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NEW FICTION. 
 
 THE FORGE IN THE FOREST. By Professor Charles 
 
 G. D. Roberts. With Seven full-page Illustrations by Henry 
 Sandham, R.C.A. Crown 8vo, 5^. 
 
 An historical novel, of which the scene is laid in Arcadia. 
 
 MARCUS WARWICK, ATHEIST. By Alice M. 
 
 Dale. Post 8vo, 6s. 
 
 Deals with English Criminal Law. 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. By Halliwell Sutcliffe, 
 
 Author of “ The Eleventh Commandment,’^ “ A Tragedy in Grey,” 
 etc. Post 8 VO, 6s. 
 
 A Novel of the Haworth Country. 
 
 DOWN BY THE SDWANEE RIVER. By Aubrey 
 
 Hopwood. Post 8vo, 6s. 
 
 A Florida Romance. 
 
 London ; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., LiT.. 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS 
 
A 
 
 MAN OF THE MOORS 
 
 BY 
 
 HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 ‘'the eleventh commandment,” “a tragedy in grey,” etc. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LtS 
 PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD 
 1897 
 
{The rights of translation and of reproduction are resented.) 
 
1954 SlOCUfvt 
 
 <r^3 
 
 xj^ ^3/rr\/ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 XX. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 vi^XIV. 
 
 The Moor Man comes back to his Own ... 
 The Perversion of Gabriel Hirst ... 
 
 A Moor Woman ... 
 
 At the Sign of the Dog and Grouse 
 Concerning Parsley and Strong Drink... 
 The Rising Wind 
 ’Twixt Wynyates and Ling Crag 
 Kate Strange ways asserts herself ... 
 Confession 
 
 The Woman of Sorrowstones Spring 
 
 The Ghost of Wynyates 
 
 Release 
 
 A Moonlight Introduction 
 Frender’s Folly 
 A Home-coming ... 
 
 Roddick’s Wife 
 
 In which Mrs. Lomax grows Angry 
 
 The Cutting of Peats 
 
 The Link that bindeth Man and Wife ... 
 
 The Fight at the Quarry Edge 
 
 Afterwards 
 
 White Heather 
 
 A “Revival” 
 
 A Tale from the Heart of the Night 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 13 
 
 28 
 
 37 
 
 45 
 
 55 
 
 63 
 
 72 
 
 81 
 
 89 
 
 95 
 104 
 1 10 
 123 
 136 
 145 
 
 152 
 
 161 
 
 172 
 
 183 
 
 198 
 
 207 
 
 218 
 
 226 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXV. The Beginning of the Rift ... ... ... 236 
 
 XXVI. How THEY FOUGHT ROUND THE PeAT-RICK ... 244 
 
 XXVn. The Rift gapes Wide ... ... ... ... 253 
 
 XXVIII. Janet ... ... ... 258 
 
 XXIX. What the Snowflakes fell upon ... ... 264 
 
 XXX. By Way of Wynyates ... ... ...^ 272 
 
 XXXI. The Moor Man goes out to his Own ... ... 280 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE MOOR MAN COMES BACK TO HIS OWN. 
 
 Joe Strangeways the husband was called ; and if roughness 
 could make any man a diamond, then he was emphatically of 
 the purest water. But, apart from his roughness, the untrained 
 eye could detect few good qualities in him ; his wife had 
 searched, with tears and prayer, for any redeeming point in 
 his character, and now, at the end of five years, she found 
 herself further than ever from the goal. A harsh man he was, 
 indifferent when not jealous, callous when not actively cruel : 
 his speech was coarse, his voice harsh and raucous, and he 
 was in a perpetual state of growing a beard — a thick, black 
 scrub, as rough as his uncouth tongue. Once a week he got 
 very drunk, and his wife, before she learned to know the signs 
 of the times and to prepare herself accordingly, was apt to 
 suffer physical discomfort. 
 
 Kate Strangeways, the wife, was in all things the opposite 
 of her husband : strong, while he was blustering ; sensitive, 
 while he was callous ; careful of speech and of her personal 
 appearance, while he cared not a pipeful of shag for these 
 things. She was of the fine moor breed, and she had grown 
 up under the eye of the great God who dwells between the 
 hill-summits and the clouds. Why she had married Joe Strange- 
 ways, it would have been hard to say ; his position as master- 
 quarryman of the works at the edge of the moor was not one 
 ‘"'j B 
 
2 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 to tempt the recognized belle of a country that knew how to 
 rear fine women ; his manners did not atone in any way for 
 deficiencies of appearance ; her own folk were opposed to 
 the marriage. Perhaps it was just because he had everything 
 against him that the woman in her drove her into his arms. 
 
 If you leave the village of Marshcotes behind you, and 
 strike straight across the moor, at the end of three miles or 
 so you will see a biggish house frowning down on you from 
 the top of the ridge which divides the counties of Yorkshire and 
 Lancashire. It had been a roystering spot once on a time, 
 this Peewit House, when a race of sturdy moor squireens held 
 it ; but the old breed had died out, and people were not eager, 
 even in those days, to cross three miles of heath in search 
 of a dwelling. Joe Strangeways had obtained a long lease 
 of the place at a nominal rental ; he liked to think his wife 
 had no neighbours, for his cur-bred kind of jealousy resented 
 the thought that she was able to hold converse with her fellows 
 while he was away at the quarries. 
 
 The tale of Kate Strangeways' life might have run so to 
 the end, had it not been for a certain charitable old lady who 
 lived in the Manor House at the end of Marshcotes village. 
 Mrs. Lomax had the reputation of being mad ; but, so long as 
 her madness took the form of distributing money, wine, and 
 food broadcast through the district, no one resented it. She 
 certainly was eccentric, this gaunt old lady: she made a 
 practice of walking at least ten miles every day of her life, 
 winter and summer alike, and the habit had reduced her to 
 an extraordinary leanness of person ; her clothes were always 
 too large for her, and her voice was harsh as a man's, through 
 constant exposure to wind and rain. But she was a lady, and 
 a soft-hearted one to boot, despite her gauntness and her 
 shabbiness ; and her one consuming pride lay in the fact that 
 the Lomaxes had held the Manor since Marshcotes was a 
 village, a matter of some five hundred odd years. 
 
 Kate Strangeways fell ill one spring, and Mrs. Lomax 
 chanced to drop in during one of her lengthy walks. 
 
 “ H’m," observed the old lady, as she rose to take her 
 
THE MOOR MAN COMES BACK TO HIS OWN. 3 
 
 leave, ‘‘you want fattening. Good red port is the thing for 
 you, and I shall bring you some to-morrow.” 
 
 “ Oh, there is nothing the matter with me ! ” protested the 
 sick woman. “ I won’t think of your troubling.” 
 
 “ Now, my dear, you are falling a victim to pride, which 
 is a bane. I have had my own way for sixty-three years, and 
 I shall not submit to dictation from a child of twenty-five. You 
 will see me again to-morrow.” 
 
 Strangeways looked black when he heard of the visit ; he 
 had no pride in the matter of accepting good red port — he 
 was, in fact, already drinking it in anticipation — but it was a 
 shock to him to learn that Mrs. Lomax and his wife had seen 
 as much of each other in the past as Kate admitted, in a 
 thoughtless moment, to have been the case. 
 
 “ Keep thyseln to thyseln, and let other fowk do th’ same ! ” 
 he growled, betaking himself to the kitchen sink for a wash. 
 
 Hannah, the maid-of-all-work, was washing a dishcloth when 
 Strangeways entered ; she was no friend of Kate’s, because 
 they both happened to be women with wills of their own, and 
 she never wearied of insinuating spokes into her mistress’s 
 wheel, 
 
 “ There’s a sight o’ fuss an’ clatter, to my thinking, when 
 some fowks is poorly,” she said, settling her square jaw into 
 firmer lines. “ Th’ missus, just becos she feels a bit out o’ sorts, 
 like, gets a notion that she’s going to dee : she mun hev this, 
 an’ she mun hev that, an’ Mrs. Lummax, th’ girt gawk, comes 
 an’ fal-lals her to th’ top on her bent, till there’s no doing nowt 
 wi’ her nohow. Gie me a man to live wi’, says I, what doesn’t 
 sicken becos his little finger hes a pimple on’t.” 
 
 “ Hod thy din, woman, an’ let me wash myseln ! ” mut- 
 tered Joe, thrusting her aside, and taking his place at the sink. 
 Hannah’s little speech, however, had had its effect, and Strange- 
 ways already found himself doubly aggrieved at the intrusion 
 of Mrs. Lomax into his home. “ There’ll no good come on 
 it,” he said, as he buried his brawny arms in the soapsuds : 
 “ what does she, a lady born, want to mak free an’ easy wi’ 
 my wife for ? Comes here for a cup o’ tea now an’ then, does 
 
4 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 she, when she gets tired o’ trapesing about th’ moor? Well, I’ll 
 be heving summat to say to that i’ a while.” 
 
 Mrs. Lomax, however, true to her word, brought a basket 
 of good things to Peewit House on the following morning ; and 
 the sight of two cobwebby bottles did much to put Strangeway s 
 in a better humour, when he came home at the end of the day’s 
 work. After the tea-things had been removed, he settled him- 
 self in the ingle nook, lit his pipe, and took one of the bottles 
 in his hand. 
 
 ‘‘ Tha needs summat sustaining, lass,” he observed, knock- 
 ing the bottle-neck against the mantel-shelf ; “ an’ happen I’ll 
 join thee, for fear tha should feel lonely, like.” 
 
 “You’re not to drink it, Joe; it was only meant just 
 for a glass now and then, and I won’t have Mrs. Lomax 
 put on.” 
 
 “ Oh, tha willun’t, willun’t tha ? We’ll see about that,” 
 retorted Joe, with grim levity. 
 
 He reached down a pewter mug from the wall, filled it to 
 the brim, and took a long gulp : then he passed it across to his 
 wife, but she refused to touch it. As the evening wore on, Joe 
 grew mellow with the unaccustomed vintage ; he opened the 
 second bottle, and Kate, having exhausted entreaty and abuse 
 alike, left him in disgust. She locked the bedroom door, as her 
 custom was at such times, and left her husband to pass the 
 night as best he could. 
 
 A few days later Mrs. Lomax dropped in again. 
 
 “ Now, my dear, are you feeling any better for the wine ? ” 
 she asked, in a voice that was more suited to a battle-field 
 than to an invalid’s room. “You’re not looking one scrap 
 better, at any rate. Come, have you obeyed my orders ? ” 
 
 Kate flushed. 
 
 “ I — I don’t care to drink it,” she stammered. 
 
 Mrs. Lomax glanced sharply at her; she had some 
 acquaintance with Joe Strangeways’ habits, and she read the 
 situation aright. 
 
 “ You must. Bring out a bottle this moment, and I shall 
 watch you drink two glasses at the least.” 
 
THE MOOR MAN COMES BACK TO HIS OWN. 5 
 
 Again the younger woman flushed, then grew pale with 
 shame ; she could answer nothing, with those two hawk-like 
 eyes looking through and through her. The old lady’s lips 
 took to themselves a grim smile. 
 
 “About what time does your husband return from his 
 work ? ” she demanded. 
 
 “ He leaves the quarries at the half after five — but — you 
 wouldn’t be thinking of saying anything, Mrs. Lomax ? ” 
 
 “ That is just what I am thinking of, my dear ; it is five 
 o’clock now, and I have not walked as much as I should like 
 to-day. I will go towards the quarries and give your husband 
 a straightforward piece of my mind. No, you need offer no 
 excuses for him ; when I make up my mind to a thing, I make 
 it up, and there is an end of it.” And with this the old lady 
 marched out at the door, her back stiffened, her right hand 
 flourishing the belligerent-looking stick which was her inseparable 
 companion. 
 
 Strangeways, crossing the dip in the moor this side the 
 quarries, was aware of a bony figure, three inches his master in 
 point of height, standing across his path. 
 
 “ Joe Strangeways, I want a word with you.” 
 
 Joe thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and tried to 
 assume an air of ease ; but he did not feel at home with the 
 situation. 
 
 “ Well, here I stand, my masterful lady ; I’m hearkening.” 
 
 “You have a wife who is a hundred times too good for 
 you ; she falls ill through no cause whatever but your treat- 
 ment of her, and then — you drink the wine which I brought to 
 strengthen her.” 
 
 “ It’s a lie ! ” cried Joe, his face blackening. 
 
 “Is it a lie, Joe Strangeways?” said the old lady, that 
 merciless eye of hers driving his own under shelter. 
 
 There was a pause; then, “Who tolled ye?” he blurted 
 out. “ War it Kate ? ” 
 
 “ No, it was not Kate. You think me mad, you people 
 hereabouts — oh yes, I know all about it — but, let me tell you, 
 I can see as far as my neighbours into the heart of a stone wall. 
 
6 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 I am not a fool, my man, and I guessed well enough what 
 would happen if a drunkard and a bottle came together.” 
 
 Joe's face grew blacker than ever. He half removed one 
 hairy fist from his pocket. 
 
 “ An' who are ye, I'd like to know, to come telling a man 
 he's a drunkard ? '' 
 
 Mrs. Lomax straightened herself and grasped her stick by 
 the middle. 
 
 “ I am a woman who can support her own opinions. Joe 
 Strangeways, I'm in two minds whether to give you a sound 
 thrashing or not.'' 
 
 Strangeways became limp. His mind was not quick of 
 movement, and this reversal of a natural law dazed his per- 
 ceptions ; the gaunt figure seemed to tower above him in a 
 way that was uncanny — even terrifying. 
 
 I will let you go this time, for your wife's sake,'' went on 
 the old lady, with grim pleasantry. “ I will give you another 
 chance ; but, mark my words — if you touch the next bottle of 
 port I bring, you will have to account to me for it.'' 
 
 Away she strode through the heather with that, and left the 
 man agape with wonder. 
 
 “ Begow,'' he muttered, “ she’s a limb of the devil, yon, an' 
 proper.” By the time he gained Peewit House he had realized 
 fully that he had been beaten by a woman, and a consuming 
 hatred took him by the throat. “ I’ll be even wi' her yet — by 
 God, I will .! ” he cried, as he stamped into the kitchen. But he 
 left all succeeding bottles of port severely alone. 
 
 Kate Strangeways got a little better when the summer came ; 
 but it was utter loss of heart from which she was suffering, and 
 there are few cures for that complaint. Joe had been gentler 
 in his treatment of her since the interview with Mrs. Lomax, 
 for the old lady was in and out of the house a great deal, and a 
 superstitious awe of her was gaining on Strangeways ; the more 
 he thought of her appearance on that memorable evening, the 
 more was he disposed to accredit her with Satanic powers — and 
 Joe, for all his bluster, was sorely afraid of the devil. 
 
 They were cutting the aftermath in the upland meadows, 
 
THE MOOR MAN COMES BACK TO HIS OWN. 7 
 
 and the heather was losing its purple, when Mrs. Lomax’s son 
 came home to Marshcotes. Griff Lomax had made his way in 
 the world by this time, as the hill-men are bound to do, once 
 ' they can persuade themselves to seek the valleys. He had 
 painted a score of pictures that had brought him popularity, 
 and two which had earned him something more : kindly elders, 
 whose opinions had not hardened into the grooves of their own 
 little techniques, said great things of his future, and regarded 
 even present performances with an instinctive laying-by of 
 critical acumen ; devoted youngsters, who kicked at the graver 
 and loved the lighter paintings, urged him to bid for the 
 Academy and creep into the easy-chairs reserved for Society 
 pets. And these same easy-chairs had shown an alluring soft- 
 ness for awhile. After the rough-and-tumble fellowship of moor 
 gales, there was a plausible imitation of comfort to Griff in the 
 tinkle of dainty tea-cups, the scent of delicate draperies, the 
 mincing mock-profundity of clever young men and women who 
 pelted their deepest passions with the mud of paradoxical 
 ^ phrasing. 
 
 It was ten years now since he had set off for London, with 
 a portfolio of crude moor sketches in his bag, and in his heart a 
 measureless yearning to conquer something. What the some- 
 ’ thing was, he neither knew nor cared to realize; perhaps he 
 
 r would win fame, perhaps love, or the gold that spelt “power” 
 
 — but, whatever direction his more settled desires might take, 
 he meant to conquer. The glare of the city-bound life, the 
 fv eager running to and fro in a laden atmosphere, the desperate, 
 I ' thin-lipped eagerness to shut down a trap-door on all that made 
 for dignity, or purpose, or enthusiasm — these things had dazzled 
 itj', him for awhile ; he had learned the strange tongue with a 
 quickness native to him, and he told himself from time to time 
 I';; that the wider life had opened before him. 
 
 But deep under all this there was a still, small voice that 
 would insist on a hearing now and then ; it was a voice more 
 powerful than conscience — the voice of an instinct — and it 
 1^; cursed him for a fool when he babbled of the wider life. For 
 five hundred years the Lomaxes, generation after generation. 
 
8 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 had grown to manhood with the taste of the peat in their 
 mouths, and the quickening heath-winds in their veins ; his 
 London folly was the folly of those who build their houses on 
 the lava of a sleeping volcano, and think themselves secure. 
 It was this underlying sense of honesty that roused Lomax, from 
 time to time, to endeavours which were worthy of him ; that 
 made him expose rough edges, sudden elemental passions, 
 to the startled gaze of the friends who thought they knew 
 him. 
 
 There was a little hothouse woman, named Sybil Ogilvie, 
 who had chained him with silk, and who enjoyed what was to 
 her merely a prudent flirtation with the tremulous zest of one 
 who is teaching a half-tamed bear to dance. To Lomax the 
 affair was not a flirtation — and, if it were not love, it hurt him 
 just as much as if it had been. Mrs. Ogilvie had a talent for 
 drawing out all that was paltry in a man, and a genius for 
 making him believe that she had touched his strongest 
 passions. 
 
 But the end had come at last. Griff Lomax began to be 
 restless under his yoke, contemptuous of the butterfly canvases 
 that won him flattery. The still, small voice of the moor grew 
 louder; he yearned for the wide-eyed hill-spaces, where the 
 heather was free to stretch away and away till it gained the far 
 sky-line ; the streets, the houses, the hurry and empty bustle of 
 chattering crowds, grew nauseous. He had dwelt among the 
 flesh-pots and loved them for a space, and had learned, once for 
 all, the sorry wisdom they had at command. He saw at last — 
 what his friends had seen from the first — that his passion for 
 Sybil Ogilvie was a pitiful chase after moonbeams. Without 
 a word of good-bye to her, he packed up his things and set 
 off for the North, and every swing of the coach set his heart 
 beating faster, because it carried him nearer home. 
 
 People had wondered at those two moor pictures of his, 
 which had shown him capable of depth. They could not 
 understand that indefinable something about them which set 
 people’s veins tingling as if they had been out in a gale from 
 the fresh north-west. The painter knew, though, what that 
 
THE MOOR MAN COMES BACK TO HIS OWN. 9 
 
 something ” was ; he had come to the heath that had 
 mothered him for more of it. And here he was, home 
 again at the old Manor House, aglow with the deep under- 
 love of his own moor folk and his old moor life. 
 
 He rushed into the Manor hall like a whirlwind, and took 
 that gaunt five-foot-ten of motherhood into his arms, and made 
 just as much of her as his heart prompted. 
 
 “ Yes, Griff, you will do ; you will do very well. I am 
 proud of you,’' said Mrs. Lomax, standing away from him, and 
 revelling in the sight of a son who found it necessary to stoop 
 to the level of her lips. 
 
 “ And I am proud of you, mother — proud, too, of the moors 
 that reared us both. You can’t tell how lifted I felt as I 
 came up the rickety main street, with the old Black Bull at 
 the top. Mother, what fools people are ! They wonder 
 where I get my inspiration, and they would never believe if I 
 told them.” 
 
 “It doesn’t signify, Griff; you and I know, don’t we? 
 Now, how long are you going to give me? I don’t mean to 
 » let you go under a month.” 
 
 “ I want to winter here, if you will let me ; a whole year 
 I have been away, and now I am to have a spell of 
 home.” 
 
 “ Thank you for that word home^ dear. You are sound at 
 the core, I think. Griff.” 
 
 “ But rotten in the rind, eh, mother ? It sounds rather as 
 if you meant that.” 
 
 Again the old lady surveyed him critically. “ No, you are 
 moor-oak from bark to heart — in spite of the feeble women 
 you have been painting lately. I wish your father were alive 
 to see you. Griff.” 
 
 “You’ll turn my head, foolish mother. Give me something 
 to eat, instead of naming me in the same breath with father ; it 
 is a long stride to thatr 
 
 He followed her into the kitchen, with its polished dish- 
 covers on the wall, its sand on the floor, its glorious old fire- 
 place, big enough for ten ordinary fires. He teased Rebecca, 
 
lO 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 the cook, into mock indignation, as he had done time and 
 again in years gone by. He tickled the tail of the tom-cat 
 that lay dozing on the hearth, and laughed like a boy when the 
 grizzled old fellow awoke and spat at him. 
 
 “ Now, Becky, I want a really square meal — a downright, 
 Yorkshire meal,” he cried. “ You have a remarkably fine ham 
 there ; down with it, and cut me some slices. As many eggs 
 as you like. Oat-cake, too — yes, I must have oat-cake and 
 cheese to finish with. Phew, mother, it’s good to be 
 back ! ” 
 
 When the meal was over, and Griff had smoked a couple of 
 pipes in the ingle-nook ; when the mother and he had fired off 
 questions and answers at each other, and had taken joy of their 
 being together once more, Griff rose and bent over the old 
 lady. 
 
 “ May I go out and have a chat with the moors ? I won’t 
 be long away,” he laughed. 
 
 “ Of course. Griff. I have no say in the matter, really, 
 have I ? ” responded the mother, with a lover-like affectation of 
 pique. 
 
 “ In that case I won’t go.” 
 
 “ Nonsense, boy ! Off with you, and don’t stay longer than 
 you can help. Will I come with you? Certainly not ! You 
 want to have your chat in private; two’s company, and I 
 shall have my revenge when you return. Away with 
 you ! ” 
 
 Yes, Griff did want his talk with the moor to be a private 
 one. As he crossed the churchyard, and followed the path 
 through a couple of pasture fields, and up the narrow lane that 
 led to the first of the heather, he was full of anxious eagerness. 
 Would the old holy places be holy still ? Would that change- 
 less, everlasting sweep of brown and grey speak to his heart as 
 it once had done ? He had been blind ; he had roved among 
 lighter allegiances — how if the moor were sick of his incon- 
 stancy, and would stretch out no hand of fellowship ? 
 
 But all that passed. The heath admits few to its friendship, 
 but it never falters in its choice. 
 
THE MOOR MAN COMES BACK TO HIS OWN. 11 
 
 As Griff swung over the rise, past the rubble heaps thrown 
 out by the quarries; as he saw the well-remembered undu- 
 lations of heather and marsh-land and peat, he knew that 
 he was taken home again. The old swift thrill ran through 
 him : strength restrained, pathos that scorned to voice itself, 
 roughness that hid a mighty, yearning tenderness — he under- 
 stood it all, felt it all, as he had done in the days of his 
 freedom. 
 
 No words can touch this feeling a moor man has for his 
 country ; it is a religion he never seeks to express — a vitality 
 that helps him to do his work in the world. 
 
 Up against the furthest sky-line, showing gallows-black 
 athwart the sunset, stood the threefold timbers of a rotting 
 crane, dismantled long ago when the quarry ceased working. 
 Perhaps no other details of the landscape seem more to 
 express the whole than these gaunt creatures of wood : 
 wherever a Marshcotes man sets eye on a quarry-crane 
 climbing into the sky, he thinks of the Marshcotes moor and 
 the soughing of wind through the heather. 
 
 A fat old grouse got up as Lomax approached, and winged 
 its way towards the sunset. Griff, wondering if he had for- 
 gotten his ancient cunning, dropped into a clump of crowberry 
 bushes and imitated the call of the hen. Soon a second cock 
 grouse came whirring across the moor — but towards him this 
 time, not away from him — and responded in a hoarse bass. 
 Griff tried his voice at all the signals — warning and invitation, 
 desperate love and the preliminaries of a mere flirtation ; and 
 the cock bird was taken in by them all. 
 
 Griff laughed, in a round, wholesome way, as he rose to his 
 feet again. It was only the London life that had passed away. 
 He stood for a long while gazing into the wonderful sunset 
 flames : from south to north the sweep of colour stretched 
 itself, and a little north of west the half of a ruddy sun was 
 taking its farewell of the heath. He watched till the red sun- 
 rim had altogether gone, till the orange had faded to yellow, 
 and the yellow to grey ; till the dips in the moor plateau were 
 filled with a mystical gloom which seemed to well upward from 
 
12 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 the peat, rather than downward from the sky ; till the rotting 
 crane, that stood on the verge of the under-world, grew ghost- 
 like and dim as the twilight deepened to the hue of its own 
 black timbers. 
 
 And still the old love was the new. Still the moor reached 
 out a lover’s arms to Griff, and held him close to her breast. 
 He was a moor man again. 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PERVERSION OF GABRIEL HIRST. 
 
 A MILE and a half due west of Marshcotes, on the highroad 
 that takes you straight to the Lancashire border, lies another 
 village — little more than an overgrown hamlet it is — which is 
 just as compact as its neighbour is straggling. Marshcotes 
 runs down one hill and up another, branching off into queer 
 little streets on the way : but Ling Crag stands square to the 
 moor-top winds, and gets a sight of the sun long after the 
 shelter-seeking Marshcotes houses are greying with twilight. 
 
 To this day they are a people to themselves, the villagers of 
 Ling Crag, and, though you come but a league's distance from 
 their boundaries, they account you a foreigner. Slow to speak 
 well of a neighbour, and quick to help him in need ; keen as 
 can be when a bargain is toward ; more respectful to their con- 
 ceptions of tangible, everyday duty than to class distinctions ; 
 assured, beyond reach of doubt or argument, that their village 
 is the hub of the universe — of such sort are the people of Ling 
 Crag. 
 
 A generation or two ago, however, they were a rougher folk 
 than now, leading rougher lives. A soul-searching, hell- 
 fearing Methodism was the dominant note of their existence ; 
 and Methodism has ever since been a vital force with them, 
 though it has changed with the change it has wrought in the 
 people. With their rugged strength, their fearlessness of pur- 
 pose, it was only natural that religion, when first it came into 
 the midst of their wild, strenuous lives, should fit itself in a 
 measure to the soil. They were harsh by example of the winds 
 and the storms that had reared them, generation after generation. 
 
14 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 and the religion that sought to teach them must also be harsh in 
 its precepts. So their preachers went in and out, and spoke the 
 language of the folk they had to deal with, and led them, little 
 by little, into the quieter places of charity and long-suffering. 
 But Ling Crag was young to religion then, and fear was the 
 larger part of their faith. They were much addicted to super- 
 stition, too, these upland folk; and when they sinned, they 
 sinned with groanings of the spirit and retrospective shakings 
 of the head at the old Adam who was responsible for 
 it all. 
 
 There is one biggish house in Ling Crag, planted down 
 shoulder to shoulder with its cottage neighbours. It stands on 
 the right hand of the road as you come from Marshcotes ; the 
 strip of front garden, with its boundary wall, round-topped 
 and sombre, gives it an air that narrowly escapes haughtiness 
 by contrast with the other dwellings in the hamlet. The 
 Hirsts had lived here almost as long as the Lomaxes had 
 held Marshcotes Manor.. They were roysterers once, and the 
 family fortunes were like to evaporate in cards and drink and 
 horseflesh, when old Tom Hirst, luckily for his only son, “ took 
 religion ’’ — took it whole-heartedly : he pondered hourly upon 
 his latter end, and fell to crying loud “ Aniens ’’ in Ebenezer 
 Chapel whenever a gathering was toward, and laboured hard 
 to bring up Gabriel, the child of his old age, in the way of 
 godliness. Gabriel was born just when the reformation heat 
 was strongest, and old Hirst, in the choice of his son’s name, 
 thought to hall-mark him for life with the brand of piety. At 
 ten the boy had already learned to believe himself singled out 
 by the Almighty, with peculiar care, for the receipt of punish- 
 ment ; had learnt to pray against the lusts of the flesh ; had 
 learnt to feel himself the loathliest and most persistent sinner 
 of all God’s creatures. As he grew up, he trained himself 
 more and more to pit his gaining strength against the devil, 
 and wrestled mightily by night and day. 
 
 Old Tom died, and his wife followed him a twelvemonth 
 after ; and Gabriel, each time that he stood by the grave-side in 
 the wind-swept burial-ground, longed to bury his own flesh also 
 
THE PERVERSION OF GABRIEL HIRST. 
 
 15 
 
 out of sight ; the worms of earth, it seemed to him, were gentler 
 than that other Worm that dieth not, and longer life meant but 
 a longer space in which to sin. But Heaven shut its ears to his 
 prayers, and would not give him that coveted six-by-three of 
 rest. He walked in perpetual fear — a fear that sometimes 
 wrung the sweat from his body — and could lay his hands to 
 nothing ; he could only stride restlessly across the sheep-tracks 
 of the moor, or ride like a madman along the naked upland 
 highways. He avoided chapel and the society of his fellows, 
 feeling himself a leper among clean men ; he was like to go 
 mad from isolation and self-commune. 
 
 It was then that the Wesleyan minister at Marshcotes got 
 hold of him, and drew him a comforting picture of the joys of 
 being saved. He went to a Revival ; he heard men and women 
 all about him crying on God that they were saved — others 
 groaning in the throes of their final wrestling-bout with the 
 Adversary — others again laughing with hysterical delight. His 
 soul kindled to the spiritual fire. He felt himself lifted on 
 mighty pinions ; the sound of swinging chants of praise was in 
 his ears, the swirl of countless rushing angels fanned his 
 cheeks. He closed his eyes, and a great sob broke from him. 
 He was saved. 
 
 From that day onward he began to preach; his long 
 experience of such sort of fight lent him substance for his 
 sermons, and his inborn strenuousness of character made an 
 orator of him. He did not join the regular ministry, but 
 became established as a local preacher. His fame, little by 
 little, grew big among the congregations of such chapels as 
 lay on the line of his quarterly circuit, till in time “ Gabriel 
 Hirst” grew to be a name to conjure with. All Marshcotes 
 and Cranshaw, every scattered hamlet for miles around, knew 
 Gabriel “by sight and by speech,” and the Ling Crag folk 
 were mightily proud of their preacher. Things have altered 
 with Methodism since then, but in those days it was a matter 
 of course that Gabriel should have a special band of admirers 
 who would go as far even as Ludworth to hear him preach on 
 a Sunday morning. So devoted, indeed, was the preacher’s 
 
i6 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 following,” that it was much as if he had a regular congre- 
 gation of his own ; whether he held forth in Ling Crag or 
 Marshcotes, Ludworth or Cranshaw, always the same knot of 
 familiars grouped themselves round the chapel doors after 
 service, and estimated to a nicety the amount of Gabriel’s 
 recent inspiration. Indeed, when the fire of certain newly- 
 roused passions began to drive him into the wilderness, the 
 change might be gauged with tolerable accuracy by listening 
 to such comments on his sermons. 
 
 If. a young man were reluctant to amend his ways, or a 
 maiden showed herself over-flighty, Gabriel Hirst’s sermons 
 were the infallible remedy. He could invoke the thunders of 
 God, and paint hell-fire, with greater vigour than any of his 
 fellows, and even the most careless of sinners quailed before 
 his description of the judgment in store for them. Perhaps 
 the maidens of Ling Crag were less satisfied with the preacher 
 than his piety warranted. He was well off, ‘‘ straight set up,” 
 and had good looks of a rugged kind. Had he asked one 
 of them to marry him, she would probably have given favour- 
 able consideration to the proposal. But Gabriel scarcely 
 seemed to understand that they were women. They might 
 don their best hats and infuse rough coquetry into their glances, 
 but he was not aware of it ; they were just fellow-sufferers with 
 himself in a world whose keynote was original sin, and they 
 gained interest in his eyes only through the effort that was 
 necessary to keep them in the right path. 
 
 Yet, underneath it all, Gabriel Hirst had the faults and the 
 virtues of his own folk developed to their furthest extremes. 
 The old moor blood, pagan to its last drop, was quick in his 
 veins. Reared to the conviction that he had a ‘‘call,” he 
 strove night and day to keep the spirit working within him, 
 strove to deaden the voice of the moor wind at his ear and the 
 cry of remoter fathers in his heart. He was a strong man, and 
 a passionate man, and for the five years since his first sermon 
 he had, with an energy almost savage, forced his strength into 
 the service of his religion. 
 
 For the rest, Gabriel was a gentleman farmer, who delegated 
 
THE PERVERSION OF GABRIEL HIRST. 
 
 17 
 
 most of his work in this direction to one Jose Binns, a godly, 
 lean-flanked man, who was wont to class Betty his wife, the 
 master, and the uncertainty of hay-crops, all as dire responsi- 
 bilities sent to him by the Lord as a punishment for his over- 
 whelming sinfulness. Yet Jose managed the farm excellently, 
 and was a rare hand at “ selling or swopping a beast.” 
 
 Griff Lomax and the preacher had run about the country- 
 side together as boys, and many a time of late, when Lomax 
 came home to the Manor for his brief spells of holiday, 
 Gabriel had striven to save him as a brand from the burning. 
 London, the devil, and an artistic life were synonymous to 
 Gabriel Hirst, and it was torture to him to think that the friend 
 of his boyhood was going the way of perdition. He loved 
 Griff, now that they had left boyhood well behind, with a 
 certain wild adoration which no effort could stifle ; and, just as 
 he prayed his hardest and painted hell in its most vivid colours 
 when the yearning for freedom was strongest upon him, so he 
 would avoid Lomax for a week at a time, would refuse to walk 
 across to Marshcotes in search of him until he was persuaded 
 that he had a genuine call to attempt conversion once again. 
 
 On the Friday after Griffs return for the winter, the 
 preacher caught sight of him at a bend of the road that ran 
 from Marshcotes to Ling Crag. He hastily slipped under 
 shelter of a barn and let him pass. He dared not go out to 
 meet him, because the desire was too strong upon him ; but 
 when he reached home, and learned from Betty Binns, his 
 housekeeper, that Griff had been in search of him, he sorrowed 
 over the meeting which he had lost of his own free will. Then 
 he dined off tea and dry bread, lest the Adversary should turn 
 stronger food to his own ends, and set off in the rain, and 
 walked the moors for six hours. When he returned, his 
 Sunday morning’s sermon was prepared. 
 
 With Sunday the short Michaelmas summer began ; the 
 clouds had been squeezed dry of rain, and the morning was 
 clear and fresh. Gabriel was down on the circuit plan to preach 
 both morning and evening at the Ling Crag Chapel. 
 
 He preached for fifty minutes in the morning — preached 
 
 c 
 
i8 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 himself into a frenzy — thundered and bellowed and cried from 
 the little pulpit of unpolished deal, until his hearers felt the 
 leaven of damnation working to their finger-tips. 
 
 “ Eh, but it war grand, grand ! ” passed from mouth to 
 mouth, as the congregation gathered round the door after 
 service. 
 
 The softer sort of Methodists were to be found here and 
 there ; but these rarely lifted their voices after service, being 
 quiet men and women who did not care to entangle them- 
 selves in argument. 
 
 This morning, however, the harsher spirits were not having 
 things all their own way. Old Jose Binns had just had his say 
 about the sermon. 
 
 “ There’s a deal o comfort i’ listening to the likes o’ yon,’ 
 he had said, in his tone of grudging praise. “Ye could see 
 by th’ face on him ’at t’ Sperrit war moving him, an’ proper. 
 There’s not a mony like Gabriel hereabouts.” 
 
 “ He can preach, can th’ lad, an’ there’s no denying it,” 
 spoke up a tall, spare man on the outskirts of the group. 
 “ But’s he’s ower young, to my thinking, to ponder so mich on 
 th’ dark side o’ this world an’ th’ next, an’ niver gie us a taste 
 o’ th’ gooid there is about. He mud be softer by th’ half, an’ 
 niver be th’ war for ’t.” 
 
 Old Binns screwed up his mouth a shade tighter. 
 
 “We’re hard folk up here, Ebenezer, an’ softness is nowt 
 i’ our way.” 
 
 “ Hard folk we be, an’ all th’ more call there is for a bit 
 o’ softness now an’ again. If religion warn’t gi’en us to soften 
 our hearts, what mak o’ use is ’t, Jose Binns?” 
 
 “Ay, ay, tha’rt right there,” chimed in another voice. 
 “Ye mark my words, lads. I’m fourscore year an’ ower, 
 an’ I’ve seen what I’ve seen, an’ I tell ye, there’ll a day 
 come when all this shutting up o’ th’ gooid side o’ human 
 natur — fair as if ’twere summat to be shamed on — ’ull pass 
 away for gooid an’ all. Ye willun’t listen to th’ preachers ’at 
 wants to leM instead o’ frightening ye, though we’ve a mony 
 as ’ud be glad for ye to hear ’em. Ye mun ha’ nowt but 
 
THE PERVERSION OF GABRIEL HIRST. 
 
 19 
 
 judgment an’ wrath, an’ ye willun’t bide owt softer. What do 
 Gabriel Hirst know o’ th’ better side o’ things ? He’s nobbut 
 a kittling yet, as hes niver known th’ love of a woman.” 
 
 “Shame on thee, shame on thee!” growled Jose Binns. 
 “An old man like thee to be talking o’ love an’ sich-like 
 lightness, when a man o’ God has just been telling thee to 
 shun th’ sinful flesh an’ all its warks. Dost call thyseln a 
 Methodist ? ” 
 
 “ Ay, lad ; I call myseln a Methodist, an’ there’s nowt i’ th’ 
 doctrine what forbids a man to see th’ gooid i’ hisseln as well 
 as th’ bad. Thee bide till th’ little pracher hes getten his hand 
 round th’ heft of a straight love for a woman — they’re th’ best 
 that God has gi’en us, is women, when all’s said — an’ tha’ll 
 find his praching summat godlier, like, nor it hes been.” 
 
 “Women!” said Jose Binns, turning down the corners of 
 his wry old mouth. 
 
 “ Women’s better nor th’ men, ony way,” put in Mrs. Binns, 
 sharply. “An’ what call hast tha, Jose, to go making fooil’s 
 faces at thy own wedded wife? I’ve a mind to dress thy 
 jacket for thee, that I hev.” 
 
 Old Binns retreated into the background a little; he no 
 longer felt a prophet in his own country. And a laugh went 
 up from the group, and they fell to talking of this and that, in 
 a hushed. Sabbath fashion. 
 
 But the preacher saw no one, heard no one. He staggered 
 out of the graveyard and into the road. He turned through 
 an open gate on his left, and crossed some scanty, sheep- 
 shaven pasture land; the half-starved sheep looked blankly 
 at him, and a bare-ribbed cow stared at him in surprise over 
 a neighbouring wall. Gabriel Hirst awoke to reality ; he saw 
 the sunlight on the ridges, and the warm shadows in the hollows ; 
 he felt the fresh wind on his face; he heard the call of a 
 linnet from a village garden behind him : and one and all 
 were agony to the would-be man of God. He felt himself full 
 of the lusts of the flesh — a vague, idealistic flesh whose 
 boundaries were infinite, whose sinfulness knew no limits ; he 
 could not understand the sunshine, save as a light to search 
 
20 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 out his own evil-doing; and he magnified his worthlessness, 
 because he could remember no tangible sin by which to reduce 
 his wild imaginings to a sober standard. 
 
 He went through a gap in the wall which confronted 
 him, and stood looking dreamily down on a little wooded 
 dell, through which a moor stream bubbled its way to the 
 river. On a sudden his body grew rigid, his eyes lost their 
 glow of introspection and fixed themselves on a rounded basin 
 of the stream. A girl was paddling in the water, and was 
 singing a love-ballad, in a rich, south-country voice that con- 
 trasted oddly with her northern surroundings. 
 
 The preacher pressed one hand close upon his heart, and 
 let his eyes note the slender lines of the girl’s figure, fast ripen- 
 ing towards womanhood. She seemed fresh and sweet as the 
 wind and sun and water that played with her. Gabriel Hirst 
 looked at the lassie’s face, and his pulses leaped to a new delight. 
 He lost his rigid set of body, and stretched out both arms wide 
 to the moors ; this was his apology for past misrepresentations. 
 
 Down the steep hillside he went, stumbling into rabbit- 
 holes, pricking his ankles with thistle-needles, falling and picking 
 himself up again. The girl became aware of an intruder : she 
 glanced up the hill, and left the water, and seated herself on 
 a pine-log that lay beside the stream. By the time that Gabriel 
 Hirst had reached the brook and jumped it, her little white feet 
 were safely under cover. He stopped ; the inspiration that 
 had led him here was at an end, and he had no knowledge of 
 the things that young men say to maidens. 
 
 “ Why didn’t you turn back when you saw me ? ” demanded 
 the girl. A red flush, of shame and anger mixed, had risen to 
 her cheeks. 
 
 Not a word spoke Gabriel Hirst. His late fervour at the 
 chapel, his lifetime of repression and battling against the vital 
 part of himself, seemed to have been swept clear away ; he 
 could do nothing but wonder at this new-found form of Grace. 
 
 She laughed, a little, musical, defiant laugh. 
 
 ‘‘ I thought I was safe for a good half-hour yet, Mr. Hirst. 
 You keep them so long at chapel when you preach, and I 
 
THE PERVERSION OF GABRIEL HIRST. 
 
 21 
 
 counted on that. Besides, I was only watching the path up 
 the Dene ; no one ever comes the way you came just novvr.” 
 
 He winced, and the girl laughed again. 
 
 ‘‘ I — I preached for close on an hour,” he said slowly. 
 
 ‘‘ Gracious ! I’m glad I was not there. But is it really 
 so late ? Time seems to pass so quickly, when one is being 
 a sinner.” 
 
 sinner I"" gasped the preacher. It had been so clear, 
 a moment ago, that sin was at an end ; and now the old battle- 
 cries were beginning to ring in his ears ; they clashed with that 
 rounded, human laugh. 
 
 “ Did you preach well ? ” she asked, after a pause. There 
 was irony in her tones. 
 
 The preacher passed a hand across his eyes, and 
 shuddered. 
 
 ‘‘ I — thought so — at the time,” he murmured. 
 
 ‘‘Ah, well, I have missed something, then. Some day — 
 when the sunshine is gone — I am coming to hear you. You 
 are in love with Hell,' aren’t you ? ” 
 
 In that moment Gabriel feared, not for his retreating faith, 
 but for the girl’s safety. The years were slow to loosen their 
 hold on him, and he could not see how impiety — childish 
 though it was — could escape the summary vengeance of Heaven. 
 But nothing happened to the* girl-woman who was seated on 
 the pine-log, her feet gathered under her skirts ; and the preacher 
 breathed more freely. Old habit rushed in, and the words 
 slipped out of his mouth. 
 
 “Greta Rotherson,” said he, “are you prepared to die? 
 Have you ever thought of eternal flames ” 
 
 “Ready to die? Not a bit. I’m much too fond of 
 life.” 
 
 Gabriel Hirst could find no answer. But he looked at her 
 face, and he knew she could 77iean no wrong. 
 
 “ Can I come to see you ? ” he said abruptly. 
 
 “ Come to see us ? Yes. We are dull in this stupid village 
 of yours, where every one looks on us with suspicion, just 
 because we come from the south. But — Mr. Hirst — you won’t 
 
22 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 mind my saying something ? Her tone was graver now, 
 almost supplicating. “ Father doesn't want to be converted, 
 and he won't see you if you insist upon it. Do you understand ? 
 Come just as a friend, and talk like — like a man." 
 
 Without knowing it, she had protruded one white and coral 
 foot beyond the protecting skirt. Gabriel Hirst saw it, and 
 stood irresolute. Then he cried — a bitter, stifled cry, as of 
 a dumb creature in pain — and raced for his life down the bank. 
 At the end of the wood he ran into the arms of Griff Lomax. 
 
 “ Hallo, what brings you here ? Why, man, you look as if 
 you had seen a ghost ! " cried Griff. 
 
 The preacher was not so strong as he once had been. Tea 
 and bread, his exclusive diet for days at a time, were beginning 
 to tell on him. The excitement of the sermon, the more 
 violent frenzy that had followed it, the clean pair of heels 
 which he had finally shown to temptation, all had their effect. 
 He was breathless, and the sweat was trickling down his face. 
 His body was shaking as with ague. He leaned heavily against 
 a gate ; Griff saw that his eyes looked hunted. 
 
 “ I've lost my ghosts, Lomax," he said brokenly. “ They 
 were what I lived by ; my father handed them down to me, and 
 I never thought to let them go. I can't see them any more. 
 Griff — the Spirit coming down with a sweep of wings, and the 
 Avenging Angel with a bloody sword in his hands, and the red 
 hell flames licking at the unclean lips of the evil doers. They're 
 lost — all lost." 
 
 He left the gate and began to pace up and down the path. 
 Lomax put a strong arm through his. 
 
 “You're talking nonsense, old fellow ! " he said quietly. 
 
 The preacher grew calmer for a while ; the muscular grip 
 on his arm, and the big voice telling him not to be a fool, gave 
 him a childish feeling of security. He let his friend take him 
 up through the wood and out among the moors on the other 
 side ; he opened his mouth wide and drank in great gulps of 
 the wind. Then, on a sudden, he remembered the full measure 
 of his sinning, and he shut his mouth with a click, and he 
 groaned in bitterness of spirit. 
 
THE PERVERSION OF GABRIEL HIRST. 
 
 23 
 
 “ he said gravely, “ you don’t know what I’ve done. 
 
 I came out of the chapel wrestling with the Devil : man, I could 
 hear God rebuking me for my sins one minute and cheering 
 me on to the fight the next. And then — I fell away. I saw 
 a woman’s face, and I lost every other thought, and I tumbled 
 down the hillside like a madman.” 
 
 Lomax gave a low mutter of surprise ; he glanced sharply 
 at the other’s face, and saw that remorse was cutting deep 
 furrows across the brow and beneath the eyes. 
 
 “But that is not the worst,” went on the preacher, with 
 desperate calm. “ I listened to the woman’s voice, talking of 
 Hell as if — as if it was a joke, almost ; and I felt no anger, I 
 was only afraid that Heaven would strike her dead, and take 
 her out of my reach. Man, it’s fearful, fearful ! I tried to 
 rebuke her — when fear for her life had passed — but the words 
 might as well have come out of a tin kettle, for all the 
 heart that went with them. I can’t believe any longer, 
 Lomax.” 
 
 The preacher’s agony was so real, and it was all about 
 so trifling a matter from his friend’s standpoint, that Griff 
 could have laughed aloud. That a man should have come 
 to Hirst’s age, and be frightened by one overmastering impulse 
 of love — surely there was something absurdly askew in it. 
 But he did not laugh : he just tightened his grip of the other’s 
 arm, and — 
 
 “ Gabriel Hirst,” said he, “ you’ve been preaching too 
 much and eating too little. You’re going to listen to me now, 
 whether you like it or not. I take my painting about as 
 seriously as you take your religion ; I eat it, and live it, and 
 breathe it every moment of my life.” 
 
 The preacher made a faint murmur of protest, but Griff’s 
 hand crushed it out of him, still-born. 
 
 “Sometimes, old fellow, I paint too much, just as you 
 have been preaching too much; and I lose my faith in art, 
 
 I go about like a lunatic, and I think perdition has found me 
 at last.” 
 
 “ Perdition has never had far to seek for you, and more’s 
 
24 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 the pity.” Gabriel Hirst was beginning to tingle with fight 
 again — which was just what the other wanted. 
 
 Not my perdition ; that only comes near when Fve been 
 playing the fool with myself. I try not to be a muff at these 
 times. Hirst ; I go out, and walk or ride, till I can do nothing 
 but stumble into bed and sleep the clock round. I generally 
 get up healthy r 
 
 “ You mean — you mean that Fm being a muff? ” asked the 
 preacher, in surprise. There was no resentment in his tones. 
 
 “ Yes ; thaf s just about it. Have you to preach to-night ? ” 
 
 “ I have ; though God knows Fm not fit to do it.” 
 
 Then straight home you come with me. Mother will look 
 to it that you don’t feed off skim-milk and a crust of bread. 
 You’ll preach to-night. Hirst — better than ever you did in your 
 life.” 
 
 Again the preacher tried to fight, but he was exhausted ; he 
 could only follow the lead of this overmastering pagan. Mrs. 
 Lomax was sitting down to dinner when they came in. 
 
 ‘‘ I had given you up. Griff,” she said. “ You are never to 
 be depended on when once you get to the moors, and I was too 
 hungry to wait. Gabriel, I am glad to see you; what have 
 you been doing to your face ? It looks like an old man’s.” 
 
 ‘‘ He’s been fasting, mother, and overworking himself. I put 
 him in your hands ; I don’t think you will let him starve, much 
 as he wants to.” 
 
 “No, I don’t think I shall,” responded the old lady, 
 grimly. 
 
 Gabriel Hirst’s father and Griffs father had been close 
 friends ; dissimilarity of outlook upon every aspect of life had 
 brought them together, just as it had brought the sons together. 
 On both counts — the son’s and the father’s — Mrs. Lomax was 
 warmly disposed towards Gabriel. 
 
 So he sat down, and ate meekly, as he was bidden, of 
 strong meat and apple-pie and cheese. He drank two glasses 
 of good red port ; fain would he have asserted himself on this 
 matter, but Mrs. Lomax reminded him of Timothy, and he was 
 altogether too bewildered to do battle on a point of Scripture. 
 
THE PERVERSION OF GABRIEL HIRST. 
 
 25 
 
 Greta Rotherson, when the preacher disappeared at the 
 corner of the wood, had laughed a little, and frowned a good 
 deal, and had finally put on her stockings and boots. “ I wish 
 he had never come,’' she cried. “ It is such a quiet nook, and 
 no one has disturbed me before. I like Gabriel Hirst, though, 
 for all his hardness and his dangling of hell before poor old 
 father’s eyes. Hardness ? ” She laughed again at that, softly 
 and musically; for she remembered how the preacher had 
 looked at her a few minutes ago. He only wants taking in 
 hand by — ^by a woman who isn’t afraid ; he’s not a fool at the 
 bottom of him.” 
 
 Then she tossed her hair back from her forehead and went 
 briskly up the wooded cleft of the hills, until she reached a 
 weather-stained corn-mill. The great wooden wheel was 
 creaking intermittently on its axle, as if the jar and fret of 
 work-a-day motion were more to its liking than this enforced 
 Sabbath rest. Old Rotherson, the miller, with his iron-grey 
 hair and shrewd, clean-shaven face, was smoking a churchwarden 
 pipe at his door ; the bees had deserted the heather once more 
 in favour of his bit of a garden, and a peacock-butterfly was 
 sunning itself on the house wall. It was hard to believe that 
 the Storm-God had his temple so near to this sheltered cranny 
 of the moors. 
 
 “Well, Greta, lass, have you paddled to your heart’s 
 content?” cried the old man, as his daughter came in 
 sight. 
 
 “ Yes, father — and a little more. Gabriel Hirst came down 
 the hillside before I had finished, and he would stop to talk. I 
 had to sit on a log with my legs tucked up under me, and 
 I nearly got cramp before I rid myself of him.” 
 
 The miller chuckled quietly to his churchwarden. 
 
 “ He’d never have noticed, child, so you might have spared 
 yourself the trouble. Was he as sour as ever ? ” 
 
 Greta turned her head to watch the peacock butterfly on the 
 wall. Her dimpled cheeks grew rosy. 
 
 “ Not quite, father. He wanted to know if he could come 
 to see us.” 
 
26 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Lass, lass, I wish folks would let a man’s soul alone. What 
 did you say ? ” groaned the miller. 
 
 “ That we were proof against conversion, and sick of it. 
 That he might come as a friend if he cared to, and we’d give 
 him a hearty welcome.” 
 
 “ Good, good ! ” muttered the old man, approvingly. “ But 
 I doubt him, Greta ; he’ll never be able to keep his tongue oif 
 that subject for long.”; 
 
 “ Well, we shall see. There’s Nancy, father, coming to tell 
 us that dinner is ready. I’m ready, too ; put down your pipe, 
 dear.” 
 
 When Gabriel Hirst mounted the pulpit of Ebenezer chapel 
 that evening, he felt none of the old red-hot lava of damnation 
 rising to his lips ; he was strangely calm, and at peace with this 
 world and the next ; the thought of little children was running, 
 like a silver thread, through every working of his mind. Decent 
 food and a couple of glasses of honest wine had much to do 
 with it ; re-action after his two wild extremes of the morning 
 counted for a good deal ; but more powerful than either had 
 been those two hours he spent at Marshcotes Manor, under the 
 influence of Griff’s cheery optimism and Mrs. Lomax’s sane, 
 practical grip of things. He was just about to give out his text 
 when there was a clatter of hob-nailed boots on the stone floor, 
 and he saw old Binns, who was caretaker of the little chapel, 
 showing Greta Rotherson into a seat near the pulpit. For one 
 moment his heart leaped into his mouth, and he thought that it 
 would be impossible to get the words out ; but he looked at 
 Greta steadily, and his passion of the morning was gone, and he 
 wondered that the girl’s presence should seem to round off some 
 hitherto incomplete ideas. As Griff had prophesied, he 
 preached better than he had ever done in his life : there was no 
 wild denunciation, no fever-heat of appeal, as in other sermons ; 
 it was all clear, and crisp, and kindly; above all, it was 
 convincing. 
 
 Greta Rotherson paused now and then, on her way out of 
 chapel, to hear the scattered comments of the villagers. Some 
 were glad of the glimpse which had been given them of a 
 
THE PERVERSION OF GABRIEL BURST. 
 
 27 
 
 better life than their daily round of hardness and care afforded. 
 Others did not like their preacher under his new aspect ; they 
 had too long been supplied with strong stuff to descend willingly 
 to fare on which only women and children could be expected 
 to thrive. 
 
 ‘‘ Well, Fm saying that Gabriel Hirst is noan th' man he 
 war this morning,” said one. “ He’s like as he’s lost all fire ; 
 not a word o’ warm hell-fire did he gie us, an’ that’s noan like 
 Gabriel.” 
 
 “ Thee hod thy whisht for a while,” broke in another. He 
 war powerful moved this morning, an’ it doan’t stan’ to reason 
 ’at th’ Sperrit will wark i’ a man fro’ morn to neet. Let him 
 bide; he’ll ingather some thunder o’ th’ Lord afore another 
 week comes round.” 
 
 “ Ay, but summat hes come to Gabriel sin’ th’ morning,” 
 said an old woman, with a dry laugh. “ I see’d him forebye th’ 
 owd corn-mill after his preaching so; fine and large about th’ 
 lusts o’ t’ flesh. Miller Rotherson’s daughter — ye marked her 
 i’ chapel mebbe, to-neet ? — war alongside of him, and he war 
 just gaaping an’ gaaping at her doll’s face of a woman. 
 Gabriel is noan th’ man he war, to my thinking.” 
 
 “ Well, now, I did think this morning, while he war fair 
 agate wi’ his praching, an’ th’ words came out as thick as 
 chaff at threshing-time, I did think he warn’t exactly what he 
 hed been. Ay, ay, it’s a sad to-do when a man o’ God goes 
 speering after a pretty wench. An’ her noan Ling Crag born, 
 nawther. Nay, I misdoubt th’ lad, i’ th’ latter end. May the 
 Almighty keep me from women, and pardon all my sins, amen.” 
 
 “ Th’ women ’ll see to that for theirseln, Ephraim ; doan’t 
 thee put thyseln about,” chimed in an irreverent youngster 
 from the rear. 
 
 Greta Rotherson had passed out of earshot before the old 
 woman launched her tit-bit of gossip, and she went home with 
 a smile on her face. She was wondering at the change in the 
 preacher — and thinking of that look on his face when first she 
 came out of the water and sat on the pine-log with her little 
 white feet tucked up under her dress. 
 
28 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A MOOR WOMAN. 
 
 Griff Lomax bethought him, early on Monday morning, that 
 his friend the preacher would be better for a little more of the 
 same treatment to which he had subjected him yesterday. He 
 found Gabriel just coming down the stairs. 
 
 “ Well, old fellow, how are things with you to-day ? You’re 
 late down, at any rate, and that means you have slept.” 
 
 ‘‘Ay, like a child,” said the preacher, with a half-rueful, 
 half-ashamed air. “Like a child, Griff — and that after Pd 
 sinned grievously against the Lord.” 
 
 “ Confound it, man,” laughed Griff, “ I wish I could drive 
 it into you that you’re a poorer hand at sinning than most of 
 us. Just you tell yourself. Hirst, that the Lord has a pretty 
 handful to look after, and that He can’t spare you the exclusive 
 attention you seem to count on : I should be ashamed to 
 expect it, myself.” 
 
 “ Griff, lad, don’t make mock ; try to soften your heart to 
 the Lord, and His ways will come clear to you.” 
 
 The preacher’s voice was tender. His yesterday’s excite- 
 ment had left him weak, and his heart turned to Lomax with 
 a mixed feeling that the lad was at once a tower of strength 
 and a weak unbeliever. 
 
 “ I don’t mock in my heart, and you know it. Hirst. But 
 I want to kick some of the nonsense out of you, and that’s the 
 truth of it. Now, I’m going to watch you eat your breakfast : 
 what is there on the table ? Humph ! three slices of bread 
 and butter, and tea — the tea is unconscionably weak, too, by 
 the look of it.” 
 
 “Here— I say, Griff — what are you going to do?” cried 
 
A MOOR WOMAN. 29 
 
 Gabriel, as his visitor strode out of the room, and across the 
 stone flags of the hall. 
 
 Lomax, however, was in the kitchen by this time. The 
 housekeeper was ironing one of GabrieFs coarse cotton shirts. 
 
 “ Betty Binns,’’ said the intruder, “ do you call yourself a 
 woman of sense ? ” 
 
 Mrs. Binns fairly gasped at that. It was bad enough that 
 young Lomax should march into her kitchen without permis- 
 sion, but that he should forthwith give battle to her in this 
 foolhardy way — “ well, it did beat all.” 
 
 “ If so be as Lm not, Fm ower old to learn ! ” she retorted, 
 waiting till her opponent should give her some sure ground for 
 combat. 
 
 GrifF, spoiling for one of his old-time fights with the redoubt- 
 able Betty, put on just that air of smiling effrontery which 
 most annoyed her. 
 
 “ A woman is as old as she looks, Mrs. Binns, and there’s 
 heaps of time yet for you to learn.” 
 
