Lomax and Kate were talking together in the cosy Manor parlour.
"Don't plead against me, Kate," he was saying. "You know I oughtn't to stay here till we are free to marry."
"But that will be months yet, you say—a whole six months at the soonest. Griff, I shall want you to death before the waiting is over."
His arms went round her at that; but he had made up his mind, and nothing could turn him aside.
"We must give ourselves a chance," he said gruffly, setting her away from him. "What can folk help but think, if youand I live here while the case is pending? You might help me a little, Kate; it is not too easy for me."
She gripped his arm with quick, passionate strength.
"You shan't go back to London, if I have to hang round your neck like a millstone. They are too fond of you there; you'll go to your fine ladies, and you'll talk and laugh and flirt, and they will make me look silly in your thoughts. You shan't go there, I tell you!"
Griff laughed mightily; and "Wife," said he—she quickened to the premature tenderness of the word—"wife, I was never sure till this moment that you loved me; but now I know it. What! you're jealous."
"Jealous or not," she retorted—but the softness was gaining in her cheeks—"it will break my heart if you go to London."
"Then I won't! There, does that satisfy you?"
With a woman's swift returning on her own paces, "Griff," she whispered, "do you want to go? I'm foolish, and if you really want——"
"It's the last place I should think of, child. I shall go only as far as the other end of Yorkshire, where I shall be within hail if you really want me. You'll write every day?"
She lowered her eyes shamefacedly.
"I write a poor letter, Griff. They'd only shame you."
Again he laughed, a frank, untroubled laugh.
"We shall see about that, wife. Every day you will write to me, and every day I'll write to you. God! how long those months will be!"
Mrs. Lomax decided at this juncture that they had had quite enough time together, and she entered abruptly.
"Off with you to bed, Kate," she said. "Griff is sadly dependent on the look of a woman's face, and if you spoil yours by late hours, I won't be answerable for the consequences."
"But I will!" cried Lomax, gaily.
"You have arranged it all?" asked the mother, when they were left alone.
"Yes; I am to leave to-morrow, to return when—we are free."
"Well, Griff?"
"You are a brick! To treat Kate as you have done——"
"Be quiet, boy! You are either the wisest man in the world, or the veriest fool. I love Kate; so do you. We can only wait and see how it all turns out. Are you coming to bed, too?"
"Not just yet. I must have a mouthful of fresh air before I turn in."
He held open the door for her, and they walked upstairs together, his arm threaded through hers.
"Good night, mother," he said, as they gained the landing; "don't worry about things, will you?"
"Not too much, Griff; I am a woman of sound common sense. Good night."
He went downstairs again, picked up a cap from the hall table, and went out. He was restless to the point of fever, and nothing but the sharp night air and the free use of his limbs could give him a wink of sleep that night. Swinging off into the Marshcotes Moor, he speedily found himself at the farm that fronted Hazel Dene; then, bethinking him of that parsley-field which had so mystified Miller Rotherson, and remembering, as a natural corollary, certain of the poaching fraternity of Ling Crag, he turned up the Dene. A light was burning in Greta's room as he passed the mill, and he glanced up at it with a warm splash of feeling at his heart.
"Poor lassie!" he muttered. "I wonder how soon that witless preacher will get at a pretty woman's meaning?"
He paused, with a poacher's instinct, as he neared the gate that opened into the parsley-field. The moon was scarcely past full, and every bent and clump of bracken stood out clear in the bluish light. In the middle of the field a hare was squatting—a big fellow, with a body as still as sleep, and a head that shifted warily this way and that, to learn if there were any danger abroad. The night air crawled into Griff's throat, and he could not keep back one little gasp of a cough. Straightas a die the hare made for a point in one of the boundary walls; there was a succession of sharp cries, like the cries of a teething baby, and after that a silence.
"There's one of the boys over there; I'll have a word with him," thought Griff.
He crossed the field quietly, and skimmed over the wall through which the hare had disappeared. A surly "Who's there?" greeted him as he dropped on to the grass, almost into the arms of a burly, grizzled five-feet-ten of iniquity, standing with the dead body of a hare in his hands.
"You ought to know me by this time, Will Reddiough," laughed Griff, softly.
"It's ye, sir, is 't? That shapes things different, like." A genial grin overspread Will's knotty features as he recognized the intruder.
"What luck?"
"Nobbut a couple, an' I've carred two hour under th' wall for 'em."