 “ Tak your fal-lal Lunnon manners to them as wants ’em ! ” 
 snorted Mrs. Binns, viciously laying to on the wristbands of 
 the shirt, and glaring bellicosely at the intruder. She broke 
 a button during the process — a piece of carelessness which did 
 not tend to soothe her ruffled feelings. 
 
 “ All right ; I’m off in a moment. What I wanted to say 
 to you was just this — a woman of sense would never let her 
 master starve as you do. Gabriel Hirst will die before long, 
 if he goes on with these precious slops you give him, and his 
 death will be at your door.” 
 
 This was an aspect of the situation which had not occurred 
 to Betty. She was not going to confess as much, though, so 
 she merely growled an invitation to Lomax to go on with what 
 he had to say. 
 
 “ Just put a pan of water on the fire, and a couple of good 
 fresh eggs in the pan — no, you can put four. I’ve breakfasted 
 already, but I’ll start again by way of example.” 
 
 “ An’ who gave ye leave, if I may mak so bold as to axe 
 to come lording it i’ my kitchen ? ” 
 
30 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “No one ; but I'm here all the same. You don’t know 
 the food a strong man needs, and I’ve come to teach you.” 
 
 Betty Binns was in two minds whether she should throw 
 her iron at Griff’s head ; but she restrained herself, and tried 
 her hand at grim satire instead. 
 
 “ Th’ maister is a man o’ God, Mr. Lummax, which thdll 
 niver be nohow tha tries. It’s nobbut likely he should want 
 his vittals different fro’ other fowks’s.” 
 
 “The more he’s a man of God, the more strength he 
 needs to fight the devil. — Now come, Mrs. Binns, we’ve had 
 many a set-to in times gone by, and I’ll acknowledge you 
 generally have the best of it : won’t you do my way this 
 once ? ” 
 
 He was talking sense now, Betty could not but admit. Of 
 course she always had the best of it — it took something more 
 than a mere man to vanquish Betty Binns — and she always 
 had said “ there war summat she liked i’ th’ lad ; ” and perhaps 
 he was not as far wrong on this occasion as bothersome men- 
 folk generally were. 
 
 “ Well, happen ye’ve hit on a bit o’ common sense once 
 i’ a while. Th’ maister, he do look main poorly when th’ 
 Sperrit keeps strong meat out on him. Ay, well, well, we’ll 
 be seeing.” 
 
 Lomax chuckled at the overthrow of Betty Binns ; he had 
 expected more fight from her. Truth to tell, however, the 
 housekeeper had been sorely bothered of late to see Gabriel 
 growing leaner and leaner ; he was a solid, square-built man, 
 as his father had been before him, when Nature had her own 
 way, but his increasing mania for slops was playing havoc with 
 him. So that Betty was really a good deal relieved to find 
 an ally in young Lomax. 
 
 “ Didn’t I say you were a woman of sound sense ? ” said 
 Griff, with barefaced disregard of his first statement. “You’re 
 jolly fond of me, too, Betty, under all that bluster of yours.” 
 
 Betty raised a rolling-pin from the table, and pursued her 
 tormentor as far as the kitchen door. 
 
 “ And, Betty, as you love me,” he said, by way of a last 
 
A MOOR WOMAN. 
 
 31 
 
 Parthian shot, ‘‘make a couple of rounds of buttered toast. 
 You will, won’t you ? ” 
 
 ‘Pll lay this about your lugs,” retorted Betty, brandishing 
 her weapon, “ if ye’re not off in a brace o’ shakes.” 
 
 Gabriel Hirst was standing by the window when Griff 
 returned. 
 
 “ Well, what have you been doing ? ” he demanded. 
 
 “Oh, nothing. I felt a bit hungry after the walk from 
 Marshcotes, and I asked Mrs. Binns to boil four eggs.” 
 
 “ I thought you’d had breakfast, or I should have offered 
 it long ago.” 
 
 “ I have had one, but I intend to tackle another. Two 
 eggs for me, two for you ; a round of toast each. Your Betty 
 Binns isn’t half the sport she was, Gabriel ; she gives in like 
 a lamb.” 
 
 “He’s a gooid for naught, is Griff Lummax,” muttered Betty, 
 as she cut the bread and held it before the fire ; “ but there’s 
 summat I like about him ; ay, I willun’t deny ’at he hes a way 
 wi’ him.” 
 
 Gabriel made a last stand when the eggs were set down 
 before him with a clatter. 
 
 “You don’t know. Griff, how religion takes a man; he 
 wants to be always subduing, subduing, and it’s a fearful sin 
 to pamper the carnal body.” 
 
 “Fiddlesticks! You look after your body, and the Lord 
 will look after your soul ; play the fool with your body a year 
 or two longer, and you’ll begin to wonder whether you have 
 a soul at all.” 
 
 “But, Griff — John the Baptist lived on locusts and wild 
 honey, and ” 
 
 “You’re not John, though, and you happen to have some 
 one to look after you. Chip that egg.” 
 
 Gabriel obeyed meekly, though he sorely doubted Griff’s 
 way of putting things. He ate with a relish, however, and at 
 the end of it Lomax got to the real subject in hand. 
 
 “ What about this girl ? Who is she ? ” he asked abruptly. 
 
 The preacher flushed. 
 
32 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ All last night I was dreaming of her, and that was why 
 I slept so quietly : I forgot that it was the flesh, and we went 
 over the moor together till we got to the Thorntop road. She 
 was more like a spirit than a woman, and her eyes were as 
 quiet and deep and far away as the stars. I whispered, 
 ‘ Greta,’ and she took my head to her breast, and ‘ Hush ! ’ she 
 said ; ‘ the fight is over and done with, and the reward is 
 here.’ GrifF, man, it’s hard, hard, coming back to the sin.” 
 
 Griff watched him, curiously. The innocence of this broad- 
 shouldered man, his childish outspokenness — he could not tell 
 whether more to pity or admire them. 
 
 “Greta? It doesn’t sound like one of the names here- 
 abouts. Who is she, Gabriel ? ” 
 
 “ Greta Rotherson. She lives at the corn-mill in Hazel 
 Dene.” 
 
 “ What ? Is some one running the old mill again ? It was 
 standing when I left here last year.” 
 
 “Yes; Miller Rotherson came from the low country in the 
 spring, saw the mill, and bought it out of hand. You should 
 hit it off, you and he ; many’s the time I’ve sought to save his 
 soul alive, but he always has the one answer. ‘ Give it up, Mr. 
 Hirst,’ says he. ‘ Some men were made to take religion, as 
 your saying is, and some were not ; and there’s about the end 
 of it. I don’t need it, and I couldn’t take it if I tried from 
 now till Doomsday.’ ” 
 
 Griff smiled ; he recognized a kindred spirit. 
 
 “ Did you ever try to convert the daughter? ” he asked, after 
 a pause. 
 
 Again the preacher flushed, and the lines on his face 
 deepened. 
 
 “ I’ve been thinking that over, and it seems as though that 
 fit of mine was not a matter of yesterday, nor the day before 
 nor the day before that. It’s been coming on a long while. 
 Griff, though I never guessed it till I saw her, winsome as a 
 fairy, paddling in the beck. I did try to convert her, just once ; 
 but the words wouldn’t come, and when she laughed, with a 
 kind of coo at the tail of her voice, I fell soft and hadn’t the 
 
A MOOR WOMAN. 33 
 
 heart to upbraid her. Ay, Griff, it’s been coming this long 
 while.” 
 
 “ And the best thing that has come to you since you were 
 born,” cried Lomax, cheerily. “ What with the girl, and 
 enough to eat, and a rap over the knuckles now and then from 
 me — for old times’ sake, you know — we’ll make a moor man 
 of you yet, Gabriel. Do you ever feel the swish of a gale 
 making you drunk ? ” 
 
 For a moment the preacher yielded to that storm-suggestion ; 
 his whole face lit up, his eyes sparkled. 
 
 “Yes, drunk. When the heather lies low against the peat, 
 and the rain belches out of the sky — it’s almost like freedom at 
 times.” 
 
 “ You’ll do,” growled Lomax. 
 
 The light went out of Gabriel’s eyes. 
 
 “ But it’s the old Adam ; it has to be beaten under.” 
 
 “I wish you’d let your old Adam alone a bit, Gabriel. 
 He’s not half as bad as some who followed him. Come for a 
 ride to-night ; the moon is at full, and Lassie is eating her head 
 off in the stable.” 
 
 “Yes, I’ll come. It’s good to have you back again. 
 Griff.” 
 
 “ As good as to be back ? I doubt it. I must be off now, 
 anyway, or that mother of mine will be seeking me with a 
 hunting-crop ; I promised to take her for a walk this morning. 
 It’s a pity about the mill, Gabriel ; I used to bathe regularly 
 in the stream, and there is an end of that now ; I was coming 
 for a bathe when you ran into me yesterday.” 
 
 “ Shall you be going to see Miller Rotherson ? ” asked 
 Gabriel, wistfully, as they stood at the gate. 
 
 “ Of course, old fellow, if only to give him a helping 
 hand ; you’re a terrible chap when you set your mind on 
 conversion.” 
 
 “ Because if — if you liked me to go with you— I know them, 
 you see.” 
 
 “ Yes, I see,” smiled Griff. “ All right ; I’ll call for you 
 on the way.” 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 The preacher’s brow was clouded as he went back through 
 the fading stocks and asters that lined the garden path. 
 
 “ Just the same, just the same,” he muttered ; “ when you’re 
 serious, a devil of passion, and when you’re gay, a scoffer. 
 But, God knows, lad, how I love you ! ” 
 
 “ I’m late, mother,” said Griff, rushing into the Manor 
 parlour at his usual hurricane speed. “ Old Gabriel has been 
 in a poor sort of way, lately, and I had to bully him. Where 
 are. we going to-day ? ” 
 
 “ Anywhere you like. Griff. Let us take the first path we 
 come to, and go straight ahead. We won’t bind ourselves to 
 anything.” 
 
 Every day since he returned, the mother and Griff had had 
 a long walk together. The man’s zest for the moors was in- 
 creasing apace ; the more heather he got, the more he wanted, 
 and the two of them found so much to talk about, that Kate 
 Strangeways, the quarry-master’s wife, went clean out of the 
 old lady’s head. Their cross-country tramp this morning, 
 however, chanced to bring them in sight of Peewit House. 
 
 “ Were you ever in that house up there ? ” asked Mrs. 
 Lomax. 
 
 Never ; but I have often thought of exploring it. Who 
 lives there ? Some one must do, as there is smoke coming out 
 of the chimney.” 
 
 “ The worst-assorted couple you can imagine ; a husband 
 who ought to be horse-whipped every day of his life, and a 
 wife who is, in my judgment, as fine a woman as I know any- 
 where. I want to drop in, by the way ; Mrs. Strangeways has 
 been ill for a long while, and I stop for a chat now and then. 
 Will you come ? ” 
 
 “ Of course I will. I happen to be in search of a type of 
 the genuine moor woman, too, and perhaps she will oblige 
 me.” 
 
 “ Griff, Griff ! Always on the hunt for people to dip your 
 brush into. I sometimes wish you were not quite so full of 
 your work.” 
 
 “ It’s all right, mother,” laughed the other, as he made her 
 
A MOOR WOMAN. 
 
 35 
 
 take advantage of his arm up the side of the brae ; “ I try to 
 keep a tight hand on it, and only let it out when it ought to be 
 let out.” 
 
 But the laugh died on his lips : they were close to the bit 
 of intake that guarded Peewit from the moor, and Kate 
 Strangeways was leaning over the gate. Griff had dreamed of 
 that pure-bred moor woman of his for many a year, and it 
 seemed to him that he had found her at last in the flesh ; she 
 had the lissom strength of figure, the lips that were clear-cut for 
 tenderness or scorn, the resolute hazel eyes, all just as he had 
 imagined them. 
 
 “ Mother, she is beautiful ! ” he whispered. 
 
 The old lady looked hard at him; then laughed, a dry, 
 uncertain laugh. 
 
 “ Let her be just a type. Griff, dear ; don’t dwell too much 
 on the flesh and blood.” 
 
 Once the first shock of surprise was over, Lomax was dis- 
 posed to laugh at himself touching his half-second of emotion. 
 He warmed to the thought of canvas and palette ; he saw fine 
 capabilities in the handling of this moor woman by a man who 
 had the same peat salt in his fibres. 
 
 “ Well, mother, I have my chance at last,” he said, as they 
 came away. “ That type is absolutely new in art ; I can only 
 pray that I may not spoil her in the drawing.” 
 
 Her laugh had no uneasiness in it now ; she saw that Kate 
 Strangeways, the actual, had very little to do with that swift 
 light of enthusiasm on Griff’s face. 
 
 “ If you are a very good boy, I may bring you again — but 
 I warn you that her husband is jealous ; are you afraid for your 
 skin, Griff? ” 
 
 “ Not I ; I would not forego that model if there were fifty 
 husbands, each with a hundred jealousies. When will you bring 
 me again ? ” 
 
 “Just like your father, just! You must take life at a 
 gallop. We will see; perhaps at the end of the week.” 
 
 When Joe Strangeways went to the kitchen sink that night 
 for his evening wash, Hannah, the maid of all work, took care 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 36 
 
 to be at hand. Hannah had lost no whit of her spite against 
 her mistress, and she saw that something was to be made out 
 of that morning’s visit. 
 
 “ It’s a doiting bird ’at leaves its nest for another,” she 
 observed, polishing a knife on a leather board. 
 
 “ If tha’s getten owt to say, speak up, lass, an’ doan’t go 
 dithering an’ mumbling to thyseln.” 
 
 “ Mrs. Lummax war playing th’ grand lady here again the 
 morn.” 
 
 “ Oh, she war, war she ? A limb o’ th’ devil, I call her, and 
 a limb o’ th’ devil I say she is, choose who hears me. Hast 
 ’a nowt else to say ? ” 
 
 “ She warn’t by herseln. That long-legged son of hers came 
 along wi’ her. Seems like as if he fancies hisseln, thinks hisseln 
 fearful fine, wi’ his Lunnon slithery spache ; he’d mak a likely 
 pair o’ tongs, yon. I’m thinking.” 
 
 “ Lang i’ th’ leg an’ short i’ th’ heM, as t’ saying is,” 
 chuckled Joe. “ What wod my fine gentleman be after, think 
 ye?” 
 
 Hannah tossed her head, and her thin black hair stood up 
 straight from her forehead in token of outraged scruples. 
 
 “What should fine gentlemen be after, when they cross 
 three miles o’ moor to see a man’s wife — and him away all th’ 
 day at th’ quarries ? Some fowk are fearful slow to see which 
 way their noses point.” 
 
 Joe reflectively washed the soap-suds from his face and 
 buried his head in a towel. He was indebted to Hannah for a 
 suggestion that might bear fruit in the near future. 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE DOG AND GROUSE. 
 
 The bar of the Dog and Grouse hostelry at Ling Crag was 
 very noisy on Wednesday night. The serving-maid was begin- 
 ning to show signs of temper, for orders were being hurled at 
 her with confusing rapidity, and with reiterated requests that 
 she should hurry. From the girl’s snappishness, and the 
 density of the tobacco-smoke that filled the bar, an habitue of 
 the inn could have guessed the time — close upon ten o’clock — 
 with almost as much certainty as if he had used the ordinary 
 form of chronometer. 
 
 The clatter of mugs, the burr of weather-roughened voices, 
 ceased on a sudden. The men took their pipes from their 
 mouths and gaped interrogatories one at the other. For they 
 had heard a horse ridden up to the door at a gallop, and a 
 stamp of feet on the sanded floor, and an abrupt demand on 
 the part of some unknown male to see the landlord. 
 
 “ Begow, there’s summat agate ! ” said a burly carter. 
 “ What dost think it mud be, Jim?” 
 
 “ Nay, how should I know?” muttered Jim, scratching his 
 head. 
 
 “ There’s summat i’ th’ wind, for sure, but it’s noan for me 
 to say what it mud be.” 
 
 “ Murder, happen, or high treason, an’ yon’s a constable 
 chap come i’ search o’ th’ fugitive ! ” 
 
 This suggestion, made with an air of wise importance, came 
 from the village cobbler. 
 
 A thrill went through the company. Murder was a fearsome 
 thing, yet they knew exactly what it was ; but that ingenious 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 38 
 
 touch of the cobbler's set their minds working on an unknown 
 quantity. High treason might mean anything, and, ‘‘if it 
 war, so to say, at their own doorstuns, a man mun look to 
 hisseln and not be ower rash wi' his tongue." 
 
 So, in wonder and trepidation, they crowded to the door of 
 the bar, the less valiant peeping over the shoulders, or between 
 the arms, of their comrades in front. One and all felt 
 aggrieved when the stranger, who was still standing in the pas- 
 sage, showed himself to be much like other men. He wore no 
 special dress, save the customary one of a gentleman who has 
 reached his destination on horseback, and there was about him 
 no trace of any peculiar odour, such as might have been asso- 
 ciated with high treason or other of the black arts. Further- 
 more, when the landlord at last stepped in from the mistal 
 at the rear of the house, he was met by the commonplace 
 request that he would get ready a room for the night. By 
 dint of setting the serving-maid to sleep on a sofa downstairs 
 — her ruffled temper was not soothed by the inconvenience — 
 the landlord was able to oblige his guest, and the horse was 
 led round to the stables. 
 
 The company in the bar returned to their mugs. They 
 felt hurt that the stranger had offered so little excitement, 
 though the cobbler hinted darkly that, when a man fell quiet- 
 like and tried his hardest not to make a fuss, it was a safe 
 thing to suspect him of having some deep-laid project on 
 hand. 
 
 Perhaps the cobbler was right ; but the stranger's plans, 
 whatever they might be, seemed to be confined just now to the 
 matter of substantial food. “ Something hot, landlord, and 
 plenty of it ! " he said briskly. “ I've ridden twenty miles since 
 my last meal." 
 
 “ Right, sir ; I'll see to it. Will ye have it in this little 
 room here, sir, or in th' kitchen? Th' kitchen is a sight 
 snugger, and it's none ower warm at neets for th' time o' year." 
 
 “ The kitchen, by all means. This way ? Don’t be long 
 with the cooking, my friend, or I shall starve.” 
 
 The stranger, who certainly found the Ling Crag temperature 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE DOG AND GROUSE. 39 
 
 none too high on this night of early September, retired to the 
 ingle-nook after supper, and lit a pipe. 
 
 Ten sounded across the valley from Marshcotes parish 
 church, and the occupants of the bar slouched out one by 
 one ; each, as he reached the passage, turned his eyes towards 
 the kitchen. 
 
 “What’s his business, think ye?” murmured Dick the 
 cobbler. 
 
 The landlord, with his hand on the street door, grinned 
 pleasantly. “ Tha’rt a sight too curious, Dicky. Maybe he’s 
 some sort of a land-agent — Squire Daneholme’s, happen. I 
 remember, now I come to think, tha wert boasting a neet 
 or two back about a matter of a hare — tha’d best be keeping a 
 quiet tongue in thy head, Dick the Cobbler.” 
 
 “ Begow ! ” said Dick, laying an arm on his host’s sleeve. 
 “ Dost ’a think that ? ” 
 
 “ Out ye get, the lot of ye ! Do ye think I want Con- 
 stable Lee i’ my public, an’ th’ magistrates on Friday ? ” cried 
 Boniface, not heeding Dick’s frightened appeal. 
 
 “ Constable Lee knows which side on his mug th’ beer is, 
 and I’m thinking he’ll noan be hard on ye,” put in one of the 
 departing crowd. 
 
 The landlord joined in the laugh that followed, and locked 
 his door for the night. “ He’s a bit of a softy, is Cobbler 
 Dick,” he observed. “ They’re a sight too thin-skinned, this 
 younger breed o’ poachers. Well, well. I’d like to know, my- 
 seln, what the gent’s business might be.” 
 
 The landlord felt that he had a right to be the first recipient 
 of any news whatsoever; for was he not named Jack o’ Ling 
 Crag, and had he not the reputation of being able to see 
 further into the heart of a haystack than any man in the parish ? 
 They are much given, these dwellers on the uplands, to naming 
 a man after the house or cottage in which he lives ; and since 
 the Dog and Grouse was in a sense — the most cheerful pos- 
 sible sense — the representative building of the village. Jack 
 was accredited with the proudest surname a man could have 
 
 there. 
 
40 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 And before another hour had passed, Jack did become par- 
 tially enlightened as to the stranger’s object in coming to Ling 
 Crag. His visitor asked him to join him in a pipe, and he sat 
 down on the other side of the hearth. They talked of in- 
 different topics for awhile — the crops, the grouse shooting, the 
 fishing in Scartop Water — until the stranger turned abruptly in 
 his seat. 
 
 “ Do you know of a house to let anywhere near ? I want to 
 be out on the moors, and yet not too far from a village like 
 this of yours.” 
 
 It’s a bit o’ shooiting, likely, ye’d be after ? ” insinuated 
 the host. 
 
 The stranger paused a moment before replying, and smiled 
 a little to himself. ‘‘Yes, that’s just what I want — some 
 good shooting. Any house will do, but it must have shooting 
 attached to it.” 
 
 The landlord already had his eye on exactly the place re- 
 quired, but he was not disposed to give away the situation too 
 lightly ; he felt that Ling Crag ought to uphold its motto of 
 “ keeping itseln to itseln.” 
 
 “ There’s none too many houses hereabouts,” he observed 
 slowly ; “ and what there is is fearful sought after.” 
 
 “ Are they, now ? I should have thought, being so far away 
 from a town, and ” 
 
 “Ay, sir, but — begging your pardon — it’s a fine thing to 
 be able to say ye come fro’ Ling Crag : there’s a sort o’ 
 respect goes with th’ name in fowks’s minds, an’ we stay on here 
 fro’ generation to generation, seeing as how we could nobbut 
 exchange for th’ war. An’ that maks houses scarce, like.” 
 
 The stranger, beginning to understand his man better, 
 laughed easily. “ I shall try to be worthy of the honour, land- 
 lord, if you’ll only find me the house.” 
 
 The host rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then slapped his 
 thigh with a great show of impromptu delight. 
 
 “ Now that’s queer ; all th’ time ye’ve been talking I niver 
 once thought o’ Wynyates Hall. Why, it’s just th’ place for 
 ye, sir ; two score acre o’ shooiting, an’ a regular old-fashioned 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE DOG AND GROUSE. 4 1 
 
 sort o' house — ^just such as th' painter chaps come for to 
 paint.” 
 
 “ That sounds all right. How far is it from here ? ” 
 
 “ A mile an’ a bittock; an’ a good highroad from there 
 to here. First ye pass Scartop Water — as I was telling ye 
 about — an’ then ye come right to Wynyates Hall, standing i’ 
 a bit o’ wood of its own, wi’ th’ moors just aboon. Oh, ay, 
 it’s a grand place, is Wynyates ! ” 
 
 “ Any houses near ? ” 
 
 “ Well, there’s what we call Wynyates hamlet a quarter-mile 
 away, but it’s nowt mich to crack on — ^just a two or three 
 cottages an’ a farm or so.” 
 
 “ It is to let, is it, this Wynyates Hall ? ” 
 
 “Ay, it’s to let right enow, sir. But I mind me there’s 
 some queer tales abroad ; happen ye’re not feared o’ ghosts ? ” 
 
 A shadow passed over the stranger’s face, and seemed more 
 at home there than his previous air of cheery carelessness. 
 “ Ghosts ? ” he muttered. “ I’ve got too many of my own to be 
 afraid of other people’s.” His face cleared again, and he 
 laughed a denial at his host. 
 
 But the grizzled old man shook his head doubtfully. 
 
 “ Best not laugh at ’em, sir, an’ that’s my belief,” he said 
 gravely. “ There’s been some fearful goings-on up at Wyn- 
 yates. Two brothers there war lived up at th’ Hall, an’ they’d 
 been trained in a school ye don’t find i’ these ower-eddicated 
 days. Ay, they war of th’ owd breed, for surej as lusty an’ 
 devil-paced limbs as ye’d light on th’ countryside through.” 
 
 “You seem to be rather proud of them, if one may judge 
 from the look in your eyes,” said the stranger, breaking into a 
 reflective pause on the part of his host. 
 
 Boniface chuckled. 
 
 “Well, the fact is, sir, they were a tidy pair at th’ poaching, 
 an’ my heart alius did go out to a poacher, God bless ’em ! 
 I war fifty, an’ they war nobbut a bit th’ wrang side o’ thirty 
 i’ those days, but I could teach ’em nowt — nowt at all. Sakes 
 alive, they hadn’t no call to poach ! They’d plenty o’ brass an’ 
 land o’ their own ; but it war just i’ th’ blood, so to say, an’ 
 
42 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 they did it for plain love o’ sport. Ay, they war likely chaps, 
 them two.” 
 
 ‘‘ And what was the end of them ? End there must have 
 been, or Wynyates would not be to let.” 
 
 “To tell ye t’ truth, sir, I doaiVt like to speak on it. They 
 war i’ drink one neet — summat about a woman, for young 
 ’uns will be youngs ’uns th’ world ower ” 
 
 “ You’re right there,” interrupted the stranger, and shut his 
 lips down on his tell-tale mouth. 
 
 His companion glanced shrewdly at him, but made no 
 comment. 
 
 “ As I war saying, they war i’ their cups, an’ they fell a-fight- 
 ing. Th’ younger he shied a brandy-bottle, an’ caught t’ other 
 fair on th’ forehead, an’ killed him deM as a door-nail. Then 
 he hanged hisseln to one o’ th’ parlour rafters, an’ that war 
 th’ end of th’ owd family. Ay, sad, sad, for sure ; but they 
 war bonny lads at a bit o’ poaching.” 
 
 “ And their ghosts haunt the old Hall ? ” 
 
 “ So fowks say, an’ I’ve no reason to doubt it. Dirt cheap 
 th’ owd place is going ; for them two brothers, being Ling Crag 
 born, doan’t part in a hurry, an’ they mak it fair too hot to 
 bide in for them as comes to live there.” 
 
 “ They won’t trouble me, at any rate. It will be a little 
 excitement. What sort of ghosts are they ? ” 
 
 The landlord frowned on the other’s levity, and dropped 
 his voice to a whisper. 
 
 “ They do say — and what am I to deny it ? — that th’ ghost 
 o’ th’ brandy-bottle is th’ hardest to bear ; it shooits up i’ th’ 
 air, an’ dithers around, an’ then strikes t’ other ghost so as to 
 bring a bloody stream from his forehead. — But idle chaps will 
 alius be telling idle tales,” he finished, replenishing his pipe. 
 
 The discrepancy between the opening of his speech and 
 the finish was easily accounted for. Pride in the village ghost 
 had led him on to wax eloquent in description, but monetary 
 interest induced him not to put hindrances in the way of a 
 good bargain. Doubtless there would be pickings for himself 
 if his guest took Wynyates Hall. 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE DOG AND GROUSE. 43 
 
 A long silence followed. 
 
 ‘‘ Ye come fro' th' low country, Fm thinking ? " said Boni- 
 face at length. 
 
 “ From — from the low country ? " repeated the stranger. 
 
 “ Ay — from t' South, as some fowk call it." 
 
 “ Oh, yes, I'm from the South." 
 
 “I thowt as mich fro' your spache. Happen, then, ye'll 
 know Miller Rotherson, what's ta'en th' mill i' Hazel Dene ? " 
 
 “No, I don't know him." 
 
 The stranger was trying to realize a new point of view. 
 Evidently the people of Ling Crag regarded themselves as one 
 village, and the rest of England as another. They expected 
 all South-country people to know each other, just as the 
 landlord here knew Betty Binns, or Gabriel Hirst, or Dick the 
 Cobbler. Such isolation took the stranger's breath away. 
 
 Another silence. 
 
 “ I mind me that th' agent what looks after Wynyates Hall 
 — an' a sight more property, too — comes here to-morrow to 
 collect th' rents," said the landlord. “Him an' ye might 
 come to an agreement." 
 
 “ I think we might. What time is he due ? " 
 
 “ Fro' nooin onwards to six o' th' clock." 
 
 “Very well. Call me at nine, will you, and give me bacon 
 and eggs for breakfast. It's high time we turned in." 
 
 The stranger took his candle and slowly mounted the stairs. 
 As he went, he muttered softly to himself, “ Such isolation — it 
 is fatuous — it is magnificent. I have come to the right kind 
 of place. Gossips, of course ; but so there are everywhere. 
 Do I know Miller Rotherson from the low country ? Ha, ha ! " 
 
 A draught at the stair-head blew out his candle, but the 
 door of his room stood open, and a flood of moonlight came 
 across the landing to show the way. He did not trouble to 
 relight the candle, but clashed the door to after him and went 
 to the uncurtained window. He had a clear view across the 
 moors ; one after another the dark rises swept to the broken 
 sky-line, striding the misty hollows, till his eye caught that 
 queer sense of endlessness which the moor people know from 
 
44 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 their birth. His face went grey as he watched, and through 
 the greyness leaped a wild expectancy. Like a boy this man 
 of forty stretched out his arms to the heath, and talked as if 
 it had ears to hear him. ‘‘Janet — I wonder if you're there. 
 In the heart of the moor, you told me — it must be down in 
 one of those white hollows." Then he paused, and his voice 
 went out again in one yearning cry of “ Janet ! " 
 
 The stranger pulled himself together. He laughed bitterly, 
 as men do who have once safely passed these things and find 
 it hard to have to go back again. Then he kicked off his 
 boots, undressed, and lay for an hour on his back, watching 
 the moon through the window. One boomed from Marshcotes 
 church, and every hollow of the moors seemed to catch the 
 sound, to pass it on, till the heath was to the already dozing 
 man one everlasting succession of striking clocks. 
 
 “ Get to sleep, you fool ! " he muttered drowsily. “ Curse 
 the bells — they sound uncanny ; it’ll be long before they ring 
 for that wedding. God knows she’s taken the heart clean out 
 of my body — one^ one^ one ; curse the bells ! ’’ 
 
( 45 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CONCERNING PARSLEY AND STRONG DRINK. 
 
 At eight of the next evening, GrifF Lomax was surprised by a 
 visit from the preacher — surprised, because only a few hours 
 ago they had parted at the end of a long ride together. 
 
 Gabriel wore an air of clumsy craftiness which sat laugh- 
 ably ill upon him. 
 
 “It’s time you paid your respects at the mill, don’t you 
 think ? ” he said, shifting from foot to foot. 
 
 “ Oh, the wind blows there, does it ? ” laughed Griff, noting 
 that the preacher’s face was more carefully shaven than usual, 
 and that he wore a shirt of fine linen. 
 
 “ I know them. Griff, and you don’t. It seems but neigh- 
 bourly to go together.” 
 
 “You saw her this afternoon, I fancy? Gabriel, boy, 
 you’re in a bad way. I have work to do ; can’t you wait till 
 to-morrow ? ” 
 
 Lomax was in a teasing humour, and refused to take the 
 preacher’s — or any other — matters seriously. 
 
 “ Well, of course — if you can’t come,” murmured Gabriel, 
 with crestfallen looks. 
 
 “ He can come, Gabriel ; and, what is more, I shall see 
 that he does,” said Mrs. Lomax, who had entered un- 
 observed. 
 
 Griff had given her a hint as to how matters stood, and the 
 old lady was entirely of her son’s mind, “ that it would make 
 a man of Gabriel.” 
 
 Griff took his mother in both arms and lifted her as if she 
 had been a baby. 
 
46 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “Oh, you threaten me, little mother, do you?’’ cried he 
 looking fierce. 
 
 “ Griff, what a boy you are — put me down again. I shall 
 never be able to train you properly,” she added whimsically. 
 “ I can’t learn the trick of being angry with you.” 
 
 “ Honour thy father and thy mother,” murmured Gabriel 
 Hirst, scandalized for the hundredth time by Griff’s relations 
 with the old lady. “ I wish Griff was more respectful.” 
 
 The end of it was, of course, that Lomax set off with his 
 friend. Through the churchyard they gained the moor, and 
 thence struck across to the foot of Ling Crag village. The 
 last of the sunset was dying over the heath, and something in 
 the aspect of that well-loved country of his touched an inner 
 chord in the preacher. 
 
 “ It’s sweet and clean. Griff,” he said presently. “ It 
 seems to be telling me not to take shame if ” 
 
 He broke off there, and Griff supplied finish and answer 
 alike in his brief, “You can believe it. Hirst.” 
 
 They crossed the stile on their left, and pushed up the 
 darkening valley. The stream brawled beside them; from 
 a farm on the crest of the ridge came the clatter of milking- 
 pails and the guttural cries of the farmer’s men. The tail of 
 a stiff west wind blew down the Dene, and Gabriel Hirst, for 
 a few brief moments, threw his sins to the breeze and let it 
 make what it would of them. But his heart misgave him when 
 they stood at Miller Rotherson’s door. The maid was long 
 in responding to his knock, and his disquietude grew almost 
 to a panic ; he would have turned and fled, had he been alone. 
 
 Then, after Nancy had admitted them and shown them 
 into the parlour where the miller was smoking his pipe, Gabriel 
 could find no word to say, and Lomax had to take the initia- 
 tive. Old Rotherson took stock of the stranger, decided that 
 he liked the hang of him, and declared it was downright 
 neighbourly to pay him a call in this way. 
 
 “Well,” laughed Griff, “apart from anything else, I was 
 curious to see the man who could make Dene Mill pay. 
 When I was last at home the old place had been unlet for - 
 
CONCERNING PARSLEY AND STRONG DRINK. 47 
 
 years, and people said that the big millers near the towns had 
 it all their own way nowadays.” 
 
 “ And there was no room for the smaller men, they told 
 you? Oh, yes, they told me that tale, too, when I started 
 here. They were wrong, Mr. Lomax. I said, the first time 
 I saw the mill, that a man who could let all that water-power 
 run to waste, day in and day out, deserved to starve. I trusted 
 a little in Providence, and a good deal in my own head, and 
 I got the place dirt cheap on a long lease. I supply half the 
 countryside now, and am bidding fair to secure the other half. 
 The big towns are too far from Marshcotes and Ling Crag and 
 the scattered farmhouses that hug the moor.” 
 
 “Providence, Mr. Rotherson ” Gabriel began, then 
 
 stopped. His spiritual arguments grew tangled, for his carnal 
 ear had detected the swish-swish of skirts along the passage. 
 
 “ So this is GabrieFs lady,” thought Lomax, as Greta came 
 in, with a pretty bashfulness that suited her well. “There 
 seems more excuse for his lunacy than there did.” 
 
 “ This is my little girl, Mr. Lomax,” said the miller, with 
 an explanatory wave of his churchwarden pipe. 
 
 Gabriel Hirst watched the girl’s unformed bow, and the 
 shy uplifting of her eyes to Griffs. A sudden pang struck 
 through him, taking him unawares. Not till this moment had 
 he seen his friend in the light of a possible rival. 
 
 Greta was perverse to-night. Instinctively she fell to com- 
 paring the little points of manner, dress, speech, in which the 
 two men differed. She grew angry with the preacher for 
 compelling such comparison ; now and then she blushed for 
 Gabriel Hirst, as she had not blushed when he came upon her 
 with her little bare feet paddling in the water. She had taken 
 the only vacant chair, which chanced to be close to Griffs : 
 Hirst sat by the miller at the other side of the room, and 
 tried to talk, listening eagerly the while for scraps of the 
 conversation that was passing between the other two. 
 
 “ And how do you like our wild country ? ” asked Griff, by 
 way of making idle chit-chat. 
 
 Gabriel was in the middle of a polemical discussion with 
 
48 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 old Rotherson, but he paused for Greta’s answer. She glanced 
 across at the preacher and saw that he was listening. 
 
 “ Well enough,” she said, with a toss of the head. ‘‘ But 
 the people are like the country — rather too wild, don’t you 
 think ? ” 
 
 The preacher writhed in his chair ; it was a girl’s unbalanced 
 coquetry, yet it cut straight to his simple heart. And the 
 two on the other side of the fireplace went on with their 
 light talk, and Greta let no chance of a stab go by, knowing 
 well that the man who presumed to care for her would hear 
 her every word. Lomax, seeing by the man’s face how 
 things were going, strove to lead his companion into quieter 
 channels ; but her wit was nimble, and, no matter what the 
 topic might be, she made it good for a covert gibe at Gabriel. 
 
 “ Greta, lass, it’s about time we had some glasses in,” said 
 the miller at length. “ Smoking’s dry work without a drop 
 of whisky to help it down. You take a dram now and then, 
 Mr. Lomax ? ” 
 
 “ That I do.” 
 
 “ I thought you looked that sort, somehow,” said the miller, 
 with an involuntary glance at Gabriel. 
 
 When the whisky had been brought in, with icy, beaded water 
 from the well-spring just without the house door; when old 
 Rotherson had allowed his guest to mix him a glass, and had 
 entreated him, with a jovial twinkle, ‘‘ not to drown the miller ; ” 
 when Griff had helped himself to a liberal half-and-half, which 
 the strength of his head warranted — it occurred to Lomax to 
 effect a redistribution of seats. Gabriel, seeing him hovering 
 vaguely on the outskirts of the hearthrug, at length divined that 
 he had an opportunity of sitting beside the girl ; he moved 
 clumsily across the floor, and Greta frowned as she watched him. 
 
 “ I was at chapel on Sunday night,” she observed. 
 
 “ So I saw. Did you — did you ” 
 
 “ Like your sermon ? ” she finished demurely. I suppose 
 I did, only — I was disappointed. You have such a reputation 
 for — wildness — and I wanted to hear you really inspired.” 
 
 The miller caught her words. 
 
CONCERNING PARSLEY AND STRONG DRINK. 49 
 
 “Greta, don't be so forward with your tongue. It isn't 
 fair to badger a man on a week-day about the work he does on 
 Sunday." 
 
 “But Mr. Hirst badgers people on a week-day, father, 
 about the things they don't do on Sunday. It's only tit for 
 tat." 
 
 “God knows I mean it for the best," muttered Gabriel, 
 too low for any but Greta to hear. 
 
 She glanced at him, and dropped her air of mockery. A 
 softer light came into her grey eyes. Then again she looked 
 across the hearth, and saw how at home the two men were 
 with their pipes and glasses ; and back her eyes travelled to 
 the preacher, in his ill-cut clothes of black, glooming there with 
 neither pipe in his mouth nor glass at his side, his hands sitting 
 lonely on his knees. “ If only he weren't such a woman^' 
 she murmured, and rose to bid them all good night. 
 
 Gabriel sat in his corner, after she had gone, without word 
 or motion. He felt like one who has sold his soul to the devil, 
 and been cheated of his price at the end of it all. Where 
 was the swift enthusiasm for the Word that had braced him 
 to ten years of fervid preaching ? Gone. Where was his feud 
 with the flesh ? Swallowed up in the depths of two grey eyes. 
 What had he gained ? Scorn that was harder to bear than sin, 
 mockery which no wrestling with the Adversary had taught him 
 how to parry. 
 
 Griff, meanwhile, talked glibly to the miller, hoping to cover 
 his friend's moroseness. 
 
 “ There is land attached to the mill yet ? Do you farm it, 
 as your predecessor did ? " 
 
 Old Rotherson smiled grimly. 
 
 “Yes, I farm it — after a fashion. But it's sadly like trying 
 to skin a flint, as the saying goes. You've a hard country up 
 here, Mr. Lomax." 
 
 “ For grass, yes. But we’re fine when it comes to growing 
 heather.” 
 
 “ And what good is heather. I’d like to know ? ” quoth the 
 practical miller. “ It will make a broom to sweep my floors 
 
50 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 with, but what else can you do with it? There's one other 
 thing that grows well hereabouts, though; one of my fields 
 is as full as it will hold of parsley, and I can't make it out. 
 Never a bit of parsley-seed have I sown; yet up it comes as if 
 the seed had been raining from the sky." 
 
 Griff chuckled, and his host glanced at him inquiringly. 
 
 “Hares are very fond of parsley; wonderfully fond," 
 murmured the younger man, with a sly look in his eyes. 
 
 “ Well, so they are. Only last night I was looking out of 
 my bedroom window, and I counted five all at once in the 
 field. But that doesn't help me to know how the parsley 
 came there." 
 
 “ It is curious," said Griff. But he hinted never a word 
 of the old-time nights when he and Jack o' Ling Crag had 
 gone out salting their neighbours' fields with parsley-seed. 
 
 They rambled on from this topic to that, till they were 
 startled by a mighty sob that came from across the hearth. 
 Gabriel Hirst, wrapped all this while in his own miserable 
 thoughts, had instinctively given vent to the despair at his heart. 
 
 “Nay, nay, lad," said the miller, kindly. “You're over- 
 wrought a bit. Take a drop of strong drink, and you'll see 
 the world in a better light." He got up from his armchair, 
 and poured out a tolerable measure of the spirit, never stopping 
 to think that his goodwill might be misdirected. The preacher 
 took the glass from his hands. 
 
 “ I wouldn't, if I were you, old fellow," interposed Lomax ; 
 
 “ you're not used to it, and " 
 
 But a devil had come into Gabriel's eyes. 
 
 “ I'll go my own way," he said sullenly, and swallowed 
 the tumblerful in three big gulps. They said good night to 
 the miller soon after — it was past eleven — ^and the preacher's 
 step was uneven as he left the room. 
 
 The mill stream was dancing with the moonbeams through 
 Hazel Dene, but Gabriel was in no humour to mark such 
 trivial beauty. He stopped when they reached the little pool 
 with the pine-log on its bank. He gripped Lomax's arm and 
 gazed into his face. 
 
CONCERNING PARSLEY AND STRONG DRINK. 5 1 
 
 “She was mine that day, Griff Lomax. I wish to- God 
 I'd never brought you here, to spoil a blessed Sabbath's 
 work." 
 
 “ Man, you're a fool. Come home to bed, before you pick 
 a quarrel with some one who is not your friend." 
 
 “ Friend ? Yes, and a pretty friend you've shown yourself." 
 A hiccough had intruded itself into the preacher's voice, as the 
 fresh air made headway with the whisky. He laughed like 
 a madman, and sat himself down heavily on the log. “ The 
 flesh, the flesh, the flesh ! " he yelled, with a hiccough between 
 each word. Then he fell to crooning like a child ; he tucked 
 his sable legs under him, and swore that the preacher was 
 topping the rise on the opposite side of the stream. Finally, 
 he rose from his seat, and regarded the other with grave 
 inquiry. “ Why does the stream want to get to the sea ? " he 
 demanded. “ The ways of the Lord are surely strange ? " 
 
 “ I give it up, old chap. Come home to bed, I tell you." 
 
 Griff threaded his arm through Hirst's, and led him, steadier 
 on his feet now and meek as a lamb, to his own door. Latches 
 were unknown in Ling Crag, but the preacher always carried 
 the door-key with him; he was often abroad at nights, and 
 neither Betty Binns nor her husband, who slept in the house, 
 could be expected to wait up for him at these times. Gabriel 
 Hirst made two or three ineffectual assaults on the door, then 
 handed the key to Lomax. 
 
 “ Griff," he said, with unsober cunning, “ I'm a sinful man, 
 and vengeance shall come like a thief in the night — but I 
 shouldn't like Betty to hear. Help me to bed, Griff, for old 
 times' sake." 
 
 When Lomax came out into the moonlight again, after 
 locking up the house and pushing Gabriel's key under the mat, 
 the smile on his lips was a tender one. “ The pace is a bit 
 swift for old Gabriel nowadays," he muttered. “He's been 
 drunk for the first time in his life, and in love for the first time. 
 It will do him good in the long run, because there's solid 
 bottom under that hysterical piety of his. But, Lord, what a 
 time of retribution he will make for himself ! " 
 
 IfBRW 
 
 mWRniVf OF ILUWOI5 
 
52 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 He strolled along the highroad in the direction of Wynyates : 
 the night was calm, and he felt in no humour to return. Greta 
 and her queer, two-sided lover slipped gradually from his mind, 
 and Kate Strange ways, his treasure-trove, took their place. 
 His pulses quickened, with a passion that was entirely artistic ; 
 this moor woman, as he saw her now, was a being wonderful, 
 remote, magnificent; he almost feared to handle her, lest he 
 should spoil her in the drawing. Yet he must certainly ask her 
 to sit to him, whether he made the best of his chances or not. 
 He turned at last and started home at a brisk pace. At the 
 door of the Dog and Grouse he espied the landlord, swallowing 
 a mouthful of fresh air before he turned in for the night. 
 
 “ Good night to you, Mr. Lummax,” called Jack o’ Ling 
 Crag, 
 
 “ Hallo, Jack ! I thought you’d be in bed long ago.” 
 
 “Well, so I should be, sir, in a orn’ary sort o’ way. But 
 things hes been happening, sir — such things as keep a plain 
 man out o’ bed thinking on ’em.” 
 
 Griff cocked his head a little on one side, and gave Jack 
 a look which suggested that some kind of Freemasonry existed 
 between them. 
 
 “Have you been taking a little midnight exercise. Jack? 
 I feared they’d catch one or both of us many a time last year.” 
 
 Jack o’ Ling Crag gurgled complacently. 
 
 “ Nay, now, Mr. Lummax, is it likely ’at they’d nobble an 
 owd bird like me wi’ gamekeeper chaff? It’s all right, I says, 
 an’ none ’ud deny it, that chaps like Dick the Cobbler should 
 be cotched : they’re green hands meeting green hands — for all 
 th’ owd lot o’ keepers, an’ a smart set they war, is gone — an’ 
 it’s a toss up whether it ends in th’ coort-house for Dicky an’ 
 his mates, or i’ broken heads for th’ keepers. But me — Lord, 
 sir, I thowt ye knew me better nor to go thinking owt o’ that 
 sort ! ” 
 
 “ Still,” said Griff, with a slow, retrospective smile, “ still, 
 we ran it pretty close that night in Birch Wood. Do you 
 remember? By Jove, but it was sport ! ” 
 
 “ I remember varry weel, Mr. Lummax ; for that war th’ first 
 
CONCERNING PARSLEY AND STRONG DRINK. 53 
 
 time I felt sartin sure ye’d getten a headpiece on your shoulders 
 — ay, lad, your father’s headpiece. It do seem queer,” he added, 
 meditatively, “ that even th’ gentry up hereabouts is alius itch- 
 ing for a bit o’ poaching. There war old Tom Hirst, now; 
 he war a regular nipper afore religion stuck in his gizzard an’ 
 
 choked th’ life out on him. Mony’s the time But it gets 
 
 chilly, like, standing i’ th’ road. What say ye to a glass o’ th’ 
 blend ’at a two or three on us knows about ? ” 
 
 “ I say that nothing would suit me better, if our friend Lee 
 has not grown wide-awake since I used to know him.” 
 
 “ I’ve a great respect for Constable Lee, sir,” observed Jack, 
 gravely, as he led the way indoors, ‘‘ an’ Constable Lee hes 
 an ekal respect for Jack o’ Ling Crag. We’ve niver hed a 
 wrang word sin’ a little scrape ’at it took me all my time to 
 get him clear of : he’s a man what bears gratitude, an’ ye may 
 tak my word for that.” 
 
 “ And, in any case. I’m coming in as your guest. Bless me, 
 it’s odd if a respectable innkeeper can’t entertain a friend to a 
 glass of whisky.” 
 
 “ That’s so, sir ; an’ proud to be named your friend.” 
 
 “ About this matter that has been keeping you out of your 
 bed ? ” said Griff presently, holding his glass to the light and 
 looking through it with the eye of a man on whom good drink 
 is not wasted. 
 
 “ Oh, that ? It’s nowt so varry special, when all’s said ; 
 only it’s not ivery day ’at a gent comes to Ling Crag a-house- 
 hunting — nor ivery twelvemonth that he leaves a ten-pun note 
 behind him.” 
 
 “ And who was he ? From these parts ? ” 
 
 “ Nay, he war fro’ th’ low country ; as to his name, I mind 
 me now he niver mentioned it. At after he’d had a bite o’ supper, 
 he asks me fair an’ square if I could light my eye on a likely 
 house i’ th’ neighbourhood ; he wanted a bit o’ shooiting, said 
 he. Well, I bethowt me o’ Wynyates, an’ tolled him ’at th’ 
 agent war coming this varry morn to collect his bits o’ rents ; 
 an’ what does my gentleman do but settle it all right off wi’ th’ 
 agent, an’ gi’e me a ten-pun note — to settle his bill wi’, as he 
 
54 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 put it. Then, sooin as he’d settled about a couple o’ rooms 
 being got ready i’ th’ Hall afore th’ week war out, off he rides 
 again to Saxilton.” 
 
 “ Saxilton ? What should he find to do in Saxilton ? ” 
 
 “ Nay, that I can’t say, save that he’d left some traps there 
 an’ wanted to fetch ’em. Summat a bit queer-like, eh, i’ sich 
 a whirlwind o’ a man coming to Wynyates ? ” 
 
 “ It does seem odd. I say. Jack, we’ll have a night at his 
 game some time ; it’s a year and three months since we went 
 out together, and that is fifteen months too long.” 
 
 “ Well, if it’s all th’ same to ye, Mr. Lummax, I’d rather 
 tak th’ Squire o’ Saxilton’s game : he niver give me nowt, 
 didn’t Squire, save a cut on th’ side o’ th’ heid wi’ his riding- 
 whip ; there warn’t no bank-notes parted company wi’ himr 
 This was a touch of morality that tickled Griff mightily. 
 
 “ The old Squire is that kind of man,” he laughed. “ If he 
 takes to a man, he can’t do too much for him ; but if he 
 doesn’t ” 
 
 “ The Lord help him ! — He’s a rough customer, is Roger 
 Daneholme : I reckon ye’ll know him ? ” 
 
 ‘‘ Only by repute. Perhaps you’ll introduce me some night, 
 Jack?” 
 
 “ Happen I will, sir — wi’ the stock of a gun for salute. 
 What ! — going ? Well, good neet, sir ; good neet.” 
 
( 55 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE RISING WIND. 
 
 They dined in the middle of the day at Marshcotes Manor, 
 and they dined well. Mrs. Lomax, consequently, liked to have 
 a clear hour’s sleep in the afternoon — a luxury which Griff 
 made the basis of one of those tender little accusations that 
 were constantly passing between mother and son. 
 
 “ And now, I suppose, you will want to reflect for awhile,” 
 he said, when Thursday’s dinner was over and Mrs. Lomax 
 had risen from the table. 
 
 “You need not put that ironical emphasis on the ‘reflect,’ 
 Griff. I want to sleep, and am not ashamed to confess it.” 
 
 “ Yet you grumble when my work takes me away from you. 
 I’m going to be jealous, too : I grudge you that wasted hour.” 
 
 “ Foolish boy ! You may kiss me, if you like, just as a 
 bribe to get rid of you. There, there; away you go. Are 
 you going to ride ? ” 
 
 “ Yes ; for an hour or so.” 
 
 “ Of course. If it is not your ridiculous work that stands 
 in the way, then you must needs rush off to the stable. It is 
 lucky for me. Griff, that I can sleep with such a thankless son 
 on my conscience.” 
 
 “ Talk to Lassie about it, mother : she will have exercise, 
 and no one but I can manage her properly. That’s what I 
 like about the mare ; she is twice as faithful as any woman I 
 have come across — except my mother.” 
 
 Mrs. Lomax frowned, a real frown ; she did not like Griff’s 
 occasional flippancies about women. 
 
 “ I think, boy, if you had stayed at Marshcotes, your 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 56 
 
 opinions might have kept more wholesome. Your south- 
 country women must be curious, Griff/' 
 
 He smiled a little at her prejudices, and patted her on her 
 rough grey hair, and went out. But a cloud was on his face 
 as he mounted Lassie, standing saddled at the door. 
 
 “ I think," he murmured, “ that if mother knew about Sybil 
 Ogilvie, and the dance she led me, she would never speak to 
 me again." 
 
 The blood rushed hot to his cheeks, and Lassie was sur- 
 prised by an impatient jerk of the snaffle. She would stand a 
 good deal from Griff, but an unprovoked assault of this kind, 
 before ever they had cleared the garden gravel, was too much 
 for any mare of good breeding. She shook her head just once, 
 and tore through the open gate like a thing bewitched. 
 
 I hope he won't break his neck ; it is rather a failing in 
 the family," sighed Mrs. Lomax, patiently, as she watched him 
 down the highroad. 
 
 Griff soon brought the mare to reason, and explained to 
 her that, having lately dined, he was in no mood for such 
 violent exercise. Lassie took this as an apology and forgave 
 him; and they ambled contentedly round by Ling Crag, 
 Wynyates, and back again. As they were crossing the moor 
 close to Marshcotes, Griff espied a tall figure making towards 
 them. It proved to be Kate Strangeway s, returning from the 
 village gi’ocery with a well-filled basket. He drew rein and 
 slipped off his nag. 
 
 “You're looking tired," he said, in his direct way, with 
 a keen glance at her face. 
 
 “ I am tired, but it can’t be helped. I think I'm falling 
 lazy nowadays, Mr. Lomax.” 
 
 “ Lazy ? Well, if you like the word. Mother tells me a 
 different tale. You're coming to have tea with us before you 
 walk the three miles back to Peewit.” 
 
 She coloured slightly. 
 
 “ Oh, no, thank you ! It's time I was home.” 
 
 “ Nonsense ! ” put in Griff, brusquely. “ I say you are 
 coming." 
 
THE RISING WIND. 57 
 
 “ Up here we are not accustomed to being ordered about,” 
 said Kate, between vexation and amusement. 
 
 “ Except by one of your own kind. Come, Mrs. Strange- 
 way s, Fm moor-born, too, and you know what that means. I 
 intend to have my way.” 
 
 She gave in at last, and it was not until they struck the 
 village that Griff bethought him there was a certain oddity 
 in the situation. When they reached the Manor, he learned 
 from Rebecca that Mrs. Lomax had been called out to see 
 some sick body in the village; and he was rather sorry that 
 he had given his off-hand invitation to Kate Strangeways. 
 He told Becky, however, to bring in the tea, and speedily 
 found himself launched into such a brisk discussion that he 
 entirely forgot his mother's absence. They got, by a round- 
 about route, to literature, and from that to some books which 
 Griff had lately lent her. They were all novels of the day, 
 
 some of them written by friends of his own, and he had 
 
 thought them exceedingly good when he had first read them. 
 Griff knew that Kate and his mother had been friends for a 
 
 long while past, yet it staggered him a little to discover that 
 
 this wife of a master-quarryman was capable, not only of 
 reading, but of digesting, the novels he had lent her. 
 
 “ I don't understand story-writing,” she explained, with a 
 half-hesitating air. “ I only know about the life we live, all of 
 us ; and that is a different thing.” 
 
 He looked hard at her, with a puzzled air. 
 
 “ It ought not to be. What these men are striving for, 
 they would tell you, is to get life as it is. They seemed 
 to me to ring true when I read them.” Yet he faltered 
 on the words. To what did they ring true, he could not help 
 asking himself? To the falsity he had cherished through 
 ten long years of his life, answered conscience. But he was 
 stubborn : it was one thing for him to ridicule his late ac- 
 quaintances, and quite another to listen to some one else doing 
 the same ; from sheer contrariety he grew warm in defence of 
 the novels. 
 
 “ But those books — you won't think me silly, Mr. Lomax ? 
 
58 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 you are so much cleverer — they don’t describe women, as I 
 know them.” 
 
 Kate, too, was holding her ground, despite a feeling that 
 this argumentative being must know a hundred times as much 
 as she did about the art of character-drawing. 
 
 Griff got up and leaned against the mantelshelf. He was 
 nettled. It was all so true, he felt — and it was bitter to have 
 to admit that this woman, whom he had vaguely patronized as 
 affording a valuable model, should be able to tell him what it 
 had taken him so long to learn. 
 
 “ I — I thought they did,” he said lamely. 
 
 “ Of course, you know best. Only they seem to me either 
 too good or too bad — and far too clever. There isn’t one real 
 heart-sob in all these books — and women, God knows, live by 
 heart-sobs in real life.” 
 
 She remembered herself at that, and flushed. It was too 
 easy to forget how clever Mr. Lomax was, and she was surely 
 a very silly woman. But Griff knew she was right ; he said 
 nothing for that very reason, because he felt so cross. 
 
 Then the mother came in, and smothered her surprise at 
 finding the two of them chatting so snugly together, and gave 
 Kate a hearty welcome. 
 
 “ Mrs. Strangeways has been abusing my judgment of 
 women,” laughed Griff, his good temper restored. 
 
 Kate tried to expostulate, but Mrs. Lomax cut her short. 
 
 “ Quite right, my dear, quite right. All Griffs pet women 
 are like dough that has been badly kneaded. I tell him so,. 
 often, and he doesn’t half like it. Perhaps he took it more 
 kindly from you ? ” 
 
 “ I say, two to one ! This isn’t fair,” protested her son. 
 
 ‘‘ You will weather the storm. Griff,” retorted the old lady, 
 imperturbably. “ After all, you have made a name for yourself ; 
 a knowledge of women was not necessary there. The whirr of 
 a gale across the heather carried you through ; you forgot your 
 weaknesses sometimes.” 
 
 “ Would you like some tea, mother ? ” ventured Griff, mildly. 
 
 When Kate Strangeways finally rose to go, Lomax insisted 
 
THE RISING WIND. 
 
 59 
 
 on ‘‘ setting her on her way.” ‘‘ I’ll go agatards wi’ ye,” he 
 laughed, translating his intentions into the language of the 
 country, as he loved to do when talking to Mrs. Strangeways. 
 
 Kate, laughing too, congratulated him on his knowledge 
 of the tongue, and they set off in high good spirits. He 
 did not leave her till they reached the top of the last rise 
 that lay between themselves and Peewit House ; and when they 
 said good-bye, he had secured a half-promise that she would sit 
 to him for her portrait. 
 
 A surly-looking rascal, with a beard an inch long and a 
 cutty pipe rammed tight in one corner of his mouth, was 
 leaning over the fence ; Lomax judged him to be a farm-hand, 
 said his farewells to Kate, and set off back across the moor. 
 
 “ Well, I’m beggared ! ” muttered Joe Strangeways, removing 
 the cutty pipe from his jaws. 
 
 Griff went to look up his friend the preacher on the follow- 
 ing afternoon. He found him in a state of wild self-castigation. 
 Gabriel’s eyes were far too bright, and his fingers twitched to 
 the tune of [each fresh thought. That marvellous straight- 
 forwardness of his came to the front at once. 
 
 “ Well, Griff, lad, I was drunk the night before last.” 
 
 ‘‘Not quite that, old fellow; a bit bothered by the road, 
 that’s all ; it’s not an easy path through Hazel Dene.” 
 
 “ I was drunk, I tell you. Yes, and I was mortal sick in 
 the night. Griff. But it wasn’t the sickness of the carnal body 
 I cared for ; the trouble went deeper than that.” 
 
 “ Your head was bad the next morning ? ” queried Griff, 
 innocently. 
 
 “ Man, yes ! But it’s not that I mean. Think of the sin : 
 think of a preacher of God’s word showing himself no more 
 than a cutting from the old stock.” This was Gabriel’s 
 unconquerable pride coming out; he was humble in theory 
 only. 
 
 “When you’ve understood that a little better,” said the 
 other gravely, “ you’ll be fit to preach. Good-bye, old chap ; 
 just ponder on that for a while. When are you coming for 
 another ride ? ” 
 
6o 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 The preacher looked through and beyond his friend. 
 
 “ I never thought to come to this. Let him that thinketh 
 he standeth take heed lest he fall. Look here/’ he broke off, 
 with a sudden flash of fury, “ they say that the Lord looks 
 after His own. Well, I don’t believe it. Why did He bring 
 that girl across my path ? ” 
 
 “ To make a man of you,” said Griff, and vanished. 
 
 Betty Binns was lying in wait for him without. A subdued 
 exultation was visible in her face. 
 
 ‘‘ I war sure, Mr. Lummax,” cried she — “ I war sure ye 
 didn’t rightly know what war good for th’ innards of a man 
 o’ God. Th’ maister, yester-morn, war as yaller as hen-corn, 
 an’ his head warked fit to burst. Thafs what comes along 
 o’ strong meat when th’ Sperrit hes hold on a man.” 
 
 “ Betty,” said Griff, “ you mustn’t be hard on me. I meant 
 it for the best.” 
 
 “ Ay, ay, them as is for meaning th’ best is alius for doing 
 th’ worst ! ” And Betty was retiring in triumph, when the 
 other called her back. 
 
 “ Just tell your master, will you, that I shall be here at nine 
 sharp to-morrow night, and shall expect him to be ready for a 
 ride. You have no objection to offer, have you, Betty ? ” he 
 added, with an air of humble deference. 
 
 “ Get along wi’ ye ! There’s no mak o’ shame i’ th’ young 
 fowk nowadays, no shame at all. It taks a likelier nor ye, Mr. 
 Griff, to trail Betty Binns. Now, will ye let me shut th’ door, or 
 willun’t ye ? ” 
 
 Parting, Betty, is such sweet sorrow, that I ? ” 
 
 He found himself talking to the bare oak of the door, and 
 laughed mightily, in his boy’s way, as he swung down the 
 garden-path and into the highroad. 
 
 Remembering, later in the evening, that his whisky had run 
 out, he slipped across to the Bull to buy a bottle. A crowd of 
 idlers was hanging about the steps, with Joe Strangeways 
 conspicuous in their midst. Joe was in his usual condition of 
 semi-drunkenness, and he scowled on seeing Lomax approach. 
 
 ‘‘ That’s him,” muttered a companion ; ‘‘ tha wert talking 
 
THE RISING WIND. 
 
 6l 
 
 big, Joe, about what tha'd do to him when tha cotched him. 
 Now’s thy chance.” The tone was ironical, and did not sug- 
 gest any great confidence in the quarryman’s practical bravery. 
 
 Strangeways felt that he must make a demonstration of 
 some kind, in view of a few recent utterances of his. He 
 squared his shoulders so as to dispute possession of the doorway, 
 thrust out his lower jaw, and regarded Griff with an air of 
 sullen mockery. 
 
 “ There’s a saying. Griff Lummax, that lang i’ th’ leg spells 
 soft i’ th’ head,” he observed, repeating his favourite little 
 pleasantry. 
 
 A chuckle sounded from the bystanders. Griff stopped on 
 the lowest step, took his pipe out of his mouth, and regarded 
 Strangeways with an air of quiet gravity ; when he spoke, it was 
 with a good Yorkshire brogue that not one of the bystanders 
 could have bettered. 
 
 “ There’s another saying, mate. Lang i’ th’ drink spells 
 short i’ th’ wit.” 
 
 A big laugh went up at that. They were fond of Griff at 
 Marshcotes, and they liked to find him ready with his tongue. 
 Joe’s face grew red, with a dash of purple about the gills. He 
 had nothing to say, so confined himself to filling the door- 
 way a little more completely. 
 
 “ I want to pass,” said Griff. 
 
 “ Oh, tha dost, dost ’a ? Well, it’s gooid for young ’uns to 
 want.” 
 
 “ I want to pass,” repeated Griff. 
 
 “ So tha said,” responded the quarryman, emboldened by 
 the other’s quietness. “ And how if tha’rt not going to be let 
 pass ? ” 
 
 Griff said not another word, but took the four steps in one 
 easy bound, twisted Joe round in his hands, set his foot to the 
 man’s heel and his right arm to his chest, and lowered him 
 gently to the ground, where he lay with his feet on the 
 threshold and his head on the bottom step. Then he went 
 indoors and did his business. 
 
 “It’s time tha wert wending home, Joe,” suggested one 
 
62 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 of the crowd. “ It taks a likelier nor thee to tackle GrifF 
 Lummax.’^ 
 
 ‘‘ Lang F th' leg, an’ strong i’ th’ arm,” laughed another. 
 
 Joe, having got to his feet again, shambled off towards the 
 churchyard gate. 
 
 “ Bide a bit, lads,” he growled. “ Bide till I’ve getten my 
 fist round th’ heft of a knife, and I’ll cut th’ bleeding heart out 
 on him.” 
 
 Lomax, unaware of Joe’s delicately-expressed intentions, 
 sketched the adventure to his mother when he got back, and 
 wondered what particular quarrel the man had with him. 
 
 What was he like, Griff? ” asked Mrs. Lomax. 
 
 “ Oh, I don’t know. Short and thickset, with a stubbly chin 
 and a beery eye.” 
 
 “ Would you like to know who he is ? ” 
 
 ‘‘ I should, rather. I don’t seem to remember his face a bit, 
 and I prided myself on knowing all the moorside.” ^ 
 
 “ He is Joe Strangeways — your moor woman’s husband.” 
 
 “ Nonsense, mother ! It can’t be.” 
 
 “ Haven’t they taught you, Griff, during all those years you 
 have been away, that there is no such word as ‘ can’t ’ ? He is 
 her husband.” 
 
 Griff kicked the fender, for no apparent reason, and brought 
 down the fire-irons with a rattle. 
 
 “ But, mother — he was a brute — a drunken beast — a ” 
 
 “That does not alter facts, though, does it? I know Joe 
 Strangeways very well. Griff ; I had to teach him a lesson 
 once.” 
 
 She told him of that afternoon when she had gone to meet 
 the quarryman on his return from work and had 'given him 
 “ a piece of her mind.” Griff laughed rarely at the fierceness 
 of this mother whom he was wont to tease beyond all limits of 
 endurance. But he went out presently, and his step was 
 heavy ; he felt angry with Kate Strangeways because she had 
 descended to the level of this unshaven clown. It was the 
 first bit of real feeling he had experienced towards the woman 
 who had heretofore struck him in the light of a valuable model. 
 
( 63 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ^TWIXT WYNYATES AND LING CRAG. 
 
 It was nine o’clock of the next evening when Lomax, remem- 
 bering his arrangement with the preacher, went to saddle his 
 good mare Lassie. Lassie had almost forgotten what a gallop 
 was like during the year that her master had been away from 
 Marshcotes. The preacher came now and then to give her a 
 turn, and the groom took perfunctory rides on her, but none 
 save Griff could move the mare to the least show of enthusiasm. 
 Gabriel thought her a dull nag, and wondered what Lomax 
 saw in her ; the groom voted her “ a quarrelsome, skew-natured 
 beast ” j but Lassie could do a good deal when she felt Griffs 
 legs astride of her and knew that it was worth while. 
 
 She whinnied, and arched her black neck, and kicked 
 splinters out of her stall, when Griff came to her to-night. 
 
 “ We’re off for a scramble, old girl,” he explained. And 
 the mare, who had long ago guessed as much, almost harnessed 
 herself, so eager was she to be off. 
 
 She didn’t want to pull up at Gabriel’s door, but a touch of 
 the curb gave her a broad enough hint that she was to subdue 
 inclination for once. The preacher came to the gate ; he 
 looked worth two of his usual self, what with the light of 
 anticipation in his face, and the spick-and-span riding togs 
 which replaced his sober gear of the morning. 
 
 “ Are you ready ? ” Lomax shouted. 
 
 “ Ay, and waiting,” answered Gabriel, in a clear, ringing 
 voice. “ The chestnut has been saddled this half-hour past.” 
 
 Away they went at a swinging pace along the good hard 
 road that leads across the Lancashire border. They rattled 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 64 
 
 down the hill and up again on the other side, past the wooded 
 rise where Wynyates hamlet looks over Scartop Water. They 
 slackened half-way up the hill, and Griff jerked his whip 
 towards Wynyates Hall as they went by. 
 
 “ A fine old place, that. It’s taken at last, so Jack o’ Ling 
 Crag tells me.” 
 
 ‘‘Taken, is it? I wouldn’t change places with whoever is 
 going to live there,” muttered the preacher. 
 
 “ Why, Hirst, I believe you’re as bad as the rest of them. 
 Do you put your trust in that ridiculous ghost of a brandy-bottle 
 which Jack is always talking about ? ” 
 
 “ There were men who came to an evil end up there,” said 
 Gabriel, slowly, “ and it stands to reason they won’t rest quiet 
 in their graves.” He drew his horse close up to Lassie, and 
 peered into Griff’s face. “ Lad, it’s all very well to talk and 
 laugh and joke when you’re above ground : but what is it when 
 you’ve got six feet of earth above you, and there comes a 
 rap-rap at the coffin-lid, and you ask who’s knocking — and a 
 voice comes out of the blackness and whispers of Judgment 
 Day — and your body is mad to move, and can’t — and your 
 spirit breaks clean through for very suffering, and walks the 
 earth till the world’s end, thinking on the vengeance of the 
 Lord ” 
 
 Griff looked out over the moor, quiet as death, with the 
 moonlight dappling the hollows, and the road stretching on, on 
 before him, a streaky grey, far as the silent sky. He trembled 
 at the preacher’s imagery ; ghosts and another world seemed 
 the only realities in this night-girdled land. Then he felt the 
 mare’s belly under his legs, and the breath of life in his body. 
 
 “ Gabriel,” he laughed, “ you’ve got a fine imagination. 
 Damn your superstitions 1 ” 
 
 “ Lad, you’re over proud in your strength of limb,” groaned 
 Hirst. “ Give a thought to the soul that can be burned in 
 hell fire for ever ” 
 
 “ I won’t ! ” snapped Griff, digging his heels into Lassie. 
 
 Both riders and horses were content to take things easily 
 by the time they re-passed Wynyates. The exercise had driven 
 
’twixt wynyates and ling crag. 65 
 
 out half GabrieFs morbid fancies, and his thoughts were set on 
 Greta. 
 
 “GrifF,’’ he ventured at last; “have you seen the miller 
 lately ? 
 
 “Yes — and the miller’s daughter, too; which is more to 
 the point, I take it. I looked in this morning on my way 
 through Hazel Dene.” 
 
 A long silence. A light that was not of spiritual worries 
 came into the preacher’s face — a hot, ugly light of jealousy. 
 
 “ She’s a lass in a thousand, Griif, and you’re a better man 
 to look at than I ; do you mean to play me false ? ” 
 
 “ Gabriel Hirst, if you want me to think you drunk again, 
 go on in that strain,” cried the other, harshly. 
 
 Gabriel winced. 
 
 “ Sober or drunk, lad, I fear you,” he said, quietly. 
 
 “ Then you’re a fool for your pains. Haven’t I eyes in my 
 head, old chap ? Didn’t I watch you two the other night, and 
 see the hide-and-seek in her eyes, and hear her cut you to 
 ribbons with her little red tongue ? ” 
 
 “ What of that ? I don’t see that it helps me.” 
 
 “ No, of course you don’t see, because you know as much 
 of women as you did the day you were born. It means just 
 this — you can go in and win her. Only you won’t ; you’re so 
 damnably humble in the wrong places, and cock-a-whoop when 
 soberness would fit you better.” 
 
 “ Do you mean that, Griff? Do you think — nay, nay, it’s 
 too good ; it can’t be. She as much as tells me I’m a canting 
 fool — and sometimes she almost makes me believe it,” he 
 added reflectively. 
 
 “ Do you good. What an ass you are, old fellow, some- 
 how.” 
 
 The preacher bit his lip, and seemed minded to retort ; 
 but he thought better of it, and struck off into a fresh channel 
 of talk. 
 
 “ There are changes in the countryside,” he ventured 
 presently. “ The old mill is taken, Frender’s Folly is taken, 
 and now Wynyates ” 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ Frender’s Folly let?” echoed GrifF. ‘‘I thought it was 
 past hope by this time. Who has taken it ? ” 
 
 ‘‘ Some sporting chap that has his pockets lined with gold.” 
 
 “ FrendeFs pockets were lined with gold, too, when he set 
 out to build the Folly. I wish to the deuce these foreigners 
 would spend their money elsewhere, instead of building palaces 
 in the middle of the moor ; the moor doesn’t want them.” 
 
 “ Foreigners^ Griff? ” said the preacher, with a good, hearty 
 laugh. “ It’s easy to tell that you come from hereabouts.” 
 
 “Well, so they are foreigners. What does a moor house 
 want with a couple of ball-rooms, terraces and gardens and 
 hot-houses ? Thank goodness, it lies outside Marshcotes moor, 
 at any rate ; they must make the best of it on the Cranshaw 
 side.” 
 
 “ Captain Laverack — the man who’s taken it — has a 
 daughter, and they say she is pretty to look at,” observed 
 Gabriel, after another long pause. 
 
 Griff laughed to himself ; he could read very clearly what 
 was in the preacher’s mind — ^his clumsy attempt to divert his 
 rival’s attentions to other quarters. 
 
 “ Oh, has he? Does she ever stray as far as Ling Crag? ” 
 
 “Now and then she rides this way. There’s something 
 queer about the business — so folk say — for the lass goes 
 about with a face as long as a fiddle, and now and then she 
 rides her horse shamefully hard, as if the devil was in her. 
 Month in and month out they live at Frender’s Folly, the girl 
 and her father, and never get away for a holiday, as great folk 
 mostly do.” 
 
 “ Gabriel, it does one good to hear you talking gossip ! 
 Man, you’re changing in spite of yourself.” 
 
 “ I was thinking,” went on Gabriel, in his honest, stubborn 
 way, “ that perhaps she is not as happy as she might be, and — 
 it’s time you were settled in life. Griff.” 
 
 The other did not reply. His eyes went out across the 
 moor again. The preacher’s homely phrase had brought a 
 host of sudden longings to the front. Settled m life^ he 
 muttered to himself ; was that what was amiss with him ? 
 
'twixt wynyates and ling crag. 67 
 
 Then the thought of Kate Strangeways came to him — the 
 picture of her husband, as he had last seen him with his head 
 on the flagstones of the Bull doorway — the quick understand- 
 ing that he had met no other woman who could grip his 
 fancy just as Kate did. Then he remembered the husband 
 again. 
 
 “ Don^t talk rot,” he said, and fell into silence. 
 
 Another horseman showed round the bend in the road that 
 hid Ling Crag. He drew rein as he neared them. 
 
 “ Can you direct me to Wynyates ? ” he asked. 
 
 Griff started and looked at the stranger^s face twice before 
 he could make up his mind on some question suggested by the 
 voice and figure. He put out his hand at last. 
 
 “ Why, Roddick ! ” he cried. “ How the mischief do you 
 come to be scouring the country at this time of night ? ” 
 
 “ What, it’s never you, Lomax ? Here, let me get a closer 
 look at your face. By the powers it is, though ! You’ve 
 pulled me up with one question, and I’ll pull you up with 
 another ; how the mischief do you come to be here ? ” 
 
 “ I live here ; and that is more than you can say for your- 
 self, at any rate,” Griff chuckled. 
 
 “ There you’re wrong, my boy. I’ve taken Wynyates, and 
 am at this moment on my way to it.” 
 
 “ Then, why ask your road ? You didn’t take the place on 
 trust, did you, without ever seeing it ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, but I did. The road seemed as plain as a pikestaff, 
 while the landlord at the inn there was giving me directions ; 
 but these bothersome moors of yours put a man off — from sky- 
 line to sky-line they never vary, and they upset one’s notions 
 confoundedly.” 
 
 Lassie began to show signs of impatience ; she wanted to 
 be back in her stall again, and it did not fit with her ideas of 
 good sense that her master should keep her waiting while he 
 talked to a casual stranger on the highroad, 
 i ; “ All right. Lassie, all right,” said Griff ; “ a mile or two out 
 of our way, and then home in good earnest. I’ll see you as 
 far as Wynyates, Roddick.” Then, remembering the preacher. 
 
68 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ Hirst, you won't mind my leaving you here ? We must have 
 another ride before long.” 
 
 “ As soon as you like, old fellow ; it has done me a world of 
 good,” returned the preacher, cheerily. 
 
 ‘‘Now, Roddick, what on earth brings you here?” said 
 Griff, as they went down the hill. 
 
 “ Honours easy,” retorted the other nonchalantly. “ I 
 thought you were in town, at the tail of Sybil Ogilvie ; what 
 brings you here ? ” 
 
 “ Sybil Ogilvie herself, and a longing for fresh air.” There 
 was a testiness in Griff's voice. 
 
 “ Ah — she played a little too fast and loose with you, did 
 she ? Well, I commend your sense, Lomax ; she was worth 
 about as little as any woman I ever saw, and that is saying a 
 good deal.” 
 
 “ You still don't tell me why ” 
 
 “ A longing for fresh air — and a few other trifles with 
 which I won't burden you just now. Enough that I'm here, 
 and here I mean to stay until it pleases Providence to kick 
 me out.” 
 
 “ Then you've given up London, and political economy, and 
 the writing of tracts for the People ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, the whole lot. Political economy palls after fifteen 
 years of it, and Socialism is stale. I have taken a turn for 
 sport, and that's the truth of it ; they tell me there is good 
 shooting to be had round about Wynyates.” 
 
 Roddick's face wore a guilelessness that was far from con- 
 vincing his companion. 
 
 “ I don't believe a word of it. You always were a secretive 
 beggar, Roddick ; if you won't tell me your motive, though, 
 you won't, and there's an end of it. You're looking seedy,” he 
 added, taking a long look at his face. 
 
 “ Possibly ; it would be funny if I didn't. — Is this Wynyates ? 
 The place looks gloomy enough, in all conscience.” 
 
 “ Yes, that’s Wynyates. Are you afraid of ghosts, by the 
 way ? They are said to simply swarm hereabouts.” 
 
 “ So I've been told. Let 'em swarm.” Roddick dropped 
 
'twixt wynyates and ling crag. 69 
 
 his exaggerated listlessness ; he leaned over to Griff, just as the 
 preacher had done not long ago. “ Lomax,” he said, gruffly, 
 ‘‘have you ever touched a ghost — not a filmy white affair, 
 decently clothed, but a sort of hag from hell-pit, with lips that 
 are wet and cling, and a body that — ugh ! Don't babble to 
 me about your country ghosts; they fight with a brandy-bottle, 
 don’t they, that pretty pair of brothers in there ? Well, they 
 can fight till Doomsday, for all I care. You don’t mind good 
 clean ghosts when once you have seen what I see every other 
 day or so.” 
 
 “ Roddick,” said Griff, slowly, “ it is no affair of mine, I 
 suppose, but you’re in a bad way. The man who just left us is 
 great on hell-pit and these sinuous terrors of yours ; I’m trying 
 to bring him round to sanity.” 
 
 Roddick gave a great guffaw, and set his voice to a rasp- 
 ing shout. 
 
 “ You baby, you unutterable fool, to come and preach sanity 
 to me, after your Samson-and-Delilah farce with Sybil Ogilvie ! 
 I believe in my ghost, I tell you, because it won’t let me forget ; 
 go home to your bed, and pray for experience.” 
 
 Griff sat quietly in his saddle ; he was undismayed by the 
 outbreak, though Lassie was growing restive again. 
 
 “ Damned hospitable you are,” he murmured. 
 
 The other came to himself. 
 
 “ Come in, and have something to drink. I told the old 
 ruffian at the inn to send me some whisky, and if he’s failed 
 me, we’ll amuse ourselves by going back and breaking his senile 
 neck.” 
 
 “ You can, if you like,” grinned Lomax, as he slipped out 
 of the saddle ; “ for my part I would rather tackle Jack o’ Ling 
 Crag another day. Wait till you have seen him with two keepers 
 in front, and three more coming up hot-foot behind him.” 
 
 “ Have you ? ” Roddick demanded, turning sharp on his heel. 
 
 “ Well, once or twice ; and we licked them all to pieces.” 
 
 “ I didn’t think you had it in you. That Ogilvie woman 
 must have rotted you more than we dreamed of. You really 
 are a bit of a man, are you, Lomax ? ” 
 
70 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ Just a bit, when the fit is on me. Moonlight seems to be 
 good for your temper, by the way ; I wish you would not be so 
 absurdly polite, Roddick.’’ 
 
 Griff had thought little of the preacher’s gossip touching 
 Frender’s Folly ; but as he rode home from Wynyates, in the 
 small hours of the morning, the name of its new owner came 
 to his mind, and stuck there with irritating persistency ; there 
 was some elusive, half-remembered association with the name, 
 but he could not focus it. The matter was still troubling 
 him — as trifles sometimes will — when he came down to 
 breakfast. 
 
 “ Mother, where have I heard the name Laverack before ? ” 
 he demanded. 
 
 Mrs. Lomax was pouring him his second cup of tea at the 
 moment, and a sudden nervous movement of her hand flooded 
 saucer and tray alike. 
 
 “ There, Griff, you always were so abrupt ! You know how 
 I hate spilling things,” cried the old lady, with an uneasy 
 laugh. 
 
 Griff, seeing her trouble, came very near to gripping his 
 fugitive memory fair and square. 
 
 “ Never mind the tea ; who is Captain Laverack ? ” 
 
 “ I had rather you left that question alone, dear,” she said 
 slowly ; “ but if you must have an answer, you must. Long 
 before you were born, there was a certain lying rumour set 
 abroad; it was said that Joe Strangeway s’ mother had — had 
 suffered at your father’s hands ; every one believed it at the 
 time.” 
 
 ‘‘ I know now. And it was this same Captain Laverack who 
 had really done the harm ? ” 
 
 ‘‘ Yes, he got into difficulties soon after, you may remember, 
 and went away to America. Your father wrote to him just before 
 he sailed, asking him to put matters straight so far as he could ; 
 and Captain Laverack wrote back that he had enough dis- 
 covered sins to face, without gratuitously adding to the list. 
 This was the last we heard of him.” 
 
 “ Well, he has returned, it seems, with a mint of money. 
 
’twixt wynyates and ling crag. 71 
 
 Gabriel told me yesterday that he had come to live at Frender’s 
 Folly." 
 
 Mrs. Lomax frowned ; her memory seemed to be busy 
 with things of long ago. 
 
 “ I remember your father taking him to see Frender’s Folly 
 one day," she said at last. “ He was curiously attracted by the 
 place, and bored me for a whole hour that evening by describing 
 how he meant to buy it as soon as he could, and the altera- 
 tions he intended to make. I am sorry he has come. Griff ; 
 it will open up the old sores." 
 
72 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 KATE STRANGEWAYS ASSERTS HERSELF. 
 
 Griff, during the next few months, was greatly exercised in 
 mind touching his friend the preacher. Gabriel Hirst’s moods 
 were swinging to wider extremes nowadays ; the constant sight of 
 Greta kept the inner fires going, and whether they flamed or 
 smouldered was a question largely of the way she treated him. 
 Not altogether, though : there were times when he wrenched him- 
 self free of his fetters, and set his thoughts on the Word instead 
 of on Greta, and made his congregations quake with his whirl- 
 wind eloquence. But he was what old Jose Binns termed 
 “ wobbly-like ” ; his temper was uncertain, his attitude towards 
 his fellows harsh beyond all his old-time limits of justice. If 
 for an hour or so he could persuade himself into the belief that 
 Greta cared for him, then he spent the rest of the day in self- 
 denunciation, because his heart was fixed on carnal welfare : if 
 the girl ran across his path and chanced to mock him, as she 
 frequently did, he forgot that she was not the highest goal man 
 could have, and railed at the destiny which showed him a 
 heaven with shut gates. On and off, he sickened with hate of 
 Lomax, thinking him an unacknowledged rival ; and after the 
 stormy scenes, which generally followed hot-foot on the heels 
 of such humours, came abasement of himself before Lomax — 
 an abasement that hurt Griff far more than the passion which 
 preceded it. 
 
 Gabriel Hirst suffered, during these months, as he had not 
 known how to suffer before that meeting with Greta Rotherson 
 on the sunny Sabbath morning. He grew more sensitive than 
 ever to changes in the face of the moor and sky. When the day 
 
KATE STRANGEWAYS ASSERTS HERSELF. 73 
 
 was bright and the wind blew soft, there seemed excuse for his 
 gaining passion — even a hope sometimes ; but when the storm- 
 skies opened, and the wind came ravening out of the north, and 
 the moor streams swelled themselves to rivers, Gabriel Hirst 
 would awake to the sins of the world and his own wrongdoing 
 — would hark back to his scanty fare, and his wrestlings with 
 the Adversary. But the Adversary, with that practical, vivid 
 imaginativeness of his, showed nowadays in the guise of a 
 woman. 
 
 Greta, for her part, was growing out of all patience with the 
 preacher. He could not speak to her but the words tripped each 
 other up as they came from his mouth ; he was awkward with 
 his hands and feet directly he found himself near her ; he looked 
 a hundred proposals out of his eyes, but never approached the 
 utterance of one. She cared for him — if he would only let her 
 — and she was angry with him, ashamed of, sorry for, him ; so 
 that amongst it all the girl, like Gabriel himself, was like to 
 spoil her temper for good. What angered her most was that 
 Gabriel was always like this in her company ; she had seen him 
 riding with Griff, and had noticed how manly, and neat, and 
 broad-shouldered he looked. Why would he never come to 
 her in decent clothes, or square his shoulders when he stood 
 before her ? And why, in the name of goodness, did she care 
 how he came to her ? 
 
 It was a matter of surprise to the villagers that their 
 preacher should be so given to “ fits and starts.” One Sunday 
 he would rain brimstone from the pulpit, while the next would 
 find him tender almost to the verge of tears. 
 
 “ Nay, nay, I doubt it’s too mich for Gabriel j he should 
 tak hisseln off ivery other week an’ rest a bit,” commented a 
 member of his following. 
 
 “That’s so, lad, that’s so,” assented Jose Binns; “he’s 
 nobbut poorly like, is th’ pracher, or he’d niver gie us such pap 
 sermons as that’n we hed yester morn. Oh, ay, he’d better tak 
 a rest, an’ that’s plain to ony man ’at can see to th’ end on 
 his nose.” 
 
 But Greta’s comments on the preacher were of a different 
 
74 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 sort. “ He’s such a woman^ father,” she said to Miller Rother- 
 son one day. It was her usual remark when Gabriel had 
 particularly angered her. 
 
 “ Don’t be too sure, lass. I’ve no call to fight his battles, 
 seeing how often he’s bothered and bothered me about my 
 soul — ^but this I’ll say for Gabriel Hirst : he’s no woman at the 
 heart of him. Greta, I’d think shame if I was you to set so 
 much store by the outside.” 
 
 “ I don’t like an apple with an ugly rind, however good it 
 be inside,” said Greta, crossly. 
 
 “ And there you make your mistake, as women-folk mostly 
 do. Give me the ugliest-looking apple you can find, and I’ll 
 know it’s worth eating.” 
 
 But Gabriel isn’t ugly,” flashed the girl, perversely. 
 
 The miller laid down his pipe, and looked quizzically at his 
 daughter. 
 
 “ Has he snared thy heart, lass, this preacher fellow ? ” 
 
 Greta tossed her head, got half-way through a denial, and 
 ended with a storm of sobs. 
 
 “ There, there, Greta, don’t cry,” murmured Miller Rother- 
 son, as she came to his knee and buried her head out of sight. 
 “Supposing he is too blind, this Gabriel Hirst, to know a 
 good thing when he sees it — there are other men in the 
 world.” 
 
 She lifted up her head at that and pushed back the hair 
 from her eyes. 
 
 “ But not one that can come near him, father.” 
 
 “Well, well; I never did understand the twists and the 
 turns of you women, and I never shall, as I told your poor 
 mother most every day of her life. He’s such a woman, sings 
 the lass one minute, and the next ” 
 
 “ So he is,” quoth Greta, and ran from the room to tidy 
 herself. 
 
 And all this, as has been said, bothered Griff Lomax no 
 little. He felt like a father to these two young people, and 
 had set his heart on their making a match of it. He was in 
 and out of the mill a good deal ; old Rotherson took kindly 
 
KATE STRANGEWAYS ASSERTS HERSELF. 75 
 
 to him, and Greta grew to regard him in the light of a hail- 
 fellow-well-met sort of comrade, who showed no disposition to 
 make love, and who was yet willing to serve as a friendly basis 
 of jealousy when the occasion demanded it. 
 
 And all the while GrifF never once guessed that he was 
 himself walking — nay, running — into deep waters. The mother 
 and he went very often across the three miles of moor that lay 
 between Marshcotes and Peewit House. Almost as often Kate 
 Strangeways walked to the Manor ; sometimes she sat by the 
 parlour fireside, with her hands in her lap, enjoying the sensa- 
 tion of being thoroughly idle ; sometimes she played the model 
 in the snug little studio upstairs, and watched GrifF as he plied 
 his brushes. True, he had asked permission simply to paint 
 her portrait ; but he wanted more than that — and, wanting it, 
 contrived in his usual headstrong way to obtain it. There was 
 no trace of self-deception in his enthusiasm for Kate’s strong, 
 lithe type of beauty. It was with an artist’s zeal that he seized 
 this and that new pose, or altered expression ; and if he was 
 gentler with her after the fatigue of . posing, more solicitous 
 that she should not tire herself unduly, than was altogether 
 necessary — well, how could he help it, when he had, in very 
 fact, been searching after this treasure-trove of his ever since 
 he took to painting ? 
 
 Mrs. Lomax buzzed in and out of the studio while they 
 were at work, and was disposed to blame GrifF for what she 
 called his callousness in the matter of his model’s welfare ; at 
 times she even went so far as to be indignant that the boy 
 could be so blinded by his art as to lose sight of the good red 
 gold that lay beneath the surface of Kate’s q^uiet manners. 
 But she never stopped to picture what must happen should 
 GrifF once dig down to the gold and set his heart on wealth 
 that belonged to his neighbour. 
 
 Only Roddick guessed which way the wind was blowing, 
 and he kept his opinions to himself. GrifF would ride over 
 to Wynyates two or three times a week, and he rarely left 
 without a word or two about the woman who lived across the 
 
 moor. 
 
76 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ Across the moor she lives, do you say ? ” Roddick had . 
 asked, with a start, the first time Griff had mentioned her. 
 
 “Yes; what of that? You look as if there were some 
 one hereabouts in whom you are interested. Is that the 
 reason ” 
 
 “ Pish, romantic boy ! I’m interested in grouse, trout, and 
 rabbits ; don’t saddle me with your women.” But he recurred 
 to the topic for all that, as Griff was mounting Lassie at the 
 gate. “Does she live on the Marshcotes moor?” he asked 
 suddenly. 
 
 “ No, the Cranshaw side,” said Lomax, with deliberate 
 intent to take Roddick unawares. 
 
 “ By God ! ” muttered Roddick, under his breath. 
 
 Griff saw the contraction of his brows and laughed. 
 
 “ So that is the trend of your secret, is it ? Put your 
 mind at rest, old fellow; slie lives on the Marshcotes moor 
 right enough, and she is the wife of a master-quarryman.” 
 
 “You’re a fool,” said Roddick, gruffly, and shut the door 
 with a bang. — “Why the devil won’t Lomax let my secret 
 alone ? ” he muttered, stirring up the fire in his parlour. “ Jove, 
 though, I fancied for the moment that Frender’s Folly was his 
 destination ; Janet might care for a man of Lomax’s build — 
 the Lord knows why she picked me out from the crowd — and 
 that’s just the rub of it all. Oh, my God, if only I were 
 free!” 
 
 After that evening Roddick learnt a good deal about Kate 
 Strange ways — or, at any rate, about Griff’s conception of her. 
 He was an astute man where other people’s follies were con- 
 cerned, and he could have told Lomax that the adventure was 
 bound to end in one of two ways. 
 
 “ He wouldn’t believe me, so where is the use of telling 
 him?” Roddick argued. “For a clever man, old Lomax is 
 pretty blind — yes, a confounded ass whenever a woman is toward. 
 This is biting deeper than he’ll like, though, when he comes 
 to open his eyes ; it’s not the trashy stuff he called love while 
 the Ogilvie woman had him in tow. Well, I’ll wait ; there’ll 
 be a cheerful blow-up one of these days.” 
 
KATE STRANGEWAYS ASSERTS HERSELF. 77 
 
 But neither Griff nor the old lady of the Manor thought 
 of coming evil. They walked far and wide by day, and at 
 night they chatted of old times, of new endeavours, by the 
 parlour fire. The itch for work, too, was taking a surer hold 
 of Griff, and he was well satisfied with the progress of his 
 picture. Autumn had long ago failed to winter, and the moors 
 were looking their best ; the heather had lost its gaudy raiment 
 of purple, and stretched away in patches of rusty brown, of 
 sober red, that fitted better with its savage dignity. Overhead, 
 on the fine days, were wonderful shifting tints of sapphire and 
 clear-cut green, with sunsets that stretched, purple and crimson, 
 along half the horizon edge ; then, again, the wind would shift 
 to rain, and the sullen banks of yellow would come crowding 
 across the sky from over Ling Crag, and the tremor and stress 
 of storm would sweep into the man’s heart. And all the while 
 the woman across the moor grew dearer to him ; she was part 
 and parcel of the heath he loved, the sunsets that fired him to 
 endeavour, the wind that made him drunker than wine could 
 ever do. If he failed to look at the situation squarely, it was 
 because Kate was always there, to be seen whenever the wish 
 moved him ; had a rival stepped in, or had she left Marshcotes 
 for a space. Griff would better have understood it all. 
 
 Kate Strangeways, too, began to find heart again, began 
 to feel the old use of her limbs and the old relish for a gale ; 
 she wondered, now and then, what had wrought this change 
 in her, but it was long ere she was brought to confess that 
 she counted the days between visit and visit of a man who 
 had troubled himself to bring fresh interest into her dull round 
 of care. Her manner towards her husband changed; she 
 found courage to fight him, and she conquered ; she furbished 
 up a little bedroom facing south, and maintained her rights 
 of property therein, and did not stop to inquire what instinct 
 prompted her to privacy. 
 
 As for Joe, he got drunk oftener nowadays ; his will held 
 altogether too much parley with the shadowy places, and, as 
 a consequence, he blustered more and was less capable than 
 ever of backing up his bluster. Just once he tried to trespass 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 78 
 
 on Kate’s private domain; it was a night of late November, 
 and he had sat up chatting with Hannah, the maid-of-all-work, 
 after his wife had gone to bed. Hannah was even a little 
 sourer than her wont, and she gave Strangeways a lengthy 
 account of young Lomax’s comings and goings. 
 
 “ I’d be shamed, if I war a man, to put up wi’ my wife’s 
 hoity-toity ways, same as tha does,” she snarled, with a freedom 
 born of the sense that she was talking to one of her own class. 
 ‘‘She mun sleep i’ her own bedroom, mun she? Happen 
 there’s more i’ that nor there seems, if tha’d getten a couple 
 of een i’ thy head.” 
 
 “ What dost ’a mean ? Come, out wi’ it ; I cannot abide 
 thy ins an’ thy outs, an’ thy shammocky ways o’ talk. There’s 
 no mouse-holes about me, an’ I look to find other fowk talking 
 fair an’ square. What dost ’a mean, woman ? ” 
 
 “ Nay, if tha cannot guess, it’s noan for a honest woman to 
 tell thee. Didn’t I say ’at young Lummax comes an’ goes 
 for all th’ world as if he war th’ maister ? If that isn’t enow, 
 I’d like to know what is ? ” 
 
 Joe brought the bowl of his pipe down hard on the grate 
 and smashed it. 
 
 “ She shall shift her quarters to-neet, or I’ll shift mine,” he 
 muttered. 
 
 “ Fine talking,” sneered Hannah. 
 
 “ Hod thy whisht, wench ! I tell thee I’ll teach the wife to 
 come it ower me; ay, that I will,” said Joe, doggedly. He 
 kicked off his boots and went shambling up the stairs ; tried the 
 handle of Kate’s door, and found it locked ; swore at her and 
 commanded her to open. She did open at last, and stood on 
 the threshold. She had taken off the bodice of her dress, and 
 her bust and beautiful bare arms showed faintly by light of the 
 candle behind her. Joe, despite his sodden state, felt some- 
 thing of the old desire as his eyes took in the contour of her 
 figure. 
 
 “ What do you want ? ” she demanded. 
 
 “It’s lonely wark, Kate, living wi’ a wife that’s no wife, 
 an’ I willun’t stand it.” 
 
KATE STRANGEWAYS ASSERTS HERSELF. 79 
 
 “When you had me, Joe,” said she bitterly, “you were 
 never so free with kindness. A woman gets tired of being 
 kicked out of bed, and I’m not going to risk it again.” 
 
 “ When fowks is wed, they’re wed. Me an’ thee’s teed fast 
 as parson could tee us, an’ I’ve a right to thee — ay, that I hev 
 — a right o’ law, an’ a right o’ parson.” 
 
 A swift smile came to Kate’s lips, as she straightened 
 herself and sought his eye in the semi-darkness. 
 
 “Then, Joe Strange ways, you can go for the parson and 
 bring him to help you ; for you’ll never touch me again, if I 
 have to fight the lot of you.” 
 
 “I’m a honest man,” Joe declared, after a disconcerted 
 pause. 
 
 “ It’s a queer country that would call you honest, Joe.” 
 The wife was feeling almost flippant for the moment, as the 
 stronger sort of women do in moments of strain. 
 
 A long silence followed, broken only by the shuffling of 
 Joe’s feet, and the ticking of the clock in the kitchen down 
 below, and the rattle of mice behind the wainscoting. 
 
 “ I’m a honest man,” reiterated Joe at last ; “ an’ dang me . 
 if I’ll see my wife go wrang wi’ th’ first fine gent what taks a 
 fancy to her.” 
 
 “ Go wrong ! ” she cried, with a sudden blaze of fury. “ You 
 dare to come to me and ” 
 
 Joe felt vaguely that he was getting the advantage now that 
 he had made her angry. 
 
 “ Ay, go wrang ; that’s what it’s leading to,” he responded 
 doggedly. 
 
 All the fight went out of Kate. He had brought home to 
 her at last what she had hidden from herself all these months : 
 she was face to face with the truth, and she saw in a flash 
 the dreary stretch of years that spread before her — after she 
 had proved true to her conscience — after she had said good-bye 
 to Griff, and they had each gone their ways. Without a word 
 she turned; before Joe had divined her purpose, she had 
 locked the door in his face and left him on the cold landing to 
 marvel at the queer ways of women. She threw herself on 
 
8o 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 the bed and cried her heart out, while her husband growled his 
 way to his own room. She wanted never, never to see GrifF 
 again. 
 
 But GrifF himselF chanced to ride over the very next morn- 
 ing, and he altered her outlook on things. The clear. Friendly 
 look in his eyes — the easy talk on this or that topic oF interest 
 which they shared in common — his kindly insistence that she was 
 Far From well, and that he meant to tell his mother when he got 
 home how little care she took oF herselF — all helped her to view 
 the last night’s misery in a quieter light. With a quick Feminine 
 subterFuge she told herselF that his regard For her did not go 
 very deep; iF her own went deeper, need she make herselF 
 Foolish in his eyes by bidding him never come near her again ? 
 
 AFter he had gone — with a Faint wonder in his mind at 
 her changed manner — Kate went over all that she had suffered 
 at her husband’s hands; and across her honesty oF purpose 
 struck a swiFt desire to take liFe while she had it and enjoy 
 it to the Full. She put the desire away from her; but it 
 returned day by day, and she grew less eager to cast it out. 
 Gradually she let the old life go its way ; GrifF came and went, 
 and she was glad to see him ; she would not look behind. 
 
 But Roddick, in amongst his own perplexities, found time 
 now and then for a sardonic grin, and a wonder as to how soon 
 the climax would be reached. 
 
 And the climax came sooner than he expected. 
 
( 8i ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CONFESSION. 
 
 Kate Strangeways, after her sudden collapse before Joe’s 
 accusation, nerved herself to the fight once more. J oe attempted 
 to take up the same line on the next night, and was beaten ; at 
 heart he was afraid of her, because he knew her to be stronger, 
 finer in breed, than himself. Then, gradually, he grew mortally 
 sick of her, now that she showed so uncompromising a determi- 
 nation to stand on her own level. He conceived an idea, and 
 soaked the idea in much strong ale until it mellowed. 
 
 “ When a gentleman born,” said he to his mug, “ when a 
 gentleman born taks th’ trouble to come aboon three miles i’ 
 search on a wench, he alius hes one notion. Well, Fll let ’em 
 bide, that I will, an’ I won’t break th’ bones i’ his body, ’cos 
 he’s ower big for that kind o’ marlaking. They shall just go 
 their own foul gate, an’ we’ll see what’ll come o’ my fine lady’s 
 airs an’ graces when this Lummax hes dragged her in th’ mire. 
 She puts up her high-bred nose, does she, when I get a bit on th’ 
 booze now and again? Well, it’ll be six o’ one an’ half a 
 dozen o’ t’ other sooin.” 
 
 So Kate, thanks to a resolve of which she guessed nothing, 
 had a whole month’s respite from her husband. He went out 
 every night directly after tea, and rarely spoke to her during 
 the few moments when they were together. She took the 
 respite gladly, and flattered herself that the trouble with Griff 
 was assuming no more alarming proportions as the days went 
 on. Yet she wondered, and ached, and cried at rare intervals, 
 just because he could maintain his friendly attitude so easily ; 
 freely would she have forgiven him if he had faltered once or 
 twice in well-doing. 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “Shall we go to Peewit to-morrow? I promised to take 
 Kate some books,” said Mrs. Lomax to GrifF, one evening, 
 as they sat in their favourite nook by the parlour fire. 
 
 “You oughtnT to, with that cold of yours. Why will you 
 never look after yourself, mother ? ” 
 
 “ Don’t coddle me. Griff. My cold must be driven out by 
 some good frosty air ; the walk will do me good.” 
 
 But she was worse on the next morning, and Griff put his 
 foot down in a way that even his mother understood. He sat 
 with her until three o’clock, and then she insisted on his going 
 for a run on the moors. 
 
 “ I’ll walk across to Peewit, if you like, and take the books 
 with me,” he said, turning at the door. “ It will give me an 
 object in going out.” 
 
 “Very well, dear. You will find them in my room, on the 
 table near the window.” 
 
 He stowed away the books in sundry capacious pockets, 
 and set off towards the moor at a swinging pace. It was near 
 the end of March, but the frost, repenting the easy winter it 
 had given the Marshcotes folk, had suddenly bestirred itself 
 and gripped the moor side shrewdly. Just as Griff left the 
 churchyard, he met Greta Rotherson on her way to the village. 
 
 “You’re enjoying the frost, too?” he said, coming to rest 
 against a gate. 
 
 “ No, I’m not,” retorted Greta, crossly ; “ it’s far too cold, 
 and the end of one’s nose gets red.” 
 
 “Not your nose, at any rate ; your cheeks have used up 
 the supply. — I saw Gabriel this morning for five minutes.” 
 
 “ Did you ? ” Disdainfully. 
 
 “ Yes ; he called at the mill last night, and came round to 
 tell me how disappointed he was to find you out.” 
 
 “ To find father out ? He would be : we were with friends 
 in the village.” 
 
 “ Look here, Miss Rotherson — why do you treat poor old 
 Hirst as you do ? ” queried Griff, bluntly. 
 
 “ I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Lomax. Why should 
 I treat him differently ? ” 
 
CONFESSION. 
 
 83 
 
 “ Because — well, being a woman, you know more than I can 
 tell you. It seems a pity, that’s all ; he worries about things.” 
 
 Greta dropped her air of aloofness. 
 
 “ Gabriel Hirst,” she snapped, “ will never get rid of his 
 preaching. If he was making love to a woman, he’d quote 
 Scripture in the middle of it — and a woman doesn’t want 
 that.” 
 
 “ Well, no, she doesn’t. But women were made to put up 
 with things. Can’t you get at the man in Gabriel, and let the 
 preacher go hang ? ” 
 
 “ I can do the last thing certainly. Good day, Mr. Lomax : 
 you seem very anxious to get your friend settled in life.” 
 
 The sun was dying bloodily behind Peewit House as Griff 
 climbed the last stretch of rising ground. The clouds showed 
 stormy. A dun mist hugged the skirts of the moor. 
 
 “ This is cheery after the cold look of things outside,” he 
 cried, as he stretched his legs before the fire. 
 
 “ It was kind of you to bother about the books : you will 
 have a stormy walk back, I’m afraid.” The trouble of contact 
 with him weighed heavily on Kate for the first moment ; she 
 could scarcely find words in which to answer him. 
 
 ‘‘ Ah, but that doesn’t matter when you can see in the dark, 
 as we moor folk can.” He was curiously insistent on that 
 moor bond between them. “ Will you let me smoke just one 
 pipe, and then I must be off; mother is down with a cold, and 
 I promised not to be away for long.” 
 
 He lit his pipe, and Kate Strangeways went out in a little 
 while, to return with tea and buttered toast; they fell into 
 some out-of-the-way topics over the tea, and continued them 
 until another pipe, and yet another, had been smoked. Griff 
 had forgotten all about the time, and his companion, while she 
 remembered it, remembered also that Sunday was a day which 
 her husband invariably spent at the Marshcotes inn, and that 
 he would not be back much before midnight at the earliest; 
 she had felt lonely before Griff came, and she wanted him to 
 stay as long as forgetfulness of the hour would let him. 
 
 But he rose at last and looked at his watch. 
 
84 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 ‘‘ I really must be off ; do you know what time it is, Mrs. 
 Strangeways ? The mother will think I have strayed into 
 a bog, or something, if I keep her waiting much longer. 
 Good night. No, don’t come to the door; it is too cold for 
 you.” 
 
 “Too cold for you.” There was a tenderness in the 
 thought that soothed the woman ; there was an off-hand friend- 
 liness in the tone that hurt her in some unexplained way. 
 
 He opened the heavy oak door, with its armour of nails 
 and bolts and its out-of-date lock. A solid wall of fog came up 
 close to the steps in front ; snow showed white on the threshold, 
 and drifting fog and snow combined took traveller’s leave of 
 the ingress afforded by the open door. 
 
 “ You can’t cross the moor until the fog lifts,” said Kate, 
 at his elbow. 
 
 “ But I must. Mother will be sick with fear when she sees 
 how bad the night is.” 
 
 Instinctively she laid a hand on his arm. 
 
 “ Better that than death,” she said quietly. 
 
 “ I can find my way in a fog ; it is only a little extra dark- 
 ness, and I know every inch of the way.” 
 
 “ Nonsense ! ” she said sharply. “No one can be sure of 
 the road in a fog, and there is snow as well. I tell you, it is 
 madness to venture out.” 
 
 Griff Lomax could not but admit as much, as he obeyed 
 the pressure of the hand on his arm. 
 
 “It will clear presently,” he said, shutting the door, and 
 following the woman into the parlour. 
 
 “ There’s more nor one kind o’ storm brewing, I fancy,” 
 muttered Hannah, peering through a nick in the kitchen door. 
 
 The evening wore on. From time to time Lomax went to 
 see if there were any change in the weather, but the fog showed 
 no sign of lifting, and the snow crept earthward in bigger 
 flakes than ever. 
 
 “You must spend the night here,” said Kate. Her voice 
 was peremptory, but a hot blush came to her cheeks. 
 
 “ I ought to make an attempt to reach Marshcotes,” 
 
CONFESSION. 85 
 
 muttered the other, doubtfully. Reason told him how fool- 
 hardy such an undertaking would be. 
 
 “With the snow covering every track? How can you, 
 even if the fog clears ? ” 
 
 He gave in at last, as he was bound to do ; but, once the 
 point was settled, there was ample room for other disturbing 
 thoughts. Hannah put her head in at the door presently. 
 
 “ Shall you be wanting owt more to-neet? ” she demanded. 
 
 “ No ; you can go to bed. Good night, Hannah.’’ 
 
 “ Good neet, mum.” 
 
 Hannah’s tread on the upstairs journey was heavy ; her 
 downward steps, some few minutes later, were correspondingly 
 light. 
 
 There was a silence between the two who were seated on 
 either side of the great peat fire in the parlour. Lomax pulled 
 at his pipe and stared into the glowing peat-ash ; the woman 
 watched his face. He grew conscious of her gaze, and turned 
 his eyes suddenly to hers. 
 
 The months had been slow to teach him, but he learned 
 their lesson now. As the seasons had run their course, the 
 man’s great love had been growing — growing so silently, so 
 little at a time, that he had not once pulled himself up to say, 
 “This is love that has you by the throat; thrust it off while 
 you can.” And now — now, all in the space of that quick uplift- 
 ing of his eyes to hers, he had come to understand. Nothing 
 he had felt, read of, dreamed about, was like this masterful 
 reality ; it hurried him along blindfold, as the welter and swing 
 of a gale from the north had now and then driven him clean 
 off the moor-track — into the bogland, it might be. 
 
 He leaped from his chair, and crossed over to her, and 
 put his arms about her. She spoke no word, and he was 
 silent ; but her lips went out to his. 
 
 The reaction followed. He set her free, and strode rest- 
 . lessly up and down the room, with its black oak panels, its 
 ridiculous china dogs on the mantelshelf, its fiery eye of 
 smouldering ash. She followed his steps with her eyes, and 
 cared not one whit save that he loved her. 
 
86 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ See, Kate,’’ he said, coming close to her again, ‘‘ you are 
 the wife I should have had, but you are not free to hear me 
 tell you so. We must go apart, you and I, lest — my darling, 
 my darling, how I want you ! ” 
 
 Conscience, stilled for awhile, raised its voice. The woman 
 warded off that second caress with which the man was minded 
 to point his logic. 
 
 “ Let me alone. Griff ! Let me go. You know it is not right.” 
 
 He stood irresolute. The worst and the best in him fell 
 to blows, and fought the quarrel out to the bitter end. Then 
 he put his lips to her hand, and raised her very gently. 
 
 “ Show me to my room, Kate. It is time you were asleep ; 
 you look tired,” he said, as nearly in the tones of the friend of 
 yesterday as he could contrive. 
 
 She lit two candles, gave him one, and preceded him up 
 the creaking wooden stairs. She let her hand rest in his for 
 a space at the door of his room, then left him. 
 
 At eleven of the same morning, the godly folk of Marsh- 
 cotes, clothed in their Sunday best, were singing lustily within 
 the bleak walls of the Primitive Methodist Chapel ; other godly 
 villagers were singing with slightly less vigour in the Parish 
 Church across the way. Joe Strangeways’ mind, however, was 
 set on other things, as he shambled across the ill-paved square 
 that fronts the churchyard. He glanced at the church clock, 
 and leered at large upon the village. 
 
 Eleven of a Sunday morn, an’ me noan drunk yet,” he 
 observed. “ Dang me, but that beats all.” 
 
 By way of repairing this slight omission, Strangeways 
 entered the Bull. The fog was thick in his brain, and thick 
 on the landscape, when he emerged. A friend in need guided 
 him to the verge of the moor, but it was clear that there was 
 to be no getting home that night ; so the friend guided him 
 back to the Bull, and it was seven of the next morning when 
 he set off for Peewit, to change into his working clothes before 
 going to the quarries. 
 
 Hannah clattered to meet him as he entered. 
 
 “ I telled thee how it ’ud be,” she said, with a toss of the 
 
CONFESSION. 87 
 
 head. “GrifF Lummax war up yester afternooin an’ stayed 
 his tea.” 
 
 “ Stayed his tea, did he ? Can’t he get decent pickings at 
 home?” muttered Joe, whose head and temper were alike 
 impaired by his carouse. 
 
 “ An’ after that he stayed th’ neet. They reckoned it war 
 too wild for him to cross th’ moor. Too wild ! I’d hev crossed 
 myseln, it war that bright.” 
 
 ‘‘ Nay, lass, tha’rt wrang there. It war thick, main thick, 
 or I’d hev been home long sin’.” 
 
 Drink maks a man see thick,” observed Hannah, dis- 
 passionately. And Joe took to himself a shamefaced look. 
 
 “ Did tha see owt ? ” he asked presently. 
 
 “See? Ay, a bonny sight too mich. I saw ’em kissing 
 by th’ parlour fire. An’ at after that — well, th’ missus knaws best 
 what happened at after. See yonder, he’s coming dahn th’ 
 stair now, fair as if he owned th’ place.” 
 
 Joe’s face grew black with rage. He never doubted 
 Hannah’s story, to its uttermost detail. This, then, was what 
 he had worked and hoped for — the wife who had scorned him 
 was on his own level at last. Yet he was not pleased, when 
 it came home to him how well his plan had succeeded ; his 
 jealousy was roused ; he felt the need of Kate more than he 
 had yet done in his six years of courtship and marriage. He 
 stood with his hands behind him and watched Griff come down 
 step by step. 
 
 “ Tha’rt i’ th’ wrang house, seemingly,” he growled. 
 
 “ Through no fault of mine. Why didn’t you return last 
 night ? ” retorted Lomax, quickly. He had not given thought 
 enough to Kate’s danger ; but he realized now that he must 
 carry the thing through with a high hand, if the ugly brute at 
 the stair-foot were to be silenced. 
 
 “ ’Cos I war drunk,” retorted Joe, succinctly. 
 
 “Well, if you had been sober enough to take a square look 
 at the weather, you’d have seen the snow and fog. I preferred 
 a roof over my head last night, and your wife offered me one. 
 I’m obliged to you both, Strangeways.” 
 
88 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ Oh, th’ wife offered it, did she ? Then th' wife shall pay for 
 it,” muttered Joe. 
 
 Griff went up to Strangeways, and took him roughly by the 
 coat-collar. 
 
 “And you shall pay double if you lay a finger on her. 
 You surly brute ! To threaten your wife because she kept a 
 man from starving on the moor. Strangeways, IVe a mind 
 to give you one thrashing on account — another to follow if 
 you don’t behave yourself.” 
 
 He took a square look at Joe’s eyes, saw that the man 
 feared him beyond all promptings of rage, and swung out of 
 the house. But he was sorely troubled about Kate as he went 
 across the glittering frost-flakes to Marshcotes Manor. 
 
( 89 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE WOMAN OF SORROWSTONES SPRING. 
 
 Between Marshcotes and Cranshaw the highroad runs for a 
 mile and a half. From Cranshaw to Ludworth in Lancashire 
 is a very good six. The hill rises sharp after you pass Cranshaw 
 Church and the wild, wind-swept burial ground ; and well 
 towards the top, soon as you gain the open moor, a grim line 
 of “ stoups ” guards the right hand of the way. It is an eerie 
 road to travel, especially if night has fallen and brought you no 
 company. The stoups, huge blocks of millstone-grit, white- 
 washed at the base, blackened at the top, seem to stand out 
 from the darkness, to move towards you almost. Year after 
 year they have stood there, pointing the way to travellers : 
 if snow be thick on the highway, their black crowns show clear 
 against the white; if the moor lie black, their white bodies 
 point the way of safety. Year after year, with frost and rain 
 and snow, the rough moor weather has made sport of the stoups ; 
 they are workers of charity, and buffets are their fit reward. 
 It is vain to call them senseless stone, and pass them by, and 
 think no more of it ; they stop you, willy-nilly, with their rough- 
 hewn, tragic faces; they have lived in the silent places, and 
 the mystery of a long loneliness is theirs. A true man done to 
 death by the cold was the cause of their being, and many a 
 true man killed by harsher foes has gone to swell the tale since 
 then. More than once, or twice, or thrice, has murder walked 
 beside those silent, ghostly stoups, and the bogs to right of 
 them could tell some fearsome stories if they chose. 
 
 It was then some five and twenty years since Joshua Lomax, 
 Griffs father, tried to cross from Ludworth one bitter winters 
 
90 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 night ; they found him a mile from the highroad, dead from 
 exposure, and his widow, as soon as she could bring herself to 
 read other people's welfare through the crystal of her own 
 trouble, made haste to build the sentinel line of stoups, lest 
 more good lives should be sacrificed. Griff could not bear to 
 walk that road for many a long day after the tragedy, and 
 even now he shuddered as he gained the outposts. 
 
 Tinker's Pool glooms down in the hollow, just beyond the 
 last of the stoups, and the gamekeeper's house stands at the top 
 of the road ; between the two lies Sorrowstones Spring — a two- 
 roomed, crumbling cottage that gets its name from the well- 
 spring at the door. Rachel Strangeways, the quarrymaster's 
 grandmother, had lived here time out of mind, and she would 
 have found it hard to chance on a dwelling more to her liking. 
 Rachel was reputed a witch throughout the countryside ; 
 maidens came to her, in fear and trembling, to have their 
 fortunes told, and burly farmers sought her aid whenever the 
 Evil Eye was working havoc among their cattle. She dealt in 
 drugs, too, and great virtue was attached to an infusion she 
 prepared of a certain bitter herb which only grew on the marsh 
 that hugged her door. Her eighty-five years had bowed her 
 body to the proportions of a hunchback's, and there was an 
 evil light in her blue-green eyes that did not fit ill with her 
 reputation. Whenever Joe found himself in straits he repaired 
 to the maternal roof-tree, for Mistress Strangeways could show 
 good common sense on occasion. 
 
 Joe walked over to the cottage on the night following Griff's 
 stay at Peewit House. He entered the living-room without 
 knocking, and found Mistress Strangeways huddled over the 
 embers of a poverty-stricken fire. 
 
 “ Well, mother," said he, “ Pm i' a queer way." 
 