"Well, it's poor sport, netting, at the best of times. First, you have to slink round here in the daytime, and see which way the hares take home again; then you've to wait under a wall till the frost nips you; and at the end of it all you have precious little to show. I say, Will, what fools these hares are always to go through the same hole!"
"No more fooils nor men-folk, what allus taks th' same stile through a field. An' if they war sharper, sir, what 'ud be th' use o' setting a net?" Will smiled at the transparency of his own reasoning; he could not conceive a scheme of the universe in which poaching-nets played no part.
"But look here, Will," said Lomax, after a pause of rumination, "if my training goes for anything, I know that a hare never starts home from its feed till the day is breaking, unless some one disturbs it."
"Rarely, sir, notnever. To speak plain, I war main stalled o' ligging on th' kitchen settle, so I like as I thowt I'd try a bit o' sport for myseln. It's a matter o' chance, so to say. I've getten two to-neet just by carring an' biding;another neet I mud ha' hed to bide till morn, an' niver cotch an odd 'un."
"Why didn't you bring Dan o' Smick's or some of the others along with you?"
Will Reddiough drew his lips in, and thrust his cheeks out; he gave forth a low whistle of disgust, tempered with charity for a fellow-mortal's failings.
"Dan's a-coorting, an' he wouldn't stir till latter on. Ye'll be knowing what a sight o' folly a wench can pump into a decent man's body. Then Jack o' Ling Crag, he couldn't come afore his public shut, an' so wi' th' rest. So I like as I thowt——"
"Till later on," echoed Griff, softly. "Does that mean there is fun on hand?"
"Well, sir, I willun't deny there's a mak on a party, like, what's due to meet i' Cringle Wood for a bit o' pheasant-shooiting, soon as th' mooin gets ower Cranshaw Kirk."
"The old lot—Dan o' Smicks, Jack o' Ling Crag, you and Ned Kershaw?"
"Ay, th' owd lot. Jack war for sending word to ye, but Ned Kershaw, he up and said——"
"Said what?"
"Well, 'at ye'd getten your hands full a'ready. Ned allus war one for making a crack," added Reddiough, apologetically.
Griff cursed a little under his breath, then laughed.
"As it happens, I am as free as can be till the daylight comes. Gad, Will, I feel the old stuff working in me! Do you care to take me with you?"
"Ay, and proud to do it, sir! Just like thy father—just," he muttered approvingly, as he bundled his net together and took the hares in his left hand. "It'll be close on th' time, I'm thinking. Let's get a squint at Cranshaw."
Will scrambled to the top of an adjacent knoll, used the church as a guide to other matters than that for which it was primarily intended, and intimated that they might as well be setting off. Cringle Wood lay half a mile west of Wynyates—a steep-sided crack in the moor face, sparsely set with oak and birch, and a favourite haunt of such pheasants as had grown tired of the preserves further down the valley. Kershaw and Dan o' Smick's were there before them, and Jack o' Ling Crag was not long in putting in an appearance. Jack's face, when he espied Lomax, left no doubt as to his satisfaction touching the addition to their little shooting-party. It was a marvellous night; just a touch of frost, but not enough to whiten the masses of ruddy brown bracken that grew between the dotted tree-stems; here and there a fat old pheasant-father, standing out clear against the sky as he perched on his branch of oak.Pop-popwent the guns. Griff did not trouble about the fact that he was unarmed; the mere potting at sitting birds was dull sport in itself, and the adventure was all that he cared about.
"The keepers have been pretty quiet lately, haven't they?" said Griff to Jack o' Ling Crag, as the latter picked up a bird.
"Oh, ay, sir, quiet as church mice. There's noan so mony pheasants i' Cringle Wood as there war, an' they've enough to do to look after th' regular preserves down below. 'Tain't worth while, th' Squire thinks, to meddle wi' Cringle Wood. It warn't allus so, though, by a long chalk, as you an' me mind, I'll warrant. Dost recall that neet——"
He stopped. Five shouts came from five different quarters of the wood. Dan o' Smicks and Ned Kershaw came running downhill to join their comrades, and five men converged towards them at a steady run.
"No shooiting, lads!" cried Jack, getting the hang of the situation in a moment. "At 'em wi' th' butt-end, but doan't shooit. Fair fight, an' a race for home after ye've settled 'em. Blazes! but there's Squire hisseln!"