 Rachel gibbered over her ashes awhile, then looked up. 
 Her blue-green eyes grew almost soft as they rested on this 
 scrubby-bearded clown, who was yet bone of her bone. For 
 there had been a time when the old witch’s hand was not 
 against the world, nor the world's hand against her ; that was 
 in the days when she and her man had a spruce little cottage 
 
THE WOMAN OF SORROWSTONES SPRING. 9 1 
 
 at the edge of the moor, and a strip of garden where the 
 peonies and the sweet marjoram and the ladslove grew, and 
 one little lass to fend for. The little lass had grown up into 
 a slim, well-favoured maid, and the mother had loved her after 
 the profligate fashion of these rough-speeched, tender-hearted 
 women of the uplands. And Mother Strangeways’ heart was 
 broken, once for all, when the girl died in bringing Joe to a 
 shameful birth ; she did not rail against her daughter, but 
 against the world that had wronged her, as the way of her class 
 is ; and she hardened herself against all men living, and buried 
 her husband in due course, and came to this battered, wind- 
 swept cottage to live out her days. And Joe Strangeways, who 
 had inherited neither his mother’s fearlessness nor his father’s 
 breeding, was all she had left in the world to cherish and 
 frame plans for. 
 
 “ So tha’rt come to me ? ” she muttered, still with her eyes 
 on Joe’s face. “ So tha’rt come to me? Ay, it brings men to 
 their women-folk, does trouble ; year in an’ year out, I niver 
 see thy black face, Joe, without there’s trouble agate. Sit thee 
 dahn, lad ; sit thee dahn, and let’s know what’s toward.” 
 
 “ Just this — my wife’s gone wrang wi’ a gentleman. I could 
 ha’ borne it better if he’d hed rough talk an’ a rough pair o’ 
 hands.” 
 
 Rachel stiffened her dwarfed old body. 
 
 An’ who may it be, Joe ? ” 
 
 “ Griff Lummax, out to Marshcotes Manor. I knew how 
 it ’ud be when th’ mother — th’ girt, ugly man of a figure — got 
 coming it ower Kate.” 
 
 The blue-green eyes shot fire. 
 
 “ Then why didn’t tha get him by t’ throat, and squeeze th’ 
 life out on his body ? ” 
 
 “’Cos he’s ower strong,” growled Joe. 
 
 “ Ower strong, ower strong 1 ” flashed the crone. “ I didn’t 
 talk i’ that way when I hed th’ use of my body an’ wits. Tha’rt 
 noan o’ my flesh, Joe — no, nor bone o’ my bone, nawther — 
 shame on thee, lad, for a shammocky nowt of a man.” She 
 pushed her skinny face close up to his. “ Dost mind what 
 
92 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Joshua Lummax, Griffs father, did to thy mother five an’ 
 thirty year agone ? ” Her voice crackled and hissed like the fall 
 of water on live coal. “ Dost mind how he came wi’ his fine 
 airs, just same as th’ son hes done to thy wife, an’ witched th’ 
 heart out on her? Dost ’a know i’ what fashion I sarved him ? ” 
 
 “Tha did nowt,” muttered Joe, surlily; “ tha gabbled an’ 
 gabbled for a fearful deal o’ years, an’ th’ cold took him off 
 i’ th’ end. Dunnot thee talk to me till tha’s getten summat to 
 show for f to-do tha’rt making.” 
 
 Still closer the lean face pressed to his. She whispered 
 something in his ear, and he glared at her with an admiration 
 touched by fear. 
 
 “ Art ’a leeing, mother ? ” he demanded. 
 
 “Leeing? No, by God! I hed my rights i’ th’ end, an’ 
 th’ lass sleeps quiet i’ her grave. Thee see to thy own 
 porridge, Joe. I’m ower owd to cook for other fowk.” 
 
 “ Tha’rt a sight fuller i’ th’ wit nor me, owd or young. 
 What mun I do, mother ? ” 
 
 “ Do ? Kill him, I tell thee, an’ off wi’ them Lummax 
 peacocks for gooid an’ all. That’s th’ porridge tha hes to cook.” 
 
 She came it high an’ mighty ower me, did Mrs. Lummax ; 
 reckoned she’d gie me a bit o’ stick, she did. More nor once 
 her son hes hed th’ laugh on me, i’ sight o’ all th’ Marshcotes 
 fowk. I owe him a two or three hard knocks — ay, that I do.” 
 
 “ Then gie ’em, tha lout 1 Childless am I this day — not 
 counting a six ha’porth o’ copper like thee — an’ childless tha’ll 
 mak th’ Lummax woman. Ower strong, is he? Lig i’ a 
 hedge-bottom, then, an’ crack his skull wi’ a pickaxe.” 
 
 Joe kicked at the smouldering peat, but his face showed 
 no responsive enthusiasm. 
 
 “ Tha itches to see me dangling at th’ end on a hangman’s 
 rope, that’s easy to be seen. Dost ’a think a plain man can 
 kill gentlefowk same as he’d lake at a bit o’ pigeon-shooiting, 
 an’ niver hear no more on’t ? ” 
 
 ‘‘Hes Mother Strangeways swung for Joshua Lummax? 
 Nay, tha shames me, Joe, tha shames me. I mun ha’ kept 
 thee ower long at th’ bottle; tha’rt a mammy’s lad, a right 
 
THE WOMAN OF SORROWSTONES SPRING. 93 
 
 mammy’s lad.” She rose from her bench, and her hands 
 moved swiftly, the claw fingers keeping time to her thoughts. 
 “ Christ ! if I war only young again ! ” she shrieked. “ If I 
 could han’le a knife — or an iron bar, mebbe — I’d hev my rights 
 o’ yon Lummaxes.” She fell once again to a sitting posture, 
 making hideous mouths at the fire. Then a fresh train of ideas 
 was started, and she looked up at Joe with a cunning leer. 
 “ Blood’s blood,” she crackled, “ but swinging’s swinging ; an’ 
 happen tha can hurt him war nor even killing ’ud do. They’re 
 fearful proud, them Lummaxes ; break ’em, lad, break ’em wi’ 
 law ; set their names on th’ housetops, an’ mak ’em a bye- 
 word i’ th’ land. Ay, hev th’ law on ’em, an’ bide thy own 
 time for th’ rest.” 
 
 “ Th’ law?” snarled Joe. “Th’ law is a matter o’ brass, 
 an’ nowt but brass. Him ’at’s getten th’ fattest purse can 
 alius best a poor man. Nay, doan’t thee talk to me about law.” 
 
 “ Wilt ’a hearken to sense, or willun’t ’a ? Thee go to- 
 morn, i’ th’ dinner-hour, to Lawyer French i’ Marshcotes. He’s 
 a sharp un, yon, an’ he kep’ me my bit o’ freehold when 
 Squire war minded to set me, bag an’ baggage, on th’ roadside. 
 Ay, Lawyer French bested th’ Squire an’ proper.” 
 
 “ An’ charged thee a pretty penny. I’ll be bound.” 
 
 “Not more nor a poorish woman could pay; an’ he’ll 
 noan charge thee more nor tha can pay.” 
 
 “ Well, I mak nowt o’ sich things. What sort of a figure 
 should I cut i’ th’ witness-box, afore judge, jury an’ all, swear- 
 ing away my pride i’ my own wedded wife ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, ay, tha’s showed thyseln mighty proud on her, 
 hesn’t ’a, Joe?” snapped the mother. “It’ll break thy heart, 
 willun’t it, to lose thy lass ? What tale didst ’a come to me 
 wi’ a four months back ? That she wouldn’t do this, an’ she 
 wouldn’t do that, an’ tha wert main weary o’ th’ sight on her.” 
 
 “ But I’m noan for making her free to marry this Lummax 
 lad.” 
 
 Marry ^ sayst ’a? He’ll noan marry her, if I know th’ 
 gentry. Tha’ll hev one less mouth to feed, an’ Kate ’ull hev 
 to set to an’ fend for herseln.” 
 
94 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ Begow,” muttered her son, after a lengthy silence, “ tha 
 alius did gie a chap a bit o’ gooid, straightforrard sense. I’ll 
 off to this lawyer chap to-morn, dang me if I don’t ! ” 
 
 Rachel crouched over her fire after he had left her. 
 
 “ To hev a babby like yon for a grandson,” she grumbled. 
 “ Cannot move hand nor foot by hisseln. Eh, eh, to hev 
 the free swing o’ my own arms again, an’ young Lummax 
 at t’ other end on a mattock ! But I’m owd, owd ; nawther 
 spells, nor muscles, wark as they once did. Almighty God, if 
 tha’d only mak me strong for a day — ^just for a day ! ” 
 
( 95 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE GHOST OF WYNYATES. 
 
 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, whaf s in the wind ? he asked 
 bluntly, while the preacher and he were taking a walk together 
 one afternoon. 
 
 Although the summer was well adYanced now, Joe Strange- 
 ways, 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 the 
 
96 
 
 A MAN OF TFIE MOORS. 
 
 moor, he saw Joe Strangeways go in at the Bull doorway; 
 the oil-lamp at the corner showed an evil look on the quarry- 
 master’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 ” 
 
 J oe abandoned his defiant attitude on a sudden ; he re- 
 membered 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 mis- 
 taken. 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 a 
 
THE GHOST OF WYNYATES. 97 
 
 pewter-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 against 
 
 H 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 98 
 
 them — 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, “ wehe fine an’ free- 
 handed i’ Marshcotes Parish. ‘ Drinks round,’ says Mr. 
 Lummax ; an’, ‘drinks for Mr. Lummax,’ says Joe Strange- 
 
 ways 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. I bear 
 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 alius 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, quick- 
 ening his pace with every stride. Gabriel Hirst was coming 
 out of his gate as he passed through Ling Crag. 
 
THE GHOST OF WYNYATES. 99 
 
 “ 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 some- 
 thing,” 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.” 
 
TOO 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ 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 ? ” 
 
THE GHOST OF WYNYATES. 
 
 lOI 
 
 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 con- 
 ventional 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 ? ” 
 
T02 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 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 ortho- 
 dox 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 ? ” 
 
THE GHOST OF WYNYATES. 
 
 103 
 
 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, Tm 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.” 
 
104 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 RELEASE. 
 
 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 ? " 
 
^the German Emperor. 
 
 Ed. by C. H; W. Johns. 
 
 1903 .. .. ..Xio5i- 
 
 .Denning, D. — Wood Carving for 
 
 Amateurs. 1902 .. V841 
 
 pickens, Charles — Poems and Verses of 
 
 Ed. by F; G. Kitton. 1903 Z1068 
 .Doolittle, W. H. — Inventions in the 
 
 Century. 1903 ..C1054' 
 
 Doveton, F. B. — Mirth and Music (poems) Z1C67 
 Dowie, M. M. — Things about our neigh- 
 bourhood . . . . O735 
 
 . Forrest, G. W. — Cities of India. 1903 B349 
 
 Froude, J. A.: — My Relations . with 
 
 Carlyle. 1903-. . . . A952 
 
 Jackson, E. L. — St. Helena : the historic 
 island from its discovery 
 to the present date. 1903 ' C339 
 Hammond, J. L. Le B. — Charles James 
 Fox; a political study. 
 1903..*. .. *• A955 
 
 Henley, Wm. E. — A Song of Speed. 
 
 1903 . . , , . . Z1020 
 
 Higgin, L.— Spanish Life in Town and 
 Country.. With chapters 
 
 on Portuguese life in 
 town , and country by E. 
 
 E. Street. 1902 .. B779 
 
In response to frequent requests we have 
 pleasure in reprinting the following paragraph, 
 which appeared in the Quarterly Record for 
 October, 1899: — 
 
 A Man of the Moors, by Plalliwell Sutcliffe. — 
 To all those readers who have read this power- 
 ful novel, the following attempt to identify the 
 topography of the story by one who is familiar 
 with the locality, may prove interesting : — 
 
 Marshcotes Haworth. 
 
 Ling Crag Stanbury. 
 
 Marshcotes Manor. . Emmet Hall, Haworth. 
 
 Cranshaw Oxenhope. 
 
 Ludworth Hebden Bridge. 
 
 Wynyates Hall .... Ponden Hall. 
 
 Scar top Water .... Ponden Reservoir. 
 
 Cringle Wood .... Ponden Kirk. 
 
 Heathley Keighley. 
 
 Landford. Bradford. 
 
 Saxilton Bingley. 
 
RELEASE. 
 
 105 
 
 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 evi- 
 dence,” 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 nights 
 
Io6 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 ago 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 yearn- 
 ings 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 down- 
 stairs 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. 
 
RELEASE. 107 
 
 ‘‘Read that, and don’t be shocked, mother,” he said 
 quietly. 
 
 She settled her spectacles carefully on her nose, and waded 
 through the legal formulae. 
 
 “ 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 Strangeway s 
 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.” 
 
io8 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “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 it shocking! To think that 
 
RELEASE. 109 
 
 a 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, beasties, 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. 
 
I lO 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A MOONLIGHT INTRODUCTION. 
 
 “Well?^* growled Mother Strangeways, as her grandson 
 pushed his way in between the rickety doorposts of Sorrow- 
 stones 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 means 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 ? ” 
 
A MOONLIGHT INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I I I 
 
 ‘‘ ’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’ gotten 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 gotten 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 clock 
 
1 I 2 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 that 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-tack goes 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 food 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 gotten him 
 safe to grund, nobbut wanting a stamp o' thy foot to finish 
 him?" 
 
A MOONLIGHT INTRODUCTION. II3 
 
 ‘‘ I durst that ; thee bide till IVe 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 heM 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 vocabu- 
 lary, 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 you 
 
 I 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 II4 
 
 and 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 quick- 
 ened 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 gain- 
 ing 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 conse- 
 quences.” 
 
 “ But I will 1 ” cried Lomax, gaily. 
 
 “You have arranged it all?” asked the mother, when they 
 were left alone. 
 
A MOONLIGHT INTRODUCTION. II5 
 
 ‘‘ 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 remember- 
 ing, 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. Straight 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 I l6 
 
 as 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 recog- 
 nized 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 foods nor men-folk, what alius 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 
 Q;wn r.^a^oning ; he could not conceive a scheme of the universe 
 in whichcp^aching-nets played no part. 
 
 l^utc Jqp.l^ here. Will,” said Lomax, after a pause of rumi- 
 natf9p,^^“ iGp[iy,^tj^ining goes for anything, I know that a hare 
 heyer^^jtarfs.,l:ipme,ft^^ its feed till the day is breaking, unless 
 
 ^ j “^.R^rely, ^^ir,fr.^ To speak plain, I war main 
 
 staij.9^.!o’f|i^gin^ p settle, so I like as I thowt I’d 
 
 try ^i ^biF .QV ^pqjrt f^^ j ft ^ matter o’ chance, so to 
 
 say._.,, X'vQ, j^ptt^n,^t^^^^^ carring an’ biding; 
 
A MOONLIGHT INTRODUCTION. I I 7 
 
 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 
 alius 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 
 
ii8 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 — 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’ Smicks 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-pop went 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 alius 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 Griffs 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 he 
 
A MOONLIGHT INTRODUCTION. I I9 
 
 laughed 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 w^re having the 
 best of it — though his notions of everything outside the radius 
 of the Squire’s fists were of necessity in the shadowy back- 
 ground 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. 
 
120 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 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. 
 
A MOONLIGHT INTRODUCTION. 
 
 121 
 
 “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.” 
 
122 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ 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. 
 
( 123 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 frender's folly. 
 
 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, what have you 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 try 
 
1^4 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 to 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 Framling- 
 ham 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 me blanche to 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 after my wife 2 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.” 
 
frender’s folly. 
 
 125 
 
 So Griff was well on his way north by the time that Kate 
 had opened her eyes and had wondered anew at the strange- 
 ness of her surroundings. Mrs. Lomax contrived an explana- 
 tion 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 Strange- 
 ways 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 Griffs 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 Marsh- 
 cotes 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 ? Such a bother I had to get father to let 
 me go — but aunt has begged me to stay with her for such 
 
126 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 a 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 canT 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 Marsh- 
 cotes 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 toddling 
 
frender’s folly. 
 
 127 
 
 hopeful. 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 unalter- 
 able 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 Griffs 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. 
 
128 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ 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 alius 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 
 havethrowm 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’ bed- 
 room ” 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. 
 
frender’s folly. 
 
 129 
 
 “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 busi- 
 ness 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 went 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 and 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 mad- 
 ness, 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.” 
 
 The ground was too slippery to encourage riding. He 
 swallowed some food standing, and set oif on foot at a brisk 
 pace across Ling Crag Moor. Thence he gained Marshcotes 
 Moor, struck into an ill-defined track that brought him out at 
 Sorrowstones Spring, went a little way down the highroad at 
 this point, and turned into the fields behind the Quarryman’s 
 Arms. Soon he was on the moor again, with frozen peat for 
 a road, and sharp, dry air for stimulus. 
 
 On he strode till Lawfoot Water lay below him, with the 
 reddening sun shimmering across the ice. Another turn, sharp 
 to the right, past the further edge of the water, led him at the 
 end of half an hour more to the crest of the ridge overlooking 
 Frender’s Folly. 
 
 Fifty years before, Luke Frender had ridden safely and well 
 on the top of the rising trade-tide. When he sold his cotton- 
 mill at Lutherton, and the business appertaining thereto, he 
 was still a young man, with a taste for high living, and half a 
 million sterling in the bank. Being a man of some imagina- 
 tion, and anxious to use his raoney in ways that had not 
 occurred to his neighbours, he built himself a huge place in the 
 very heart of the moors — not an ordinary square-built mansion 
 with stuccoed walls, but a faithful imitation of the mediaeval. 
 There is a spacious courtyard on the north side, with a fountain 
 in the middle, guarded by four great stone dogs. Loop-holes 
 grin from the castle walls, and at one corner the steps of an 
 unbuilt tower climb up to the second-floor windows. The 
 windows are long, narrow, deep-browed; and here and there 
 crumbling warts of masonry are tacked on to the walls. As 
 it stands to-day, blackened by fifty years of the wind and 
 rain and frost that is no child’s play in the heart of Cranshaw 
 Moor, Castle Frender — better known to the neighbourhood 
 as Frender’s Folly — has a certain dignity of its own. If it 
 
frender’s folly. 
 
 I3I 
 
 be palpably an imitation, it is at least not jerry-built. Its 
 walls are thick and well knit; its situation is harsh to the 
 verge of terror ; and the smooth lawns, the sweeping circle of 
 carriage drive, the banked masses of rhododendron that climb 
 the valley sides, serve only to accentuate the unshorn rough- 
 ness that hems them in. 
 
 Nor is the Folly wanting in tradition of a sombre sort ; 
 short as its life has been, it has lived fast, just as its stones have 
 greyed before their time. Luke Frender gambled away his 
 money, his credit — his wife, too, some say — within its walls ; 
 and he shot himself in the big room overlooking the courtyard, 
 which, half in mockery, he had built to serve as a private 
 chapel. Then the friend who had robbed him of money and 
 wife alike, lived on at the castle, and took to hard drinking, 
 and died in raving delirium ; his son, succeeding to the 
 property, married one of his own housemaids, realized in a very 
 brief time that he, too, had sold his honour to the devil, and 
 avenged Luke FrendeFs end, in a fashion, by hanging himself 
 to a beam in the same private chapel overlooking the great 
 gateway and the courtyard. This was five years before Captain 
 Laverack bought the place. Its history had become common 
 talk throughout the countryside; prospective buyers shunned 
 alike the grimness of its surroundings and the uncanny trend 
 of its history, and Laverack had been able to buy it for a tithe 
 of the amount which had originally been spent on the building. 
 The shooting was excellent, and the situation exactly such a 
 one as the Captain, in the present state of his domestic affairs, 
 would have chosen before all others. 
 
 Roddick knew nothing of the story attaching to Frender’s 
 Folly, except that the building was almost of yesterday; yet 
 now, as he looked down on that level circle of lawn and 
 shrubbery, with the gloomy pile at its centre, he felt no whit 
 disposed to gibe at the pretentiousness of what he had once 
 termed the Cotton Castle. The sun, a crimson ball, was 
 touching the moor-edge with its lower rim ; a grey gloaming 
 crept across the everlasting waste of heath ; the wind sobbed 
 piteously. A strip of green, a fringe of naked branches, a broad 
 
132 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 band of moor, were mirrored dimly in the big lake that 
 stretched to the northern end of the valley. It was all in- 
 expressibly lonesome, terrible beyond words. 
 
 The sun died wholly, while Roddick crept down the hill-side 
 towards the trysting-place. He awoke from his sense of awe 
 to find that his eyes were wet and his throat troubled. He 
 cursed himself for a fool, but the pity had gripped his heart, for 
 all that ; the pathos that underlies all this bluster and wildness 
 of the moors had struck to some inner sense, and made him 
 womanish. He shivered as he stood beneath the grim old fir- 
 tree that had found it hard work enough to stick to its post 
 halfway up the hill-side. A sheep, away above him on the 
 moor, bleated its half-witted protest against the fate that had 
 set it there. If only a good, honest dog would give one good, 
 honest bark, thought Roddick, he would not mind it half 
 as much. 
 
 But the ungainly brute — half mastiff, half collie — that came 
 creeping up towards the trysting-oak uttered no bark. He 
 crouched close to Roddick’s side, and wagged his rope of a 
 tale, and smuggled his head into the man’s hand for approba- 
 tion ; but he had been trained to hold his tongue, and he feared 
 rebuke from the girl who followed him a few paces behind. 
 
 “ Janet ! ” 
 
 No other word came to Roddick’s lips. The tragedy, the 
 desolation, the pathos, — they were all absorbed in that slim, 
 girlish figure whose every line betokened eagerness. Wreck 
 and ruin were chiselled deep into the stones below them ; 
 yearning that had no limits, aloofness that dared not seek 
 for sympathy, were above them ; but they two were close in each 
 other’s arms, and looked neither above nor below. 
 
 “ Leo,” she said at last, “ was I foolish to drag you so far 
 across the moor ? ” 
 
 “ Be quiet, child ! ” 
 
 “ I would have met you nearer Wynyates, but I could not 
 get away for long enough. There is a crowd of people down 
 there, dear, all expecting me to entertain them.” 
 
 “ Let them expect,” muttered Roddick, gruffly. 
 
frender’s folly. 
 
 133 
 
 As of old, he understood the folly of these meetings ; the 
 strain was greater than any sane man would subject himself to 
 willingly. 
 
 “ But I shall be missed if I stay here long, and I dread 
 father finding us out ; it would put an end to — to all the world, 
 I think, Leo.” 
 
 “ Janet ! ” he said sharply. 
 
 “Yes?” She looked up, shocked by his tone. 
 
 “ You shall not say those things. Do you know what it 
 makes me ready to do — when you show your naked heart to 
 me like that ? It makes me tell myself that I have only to 
 carry you away from all this to put an end to the struggle. 
 You are such a flimsy weight, too ; I could carry you with ease, 
 whether you liked it or not, and then ” 
 
 He stopped. A supple strength came into the girl’s figure 
 — a strength one would not have expected from its slenderness. 
 
 “ Leo,” she said slowly, “ I ask nothing better. I am not 
 afraid to face it.” 
 
 He hesitated — just for one half-moment. Then he shook 
 her as if she had been a naughty child. 
 
 “You little fool ! Who is afraid to face a danger that he 
 does not understand ? If ever you dare to try me as far as that 
 
 again. I’ll Good God, Janet ! ” he broke off, with irritable 
 
 tenderness, “ you mustn’t cry. Can’t you see that a man who 
 wants to be — ^unselfish, you know, and nonsense of that kind — 
 has to behave like a fiend incarnate. It’s easy to be soft when 
 you have not to keep the fight hot in you.” 
 
 “ Leo,” said she, “ if you don’t kiss me at once, I shall hate 
 you for ever.^ — Have you stopped to think,” she went on, as if 
 in apology for obtaining her demand, “ to think what the life 
 here means to me ? I loathe the moors ; they frighten me ; 
 it is all so dreary. And the people father brings to make 
 things livelier for me, they only aggravate the loneliness. Leo, 
 if I were one little bit more of a fool, I should either cry myself 
 blind or — well, the lake is deep enough, and the cold would 
 only be for the first minute or two.” 
 
 Roddick’s voice was in rags when he spoke. 
 
134 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ Tm a brute, child ; why didn’t you learn it in time ? ” 
 
 He took her to him, and petted her with a helpless mixture 
 of the father and the lover that was infinitely pitiable. 
 
 “ Leo,” she whispered, looking up and smiling through her 
 sobs, “ is this our happy Christmas ? ” 
 
 Before Roddick could reply, the dog began to whine in a 
 way that called for attention. He had his nose to. the ground, 
 and evidently scented something not to his liking. Then he 
 was off like a rocket, and a dismal shriek came from a clump 
 of heather just above them. The night was clear, with stars 
 enough to show things in a sort of gloaming light. In the 
 middle of the clump was a writhing mass of rags and dishevelled 
 hair. 
 
 “ My wife, by ! Janet, call off the dog and run back 
 
 home. It is no place for you ! ” cried Roddick. 
 
 But Tramp was too excited to hear the girl’s call. He was 
 running round and round the figure, a stifled bark cutting into 
 his growls now and then. Janet ran forward and gripped him 
 by the collar — none too soon, for every moment he was on the 
 point of making a spring. The figure got up out of the heather. 
 Roddick cursed the light, because it was enough to show Janet 
 the hideous contortions of the creature’s face. 
 
 The silence grew unbearable. 
 
 “ Well, what are you doing here ? ” demanded Roddick. 
 “Nay, Leo, you mustn’t speak to me like that, when I’ve 
 followed you, mile on mile, across the desolate places. Will 
 you never learn what a true woman’s love means ? ” 
 
 Janet winced cruelly. Roddick’s eyes blazed as he watched 
 the delicate girl shrink from this evil hag who was yet his wife. 
 
 “ How often must I tell you to stay where you are bidden ? ” 
 The effort to keep his hands off was trying him sorely. 
 
 “ I can’t obey when I’m drunk, Leo — I can’t. I go wild 
 
 for you, I Who’s the white girl standing there ? ” 
 
 “ Janet, go, I tell you ! Go ! ” 
 
 She shook off the numbness that held her. 
 
 “ I can’t, I won’t, leave you ! Leo, are not your battles 
 mine ? How can I leave you to face — that ? ” 
 
frender’s folly. 
 
 135 
 
 ‘‘Why didn't we let the dog do its work?” muttered 
 Roddick. 
 
 Janet caught the words and gripped him by the arm. 
 
 “ No, no — not that, Leo. That is what I meant — you will 
 kill her if I leave you, and we should lose our chance of happi- 
 ness, you and I, for ever. Oh, can't you see it? You who 
 shook the breath out of my body because I asked you to take 
 me away.'' 
 
 The creature glared from one to another and tried to 
 speak, but Roddick checked her roughly. 
 
 “ It is better to run away than commit murder,'' went on 
 the girl, with eager persistence. “Will nothing make you 
 understand, Leo ? '' 
 
 He pulled himself together. 
 
 “ It is well to do neither, child. You can trust me.'' 
 
 “ Will you swear to do — that thing — no harm ?'' 
 
 “Yes, I swear it. Now go.'' 
 
 She hesitated, glanced at the bundle of rags, then held up 
 her face. He kissed it gravely. 
 
 “ That is our protest, dear,'' she said. 
 
 He watched her out of sight. He turned to the wife of 
 his bosom. 
 
 “ Come along, you devil ! '' he said dispassionately. 
 
 Together they set off across the moor. Roddick laughed 
 harshly from time to time. 
 
136 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A HOME-COMING. 
 
 The mistal at the rear of Gabriel Hirst's house was noisy, this 
 May evening, with the clatter of milking-pails, the mooing of 
 cattle in their stalls, and the semi-audible running comments of 
 Jose Binns. Jose, it will be remembered, in addition to look- 
 ing after the chapel and giving sound advice to the preacher, 
 was Gabriel’s right hand in the management of the farm. 
 
 Now the Ling Crag folk were keen as nails in their 
 bargainings with the Almighty, and they were just as keen in 
 their conduct of more carnal transactions. Jose Binns, indeed, 
 had a really remarkable aptitude for trafficking of both sorts ; 
 it was his favourite occupation, while milking or engaged in 
 any other work that left his thoughts free, to drive imaginary 
 bargains with non-existent purchasers touching property which 
 was not his to sell. This was his substitute for the reading of 
 fiction, and it certainly betokened a higher order of intelligence 
 than that of the merely practical man who chaffers with realities. 
 
 The mistal door stood open to-night. Jose and the roan 
 cow he was milking showed vague at the far end of the byre ; 
 the honey-rich flavour of kine mingled with the summer dusk 
 within. The roan cow was more patient than usual, and Jose, 
 feeling himself in consequence at liberty to take a little 
 imaginative run, dropped his mumbled adjurations. His voice 
 grew distinct and earnest as he commenced a spirited duologue, 
 with one William Feather as second party, Jose acting as 
 sponsor for William in that individual’s absence. 
 
 “ Now, William, I’ve getten a grand beast for sale. What 
 mud tha be after gieing ? ” 
 
A HOME-COMING. 137 
 
 ‘‘ Nay, I see nowt so mich ? her. Nay, Fm noan so set 
 on naming a price.’^ 
 
 “Lad, tha’rt daft, letting sich a chance go by. She 
 gi'es sixteen quart a day, that she does — eight i’ th’ morn, an' 
 eight at neet. She hesn’t a bad trick wi' her, an’ milks quiet as 
 a lamb. Now, come, William; she’s dirt cheap at twelve pun ten.” 
 
 “Twelve pun ten, say’st ’a? What! for a ill-fettled beast 
 like yon ? Fiddle o’ that tale 1 I’ll gie thee nine pun, an’ 
 mak thee shut on a bad bargain for old sake’s sake.” 
 
 “ Nay, nay, I willun’t tak a ha’penny less nor twelve pun. 
 There’s not another like her i’ Ling Crag — nay, nor for twenty 
 mile round, nawther. She’s muck cheap, I tell thee, at twelve 
 pun. Only yestermorn Dick o’ Rag war here, an’ he tried to 
 beat me down to eleven pun ; but I warn’t sich a softy, I 
 warn’t, an’ I telled Dick he could tak her at twelve pun ten or 
 lump it, just as it suited him. Fll mak it twelve, though, as 
 it’s thee, lad, an’ that’s more nor I’d do for Dick. He’ll be 
 back to-morn, likely, wi’ th’ brass i’ his pocket; an’ a sorry 
 chap tha’ll be, William, when tha sees thy bargain goan.” 
 
 The argument went on briskly till Jose was nearly through 
 with his last pair of udders ; William had certainly the 
 lesser half of the talking to do, but this was a pardonable 
 human trait in old Binns. Finally, a compromise was effected 
 at ten pounds, and Jose Binns got up from his stool. He 
 smacked the roan cow’s flanks, uttering the while a quiet cackle 
 of delight. 
 
 “ Tha girt lanky bitch,” cried he, “ tha artn’t worth seven 
 pun, let alone ten. Tha knows tha kicks th’ pail ower ivery 
 time ony but me shapes to milk thee, an’ oftens then ; tha 
 ho’ds thy milk; tha’s as full o’ jade’s tricks as a egg is full 
 o’ meat. Eh, lass 1 but William mun ha’ bin doiting when he 
 gie ten pun for thee.” 
 
 “ Is that my cow you’re selling, Jose? ” asked the preacher, 
 from the doorway. 
 
 “ Ay, I war doing part bargaining. I selled th’ owd roan 
 cow for ten pun. Eh, it war grand — grand ! He’s noan what 
 he war at a bargain, isn’t William.” 
 
I3S A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Gabriel laughed, as one accustomed to these visionary sales. 
 
 “ I want the trap to-morrow. See that it’s well cleaned — 
 spick and span as you can make it.” 
 
 ‘‘Isn’t it alius well cleaned?” grumbled Jose, settling 
 himself to the last of the cows. 
 
 “Well, yes; but this is a special occasion. Mr. Lomax 
 comes home with his wife in the afternoon, and I’m going 
 to meet them at Heathley. It isn’t every day, Jose, I have 
 to meet a honeymoon couple.” 
 
 “ Not sich a couple,” said Jose, slowly. 
 
 “ What do you mean, man ? You look as sour as a winter 
 apple over it.” 
 
 “ I’ve heard tales as are like to set a man’s back up. Oh, 
 ay, there’s been queer goings on up to Teewit House.” 
 
 Partly from habit, partly from the spirit of the country, 
 Gabriel was wont to humour old Binns; but he frowned to- 
 night as Jose touched on matters about which he himself had 
 been sorely exercised. 
 
 “ Nonsense ! I wonder at you, Jose, listening to such old 
 woman’s talk.” 
 
 “ Wondering won’t shape things different, an’ that’s Bible 
 truth. What for doesn’t th’ Manor trap wend to th’ station, i’ 
 place o’ yourn ? ” ^ 
 
 “ Because,” said the preacher, with an accent there was no 
 mistaking — “because I asked Mrs. Lomax to let me go and 
 meet them. There are too many idle tongues about ; but I 
 fancy folks know I shouldn’t run after wastrels — and it may be 
 as well to show what I think at once, and have done with it.” 
 
 “ I doan’t hold wi’ kissing,” muttered Jose, doggedly — 
 “ leastways, while thy wife’s another chap’s. Afore marriage, I 
 alius did say, fowks ought to think shame to kiss an’ slaver ower 
 one another ; an’ after ye’re wed — well, ye’re noan so set on it, 
 an’ there’s no harm done. Them’s my views — gie ower, lass ! 
 Dost ’a want to upset th’ pail, tha silly wench ? ” 
 
 The set of Jose’s shoulders indicated that the subject was 
 closed, so far as he was concerned ; so Gabriel, with another 
 reminder about the conveyance, went back to the house, there 
 
A HOME-COMING. 1 39 
 
 to reckon up, for the hundredth time, the twisted ways of his 
 friend’s wooing. 
 
 But the May sun was shining bravely as he drove to 
 Heathley at three of the following afternoon, and loyalty to 
 Griff seemed just part and parcel of the quickening landscape. 
 Step by step with the loyalty ran that unalterable egoism of 
 the preacher’s. If he could feel himself singled out, now for 
 Divine wrath, now for commendation at the Deity’s hands, 
 how much easier was it for him to believe that Marshcotes and 
 Ling Crag set great store by his example ? They knew him, 
 all these villagers who had been shaken by the scandal in 
 their midst ; they saw in him a resolute and a God-fearing 
 man, one whose opinion on a point of morals was worth the 
 having ; how could it fail to make Griff’s road the smoother for 
 him if he, Gabriel Hirst, ostentatiously went forward to greet 
 him on his arrival ? Perhaps, then, it was almost a disappoint- 
 ment to Gabriel when he reached Heathley and discovered 
 that certain daring minds had chosen to act on their own 
 initiative. The good coach “ Airedale ” ran from Landford to 
 Heathley in those days, and it had been noised abroad among 
 those who knew Lomax that he and his wife would reach the 
 Spotted Heifer at two of the afternoon. The preacher found 
 the inn-yard black with chattering groups of Marshcotes folk, 
 gathered from widely different sections of the community. 
 Some had walked to Heathley, others had come by omnibus ; 
 all, by the look of their faces, were prepared to give young 
 Lomax as hearty a greeting as he could wish for. 
 
 The same impulse which had moved the preacher to side 
 with the weaker cause was not likely to leave unmoved others 
 of these sturdy dwellers on the moors. The weak, the irreso- 
 lute and the ultra-pious were dead against Griff and his wife ; 
 they forgot old likings, and remembered only what had been 
 proved up to the hilt in a court of law. And this attitude had 
 roused the more independent men and women ; they brought 
 to mind the fact that no one in Marshcotes had ‘ had a word to 
 say against Griff until this trouble came ; none could urge that 
 the lad’s treatment of Kate was simply a corollary of previous 
 
140 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 conduct of his ; but plenty of people were mindful of the open- 
 handed way in which Griff and his mother had gone in and out 
 among their neighbours. Before the trouble with Strangeway s’ 
 wife, indeed, there had been a remarkable unanimity in the mind 
 of the countryside as to the Lomaxes. Some were wont to style 
 Griff “ a raffle-coppin,” meaning thereby a kind of ne’er-do-weel 
 whom everybody loved ; but that was the worst name you were 
 likely to hear attached to him through the length and breadth 
 of Marshcotes parish. And though they had their faults — these 
 upland folk — forgetfulness of old friendships was not among 
 their vices. 
 
 So the preacher, as he jumped from the trap and threw the 
 reins to a boy who chanced to be near, felt as though a little 
 cold water had been sprinkled over the fine warmth of his enthu- 
 siasm. He recommenced the searchings of soul, the anxious 
 appeals to Providence as to whether he were doing the right 
 thing, now that he stood as one of a band of well-wishers, not 
 as a solitary ally against a crowd of backbiters. 
 
 But the waiting groups were unmistakably glad to see 
 Gabriel Hirst come into the inn-yard. If they had failed to 
 look to him for inspiration to perform a kindly act, they were 
 at least deeply sensible of the sanction given to that act by the 
 presence of one who was pre-eminently a man of God. Even 
 Jack o’ Ling Crag, with his satellites. Will Reddiough and the 
 rest, warmed to the conviction that Gabriel Hirst war noan 
 sich a bad sort of a chap, when he left his praching-tackle 
 behind him.” 
 
 The coach was late, according to a precedent not unknown 
 at Heathley ; but no diminution of good spirits was apparent in 
 the jolly crowd that thronged the yard. The demonstration 
 had none of the dreary formality peculiar to organized gather- 
 ings. Each little handful of men and women had come here on 
 its own account, expecting to be the sole representative of the 
 village, and casting uneasy glances at its neighbours as it set 
 oif down the village street, lest its destination should be 
 guessed and commented on ; each little knot, on arriving at the 
 inn, looked at the next group, first with surprise, then with 
 
A HOME-COMING. 
 
 I4I 
 
 broadening grins. Every one — with the exception of the 
 preacher — felt that it was pleasant to have company while 
 arguing for the doubtful side of a moral question. 
 
 As for Jack o’ Ling Crag, he was all a-bubble with sup- 
 pressed glee. When Reddiough observed that there was a fine 
 welcome in store for the travellers, Jack winked very know- 
 ingly, and, “ Thee bide a bit,” he answered darkly ; ‘‘ happen 
 there’s summat i’ th’ way on a extra surprise i’ store.” 
 
 At last the coach came in, with a mighty screech of the 
 horn and a rattling of horses’ hoofs on the cobbles. Gabriel 
 Hirst sent his self-communing to the winds as he saw Griff 
 — old Griff — standing on the top of the coach, his head 
 somewhere up about the level of the Spotted Heifer’s chimney- 
 stacks, his face one comprehensive laugh of satisfaction. Three- 
 times-three went up from the crowd, and old Jim, of cheery 
 memory, gave a gallant blast from his horn, and a mixed 
 collection of children, dogs, and loafers gathered round the 
 outskirts of the throng, to see what all the fuss was about. 
 
 “ I’ve brought the trap for you ; we’ll be at the Manor in no 
 time, with the chestnut between the shafts,” said the preacher, 
 salutations over. 
 
 “ Axing your pardon, sir,” interrupted Jack o’ Ling Crag, 
 “ th’ chestnut isn’t no longer atween th’ shafts ; there’s shanks’ s 
 mare i’ place o’ horseflesh, if so be as Mr. Lummax ” 
 
 “ Here, I say ! ” broke in Griff, with a jolly laugh ; “ a joke’s 
 a joke, Jacky boy, but it’s four good miles to Marshcotes 
 Manor ; you can’t pull us all the way ? ” 
 
 “ An’ a home-coming’s a home-coming, an’ a welcome’s a 
 welcome,” answered mine host of the Dog and Grouse ; “ an’ 
 what’s four mile to Marshcotes lads ? We’ll tak turn an’ turn 
 about ; there’s plenty on us for that little journey.” 
 
 “And there’s a house-side called Marshcotes main street 
 at the end of it. Have you thought of that, boys ? ” said Griff, 
 still laughing. 
 
 “ Tak what the Lord gi’es ye, sir, an’ mak no bones about 
 it. Up ye get, an’ away we go; an’ if we’re as willing as 
 your wife’s bonny, ye won’t be lang on th’ road.” 
 
142 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Jack o’ Ling Crag, having exhausted himself in this effort of 
 gallantry, ran forward and took his place at the left shaft of the 
 conveyance. Kate was a little bewildered, and vastly pleased, by 
 the unexpected symptoms of good-will ; but her confusion did 
 not signify in the least, since she was only expected to blush 
 rosy red and look her best. They had cheered for Griff, and 
 they had cheered for Kate, this crowd of hard uplanders, who 
 could let themselves out for a holiday on occasion. So up went 
 another three-times-three for the “ little pracher,” and Gabriel 
 found himself swung by mighty arms on to the back seat of the 
 trap. Jack was joined by five other stalwart volunteers, and 
 away they rattled through the market-place, along the rutty, 
 narrow streets, and so into the smooth highway that led to 
 Marshcotes. All who had come on foot kept pace beside 
 the gig; a little behind followed the green omnibus from 
 the Bull, and the red ’bus from the White Hart just across 
 the way. 
 
 At the foot of Marshcotes main street was the surprise 
 which old poacher Jack’s innocent heart had devised, as likely 
 to give his comrade about as much pleasure as a man could 
 hold without unduly stretching his anatomy. The local band 
 struck up its own private version of the wedding-march, and 
 headed the triumphal procession with a vigour that was 
 unimpeachable. 
 
 ‘‘Now, sir, hes Marshcotes gi’en ye a welcome, or hesn’t 
 it?” demanded Jack, relinquishing his post at the shaft and 
 going to Griffs side. 
 
 “ It has that ! We’ll not forget to-day, Kate, will we ? ” 
 
 “ Burn it, it’s nowt so mich to crack on — on’y we thowt as 
 we’d just try our best, Mr. Lummax,” muttered Jack, and 
 dropped modestly to the rear of the procession. 
 
 Mrs. Lomax was at the Manor gate when they arrived. 
 She had heard the shouting, and a tune that seemed vaguely 
 connected with wedding festivals, and the clatter of clogs on 
 the stones ; but she could scarcely believe her eyes when she 
 saw the fashion of Griff s home-coming, nor her ears when she 
 heard the shouts of good fellowship. The old lady’s eyes 
 
A HOME-COMING. 1 43 
 
 dimmed with tears ; it was good to believe in such friendliness 
 as had prompted these rackety demonstrations. 
 
 Much would have more, and up went three cheers for the 
 mother. Grilf helped Kate down, kissed his mother, and 
 turned to the crowd. 
 
 “ We can’t entertain you all here,” he laughed, “ but come 
 in, as many as can squeeze a way.” 
 
 “An’ them as can’t, will find quarters at th’ Dog an’ 
 Grouse ! ” cried Jack o’ Ling Crag. 
 
 “ An’ th’ Bull can mak room for a two or three,” chimed 
 in the rival landlord. 
 
 After the noisy crowd had been got rid of, they had supper, 
 the three of them ; and after that Griff lit his pipe, and stretched 
 out his long legs to the blaze, and looked from the mother on 
 one side of the hearth to the wife on the other — wondering 
 the while that this vexed problem of marriage worked itself 
 out so exceeding smoothly in practice. 
 
 It seemed odd to Kate to find herself once again in that 
 firelit parlour, where she had waited till Griff might return to 
 claim her, where she had sickened with dread lest an ever- 
 watchful Providence should snatch the coming happiness from 
 her grasp. She had forgotten, in the midst of her dread, that 
 it is only the things we fear most abjectly which never happen ; 
 keen terror would seem to act as a buffer between its object 
 and its fulfilment, but she had not stopped to think of that. 
 And now she was here, with Griff beside her — with an earnest, 
 too, from those she had known, her life through, that they 
 were minded to esteem her a woman of honour. Impulsively 
 she put her arms round Griffs neck and drew his face down. 
 
 “ I had never dreamed such things could be,” she whispered. 
 
 The honeymoon had left her with her illusions sweet and 
 sound. She was no girl, to be outraged by necessities, to 
 quiver under the little jars that make up the wear and tear of 
 a privacy shared with another. Her idols were a woman’s; 
 her hopes of the new life were of tougher fabric than the girl’s 
 peach-bloom romanticism, to be rubbed bare by any passing 
 sleeve ; and those two months they had had together, she and 
 
144 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Griff, had given her no cause to doubt the future. Whether 
 the Providence she held in superstitious dread had chosen prose 
 instead of poetry, had elected to rob her, hour by weary hour 
 after she had once settled into her new life, of the happiness 
 that now almost hurt her by its intensity — whether Providence 
 thought surfeit a subtler cruelty than the mere dashing away 
 of an un tasted cup, remained to be seen — but Kate’s dreads 
 did not lie that way, and her home-coming had not a drop of 
 bitter in among the sweets. 
 
 The mother’s keen eyes took stock of them both, and the 
 doubt in her face resolved itself slowly as she watched. Like 
 all homely women, she had a quick scent for harmony or 
 discord between married people, and she felt that Kate and 
 Griff were ‘‘ all right.” 
 
 ‘‘Well, mother?” said Griff, when Kate had left them. 
 
 “ That is a big question to ask, dear, is it not ? But you 
 will do, I fancy, the pair of you. I have been anxious, terribly 
 anxious, about the effect these eight weeks would have on you. 
 You went away gaily enough, boy, but / knew that it was kill 
 or cure.” 
 
 “ What do you mean, quite ? ” 
 
 “You would not have asked me that if the experiment had 
 gone wrong. Suppose you had made a mistake. Griff? Con- 
 sidering your impulsiveness, it is the least one could have 
 expected of you — to make a mistake. Don’t you think two 
 months in each other’s company, with no one to fill up the 
 gaps, would have made the truth clear to you ? ” 
 
 “ If you knew Kate as I do, mother,” said the son, with 
 a ridiculous air of possession, “ you would see there cotdd have 
 been no mistake.” 
 
 “Very proper, dear. You sound just like a lover, and 
 I wouldn’t be in any hurry, if I were you, to become a mere 
 husband. Your father always forgot, to the end of the chapter, 
 that we hadn’t tumbled into love with each other the day 
 before.” 
 
( 145 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 RODDICK’S WIFE. 
 
 ‘‘Well?” demanded Roddick, as Griff thrust his head in at 
 the open window of the Wynyates parlour. “How does 
 marriage go?” 
 
 “ Like the weather, old man ; soft, variable winds, no 
 showers to speak of, and a touch of green showing everywhere.” 
 
 “ Come in, can’t you ? Why do you stand there with that 
 perennial grin on your face, as if you were posing for a full- 
 length portrait of the happy bridegroom? Away with you 
 newly-married people ! ” 
 
 “ Thanks,” said Griff, striding over the low window-sill. 
 
 “You think the whole world must be looking through your 
 rose-tinted spectacles. Wait till the glass gets smoked, and 
 walk delicately in the meanwhile ; you’re not a degree higher 
 than a cat on a glass-bottled wall, and if you go prancing along 
 in this style ” 
 
 “ You are in very good form this morning, Roddick. It 
 does a man good to listen to your breadth of epithet.” 
 
 “Breadth of epithet! Why talk like a book, Lomax? 
 Call them swears, and have done with it. What have you 
 come for ? ” 
 
 “To be congratulated. I couldn’t miss your pretty way 
 of putting things, so here I am, the very morning after my 
 return.” 
 
 “ I suspect you want comfort,” snarled Roddick. “ I can 
 give you that. There’s a heap of fools in the same box with 
 you, so you won’t run a chance of feeling lonely. About how 
 soon do you think of bolting for good and all? ” 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 ‘‘ Roddick, you're going a bit too far " began Griff, hotly. 
 
 But he caught a wicked light of satisfaction in the other's face, 
 and made up his mind that he would not be guyed — “ trailed," 
 as they called it in Marshcotes — however much the amusement 
 might give Roddick a vent for his ill-humour. 
 
 ‘‘ I mostly am. Once I went very much too far, and — 
 have some tobacco." 
 
 They smoked on in silence for awhile. Griff ventured a 
 remark at length; his companion took no notice whatever, 
 but went on frowning at the live peats in the grate. 
 
 About that woman," said Roddick, finally. 
 
 “ Which woman ? " 
 
 ‘‘The thing you mistook for a vampire when you were 
 last here. What did the pretty little beast do to you, Lomax, 
 out there in the darkness ? " 
 
 Griff shuddered; he had almost forgotten the incident 
 under stress of the quick march of later events. 
 
 “ She leaped out of the wind and rain like a storm-elf, and 
 glued her flabby lips to mine, and called me ‘ Leo.' " 
 
 “Only that? You’d get used to it with practice,” said 
 Roddick, with a grim caricature of cheeriness ; “ one does to 
 anything. Leo happens to be my own name, if you remember. 
 On my soul, Lomax, I’m jealous ! You've stolen one of the 
 kisses that are my exclusive property. Gad, I've a mind to 
 horsewhip you ! ” 
 
 Roddick was swung by passion into the very worst of his 
 moods. All through this bitter levity ran a streak of blasphemy 
 — a silent, strenuous blasphemy that was worse than any red- 
 hot flow of words could have been. 
 
 “ But who is she ? " said his companion, gravely. 
 
 “ Who is she ? " Roddick's laugh burst out as if it had been 
 half-strangled on its way to his mouth. “ Innocent friend, who 
 is a woman usually that prowls round one's doorway in the 
 dark, and leaps into one's arms, and — the rest of it? The 
 woman is my wife, of course.” 
 
 Another dead silence. The first of the summer's bees 
 forsook the white arabis that was coming into blossom under 
 
Roddick’s wife. 
 
 147 
 
 the parlour window, and flew into the room. Roddick watched 
 it as it buzzed from wall to wall; then it wanted to escape, 
 and made a dive for the upper window, banging itself against 
 the glass. 
 
 “ It’s fun getting in, but how are you going to get out 
 again, little fool?” muttered Roddick, He went to the 
 window and squashed the bee flat against the glass; then 
 returned to his place. “ Lomax,” he said quietly, “ you’d 
 better hear all about it ; half a true story is worse than a whole 
 lie. You want to know how this Venus became my cherished 
 wife ? ” 
 
 ‘‘ Oh, drop that tone, old man ! ” cried Griff. ‘‘ You don’t 
 mean it, and it grinds at one’s nerves horribly. Is she really 
 your wife ? From what I could see of her in the dark, she 
 seemed too old — any age she might have been ” 
 
 “ She’s forty-five, as you are rude enough to call a lady’s 
 age in question,” said Roddick, still in the same voice. “ Drink 
 has delicate fingers, you know, for modelling a woman’s face, 
 and she looks older. As to her being my wife, there is no 
 question : she carries her marriage-lines like a talisman next to 
 her breast. She brought the paper out, only a day or two ago, 
 and asked me to gloat over it with her in Darby and Joan 
 fashion ; but you can understand that I find it rather difficult 
 nowadays to play the role of dutiful husband.” 
 
 Griff had abandoned thought of interruption. It was 
 frightful to listen to the man’s cold-blooded rendering of his 
 tragedy, but Roddick must tell his story in his own way, or not 
 at all. 
 
 “ We’ll begin with the idyllic stage, Lomax, as you’ve rather 
 a taste for sweetmeats. When I was twenty, and charmingly 
 innocent, I went for a week’s fishing in Devonshire. I put up 
 at a little inn, a hundred miles from anywhere, and the land- 
 lord’s daughter — who was scarcely innocent, I believe, at the 
 moment she was born — took me in hand. You know what 
 that means, when a young cub just let loose from school is 
 flattered and fawned on by a woman five years his senior. The 
 girl was passably pretty, too. Well, I came down again to the 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 148 
 
 inn a few months later, and I was greeted with news — news, 
 and tears, and entreaties from the girl that I would marry her. 
 I was soft in those days — tender, you know — and I did marry 
 her, more out of pity than anything else. I have never been 
 tender since,” he added, with a sudden deepening of his 
 voice. 
 
 ‘‘ Then — you were married all the five years we knew each 
 other in town ? Did Dereham, or any others of our set, know 
 about it ? ” 
 
 “ No, though I nearly blurted it out more than once, when 
 they came to me with their doll’s-house prettinesses about 
 women. You thought you were a cynic, now and then, didn’t 
 you, Lomax, when the Ogilvie woman touched you up a bit too 
 hard ? Lord, I could have taught you a cynicism that grips 
 your vitals ! You’ll never learn it now, so it’s lucky you’ve struck 
 into optimism — it fits you better.” 
 
 “ Never mind me, Roddick. Finish your story.” 
 
 “ Six months after I married my picturesque maid of the inn 
 — the child died a day or two after its birth — she began to take 
 opium for sleeplessness ; she continued it as a luxury. From 
 that she passed, with true catholicity, to wine, brandy, whisky 
 — or, failing these, gin. She grew more beast-like every year, 
 till now it’s only the clothes and the walking on her hind legs 
 that stamp her as a woman. Three times she has tried to 
 kill me, and once — my cursed conscience won’t let me do any- 
 thing else — I have saved her from death.” 
 
 “ I thought you disclaimed tenderness just now,” put in 
 Griff, scarce knowing what to say. “ In your place, I should 
 have let her die.” 
 
 “ You wouldn’t, when it came to the point,” snapped 
 Roddick. “ We’ve most of us been murderers in theory, but it 
 rings differently when it comes to practice. Not that tender- 
 ness has anything to do with it. I loathe her, and wish she 
 were dead : it’s my fool of a conscience, I tell you, that ought to 
 have perished of ennuz years ago. But neither will die ; they’re 
 tough as nails, both the wife and the conscience. Wherever I 
 go, I take the woman with me, like a monkey in a cage, with a 
 
Roddick’s wife. 
 
 149 
 
 nurse to look after her. When I lived in town, I planted my 
 menagerie down in Hampstead ; when I came here, I put her 
 in a cottage as far in the heart of the moor as I could manage 
 — she’s there at this moment, unless she has given her nurse 
 the slip again and come in search of me.” 
 
 “ And you see her often ? ” 
 
 “ I have to,” said Roddick, with bitter weariness ; “ some- 
 times it takes a strong pairs of arms to hold her. But her 
 tantrums are the part of our married life I find the easiest to 
 bear. She is not always mad, you know. She only tries to 
 throttle me in and between whiles, by way of variety ; at other 
 
 times she loves me dearly, she fawns on me, she Never 
 
 mind, Lomax ; it makes me sick to talk of it.” 
 
 ‘‘ Poor old chap— poor old chap !” muttered Griff, vaguely. 
 “ Why the devil can’t she die ? A year or two of such a life 
 would finish off any ordinary woman.” 
 
 “ Don’t repeat that ! ” cried Roddick, sharply. “ The next 
 step is, what a fool I am not to kill her, and I kick ideas of that 
 kind out of my mind before they get a chance.” 
 
 “ Roddick,” said Griff— with a sudden glimpse of the reason 
 that had brought his friend to this out-of-the-way moor — 
 “ Roddick, have you told me all ? ” 
 
 The other was silent for a space. His brows came together, 
 overhanging his deep-sunken eyes like a jagged thatch. 
 
 “ No, it is not all. When I said I had shelved tenderness, 
 I lied. Dereham learned that end of my story, because he 
 happened to know the girl’s people.” 
 
 Griff bethought him of Frender’s Folly — of the coincidence 
 between the coming of Laverack and the letting of Wynyates 
 Hall — of the hint that Gabriel Hirst had once given him as to 
 the distress of Laverack’s daughter. 
 
 “ The Laveracks, you mean ? ” he said bluntly. 
 
 “ How did you guess that ? ” 
 
 “ I remembered that you and they turned up almost 
 together, that was all.” 
 
 “ Well, it doesn’t signify, I suppose. You’re not the man to 
 gabble, are you, Lomax? I used to wonder at what you 
 
150 
 
 A MAN OF THF MOOFS. 
 
 artistic people call illicit passions ; close upon forty, with a wife 
 who had taught me my lesson, it never occurred to me that I 
 should be bothered by love. But Dereham took me one after- 
 noon to the Laveracks ' ; why I went with him, the Lord only 
 knows, hating tea-cup frippery as I did. Anyhow, I went, and 
 Janet was there ; you can piece the beginning together for your- 
 self. The thing was as inevitable, Lomax, as thunder after light- 
 ning ; we had been waiting all our lives for each other, and — 
 there I go, slipping into the old, weather-beaten tags. A man 
 can’t touch love with words, any more than he can describe a 
 sunrise.” 
 
 “ Did you strive against it?” The question was out and 
 away before Griff could capture it. He was curious to know 
 how a man of Roddick’s stamp would behave under such an 
 unexpected stress. 
 
 “ Strive ? No, you fool ! It’s the half-way people who 
 flutter and beat their wings against the cage. A man either 
 cuts the whole thing at once, or yields unconditionally. I 
 yielded. Then Laverack got wind of it, and took the Folly in 
 a hurry, and carried off Janet to the moors here.” 
 
 Roddick got up from his chair, and began to pace about 
 the room. 
 
 “ Old man,” he cried suddenly, “ thank your God you 
 have never had that to fight against — to live chained to a 
 woman you loathe, and to know that a word will give you the 
 love you crave for. And sometimes” — his voice sank to a 
 whisper — “ sometimes my little lady, in her innocence and 
 passion, entreats me to take her away somewhere, and end it 
 all. Then, Lomax, it is just hell.” 
 
 Griff was driven to bay, as we all are when our friends force 
 us to be helpless spectators of their distress. 
 
 “ Do you remember the advice you once gave me — to cut 
 and run, and snatch happiness while I could ? A man, you 
 say, doesn’t beat his wings against the cage~but you are 
 doing it,” he said, impotently. 
 
 Roddick turned and blazed out on him. 
 
 “ Do you know what that would mean for Janet ? Do you 
 
Roddick’s wife. 
 
 151 
 
 know that Fd pawn my beggarly soul to save her little finger 
 an ache ? ” 
 
 “ Can’t you get a divorce ? ” said Griff, breaking a long 
 silence. 
 
 “ No valid excuse, or shouldn’t I have jumped at it? A 
 woman may drink one’s good name away and attempt one’s 
 life, and be faithful for all that. Drink comes under the 
 sickness or health, richer or poorer, clause.” 
 
 Griff also rose from his chair and fidgeted nervously up and 
 down the floor. 
 
 “ I’m off, Roddick,” he said at last. “ God help you, old 
 fellow ! ” 
 
 Roddick grinned. 
 
 “ I used to say that, but I had less experience then. 
 You’re not going to leave me yet. I’ll saddle the grey, and 
 we must have a gallop together. There’s nothing like a horse 
 for driving sanity into a man.” 
 
 But all along the road, gallop, canter, or trot. Griff could not 
 rid himself of the burden — 
 
 “ If only the woman would die ; if only the woman would 
 
 die.' 
 
152 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 IN WHICH MRS. LOMAX GROWS ANGRY. 
 
 They had been at the Manor for a week, Kate and he, before 
 it seriously occurred to Griff that they could not go on living 
 here for ever. Mrs. Lomax had been very urgent, more than 
 once since his return, that they should make the Manor their 
 home ; but Griff knew his mother too well to dream for a 
 moment that she could endure a second mistress in the house. 
 Kate was as strong and unbending in some ways as the older 
 woman, and the position was sure to be productive, in the 
 long run, of jar and discomfort. 
 
 So Griff went for a long walk one afternoon, in order to 
 think out what was best to be done. To tell his mother 
 straightforwardly that it was time he sought a house elsewhere 
 seemed likely to result in a quarrel between them ; and he 
 shirked the idea of that more instinctively than he shrank from 
 the thought of letting their lives drift into a state of perpetual, 
 half-felt friction. At the end of his walk he was no nearer to a 
 solution of the difficulty than when he started, and he turned 
 into the Bull, not feeling over anxious to meet his women- 
 folk while he was still in this pitiable state of doubt. 
 
 “ You're looking bothered, like, Mr. Lummax," said the 
 landlord, bustling in to serve his favourite customer. 
 
 “ I am bothered, Crabtree. Give me a Scotch whisky, and 
 we’ll see if that will help me.” 
 
 Crabtree loitered about, as his habit was, after bringing the 
 whisky. He finally came to rest against the window, pointing 
 his meditations by an up-and-down motion of the straw between 
 his teeth. 
 
 “ Well, how’s the world?” asked Griff. 
 
IN WHICH MRS. LOMAX GROWS ANGRY. 1 53 
 
 “ Nobbut sadly, sir, nobbut sadly. They tell us it’s th’ best 
 world we’ve getten, but I niver did see how that helped a body. 
 What wi’ th’ sheep lambing too forrard-like i’ th’ spring, an’ th’ 
 frost taking half th’ lambkins off, an’ th’ rain when I should hev 
 been leading my hay, an’ th’ drought when th’ tummits wanted 
 watter, an’ th’ wife slipping away under-sod fair at t’ thrangest 
 time she could ha’ chosen — nay, it’s a poor mak on a world, 
 tak it how ye will. Thank ye, Mr. Lummax, I will hev 
 a fill ; baccy an’ strong drink is all as us poor men can look to 
 for comfort.” 
 
 “ You’re a fine hand at the grumbles, Crabtree. I warrant 
 you’ve turned over a tidy penny this year, for all your growls. 
 As to your wife, you’ve soon found another, eh ? ” 
 
 There was the faintest trace of a smile at that corner of the 
 landlord’s mouth which was not occupied by the straw ; but the 
 rest of his face was expressive of sad rebuke. 
 
 “ It’s easy to jest, sir, when ye’ve getten the lump of your 
 troubles afore ye. She war a grand lass, th’ first ’un, an’ niver 
 a wrang word between us, save when it jumped out accidental- 
 like. But what can a feckless man do wi’ a public on his hands, 
 an’ none to see to th’ sarving-maid, an’ th’ washing, an’ th’ cook- 
 ing ? I’ve nowt agen t’ other missuses, ye’ll understand, but 
 they’re more, as a man might say, i’ th’ way o’ meat an’ drink — 
 a thing ’at cannot be done without. But th’ first wife — it war 
 more i’ th’ way of a pleasure, like, nor a business, my marrying 
 her. Well, well, it’s up an’ it’s down i’ this life, an’ afore ye’ve 
 rightly getten used to one position, ye’re shifted to t’ other. 
 My head fair swims, whiles, when I fall to thinking o’ th’ 
 whirligig.” 
 
 Griff’s eyes had wandered from his host to the half-dozen 
 bills of sale that lined the opposite wall. 
 
 “ I say, Crabtree ! ” he interrupted ; “ I didn’t know 
 
 Gorsthwaite Hall was for sale. Have you noticed that bill up 
 there — the middle one ? ” 
 
 “ I can’t say as I hev, sir. They come an’ they go, does 
 farms — like wives, in a manner o’ speaking — an’ a man gets ower 
 used to th’ shiftings to pay much heed to ’em.” 
 
154 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Crabtree moved to the printed sheet and slowly read out 
 the contents. 
 
 “ Mr. Crowther Crowther is honoured, by the executors of 
 the late Thomas Widdop, with instructions to sell that valuable 
 freehold property known as Gorsthwaite Hall, with all the farm 
 buildings, implements, live and dead stock, as under.” Then 
 followed a list of horses, heifers, cows in calf, waggons, turnip 
 and hay choppers, and the like ; and an exposition of the 
 agricultural merits of the “Three closes of land adjoining 
 thereto, comprising in all about thirty acres.” 
 
 “ A fine old place it is, too,” said Griff, thoughtfully. 
 
 “ If s like a sight of other fine old places hereabouts, sir — 
 gone to wrack an' ruin. Ay, I mind th' time when there war 
 more Widdops at Gorsthet nor old Thomas : he war nobbut 
 a young 'un' then, an' I war nobbut a young 'un, an' there war 
 three as bonny lasses — sisters o' Thomas's — as ever stepped i' 
 shoe leather used to cross th' Gorsthet doorstuns day in an' day 
 out. But they're all owered wi', is th' Widdops, an' I misdoubt 
 th' owd spot will be selled, so to say, for th' price of a pint.” 
 
 “ There's no telling. Well, Crabtree, your whisky has set 
 me up again, and I think if s about time I was off.” 
 
 “ Afore ye go, sir, there's a bit of a matter I wanted to tell 
 ye on. Happen ye've forgetten Joe Strangeways ? ” 
 
 Griff perceptibly changed colour. 
 
 “ Not likely,” he said brusquely. 
 
 “ Meaning no offence, Mr. Lummax — me that hes known 
 ye, man an' boy, these thirty year. But he's getting forrarder 
 i' drink, is Joe, an’ there comes a time when drink 'ull mak th’ 
 softest mammy's lad i' th’ land shape courageous-like. He's a 
 wind-bag, says f others ; but I've getten my own notions about 
 that, an’ he swears at ye summat fearful, sir, nowadays — says 
 he’ll hev your life ; an' a mak o' foul-mouthed words he's getten 
 to say it in. I'd advise ye to hev a care, an' thaf s what I set 
 out to tell ye, sir.” 
 
 “ If s good of you to bother, Crabtree — but you can trust 
 me to look after myself. Good day.” 
 
 “ Short an' sharp, as th' gentry alius is when their women- 
 
IN WHICH MRS. LOMAX GROWS ANGRY. 1 55 
 
 folk is in case. Nay, nay, they’re kittle cattle, is women, an’ 
 kittle they mak their men ; an’ I shotUd hev a right to know,” 
 muttered Crabtree, as he strolled into the kitchen to watch the 
 fourth of his wives rolling out the dough for a gooseberry-pasty. 
 
 Griff went straight back to the Manor, his good spirits 
 restored now that he had made up his mind how to act. But he 
 said nothing of his resolve, and merely told his mother, when 
 mare Lassie and he set off after breakfast the next morning, 
 that he had to go to Saxilton on business. His destination was 
 a certain office, half-way up the narrow main street of Saxilton, 
 which had been given at the bottom of the poster as the address 
 of the trustees of the late Thomas Widdop’s estate. Griff, 
 though he knew there was a reckoning in store for him, felt 
 something of a lad’s blithe glee in truantry as he rode down the 
 trough of the valley, and up the other side, and down again till 
 he came to the wood-road that lies between Saxilton and 
 Plover Court, where old Squire Daneholme lived. The 
 air was moist and kindly, and the young green things were 
 sprouting up through the withered leaves of the under-brush : 
 cock-pheasants were exhibiting their charms to admiring wives 
 in many a glade of the open park-land that divided the woods 
 here and there j weasels and stoats kept peeping at him from 
 clefts in the mossy walls, and squirrels lay flat along their tree- 
 branches at his approach, in a well-feigned stiffness that was 
 suggestive of death. Griff laughed as he passed the sweep of 
 sandy carriage-drive that struck up the hill to Plover Court. 
 
 ‘‘ You gave me a merry time not long since. Squire. Shall 
 I take you at your word, and drop in to dinner to-night ? ” he 
 thought. 
 
 And no sooner had he turned the corner where the highway 
 runs over the river-bridge and past the corn-mill, than whom 
 should he meet but the bluff old Squire himself, coming canter- 
 ing home on a chestnut thoroughbred. Griff saluted him 
 merrily with his whip at his cap, and the Squire pulled up. 
 
 “You’re young Lomax, aren’t you? We’ve met before, I 
 fancy.” 
 
 “ We have. I hope you were no worse, sir, for the meeting ? ” 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 156 
 
 “Worse for it? No, you young sinner; it did me good, 
 after my jaws unstifFened enough to let me eat. Your face was 
 scratched a bit, by the way, wasn’t it ? ” 
 
 They laughed heartily at that, the Squire’s chestnut 
 fidgeting all the while as if he thought to take his master 
 unawares at last. Old Daneholme swore most pleasantly at 
 the brute, and then looked Griff up and down. 
 
 “You’ve a pretty seat on horseback, lad. I like to look at 
 a figure like yours, in these damned round-shouldered, narrow- 
 chested times. If you had seen all the changes for the worse 
 in the race that I have, you’d be sorry that you were not born 
 when I was — a generation sooner. Well, are you coming home 
 with me to lunch ? ” 
 
 “ Not to-day. I’m afraid. I have business to attend to in 
 Saxilton, and after that I must put my best foot forward to 
 Marshcotes.” 
 
 “ Ah, yes ! I remember now — something in the papers — 
 you’re married, eh ? ” 
 
 “Yes. Just what did you see in the papers, Mr. 
 Daneholme ? ” said Griff, with a sudden flush. 
 
 “ Something about a divorce, and then a notice that you 
 were married. Humph ! A riskier enterprise, marriage, than 
 poaching an old fool’s game.” 
 
 Griff thought that the poaching of game was merely a 
 simile, and he resented the innuendo. If he had known the 
 Squire better, he would not have credited him with any such 
 beating about the bush. 
 
 “ The divorce came through no fault of ours, sir ; the story 
 was a trumped-up lie,” said he, hotly. 
 
 Roger Daneholme opened his mouth for a guffaw that 
 showed his splendid double row of teeth, scarce one of which 
 was a whit the worse for wear. 
 
 “ What do I care about that, eh ? ” said he, good-humouredly. 
 “ Bless me, a young man must love, or he’s no man at all. 
 But marriage — it’s risky. So you’ll take Plover on your way 
 back, will you ? ” 
 
 There was no resisting the cheery, persistent hospitality of 
 
IN WHICH MRS. LOMAX GROWS ANGRY. 1 57 
 
 the man, and GrifF gave in. He could well believe now that 
 the Marshcotes folk had spoken a true word when they said 
 that the Squire was a devil to those he hated, and the best of 
 good fellows to any who happened to take his fancy. 
 
 The stocks and the old market-place have gone from Saxilton 
 main street now, but in those days they fronted the lawyer’s 
 office of which GrifF had come in search. After saying good-bye 
 to the Squire, he cantered up the narrow street, hitched Lassie’s 
 bridle to a ring at the end of the stocks, and went inside to get 
 through his business with what expedition he might, since they 
 lunched sharp at one at Plover. Gorsthwaite Hall, as Crabtree 
 of the Bull had prophesied, was to be had for a song ; the 
 lawyers were only too glad to get rid of it at a trifle over the 
 price which GrifF first named, and the place was his in a 
 very short space of time. Then, his business settled, he set ofF 
 for Plover Court, and reached it within five minutes of the 
 luncheon hour. 
 
 It was lucky that GrifF had a good head for liquor; for 
 the Squire kept him drinking long after Mrs. Daneholme had 
 left the table, with the avowed intention of seeing which was 
 the better man at the bottle. 
 
 “You worsted me with your fists, you puppy — not that you 
 would find it easy to do as much a second time — but I’m 
 hanged if I haven’t the stronger head for port.” 
 
 “ We can only decide that in one way,” laughed GrifF, who 
 was always quick to take up a challenge. 
 
 They cracked a second bottle, and a third, the Squire 
 chatting ceaselessly of this and that harum-scarum adventure in 
 which he had taken part — when he was younger, he never failed 
 to add. And the longer GrifF listened, the better he liked the 
 man’s healthy energy. Old Daneholme had no conscience 
 whatever, save on certain points where a rough-and-tumble 
 honesty was concerned. By his own showing, he had indulged 
 in some rough vices, and even generosity he carried recklessly 
 past the point where it ceased to be a virtue. Yet, with it all, 
 there was a fresh, inborn strenuousness about old Roger ; he 
 never stopped to ask himself if he were good or bad — could not 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 158 
 
 have been certain, indeed, what so absurd a question implied — 
 but just took life at a gallop, over hedge and ditch, and enjoyed 
 such frolic as Heaven sent in his way. There was a vein of 
 sound humour in him, too, — a trifle rough and biting to the 
 taste, may be, but sound for all that — and his fine grey eyes 
 looked out at you with a twinkle which said, as plainly as 
 possible, that he cared not one button for your opinion. A 
 man of the true old Yorkshire breed. 
 
 “ Get on to your legs, my boy,” said the Squire, when they 
 were half through with the fourth bottle. 
 
 Griff complied with the request, and stood looking down at 
 his host with humorous gravity. Then he went the length of 
 the room and back again, with the action of a horse being put 
 through its paces. Finally, he resumed his seat, with a — 
 
 “ Can you do as much, sir ? ” 
 
 ‘‘ Can I do as much ? ” roared the Squire. “ Confound your 
 impertinence, sir ! Fm scarcely warmed with the wine as yet. 
 Gad, though, you don’t turn a hair ! I wish that son of mine 
 had been at home to see you ; it would have knocked some of 
 the conceit out of him. He can’t touch me, Lomax, not if I 
 give him one bottle handicap. Come, drink up ! ” 
 
 He went over to the bell and put his hand on the rope. 
 Not for a fortune would Griff have suggested that they had 
 dmnk enough, though he could see only one end to the adven- 
 ture — and that a most annoying one, with Kate awaiting his 
 return. But the Squire thought better of it, and flashed round 
 on his guest with merry boisterousness. 
 
 “ Well, well. I’ll let you off another bottle. You are young 
 in marriage yet, and your wife might not altogether like it if 
 you turned up happily drunk. Women are such fools about 
 these matters.” 
 
 When Griff succeeded at last in making his escape. Squire 
 Daneholme walked with him down the drive as far as the 
 Saxilton highroad. There was a faint tinge of regret in his 
 tone as he held out his hand to his guest. 
 
 ‘‘ I thought the fresh air might help a bit, Lomax. But 
 you’re as steady as a rock, confound you ! You must come 
 
IN WHICH MRS. LOMAX GROWS ANGRY. 1 59 
 
 again when marriage wears thin, and we’ll make a night of it. 
 Bless you, boy, I have not taken to any one for years as I have 
 to you.” 
 
 Griff, laughing off the compliment, sprang into the saddle. 
 
 “ Stay, lad ! ” shouted the Squire, as Lassie was breaking 
 into a trot. “ A piece of parting advice. Ride straight, drink 
 level, never repent of your sins, and die as I find you — a jolly 
 good fellow. Good-bye.” 
 
 Late that evening, when Kate had left him alone with the 
 mother. Griff summoned up all his courage and blurted out 
 what had been the trend of his morning’s business. 
 
 “ I have bought Gorsthwaite Hall, mother.” 
 
 She looked up sharply at him. 
 
 “So it has come at last. Griff? I feared it would, some 
 day — but scarcely as soon as this.” 
 
 “Now, old lady, don’t be foolish about it. Do you want 
 it to be said that I beat you in the matter of common sense ? 
 Kate and I must leave you sooner or later.” 
 
 She fell into an obstinate silence, her face averted from her 
 son’s ; it seemed as if she heard nothing of his fragmentary 
 explanations. Then, at last — 
 
 “It is I who ought to leave. The Manor is yours, not 
 mine.” 
 
 “ Mother, how can you ! ” He knelt at her feet, and took 
 her hands, and tried to force her eyes to meet his. 
 
 But she would neither look at him nor suffer his 
 endearments. 
 
 “ Get up. Griff, and leave me alone. I don’t want to hear 
 any more excuses.” 
 
 There was such a peremptory sharpness in her voice that 
 Griff had no choice but to obey. The quarrel had come, but 
 he had not dreamed that his mother would have taken it as 
 badly as this. 
 
 The fire had burnt very low when he next ventured into the 
 room. The old lady was still in the same attitude. 
 
 “ Mother,” whispered Griff. 
 
 She made no answer for awhile ; then the tears ran slowly 
 
i6o 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 down her cheeks — those scanty tears of the old, which are so 
 much bitterer, so much more heavily laden, at the end of a 
 lifetime's disappointments. 
 
 “ It is time I went. Griff. You are tired of the old woman, 
 you and Kate." 
 
 Then there followed such a storm of lover-like protestations, 
 such a fondling of the wrinkled face and hands, that these two 
 might never have been mother and son at all, but just a pair of 
 newly-married youngsters getting through the business of their 
 first quarrel. And Griff vowed, at the end of it all, that nothing 
 would induce him to leave the Manor, since the dearest old 
 lady in the world wanted him to stay. Whereupon the mother 
 got up from her chair, wiped her eyes, smoothed out the 
 rumples in her dress, and put twice as much asperity as usual 
 into her voice. 
 
 “Now you are ridiculous. Griff. Dear, dear ; here have I 
 been wasting my time in crying — it was only a tear or two, 
 though, was it ? — when I should have been supplying you with 
 wits. Stay on at the Manor, when you have bought 
 Gorsthwaite ? Waste your money, and let the house drop to 
 pieces for want of looking after ? Boy, where is your common 
 sense ? " 
 
 And that was how Griff came to take his wife to Gorsthwaite 
 Hall. 
 
( i6i ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 THE CUTTING OF PEATS. 
 
 The Marshcotes Moor was bounded, on the side remote from 
 the village, by a broad stretch of “ intake ” — sparsely covered 
 grass land, wrested from the heath by long years of sweat and 
 perseverance. Beyond this again was an undulating valley, 
 scarcely more than a dip in the moor plateau, which was full of 
 rushes and swampy tracts, with here and there a bog. Above 
 this valley lay Gorsthwaite Moor, where ling and bilberry-plants 
 had less of their own way than on the Marshcotes side ; great 
 patches of gorse dotted the moor, and the sun never rose, 
 summer or winter, without finding at least a few outstanding 
 spots of yellow on which to shine. 
 
 At one corner of this moor, some two miles away from Marsh- 
 cotes village, stood Gorsthwaite Hall, a fine specimen of the grim 
 architecture in which the old moor squires delighted. The 
 rectangular windows peered out at you, watchful and cold, from 
 under their rugged brows of blackened sandstone. The door, 
 plainly fashioned and massive, seemed to grudge the wonted 
 breadth of entry, though its narrowness was more in appearance 
 than in fact. The round-topped walls that guarded its paved 
 courtyard harboured few of the kindly green sorts of mosses, 
 but they were friends with bleak, grey lichens. The very 
 chimney-stacks looked stiff and unbending, as if they had little 
 to do with the roof that supported them ; and the water-butt 
 under the eaves, with its round black belly, was suggestive, in 
 some vague, elusive way, of tragedies half-forgotten. 
 
 Yet Griff and his wife were as merry as the old house was 
 sad. The spring had come and gone, and summer had run well 
 
 M 
 
i 62 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 on into August, and still they would hug themselves, these two, 
 in the thought of their isolation. There were a couple of attics 
 at the top of the house, well-lighted from the roof, which Griff 
 had knocked into one room and fitted up as a studio. The 
 itch for painting had taken hold of him with more than its old- 
 time vigour, and the one perpetual ground of disagreement 
 between Kate and himself was the fact that he would insist on 
 making some fresh sketch of his wife’s face every other day 
 or so. 
 
 “ What do you find to talk about all your time ? ” Roddick 
 had snarled one day. 
 
 “ We live ; we don’t talk much about it,” Griff had assured 
 him, with a laugh that was entirely one of satisfaction. 
 
 That was just it. He had known wittier women than Kate, 
 and some that were more beautiful in their own way ; but Kate 
 — well, she rounded off his life for him, and there was an end 
 of it. 
 
 Mrs. Lomax, who often ran across from the Manor to 
 spend a night or two with them, was speedily convinced that 
 Griff’s foolhardy experiment had proved a success. Now and 
 then, indeed, she would throw out tentative warnings to “ the 
 children,” a suggestion that they should see more people, or a 
 doubt lest presently they might find themselves suffering from 
 an overdose of a very good thing ; and to all these hints Griff 
 always made the same response — that they would fly in search 
 of outside help directly the first symptoms of weariness set in. 
 
 But the Marshcotes doctor, who had grown grey in friend- 
 ship with the Lomaxes, used to shake his head when he came 
 away from his periodical visits to Kate. It was no use bother- 
 ing Griff about it — or, at least, he could find no heart to do it — 
 but not all Kate’s brightness of spirits served to hide that under- 
 lying weakness of hers from the old man’s eyes. Sometimes, 
 as he recrossed the moor to Marshcotes, he would swear softly 
 to himself, in a way ill-befitting the whiteness of his hair, and 
 would murmur that it was a damned shame young Lomax had 
 not come into Kate’s life in time to save her. 
 
 Griff, when he was not at work, or at play, with his wife, was 
 
THE CUTTING OF PEATS. 1 63 
 
 generally to be found somewhere about the farm. There had 
 been a farm attached to the Manor for many years after his 
 father’s death, and he had picked up a good deal of practical 
 knowledge as a lad, which Simeon, his farm-man at Gorsthwaite, 
 helped him to furbish up from day to day. Simeon distrusted 
 his master’s interference in these matters, as being one what 
 nobbut laked at wark,” but he was bound to admit, underneath 
 all his sneers, that Griff must have been to the manner born, so 
 kindly did he take to the details of his education. 
 
 It was in the middle of August that Lomax, taking a short 
 cut home one morning, discovered a pleasing fact in connection 
 with Gorsthwaite Moor. The moor folk know well enough 
 that gorse never grows on a peaty soil, and few of them guessed 
 that Gorsthwaite, for all its splashes of yellow bloom, had a 
 rich peat-bed on the side away from Marshcotes. Griff, 
 chancing this morning to have his eyes on the bilberry clumps, 
 to see if the second crop of berries would be worth the gathering, 
 saw a rusty spade on the ground in front of him — a long, narrow 
 spade, turned over at the right-hand side perpendicularly to the 
 main face. A little further some crumbling peats were scat- 
 tered on the top of a reddish-brown gash in the cheek of the 
 moor. 
 
 “ Simeon,” said he to his farm-man, directly he got home, 
 ‘‘ there’s peat to be had for the asking a mile away. Why 
 should I go on paying for the stuff they bring from Cranshaw 
 Moor?” 
 
 ‘‘ It’s noan o’ th’ best, isn’t th’ Cranshaw peat, but I niver 
 heard tell on there being peats just hereabouts. Besides, it’s 
 ower late i’ th’ year to dry ’em now.” 
 
 “ We’ll see about that. The time of year doesn’t matter a 
 button, so long as there is sun enough to dry them. Our stack 
 is not big enough, I fancy, to last us through the winter.”. 
 
 Simeon growled. Your upland labourer is a terrible radical 
 in respect of persons, but hopelessly conservative whenever 
 farming operations are in question. 
 
 ‘‘ Cut peats i’ August ? Ye mud as weel mak hay at 
 Kersmas : th’ back-end o’ May, or th’ for-end o’ June— that’s 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 164 
 
 when Simeon Hey learned to cut an’ dry an’ stack ’em ; nay, ye 
 cannot get ower what is, an’ is to be.” 
 
 “ Can’t I ? Just go and hunt up a spade, Simeon ; I saw 
 one in the lathe not long ago — ^back of the turnip-chopper, if I 
 remember rightly. We’ll go this afternoon.” 
 
 Mid-day dinner over, Simeon slouched along at his master’s 
 heels, like a dog that is loth to accompany an indifferent sports- 
 man. Griff took the spade and set to work at the peat-bed. 
 First, he removed a few inches of the top layer of heather 
 stumps and bilberry roots ; then he drove the blade straight 
 down, prized out the sod, and so moved along the whole line 
 from left to right, the upturned perpendicular edge and flat 
 back of the spade shaping clean faces to the peats. 
 
 “Ye may know nowt about th’ time to cut, but ye frame 
 weel at th’ cutting,” muttered Simeon, with grudging praise, as 
 he picked up the falling peats and spread them out on the 
 heather. 
 
 “ And the sun will frame well at the drying, if the sweat of 
 my body just now is anything to go by. Why, man, you don’t 
 often get a dry heat like this in June.” 
 
 “ Well, I’m noan saying th’ peats willun’t dry. What I says 
 is, it isn’t nat’ral ; an’, dry ’em or no, there’ll no gooid come on ’t. 
 They willun’t burn like good Chirstian peats what’s been led i’ 
 June.” 
 
 But Griff only laughed, and shed his waistcoat, and went 
 on with the cutting. The crack-crack of guns came to their 
 ears from over Cranshaw way. 
 
 “ Part shooiting about,” dropped Simeon. 
 
 “ Yes, that must be some of the Frender’s Folly party. 
 How far does Captain Laverack’s shooting come, Simeon ? ” 
 
 “ Fair across to a mile this side o’ Wynyates. He’s by way 
 o’ heving us know he’s a tip-topper, is th’ Captain ; so he mun 
 needs tak Gorsthet Moor, an’ a slice out o’ Ling Crag Moor, 
 too, as if his own waren’t big enow for fifty sich. Sports Ay, 
 he knows a sight about sport, does yon. I seed him ower this 
 way a two or three day back, an’ I fair laughed to see th’ legs 
 on him — as thin as a bog-reed, wi’ a smattering o’ striped 
 
THE CUTTING OF PEATS. 1 65 
 
 Stocking ower ’em to keep th’ wind fro’ bending ’em double- 
 ways.” 
 
 Griff leaned on his spade, and laughed as he watched 
 Simeon’s dispassioned face. 
 
 “ But he doesn’t shoot with his legs. Come now, he may 
 be a decent shot, for all that.” 
 
 “ What, driving th’ birds an’ sich ? Nay, there’s no mak o’ 
 sport i’ driving. He mud as weel sit i’ his own back parlour, 
 an’ hev th’ grouse driven in at th’ door. I reckon nowt o’ your 
 new-fangled, snipper-legged sporting chaps.” 
 
 Griffs trust in the weather seemed likely to be justified. 
 In a very few days the peats were dry enough to be set up on 
 end, two and two, one leaning against the other in the form of 
 an upturned V ; and, as Simeon had to go to Saxilton to buy 
 six head of cattle, the master saw to the work in person. 
 August was more than half through, but there was no diminution 
 of the heat. Griff had again doffed coat and waistcoat alike ; 
 the sleeves of his coarse woollen shirt were rolled up to the 
 shoulder, and a broad leather strap held up his corduroy 
 trousers. He had his back to a man who was approaching 
 him, with a gun under his arm and a dog at his heels ; the 
 first Griff heard of his approach was a thin, querulous 
 shout. 
 
 “ Here, I say, my man. Damn it all ! ” piped the voice. 
 
 Griff arranged his couple of peats to his satisfaction, and 
 turned slowly round. 
 
 “ I beg your pardon ? ” he observed. Then he smiled, 
 rather broadly, as he saw the legs of the spokesman, and 
 thought of Simeon’s version of the reed shaken with the wind. 
 
 ‘‘ I said, damn it all 
 
 “ Not a particularly original remark, but I don’t see why 
 you shouldn’t make it. Is that all, sir ? ” Griff knew, quite 
 as well as his assailant, what was amiss, but he had no intention 
 of relinquishing his peats. 
 
 “All, all? No, it is not all. What are you doing on my 
 moor ? What do you mean by digging here while the shooting 
 season is on ? No wonder we’ve had poor sport this morning. 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 1 66 
 
 with you here to frighten every bird for a mile round. Didn't 
 you hear our shots ? ” 
 
 Another figure appeared on the crest of the rise some two 
 hundred yards away, and moved towards them. 
 
 “ I believe I did, but they seemed a good distance off, and 
 I was too busy to trouble. It is a serious matter, you see, to 
 be short of peats for the winter, and a poor man must make 
 the most of the weather.” 
 
 The little man in knickerbockers began to jerk himself up 
 and down. The stiff grey hair, close-cropped round the crown 
 of his head, seemed to stick up straighter than ever. For the 
 stranger was not only furious, but a little non-plussed ; he could 
 not reconcile Griffs speech and bearing with his occupation 
 and his clothes. 
 
 ‘‘ Do you know who I am, my man ? ” he sputtered at 
 length. 
 
 “Rather too well. Captain Laverack, if I am not mis- 
 taken ? ” Griffs voice was quiet, but the smile had died from 
 his lips, and his eyes showed hard. 
 
 “ Yes, I am Captain Laverack. Perhaps you know, then, 
 that I have rented the shooting over this moor ? ” 
 
 The little man was tempering wrath with an air of faint 
 irony. 
 
 “ I know that you played my father one of the lowest 
 tricks I ever heard of. I am pleased to meet you. Captain 
 I^averack ; it will do me good to tell you what a rascally little 
 cad I think you.” 
 
 Laverack was speechless with amazement. Before he could 
 find words, the second stranger had come up. Griff looked 
 hard at the new-comer, and looked again ; then he held out 
 his hand. 
 
 “ How do you do. Dereham ? ” he said nonchalantly. 
 
 Dereham hesitated a moment, then shook the proffered 
 hand with as near an approach to warmth as he ever 
 exhibited. 
 
 “ Lomax — Griff Lomax — by all that's wonderful ! I didn't 
 recognize you at first — how could I, when I suddenly came 
 
THE CUTTING OF PEATS. 1 67 
 
 upon you masquerading as a son of toil ? I always thought 
 you were as mad as a hatter, Lomax, and now I know it.” 
 
 “Lomax? Was Joshua Lomax your father?” interrupted 
 Laverack. His self-assertiveness had crawled away out of 
 sight. 
 
 Griff neither looked at him nor answered. The man was 
 too much his senior, he felt, to admit of his knocking him 
 down, and the temptation bore rather heavily on him just now. 
 Dereham stared at them both, and wondered. Laverack 
 shuffled his feet noiselessly among the peat-rubble; twice he 
 made as if to speak, then thought better of it ; finally, he turned 
 on his heel, whistled to his dog, and set off across the moor. 
 He turned after awhile. 
 
 “ Are you coming. Dereham ? ” he asked. 
 
 “ Directly. If we miss each other we shall meet at the 
 lodge for lunch ? ” 
 
 Again Laverack hesitated, glancing from Dereham to 
 Lomax, and making a rapid mental calculation as to the 
 chances of Griffs silence. 
 
 “ All right, one o’clock, sharp,” he said, and went 
 forward. 
 
 “ What the deuce are you playing at, you and Laverack ? ” 
 asked Dereham. 
 
 “ Nothing; we don’t like each other, that’s all. If he asks 
 you, when you rejoin him, how much I have told you — he is 
 sure to do that — say to him from me that the Lomaxes carry 
 their own burdens and never gossip about other people’s.” 
 
 Dereham laughed easily. 
 
 “By Jove, it sounds intense; but you always had a twist 
 for intensity, Lomax, so I’m prepared for it. — Do you know, 
 by the way, that Sybil Ogilvie is staying at Laverack’s place ? ” 
 he added, with a swift glance of inquiry. 
 
 Griff caught the glance full, but seemed untroubled. Then 
 he looked down at his corduroys, and tightened his leather 
 belt with a pleased chuckle. 
 
 “ I hope we may meet ; she would like me in this sort 
 of rig. There’s a good deal of stable-manure on my boots, 
 
i68 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 too, which would round off the idyll. Bah ! Dereham, you 
 wasted me a lot of my time, you little people in London.” 
 
 Dereham lit a cigar before responding, and perched himself 
 on a heathery knoll. 
 
 ‘‘ I always did like you, Lomax,” he drawled at last. 
 ‘‘Youhe such an engaging original, and this last piece of 
 foolery suits you better than any you’ve tried yet. Still that 
 air of the Almighty about you, only a little more so. Where’s 
 the poor devil of a woman ? ” 
 
 Griffs face took an ugly shade. 
 
 “ Whom do you mean ? ” 
 
 “Why, the cattle-dealer’s wife— -quarryman’s — what was it? 
 It would have done your vanity good — or your love, was it ? 
 only a matter of terms — to see the way Mrs. Ogilvie sickened 
 when the affair became common gossip in our set.” 
 
 “ Dereham ! ” 
 
 Dereham removed his eyes from their lazy contemplation 
 of the heat-waves dancing across the heather. Something in 
 the other’s voice startled him— some odd mixture of trouble 
 and resentment. 
 
 “ Have I put my foot in it? I’m beastly sorry if I have ; 
 I always was too lazy to think before I spoke. Was it — er — a 
 bit serious ? ” 
 
 “Any man who speaks against my wife runs the risk of 
 getting his neck broken.” 
 
 Dereham changed colour; but he held out his hand with 
 unaffected regret, and — 
 
 “ Old fellow,” said he, “ I hadn’t the least idea. You’d 
 better kick me and have done with it.” 
 
 Griff took the proffered hand and tried to laugh. 
 
 “ All right. Dereham ; only, I wish you hadn’t.” 
 
 “ Well, yes ; I fancy we both do. Coming, Rover, boy ! ” 
 This to the pointer, who, after much uneasiness, had started off 
 on his own account with a very business-like air. 
 
 Dereham, glad of a break in the discomfort, followed hard 
 after the dog. Presently Rover put up a brace, and Dereham 
 claimed one with each barrel. He returned to his former seat, 
 
THE CUTTING OF PEATS. 1 69 
 
 and Rover brought the birds to him, eyeing him the while 
 . with encouraging approval. 
 
 “ I’ve made my peace with Rover,” said Dereham, nodding 
 lazily at the dog. “ You never saw his equal for intelligence, 
 Lomax. Before I sighted you this morning, he put up three 
 almost under my nose, and I missed with both barrels. And 
 that dog just turned his head round and said to me, as plain 
 as could be, ‘ What a fool of a shot yoiL are.’ But I’ve re- 
 trieved my good name, haven’t I, old boy ? ” 
 
 Rover implied an affirmative with his tail, and Dereham, 
 for lack of certainty as to how he should proceed with his friend, 
 began to stuff the grouse slowly into his game-bag. 
 
 “ Well ? ” said Griff at length. 
 
 “ Exactly. I was thinking that you’ve improved since I 
 last saw you. By Jove, I like the way you flashed out on me 
 just now ! You’re like a horse that has been out to grass for 
 a month. Honestly, Lomax, I’m confoundedly glad you have 
 dropped the Ogilvie nonsense. You didn’t seem either excited 
 or surprised when I told you how near she is at this moment.” 
 
 “ What is it ? There shall the eagles be gathered together 
 — something. You were always the alternate string to her 
 bow.” 
 
 ‘‘Ah, well, I find her excellent comedy, and that is the 
 most you can expect from any woman. That was what irritated 
 me, you know, when you took her in such screaming sincerity. 
 You won’t mind my saying, will you, that you were an astonish- 
 ing fool in that particular ? ” 
 
 “ I shan’t mind in the least. I like it.” 
 
 “ Too much fetch and carry, too little compensation, unless 
 you took it funnily. The fair Sybil was altogether too fond of 
 pets in the old days.” 
 
 “ Has she changed particularly ? ” 
 
 Dereham grinned pleasantly at his friend. 
 
 “ She treated you badly, in my opinion, and I’m hanged 
 if I don’t give you your revenge now — even at the price of 
 your modesty. When you left town suddenly, after making 
 an intolerable bear of yourself for three months on end, we 
 
170 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 all prophesied — and Mrs. Ogilvie was sure — that you would 
 come back. But you didn’t, and Sybil began to feel it. The 
 others said that she merely missed the most pronounced of 
 those delicate little flirtations of hers, which did no one the least 
 harm in the world — except the odd idiots who took her 
 seriously. But I fancied it was more than that, and I’ve 
 proved it since. The woman is wild for you ; if I were to tell 
 her you were here, she would forget — the interim — would 
 forget every mortal thing except that she wanted you ; she’d 
 come ” 
 
 “ Then for God’s sake keep her away ! ” cried Griff, 
 fervently. 
 
 “Her husband died in the spring, you know. Sybil is 
 a changed woman, but she hasn’t the heart even to pretend 
 that it is due to his death. She just mopes, Lomax, and 
 if revenge is any satisfaction to you, you’ve got it — ^as much 
 as a man could want.” 
 
 Griff went back through those fevered months — recalled 
 how the touch of her hand had maddened him, how the curve 
 of her baby lips had seemed to be the end and aim of all 
 things. Yet, for the life of him, he could not make a sub- 
 stantial working memory of it now. The thing he had called 
 love showed merely as a spineless, filmy ghost ; the thing he 
 knew to be love stood between him and the woman who had 
 seduced him in all but the letter. 
 
 “ Dereham,” he said abruptly, “ will you come and see my 
 wife?” 
 
 “ I was going to ask if I might. It’s generous of you to 
 suggest it after ” 
 
 “ Never mind that. Will you come ? ” 
 
 “Yes ; when? ” 
 
 “To-morrow, if you can get off. Drop in for lunch — I 
 call it dinner now — and we’ll give you mutton and apple- 
 dumplings.” 
 
 “I bar the dumplings, but otherwise you may depend 
 on me. Is your quarrel with Laverack serious, by the 
 way ? ” 
 
THE CUTTING OF PEATS. 171 
 
 “Yesj it goes back to my father, and that means it is 
 unforgivable. — It will make matters awkward for you ? ” 
 
 “ Then let it. Laverack is all very well, but he's not going 
 to stand between you and me. If he doesn’t like it. I’ll remove 
 my traps to a pub, and spend the rest of my time helping you 
 to farm.” 
 
172 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE LINK THAT BINDETH MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 After Griff had done with his peats, and had eaten a dinner 
 proportionate to his labours, he set off for Marshcotes. Mrs. 
 Lomax, with a cross-country tramp in mind, was just coming 
 out of the gate when he arrived at the Manor. 
 
 “What, going for a walk? Absurd, little mother, under 
 such a blazing sun.^^ 
 
 “ It is, rather; but what would you have. Griff? I must 
 fill up my time somehow.” 
 
 “That is another of your covert reproaches. I believe 
 you are horribly jealous of Kate, if the truth were known.” 
 
 The mother looked him wistfully up and down. 
 
 “Yes, I am — as jealous as possible. I miss you so, dear.” 
 
 Griff, in a man's way, had not been wont to give an over- 
 careful regard to the looks of those who were constantly about 
 him. Something in his mother's tone, however, a certain touch 
 of helplessness that was foreign to her character, set him 
 scrutinizing her face. She seemed older and more worn, he 
 thought, than when he first returned home, a year ago. 
 
 “You don't look quite yourself, old lady,” he said tenderly. 
 “ Let's spend the afternoon in the garden, under that ridiculous 
 lilac-tree which thinks it can grow at the edge of a moor.” 
 
 “ It is a very fine lilac. Griff,” snapped Mrs. Lomax. 
 
 “Ah, I thought the fight wasn't all dead in you. Well, I 
 won't abuse the lilac, and I'll even drink your home-made wine 
 without a murmur, if only you will promise to amuse me this 
 afternoon. I'm lazy, mother ; don't let us go for a walk.” 
 
THE LINK THAT BINDETH MAN AND WIFE. 1 73 
 
 “ Which means that you think vie feebler than I was. Oh, 
 yes, you do ! I saw it in your face as you looked at me just 
 now. I have a good mind to show you what I can do when 
 I choose.” 
 
 By way of answer Griff threaded his arm through hers, led 
 her into the garden, and set her down by main force in the 
 shady seat under the lilac-bushes. 
 
 “ I have good news for you, mother,” he said, breaking a 
 long pause. 
 
 “About Kate?” flashed the old lady, with a woman’s 
 perspective, and a mother’s half-resentful pride where a grand- 
 child is in question. 
 
 But Griff missed her point utterly. 
 
 “ No ; what good news could I bring of her except that she 
 is just as much Kate as ever? It is about Laverackj you 
 remember telling me father’s relations with him ? ” 
 
 “Yes, I remember well. Only — it is not a topic that 
 
 pleases me. Griff.” 
 
 “ Not if I tell you that I met him this morning, and made 
 myself known to him, and called him a cad to his face ? ” 
 
 Her keen old eyes brightened. 
 
 “You did that. Griff? Yes, it is good news. It may be 
 unchristian, but I loathe that man. And if one is framed to 
 love well, how can one help hating with a will, too ? ” 
 
 “ Mother, mother, I despair of you ! You’re a dreadful 
 Pagan, like the rest of us,” laughed the son, anxious to glance 
 off to other topics, now that he had conveyed his piece of 
 information. 
 
 “ Well, your father was a Pagan, right through to the core 
 of him. I have had worse examples to follow. Griff.” 
 
 “ Did you object to his poaching, I wonder ? ” said Griff, 
 teasingly. “ After he was married, I mean.” 
 
 “ That, rude boy, is a question I don’t choose to answer. 
 It is unwise, though, they say, to deny a man his luxuries ; but 
 the pursuit is a discreditable one at best.” 
 
 “ I’ve done with it, at any rate.” 
 
 An impatient half-sigh accompanied the words. 
 
174 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ I am glad of it.” 
 
 “ But, mother, you have no idea of the glorious rough-and- 
 tumbles we used to have. Kate, though, has made me promise 
 to keep a whole skin, and there’s an end of it. Heigho 1 I’m 
 glad the Squire and I made a decent finish to my career in 
 that line.” 
 
 A rattling of the garden gate came to them round the 
 corner of the house. 
 
 “ Some one seems to be trying to get in,” said Mrs. Lomax. 
 “ Just run and open the gate, will you. Griff? You always 
 bang it so hard, and the latch, like myself, is getting worn 
 out.” 
 
 Again that helpless note in her voice. Griff did not like 
 it at all. 
 
 “ Worn out ? ” he echoed. ‘‘ Not till you give better proof 
 of it, foolish mother.” 
 
 ‘‘ Boy, kindly flatter your wife, and leave tag-ends of 
 sincerity for your mother.” She tried to laugh, but the effort 
 was not very successful. 
 
 Griff did as he was bid, and went to open the gate. At 
 the other side stood Greta Rotherson. 
 
 “ How do you do ? ” he observed, holding out his hand 
 across the top bar. 
 
 “ I’m very hot, rather cross, and exceedingly anxious to 
 get under shelter. How would it be, Mr. Lomax, if you 
 opened the gate ? ” 
 
 “ Not just yet. I enjoy making you really angry ; it brings 
 such a quaint little flush to your cheeks.” 
 
 ‘‘ I don’t want compliments,” protested Greta, blushing 
 rosier with pleasure all the same. 
 
 “You’ll have to put up with them, I fear, if you won’t 
 change your looks. Even a staid married man like myself ” 
 
 “ Married you may be, sir, but staid you will never become,” 
 said Greta, demurely. “ I am going to knock at the back 
 door, if you won’t let me in at the front.” 
 
 He opened at that, after weighty argument with the latch, 
 and Greta tripped in, looking like a bit of fleecy, fair-weather 
 
THE LINK THAT BINDETH MAN AND WIFE. 1 75 
 
 cloud in her muslin dress. Grilf could never quite rid himself 
 of the notion that she was just a pretty child, and he treated 
 her accordingly. He wondered, in a way, at the preacher's 
 infatuation; and, with his mole-like outlook on women as a 
 whole, he asked himself sometimes if little Greta would be 
 able to weather foul days as well as fair. 
 
 Mrs. Lomax brightened as she saw the girl. She had a 
 better notion of these matters than her son, and never felt the 
 least doubt but that Greta, for all her butterfly prettiness, was 
 just the sort of woman to come out strong in a crisis. 
 
 “You are earlier than I expected you, my dear. I am 
 glad," said the old lady, simply. 
 
 “ Yes, father had to go off to Saxilton on business, and I 
 thought you might like a chat — which means that I wanted 
 one badly myself." 
 
 Then she and Griff began teasing each other, till Greta 
 was likely to have the worst of it, and Mrs. Lomax interfered. 
 And after awhile there came another rattling at the gate, 
 followed by the scrunch of heavy boots on the gravel. Greta 
 talked faster, without waiting for any one to answer her, and 
 her cheeks were an honest crimson. 
 
 Gabriel Hirst, for once in a way, had come in a garb that 
 was likely to advance his cause ; though the accident of his 
 taking Marshcotes Manor at the end of a long ride must not 
 be set down to any cunning forethought on the preacher's part. 
 He bungled less than usual as he came across the grass, and 
 Griff smiled as he noted that his horseback humour was 
 on him. 
 
 Presently Mrs. Lomax snared Griff into the house, on the 
 pretext of talking over some business matters with him. 
 
 “ Did you arrange this meeting, mother ? " he asked, as he 
 opened the parlour door for her. 
 
 “ Didn't I tell you," she smiled, “ that I have to find things 
 to do nowadays ? " 
 
 “ I like the notion of your turning matchmaker. Pray, is 
 this kind of meeting a regular occurrence ? " 
 
 “ I have very few luxuries, Griff — Not that it is the least 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 176 
 
 good in the world. Gabriel seems always to be falling between 
 two stools. He can’t work properly, because he is in love 
 with the girl, and he won’t speak out like a man, because he is 
 not sure yet whether she is a temptation of the flesh or not. 
 You men — you men ! If only you understood what a true 
 woman’s love is worth.” 
 
 “ The lassie would have him — eh, mother ? ” 
 
 “The lassie, sir, will wait till she is asked,” retorted the 
 mother. 
 
 When Griff reached Gorsthwaite that evening, it struck him 
 that something was amiss with Kate. His late uneasiness 
 about his mother had sharpened his eyes, and he was awake 
 to the restlessness in Kate’s movements. From time to time, 
 too, she looked wistfully at him, and seemed on the point of 
 speaking. More than all, he noted that she was disposed to 
 be lavish of caresses, in a way that fitted ill with her wonted 
 undemonstrative strength. 
 
 “ What ails you, wife ? ” he ventured once. 
 
 “ Nothing — nothing at all, dear. Why do you ask?” 
 
 “You are so unlike yourself. Have I left you alone too 
 much lately? Say the word, Katey, and I’ll give up the 
 farming, and — and the horse. They take me away a good 
 deal between them.” 
 
 “ Nonsense, Griff. You are going to give up nothing at all, 
 except your foolish suspicions of me. I am the happiest 
 woman in the world at this moment.” 
 
 Alas for his inexperience ! In that curious, half-hysterical 
 assertion of happiness, he might have read all that she longed 
 to tell him. But he missed it, and went on to talk of Dereham’s 
 coming on the morrow. 
 
 “ He is rather fastidious, you know,” laughed Griff ; “ what 
 can we give him to eat ? Luckily we have a brace of grouse 
 ready for cooking. How would an omelette be ?” 
 
 “I can’t make them,” protested Kate, vaguely uneasy at 
 the mention of Dereham’s fastidiousness. 
 
 “ But I can — beauties ! It is high time you learned ; I’ll 
 give you a lesson in the morning. Oh, yes, we shall manage 
 
THE LINK THAT BINDETH MAN AND WIFE. 1 77 
 
 famously ! Tell the cook, wifey, that she can have a morning 
 off to-morrow, because I mean to turn her kitchen upside 
 down.” 
 
 ‘‘ Indeed, I shall tell her nothing of the kind. I don’t trust 
 you. Griff— you talk too glibly about it.” 
 
 Griff stroked her cheek playfully. 
 
 “You think that omelette will turn out like the women I 
 used to paint — half-cooked inside, and dried to a cinder 
 outside ? Well, we shall see.” 
 
 As a matter of fact, the omelette, as well as the rest of the 
 dinner, turned out remarkably well. Dereham had entered 
 Gorsthwaite with an uncomfortable feeling that he was here 
 to be bored by a friend’s wife, to make the best of a foolish 
 job ; but as the meal went on, and Kate, in her straightforward 
 way, took up his tentative comments on men and matters, 
 emphasizing points of view which were too simple ever to have 
 occurred to him, he began to wonder. From wonder he passed 
 to interest ; he clean forgot the passivity which was his especial 
 pride; he talked little, and listened much to the words he 
 enticed by strategy from his hostess. Finally, he felt regretful 
 when Kate left them to their smoke. 
 
 “ I begin to understand,” observed Dereham, after he had 
 silently worked his way through the half of a cigar. 
 
 “ What do you understand, you oracle ? ” 
 
 “ There you’re off it, old fellow. Oracles never understand 
 — they only pretend to. That is by the way, though. What 
 I meant was, that you seem to be really established here.” 
 
 “Why, yes. I should be sorry to desert Gorsthwaite in 
 favour of any place you could name.” 
 
 “ I thought it was just a pose, you see ; we all thought so. 
 You’re a different man altogether, Lomax, from the Ogilvie 
 lap-dog I used to know. Suits you better, I think.” 
 
 “Dereham, will you let Mrs. Ogilvie alone? You have 
 exacted penance enough for that folly already.” 
 
 “ All right, my dear chap ; I plead guilty. What I want 
 to know, though, is, when are we to have another picture? 
 Are you sinking into an animal pure and simple — a sort of 
 
 N 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 178 
 
 superior hog, that eats and drinks, and fills in the between- 
 times with sleep ? 
 
 Griff, by way of answer, took Dereham up to the room he 
 used as a studio. A large canvas stood on an easel in the 
 middle of the floor. Dereham went close to the picture, to 
 which the finishing touches had been put early that morning, 
 and stood regarding it attentively. 
 
 “ Humph ! he dropped at length. “ Same style as the 
 two eccentric daubs that the elderly critics profess to think 
 so much of. Gad, though, there’s something in it ! Why, 
 bless my soul, the figure in the foreground is your wife ! ” 
 
 Yes, Griff had struck a fine idea, undoubtedly. The back- 
 ground was a rush-fringed tarn, with a sweep of rust-coloured 
 bracken on the right and a clump of heathery knolls on the 
 left ; in the foreground, standing on a peat-bed of brownish- 
 black, was the figure of a woman, her eyes looking steadfastly 
 out from the canvas, her body set to a careless strength of 
 pose. One corner of the tarn, and the bracken to the right 
 of it, were lit by the dying sun ; the rest of the moorscape lay 
 in brooding darkness. On the face of the woman was just 
 that blending of light and sombre shade in which the moor- 
 features themselves had been picked out. It was impossible 
 to say which was the more alive, the woman or the lonely strip 
 of heath; each seemed able to stand alone, yet each helped 
 the other’s strength. 
 
 “Anything else?” asked Dereham, after a pause, in his 
 usual nonchalant tone. 
 
 “Yes; the companion to this. One I call ‘Moor Calm,’ 
 the other ‘ Moor Storm.’ ” 
 
 Griff uncovered a second canvas lying against the wall. 
 This time the background was a swirling sea of heather-tips 
 below; and above, lightning and tempest and wind-driven, 
 scudding night-clouds. The naked figure of a man held the 
 foreground — a man eye to eye with the lightning, shoulder to 
 shoulder with the storm; on his lips sat determination, but 
 grim laughter lay in his eyes. The whole smote one with a 
 sense of fearless, Fate-defying nudity. 
 
|;|.THE LINK THAT BINDETH MAN AND WIFE. 1 79 
 
 Dereham shuddered a little as he looked — then shrugged 
 his shoulders when he saw that Griff was watching him. 
 
 “Very fine, my friend, for those who understand it. I 
 don't, for my part ; it makes me feel cold and wet through." 
 
 “ But I understand it ! " interrupted Griff, giving a loose 
 rein to his enthusiasm. “ I never see the moor without thank- 
 ing God that I took to painting instead of literature. The 
 moor shifts her expression every hour, every minute : you 
 can't stir without getting a fine, strong bit of canvas-work. 
 Yet fools go wasting their time on waterfalls, and buttercup 
 meadows, and milkmaids going kine-wards. Does it never 
 occur to them that there is something worth painting, if they 
 will only take the trouble to climb a few hundred feet to 
 get it ? " 
 
 “ Well, I dare say it will bring you kudos^' said Dereham, 
 with a yawn that was intended as an apology for certain 
 twinges of enthusiasm discernible in his own person. “For 
 my part, I find these moors of yours devilish healthy, and 
 devilish dull. I'm frankly in love with houses, and warm 
 fires, and theatres, and the rest of it. If I hadn't met you, 
 I think not even the shooting would have compensated me 
 for coming." 
 
 “ Like it or not, old chap," laughed Griff, “ you will hear of 
 me again when these pictures appear. Have another weed." 
 
 “ I daren't, in this temple of the rough, the savage, and the 
 naked. You can’t imagine primitive man sitting with a cigar- 
 stump in his mouth. No, it shall be a pipe. — ^Lomax,” he 
 went on, after he had lit up, “ how do you find time to paint ? 
 I thought you were farming all day long." 
 
 “ I only work when it suits me. My man is dependable 
 enough, and he keeps things going. But farming puts me 
 into condition, and that saves me from conceiving the flabby 
 subjects which boomed me. I'm in the thick of it up here, 
 too — right in the middle of human nature that isn't ashamed of 
 its simpleness. Every day of my life I rub against good, sharp 
 angles, and every day I thank the Lord that I am not planed 
 down to a model human yet.” 
 
i8o 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ Lomax, put in the other, with an air of grave profundity, 
 “ don’t begin thanking the Lord that you are a publican and 
 sinner, or you may be turned into a Pharisee.” 
 
 “ Away with your word-twists ! I’ve done with them. — I 
 say. Dereham, let’s have a round with the gloves,” he broke 
 off, as his eyes fell on a couple of pairs that had been tossed 
 into one corner. 
 
 Dereham looked Griff’s lengthy muscularity up and down. 
 
 “ Hit a man your own size,” he observed, with a pleasant 
 grin. 
 
 But he put on the gloves for all that, and they went at 
 it hammer-and-tongs, as of old. Griff was more than a match 
 for his opponent in height and driving power, but the slighter 
 man had the advantage in quickness ; and at the end of the 
 bout they were on pretty equal terms with regard to blows 
 given and received. ^ 
 
 “ That does one good,” panted Griff. “ I am not allowed to 
 slip out at nights now. Dereham ; little moonlight picnics have 
 been knocked on the head. It’s a big responsibility getting 
 married.” 
 
 “ Of course it is. Preserve me from having a woman pin 
 her heart to my coat-tails ; it must be no end of a drag.” 
 
 “You are an ass, old fellow,” retorted Griff, tranquilly; 
 “ it is the finest spur a man can have.” 
 
 “ Lord, Lord ! this life is dulling you ; I knew it would. 
 Let’s talk of the weather.” 
 
 “ It is odd to think of four of the old set coming together 
 on one narrow strip of moor,” said Griff, breaking a lengthy 
 silence. 
 
 “Four? Who’s the fourth?” asked Dereham, sharply. 
 
 Griff, remembering Roddick’s secret, bit his lips and 
 answered nothing. 
 
 “ I think I can guess,” said the other, presently. “ The 
 other night I saw something up above the Folly that gave me 
 a clue ; it was lucky for them that the stars and I had the 
 sight to ourselves. Roddick disappeared from town as sud- 
 denly as you did. Is that the secret? Well, it is safe enough 
 
THE LINK THAT BINDETH MAN AND WIFE. 1 8 1 
 
 with me. Roddick may be a fool for his pains, but he’s a jolly 
 good sort. As to the oddity, I don’t quite see it. I have been 
 due to come to the Folly for a fortnight’s shooting ever since 
 last winter; so has Sybil Ogilvie; Roddick follows for the 
 best, and the worst, of all possible reasons — and, hey presto ! 
 where has your mystery gone ? ” 
 
 “ Shall you go to see him ? ” 
 
 “Yes. Where does he live? I can’t leave without saying 
 how-d’ye-do to him. Do you know his story, by the way?” 
 
 “ From start to finish. Poor beggar, he’s in a tight 
 place.” 
 
 “ I sometimes think,” said Dereham, with a carelessness 
 that sat oddly on his words, “ I sometimes think that if I had 
 lost all that makes life worth living, I should go and strangle 
 that beast-wife of Roddick’s. Not that I should, really ; but 
 it* would be the truest service one could do him.” 
 
 “ I have played with that notion, too ; it would be a tough 
 problem to settle, if ,” said Lomax, musingly. 
 
 When Dereham had gone, Kate came and stood by the 
 mantelshelf, and looked down at her husband, who was sprawl- 
 ing contentedly in his big easy-chair. He was well satisfied 
 with their little luncheon-party. Truth to tell, he had been 
 anxious as to the effect which Kate would produce on this half- 
 tender, half-cynical friend of his butterfly days ; it was not, he 
 told himself, that he really cared a straw that his own opinion 
 should be endorsed, but he did shrink from the thought that 
 Dereham might go away and vaguely pity him — that smacked 
 too much of insult to his wife. Dereham, however, had left 
 no doubt of his admiration for Kate. As he shook Griff’s 
 hand at the door, he had muttered, “ You’ll do, old fellow. 
 Can I come to see your wife again ? ” And this meant more 
 than it seemed — it meant, in brief, that he envied his friend 
 his prize. And a man likes to feel this, be he never so secure 
 in his own judgment. 
 
 So, being content, it did not occur to Griff that there was 
 any underlying trouble in his wife’s eyes — though the trouble 
 was more in evidence than it had been when he noticed it the 
 
i 82 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 night before. She crept to his knee presently, and took his 
 two big hands in hers. 
 
 ‘‘ Griff!’’ 
 
 “ Yes, little woman? How very solemn we sound.” 
 
 “You won’t be angry if I ask you a question? Did I — 
 did I shame you. Griff, before your friend ? I know so little 
 of the world, and ” 
 
 “Child, be quiet! How dare you hint at such a thing?” 
 
 Griff was frowning more than he knew of. He hated this 
 resurrected doubt, after it had been laid to rest once and for 
 all; he had not been proud of himself for feeling it, and 
 Kate had no business to allow it to come into her head. 
 
 She saw the frown. Her lip trembled. The next moment 
 she had buried her face, and was sobbing like a child. 
 