His last item of information was lost to all but Lomax, who was nearest him. They were all at close quarters now, and the tussle began in earnest. As luck had it, the four keepers and Griff's three allies were well to one side when the fight was fairly started. Griff was aware of a big, rough-hewn man fronting him; his face showed knotty in the moonlight, and helaughed a great, hearty laugh from his belly upwards. It was the Squire of Saxilton.
"You've no gun!" cried old Roger Daneholme.
"No; but I've got the fists that God gave me. Drop your gun, and come on."
The Squire chucked his weapon into the bracken, and they ran together like steel to magnet. In and out darted the blows; Roger Daneholme took a crack on the mouth that rattled his teeth in their sockets, and Griff lost the aid of his left eye for the time being. It was neck or nothing with Griff. In among the stress, he found time to wonder how he could have been fool enough to mix himself up with a poaching affray, now that Kate had made things matter so much more; it was all very well in his bachelor days, but he should have had more sense now. Suppose he were collared and run in, along with these jolly boon companions of his? He pondered a trifle too long on that aspect of the case, for the Squire got in a body-blow, that came dangerously near to taking his adversary's wind. All the while the tussle of four against four was running a brisk course on the left; curses and blows thwacked through the frosty air with cheery impartiality; but Jack o' Ling Crag was laughing, and Griff gathered that the three were having the best of it—though his notions of everything outside the radius of the Squire's fists were of necessity in the shadowy background of his mind. At last Griff got his chance, and took it. Old Roger again aimed a bit too high for his wind, and he responded with a clean-cut drive from his left that got the Squire full between the eyes, planting him squarely in the bracken. He showed no disposition to come up to scratch again, and Griff looked to see if he were needed elsewhere. But the keepers had had the worst of the tussle; they had been driven back towards the wood-bottom, and the poachers four were making the best of their way towards Wynyates. Jack o' Ling Crag stopped at the top of the wood to see how it fared with Lomax; the others were well ahead of him, and did not notice the stoppage, their guiding rule on these occasions being to take a bee-line for home.
And somehow it fell about that Jack, the old reprobate, grew so keen on the mighty battle going on below him that he forgot all about his own safety. The keepers rallied, just as Griff put in his farewell smack at his opponent; two went to tackle Lomax, and two made up the hill towards Jack o' Ling Crag.
"Come on!" shouted Jack. "Run for your life, ye fool! What are ye stopping for?"
To tell the truth, Griff had characteristically lost sight of prudence; how could he leave the Squire, stretched stark before him, without at least a passing attempt to bring him round? He looked towards the stream that tumbled through Cringle Wood, and was setting off to fetch water in his cap when a pair of lusty arms gripped him from behind. His next clear conception of outward things was, that he was lying on his back, looking up at the Milky Way.
"The game's up at last," he groaned. "Dad would never have been such a dolt—and how will it strike Kate?"
"Much as you struck Squire," put in one of the keepers, facetiously—"straight atween the eyes."
Griff bit his lip; he had not known that he was talking aloud.
Then, to make matters worse, down came the other pair of the Squire's party, with Jack o' Ling Crag between them. Old Roger Daneholme opened his eyes presently; they doused him with cold water, and before long he was on his feet again.
"We've got two of 'em, Squire," said a keeper.
"Eh? Got what?" he muttered, still dazed.
"Two of the poaching wastrels."
The Squire looked at Griff and grinned.
"Wastrels, say you? Well, if you feel that way, I'll watch while any one of you four have a go at our friend there. You don't seem anxious. Let him free, then, you fools, and don't sit on his chest as if he was a damned armchair."
Griff, freed from constraint, leaped to his feet; he began to think that there was hope for him yet if he had to deal with Roger Daneholme.
"What's your name?" queried the Squire, taking a long pull at his flask.
"Griff Lomax."
"What, Joshua Lomax's son? Gad, I wish he'd been alive to see you fight! I knew him well; we were lads together, and many a night he's helped me to take my father's game. That's it, you see. The light's a bit queer down in the wood here, and I thought you were Walter, my son. Time and again I've tried to spot him at the old game—runs in the family, you'll observe—and I wanted to see if I was a match for him yet. You're about his build and height—but, by hell, you've a better notion of your fists! I never knew a cleaner shot than that you felled me with—not that I saw it very clearly—but it was such a devilish kingdom-come blow for me. Lomax, I'm proud to meet you."