 “ Wife, wife ! what is it all about ? Did I speak harshly ? 
 I didn’t mean to ; only, it was so absurd that you could shame 
 me in any one’s eyes, and — Kate, what is it? You have never 
 given way like this before.” 
 
 She made no answer for a long while ; when she did raise 
 her head at last, it was to whisper something that set strange 
 new pulses beating in the man. He understood now ; and as 
 he took her on his knee and let her cry it out against his 
 shoulder, all his wildness seemed to have merged into one 
 steady wave of tenderness. 
 
 And then Kate laughed, low and soft, with a note in her 
 voice that dated forward. 
 
 “ He is to be a boy. Griff — he must be a boy — and — and — 
 you will not be ashamed of him when he comes, will you, 
 dear ? ” 
 
( >83 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE FIGHT AT THE QUARRY EDGE. 
 
 Griff Lomax, waking at half-past five of a morning towards the 
 end of August, lay on his back for awhile, and thought how fine 
 the moors would be looking at this time of day. Then he 
 pictured that wooded cleft below Ling Crag, where the water 
 came down sweet and cold from the uplands. He had not had a 
 dip there since he learned that the old mill was occupied again ; 
 the aloofness of what he had once regarded as his own private 
 bathing-place seemed to be violated, and he had not cared to 
 risk a meeting, while under water, or during the process of 
 towelling himself, with either of the miller’s women-folk. But 
 he argued, as he lay on his back this morning and watched the 
 sun-chequers on the ceiling, that no one would be abroad at 
 this time of day, and that if he made shift to slip into flannels 
 forthwith, and run to the stream, he could enjoy his bath in 
 peace. So he jumped out of bed without more ado, leaving 
 Kate fast asleep, and crossed the moor at a gentle trot. He 
 made his way through the dew-weighted grass, and reached the 
 pool where Greta Rotherson had paddled on that long-ago 
 Sunday when the preacher came over the crest of the ridge 
 above. The rains had been heavy of late, and the water came 
 dancing down at a rattling pace, white with foam-flecks, and 
 brown with moorland peat. The pool, though neither deep nor 
 wide enough for a swim, could give a tolerable bath to one 
 who knew it as Griff did. He slipped out of his flannels, 
 plunged in, grasped an outstanding branch of hazel that leaned 
 low to the water, and let the current carry the rest of him as 
 far as his six-feet-three would go ; the stream broadened into 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 184 
 
 shallows an inch beyond his toes, and Griff had always flattered 
 himself with the belief that the pool had been made expressly 
 for him. He shouted with glee, and kicked up his heels, and 
 buried his head among the scattering minnows ; and when he 
 had had enough of it, he sought the fallen pine-log on the 
 bank. The log, too, was an old friend ; time and weather 
 had stripped it of its bark, and the surface, smooth and porous, 
 was quick at catching the sun-rays and keeping them. Griff 
 filled a big pipe and lit it ; then he lay along the log, and 
 mutely thanked Heaven for a good many things, and left all 
 drying operations to the sun and the log between them. 
 
 The sound of a door creaking on its hinges came to him 
 round the bend of the stream. 
 
 ‘‘ By Jove, they get up early at the mill ! he cried. “ I 
 suppose I had better tumble into my clothes.” 
 
 He had slipped into his trousers and shirt, and was stooping 
 for his coat, when Greta Rotherson ran lightly down the path. 
 She stopped on seeing the intruder and half turned her head, 
 as if meditating flight. 
 
 ‘‘ Good morning. Miss Rotherson,” laughed Griff. “ IVe 
 been having a bathe. May I put on my coat in your presence ? ” 
 
 “ I think you had better, Mr. Lomax.” 
 
 The girl came forward a few steps, smiling at the absurdity 
 of his question. 
 
 ‘‘ I have no right to be here, Fm afraid ; but I used to bathe 
 in this pool a good deal, and I could not resist the thought of it 
 this morning.” 
 
 “ How did you find it out ? I thought no one bathed here 
 but myself.” 
 
 “ How did I find it out ? Do you know how long I have 
 lived on Marshcotes Moor ? ” 
 
 “ I couldn’t guess,” said Miss Rotherson, demurely, seating 
 herself on one end of the log. 
 
 “ Thirty odd years. Is it likely, now, that I should miss 
 a stream as good as this one is ? ” 
 
 “You are like the rest of them, Mr. Lomax. You’re 
 awfully proud of having lived here all your life, and you — not 
 
THE FIGHT AT THE QUARRY EDGE. 1 85 
 
 exactly look down on, but yon— pity us who come from the 
 South” 
 
 “ Do I ? ” smiled Griff. ‘‘ How do you know that ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, you do ; you all do ! I don’t like your people up 
 here ; they’re too hardP 
 
 “ Did you ever get to the heart of one of us ? We’re as 
 soft as butter, once you smash through the rind.” 
 
 ‘‘ But you never confess it when — when people want you to.” 
 
 Greta Rotherson blushed, as she spoke, in a vexed kind 
 of way, and Griff knew, as well as could be, that she was 
 thinking of the preacher. But he daren’t so much as hint that 
 he knew the state of affairs, though he was always jogging 
 Gabriel’s elbow, and striving to push the silly fellow nearer 
 to his goal. 
 
 “ We are crossed in the grain, I fear. Don’t be too hard on 
 us. Miss Rotherson,” he laughed. 
 
 And so, what with one thing and another, they talked for 
 half an hour, these two, seated one on each end of the warm 
 pine-log. They laughed, and jested, and teased each other, 
 from sheer vigour of youth and good spirits, until Griff looked 
 at the sun, which was a reliable watch to him. 
 
 “ It is getting late,” he said, rising and stretching his long 
 legs. “ Have I been keeping you from your bath all this 
 time ? ” 
 
 “ You have, but it doesn’t matter. I daren’t ever risk it 
 again, though, now that I know people intrude. Good-bye. 
 When are you coming to have a pipe with father ? ” 
 
 “ As soon as I can, if you’ll have me. Good-bye.” 
 
 “ They are hard in a way,” mused Greta, when he had gone, 
 ‘‘ but they’re grit somehow. Why on earth hasn’t Gabriel 
 a little of Mr. Lomax’s easiness ? It is so silly being in love 
 with a man you have to give a helping hand to. And 
 Gabriel isn’t a bit sure yet whether I am a wile of the devil or 
 merely an angel. Did I say I loved him ? Well, I don’t. 
 He’s stupid. I am going for a run on the moors instead of 
 thinking about him.” 
 
 Griff strolled gently homeward across the moor, with 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 l86 
 
 the tingle of cold water on his skin and the morning wind 
 fresh in his face. What was left a man to desire, he wondered ? 
 He opened his shoulders, his mouth, his nostrils, to the 
 wind and the peat-reek, and watched the sun-rays dance 
 across the moor. Cobwebs were slung, like fairy hammocks, 
 from heather-bough to heather-bough; the peat was springy 
 to the tread ; a lark was vowing that he’d never grow tired 
 of singing, and a moor-emperor moth, a dandy gallant in 
 gorgeous raiment, flitted across his path. 
 
 ‘‘ What fools there are in the world ! ” said Griff* to himself. 
 “ When I think of people living in the valleys — as I did myself 
 for a goodly number of years — it makes me laugh.” 
 
 But Gabriel Hirst, at that moment, felt no gratitude towards 
 the sun, nor did he realize how good it was to be alive. Five 
 minutes after Miss Rotherson had perched herself on the log, 
 the preacher turned out of the Ling Crag high-road and walked 
 quickly towards the mill. It was his wont nowadays to creep 
 about the mill purlieus, in the hope of catching a glimpse of 
 Greta — or a glimpse of her casement, if the greater boon were 
 denied him. He could not live through the twenty-four hours 
 without this pilgrimage of his ; sometimes he came at noon, 
 oftener at twilight, but he rarely had courage to step forward 
 and claim a word with the girl ; it never occurred to him that 
 a passion so overmastering as his could meet with a like 
 response, and he feared to blurt out the sum-total of his folly 
 if he spoke with her overmuch. Greta, of course, knew a good 
 deal about his stealthy approaches to the mill, as women will 
 get to know these things ; and she wondered how a man could 
 be a man in all else, and yet be such a sorry fool in matters of 
 love. 
 
 This morning Gabriel Hirst had awakened at four, and 
 could not get to sleep again for thinking of Greta. He tried 
 to drive the thought away ; for one of his old frenzies had 
 been coming to a head lately, and he was keenly alive to the 
 wiles of the flesh. He ran over St. Peter’s words on the subject 
 of plaitings of the hair, and cringed at the thought that he had 
 only yesterday feasted his eyes on the brown glory coiled above 
 
THE FIGHT AT THE QUARRY EDGE. 1 87 
 
 Greta’s shapely little head. He told himself, as he turned into 
 the wood-path through Hazel Dene, that this must be the last 
 
 of his tributes to carnal desire, that he must never But 
 
 down below him sat Greta on her pine-log, with Lomax jesting at 
 her side. Like a man struck blind was the preacher ; he stood 
 quite still at the gap in the bushes that had first shown him the 
 scene, but his eyes were too full of dancing lights to see more 
 than the one quick glance had shown him. Away went doubts 
 of the spiritual future in dread of the concrete present. This 
 could be no chance meeting ; the hour was too early, the Dene 
 too far out of Griff’s way. Were they laughing at himself, at 
 his clumsy ways and honest love-fears ? He pressed his hand 
 tight above his heart, as if he had received a mortal hurt. Griff 
 was false — that was the thought which shaped itself in his mind, 
 after long struggling with the numbness. Vaguely he crept 
 away from the spot — up the steep hillside, through the pasture- 
 land above, on into the moor. No lust for vengeance had yet 
 crept in to goad his manhood ; he followed the instinct of all 
 sorely stricken creatures and tottered to some unknown hiding- 
 place — anywhere, so long as he got out of reach of his 
 fellows. 
 
 Slowly the need of vindication slid into his consciousness. 
 He quickened his pace a little. Righteous anger followed 
 stealthily, telling him that Griff had stooped to the meanest 
 treachery that a man can play his friend. His feet went 
 forward more bravely. Finally, he was all aglow with a rage 
 that swept clean away every despairing thought of loss. He 
 ran like a wild thing through the purpling heather, till Hazel 
 Dene lay a good three miles behind him; he was out of breath 
 by this time, and he sat down in a clump of cranberries 
 to rest awhile. He had gone out that morning with a copy of 
 “ Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted ” under his arm — a book, 
 much in vogue with an earlier generation, in which Gabriel was 
 wont to find strong stuff of a quality he loved. He opened 
 the book at random, hoping to chance upon some counsel 
 fitted to the occasion ; but he drew blank, and shut the stained 
 old pages with a snap. One solitary quotation from the 
 
i88 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Scriptures assailed him with untiring pertinacity. “ Vengeance 
 is Mine, saith the Lord,” he muttered. 
 
 He got up from! the cranberry-bushes and strode off again 
 across the moor. It hurt him to feel that excuse for action 
 rested, not with himself, but with a Higher Power. A sense of 
 futility weighed him down. 
 
 The sun was dropping westward before hunger insisted on 
 a hearing. He had been fasting lately, and his body was 
 weakened ; old stubbornness bade him fight the hunger, but he 
 remembered that there was no longer a reason for self-castiga- 
 tion — no longer a reason, it seemed, for anything in earth or 
 sky. The scepticism which, years before, had preceded his con- 
 version came and went, alternating with the dulling conscious- 
 ness that vengeance belonged to the Lord, not to himself. 
 Gabriel Hirst was rudderless in the depths of a stormy sea. 
 
 Desire for food was the one straightforward agent. He 
 looked across the moor and saw a black-walled cottage standing 
 up against the sky ; without conscious thought he took a bee 
 line, over bog-land and dry, to the cottage. At another time 
 he would have recognized Sorrowstones Spring, but this after- 
 noon the country showed only a blurred, unknown waste. 
 A surly admonition to enter greeted his knock, and he went in. 
 Old Mother Strangeways was taking down a canister of tea 
 from her cupboard ; she turned and looked him up and down. 
 
 “ Oh, if s thee, Gabriel Hirst ? ” she croaked. “ What dost 
 ^a want ? ” 
 
 Food. Pm like to drop with hunger.” 
 
 She laughed mirthlessly. 
 
 “ Then drop, tha praching crow. I know thee well ; 
 tha’rt friends wf young Lummax, if I^m noan mistaken.” 
 
 The preacher winced. 
 
 ‘‘ I’m no friend of his, nor he of mine.” 
 
 “ Arf n’t ’a ? Sin’ when ? ” 
 
 “ Since the morning. He’s played me false, and if s a pity 
 that vengeance belongs to the Lord.” 
 
 Rachel dropped into her chair and motioned Gabriel to 
 take the other. 
 
THE FIGHT AT THE QUARRY EDGE. 1 89 
 
 ‘‘Tha looks too mich of a fooil to be a liar, Gabriel 
 Hirst,” she said meditatively; ‘‘whafs agate atween thee 
 an’ him ? ” 
 
 The preacher was tired and disposed to seek sympathy. 
 The aptness of Mother Strangeways’ questions seemed to call 
 for straightforward answers. He told her what he had seen 
 in Hazel Dene. The woman’s face ran into queer wrinkles 
 as she listened; it seemed that her prayers had brought to 
 Sorrowstones Spring a man well fitted to compass what was 
 now her one aim in life. 
 
 “ It’s i’ th’ breed ; it’s a trick of his father’s, yon. He’ll 
 hev his way wi’ th’ lass, an’ then he’ll leave her i’ th’ mud, to 
 fend for herseln an’ th’ babby,” she muttered eagerly. 
 
 The preacher rose, his face on fire. 
 
 “ Woman ! ” he cried, “ if you frame your unclean lips to 
 such words again. I’ll ” 
 
 “ Nay, nay, lad. It’s noan me ’at wants to hurt thee. Tak 
 a bit o’ that sperrit wi’ thee when next tha wends to Griff 
 Lummax. — Summat to eat, sayst ’a ? Ay, an’ gladly, though 
 I’d hev seen thee starve on th’ doorstun if tha’d been a friend 
 o’ Lummax’s.” 
 
 Gabriel’s fire went out ; there was no bodily fuel to keep it 
 going. He ate of the coarse stuff that was set before him, and 
 drank of Mother Strangeways’ rum. She watched him from 
 under her white eyelashes. 
 
 “Vengeance is th’ Lord’s, tha says?” she muttered. 
 “ Happen it is, if tha taks th’ thing far enow back. But this I 
 tell thee, Gabriel Hirst, th’ Lord ’ull damn thee for a fooil if tha 
 waits for Him to help thee. Dost think summat is bahn to 
 shooit out on th’ sky an’ strike this Lummax deid ? I thowt 
 that myseln, lad, for a while ; but now I know ’at just as mich 
 as a man fends for hisseln, so mich will th’ Lord fend for him. 
 It’s share an’ share alike wi’ wark o’ yon kind, an’ tha cannot 
 look to get all an’ do nowt.” 
 
 Gabriel muttered incoherently to himself, and Rachel 
 Strangeways thought that a new intensity of purpose was 
 gripping him. 
 
190 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 ‘‘If tha’s getten a doubt F thy heM still, tha can mind 
 what Griff Lummax did to my Joe’s wife. He telled thee he 
 war innocent as a sucking lamb, likely. Well, a man that ’ull 
 do one kind o’ dirty wark ’ull do another. What’s a two or three 
 lies when a Lummax hes owt to gain by telling ’em? An’ 
 now he’s tired o’ th’ wench, an’ off he goes speering after thy 
 sweetheart. It’s th’ talk o’ th’ moorside ; tha mun be daft to sit 
 so long wi’ thy hands i’ thy lap.” 
 
 Gabriel Hirst, in the simplicity of his nature, was always 
 apt to fall into the delusion that, if any one prefaced a statement 
 by a generous exposure of some other person’s falsity, then 
 the statement in question became at least doubled in value. It 
 was easy just now to attribute dishonesty to Griff, and Griffs 
 accuser shone by the contrast in the light of a rigid truth-teller. 
 He pushed his empty plate from him and leaned his head on 
 his arms. 
 
 “ Well, tha’s etten enow, seemingly,” croaked the witch ; 
 “ put thy mouth to th’ bottle again, an’ off tha wends to Griff 
 Lummax, to settle thy scores like a man.” 
 
 The preacher would have taken well-nigh any counsel in 
 his present shiftlessness of mind. The withered hag, glowering 
 across the peat-smoke at him, seemed to be preaching a new, 
 an inspired, gospel. Her words smacked more of the Old 
 Testament, which he loved, than of the New, which in his 
 wilder moods he only tolerated. Slowly he got up from the 
 table and went to the door. 
 
 “Lad, I’ve summat to ask of thee afore tha goes,” said 
 Mother Strangeways, shifting her voice to a whine. 
 
 Gabriel turned and glared at her, but said no word. 
 
 “ Tha knows how th’ owd clock goes a-wobbling, wobbling, 
 wobbling, hour in an’ hour out? Well, it’s getten past all; it 
 dithers fit to drive a body dizzy-crazy, an’ my lad Joe, th’ 
 gaumless wastrel, willun’t bring me a two or three screw-nails — 
 nobbut a two or three screw-nails ; that’s all I’m fashed for, an’ 
 he willun’t bring ’em — an’ me that hes reared him fro’ being a 
 babby. Tha’ll happen along wi’ th’ screw-nails, willun’t tha, 
 lad, sooin as tha’s done wi’ Griff Lummax ? ” 
 
THE FIGHT AT THE QUARRY EDGE. I9I 
 
 But Gabriel, before she had finished her appeal, was out of 
 the door and off across the heather towards Gorsthwaite Hall. 
 Now that he had a purpose, he could see the moor as he had 
 known it from boyhood ; he knew his way. 
 
 Kate was going in at the door of Gorsthwaite as he came 
 up. She turned and smiled a welcome on him. 
 
 ‘‘It’s long since you’ve been here, Mr. Hirst,” she said. 
 “ Will you come in and wait for Griff? He has gone to the 
 Manor for the afternoon.” 
 
 The preacher stood dumbfounded. He had had the one 
 simple plan in his head, and this deviation from the settled 
 order of things left him witless. Kate decided that he had 
 been wrestling with the devil on an empty stomach, and 
 pitied him. 
 
 “ I — I’ll not come in,” he stammered at last. “ I’ll — walk 
 back — to Marshcotes. I may meet him on the way.” 
 
 “ I can’t promise that you will. Sometimes he stays late — 
 but you’ll find him at the Manor, if you are anxious to 
 see him.” 
 
 “ Yes, I’m anxious — anxious ; that is just it,” he muttered. 
 
 The preacher turned and set off towards the village. He 
 passed a wide-lipped tarn that lay in the valley between 
 Gorsthwaite and Marshcotes Moor, and stared at its sulky 
 waters ; he hesitated awhile, then passed on. Another mile 
 brought him to a disused shaft — Whins Quarry, it was called — 
 and a look that was almost of joy came into his face as he 
 peered over the fifty feet of rock-face, down to the pool that 
 swallowed up the old cart-track on the far side. 
 
 “ I can’t face other folk — his mother, say. I’ll just wait 
 here till he comes,” muttered Gabriel. 
 
 The sun crept lower, and still Gabriel lay among the heather. 
 The sun went to bed, and the long summer twilight drew to 
 its close ; still the preacher waited. A four days’ moon showed 
 in the paling sky — a mere wisp of yellowish light, that served, 
 for all that, to make some sort of atonement for the vanished 
 day. A light-hearted song came drifting across the quiet moor. 
 Gabriel Hirst leaped to his feet. A quick thought seized 
 
192 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 him ; he raised his head proudly, as if he were looking God 
 straight between the eyes. 
 
 “ Vengeance is Thine, O Lord ! ” he cried. ‘‘ But Thou 
 knowest I am the fulfiller of Thy desire.’’ 
 
 The song came clearer. Gabriel could hear the words 
 now. 
 
 “ The fulfiller — O Lord of Heaven, give me strength ! ” 
 he prayed. 
 
 A figure swung into view and neared the quarry with easy 
 strides. The preacher went to meet him. 
 
 “ Griff Lomax ! ” he called. 
 
 “ At your service ; but who the deuce are you ? ” 
 
 “ Gabriel Hirst.” 
 
 “ Of course you are. I ought to have known your voice 
 anywhere. Have you come from Gorsthwaite ? ” 
 
 “ I’ve come to tell you that you are false — a liar and a 
 thief.” 
 
 Griff took the preacher by the arm, but he shook it off. 
 
 “ Gabriel, you’re out of your mind. What ails you, man ? ” 
 
 “ You thought it was safe to meet in Hazel Dene, before folk 
 were out of their beds. You laughed to yourself often. I’ll 
 warrant, when I told you what store I set by Greta — and all 
 the while you were ” 
 
 His friend broke in with a hearty laugh. 
 
 “ Is that all ? I knew you were a tolerable ass, old fellow ; 
 but I didn’t credit you with going quite so far as this. The 
 last time you turned jealous, you were very drunk ; are you 
 sober now? Why, the girl has eyes for none but you, and 
 I’ve done all I can to plead your cause. This very morning 
 I was telling her that we are soft at the core up here, though 
 hard in the rind ; and she said, with a pout in her voice, ‘ But 
 you never confess it when people want you to.’ ” 
 
 “ She said that ? ” cried the preacher, hoarsely. 
 
 “She did. You should know best what she meant, 
 Gabriel.” 
 
 Again Griff laughed, and Hirst fancied the laugh was one 
 of mockery. He had his settled view of that meeting by the 
 
THE FIGHT AT THE QUARRY EDGE. 1 93 
 
 Stream, and Griff was assuredly taunting him with Greta’s own 
 avowed preference for his rival. 
 
 “ You’re a liar, and I’ll fight to prove it,” he yelled, and 
 leaped on his adversary. 
 
 Despite ill-treatment of his body, the preacher was tough ; 
 but Lomax was the better man in a tussle. They were locked 
 close together now, swaying this way and that. Griff, though, 
 was not heated as Hirst was ; he was conscious of the mistaken 
 cause of fight and felt loth to do his mad friend a hurt ; and 
 Gabriel, consequently, had the better of it at the first. Then 
 Griff roused himself ; he hoisted the other well into the air and 
 let him drop with a thud. 
 
 “ It’s soft falling, Gabriel ; lie there awhile till you’re cool 
 enough to listen to reason.” 
 
 But the preacher was up again. He knew little of wrestling 
 in the theory, yet by force of blind instinct he compassed a 
 good imitation of the trick known to Cornishmen as the “ Fly- 
 ing Mare.” One hand he planted in the pit of Griff’s stomach ; 
 with the other he seized him by the right arm, and lifted him 
 clean over his head. The force of his own throw sent Gabriel 
 staggering back ; he was conscious of coming to rest against 
 some hard body, while down below he heard the splash, splash, 
 splash, of loosened stones and rubble — that, and the deeper 
 sound of some heavy mass plunging into the water that filled 
 the pit-shaft. 
 
 The preacher began to understand matters, as he recovered 
 from the struggle, from the surprise consequent on the miraculous 
 fashion in which he had lifted Griff. There had been death in 
 his mind when he chose the quarry as the meeting-place — a hazy, 
 theoretic notion that one of them had better go over the edge. 
 But he had lost all that in the stress of the fight ; he had been 
 bent only on throwing his enemy; he had never stopped to 
 think how close they might be to the low wall that guarded the 
 quarry from the moor. Yet here was he, leaning against the 
 wall — it had saved him from falling — and peering down at 
 the stagnant pool which lay, fifty feet below, at the bottom of 
 Whins Quarry. That dull splash echoed and re-echoed in his 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 ears ; the faint light showed him no more than a few feet of the 
 rock -face, but memory brought that surly pool before his eyes 
 as plainly as if it had been broad day — and in fancy he saw 
 there the body of his friend lying face upward to the stars. 
 
 With a start the preacher came to himself. He did not 
 pause to call himself a murderer ; he only knew that, if Lomax 
 were dead, he had cut one half of himself clean away for ever. 
 The man's great love for his friend — never quite realized till 
 now — made the thought of Griffs death such unbearable agony 
 that perforce he must do something. Yes, he must act. He had 
 but one thought now — he might save old Griff, if that clear 
 drop of fifty feet had not broken his neck. Perhaps he was 
 now struggling in the water, too weak to save himself from 
 drowning. He raced along the path of sliding shale that flanked 
 the left of the quarry-edge, caught his foot against a rock less 
 yielding than the rest, and fell headlong down the hill, at the 
 foot of which he lay for awhile, stunned, among the rubble. 
 
 When he next opened his eyes, the moon had set. Still 
 half dazed, he groped his way to the cart-track that led to the 
 quarry ; the starlight, faint above, was quenched altogether by 
 the surly face of rock that towered above the pool. A night-jar, 
 away up on the moor, railed at the silence ; only the lurid fires of 
 God's vengeance lit the darkness, and these were powerless to 
 break the physical gloom. He shook off his stupor. There was 
 a wild humour in his striking a lucifer-match to show him what 
 God's fires had failed to render clear — but he saw not the 
 humour. The light shone fitfully across the pool, and was 
 swallowed up by the glooming quarry-face. There was nothing 
 floating on the surface, save the rotting carcase of a dog. 
 
 The preacher stood motionless, almost calm. He was pre- 
 destined to damnation, and the striving was over, once for all ; 
 there could be no return to the old life of fruitless prayer, of 
 wasted fight. A loosened stone dropped into the water, and 
 that fall, too, was predestined. All, all was foreknown : the 
 good works of the just, the evil living of the sinful, were alike 
 predestined ; there was neither virtue in holiness, nor blame in 
 wrong-doing, since both alike had been fixed from the beginning. 
 
THE FIGHT AT THE QUARRY EDGE. 
 
 195 
 
 All responsibility was shifted from the preacher’s shoulders, 
 and he felt happier than he had yet done through the long 
 years of strife. 
 
 Gabriel Hirst grew almost curious, with a dumb, passionless 
 curiosity. He wondered what form his punishment would 
 take ; whether retribution would be swift and final, or tortuous 
 and long drawn out. Perhaps — nay, certainly — a touch of 
 pride lay, all unguessed, at the bottom of his heart ; it was, in 
 a sense, a fine thing to be the very focus of an Avenging 
 Universe. 
 
 He went out by the cart-road, and moved faster as he gained 
 the heather. The motion warmed his blood and quickened his 
 pulses; he remembered Greta — Greta, who shared his heart 
 with the dead. He fell weak at that, and must have comfort. 
 There was none on earth to give him comfort, save Greta. As 
 a dumb brute eats the healing herb, not knowing the reason 
 that underlies its instinct, so the preacher went straight to 
 Hazel Dene and knocked at the miller’s door. The kitchen 
 clock struck ten as he waited under the porch. 
 
 “ Who’s there ? ” came Greta’s voice, a little tremulous. 
 
 “ Gabriel Hirst. For God’s sake, open ! ” 
 
 The bolts flew back and Greta stood on the threshold. 
 
 “You frightened me, Mr. Hirst. Father is away for the 
 night, and Nancy is in bed. I thought you might be ” 
 
 “ A murderer,” finished the preacher, with horrible calm. 
 “You were right. I have killed my friend.” 
 
 She looked at his face, and sickened. But there was 
 strength under that maiden timidity of hers, and she loved this 
 man. She put her arm through his and led him into the 
 parlour ; then she went to lock the door again — it gave her a 
 moment’s respite — and crept back to the preacher’s side, and 
 did not care now if her secret showed plain in her eyes. 
 
 “ Gabriel, what is it ? I have a right to know,” she said. 
 
 He saw it all now. It was very plain to be read, even by 
 Gabriel Hirst, who had ever been slow to learn these womanish 
 matters. The swift knowledge that she loved him seemed to 
 give him nerve to go forward with his tale. 
 
196 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 ‘‘ I came up Hazel Dene this morning,” he began, without 
 any beating about the bush. “ I saw you and GrifF Lomax — 
 the woman I loved, and the friend I trusted — sitting beside 
 the stream. You were laughing and jesting — at me and my 
 blundering love-ways, I told myself — I thought you had met 
 there often. I waited for Griff on the moor, and we fought. 
 It was close to the edge of Whins Quarry, though it had 
 gone clean out of my head how near we were. The devil 
 entered fairly into me at last, and I closed with Griff a second 
 time and flung him over my shoulder. He dropped clean 
 into the quarry, and I heard him splash into the water at the 
 bottom.” 
 
 She loosened her hold of him and fell back with a moan. 
 There could be no doubting his story. 
 
 Soon she began to frame excuses for him, with a woman’s 
 nimble wit. She spoke after a long while. 
 
 “ Gabriel, it was a fair fight. You did not know of the 
 quarry ; you Gabriel, did you do it for my sake ? ” 
 
 “ Not for your sake,” he muttered huskily. “ Don’t think, 
 child, that the sm was for your sake ; that couldn’t be. I was 
 mad with jealousy.” 
 
 “But the jealousy was mine?” Strange how she had 
 already set aside the catastrophe, as being a matter of lighter 
 moment. 
 
 “ I loved you too well, Greta, and the Lord grudged it,” 
 said the preacher simply. 
 
 The girl got up from her chair and stood eye to eye 
 with him. 
 
 “ Love ! ” she cried, with a little sobbing catch in her voice. 
 “ What do you mean by love, Gabriel Hirst?” 
 
 A quiver ran through the preacher. His eyes dilated. His 
 hands went out and gripped invisible shapes. 
 
 “ Love is a thing that makes you run mad and grovel like 
 a beast — that makes you run sane and soar like an angel. 
 Love is more than the Law and the Prophets, and a lifetime of 
 fighting with the devil. — Nay, Greta, forgive me. Lass, I yearn 
 for you so — and — I — forget that I am a murderer.” 
 
THE FIGHT AT THE QUARRY EDGE. I97 
 
 ‘‘You love like that?” said Greta, slowly. “Then, dear, 
 you can take me and do what you will with me.” 
 
 The preacher felt two arms about his neck, and a warm 
 mouth against his own. Murder, and sin, and vengeance of 
 the Lord, they were all blotted out for one full moment. He 
 knew himself a man. 
 
198 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 AFTERWARDS. 
 
 Just as Greta and the preacher, in Miller Rotherson’s parlour, 
 were struggling out of their dream — ^just as the woman was 
 beginning to wonder how it would fare with Gabriel if Lomax 
 were really dead, while the man was framing a resolve that 
 touched the present — there came a rattle, and a whirr, and a 
 grinding of iron against iron from outside the house. The 
 rattle settled into a steady, rhythmic boom. Gabriel thought 
 of Invisible Powers, but Greta could have cried tears of joy 
 because of the relief afforded by the interruption. 
 
 “ The mill-wheel has broken loose ; we must go and see 
 to it,'' she said. 
 
 It was a queer old building. The mill was separated from 
 the house by a strip of kitchen garden, but a rickety wooden 
 bridge crossed from the upper floor of the mill to the miller's 
 bedroom ; the bridge dated back to a time when most of the 
 house itself was used as a granary, and old Rotherson still 
 crossed by it whenever the fancy took him. Greta led the 
 way upstairs to-night ; sound sleeper as Nancy was, her mistress 
 did not care to risk unbarring the heavy kitchen door ; she and 
 Gabriel wanted no third person to intrude just now. 
 
 Across the swaying bridge they went, the preacher silent, 
 Greta chattering glibly, with hysterical eagerness to hoodwink 
 her knowledge of calamity. Gabriel's eyes were devouring her 
 greedily, hopelessly ; the shadow of a parting stood between 
 them and that short-lived happiness of a moment ago. 
 
 “ The sluice-gates must have given way," said Greta. 
 ‘‘ Father said, not long since, they were getting too old to see 
 
AFTERWARDS. 1 99 
 
 much more service, but he thought they would last a little 
 longer.'^ 
 
 “ The beck was in flood as I came up the Dene to-night.” 
 The preacher^s voice had a far-away note in it, as if his words 
 had no bearing on the matter in hand. 
 
 ‘‘ Yes, that must be it. Do you know anything about the 
 machinery, Gabriel? We can't stop the wheel. What will 
 happen if we let it turn the whole night through ? ” 
 
 They were standing close to a pair of mill-stones. Gabriel, 
 still regardless of aught beyond the bitter expiation that lay 
 before him, let his eyes wander to the ‘‘ shoe” which fed the stones. 
 
 “ Know about the machinery ? ” he repeated vaguely. ‘‘ Yes, 
 
 I know the ins and outs. Your father explained it all to me 
 one afternoon.” 
 
 He no longer dared to look at Greta, but kept his eyes 
 upon the grain, as the hopper doled it out to the shoe, and 
 the shoe to the running- stone. The supply of grain stopped ; 
 a curious grating noise sounded from below, as the upper 
 stone found no better work to do than to grind at its 
 neighbour's face. 
 
 Suddenly Gabriel recalled what the miller had tpld him 
 about the danger of leaving the stones unsupplied with grist. 
 Like a flash he was down the ladder and across the littered 
 floor to where the driving-belt was going its merry round. He 
 took a stick that was lying close to his hand, and pushed the 
 belt from one of the supporting pulleys ; the belt hung limp, 
 and the mill-wheel might turn as it would now for all Gabriel 
 cared. The sweat was running off his face as he came back 
 to Greta's side. 
 
 “ What is the matter ? What have you been doing ? ” she 
 asked, at a loss to account for this fresh perturbation of his. 
 
 “ Switching off the belt. Lass, if we had let those stones 
 grind much longer, they would have blown the place up.” 
 
 “ Blown the mill up ? But how ? ” 
 
 “They'd have grown hot enough to set fire to the dust 
 between them — and that would have meant death to all in the 
 house, Greta^” 
 
200 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Greta, troubled with the glimmerings of a new hope, rested 
 her forehead against the cool stonework of the window. The 
 idea took shape at last ; she turned to the preacher with a 
 motherly, protecting air. 
 
 “ Gabriel, suppose you have kil — suppose some one did fall 
 over the quarry-edge — haven't you saved two lives to-night? 
 If you had not come, I should never have known the 
 danger, and — Gabriel, isn’t it worth something to have saved 
 my life?” 
 
 For a moment the preacher clutched at this specious solace. 
 He had paid two human lives for the one he had taken — would 
 not the Almighty think that a fair exchange ? But he lost the 
 hope. 
 
 “There’s no expiation, save one. Come away, Greta, 
 and get to bed,” he said doggedly. 
 
 As they re-crossed the bridge, Gabriel glanced instinctively 
 towards the swirling water on their left. What gleams of light 
 were abroad caught the tips of the wavelets, the slimy paddles 
 of the wheel. He shivered as he watched ; his mind flew back 
 to that other stretch of water, where his friend was lying. The 
 din and hurry of the mill-wheel seemed cheery by contrast with 
 the silence of the quarry. 
 
 They passed through the door that opened into the miller’s 
 room. Greta set down her candle on the washing-stand. 
 
 “ You want to get rid of me. What are you going to do, 
 Gabriel?” 
 
 “ Never mind, lass, never mind.” 
 
 She took fright at his wildness of look ; she feared he would 
 do himself an injury if left alone. Forgetful of all else, she 
 just held open her arms, and — 
 
 “ Gabriel,” she said softly, “ stay with me. I can’t bear 
 to let you go.” 
 
 Her cheeks grew red with shame when she had got half 
 way through with the words ; but what did anything — anything 
 — matter, so only she could keep Gabriel from harm ? So long 
 she had waited for him; was she to lose him in the first flush 
 of possession ? 
 
AFTERWARDS. 
 
 201 
 
 Whatever there was of passion in the preacher — and he was 
 full of it, to the finger-tips — leaped to the front. He trembled 
 from head to foot ; those soft arms seemed to draw him beyond 
 all resistance. With a cry he stepped towards her — then stopped. 
 The habit of a lifetime, in this supreme moment, was not 
 minded to stand idly by, taking no part in the struggle ; were 
 his sins against God so slight that he dared add one more to 
 their number ? He moaned in the agony of repression. And 
 down the girFs crimsoned cheeks ran tears of helplessness. 
 The candle went out and left them in darkness. 
 
 “ Greta,” said the preacher at last, “ his wife will be waiting 
 up for him.” The quiet voice, the commonplace words, 
 sounded odd after the stress that had preceded them. 
 
 “Whose wife?” she whispered, not daring to acknowledge 
 the certain answer. 
 
 “ Griff’s. My way lies plain, lass ; I must go and tell her.” 
 He went out to the stair-head ; Greta followed him into the 
 lamplight. 
 
 “You shan’t — you shan’t! No one need know. No one 
 saw you. Perhaps he isn’t dead, after all, Gabriel? You fell 
 and lost your senses, you say. It may have been all a dream 
 — a kind of nightmare — and you said there was no body to 
 be seen. We will wait, and if” — she crept close and looked at 
 him with horror-stricken eyes — “if an accident did happen, 
 we must go away together, you and I — I shan’t mind it a 
 
 bit, dear ; we will begin in a new country, and ” She had 
 
 forgotten her father in the first wild panic for Gabriel’s safety. 
 
 “ No, Greta. My way lies clear, and you can’t turn me. 
 First to tell his wife, and then to give myself up — it’s as plain 
 as can be.” 
 
 “ And what of me ? ” cried the girl. “ Don’t you under- 
 stand that there are two to reckon for now? For your own 
 peace of mind you must go — but what of mine ? ” 
 
 The tears rose in the preacher’s eyes. 
 
 “ Lass, don’t make it too hard to bear. I am not fit to claim 
 you, and you’ll be well rid of a scoundrel. Let me go, and 
 have done with it.” 
 
202 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 She put her arms round his neck, but he forced them away 
 and went down the stairs. Without one backward look he 
 left the house and struck up towards the moor; it was the 
 hardest effort— save one— that he had made in all his life of 
 conflict. He did not hear the footsteps that sounded behind 
 him all the way up from the mill. 
 
 As he gained the moor he started to feel a hand laid in his. 
 Greta was nestling to his side. 
 
 “ Go back, go back, I tell you 1 he cried. 
 
 “ Never, Gabriel. You thought it was a light thing to win 
 a woman’s heart? You thought I should stay safe indoors, 
 while you went across the moor — in the darkness ? If you 
 must go to his wife, I go with you, and tell her the things you 
 leave out of your story.” 
 
 He turned, desperately. It seemed that his every instinct 
 towards the right was being frustrated. 
 
 “Greta, haven’t I enough to bear? Your shoulders are 
 over young, lass, to take their share. Go back, and put me 
 out of mind.” 
 
 For answer she took his hand and led him towards Gorsth- 
 waite. He gave up the contest, suffering himself to be led. 
 Together, in an awful quiet, they crossed the nodding sweep of 
 heather. Late as it was, a light shone out from the old Hall. 
 
 “ She is waiting up ; I knew how it would be,” whispered 
 the preacher. “ Can you see her there, Greta, listening to the 
 wind — starting up at each fresh sound — thinking her husband’s 
 come home at last ? Can you see her face when she opens the 
 door for us ? Can you see her drop on the floor, as I blurt 
 out the truth, never stopping to break it gently, for fear of 
 going mad if I didn’t get it over at once ? ” 
 
 “ Hush, dear, hush ! ” pleaded Greta. 
 
 He was quiet for a space; then, “Vengeance is Thine, O 
 Lord!” he cried. “ Vengeance is Thine ; only make me less of 
 a coward for this one short while ! ” 
 
 The back-thrust from his sense of failing purpose made him 
 beat noisily on the door with his fists. From within they heard 
 a man’s shout — 
 
AFTERWARDS. 
 
 203 
 
 He^s here ! I knew he'd cojne." 
 
 The preacher leaned heavily against the door-post. It was 
 Griffs voice — Griffs, who was lying at the bottom of Whins 
 Quarry. But Greta was quicker to hope than he, and she 
 guessed the truth. 
 
 ‘‘ You are later than I expected; come in, old fellow," said 
 the figure on the doorstep. “ What ! you're not alone ! Miss 
 Rotherson, is that you ? " 
 
 She came and rested both hands on his shoulders, out of 
 sheer gratitude to him for being alive. 
 
 “I have brought Gabriel to tell you" — she stopped, and 
 laughed like a child — “ to tell you we can't live without one 
 another." 
 
 The preacher moved forward, groping his way till he found 
 Lomax. He ran his hands over him, this way and that, like 
 a blind man. 
 
 “ Griff, is it true ; is it true, lad ? " 
 
 Griff caught him by the hands and wrung them till the 
 preacher's arms were like to start from their sockets. 
 
 “ Do I feel like a dead man ? " he laughed. Then he pulled 
 them both indoors. A couple of tumblers and a spirit-case 
 stood on the table. ‘‘ Do you see those, Gabriel ? " he asked, 
 pointing to the glasses. “ I was so sure of your coming that 
 I made ready for you. Don’t look so scared, man ! Put 
 down this brandy, and you’ll see things a bit more squarely." 
 
 The brandy did wonders for Gabriel; it gave him nerve, 
 and discounted the supernatural. Griff showed plainly enough 
 now as a being of flesh and blood. 
 
 “ Tell me about it,” he said at last. 
 
 “ There is little to tell. A touch of fight wasn't amiss, but 
 we were fools to stand at the edge of the quarry. You got me 
 over your head — the devil knows how you did it — and the next 
 thing was that I found myself stuck in the middle of a thorn- 
 bush growing out of the rock-side. My face will show you that 
 I had a pretty warm reception. When I got the hang of things 
 again, and began to wonder how I was to climb out of the mess, 
 I remembered that hospitable thorn-bush well ; I used to come. 
 
204 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 bird’s-nesting there when I was a boy, and I reached it by 
 a broadish ledge of rock that jutted out from side to side of the 
 quarry just below the bush. I let the dizziness get clear, and 
 a crawl of a few yards brought me safe across. That’s the 
 whole story.” 
 
 ‘‘ But I heard you splash into the water,” said Gabriel. 
 
 “ That you didn’t ! I’ll warrant that, and I ought to know. 
 AVhat you heard, I fancy, was a big stone that came tumbling 
 down from above while I was stuck in the bush ; it missed my 
 head by about six inches.” 
 
 “ Then I nearly killed you twice,” murmured the preacher. 
 “ I remember loosening a piece of the wall when I fell back 
 against it. Griff, lad, I have done you a fearful wrong.” 
 
 ‘‘ Fudge ; drop that sickly over-sentimentality of yours. 
 Misses don’t count in the rough-and-tumble of life, and anyhow 
 it was a sheer mischance. — So you’ve arranged matters, you 
 two, at last ? Well, it was about time. Gabriel is so dull-witted. 
 Miss Rotherson, where his happiness is concerned.” 
 
 Greta wondered that he could stoop to light banter at such 
 a time. But she looked at him more closely, and she read in 
 his face what the effort meant to him. Yet Griff was smiling 
 a moment later with genuine merriment ; he was thinking that 
 it was a more awkward scene for Gabriel than if he had really 
 been dead, instead of very much alive. 
 
 “ Does your wife know ? ” asked Gabriel, suddenly. 
 
 Of course not. No one knows but we three. I told Kate 
 I had slipped over the quarry accidentally — so I had, in a way. 
 I said you might be coming in to-night to talk over your 
 worries, because I guessed you would rush off here to blurt out 
 what had happened. I know you to a hair’s-breadth, Gabriel, 
 you see. Make your mind easy on that score, old chap.” 
 
 “ I shall tell her,” said the preacher, quietly. 
 
 “ Tell her ? You’ll do nothing of the kind ! Nay, Gabriel, 
 there is a limit. Once let you do this, and the next thing 
 you will be standing on the churchyard steps to admit all 
 Marshcotes to the secret.” 
 
 “ Your wife must know,” persisted Gabriel. 
 
AFTERWARDS. 
 
 205 
 
 Greta stole a look at him ; and dearly she loved that rugged 
 light of determination in his face — the face that had once 
 seemed plain to her. 
 
 So absorbed were they in their own affairs that they had not 
 noted the figure standing in the doorway. It was Kate, her 
 hair tumbled about her nightgown, her bare feet heedless of the 
 cold oak on which they were resting. 
 
 “ Gabriel Hirst,” she said, “ was it you who sent him over 
 the quarry-edge ? ” 
 
 The preacher tried to look her in the face, and failed ; tried 
 to speak, but his throat was dry. Kate repeated her question, 
 in the same deep, relentless tone. 
 
 “ It was,” whispered Gabriel, hoarsely. 
 
 “ Then God forgive you, for it’s little forgiveness you’ll ever 
 get from me.” 
 
 Griff, for the first time since he had known her, was furious 
 with his wife. 
 
 “ Kate, for shame — for shame ! ” he thundered. 
 
 But across the room she sent him such a look of tenderness 
 — of idolatry, almost — that his anger died within him, and the 
 shame returned on himself. 
 
 The preacher stood with head downcast ; he had not come 
 here to plead against a fair judgment, he had come to bear his 
 punishment. A hush settled over the two men, and over the 
 women who loved them. 
 
 Then it was borne in on Greta that the man of her choice 
 was being cruelly ill-used. An anger, fierce as Kate’s own, 
 gave her words with which to meet the crisis. 
 
 “ Have you never loved your husband, Kate Lomax ? ” she 
 cried. “ Have you never felt what it would mean if some 
 other woman came between you — some woman who pretended 
 to be your friend, and played you false behind your back? 
 Would you want to kill her, or is this talk of your moor-bred 
 women so much idle chatter ? ” 
 
 Kate looked at her husband again. That graphic touch of 
 rivalry brought a grim smile to her lips. 
 
 “ I think I should kill her,” she said quietly. 
 
206 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “Yet you rail at Gabriel, just because he made the like 
 jealousy a cause for fighting. You have not heard the whole 
 tale yet. Your husband met me by chance this morning in the 
 Dene; Gabriel saw us laughing and talking together, and 
 jumped to a stupid conclusion.’' 
 
 “ Is that all your defence ? ” said Kate, with a curl of the 
 lip. “ Was that his excuse for — what he did ? ” 
 
 “ It was enough. He was blind, because he loved me and 
 feared everything ; he was strong, because he thought he had 
 right on his side. And now, since he showed himself the 
 better man, he crawls in the dust before you. I would not 
 have done ; I am proud that he fought so well for me.” 
 
 Kate had ever been too quick in passion to dwell long 
 with resentment. Her nature was generous, too, and no doubt 
 of her husband’s share in the adventure stepped in to mar her 
 generosity. She admired this quiet girl for the way in which 
 she had suddenly blazed forth in defence of the man she loved. 
 She had a struggle with her pride, and then proved it by sub- 
 mission. She came across to Greta and took her by both 
 hands. 
 
 “ I will forgive him,” she said, in her grave way, “ because 
 a good woman has pleaded well for him.” 
 
 Not till Greta had given way and sobbed out furtive little 
 apologies in Kate’s arms did it occur to the older woman that 
 her costume left certain details wanting. From the moment 
 when she had first heard the voices outside her window, until 
 the last clearing storm, she had thought of nothing but the new 
 light that was thrown on Griff’s recent danger. But now she 
 looked down at her ten pink toes, and flushed dismayedly. 
 
 “ Come upstairs with me,” she said to the girl, and fled. 
 
 “Well, old fellow, I hope this is the last word about an 
 unlucky job,” said Griff, venturing at last to break the silence. 
 
 “ Nay, not the last,” answered the preacher, gravely, 
 “ There is expiation, lad, ahead of me.” 
 
( 207 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 WHITE HEATHER. 
 
 “ Kate,” said Lomax, a few days after his adventure with the 
 preacher, “ not a stroke of work shall I do this morning ; the 
 sun is hot, and the breeze cool, and altogether it’s a day in a 
 hundred. Come out with me, and we’ll lie in the heather and 
 look up at the sky. It will do you good, little woman.” 
 
 The sweetness of a wifely confession came between their 
 glances nowadays. There was a new wonder in meeting each 
 other’s eyes, and Kate nestled close to his arm on the slightest 
 pretext. She came to him now, and ruffled the hair away from 
 his forehead. 
 
 “ What a forgetful boy you are. One day you make your 
 mother promise to come and see me, and the next you forget 
 all about it. Only, I wish we could have had our morning 
 together,” she added wistfully. 
 
 ‘‘ Fie on you for a witch ! I never used to forget anything 
 to do with mother before I knew you. Would you like 
 to walk as far as Marshcotes, and we can all come back 
 together ? ” 
 
 “ I don’t think I ought. Griff. The doctor may know 
 nothing about it — he probably doesn’t — but he was very anxious 
 that I should not do much walking.” 
 
 “ Then you shall wait here for us. Get the maid to pack 
 up a hamper; I’ll bring mother, and we will find a picnic 
 ground somewhere on Gorsthwaite Moor. You need not walk 
 more than a mile all told, and it is a sin for you to miss a day 
 like this.” 
 
 But Griff did not reach Marshcotes. His stride slackened 
 
208 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 to a saunter, and even the saunter was too much exertion by 
 the time he had gone half the distance. Knowing that Mrs. 
 Lomax would pass him on her way to Gorsthwaite, he tumbled 
 into a warm bed of heather, lit his pipe, and watched the 
 shifting colours of the moor. The pulsing crimson-purple of 
 the heather, shot here and there with fainter splashes of helio- 
 trope, the hoarse chuckle of the grouse, and shriller wail of the 
 plover, the peaty reek creeping from a rush-girdled marsh on 
 his right — all these things were emphatic in their assertion that 
 it was exceeding good to be alive. His thoughts went out to 
 the child that was to be born to him : pride in his race, and 
 zeal for its continuance, quickened the paternal instinct in him ; 
 he travelled far into the future, and saw another Lomax at the 
 Manor, strong as himself, who would poach as his fathers had 
 poached before him, who would ride fearlessly and fight like a 
 man, and keep a big slice of his heart for the love that should 
 one day come to him. 
 
 The sunlight grew fainter. A fitful breeze ruffled the 
 heather-tops. A haze crept across the sky, from the horizon 
 upwards. The sun failed altogether, and flying squadrons of 
 mist appeared, now making eager forward rushes, now wheel- 
 ing, gyrating, eddying to and fro in their efforts to dodge the 
 pursuing breeze. The mist-wreaths grew denser ; they turned 
 but little now, and fled across the darkening purple like a band 
 of hunted witches. 
 
 Still Griff did not move. He was watching the elfin-revel, 
 and thinking of the old moor legend that a White Lady rides 
 on the swirling mist, tempting men to their doom in the bogs 
 that take, but render never again. 
 
 “ It would need a marvellous White Lady to tempt me 
 astray nowadays,’^ murmured Griff, and laughed as he thought 
 of Kate. 
 
 A voice came out of the mist, 
 
 “ Bertie, is that you ? How can you lie on your back there, 
 while I am dying of fright in the middle of this horrid moor ? ” 
 
 Griff knew the voice at once ; it had thrilled him too often 
 in times past to admit of doubt. He rose slowly and lifted his 
 
WHITE HEATHER. 209 
 
 cap to a figure that loomed out of the fog-wall a few yards 
 away. 
 
 “ No, I’m not Dereham. Perhaps you have forgotten me, 
 Mrs. Ogilvie ? ” he said. 
 
 She came close up to him — a little hothouse woman, with a 
 delicate, rounded waist, and lips that were always either pouting 
 or pleading. The blush-rose tints deepened against the waxy 
 white of her cheeks, as she held out her hand. After a pause — 
 
 “Who would have thought of meeting you here, Griff?” 
 broke out the woman, impetuously. “And yet — I — half ex- 
 pected it. Bertie told me you had buried yourself in this 
 wretched place, and I — yes, I did — I hoped I should run across 
 you here. There ! I should never, never have confessed the 
 half of that, if I had not been so awfully frightened.” 
 
 She was devouring him with her eyes, in a strange, famine- 
 stricken way that startled this quondam slave of hers. Griff, 
 remembering certain remarks of Dereham’s, realized vaguely 
 that she would be in his arms before the end of the scene, 
 unless he took strong measures. 
 
 “ Frightened by what ? A touch of mist in the middle of 
 a summer’s morning? You are a baby, Sybil.” 
 
 She fell back a step. Her mouth trembled, her eyes filled 
 with tears. Over and over again she had reasoned out Griffs 
 faithlessness to her by woman’s logic. His flight from London, 
 his vulgar after-dissipation —or what had seemed such to her — 
 his failure to come back to her side — they had all been twisted 
 into proofs of his hopeless captivity under her yoke. It had 
 been so easy to believe this, while away from him — and now, 
 he showed hard and cold as an iceberg. 
 
 She tried to smile with her old winning artlessness. 
 
 “ You are awfully rude. Griff, but perhaps I shall forgive you 
 that ; it is not a new rdle^ this of the barbarian. Still, you 
 might at least say you are glad to meet an old — friend. I 
 haven’t approved of you lately, you know, and you were 
 horribly brusque before you left town, but ” 
 
 “ I am always glad to meet an old friend. Do you mind if 
 I smoke ? ” said Griff, refilling his pipe. 
 
 p 
 
210 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Sybil Ogilvie saw that the battle was to be to the strong, 
 and she kept back her tears, though again they were very near 
 the surface. Neither spoke for awhile. Griff was stinging 
 under the lash of remembered follies. He saw, as if it had 
 been written under his eyes, how this woman had fooled him 
 in the past ; he writhed as he looked at her, and understood 
 what flimsy excuse he had had for raving about her. And now 
 that he was out of reach, her passion had ceased to be a play- 
 thing; spoiled to the last, she only cared to have what was beyond 
 her grasp. Her voice, her eyes, her hair, all irritated him beyond 
 measure ; chivalry was out of court, and he would not pity her. 
 
 “ How did you get here ? ” he asked, in a hard, matter-of- 
 fact voice. 
 
 I walked up with Bertie Dereham to hunt for white 
 heather. The mist came on ; he went ever such a little distance 
 away to find the track, and the fog swallowed him up. We 
 shouted to each other, but ‘here' sounded to be just any- 
 where, and I rushed about the moor till I nearly dropped with 
 terror and weariness. Then I found you, and — I don't mind 
 the mist. Griff, any longer." 
 
 “ Your compliments were always pretty, Sybil. I used to 
 believe them." 
 
 “ When you were half a bear only, it didn't matter; but now 
 I am getting awfully afraid lest you should eat me up." Yet 
 her playfulness was dulled by the pitiful tremor in her voice. 
 
 “You came in search of white heath? Our blood runs red 
 up here, and so does the heather. It was a wild-goose chase 
 at best," said Griff, deliberately, with a meaning she could not 
 fail to catch. 
 
 Still she would not give in. It had become her life, this 
 yearning for the love she had trifled away. 
 
 “ Griff, you don't, you can't mean to be so bmtal ! When 
 are you coming to live in town again? You are more yourself 
 there." 
 
 “ Never," said Griff, bluntly. 
 
 She laid one hand on his sleeve. 
 
 “ Griff, dear, haven't you a little — ^just a little — consideration 
 
WHITE HEATHER. 
 
 21 1 
 
 for us poor wretches who happen to be — to be fond of you ? 
 It is a sin to hide yourself among these barren moors.” 
 
 Still he felt no twinge of pity — only the goad of past 
 weakness. 
 
 “ It is a sin to seek at times, Sybil. You have told me as 
 much — often. You were so very good that you shamed me 
 into virtue, and sent me up here out of the reach of temptation ; 
 why do you not let well alone ? ” 
 
 The irony in his voice made her wince. She turned and 
 moved away from him, into the whirling mist. The first 
 suggestion of pity touched him. 
 
 ‘‘ Don't go like this,” he said, more gently. ‘‘ Let us part 
 friends, for old times’ sake.” 
 
 She faltered and came back. Even those few steps away 
 from him had taught her what a final separation would mean, 
 and she resolved to risk all on a single throw. Without parley, 
 with a suddenness that left Griff resourceless, she was in 
 his arms. 
 
 “ Griff, will you never understand ? Take me, take me, for 
 I can’t live without you. Things are all changed, dear ; I am 
 free now, and — Griff, I love you so.” Her voice broke, her 
 helplessness was pitiably real. 
 
 Once, Sybil Ogilvie would have said that it was only country 
 hoydens who indulged in these crude lapses of taste. Yet 
 there were few farm-wenches in all the Marshcotes moorside 
 who could have brought themselves to show so little restraint, 
 so little of the pride of shame; this dainty, well-bred child 
 of the world had outfaced them all. 
 
 Griff held her away from him, looking straight into her 
 eyes, with a glance that was half of contempt, half of im- 
 patient pity. 
 
 “You never stopped to ask, Sybil, if we were both free.” 
 
 In this supreme moment of his revenge, vengeance seemed 
 a sorry thing. Men cannot but deaden themselves to the 
 faults of a woman who is wise enough to love them ; yet under 
 all this Griff was chivalrously ashamed that any woman should 
 so have humbled herself before him. 
 
2 I 2 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Mrs. Ogilvie looked at him with startled eyes. 
 
 “What do you mean? Not that — oh, Griff, not that you 
 are bound — married ? ” 
 
 He nodded silently. He was marvelling that he, or any 
 man, had been able to strike down to a bit of real feeling in 
 this baby-temptress. 
 
 “Do you care for her. Griff? she asked suddenly. 
 
 Again he nodded. Protestations seemed out of place. 
 
 Sybil turned her face from him, and looked for inspiration 
 to the white-armed maidens of the mist. The gambler’s 
 madness was on her now. If Griff were to be won, she must 
 stake, not pride only, but honour and good fame ; it was too 
 late to draw back to half measures. Four walls of fog shut 
 in their little square of beaded heather, giving the woman 
 courage to believe that no hint from the outside world could 
 reach them there. 
 
 “ Griff,” she cried, stamping one little foot on the ground, 
 “ I won’t believe that you love her — I won’t — I won’t ! You 
 were mine two years ago, you are mine now. How dare you 
 mock me with this talk of another woman ! ” The anger died ; 
 her voice grew low and soft ; her baby lips pleaded with him. 
 “ Such a warm little nest I have always kept for you, dear, in 
 my heart — warmer than ever you dreamed of in the old days. 
 And when my husband died, I thought you would come back 
 to me, I thought you would ask me to tell you what I was free 
 to tell without staining my honour. But you never came, and 
 I feared I should lose every bit of prettiness I had, Griff, in 
 crying my eyes out for you.” She was watching his face, and 
 the pity in it nerved her to the last effort. “ I have gone too 
 far, too far. Oh, my dearest ! what is honour if it goes with a 
 barren life ? ” 
 
 Griff moved impatiently up and down, gnawing at the stem 
 of his pipe. What an utter baby she was — spoiled and selfish, 
 with never a thought for any happiness but her own. His 
 anger was rising quickly. What would Kate say to all this, he 
 wondered ? 
 
 Before he could speak, another figure staggered out of the 
 
WHITE HEATHER. 
 