The keepers stared open-eyed at this last freak of the Squire's. They fancied they knew the ins-and-outs of their master pretty well by this time, but they were not prepared for this. Jack o' Ling Crag swore a soft oath, and decided that old Roger was a likelier man than he'd thought him. The Squire turned sharply.
"Who's that? Why, it's Jack o' Ling Crag, if I'm not mistaken. So we've got you at last, Jack, have we? Well, you've had a fair run."
"You're not going to run him in?" said Griff, quickly.
"Why not? He's the rankest poacher in the county."
"So am I, then."
"Oh, that's another matter! You do it for fun, God bless you! you're a sportsman—but Jack here does it by profession. I never could stand a man who does things by profession."
"All right, Squire," responded Griff; "we'll go together, Jack and I."
Old Roger looked hard at him, and saw that he meant it. He stamped up and down for a while; then—
"I'm a precious fool to do it, but, if you put it that way, Jack shall have a bit longer run. Off you go, the pair of you. I say, Lomax, by the way, you'd better come and dine with me."
"I can't, I'm sorry to say—I leave here to-morrow."
"For good?"
"For six months or so."
"Why couldn't you say so? Ride over to Saxilton when you come back—send a line to Plover Court, you know. Men mostly can't fight nowadays; they're rare birds, not to be missed."
"Well, I'm blowed!" muttered Jack, as he and Griff picked their way homewards.
"Exactly," answered Lomax. And never a word besides did they utter till they parted at the door of the Dog and Grouse.
When Griff reached home and looked at himself in the glass, he was struck by the disarrangement of his features. The left eye was swollen and rapidly discolouring; his upper lip was pretty badly bruised; and a deepish cut in one cheek was still bleeding fitfully. These, and a few minor blemishes, helped to make up a picture that was far from prepossessing; it occurred to him that Kate would think it a bad start, if he appeared on the morrow in this guise. The more he thought of it, the more clearly he saw that he must get away from Marshcotes before the household was up, leaving a good-bye behind him. He stole out of his room and across the landing. A light shone under Mrs. Lomax's door, and he knocked gently.
"Come in!" called the old lady, who had long ago recognized his footfall on the stairs. She was sitting up in bed, with a thick shawl drawn close about her shoulders and a book on her knees.
"What! reading in the middle of the night? Fie, mother."
"I have been troubled lately, dear; it takes an old woman longer to reconcile herself to a change—do you understand? Why, Griff, whathaveyou been doing to your face?"
"I don't look exactly pretty, do I? I've had a lively discussion touching the rights of property, and this is the outcome."
"Poaching again, boy?" sighed the mother. "I had hoped, since you came back—but, there, I might as well tryto keep a duck from the water. Let me be doing something to your face, at any rate."
"No, don't bother. I'll get a slice of raw beef and paste it over the eye. I want you to do something else for me, though, mother."
"Well?"
"You have seen me like this before, but Kate hasn't. I was going to leave to-morrow in any case. If I pack my bag now and slip off by the early coach from Heathley, will you make matters right with Kate?"
"But where are you going?"
"Up to North Yorkshire. I had a letter from Framlingham the other day—you remember Framlingham?—he is playing the hermit up there in an out-of-the-way shooting-box of his, and he gave mecarte blancheto run up when, and for as long as, I liked. After I leave him, I must put on my time as best I can until the divorce business is through. Mother, you will look aftermy wife? I hate to leave her. Strangeways may be up to mischief, you know. Don't let her go out alone, will you?"
The old lady smiled at him, very tenderly and a little ruefully.
"You are a muddle of a man, Griff; I sometimes wonder how you manage to come through things as well as you do. First, you rush off on a harum-skarum prank the night but one after taking big responsibilities on your shoulders; then, you come to me with all kinds of suggestions for taking care of Kate; finally, you will leave us in the lurch, us two poor women, to fight out a trying time together."
"I'll stay, mother! It was your suggestion, to start with, that I should——"
"You can't stay," said Mrs. Lomax, quietly.
"Well, but you seem——"
"Don't bother me with logic, when I am suffering from feelings. Off you go, boy; you can trust me with your treasure-trove. Don't forget to put the beef on your eye; you have no idea what a fright you look."