 213 
 
 mist — a short, thick-set man with a scrubby beard and a flushed 
 face. He tripped over a clump of cranberries, and fell prone 
 at Mrs. Ogilvie’s feet. She clung to Griff’s arm in terror. 
 
 “ It’s thee, is’t?” said Joe Strangeways, scrambling to his 
 feet again and looking from one to the other, his hands in his 
 pockets, his legs moving backwards and forwards to maintain 
 their perilous equilibrium. It’s thee. Griff Lummax — robbing 
 another chap of his wench. I’ll go bail. Tha’rt a bonny un, 
 thou art, an’ proper.” He turned to Sybil. “ Clout his lugs for 
 him, woman, an’ send him trapesing home again. He’ll bring 
 thee to shame, will Griff. It’s all th’ trade he’s getten.” 
 
 Mrs. Ogilvie began to laugh, in a false key. Griff had 
 seen her in hysterics once, and he knew the symptoms ; with- 
 out more ado he' gave her a good, hearty smack on the cheek, 
 and, “ Don’t be a little fool, Sybil ! ” he muttered harshly. 
 Then he took Joe by the arm, and led him into a sheep-track 
 that crossed the Gorsthwaite path at right angles. ‘‘That is 
 your road, Strangeways,” he said quietly. “ The mist is clearing 
 already. You’ll get home by night with luck.” 
 
 Both his victims stood irresolute from surprise. Sybil had 
 forgotten hysterics altogether in the smart of the blow and her 
 anger at such unwarrantable treatment. Joe found it hard to 
 meet his enemy’s matter-of-fact item of information. Finally, 
 the quarryman, swearing and grumbling, took himself off along 
 the track indicated, and Griff returned to Mrs. Ogilvie. 
 
 “ I’m very sorry,” he said, laughing at the absurdity of this 
 last scene in the drama ; “ I’m very sorry if I hurt you, Sybil, 
 but I was not going to have you on my hands in the middle of 
 the moor. See, we shall have the sun out again in a minute or 
 two. I believe we went to sleep, you and I, and dreamed we 
 were in a fog, and you, or I, or both of us, said a quantity of 
 foolish things, which we can’t remember now. Shall I put you 
 on your way to the Folly? ” 
 
 She went with him passively. Nothing mattered very much 
 now ; it was kind of him, she felt vaguely, to smooth over his 
 denial, but what did words signify ? Her passion crept under 
 shelter, whimpering. 
 
214 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 The mist dispersed as quickly as it had gathered. The 
 piled banks melted to fleecy, lace-like bits of scudding vapour. 
 The moor was a twinkling sea of mist-beads, that shamed to 
 fainter crimson the heather-tips from which they hung. Gorsth- 
 waite Hall showed clear at the top of the rising ground ahead. 
 
 “ Who was that brute ? He seemed to have some quarrel 
 with you,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, at last. 
 
 “ I robbed him of the best woman God ever made. Let 
 him be,” Griff answered, with a warm impulse to acknowledge 
 the place which Kate held in his regard. 
 
 Sybil flashed round on him, her eyes ablaze. 
 
 “Then I have loved a fool — just a fool?” She shrugged 
 her pretty shoulders, and laughed mirthlessly. “ I have made 
 a mess of my self-respect,” she went on, with bitter frankness ; 
 “ I should have minded less if the woman who claims you had 
 been other than the cast-off wife of a clown. Griff, you will 
 make me hate you yet ; love cannot survive the jar of absurdity.” 
 
 Griff answered nothing, for Kate herself was standing at the 
 Hall gate. He had thought of skirting the house at the rear, 
 instead of risking this meeting by following the proper track ; 
 but he disliked the suggestion of cowardice in such a plan. As 
 he glanced from the delicate bundle of drapery and affectation 
 at his side to the steady, splendid grace of the wife he loved, he 
 was glad of the meeting. 
 
 “ Kate, here is an old friend of my London days, whom I 
 have just rescued from the mist. Mrs. Ogilvie, this is my 
 wife.” For a fleeting moment Griff understood that revenge 
 may be exceeding sweet ; then he crushed the feeling. 
 
 Kate inclined her head, and smiled with the ease of a 
 woman who trusts her husband. Sybil Ogilvie, too, tried to 
 smile ; but she did not mind one whit the less now that she 
 found her rival worthier than she had thought her. 
 
 “ You will come in and rest after your walk ? ” suggested 
 Kate, in her even, rounded voice. 
 
 “ Thank you, no. I shall be late for luncheon as it is, I am 
 afraid. If your — your husband will be kind enough to show 
 me my way ” 
 
WHITE HEATHER. 
 
 215 
 
 “ ril come with you ; you will never find it alone/’ 
 
 “ No, please don’t I can manage quite well if you put me 
 into the road.” 
 
 “ Nonsense. You would drown in a bog, or something. 
 Kate, if mother walks over now the mist has cleared, will you 
 tell her I shall be back in the afternoon ? Don’t wait 
 dinner.” 
 
 At the end of ten minutes’ walking — 
 
 “ You were very careful to call me Mrs. Ogilvie before your 
 wife. Is she jealous in these cases. Griff?” cooed Sybil, feeling 
 it wiser to taunt than to cry, since she had only the two 
 alternatives from which to choose. 
 
 Griff muttered something softly to himself, and they walked 
 on in unbroken silence for another mile. The cold, impersonal 
 bearing of her companion roused something of Mrs. Ogilvie’s 
 pitiful prudence. 
 
 “You won’t — how shall I put it? — I have made myself 
 ridiculous — you won’t breathe a word of it to any one, will 
 you — to Bertie Dereham, I mean, or ” 
 
 He simply stared at her in unfeigned wonder. Ill-advised 
 her late confession might have been, but it had seemed 
 passionate enough. Surely she might have let this old hedging 
 mood of hers wait until another day. 
 
 “ Don t look so shocked. Griff!” she went on hurriedly. 
 “ Of course I don’t for a moment think you will — be unlike 
 yourself in that way — only ” 
 
 “ Only you are not sure ; thanks,” put in Griff, curtly, look- 
 ing straight before him. 
 
 She put her hand on his sleeve. 
 
 “ Don’t be harsh, dear ; we have not long together.” 
 
 He shook off her touch, laughing bitterly. How could he 
 feel compassion for her, when she let her detestable little 
 suspicions kill pity before it was half awake ? 
 
 “ No, we have not long together, Sybil. Let us talk of the 
 last new play, or the old after-theatre suppers, or some topic we 
 are sure to agree upon.” 
 
 “ Be quiet 1 ” she cried, the tears starting to her eyes. 
 
2I6 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 But the tears were wasted, for Griff would not look at her. 
 Mrs. Ogilvie, now that she had disposed of her mean instinct 
 towards prudence, came swiftly back to the desire for a for- 
 bidden plaything which she mistook for love ; she shivered at 
 thought of her coming loneliness ; she was ready to accept this 
 half-tamed bear on his own terms, though he had laughed at 
 her pleading and slighted her tenderness. She wanted him 
 either to kiss or to thrash her — it scarcely mattered which, so 
 long as she broke through his indifference. 
 
 They reached the wind-driven fir-tree under which Roddick 
 and Janet Laverack had kept their Christmas tryst. The sun 
 was warm on Frender’s Folly, but no sunshine could overlay 
 the brooding sadness of the place; rather, there seemed an 
 added desolation, as when light shines dumbly on a dead man's 
 eyes. Sybil stopped, and pointed across the smooth-shaven 
 lawns that lay beneath them. 
 
 “ Isn't it like a grave ? Griff, you don't know how eerie it 
 is down there ; I dread going back to it.” 
 
 “ Come, Sybil, don't talk about graves in the middle of 
 a September day. The Folly is well enough; eat a good lunch, 
 and you’ll find it twice as desirable a place. Good-bye; I 
 must turn back here.” 
 
 She clutched at him with her little gloved hands. 
 
 “ You shan’t go in this way, you shan't ! Eat a good hmch 
 — is that your farewell. Griff, after — after all that has been?” 
 
 “ And drink a half-bottle of Burgundy ; I forgot that.” 
 Not at any cost was he going to have a repetition of the 
 scene on Marshcotes Moor. And that unwarrantable pity was 
 beginning to touch him again. 
 
 She looked from the castle keep to the sweeping purple 
 of the moor. Twice she was on the point of speaking, and 
 twice she stopped herself. Then she crept close to him, and 
 held up her face, and pursed out her baby-mouth. 
 
 “ Sweetheart, have you no pity ? ” she murmured. 
 
 He took her two hands and touched them lightly with 
 his lips. 
 
 ‘‘ It would do us no good, child. Go back to the old life ; 
 
WHITE HEATHER. 
 
 217 
 
 you’ll forget me soon enough, if you only make up your mind 
 to it. There, don’t cry ! I’m a brute, and there is an end of it. 
 Good-bye.” 
 
 He turned sharp on his heel and left her. Sorry he was, 
 but nothing more; he knew that she would forget, and the 
 present trouble seemed to him scarcely more than a child’s 
 first taste of toothache. He forgot that the agony of a fall 
 into a two-foot pond is very real if the victim imagines it to 
 be as deep as the sea. 
 
 Once he looked back. Amid the glowing waste stood a 
 little hothouse figure of a woman, with yellow hair and a 
 dimpled white-and-pink face. He thought it a quaint picture, 
 and waved his hand twice, and swung off across the heather to 
 the wife who would be impatiently awaiting his home-coming. 
 
2I8 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIL 
 
 A “revival.” 
 
 Things had gone hard with the preacher since Greta and he 
 went hand-in-hand, like a couple of guilty children, across the 
 moor to Gorsthwaite. It was out of the question that Greta 
 should return that night, whatever the result of her absence 
 might be when it came to her father’s ears. Gabriel, too, was 
 induced to spend the night at Gorsthwaite ; so tired out was 
 he with trouble and the quick succession of trying scenes. But 
 the preacher was tough in the fibre, and the night’s rest well- 
 nigh cured his body, while it gave his mind fresh vigour to 
 understand his own Titanic worthlessness. Had he been able 
 to fly from Greta — lest he should contaminate her — it is pro- 
 bable that his first instinct on awakening would have been 
 towards showing a clean pair of heels, under the delusion that 
 he was doing the lassie a service ; but luckily his duty ran 
 with his pleasure for once, for it was clear, even to his per- 
 ceptions, that the miller would hear of Greta’s leaving home 
 the night before, and that a sufficient explanation must be 
 forthcoming. 
 
 So Gabriel took the girl home about eleven of the next 
 morning, and, finding Miller Rotherson just returned from his 
 journey, gave the kindly old man a full and faithful account 
 of the whole affair. The miller rubbed his chin when Gabriel 
 had finished, and looked at him quizzically. 
 
 “So you want to marry my daughter? Well, I don’t know 
 about that. It seems to me you’re far too hot-headed to be 
 comfortable as a son-in-law. For all that, I can’t rightly see 
 that you show up so badly in the matter. You fought because 
 
A “revival.*’ 219 
 
 — but we won't go into that. At any rate, if it weren’t for you, 
 I should have neither daughter nor mill at this moment. But 
 to marry her — it’s asking a deal ; well, we must think about it.” 
 
 And soon after that it was known through the length and 
 breadth of Ling Crag village and Marshcotes parish that 
 Gabriel Hirst and the miller’s daughter were “ bahn to be wed.” 
 Betty Binns named Greta “a forrard young hussie, about as 
 fit to be a godly man’s wife as skim-milk is fit to butter your 
 bread;” and 'the rest of the village thought as much — for was 
 not poor Greta a furriner ” ? 
 
 And this was the beginning of a hard time for the preacher. 
 He had trafficked too little in happiness to accept it quietly 
 when it came. He felt an earnest need for some set-off in the 
 shape of misery, and he had that fight with Griff ready to his 
 conscience. The more he pondered over it, the greater seemed 
 his offence. True, Griff looked at him nowadays with a kindlier 
 eye than ever before ; true, the sin had brought him his heart’s 
 desire (next after God, he added, but the parenthesis carried 
 little conviction even to himself). But was the sin any the 
 less in that it had borne good fruit ? If he held that, he was 
 no better than a papist, an idolater — and that was almost the 
 hardest rap Gabriel could give himself. 
 
 In the middle of his troublous time, there came a strange 
 preacher to the Ling Crag chapel, to conduct the anniversary 
 services there. He was known throughout the country, the 
 Rev. Abel Bell, as a powerful mover of men’s hearts, and the 
 Ling Crag folk expected great things of him. Nor were they 
 disappointed ; the stranger, at the end of half a dozen sentences, 
 had put himself out of reach of the captious criticism to which 
 the villagers were wont to treat their superiors in godliness ; 
 before they had recovered from this unwonted ifense of inability 
 to carp, they were snared into enthusiasm. There was a 
 meeting of the class-leaders after morning service, and they 
 unanimously decided to ask the new preacher to stay for a few 
 days and conduct a series of “ Revival ” services. Gabriel 
 Hirst was ripe for any wildness when Wednesday came. The 
 three Sunday services, with the evening calls to the unconverted 
 
220 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 on Monday and Tuesday, had already wrought him to a high 
 pitch of nervous tension ; contact with Greta and that growing 
 sense of his unworthiness combined to bring him up to fever 
 heat. 
 
 The “ Revival ” enthusiasm spreads like a contagion when 
 once it is set going. From Ling Crag and Marshcotes and 
 the scattered farms for miles around, the people came. On 
 Wednesday evening there was not a seat to be had ; the pews 
 were full, the long wooden benches were full, and there was 
 scarce standing room for those at the back of the chg,pel. 
 Near the front sat Griff Lomax, who had not witnessed a 
 “ Revival ” for years, and who felt a purely irreligious and 
 unbiassed interest in proceedings which were calculated to 
 draw the naked hearts out of his usually taciturn neighbours. 
 
 The Rev. Abel Bell mounted into the pulpit, and talked 
 with homely vigour. No simile was too wild, no illustration 
 too commonplace, so long as he held captive the imagination 
 of his hearers. Divinity, he held, had once walked in rough 
 mortal garb, and in rough mortal metaphor only could the 
 Divine truth be understood by men. The subtle fire ran in 
 and out among the congregation. Hearts that were wont to 
 keep within the limits of their own hardened shells leaped out 
 to one another ; as they had been strong in restraint, so they 
 were strong in abandonment now that the fitting time had 
 come. Each man looked at his neighbour, and yearned over 
 him, and prayed that salvation might reach all present. The 
 minister grew frenzied. 
 
 “ The Devil is trembling ! ” he shouted, with a voice that 
 seemed to be tearing at the lining of his throat. “ Heaven and 
 Hell are fighting for the souls of men. The Devil is trembling — 
 Heaven is winning. Into the fight, brothers ; give the Devil a 
 oner ! (‘ Praise the Lord ! ’ ‘ Glory ! ^ ‘ Hallelujah ! ') Into 
 
 the thick of it, friends, and smite with the arm of God ! 
 (‘ Hallelujah ! ’) ” He pointed with his hand to the chapel 
 door. ‘‘ See him there — see the Devil scuttering out with his 
 tail between his legs ! Angels are rejoicing ; the battle is won. 
 The gates of Heaven stand open — one and all, come in.^^ 
 
221 
 
 A “REVIVAL.” 
 
 Praise the Lord ! ” Glory ! Hallelujah ! reiterated 
 the congregation.) 
 
 His voice fell to a pleading quietness, but mounted and 
 mounted till it rang like a trumpet-call. 
 
 “ Heaven, my brothers and sisters — if you knew what was 
 meant by Heaven, there’s none here to-night but would search 
 for Jesus till he found Him. We are blinded by folly and 
 sin, but we’ve got eyes that can see the sky, which is the window 
 of Heaven. When the earth wants warming, out comes the sun, 
 and laughs over moors and woods and fields. When the 
 earth gapes with thirst, then God Almighty sends the blessed 
 rain-clouds — packed up ready, carriage paid, free of charge. 
 (‘ Glory ! Glory ! ’) This night we must gather the sinners in 
 to the Lord — gather them in (‘ Hallelujah ! ’). There’s a table 
 spread in the courts of Heaven, and all that are saved can sit 
 down to it. Ask for what you will, and you’ve only to pass 
 up your plates — and all the while the golden harps will be 
 playing, and the cymbals clashing, and God will be there at 
 the top of the table, ready to smile on one and all and send 
 them down whatever they ask for. Why will the sinners stay 
 on the wrong side of the Golden Gates ? It’s cold out there, 
 and it’s wet, with a keen east wind that cuts you to the bone. 
 Will you come in to the Lord, friends, out of the cold, out 
 of the wet ? Think what it means ! if once you let the Gates 
 be shut on you, from the cold you’ll be hurried away to the 
 Burning Lake, and you’ll burn there for ever and ever. Halle- 
 lujah ! Hallelujah ! Unstop the ears of the hardened. Lord ; 
 conquer their deafness ; gather them into Thy bosom. Glory, 
 glory ! ” 
 
 When the sermon was finished, the minister and the class- 
 leaders went in and out among the congregation, exhorting 
 them to effort, aiding them in the desperate struggle to “ find 
 Jesus.” Groans and cries went up on every hand. The agony 
 of doubt was bitterly real, the swift flash of belief a true and 
 priceless blessing. Griff was the only one present who looked 
 on the proceedings from a dispassionate, outside standpoint. 
 There had been a little— just a little — pitying contempt at the 
 
222 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 bottom of his interest in the Revival ; but now that he was in 
 the thick of it, now that the cries of Hallelujah ! '' “ Found 
 pardon ! ” ‘‘ Glory, glory ! came thick and fast, drowning the 
 anxious calls for aid, now that the uncouthness of his neigh- 
 bours was lost in their strenuous sincerity, Griif knew that he 
 liad been minded to scoff at what was above and beyond cheap 
 raillery ; the thrill of contact with this seething enthusiasm shot 
 through his nerves and gripped him with awed amazement. 
 
 A rude bench was carried to the foot of the communion- 
 table. Those who had found salvation rose, one by one, and 
 went to the bench and knelt with their arms on it, to wrestle 
 with the remnants of their unbelief. Class-leaders and minister 
 went busily to and fro, like bees at heather-time, arguing, plead- 
 ing, praying with those whose hearts would not be softened 
 unto grace. Surely, if man^s whole prayerful effort, man's 
 utmost power of will, could bring a Presence from the Unknown 
 Without, then God was in this little moorside chapel. 
 
 But Gabriel Hirst was not forward with exhortation, as of 
 old. He stood in a shadowed corner, his arms folded on his 
 breast, his eyes wild with a battle of terror and determination. 
 Griff, glancing up with an uneasy consciousness that some one 
 was looking through and through him, met the preacher's eyes. 
 In a flash it came to him what Gabriel was finding heart to do ; 
 he made a movement as if to cross to him, but stopped. What 
 could he say or do to keep back this confession of a deed that 
 was finished with long ago ? He could do nothing, save watch 
 the preacher move forward to the front, and listen to his 
 stumbling words of introduction. Then Gabriel, finding his 
 manhood, faltered no more, but walked steadily up the pulpit 
 steps. His voice was low and firm; only the piteous work- 
 ing of his face betrayed his torment. He told how, upon a 
 certain day, the seed of a thorn-tree was dropped in the cleft 
 of a quarry-face ; he described the breaking of the seed-shell, 
 the growth of the sapling ; he brought before the eyes of those 
 present the picture of a merciful God watering the tree, tending 
 it with jealous watchfulness. Then he talked of another seed, 
 the seed of jealousy and hate. Years were needed to measure 
 
A “REVIVAL.” 223 
 
 the growth of God’s handiwork ; but the evil in man increased 
 by days, by hours, by minutes. 
 
 Then, on a sudden, his voice went deeper. He leaned over 
 the pulpit and looked across the sea of anxious faces to the 
 place where Griff was sitting. 
 
 “ Stand up. Griff Lomax, and come to the front, and tell 
 them all what a man did to you on the brink of Whins Quarry.” 
 
 But Griff made no movement, and the preacher told his 
 own story. 
 
 “ The seed of jealousy was set in this man, and it grew in 
 the space of a single day, till he was ripe for blows — nay, for 
 worse. He waited for his friend at the edge of the quarry- 
 face, and murder was in his heart.” 
 
 “ Glory, glory ! ” shouted a woman at the rear of the chapel. 
 She was in the throes of her own personal need for salvation, 
 and her shout of joy came with a weird irrelevancy. 
 
 ‘‘ The man was myself,” went on Gabriel, “ and the friend 
 that I waited for was Griff Lomax, whom I had loved as my 
 own brother — ay, as David yearned over Jonathan I had loved 
 the lad. But the seed of hate was planted, and grew apace. He 
 came along by the path at the quarry-side, and I closed with 
 him. The devil had gripped my heart ; I forgot that the edge 
 was close behind us; I cared for nothing in heaven or hell 
 but vengeance. The devil strengthened my arms. I lifted 
 the lad and threw him over my shoulder.” 
 
 ‘‘ Hallelujah ! Found Jesus, found Jesus ! ” yelled a weather- 
 beaten quarryman, seated under the pulpit. 
 
 Gabriel paused and dashed his hand across his forehead ; 
 the sweat ran off in a- stream and dripped to the pulpit ledge. 
 A hoarse murmur went from lip to lip of the listening crowd. 
 
 “ I heard the rumbling of stones as he went over the brink, 
 and then a splash in the pool at the bottom.” 
 
 Every eye turned to Griff, sitting with a rigid face, like one 
 returned from the dead. A superstitious awe gained on the 
 folk ; they were ripe to credit a miracle in their present exalted 
 state. 
 
 ‘‘ I ran down the hill and fell, and lay in a swoon for a 
 
224 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 while,” went on the preacher. ‘‘When I went to the pool, 
 there was no body there, and I pictured him lying in the mud 
 at the bottom — lying, and waiting till the trump of the Judg- 
 ment Day called him to tell what he knew.” 
 
 Griff hardened his face yet further. He found it a strain 
 not to wince under those keen eye-shafts, focussed on him 
 from every quarter of the chapel, like needles about a magnet. 
 The preacher, regarding him steadfastly, rose to a splendid 
 height of egoism. 
 
 “ But God had been watching over this moment, watching 
 over the feet of Gabriel Hirst, the least and most sinful of His 
 servants. Before I came into the world. He had set the seed 
 of a thorn-tree in the side of the quarry ; the tree grew, till 
 its branches were strong to support the fall of a man. The 
 brother I loved, the brother I had all but killed in my hate, 
 fell safe into the bush, as God in His mercy had ordained. 
 The sin of will is mine, black as ever, but the sin of the deed 
 has been lightened. Lift up your hearts, ye children of God, 
 and thank your Father for His mercies, and take heed by my 
 own fall how you let the devil creep into your hearts.” 
 
 His voice was weakening, his grip of the ledge in front of 
 him grew less firm. But he had something yet to say. 
 
 “ Griff Lomax, I have laboured to bring you into the 
 straight way of faith. The Lord has delivered you ; turn to 
 the Lord and believe in Him.” 
 
 The Rev. Abel Bell struck up the Doxology, obeying 
 instinct rather than the prompting of reason. The little chapel- 
 ful of people joined in with one voice, till the walls seemed to 
 rock with the clashing waves of sound. 
 
 But Gabriel Hirst had fainted on the floor of the pulpit. 
 
 Quietly Griff moved down the aisle, and took his friend 
 in his arms. He carried him into the vestry, and was 
 sprinkling water over his face before the congregation was 
 fairly alive to what had happened. 
 
 When the Doxology had been sung — and sung again — 
 there began a great harvesting of souls. Few of those present 
 could withstand the swift excitement of such a confession as 
 
A “REVIVAL.” 225 
 
 they had lately listened to. Never before had the Rev. Abel 
 Bell witnessed so goodly a gathering in to the Lord. 
 
 When the fervour had subsided a little, and the time was 
 at hand for an adjournment to the class-room, there to enroll 
 the converted. Griff moved up to the pulpit and mounted the 
 stair. He gave them a level narrative of what had happened 
 at Whins Quarry, and he so over-rated Gabriel’s cause for hate 
 that his after-action showed excusable ; he went further, moving 
 warily step by step, till he had proved that any man, with man- 
 hood in him, must have acted as the preacher had done. 
 And then, as he turned to go — 
 
 “ Gabriel Hirst has bidden me thank God for my escape,” 
 he said. “I do thank God, from my whole heart fervently. 
 Neighbours, we are going to forget what has passed to-night, 
 remembering only that we have a man among us — a man to 
 the tips of his fingers. And his name is Gabriel Hirst.” 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 A TALE FROM THE HEART OF THE NIGHT. 
 
 Lomax, feeling a sudden desire to stretch his legs, set off at 
 five of an October afternoon to walk to Ludworth. His 
 mother was staying at Gorsthwaite for a day or two, and there 
 was no chance of Kate^s feeling lonely if he were late in getting 
 back. Though it was fine enough overhead when he set off, 
 he found it heavy-going on the rutty old packroad, superseded 
 long ago by the good hard road that leads past the stoups and 
 Sorrowstones Spring. The rains had been heavy of late; 
 already the clouds were thickening again as he gained Tinker’s 
 Pool, and not a trace of the moon was to be seen. 
 
 Repairing, sharp-set, to the White Swan for one of the 
 solid meals which that hostelry affected, he chanced to meet 
 a horse-dealer of his acquaintance in the bar ; the dealer had 
 a neat little bay for sale, and Griff was in need of another 
 horse. It was agreed, finally, that the bay should be brought 
 to Gorsthwaite the next morning for inspection, and Griff 
 began to talk of starting off again. But a look out-of-doors 
 made him think twice about it. The night showed black as 
 pitch, and rain was coming down in bucketsful. 
 
 “You’ll none be crossing the moor to-night, Mr. Lomax?” 
 said the dealer, peering over his shoulder. 
 
 “ I must, sometime ; but it might be as well to wait a bit 
 and see if it lifts. We’ll have another drink, at any rate.” 
 
 At the end of an hour or so the rain slackened pace, and 
 the moon tried hard to elbow her way through the clouds. 
 Griff, grown impatient of sitting in the musty bar-room, would 
 hear of no more delay. 
 
A TALE FROM THE HEART OF THE NIGHT. 2^7 
 
 ‘‘ My advice to you, sir, is — keep to the new road through 
 Cranshaw ; it’ll be fearful dark the other way, and ankle-deep 
 in water,” was the dealer’s parting injunction. 
 
 Griff decided to take his advice. The way was a good 
 two miles further round, but it was better, on a night like this, 
 to have solid ground underfoot. The sky cleared for awhile 
 as he mounted the hill ; ahead of him, shining white under 
 the full moon, stood the first of the stoups. His thoughts 
 went back to the father who had died on this very road — to 
 the father whom he could barely remember, who yet had stood 
 to him throughout life as a wonderful example of tenderness, 
 strength, and devotion. He recalled how, when he was 
 sixteen, he had heard an old scandal raked up, to the effect 
 that this perfect father of his had brought old Mother Strange- 
 ways’ daughter to shame ; how he had leaped up, his face on 
 fire, and knocked down the man who had thought it manly 
 to sneer at the father in the son’s presence ; how he had gone 
 straightway to his mother, and blurted out what had happened ; 
 how she had wept over him, and comforted him, and told him 
 the whole truth of the matter. 
 
 He drew near to Sorrowstones Spring ; so full had he been 
 of the old-time sadness that he had scarcely noted the quick 
 return of clouds and rain. A vivid lightning flash awakened 
 him ; hot-foot came the thunder in pursuit ; from Cranshaw far 
 ahead of him to Ludworth in his rear, the meeting of moor 
 and sky seemed to be one rolling line of din. Then all was 
 still, save for the rain, the cries of frightened grouse. He 
 pushed on. Sorrowstones Spring was close on his left now. He 
 could hear the wind swirling round the rickety chimney-stack. 
 
 On a sudden there came a cry that was neither of wind 
 nor bird — a harsh, protracted wail that sliced through the 
 tempest like a knife-stroke. No words could be heard — only that 
 inarticulate wail — yet Lomax knew that blasphemy was abroad ; 
 he felt the skin creep on his scalp, and his sodden cap seemed 
 to lift itself clean off his head. He came to a halt and listened ; 
 sweat and rain joined issue and rolled down his face; in all 
 his life he had never, till now, known what real fear meant. 
 
228 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 The wind and the rain grew quieter, the wailing louder. He 
 traced it to the cottage, and, just because his legs would scarce 
 carry him for fright, he forced himself to draw near. 
 
 “ It was her daughter that was mixed up with father’s name,” 
 he muttered, remembering on the sudden who it was that lived 
 here. 
 
 He did not know whether it were sheer obstinacy that 
 dragged him to the door, or the instinct to help a fellow- 
 creature in need, or whether some overmastering ghostly force 
 were at work ; but he could not draw back now. He felt for 
 the sneck of the door, found it after a moment’s groping, and 
 pushed his way into the cottage. For a moment he could see 
 nothing for the peat-smoke; his eyes smarted, and the reek 
 crept down to the bottom of his throat and set him cough- 
 ing till he was hoarse. The wailing had ceased, but still 
 the silence seemed pregnant with that sense of blasphemy. 
 Gradually his vision cleared ; he could see a farthing rushlight, 
 almost burnt through, guttering in a dirty bottle-neck. Beyond 
 the candle was a huddled heap of straw and blanket and human 
 hair — something bright gleamed out from the tangled hair, 
 something skinny and brown scratched up and down the blanket. 
 Dazed as he was, it was some time before he grasped that this 
 was Mother Strangeways, that the little bright circles were 
 eyes, that the twitching object was her lean right hand. Swiftly 
 his thoughts went back to that other hag who had pressed her 
 lips to his just without Roddick’s door. Could they be the 
 same? — But he had little time for reflection. A crackling 
 laugh came from the bed in the corner. Mother Strangeways 
 was lifting herself to a sitting posture, and her shrivelled bosom 
 showed through the tattered nightgown that made pretence of 
 covering her. 
 
 “ Griff Lummax — his father’s son — an’ he’s come to shrive 
 me i’ th’ latter end ! ” she mocked. “ Hast ’a nowt to say for 
 thyseln, lad ? I war praying, a while back, to set een on thee 
 afore I deed, an’ th’ devil he’s answered my prayer, an’ there 
 tha stands as quiet as th’ grave I’m bound for.” 
 
 The old homely turns of speech helped to pull Griff 
 
A TALE FROM THE HEART OF THE NIGHT. 229 
 
 together. It was flesh and blood he had to deal with, at any 
 rate, and that was so much to the good. 
 
 “ I heard your cries as I was passing, and came in to help 
 you. What can I do for you ? ” he asked. 
 
 “ Do? Nowt, nowt, I say, save come a step or two nearer, 
 so as I haven't to shout to mak myseln heard. I’m sickening 
 to my death. Griff Lummax, an’ afore I fetched thee out o’ th’ 
 dark an’ th’ storm, th’ pain war fit to drive me crazy. But tha’s 
 come, lad, an’ I’ll dee happy yet. Step closer, I tell thee ! ” 
 
 He halved the distance between himself and the bed ; 
 nearer he could not force himself to go just yet. 
 
 What do you want ? ” he muttered. 
 
 Mother Strangeways watched him warily. She worked her 
 arms up and down, as if testing their strength ; she measured 
 the distance between them, as if she were bent on reaching him 
 with her bony fist. The glitter in her eyes failed to a cunning 
 softness, while the lines of her mouth grew hard. 
 
 “ I can’t talk loud, lad ; bend ower me,” she whispered. 
 
 He made himself come to the bedside, and stooped to hear 
 what she had to say. In a twinkling her fingers were clawing 
 at his throat. Death-ridden as she was, the old hatred gave 
 the woman a nervous strength of grip. Half-strangled, Griff 
 felt for her hands, and seized them, and forced them down. 
 
 “ So that’s your game, is it ? ” he laughed. “ A pretty 
 specimen of a dying woman you are. Mother Strangeways.” 
 
 Just that touch of fight had strung up his nerves to their 
 normal pitch. 
 
 She lay back on the bed, a little stream of red trickling 
 from her mouth. Griff stood and watched her, not knowing 
 what to say or do, until at last she spoke in a quavering 
 voice. 
 
 “ It war truth I spoke. Griff Lummax, when I said I war 
 deeing. Another hour — a half-hour, mebbe — ’ull see me ready 
 for th’ coffin. I tried to kill thee, then, lad, but tha worsted 
 me. Tha’d best be going thy ways, an’ leave me to it.” 
 
 Surely, Griff thought, there was no pretence this time. The 
 pallor on her face, with the bluish tint dusting it here and there. 
 
230 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS, 
 
 could mean nothing short of death. How could he leave her 
 there to wrestle with the end ? 
 
 “ Mother Strangeways/' he said roughly, “ I bear you no 
 malice. Whafs done is done, and you must square the 
 reckoning when you get to the other side. Can I ease the 
 journey for you a bit? ” 
 
 She turned over on her side and looked at the rushlight, 
 which, like herself, was sputtering to an end. She pointed to 
 the cupboard, then to the candle and back again. Griff, 
 obeying her gesture, took a bundle of rushlights from the 
 bottom shelf of the cupboard, lit one and rammed it tight 
 in the bottle-neck. 
 
 “ Ay,” muttered the old woman, ‘‘ that's th' tale, fro' 
 generation to generation. Th' owd light dees, an' out it's 
 chucked, an' in goes th' smooth-faced young un. An' it's 
 little fowk think o' th' light that's gone, so only they've getten 
 a fresh un to show 'em their way. But there's summat wrang. 
 Griff Lummax — ay, grievous wrang — when th' young uns is 
 ta'en first, an' th' owd uns fizzle on to th' last drop o' grease. 
 It's nigh on five an' thirty year sin' th' bonny lass went under- 
 sod ; why warn't it me that war ta'en ? Why warn't it me, I 
 say ? '' she screamed. “ Doan't come to me an' crack o' thy 
 God A'mighty, what taks young lassies i' their prime an' leaves 
 th' owd 'uns to rot i' their skins for grief an' worry.'' 
 
 She sank back, weak with the effort, and the ooze ran faster 
 from her mouth. She lay quiet for awhile, but the workings 
 of her face showed that she was thinking hard. And her 
 thoughts were with the daughter who had died in childbirth — 
 childbirth to a nameless father. 
 
 The memory roused her old set purpose, forgotten for the 
 moment. The cunning came into her eyes again, and the 
 twitching of her hands began afresh. 
 
 “ I'm sooin gone,'' she said ; “ tha can keep me a two or 
 three minutes longer, if tha will.'' 
 
 “ Ay, that I will ! What have I to do ? '' 
 
 “ Wend to th' cupboard again. Tha'll find a green bottle 
 there ; fetch it.'' 
 
A TALE FROM THE HEART OF THE NIGHT. 23 1 
 
 Griff found the bottle, and put it into her hands. 
 
 “ There’s a little mug on th’ table,” she muttered. 
 
 He turned to get the mug, and Mother Strange ways, quick 
 as a flash, brought the bottle down on his skull. It smashed 
 into little bits, and a spirt of blood broke through Griff’s close- 
 cropped hair. The hag laughed, and hugged herself into her 
 blankets. 
 
 “ I’ve sworn to do for th’ lot on ye, an’ tha’ll be wi’ thy 
 father sooin ! ” she croaked. 
 
 Griff retreated to the wall. He meant to see this play 
 played through, but it was as well to take due precautions. 
 The cut on his head was of no great depth, luckily, and the 
 bleeding soon stopped. 
 
 “ Mother Strangeways,” he said, ‘‘ you didn’t count on a 
 Lomax having a thick skull. That’s where you made a 
 mistake. It takes a bigger bottle than that to kill the old 
 breed off.” 
 
 Mother Strangeways had never been one to doubt 
 fatality, and she gave up the fight. It was clear that Griff 
 would outlive her. She lay on her back and cursed till the 
 man grew cold with horror. Then she half rose and leaned 
 on her elbow. 
 
 “ May tha be cursed. Griff Lummax, till hell is too cold 
 to hold thee; an’ thy childer after thee, till hell-fire hes 
 getten th’ lot o’ ye. Amen.” 
 
 The fire was burning low, and Griff, anxious not to let 
 uncanny notions get the better of him, turned his attention 
 to replenishing it from the peat-stack in the corner opposite the 
 bed ; but all the while he kept the tail of one eye on the old 
 woman’s doings. Then he dropped into the solitary chair that 
 the room possessed, and listened to the howling of the wind 
 in the chimney-stack. Only Mother Strangeways’ stertorous 
 breathing broke the silence within. 
 
 “ Griff Lummax,” she called at last. 
 
 ‘‘Well?” 
 
 “ I’ve a tale to tell thee ” 
 
 “ I’m listening.” 
 
232 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Tha minds how thy father war lost on Cranshaw Moor, 
 mony a year back ? ” 
 
 “ Ay, I mind it.” 
 
 “ Thaf s what th’ tale is about. Listen, lad ; it’s bonny 
 telling. Five an’ twenty year back come a neet like this as 
 brought thee here. It blew, an’ it blew, an’ th’ snaw war thick 
 on th’ grund i’ place o’ rain. I war sitting ower th’ fire, thinking 
 on th’ daughter that war gone, an’ ill-wishing th’ man ’at hed killed 
 her, when there comes a knock to th’ door. I oppens it wide, 
 an’ who should stand on th’ door-stun but th’ man I’d been 
 ill-wishing — Joshua Lummax, lad, thy father. He taks a two or 
 three steps inside, and his eye cotches mine fair and square, 
 same as if he’d bin as honest as he’d like fowk to think him. 
 He’d crossed fro’ Ludworth, seemingly, an’ th’ snaw war that 
 thick ’at he couldn’t tell which war th’ highroad an’ which war 
 th’ moor; he mun ha’ been dazed wi’ th’ white, or he’d ha’ 
 known, seeing he’d getten so far, that he’d nobbut to keep on 
 straight as iver his nose ’ud lead him. But he didn’t know, an’ 
 he’d come to Mother Strange ways to learn.” She paused, 
 laughing quietly. I learned him^ lad. I set him straight into 
 th’ heart o’ th’ moor, an’ I knew ’at he war sartin sure to walk 
 into a bog or dee o’ th’ cold. Well, he missed th’ bog, it ’ud 
 seem, for they fund him stiff an’ stark a two mile fro’ th’ cottage 
 here. When I heard th’ news, I saw th’ sun for th’ first time sin’ 
 th’ lass dee’d, an’ ‘ One^ says I to myseln ; ‘ I’ll bide th’ Lord’s 
 gooid time for th’ rest.’ But I war ta’en wi’ th’ rheumatiz afore 
 tha war rightly growed up. Griff, an’ I could no ways get at thee, 
 as I mud ha’ done wi’ health an’ strength to help me. Eh, 
 lad, lad, but I made fooil’s play wi’ my chances this neet ! 
 There’s nowt I want on earth, nowt I pray for, but just to see 
 thee an’ thy mother ligging stiff an’ stark one beside t’ other.” 
 
 Griff had risen, and stood dumbly watching the interlude 
 which death allowed this sorry victim. He could not grasp it at 
 first. His father’s death seemed a topic of far-away interest ; 
 his mind had room only for the figure of this strenuous 
 witch, with the candle-light glimmering on her eager, wasted 
 face. 
 
A TALE FROM THE HEART OF THE NIGHT. 233 
 
 There was a long silence between them, until Mother 
 Strangeways let a moan escape her. The pain was gripping 
 her heart-strings now, but she had to say her say. On her face 
 was the transfiguration that comes to any who fight with death, 
 be they good or vile. 
 
 “ Tha’s nowt to say, lad ? Tha stands there like a witless 
 natural, an' tha listens to th' tale I've getten to tell. Well, hod 
 thy whisht for awhile ; it 'ull be thy turn next." 
 
 She clapped one hand on her breast with a shriek ; but the 
 spasm passed, and she resumed her talk, Grilf listening dizzily 
 the while. 
 
 “ I warn't alius like tha's known me. I war a God-fearing 
 wife once, an' a mother 'at yearned to her babby. Mary war 
 my first an' my last, an' it seemed 'at she'd ta'en all th' love 
 I hed to gie. There war nowt but Mary i' my mind when I 
 wakened i' th' morn, an' nowt but Mary at my heart when 
 I coddled her up for th' neet. Then — tha knows th' rest ; lad, 
 can tha wonder 'at I. sent thy father to his death ? " she finished, 
 half in fury, half in pleading. 
 
 Still Lomax could not grip the full meaning of the thing. 
 He grew dreamily awake to the fact that some one was taking 
 his father's name in vain, and he knew that he must defend 
 him. 
 
 ‘‘ Father never touched your girl," he said hoarsely. “ Has 
 it taken you all these years to learn the truth ? Did you never 
 see Captain Laverack hanging round your cottage, nor see the 
 lust in his face ? Laverack it was that led her wrong ; he was 
 a friend of father's till then, and he used to stay at the Manor. 
 He left soon after — fled the country for awhile, because of 
 other things he was mixed up with — and your girl put it all on 
 father's shoulders, thinking to get help from him when the 
 child was born." 
 
 The woman on the bed was following Grifl* closely. 
 
 “ Laverack ! Laverack ! " she muttered, shutting her eyes. 
 “ Where hev I heard th' name lately ? " 
 
 “Laverack has come back to these parts and bought 
 Frender's Folly," said Griff. 
 
234 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Mother Strangeways peered across the smoke reek. 
 
 “ Come nearer, lad ; I want to see thy een — nay, Fm ower 
 far gone to try my pranks again,” she added, seeing him 
 hesitate. 
 
 He came close and she watched his eyes. 
 
 “ IsT truth thaht speaking. Griff Lummax ? ” 
 
 “ Truth ? Ay, bitter truth.” 
 
 “ I believe thee. Thowts come thranging back now ; 
 I niver thowt to pitch on Laverack, for all th' lass war busy 
 wi' his name while she lay a-child-bed. But I see it now, I see 
 it now.” She sprang up in bed and clutched him by the arm. 
 
 Griff, if tha's getten ony love for thy own mother, think on 
 me ; think what it means, lad, to lose a daughter an’ see th’ 
 man what killed her go free. Kill him. Griff ; he’s not aboon 
 three mile away this very minute, an’ there’s no snaw to stop 
 thee. Run hot an’ fast, an’ tak him by t’ throat, an’ say 
 Mother Strangeways sent ye.” 
 
 She was growing delirious now. Still Griff could not throw 
 off the full weight of his stupor. Instinctive stubbornness was 
 his only ally. 
 
 “ I won’t,” he said bluntly. 
 
 “ Tha might ha’ childer o’ thy own, lad — bonny wenches 
 ’at war biding th’ time of a gooid man’s coming ; think what it 
 means, an’ if tha’s getten ony bowels o’ compassion, help a 
 deeing woman to her rights.” 
 
 “ I won’t, curse you ! ” 
 
 Her voice grew coaxing. Death might win her, to have 
 and to hold, in a very few moments ; but meanwhile the ruling 
 passion would let her take no rest. 
 
 “ I’m reckoned poor. Griff, because I lives i’ a poor way. 
 But wend to th’ cupboard once again, an’ tha’ll find summat 
 worth heving — summat bright an’ gold, fastened up i’ a worsted 
 stocking. Tak it all, lad, if tha’ll wend to Frender’s Folly, an’ 
 do what mun be done.” 
 
 At last Griff awoke to reality. He saw it all now. This 
 woman on the bed had murdered his father; why was he 
 dallying with justice ? The hatred that had kept up Mother 
 
A TALE FROM THE HEART OF THE NIGHT. 235 
 
 Strangeways for close on five and thirty years, the quick lust 
 for vengeance that had sent Joshua Lomax to his grave — they 
 had Joshua’s son in their grasp now. He made a step towards 
 the bed, then stopped ; between him and his father’s murderess 
 sounded the death-rattle in the woman’s throat, driving him 
 back, stunning him with a sense of some power beyond his ken. 
 
 The rushlight guttered in its stand. The shadows came 
 out of their corners, and played with the ruddy glow from the 
 peats. The wind sang for rain in the chimney-stack. As any 
 frightened youngster might have done. Griff bent his head, 
 and trembled before the majesty of Death, and sobbed for the 
 littleness of his understanding. 
 
236 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE RIFT. 
 
 It was three of the morning when Griff got back to Gorsthwaite. 
 Kate heard him push the key into the lock and was down in a 
 moment. 
 
 “ Griff, where have you been ? ” 
 
 “ What ! not asleep, wifey ? It is against orders for you to 
 be up at this time of night.’' 
 
 He reached out his arms for her into the dark, and found 
 her, and stroked her tumbled hair, mutely thanking God that 
 he had time to collect himself before she could see his face. 
 
 “ I couldn’t sleep, dear. I have been so nervous about 
 everything of late, and I feared — I don’t know what.” 
 
 She cried a little then, for her nerves were highly strung 
 nowadays, and the relief from a molehill of dread was com- 
 mensurate with a mountainous terror. 
 
 “ I know, Kate, I know. I will not take such long walks 
 till you are well and strong again, and able to come with me.” 
 
 “Why are we stopping out here? You are wet through. 
 I built up a big fire in the parlour not long ago, thinking you 
 would be cold and wet when you reached home.” 
 
 His grasp tightened on her almost harshly. 
 
 “ Do you mean that you came downstairs from your bed to 
 look after my comfort?” he demanded. “ Kate, you make me 
 ashamed of myself.” 
 
 “ But I wasn’t asleep, dear, and this dressing-gown is as 
 warm as warm. Come and see what a beautiful blaze there is ; 
 I put on a heap of logs, as well as peat.” 
 
 A ruddy glow welcomed them as they went in, and lit up 
 
THE BEGINNING OF THE RIFT. 
 
 237 
 
 every wrinkle and furrow that the past night had brought into 
 Griffs face — lit up, too, the clotted patch of hair around the 
 place where Mother Strange ways had struck him with the 
 bottle. Kate, seeing this, gave a little cry. 
 
 “Where have you been?’' she repeated. “Griff, you 
 haven’t been out with the poachers again? You promised so 
 faithfully.” 
 
 “ No, wife,” he laughed, uneasily, “ I have not been poach- 
 ing. Don’t worry about it; it is only just a bruise.” 
 
 But Kate had made up her mind not to be put off. 
 
 “ You shall tell me. Do you think I’m a baby. Griff, that 
 I must needs have everything unpleasant kept from me ? ” 
 
 “You know where old Mother Strangeways’ cottage is? 
 I passed it on my way back to-night, and heard cries from 
 within. I went in and found her dying. That is why I was 
 so late in getting home. I had to slip across to Marshcotes for 
 the doctor before coming on here.” 
 
 “Yes, but the cut on your head?” persisted Kate. 
 
 “ She hated me for some reason or other, and threw a bottle 
 at me. That is all. Tut, child, the woman is dead ; it is too 
 late to tremble for what she might have done. Now, off you 
 run to bed, while I go and change these wet things. I won’t 
 waste your fine blaze, Katey, but I’ll read for an hour or so 
 and have a whisky hot.” 
 
 “ Can’t I stay with you, dear ? I don’t want to sleep a bit, 
 and ” 
 
 “ No, you can’t ! Off with you ; I’m too tired to carry you 
 upstairs by main force.” 
 
 She kissed him good night. Just as she was going Griff 
 called her back. 
 
 “ Don’t say anything about this to the mother, will you ? 
 It would only bother her.” 
 
 “ No, not a word, if you had rather I didn’t. — Mother is not 
 well. Griff ; I wish she would have the doctor.” 
 
 “She will have the doctor, Kate, when she is too weak 
 to forbid him to cross the threshold,” laughed Griff. “ Nothing 
 serious, is it ? ” 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 238 
 
 “ I don't think so. Only, she seemed rather feverish to-night 
 when she went to bed. I made her drink some black-currant 
 tea." 
 
 ‘‘ Poor old lady ! She’ll be well by morning, never fear, 
 lest you should give her another dose." 
 
 But the old lady was far from well on the morrow, and Griff 
 began to grow anxious. At the end of the day he would hear 
 of no refusal, but set off on Lassie to fetch the doctor from 
 Marshcotes. The doctor pronounced it a case of pleurisy, 
 and anticipated no great danger so far as the patient’s present 
 condition went. 
 
 “ She will get wet through, that mother of yours, and go 
 about afterwards without changing. You’re an obstinate lot, 
 you Lomaxes, and why you haven’t died out long ago as a race, 
 passes my wits." 
 
 The old doctor had known Griffs father, and he exercised 
 his privilege as a friend of the family to grumble on the slightest 
 pretext. 
 
 “ Carelessness toughens people, if they begin early enough. 
 It is coddling that sends up the death-rate," laughed Griff. 
 
 “ Nonsense ! There’s a mean in all things. Only the other 
 day I called to see a patient down in the village, and there 
 was your mother, reading away by the fire as if her clothes 
 were not filling the room with steam. She had been out for a 
 walk in the rain, she told me, and hadn’t had time to change. 
 Well, now she has time to be ill. I wish you good day, young 
 man. You’re an obstinate lot." 
 
 Mrs. Lomax weathered her illness so easily that she thought 
 lightly of it, and fumed at the ridiculous fuss they were making 
 about her convalescence. One morning she announced her 
 intention of going out; the October sun shone temptingly 
 over the heather, and there was a fresh breeze blowing. 
 
 “ Not for another week, mother," pleaded Grhf, “ you know 
 what the doctor said." 
 
 “ Fiddlesticks, Griff ! Because he’s an old woman himself, 
 he likes to think I am one, too. But I’m not. Out I go this 
 morning, to get the cobwebs blown away." 
 
THE BEGINNING OF THE RIFT. 
 
 239 
 
 Griff argued, entreated, and finally went out to the farm- 
 buildings in the rear, thinking that his mother had given up the 
 idea. Whereupon Mrs. Lomax, smiling like a truant child, 
 crept upstairs, past the room where Kate was reading away the 
 two hours’ rest enjoined on her each morning, put on her 
 bonnet and cloak, and stepped out into the moor with a rather 
 feeble imitation of her old swinging gait. She returned at the 
 end of an hour, feeling more tired than she would admit, and 
 she laughed at Griffs face of concern when she confessed to 
 her escapade. 
 
 That night she was worse, and by the morning all the old 
 symptoms had set in with renewed vigour. But she was per- 
 sistent in her assertion that going out had nothing whatever to 
 do with the relapse ; she even went so far as to hint that her 
 yesterday’s walk in the fresh air had given her a better chance 
 to grapple with the enemy. 
 
 A couple of days later Griff rode to Saxilton for one or two 
 sick-room necessaries which could not be got in Marshcotes. 
 When he returned Kate met him in the hall. Her eyes were 
 red, and her voice uncertain. 
 
 “ Mother has been asking for you ever since the doctor 
 left. Will you go up at once ? ” 
 
 “ Is she worse ? ” asked Griff, a sudden fear seizing him. 
 
 For answer she burst into tears, and Griff went sadly up the 
 stairs. The old lady stretched out her hand to him eagerly. 
 He sat down on the edge of the bed and took both hands in 
 his ; he was shocked to notice the rapid change for the worse 
 in her since he left. 
 
 “ I have wanted you. Griff. They told me you had gone 
 to Saxilton to buy me some things. You always have taken a 
 great deal of trouble on my account. But I wish you hadn’t 
 gone to Saxilton. I shall not need what you brought.” 
 
 “ It was no trouble, dear. Why do you — mother, why do 
 you speak in that tone about — not needing ? ” 
 
 “ Because I am going to die,” said the old lady, quietly. 
 
 “ Mother, mother, not that ! ” 
 
 “Yes, Griff. The doctor did not say it in so many 
 
240 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 words, but my eyes are sharp. I never did pay much atten- 
 tion to people’s words — especially a doctor’s. But I watched 
 his face when he thought I was not looking, and it said, 
 as plain as could be, ‘You will die.’ So there’s an end of 
 it. Griff.” 
 
 “ What do we care about his opinion ? Tell yourself you 
 will live, little mother ; there’s fight in you yet.” 
 
 “Very little, now. I have done ; the doctor only clinched 
 what I felt in myself — otherwise, of course, I should not have 
 believed him.” 
 
 “ Mother, you won’t die ! ’’ cried Griff, at a loss to meet this 
 quiet acceptance of the inevitable. It seemed so foreign to all 
 the sick woman’s characteristics. 
 
 She looked at him with a whimsical, half-pathetic smile. 
 “ Don’t try to fool me. Griff ; you should know how I hate it. 
 Do you think I am afraid ? ” 
 
 He made no answer, only pressed her hands a little closer 
 in his own. After a long silence she spoke again, in a soft, 
 measured voice. 
 
 “ I think people make far too much of dying, and the dread 
 of facing the Unknown. I am sorry to leave you, and I would 
 stay if any effort could keep me here ; but I fear nothing. 
 Perhaps I hope more than my life has given me any right to 
 do. I never understood religion. Griff, and I went my own 
 way through everything, and I believe I have been a very 
 selfish, bad old woman.” 
 
 “ Mother ” 
 
 “ Boy, I never would have you flatter me, and I don’t mean 
 to now. How did you find Kate ? ” 
 
 “ Well enough — quite well, dear. Don’t worry about her.” 
 
 “ She will fret about me a good deal. Be very careful of 
 her. Griff ; there are not many women in the world I should 
 admit to be worthy of you. You see what a foolish mother 
 I am.” 
 
 Griff did not understand how it came about, but his tears 
 were pouring fast on to the thin old hands. The mother ruffled 
 away the hair from his forehead, and comforted him with a 
 
THE BEGINNING OF THE RIFT. 24 1 
 
 hundred soothing gestures, laid aside long ago with the end 
 of his childhood. The dying strove to calm the living. 
 
 “ Come, dear, come. I am an old woman, and I had to 
 go some time. Don’t fret so about it. I have had a good life, 
 and you have been a good son to me, GrifF. We might almost 
 have been lovers, you and I, from the way we behaved at 
 times.” 
 
 She fell into a reverie, a little smile flitting now and then 
 across her lips as she recalled this or that pleasant memory. 
 And Griff went softly from the bedside ; he could not bear up 
 against the pathos of it all. But she heard his footfall, faint as 
 it was, and called him back. 
 
 “ Only a word, dear, and then you can leave me to sleep. 
 The end won’t be just yet, I think ; you can come back for the 
 good-bye. It is about the child. Don’t be too fearful about 
 it; don’t hedge it round with carefulness, and shut out the 
 fresh air from it. Kate will know what I mean when it comes. 
 A baby. Griff — one’s own baby — seems so wonderful, and frail, 
 and precious, till one gets used to it. You must fight that 
 down, and try to believe it will grow without being shut up in 
 a glass case.” She laughed, and her sharp old eyes fastened 
 themselves on Griff with a touch of roguishness in them. “ If 
 any one asks how I died, boy, tell them that I died as I lived 
 — trying to teach you good common sense. And — yes, tell 
 them this, too — I died glad of my life, and proud of the grand 
 old stock. You have the Lomax pride in you, marrow-deep : 
 cling to it. Griff, and pass it on to your children.” 
 
 A week later Griff stood in the wind-swept graveyard at 
 Marshcotes. A bitter, roving gale chased the fallen leaves in 
 and out among the tombstones. The parson droned his “ ashes 
 to ashes, dust to dust,” but the sexton’s scattered handful of 
 earth was forestalled by the rattle of hail upon the coffin-lid. 
 The moor would have none of man’s tawdry symbols ; it loved 
 the dead too well. 
 
 And Griff took heart from the blustering weather. As of 
 old, the heath was one with him in sympathy, and mourned, in 
 its own wild way, for the fearless woman who was gone. 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 The old doctor passed an arm through his as he turned 
 towards Gorsthwaite. 
 
 “ I will go with you, Griff, if you’ll let me. I have not seen 
 your wife to-day.” 
 
 Neither spoke till they were well out on the moor. Griff, 
 striving hard to look ahead, not backward, began to talk 
 of Kate. 
 
 “ She is not strong, doctor, and this has been a sad blow to 
 her. What are her chances ? ” 
 
 The doctor glanced at him nervously, and fumbled with the 
 buttons of his great-coat. 
 
 “ Oh, good enough, good enough ! She’ll pull through all 
 right. It’s not for a good while yet, you know, and there is 
 time to get over all this before then.” 
 
 ‘‘You sound shifty,” said Lomax, curtly ; “do you mean 
 there is danger ? ” 
 
 “ Well — we shall all of us have to be careful. She is not 
 strong — never has been since the first year of her marriage. 
 I have attended her off and on since she was a child. The 
 healthiest woman I ever saw till she married. Her weakness 
 is all owing to that brute Strangeways ; he led her a dog’s life 
 for years.” 
 
 They went on for another half-mile, till the doctor, anxious 
 to turn his companion’s attention from his troubles, struck off 
 into another topic. 
 
 “ By the way, talking of Strangeways, do you remember the 
 night, not long ago, when you knocked me up to go to Sorrow- 
 stones Spring ? Phew, it was a night, too ! I blessed you 
 pretty heartily on the way. The old hag was dead as a door- 
 nail, and she might have waited for me till the morning without 
 a touch of impatience. Joe, I fancy, is of the same breed ; he 
 has taken up his quarters in the maternal cottage.” 
 
 “ What is he doing ? ” asked Griff, more from a feeling that 
 he had to say something than from any interest in the answer. 
 
 “ What has he been doing for years past ? Drink, drink, 
 only more now than of old. He has failed in his quarry busi- 
 ness, and they say he hasn’t a penny in the world. Well, well. 
 
THE BEGINNING OF THE RIFT. 
 
 243 
 
 let him pass ; he's a fine object-lesson for those who believe 
 in the inherent worth of the animal man. Cross between a 
 gentleman-rake and a woman of the soil — a bad cross always — 
 children inherit worst of both sides. Heigho ! Here we are 
 at Gorsthwaite. Now, mind that you pull yourself well together, 
 Griff. Your wife wants no molygrubs from you, let me tell 
 you; she will manufacture enough and to spare for herself. 
 Oh, and another thing. I don't know whether you think of 
 moving into the Manor soon. You had better not, till your wife 
 is strong again. The moving would only worry her." 
 
 But old Jose Binns, milking his cows in the mistal that same 
 evening, nodded his head sagely, and a dour look was on his 
 face. 
 
 “ I said 'at there'd no gooid come on it, an' there's war i' 
 th' making. No gooid could ha' come on it, choose how a 
 mon looks at it." 
 
244 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVL 
 
 HOW THEY FOUGHT ROUND THE PEAT-RICK. 
 