So Griff was well on his way north by the time that Kate had opened her eyes and had wondered anew at the strangeness of her surroundings. Mrs. Lomax contrived an explanation of her son's early departure, not without sundry concessions to her principles of honesty, and the two women began their dreary, uneventful waiting time. There were legal delays, first of all; and when at last the case had come on for trial, and Strangeways had obtained the verdict of the court, there was a further wait until the decree could be made absolute. The interval, indeed, was then only half what it is to-day, but to Kate, in her present condition of nervous dread, three months seemed a veritable eternity.
It was a wretched winter, too, for Gabriel Hirst. He was troubled, to begin with, by the difficulty of reconciling Griff's innocence with his action in carrying off Kate Strangeways to the Manor. Griff had given his word that they were innocent, and innocent therefore they must be—yet, "it looked queer to a plain man's way of thinking." Then, Greta was becoming positively vixenish; the preacher's helplessness, his dog-like devotion, his womanish beating about the bush, got on the poor lassie's nerves at last, till she was driven, from sheer inability to bear it any longer, to follow Griff's example and migrate for a while to an atmosphere less strained. She met Gabriel as she was lumbering across the square that fronted the Black Bull, in the one rickety chaise which Marshcotes possessed.
"How do you do, Mr. Hirst?" she said, leaning out of the window and beckoning him to approach.
The driver pulled up his nag—never a matter of serious difficulty—and Gabriel came to the door.
"Good morning; are you—are you leaving us?" he stammered, keeping the little gloved hand in his, for very forgetfulness of all that lay without the pretty, frost-kindled face, with its mocking lips.
"Yes, for a few weeks. It is so dull here, month in and month out, isn't it?Sucha bother I had to get father to let me go—but aunt has begged me to stay with her for sucha long while past, that I could hardly have got out of it this time. Do you never go away, Mr. Hirst?"
"I? Not often. I like the old place well enough, when——"
"Yes, when?"
"When folks treat a man as if he was something better than the mud under their high-heeled boots," said the preacher, with sudden savagery. This pretty scrap of womanhood, with her warm white flesh nestling cosily into her wraps—why did he let himself be driven by her out of his wonted sober courses? For a half-moment, the man of God could have strangled this mocking daughter of Eve.
"I never was treated in that way, so I can't tell; besides, my boots aren't high-heeled," she added inconsequently.
The driver was beating his hands across his chest to keep the cold out, and Greta bethought her of the coach.
"You'll make me late for the coach at Heathley, Mr. Hirst. Good-bye; won't it be a relief to you to have me out of the village? I tease you so, and I believe you don't half like it."
Gabriel Hirst stood there like a fool in the middle of the road, and watched the chaise disappear over the crest of the ill-paved street. Anger had gone from him; religion had gone from him; he was only dazedly conscious of that furry vision which had left him with a careless gibe. He never knew of the bitter tears shed by this same furry vision, who was really no more than a healthy young maiden, with all a life's desires before her; never guessed that she wept through half her journey, and wanted to weep out the other half, had there been tears enough to draw upon, and no one to see them fall.
Altogether, when Christmas Day came and the bells rang out their message, in the hearty country way, there was little responsive joy in the hearts of many of the dwellers by Marshcotes Moor. Mrs. Lomax, though every day seemed to bring Kate nearer to her, was as yet far from accepting the situation; she remembered other Christmases, when she had had Griff all to herself—further back, too, when her husband was alive, and they had framed great plans for the future of a certain toddlinghopeful. Who was this strange woman, that she should upset a lifetime of hopes and fears, lightly as if they had been a card-house? And Kate felt her position keenly; she was soon to be branded in the eyes of all who knew her as a woman of bad repute, and it cut her pride to the quick. Then she would cease, for a whole day together, to care what any one thought of her, so long as she had Griff; but after that would come a bitter sense that he was far away from her, and a dread of what might happen in the interim. Like all superstitious people, she thought of Providence as an agent whose unalterable aim it was to defeat the plans of mortals when they were aiming for the highest happiness; it seemed inconceivable that nothing should step in to thwart them at the last. Griff was shooting—there was a whole crop of terrors to be gleaned from that knowledge alone; accidents were so easy, and the chance fall of a trigger was as simple an agent as Providence could well find. It was in vain that Mrs. Lomax, with her cheery common sense, strove to put such dreads away from her; and Griff's frequent letters—they came, if the truth must out, three times a week—did less to comfort Kate than one good, hearty hand-grip could have effected.
But there was more than theoretic dread abroad; there was real tragedy between Ling Crag Moor to the west and Cranshaw Moor to the east—as Roddick knew to his cost.
Roddick was shaving when the sound of the Marshcotes bells came through the frosty air on Christmas morn. He grinned savagely at his own reflection in the glass, and cut himself badly on the chin, under the delusion that he was uttering a biting sarcasm.
"Peace on earth," he muttered, as he sought for a cobweb on the well-lined walls of his bedroom. "Good-will towards men; I know the old tomfoolery by heart," he growled, applying the cobweb to his chin.
The old woman who came for a few hours each morning—his only servant—was planting a smoking coffee-pot on the table when he came downstairs.
"A merry Kirsmas, sir, to ye," she croaked.
"Thanks; the same to you," said Roddick, dryly. "Oh, by the way, isn't there some superstition about the season—something about coin of the realm, and other things that really touch people's hearts? Mrs. Whitaker, would you like a Christmas-box?"
He amused himself for a while, as his way was, in watching the old creature squirm from one embarrassment to another. First, she feared he would see how anxious she was in the matter, and then she feared he wouldn't; it was an unfair advantage, she felt, to take of a woman "that had allus had her own living to addle, but what war noan dependant on onybody's charity, for all that."
Roddick grew swiftly weary of her—weary, with one of his hot, insane frenzies. He tossed her a sovereign, as he would have thrown a bone to his dog, and turned to his eggs and bacon.
"That will do for to-day," he snapped. "You can leave as soon as your legs will carry you."
"But there's th' kitchen not fettled up yet, an' th' bedroom——" began the woman.
"Well, they must wait till to-morrow. I can't stand your clatter, clatter, clatter, upstairs and down. Heaven knows why it allowed man to hit on the notion of clogs!"
Mrs. Whitaker was not insensible to fear of her master's black moods; but it shocked her sense of decency that the domestic rites should go unperformed.
"Axing your pardon, sir, what'll you do for th' Kirsmas dinner? There's th' turkey to be roasted, an' th' sauce to be made, an' th' plum pudding——"
"Confound the lot of them! I shall dine off cheese and bread. Good day, Mrs. Whitaker."
The woman made off with what speed she could muster, realizing that Roddick was not all a God-fearing man should be, yet inclined—in the light of the golden sovereign clutched in her withered palm—to make allowance for the most sinful of masters on the blessed Christmas Day.
Roddick finished his breakfast, and pulled round his chair to the fire.
"Humph!" growled he, lighting his pipe. "Now we'll salute the happy morn, and be as jolly as we're bound to be. What a rum sort of place the world is!"
He read till twelve o'clock, and had just thrown down his book in disgust, when there came a knock at the outer door. His face brightened as he saw the wiry little man in velveteen who stood on the threshold.
"Oh, it's you, Riggs, is it? Come in. Have you got a message for me?"
"Yes, sir; from Miss Laverack. I'm to wait for an answer, sir."
Roddick jerked open the envelope, and ran his eye over the note. He tried to keep back any hint of the passion that warmed his blood at sight of the well-known handwriting; but the man in velveteen had not been a keeper for fifteen years without acquiring a quick eye.
"All right. I'll scribble an answer at once. What will you take, Riggs? Beer—whisky?"
He was not long in returning with his reply to the letter, and Riggs also left Wynyates with a well-defined feeling that Mr. Roddick came very seasonably.
"Only, what I fear is, that I'll be blabbing about the business to the wife one day," muttered the keeper; "and then it would be as good as all up with the young miss. What them two would do without a well-meaning, close-mouthed chap like me to help 'em, beats me. I wonder what's wrong with this Mr. Roddick, and why they can't make a clean breast of it to the Captain? It's plain to be seen they're over ears in love one with t'other; he's just got to that time of life, has Mr. Roddick, when it does take a man mortal hard if he once let's himself be collared. Well, well, there'll be a pretty reckoning between me and the Captain if ever my share in the game comes out."
As for Roddick, the brief message contained in Janet Laverack's note had altered his mood completely. "I begin to believe in the good-will nonsense," he said to his pipe. Even so short a spell of solitude as he had already tried had sufficed to induce the bad habit of talking aloud. He wentand looked out of doors. "A fine day, too—just the sort of day one always reads about, but which doesn't usually turn up in practice. Every meeting means so much more sheer madness, but what of that? We'll make a good day of it, and leave the rest to the Providence I was kicking at a moment ago."