 For generations past Gorsthwaite Moor had been a meeting 
 place for gamblers from the little manufacturing towns that 
 encroached on the furthest limits of the heath. Town-bred 
 they were, for the most part, stunted and sickly-bodied; they 
 spoke the uncouth, hybrid Yorkshire of the streets, not the rich 
 Doric of the moor-folk. But h^re and there you would find 
 moor-reared men among them, a poacher may be, or one of 
 the fast-dying race of moor-squireens. The police knew well 
 enough that never a fine Sunday went by without adding its 
 quota to the countless games of pitch-and-toss that had already 
 been played on the moor ; they had known it for years past, 
 but had never been able to make a successful raid. The moor 
 ran down sharply to the valley on every side, and outposts 
 stationed at the edges could command every way of access, 
 recognized or otherwise, to their open-air gambling haunt. 
 Periodically the detectives pitted their ingenuity against that of 
 the gamblers, and periodically they found, on reaching the 
 middle of Gorsthwaite Moor, an innocent company of working- 
 men, engaged in no more illegal occupation than the smoking 
 of very black clay pipes. The pickets knew their business far 
 too well to admit of surprises ; their rule was, to pass the one 
 word “stranger” to their comrades, whenever an unknown 
 figure appeared below ; no matter if the figure were that of a 
 woman or child — the word was passed along just the same, and 
 operations were suspended until the intruder had got out of 
 sight. 
 
HOW THEY FOUGHT ROUND THE PEAT-RICK. 245 
 
 Treachery among their number was the only thing they had 
 to fear, and it was a standing wonder to Griff — who made him- 
 self free of every out-of-the-way society afforded by the moors 
 — that none of them had ever sold their secret. 
 
 Joe Strange ways, whenever he was not employing his 
 Sabbath in getting most royally drunk at the Bull, was sure to 
 be found at the meetings on Gorsthwaite moor ; and on the 
 Sunday following Lomax’s fight with the preacher at the edge 
 of Whins Quarry, it fell to Joe’s lot to guard the approach to 
 the moor on the side overlooking Gorsthwaite Hall. In- 
 voluntarily his eyes took stock of his enemy’s house ; the day 
 was clear and bright, and he could see the smoke curling up 
 from the Hall chimneys, as if the mile that lay between were 
 but a few score yards. The quarryman’s heart was still sore 
 within him ; he would not let himself forget how Griff Lomax 
 had filched his wife from him ; he remembered that he had 
 sworn vengeance on him, and that his only steps in this 
 direction, up to the present, had given Lomax exactly the 
 thing he most wanted. 
 
 “ If only I warn’t so dull-witted like,” muttered Joe, ‘‘ I 
 might think o’ summat. But the beer doan’t seem to help a 
 chap, an’ my fine gen’leman ower yonder, what plays at run- 
 ning a farm an’ reckons to be fine an’ condescending to us 
 plain-natured devils, smiles i’ my face fro’ nooin to neet. I’ve 
 thowt, whiles, o’ waiting on th’ moor for him after dark, an’ 
 spoiling his pretty mug wi’ th’ heft of a good stout crowbar ; but 
 a mon hes to keep sober for that sort o’ game — an’ he’s ower 
 big, ony way ye tak him.” 
 
 He paused in the midst of his reflections to watch a black 
 dot on the landscape. The dot grew bigger, and moved in 
 a bee-line between Gorsthwaite Hall and himself. Soon he 
 could see that it was a man’s figure, and presently he recog- 
 nized Lomax. A sudden inspiration ran athwart Joe Strange- 
 ways’ muddled brain. He rammed his pipe hard into the left 
 corner of his mouth, thrust both hands deep into his pockets, 
 and gave a prolonged growl of satisfaction. Then he slouched 
 across the heather to where his companions were gaming. 
 
246 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “Well, Joe?'’ said a little man, with a red nose and ferret 
 eyes, who had the air of being in some sort a leader among 
 them. “ What art ’a coming away for now ? Tha’s not watched 
 thy time.” 
 
 “ I’ve come, Dave Jefferson, to tell ye there’s one on th’ 
 way ye’ll noan be ower glad to see,” said the quarrymaster, 
 slowly. 
 
 The pence and the halfpence disappeared like magic. An 
 air that refuted suspicion crept over the faces of all present. 
 
 “Then' why didn’t tha pass t’ word, yer lumbering fool?” 
 said the little man, whose temper was altogether dispropor- 
 tionate to his size. “ Mebbe tha’d like to go round by Thorn- 
 borough town t’ next time, an’ come to tell us an hour or two 
 after t’ magistrates have given us the straight tip for gaol ? ” 
 
 Joe squirted his tobacco-quid, with careless accuracy, at a 
 bumble-bee that was sipping the heather in front of him. 
 
 “ If tha thowt twice afore tha spoke, Dave, tha’d be a 
 likelier lad ; an’ happen tha’d be likelier still if tha never spoke 
 at all. It’s noan a stranger ’at’s coming ; it’s a chap ye think a 
 powerful deal on, some on ye.” 
 
 “An’ who may that be, Mr. Strangeways ? ” queried Jeffer- 
 son, ironically. “ Tha’rt grown mighty sharp all on a sudden ; 
 for it takes a more nor ordinary sharp feller to fool Dave 
 Jefferson.” 
 
 “ That’s as may be. It’s Griff Lummax that’s creeping, 
 sly as a fox, up th’ hillside.” 
 
 Three of the poaching set that foregathered at the Dog and 
 Grouse were on the moor that afternoon, and Jack o’ Ling 
 Crag spoke up for his absent friend. 
 
 “ If that’s all tha hes to tell us, Joe, tha mud as weel gang 
 back th’ way tha came. He’s a proper set up chap, is Mr. 
 Lummax, an’ it’s noan his breed that peaches on a mate.” 
 
 “Oh, ay, he’s a grand un!” echoed Joe, with beery 
 derision. “ He prigged my wife, he did ; an’ a man that ’ull 
 do that, ’ull do owt.” 
 
 “ He did thy wife a sarvice, anyhow. I’m thinking,” snapped 
 Will Reddiough. 
 
HOW THEY FOUGHT ROUND THE PEAT-RICK. 247 
 
 They all laughed at that, and their laughter braced up Joe's 
 wits to further effort. 
 
 “ Well, seeing's believing," he muttered. 
 
 “ Eh ? Speak out, mon, if tha’s gotten owt to say." 
 
 The little group was pressing close about him now ; the 
 sulkiness of his tones seemed to give added weight to his 
 innuendo. 
 
 “ I war passing th' Bull one neet a while back " began 
 
 Joe. 
 
 “ Nay, lad, nay," put in Jack o' Ling Crag, with a mellow 
 chuckle. “ Passings did'st say ? It's not oftens tha passes by 
 a public, Joe." 
 
 “ An' I thowt as I'd turn in for a glass o' bitter," went on the 
 quarrymaster, doggedly, not heeding the interruption. “ There 
 war no one i' th' back room, an' I stood waiting i' th' passage 
 till somebody should come to sarve me. I heard voices i' 
 th' front bar, an' I fell to listening to 'em. One war Griff 
 Lummax's, an' he war agate wi' telling all about these here 
 sprees up o' Gorsthet Moor. I crept a-tip-toe an' peeped 
 in at th' door; an' I see'd 'at t' other chap war a police 
 inspector. Well, Lummax, he said as how he hed fooiled 
 th' lot on ye, an' that it 'ud be an easy job to land ye all i' 
 quad. Is that enow for ye, or mun I wend back th' way I 
 came, an' say niver a word to this Lummax chap ? " 
 
 The poaching trio was silent, and the rest looked ominously 
 black. 
 
 “ Is this gospel truth ? " said Jefferson, at last. 
 
 “ Gospel truth, so help me God ! " Joe answered. 
 
 Griff Lomax, meanwhile, had topped the rise, and was 
 sauntering easily towards them. They watched him cross the 
 two hundred yards of heather that divided them ; they listened 
 to his cheery “ Good-day," but answered never a word. He 
 felt that there was trouble in the air. 
 
 What the deuce is the matter with you all ? Do you think 
 I'm a spy, or what ? " he laughed. 
 
 That emphasizing of what lay uppermost in the mind of 
 each was an unlucky move for Griff. 
 
248 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 ‘‘ Mebbe that’s about the size of it,” growled Jefferson. 
 
 Lomax paused awhile. Then — 
 
 “ What’s all this nonsense about ? ” he demanded sharply. 
 
 Jefferson, in his turn, halted before speaking. 
 
 “Joe Strangeways slipped into t’ Bull, Mr. Lomax, a neet 
 or two back, without your hearing him. Ye’d best hearken 
 to what he has to say.” 
 
 “ I will. Speak up, Strangeways.” 
 
 Joe shifted under his enemy’s steady gaze. Then, with his 
 eyes on the ground, he repeated his story. Every one watched 
 Griff’s face. 
 
 “ Well,” said Jefferson, “what have ye to say to yon?” 
 
 “ Say ? That it is a damned lie ! ” retorted Lomax, coolly. 
 
 “ Are ye for denying that t’ inspector chap war wi’ ye in 
 t' Bull that night ? ” 
 
 “ He was.” 
 
 The three poachers crept a little apart ; they were loth to 
 hear young Lomax condemn himself so openly. 
 
 “ Then what have ye to say for yourseln ? ” 
 
 Griff, once he was roused, was stubborn as a mule. He 
 kicked against little Jefferson’s domineering tone, and he 
 resented the facile way in which these comrades of his had 
 given their verdict against him at a word from a man like 
 Strangeways. 
 
 “ Nothing ; I’ve nothing to say,” he repeated. “ There’s 
 plenty that I could say, but nothing that I will ; so put that in 
 your pipe, Dave Jefferson, and smoke it till you’re sick.” 
 
 A low murmur rose from the company — only the poachers 
 were silent. 
 
 “ That means fighting, I fancy,” said Lomax, after another 
 long pause. “ There are twenty-two of you, so far as I can 
 count, and that’s rather long odds. But it happens that you 
 have three sound men amongst you.” He stopped to look the 
 three poachers square between the eyes. “You, Will Red- 
 diough — and you. Jack o’ Ling Crag — and you, Ned Kershaw 
 — you’ll all take an honest man’s word against a cur’s like 
 Strangeways here. Have I dealt fair by you in the past ? ” 
 
HOW THEY FOUGHT ROUND THE PEAT-RICR. 249 
 
 Those three purloiners of their neighbours’ game warmed 
 to the man’s pluck. 
 
 ‘‘ Ay, that ye hev, Mr. Lummax.” 
 
 “ I tell you this is all a lie, and I’ll prove it when we’ve had 
 a taste of good hard blows. Come over here, you three, and 
 we’ll fight the lot of them. They’re a weakly crew at best, and 
 they ought never to show themselves on a moor.” 
 
 They hung irresolute for a second or two. Then their love 
 of Griff, right or wrong, their instinctive response to his appeal 
 against town-bred folk, above all, their zest for adventure, settled 
 the question. They crossed to Griff’s side, and the nineteen 
 gamesters felt slightly less eager for the fray than they had been 
 a moment ago. Lomax took advantage of their hesitation to 
 throw a rapid glance about him : he saw, not ten yards on his 
 left, the peat-rick which he had built up a few days ago, and 
 which his farm-man was to cart away at the end of the week ; 
 and he framed his plan of action on the spot. 
 
 Come with me,” he cried. “ You have sticks, all of you; 
 so have I. Take a side a-piece of that peat-rick, and I’ll look 
 after the front. And hit hard : we have our work cut out.” 
 
 The hesitation in the enemy’s camp was over. No sooner 
 had Griff and his three allies set their backs to the peats, than 
 they were in the thick of it. Most of the nineteen had sticks, and 
 the rest came on with their fists, trusting to run in under guard. 
 
 Thwack^ thwacky thwack sounded Griff’s heart-of-oak on 
 three separate skulls, and he was left free for a breathing space. 
 
 “How goes it behind?” he called, with a laugh that had 
 the true fighting ring in it. 
 
 “ Fine, sir, fine,” answered Will Reddiough, in between 
 two resounding blows ; and “ Beautiful ! ” cried Jack o’ Ling 
 Crag, with his big mouth all a-grin and his crisp grey hair on 
 end with excitement. 
 
 Sixteen of the attacking party fell back in disorder; the 
 other three were left on the ground as a barricade for Lomax. 
 A second wild rush, in the middle of which Griff could make 
 out the master-quarryman’s square-set figure, and a naked knife- 
 blade in his hairy red hands. Strange ways jumped with a yell 
 
250 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 on the three prostrate bodies, and his blade caught a dancing 
 sun-shaft as he drew it back to strike. Quick almost as the 
 sun-shaft itself, Griff's stick went out, and took the knife, and 
 whirled it high up in the air. The stick made another circuit, 
 and the barricade was increased to the number of four. But it 
 was his last stroke. Jefferson, close behind Joe Strange ways, 
 took Griff neatly between the eyes, and down he went like a 
 log on top of the other four. A wild yell came from those 
 in Jefferson's rear, but Will Reddiough and the rest had their 
 hands too full to be able to glance behind them. Strangeways 
 grunted a curse, and picked up himself and his knife from the 
 heather. 
 
 “ By Hell, I'll settle accounts between us ! " he muttered. 
 
 Gabriel Hirst felt his sins weigh heavily on him that after- 
 noon. He had gone up the stream-side to the miller's, but 
 had turned before coming in sight of the house. The deep 
 hollow of the sky seemed, as of old, to be full of God's ven- 
 geance : as of old, the vengeance was all for him — for him, the 
 chiefest of sinners. He had striven to murder his friend ; save 
 for that accident of the tree, he was at this moment a murderer ; 
 how dare he draw near to Greta — beautiful Greta, warm, human, 
 all-sufficing — with the brand of Cain on his brow ? He cursed 
 himself for ever telling his love. He turned every single act, 
 every thought and desire of his life, into blackest sins, with all 
 his old-time ingenuity. He saw — physically saw — a Devil with 
 flaming eyes, who stood in his path and mocked him on to the 
 wrestling for which his arms were no longer strong. He leaped 
 up the hillside, with the pauseless spring of the hunted, and 
 went out on the moors to pay his full tribute of remorse. For 
 Gabriel Hirst was a man who could be well trusted to ensure 
 his own punishment. 
 
 “ ‘ Behold, I was shapen in wickedness : and in sin hath my 
 mother conceived me,' " he wailed at last. 
 
 He had travelled far across the moor, and his strength was 
 spent, and the tears were running apace down his hollowed 
 cheeks. 
 
HOW THEY FOUGHT ROUND THE PEAT-RICK. 2^1 
 
 The sound of shouting came from near at hand. He lifted 
 his face, that showed pitiful as a child’s, and looked across the 
 gorse. He saw four men with their backs to a peat-rick, and a 
 crowd of others rushing to the attack. He heard the rattle of 
 sticks, and a clear, wild laugh that could come from none but 
 Griff. The childishness smoothed itself out of his face, and 
 his mouth grew firm. He forgot that he was a miserable sinner, 
 forgot that he had been like to drop with weariness, forgot 
 everything in earth or sky, except the rain of body-blows. The 
 old moor-blood, swift and hot, was awakened j not for nothing 
 had his forebears, like Griff’s own, been reared through long 
 centuries on the peaty uplands. He ran towards the peat-rick, 
 and as he ran he found time to think that now he could wipe 
 out that blood-stain once for all : Griff Lomax, his friend, was 
 fighting against odds up there, and he would save him. 
 Another flash, and he saw that God had given him one more 
 clear chance, that the Almighty had stooped to work directly 
 on his behalf. So, with a jumble of sheer fighting instinct, a 
 sense of God’s personal intervention, and an itch for the squaring 
 of accounts, he rushed into the thick of it ; but the moor instinct 
 was uppermost. 
 
 Strangeways had his knife a shade too close to his enemy’s 
 heart, and Griff could not move a muscle to defend himself. 
 But Strangeways got no further : he felt a pair of big, vice-like 
 hands at his throat, and he thought his time was come. The 
 preacher flung him back, half strangled, and picked up a stick 
 lying at his feet, and laid about him merrily. They fell like 
 acorns in a gale, till Gabriel Hirst shouted to Reddiough and 
 the rest to leave their peat-rick. They rushed forward elbow to 
 elbow, and those who were left of the nineteen broke and fled, 
 crying for quarter. Then Gabriel Hirst cried, “ Stop ! ” And 
 the three poachers and the one man of God looked into each 
 other’s faces, and gripped each other’s hands, and went to see 
 what was amiss with their fallen comrade. 
 
 Lomax was sitting up on his elbow by this time. 
 
 “ What is it, old fellow ? ” asked the preacher, fondling his 
 hand in a silly, motherly way. 
 
^ 5 ^ 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ A bit dazed — nothing at all — have we licked the beggars ? ” 
 Licked 'em all to fits, sir ; an' a grand fight it war," spoke 
 up Will Reddiough. 
 
 GrifF laughed at that, and got on to his feet. His victims 
 had, one by one, done the same ; for GrifF's blows were hard, 
 but their skulls were harder still. Then, after awhile, the 
 defeated band came slinking back in twos and threes, and 
 Lomax leaned against the peat-rick while he said his say. 
 
 “ I have something to tell you now. First of all, my best 
 thanks for as merry a picnic as I am likely to have for many a 
 long day to come. You're not a bad lot, take you all in all, but 
 you can't make up your minds quick enough, and you get hit 
 while you're thinking. Next, Joe Strange ways — he's not here, 
 by the way — Joe Strangeways was quite right about my being 
 in the Bull with the stranger, and I've no doubt he listened at 
 the keyhole. The stranger had got a notion into his head that 
 I knew a good deal about these pleasant Sunday afternoons 
 on the moor, and he came to Marshcotes expressly to pump 
 me. Well, I told him a lot — but it was all wrong, every word 
 of it. I put him as far ofF the track as I could, and I set him 
 homewards with a glass of good Scotch whisky inside him. 
 Now, do you believe me, or don't you ? " 
 
{ 253 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE RIFT GAPES WIDE. 
 
 January was here, and the frost had long ago set a sharp finger 
 and thumb on the world. The grouse were visibly tamer than 
 they had been a week ago ; the peewits came nearer to farm- 
 steads at the lowest point of their wheeling flight ; the smaller 
 feathered fry looked more than ever like desolate waifs and 
 strays, as they fluttered from patch to frozen patch, above the 
 whitened heather. So keen was the air that at Gorsthwaite 
 could be heard the busy clatter of the quarry which hugged the 
 Ling Crag end of Marshcotes Moor. 
 
 At eleven of a Wednesday morning, Griff was being soundly 
 rated by his wife’s nurse, a slim little energetic body who had 
 seen to the bringing of too many infants into the world to feel 
 much reverence for useless males. 
 
 “ Mr. Lomax, I wish you’d go somewhere out-of-doors and 
 stay there, that I do. Here you be, upstairs and down ; now 
 listening at the door, and popping out at me like a firebrand 
 whenever I leave her room, to ask if there’s any change for the 
 worse ; now tramping about the floor downstairs, till a body 
 would think you’d fair set your mind on making the most noise 
 you could.” 
 
 “ I — I didn’t know you could hear me,” said Griff, meekly. 
 “ I took my boots off, but the boards are all old and crazy. I 
 must sit down, I suppose.” 
 
 “ Sit down? Nay, that you never will ! As well ask you 
 to sit on a hornet’s nest as a chair, in your present feckless 
 state. The only chance for us is to bundle you out-of-doors. 
 I’d do it myself if I was a bit bigger. Dear, dear ! it’s a puzzle 
 
254 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 to me to know how the first man could grow a rib decent 
 enough to make a woman out of. Such poor, shiftless mortals 
 as you are — cannot sit still a minute — unless there happens to 
 be real work for you to do 
 
 ‘‘ ril put on my hat, I think,” murmured GrifF, swept to- 
 wards the door by the speed of the little woman's utterances. 
 
 When he got out-of-doors, and had time to collect his 
 thoughts, he remembered that Gabriel Hirst was to be married 
 that morning. He had been anxious to put in an appearance 
 and give his friend a good handshake at the chapel door, but 
 Kate's illness had driven the matter clean out of his mind. 
 He set off now by the short cut to Ling Crag, past Smithbank 
 and the foot of Hazel Dene. 
 
 The village was all astir, and he found the little chapel full 
 to the doors when he reached it. They made way for him in- 
 stinctively, partly from sympathy with his recent trouble, partly 
 through a feeling that the preacher's best friend ought not to 
 have to stand outside the door while his marriage-service was 
 being read. The ceremony was half through when GrifF finally 
 squeezed himself into a corner at the back of the chapel. A 
 flood of confused thoughts came to him, dizzying his brain — 
 remembrance of the time when he had stood at the altar with 
 Kate — his mother's death — the ever-present anxiety about his 
 wife. 
 
 It was over at last. GrifF hurried forward, and took a hand 
 of each as they came out on to the prim little pavement of the 
 chapel graveyard. 
 
 “ Good luck to you both,'' he murmured. 
 
 “ We owe it to you a good deal, I fancy,” said Greta, with 
 pretty friendliness. 
 
 “ That we do ! ” cried the preacher. “ If it hadn't been for 
 the quarrel, GrifF, I should never have found heart to ask 
 Greta to marry me. And if it hadn't been for the fight round 
 the peat-stack, I should never have known what it was to feel 
 the use of my arms. Man, it was worth living for, that fight ! ” 
 
 “ That is not nice of you, Gabriel,” laughed the girl, softly ; 
 “ you have something more important to live for now.” 
 
THE RIFT GAPES WIDE. 255 
 
 But it was clear that she was far from disapproving of this 
 new phase in her husband's character. 
 
 “ We shall make a Pagan of you yet, old fellow. Good-bye, 
 good-bye." And Griff, with many final handshakes, was off 
 across the moor to Gorsthwaite, running hard in his anxiety 
 to hear the latest news of Kate. 
 
 The doctor was coming down the stairs as Griff opened the 
 front door. 
 
 “ Well ? " he cried, forgetting altogether, in his eagerness, to 
 regulate his voice properly. 
 
 The old doctor had been present at such scenes often 
 enough, but he had never felt an equal desire to turn tail and 
 give necessity the slip. He took out his handkerchief and blew 
 his nose ; then he fidgeted with the buttons of his rough tweed 
 coat — thinking all the while that it would have been a trifle 
 easier in the telling if he had had the pluck to give Griff a 
 plainer hint months ago. Finally, he looked up with a kind of 
 desperation in his eyes. 
 
 “Your wife is dead," he answered, in a harsh, grating 
 voice. 
 
 Griff put his hand to his forehead and stood there for a 
 moment ; the blood rushed to his face, and ebbed away again, 
 as quickly as if some one had struck him. 
 
 “ Wait a moment, doctor," he said, after a while ; “ do you 
 know just what that means? You ought to be very sure " 
 
 “ She is dead. Griff ; Pm not going to lie to you." 
 
 Not a word said Griff, but set his feet on the stairs, and 
 began to mount them slowly. The doctor followed, put a hand 
 on his shoulder, and led him down again to the hall. 
 
 “ Not just yet, lad. When people die in great pain, it is not 
 good to — can you understand me ? — I want you to say good- 
 bye to a calm face. Griff." 
 
 “Yes, yes. She was very beautiful, doctor, wasn't she? 
 Too beautiful, I fancy ; I should have reckoned on that." 
 
 His dull, passionless voice jarred on the old man terribly. 
 
 “See, lad, you must pull yourself together. The child is 
 alive ; keep up heart for the bairn's sake." 
 
256 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 “ The child ? What do I want with the child ? It is Kate 
 I want.” 
 
 “ A boy, too — you always wanted a boy, you know,” went 
 on the other, not heeding Griffs fretful interruption. 
 
 The door stood open, and Griff, looking out across the 
 moor, saw the crimson sun sinking into a grey bank of haze. 
 
 “ We shall have snow to-night,” he said, and glanced at the 
 doctor as if prepared to meet dissent with argument. 
 
 ‘‘Yes, I fancy we shall — a heavy fall, too.” 
 
 Griff straightened his shoulders presently, and held out his 
 hand. 
 
 “ You’ve done your best, doctor, and I thank you for it. I 
 can’t get used to the idea just at once ; perhaps — if you left me 
 to think it out a bit — I might get the hang of things better.” 
 
 “ God forgive me ! ” muttered the doctor, as he went out ; 
 “ it is only staving off utter hopelessness for the lad. The child 
 is as good as dead ; it may live a day or two — a week, perhaps 
 — it would have been better if it had never lived at all. Lord, 
 Lord, what a mess life makes of itself ! ” 
 
 Without, Gorsthwaite showed itself in touch with the black 
 weather. A sullen frost had hold of the land, and the stained 
 old walls answered the sky with frown for frown. The plover 
 wheeled ceaselessly about the chimney-stacks, and the voice of 
 the damned rang dryly through their sable throats. 
 
 Within, the rooms were darkened, and the oaken panels 
 creaked at the burden of their own sad thoughts. The mistress 
 had been taken to her rest, and the master was battling for his 
 reason, with a face that aped the stones which shut him in. 
 All that he had in him of dogged resistance was pushing its 
 way to the front : one blow had followed another, and the end, 
 perhaps, was not yet — but he would fight till his own end came. 
 
 He got up from the bed where she had died, and moved 
 stiffly up and down the room. He thought of the child, and 
 forced himself to recall, one by one, the goodly plans he had 
 framed for him. Yes, he should grow up strong — a Lomax to 
 the backbone — he should take his fill of life, and help his father 
 
THE RIFT GAPES WIDE. 
 
 257 
 
 to live again in watching him. Steady ! The boy would have 
 need of his father, as his father had of him : there must be no 
 knuckling under to circumstance now. 
 
 On a sudden the child began to cry most piteously, disturb- 
 ing his father's gaining resolution. Griffs thoughts wandered 
 out again to that ice-bound moorland graveyard, where Kate 
 was lying in the cold. It was surely a monstrous unfairness 
 that she had died to give the boy his taste of life — that she 
 must evermore lie naked and friendless, while he would some 
 day eat and drink in the lusty fulness of his manhood. 
 
 But where did such thoughts carry him ? Into the tangled 
 places of shade, where neither hope nor light could show them- 
 selves. He fought them back, time after time, and slowly won 
 his way to calm. By sheer strength of will he set his baby on 
 the heights where its mother had had her dwelling, and fell 
 down and worshipped the rising dawn now that the older day 
 had set. 
 
 And all the while, the child within sent up its piteous cries. 
 And all the while, the plovers, wheeling round the chimney- 
 stacks, ceased not to wail, and screech, and whimper. And 
 night settled dumbly over the silent heather places. 
 
 s 
 
258 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS, 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 JANET. 
 
 They talk yet of that winter in Marshcotes parish. Some 
 recall it for its twelve weeks of frost, others for the depth of 
 snow that covered all but the tallest tombstones in the cemetery 
 for a week and a day ; but one and all remember the bitter 
 night that heralded the storm, because of a deed which the 
 snow did its best to hide. 
 
 At four of the afternoon the sun went down behind 
 the surly spur of moor that guarded the western side of 
 Frender’s Folly. A black frost had made iron of the marshy 
 ground, and glass of the sullen lake. All was bitter and dark, 
 and the Folly walls seemed one with the gloom about them. 
 The sky was a dead, expressionless grey. Then, on a sudden, 
 yellowish banks of cloud crept up from the moor-edge, as 
 though puffed by a noiseless wind. The grouse ceased their 
 complaining, the curlews dropped earthward. One by one 
 the snowflakes floated out of the cheerless sky, like tears 
 from a frozen heart; one by one they clung to the heather 
 sprays, blackening their murky green by contrast, or nestled in 
 he clefts of their stalks. And every flake might have bee na 
 ghost, so subtle and lonely and sad was its wandering fall. 
 White of snow, black of night — there was nothing over all the 
 moor but these. 
 
 The guests at the Folly, while they were dressing for 
 dinner, peeped out from under their blinds and saw the snow- 
 flakes silting against the window-panes. They shrugged their 
 shoulders at the lunacy that had brought them here in winter 
 weather, and went downstairs resolved to make the best of a 
 
JANET. 
 
 259 
 
 bad business. Laverack, feeling that he would have much to 
 answer for if the snow should fasten them up in the house, 
 exerted himself to keep the ball rolling. Laughter and 
 jest increased apace, till Janet, facing her father from the 
 opposite end of the table, thought she must surely go mad. 
 Her mind was made up, and she feared lest the storm should 
 render it impossible to cross the moor that night — feared lest 
 some cause from within should detain her — feared, finally, lest 
 the dinner should never end. 
 
 When they had gained the drawing-room, and the men 
 below had grown noisily insistent on their freedom, Janet 
 slipped to the side of the lady-companion who helped her to 
 do the honours of the house. 
 
 “ Look after these people, will you ? ” she said. “ I have 
 an atrocious headache, and I can’t bear their foolishness.” 
 
 “ Really, my dear, you sound quite vindictive. I am sorry 
 you are so unwell ; shall I send your maid up with some tea ? ” 
 
 “ Please don’t. I would rather be left alone till to-morrow ; 
 talk and fuss jar on me so when I am like this. You will 
 explain to every one ? I mean to slip away quietly.” 
 
 A moment later she was speeding along the corridor that 
 led to her bedroom. She panted with excitement, with dread 
 of frustration at this eleventh hour ; but her mouth was firm, 
 and her eyes resolute. 
 
 “ What it is to have to lie ! I hate it,” she muttered. 
 “ Only, I had to. What will Leo say, even if I do reach him 
 safely ? ” she added, with a disturbed wrinkling of her forehead. 
 
 She put on a cloak, and drew the pretty frilled hood over 
 her head ; then waited till she heard the men come up, and 
 the drawing-room door close on the last of them. She went 
 softly out by the side door, cutting short the growl of a chained- 
 up mastiff by telling him who she was. Then across the 
 whitened lawn, and up the rise till the open moor was gained 
 — a slender, girlish figure, flitting shadow-like amongst the silent 
 flakes. Her heart failed her as she reached the top ; she 
 seemed to be the sport of the storm-elves, and there was no 
 living thing to help her to battle with the loneliness. She tried 
 
26 o 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 to sing, that so she might trick herself into the thought that 
 she had company ; but her voice was the voice of one crying 
 in the wilderness, and it sank affrighted by its own power to 
 people the stillness with re-echoing cries. Her knees shook 
 under her, and the bridle track showed dimly — more dimly, it 
 seemed, with each succeeding step. Not till now had she 
 understood what was meant by her foolhardy resolve to cross 
 the five miles of desolation that lay between herself and 
 Wynyates. 
 
 At the end of a mile, just after she had turned into the cart- 
 road that ran past Lawfoot Water, she clashed against some one 
 walking in the opposite direction. 
 
 ‘‘ Beg pardon,” said a gruff voice. I didn't fancy there'd 
 be more nor one fooil abroad to-neet.” 
 
 At any other time the girl would have been frightened out 
 of her senses ; but the voice rang honest, and any human com- 
 pany was better than that awful silence which had gone before. 
 
 ‘‘ Stay ! ” she cried, as the stranger was about to pass on. 
 ‘‘ Where are you going? ” 
 
 The man slewed round on his heels and began to make a 
 queer cackling noise in his throat, suggestive of sour merriment. 
 
 ‘‘ To which I'd answer, Who the devil may ye be, an' what 
 is 't to ye where I'm wending? Ye've a lass's voice, an' a snod 
 sort of a figure, what I can see on 't — but it beats me to know 
 what ye're after, scapipering across th' moor at this time of a 
 wild neet.'' 
 
 “ I want to get to Wynyates, and you are going to show 
 me the way.” 
 
 Janet, fearless now, had come close up to her companion, 
 and rested a hand on his sleeve. 
 
 “ Begow, tha'rt a cool un ! ” he muttered, half admiringly. 
 “ But I can't do 't ; there's a wife an' three waiting at home, 
 an' I mun put th' best foot forrard to reach 'em come ten 
 o'clock.” 
 
 “ I must cross to Wynyates, I tell you, and I'm afraid of 
 losing my way if I go alone. Can you find it with snow on the 
 ground ? ” 
 
JANET. 
 
 261 
 
 “ Well, I reckon I can. IVe known it, man an^ boy, thes e 
 forty year.'’ 
 
 “ If money will persuade you, you can take my purse and 
 welcome. I don’t know how much there is in it, but if it isn’t 
 enough ” 
 
 “ I don’t want your money,” growled the man. “ I niver 
 said a word to lead ye to think I wanted that.” 
 
 “ Then you won’t come ? ” she said impatiently. 
 
 He shuffled from one foot to another, continued his growls 
 in an undertone, and finally started off in the direction of 
 Wynyates. 
 
 “ Ay, I’ll come. Ye may be up to no godliness, but ye’ve 
 got some sperrit in ye — an’ that’s saying a deal for a woman. 
 Come on.” 
 
 As Captain Laverack was playing whist in the drawing- 
 room, and inwardly reviling his partner’s experimental style 
 of play, the butler came behind his chair and asked for a 
 word with him. 
 
 “All right, Denman; it will wait till we’ve finished our 
 rubber, I suppose ? ” 
 
 “ It will wait, sir, but ” 
 
 Laverack saw from the man’s air that the matter was a 
 grave one, and rose from the table as soon as the hand was 
 played, leaving his place to a youngster who had been much 
 more pleasantly employed at the piano. 
 
 “Well?” he demanded, standing just outside the door, 
 which he had closed behind him. 
 
 “ It’s about Miss Laverack, sir. She is not in her room, 
 nor anywhere else in the house, that we can find. Mrs. Rigby, 
 sir, was looking out of doors an hour or so ago, and she saw a 
 figure in a cloak go past Sultan’s kennel.” 
 
 Laverack wiped his forehead. 
 
 “ Yes, yes ; go on,” he said irritably. “ Why didn’t you tell 
 me before ? ” 
 
 “ I’ve only just heard it, sir ; and Mrs. Rigby didn’t like to 
 come and tell you, seeing that the figure was come and gone 
 
262 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 so quick that she had scarcely time to make sure of it. It was 
 snowing, too, at the time.’' 
 
 “ Did she recognize Miss Laverack ? ” 
 
 “ It was about her height and figure. Besides, she stopped 
 and patted Sultan, and he left off growling at once. It must 
 have been Miss Laverack, sir.” 
 
 Laverack began to pace up and down the long corridor, 
 talking to himself in his quick, nervous way. ‘‘ I can’t raise the 
 alarm, because that would give the confounded girl away to 
 every guest in the house. Oh, damn it, why didn’t I do as I 
 intended to do at first, and leave here a week ago ? It would 
 have meant putting off the house-party, but anything would 
 have been better. Where does this fellow Roddick live? 
 Wynyates, isn’t it ? Five miles away, they tell me. She is sure 
 to have gone there. Well, I must get on to a horse, I suppose, 
 and follow as fast as I can : it will be all up with Janet if I 
 don’t bring her back to-night.” 
 
 He came opposite Denman again, and the butler coughed 
 apologetically — 
 
 “ Have you any orders for me, sir ? ” 
 
 “Orders? Yes; have the bay saddled, and waiting at the 
 end of the drive in ten minutes. Not a word of this, Denman, 
 to any one.” 
 
 It was not very long since Rigby, whose fears on the point 
 may be remembered, had been constrained to tell his wife of 
 the disinterested part he was playing as messenger between 
 Miss Laverack and Mr. Roddick of Wynyates. And Mrs. 
 Rigby, though pledged to absolute secrecy by all she held 
 sacred in the world, had nevertheless been unable to refrain 
 from repeating the story, in confidence, to her friend the cook. 
 From the cook it had travelled round, still strictly in confidence, 
 to the ears of Denman, the butler ; and Denman, having lately 
 endangered his comfortable post here by a rather glaring mis- 
 demeanour, promptly repeated what he had heard to his 
 master, hoping by this means to re-establish his shaken credit. 
 Laverack, being a man who was not over-nice in his own 
 methods, credited his keeper with like principles ; and his 
 
JANET. 
 
 263 
 
 certainty that Rigby would spread the tale far and near, if 
 dismissed, was his sole reason for keeping man and wife in 
 his employ. Poor Rigby, whose only faults were an inordinate 
 love of mystery and a tendency to give others the benefit of 
 his experiences, had been almost heart-broken when he learned 
 that it was all over with the meetings between Roddick and 
 Janet. Laverack had stormed and raved, and had with diffi- 
 culty been persuaded to stay at the Folly till the invited guests 
 should have come and gone. Even as it was, Janet was never 
 sure from day to day that he would not get rid of everyone on 
 some excuse of sickness or bereavement ; and she resolved to 
 bring matters to a crisis before she was again dragged away 
 from Roddick. 
 
 “ By Gad, what a night ! ” muttered Laverack, as he went 
 quietly out of the house and crossed to the bend of the drive 
 where his horse was waiting for him. “Why Heaven gives 
 a man daughters. Heaven only knows. I shall be wet to the 
 skin before I get back. Cranshaw first, if that knave Rigby 
 told me right, and after that I must ask the way.’^ 
 
264 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 WHAT THE SNOWFLAKES FELL UPON. 
 
 At four of the same afternoon, while the sun was setting redly 
 into the snow-banks, Griff Lomax sat in the parlour of Gors- 
 thwaite, with his child’s dead body on his knees. The grate was 
 fireless, and the failing twilight left all but the table and a chair 
 near the window in darkness. The two maid-servants, and 
 Simeon, the farm-man, moved uneasily about the kitchen, and 
 asked one another in muffled tones how it was likely to fare 
 with the master. Early that morning the child had followed its 
 mother, and Griff, alone here in the parlour, was dumbly kicking 
 against the pricks. One after another, all that he had in the 
 world had gone into that shadowy Beyond of which he had 
 neither fear nor hope. On his knees lay the refutation of all 
 the dreams he had cherished, the plans he had framed, for the 
 future of another Lomax who should carry down the name, who 
 should add one more to the list of moor-men that had thriven 
 under the old Manor roof. From time to time he stroked the 
 little cold body with his own cold hands, and laughed softly to 
 himself: it seemed a hideous jest that this scrap of tissue, which 
 would soon be worse than the earth that covered it, should have 
 caused such fantasies. It was to have grown to a lusty manhood, 
 and fought and loved and hated — and now — and now — 
 
 Such utter vacuum, of mind and purpose, could not go on. 
 No man, with strength at his command, can see life for long as 
 an empty mirror of his own emptiness. Something must be 
 done, was the thought that flashed into Griffs mind. He got 
 up from his chair and laid the body on it ; then walked slowly 
 
WHAT THE SNOWFLAKES FELL UPON. 265 
 
 up and down the darkened room, striking against the furniture, 
 and feeling vaguely glad of the smarts. 
 
 A cry broke from him. Round and round his brain, in a 
 dizzy, never-ending circle, ran those words of the doctor’s — 
 
 It is all owing to that brute Strangeways ; he led her a do^s 
 life for years. 
 
 The frightened servants, listening by the kitchen fire, heard 
 the door of the parlour open with a clash. The master went 
 heavily down the passage and out at the front door. There 
 was work for him yet in the world. 
 
 “ Poor lad ! ” murmured the cook, who was older than her 
 master, and eager to mother him with her phrases. “ Poor lad, 
 it fair goes to a body’s heart to see th’ way he’s taking on.” 
 
 “ He war bad enow when th’ missus died ; but it’s nowt to 
 what’s ta’en him since,” said the housemaid, with a tug at her 
 apron-corner. 
 
 “ We’ve getten to dee, all on us. He mun grin an’ bear it, 
 same as other fowk do.” But there was a huskiness in Simeon’s 
 voice that belied his avowed philosophical outlook on the 
 tragedy. 
 
 One thought only held Griff — that he must find his enemy 
 and exact an eye for an eye, a death for a death. Not a hint 
 of carrying out a moral law, of ensuring justice where the law 
 was powerless to demand it, lay at the bottom of his mind. 
 Such weak shifts for the excusing of his deed were foreign to 
 all Griff’s ways : the splendid vengefulness of the savage was on 
 him now, unspotted by weakness or self-questioning. 
 
 Instinct drove him back to the stables after he had traversed 
 half a mile of the moor : he might have far to go in search of 
 his quarry, and a horse would serve him better. The roads 
 were bad enough for riding, but Lassie was well-sharpened 
 against the frost, and she was sure-footed. At any rate, his 
 neck mattered little, so long as he could reach Joe Strangeways 
 before it was broken. 
 
 Off they went, he and Lassie, through the thickening snow 
 to Sorrowstones Spring, where Strangeways had come to live 
 since the old witch’s death. Griff leaped from the mare’s back 
 
266 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 and ran to the door. It was locked, and no trace of light 
 showed through the unshuttered window on the left. He 
 kicked at the door till the bottom panels gave way ; then crept 
 through the opening. But the cottage was empty. 
 
 “ Where shall we go next, old girl ? ” he cried, with a hoarse 
 laugh, as Lassie turned her head at his approach. 
 
 But Lassie had no counsel to give, and his eyes went up to 
 the line of sentinel stoups : the white under-part could not be 
 seen, and each blackened tip seemed to hang, self-supported, 
 in mid air. Vague echoes of a sorrow spent long ago came to 
 Griff : the stoups seemed to speak to him in some sad, far-off 
 way. Perhaps they pointed the road he should go — at least 
 he might try a mile or two of it, and gallop an inspiration into 
 his musty brain. A Marshcotes man, trudging lumpily down 
 the hill, stopped in amazement as horse and rider clattered 
 past him. 
 
 “ Griff Lummax, I’ll warrant, though it’s ower dark to be 
 sartin sure. What’s agate wi’ th’ lad, ony way ? ” he muttered. 
 
 Griff turned as soon as he gained the top of the hill. What 
 fool’s errand was this — riding straight to Ludworth, when the 
 man he sought was to be found either in Cranshaw or Marsh- 
 cotes? He must go first to Cranshaw, straight down the 
 highroad, and search the inns there; then to Marshcotes; 
 and, if that failed, he would look in at Jack o’ Ling Crag’s 
 hostelry. 
 
 Joe Strangeways, meanwhile, was drinking in the bar of the 
 Bull at Marshcotes. He had failed in his quarry-business since 
 his wife left him, and he laid the blame of this on Griff. If, 
 he reasoned, he had not been robbed of his one inducement to 
 keep sober, he would have gone less on the drink ; and if he 
 had gone less on the drink, then he would have kept his 
 quarries. He forgot how little influence of any kind Kate 
 had had over him ; he grew to believe that she had been the 
 pole-star of his life, and he thought with lachrymose tenderness 
 of the cosy hearth that had once tempted him away from the 
 Bull. And now here he was, spending his last half-crown in 
 the beer that had leagued with Griff Lomax to ruin him. 
 
WHAT THE SNOWFLAKES FELL UPON. 267 
 
 “ Has tha heard o' young Lummax's trouble ? ” some one 
 dropped to his neighbour. 
 
 “ Ay ; an' they say th' bairn is nobbut weakly like, an' 
 noan like to live. It's been a sorry winter for young Lummax, 
 that it hes." 
 
 “A sorry winter? " flashed Joe from his corner. “ It’ll be 
 a sorrier afore I've done wi' him." 
 
 “ We've heard a like tale afore now, Joe. Happen tha's 
 getten to think there's summat in it, same as a cock makes fine 
 sense out on his crowing when he's been at it a bit." 
 
 “ Thee bide, lad, thee nobbut bide." 
 
 “ We hev bided — a seet o' months \ an' nowt has come on 't 
 yet, as I can see on." 
 
 “ Tha's getten thy chance, if tha wants it," chimed in another. 
 “ I war coming ower th' Ludworth road a while back, an' just 
 by Sorrowstones Spring a horse comes racketting by me. It 
 war main dark, save for a kind o' glint on th' snaw, but I knew 
 who th' rider war : he war tearing along fair as if owd Nick 
 hed hold on his coat-tails, an' there's none hereabouts, saving 
 Griff Lummax, what flies about at that food's pace. He war 
 off to Ludworth, likely, an' tha'll be i' nice time to meet him 
 as he comes back." 
 
 Joe looked savagely from one to another. 
 
 “Ye think yourselns a fearful clever lot, doan't ye? I'll 
 show ye — ay, th' whole damned lot on ye — whether I'm talking 
 straight or no. Gie us a crowbar, i'stead o' sitting there like 
 grinning gawks, an' let me be off about my business." 
 
 A shout of laughter went up as one of the company dived 
 into his tool-bag, and, fetching out a neat little two-foot crow- 
 bar, handed the weapon to Joe with a face of great solemnity. 
 Joe seized it and lurched out into the passage, muttering as 
 he went. 
 
 “ He’ll be back afore long. A rare old wind-bag is Joe,” 
 laughed the owner of the crowbar. 
 
 And they all fell to at their mugs again, waiting for the 
 fun that was in store, when Joe should return, shambling and 
 shamefaced, for another pint of beer. 
 
268 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 But Joe, in his own way, was as desperate as Griff. He 
 was a beggar, and likely to remain so ; his body was a worn- 
 out machine, and work of any kind seemed little short of 
 torture. And then he had nursed that feud of his till it had 
 grown into a mania. The fight on the moor came to him 
 to-night — the fight in which he had had his knife close at 
 Griff’s throat. There should be no mistake this time. 
 
 And so, while the snow fell ever thicker, these two, Lomax 
 and Strangeways, went hither and thither across the moor, one 
 in search of the other. Only the tallest heather-plants kept 
 their heads above ground, and even they were bound to go 
 under soon. Nothing stirred but the flakes, and these had a 
 ghastly dumbness. 
 
 Joe came to Sorrowstones Spring at last, and cowered under 
 the highroad wall, a field’s-length off from his cottage. 
 
 “ Hell alive, it’s fit to rot a man’s heart in his body, is wark 
 on a neet like this ! ” he muttered. “ If he’d nobbut come afore 
 my fingers are stark an’ stiff ! ” 
 
 He handled the crowbar lovingly, and began to talk to it. 
 First he confided to it what he was set on doing, and then, 
 as the waiting grew more tedious, he told it all that had gone 
 before — dilating on Kate’s beauty, their happiness before Griff 
 came to spoil it, his lonely after-life, with only drink to 
 sweeten it. 
 
 And to all this the slim, two-foot crowbar listened patiently ; 
 but it was cold in his grasp when he began, and cold when 
 his story was done. It seemed callous to all claims of 
 sympathy. 
 
 The cold and the beer between them sent Joe off into a fit 
 of dizziness. He leaned hard against the wall to recover himself, 
 and laughed thickly to the little iron bar. 
 
 “ It’s gooid hot blood we want, my beauty, thee an’ me — 
 thee to warm thy heart, an’ me to warm my belly. Well, lass, 
 we’ll bide a bit longer; he can’t be such a fearful while i’ 
 coming now. — What’s that ? ” 
 
 Away up the road, far beyond the last of the stoups that 
 could be seen from Sorrowstones, there sounded a faint pit-pat 
 
WHAT THE SNOWFLAKES FELL UPON. 269 
 
 On it came — -pit-pat^ pit-pat — the muffled beat of hoofs, striking 
 through the snow to the frozen underground. 
 
 Joe moved from his sheltering wall. His sickness was for- 
 gotten, his crowbar passively awaited commands. Out of the 
 whirling whiteness came a man and a horse, creeping warily 
 down the steepest bit of the hill. The road ran between high 
 banks of ling and bents, and on the right bank the quarry- 
 master waited. Nearer and nearer came the two figures; they 
 moved from side to side of the road, to lessen the steepness 
 of the descent, until at last they passed close to where Strange- 
 ways was cowering in the snow. Like a flash Joe sprang at 
 his victim, and brought the crowbar down on his skull. 
 
 The rider’s shoulders dropped forward, his head lying heavy 
 between them. The horse, not counting on this sudden 
 slackening of the reins, lost his footing, and came heavily to 
 ground, his fore-feet doubled under him. His master flew out of 
 the saddle, and lay, a shapeless heap, in the middle of the road. 
 
 The horse had broken both knees, and was crying 
 piteously ; but Strangeways never so much as heard it. He 
 went to the dead man’s body, and sat on his upturned breast. 
 Into his brain stole the words of a grim jest that a comrade 
 had passed with him not many days before. 
 
 “ Thy next suit will be thy coffin ; thy next suit will be thy 
 coffin. Griff ! Griff, lad. I’ve getten thee at last ; bide still an’ 
 wait for thy shroud.” He paused to chuckle at the flavour of 
 his little phrase, then repeated it again and again. “ Thy next 
 suit will be thy coffin.” 
 
 After a while he found his seat a hard one, and knelt in the 
 snow to see what it was that inconvenienced him. He felt in 
 the man’s breast-pocket, and brought out a large brandy- 
 flask, three-parts full. 
 
 “ Strong, by God ! It’ll be a merry neet an’ a warm now,” 
 he laughed, as he reseated himself on the corpse, after an 
 experimental pull at the flask. “ Shut thy din, wilt ’a ! ” he 
 cried to the horse, a moment later, as the poor brute shrieked 
 in agony. 
 
 Then he turned to the brandy again, and drank it slowly. 
 
270 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 rocking himself to and fro on the body and setting to a kind of 
 guttural chant his two-line hymn — “ Thy next suit — next suit 
 — next suit — thy next suit will surely be thy coffin and a 
 shroud — coffin and — coffin and — coffin and a shroud.’' 
 
 Gradually his eyelids fell upon his cheeks, tried to lift them- 
 selves, and failed. He rolled off into the snow, and clasped his 
 victim tight in his arms, snoring with drunken noisiness. But 
 the horse cried and whimpered, whimpered and cried, till the 
 hurrying snowflakes seemed to be running this way and that 
 in search of aid. 
 
 Up the highroad from Cranshaw, Griff and Lassie were toil- 
 ing heavily. They had had a hard cross-country night of it, 
 and both were fagged out. 
 
 “ All right. Lassie, all right, girl ; just to Sorrowstones 
 Spring, to see if he’s back yet, and then home,” murmured Griff. 
 
 He had stopped at every inn in Marshcotes and Cranshaw 
 and Ling Crag, and only at the Bull had he found news of 
 Strangeways. Surely he must be home by this time. 
 
 But Lassie had her head low down and her ears set back ; 
 she was shivering from head to foot, for that cry of one of her 
 own race had reached her long before Griff was aware of it. 
 Every forward step made her more restive, till at last they 
 reached the two black splashes on the snow. Griff slid from 
 the saddle, and stooped to examine the first splash. He found 
 his father’s foe, Laverack, locked tight in the arms of the 
 enemy he sought. Into the gloom ahead, between the sentinel 
 stoups, pointed a little, deep ravine, where the blood had 
 melted the snow. 
 
 He stood up and cursed the Providence that had robbed 
 him of his right of action. He turned Joe’s body over with his 
 foot. The snoring, that had grown fainter and fainter, ceased 
 altogether ; a dull kind of grunt was Joe’s only acknowledgment 
 of the attention. 
 
 “You hog ! Why aren’t you fit to stand on your legs and 
 fight me ? ” cried Griff. 
 
 He halted awhile, his hands going nervously to and fro 
 above the body. 
 
WHAT THE SNOWFLAKES FELL UPON. 27 1 
 
 “ No, I can’t do it,” he muttered dully, and went to that 
 other patch of black. 
 
 In a trice his sympathies were awake, though they had 
 seemed stone dead a moment ago. He knelt beside the 
 quivering beast, and his tears dropped hot on the sweating 
 coat. 
 
 “ They needn’t have mixed yotc up with our quarrels,” he 
 said softly. 
 
 He felt the broken limbs, and saw that there was only one 
 thing to be done. 
 
 But how to do it ? He looked at the crowbar lying in the 
 snow at his feet ; that was useless. Then he bethought him of 
 the cottage, and ran hot-foot to see if Strangeways had left a 
 gun about. He crept through the broken panels again, felt 
 round the room till his hands fell on a tinder-box, and lit a 
 rushlight that stood on the chimney-piece. A cumbersome 
 muzzle-loader lay in one corner — the same corner in which 
 Mother Strangeways’ bed had stood that night when she called 
 him in out of the storm. He took up the gun, found it loaded 
 and primed, and went back to the highroad. 
 
 “There will be a row soon, old lady. I’d better fasten 
 you up,” he said quietly, as he hitched Lassie’s reins to the 
 gate-post. 
 
 He put the gun-muzzle close to the ear of the horse lying 
 on the ground, and pulled the trigger. 
 
 “ God forgive me ! ” he muttered. “ I had it in mind to 
 kill a man just now — but a horse ” 
 
 He went to the two men lying a little further down the hill. 
 Laverack’s heart made no response to the hand that was laid 
 on it, and the snow lay unmelted on Joe’s set lips. 
 
 “ Come, Lassie j it’s home now,” said Griff, as he untethered 
 the mare. 
 
2J2 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 BY WAY OF WYNYATES. 
 
 By the time that Lassie had been put up in the stable, groomed, 
 and fed, the snow had ceased, though the frost bit harder than 
 ever. Griff fastened the stable- door, and moved irresolutely 
 towards the house. Then he remembered what was inside, on 
 the seat in the parlour where he had laid it. The bairn, indeed, 
 was lying on a bed upstairs, washed and laid out by the women- 
 folk ; but to Griff’s fancy it was still in the chair, and he shrank 
 from the thought of entering. 
 
 Out there in the cold he stood and tried to feel, and 
 wondered at the hideous blank that stretched on, on before 
 him, characterless as the even plain of snow to north and 
 south and east and west of this mid-moor house. He cried 
 aloud in his desolation, and hard on the heels of the need to 
 voice his trouble came the need for fellowship. He must have 
 touch of human sympathy; that was the one thing needful, 
 the one thing vital. Then, slowly, he began to think of the 
 preacher, of Greta, of Leo Roddick. And Roddick seemed the 
 strongest of them all, the fittest to give him help. 
 
 Yes; he would hurry across to Wynyates. Old Roddick 
 was never the man to mind being knocked up in the middle 
 of the night, if there were need for it. And God knew there 
 was need for it now ; he must save his reason, since all else 
 had gone by the board. 
 
 The snow was crisping under the frost fingers, and the stars 
 shone clear. He tried not to let the quick motion, the keen 
 air, bring back his scattered impressions of all that had 
 happened during the past few days. When a memory cut at 
 
BY WAY OF WYNYATES. 
 
 273 
 
 his heart, he walked faster, thinking to drive it out ; when the 
 memory returned, he quickened to a run, as if to dodge it by 
 flight. He reached Wynyates at last, and pounded at the door 
 with his fists. From within sounded a low cry, in a woman's 
 voice, and the patter of feet across the hall. 
 
 “ Is that you, Leo ? " said the voice. ‘‘ Dear, I have waited 
 so long for you.” 
 
 The door was opened, and on the threshold stood Janet 
 Laverack, never doubting but that it was Roddick who waited 
 on the other side. She was dressed as she had been for dinner 
 that night at the Folly; but she had taken off her sodden 
 shoes and stockings, and her little white feet peeped out 
 from a pair of Roddick’s old slippers, absurdly too large for 
 her. The bottom of her skirt, too, was grievously bedrabbled. 
 
 Griff stepped into the light. 
 
 “ I am Roddick’s friend,” he said vaguely. 
 
 The girl looked and looked at him. He would have been 
 an alarming object enough in broad daylight, and with help 
 to be had for the asking ; but to-night he showed ghastly, dis- 
 hevelled as he was, his clothes steaming like a moor fog now 
 that he had come into the warmth. Janet, however, knowing 
 that she must face the danger by aid of her wits alone, neither 
 screamed nor gave way. 
 
 “ Who are you ? ” she asked in a low voice. 
 
 “ Griff Lomax. I — I came to ask Roddick’s help. Isn’t 
 he at home ? ” 
 
 A curious half-smile played about the girl’s lips. 
 
 “ / came to ask his help, too ; so we are friends so far. I 
 know you well by name. You have had trouble lately ? ” 
 
 Griff went light-headed for a moment. The oak panelling 
 of the hall circled round him ; he lifted his eyes to the girl’s 
 to steady himself. 
 
 “Trouble?” he repeated, with an empty laugh. “Oh, 
 nothing to speak of — wife and child left me for good, that is 
 all — died, you know ” 
 
 “ Come and sit down here ; you are not yourself,” said the 
 girl, peremptorily. 
 
 T 
 
2 74 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 The last of her fear had vanished at sight of his helpless- 
 ness, and she was feeling that same need for action which 
 had weighed so heavily on Griff a while ago. 
 
 He dropped obediently into the armchair. 
 
 “When did you last have food?^’ went on Janet. 
 
 “ I — I forget. Some time this morning, I believe — ^just 
 before the child died.” 
 
 She went off to the pantry without another word, and 
 brought out cold beef and bread. A bottle of whisky was 
 standing on the sideboard, and she poured him out a liberal 
 allowance. 
 
 “ Now, eat and drink. It was high time you sought some 
 one who could look after you.” 
 
 Griff shook his head. 
 
 “ I can't,” he muttered obstinately. 
 
 “You shall,” she answered quietly, putting a plate on his 
 knee, and the tumbler on the hob beside him. 
 
 Again he succumbed to the stronger will, and did as he was 
 bid. His appetite grew with each mouthful, and he passed 
 his plate for more when he had finished. And after that he 
 mechanically pulled out his pipe, filled and lit it. 
 
 “ There ! ” said Janet, approvingly. “ Smoke away, and tell 
 me all about it.” 
 
 Griff almost smiled at her quaint, elderly air. It seemed 
 very much like a dream, all this ; and easily as in a dream he 
 found himself telling Janet all that had happened. She was 
 quiet for a little after he had finished ; then — 
 
 “ We were talking about you, Leo and I, not long ago. He 
 told me of your wife's death, and I was, oh, so sorry for you, 
 though I had never even seen you. Only, I can guess what 
 the feeling must be. If Leo were to die, I think I should just 
 stop living and have done with it.” She was craftily drawing 
 him away from his own trouble, and into hers. “You won’t 
 think it odd of me to be talking to you like this ? Because, 
 you see, Leo tells me you know all our story.” 
 
 “ How do you come to be here ? ” said Griff, abruptly. 
 
 “ I couldn’t bear it any longer, so I came ; that's why. And 
 
BY WAY OF WYNYATES. 275 
 
 Leo was — was a brute to me. That is why I hadn^t the heart 
 to be afraid of you when you came.” 
 
 “ A brute ? How do you mean ? ” 
 
 “ He talked of my sacrificing myself, and he lectured me, 
 just as if I had been a silly school-girl, following the first 
 romantic notion she had got into her head. If Leo could have 
 killed my love, he would have done it long ago : he shocks 
 and hurts me when he is angry. Poor old boy ! ” she broke off 
 suddenly. “ He is doing more for that — that woman, than 
 I would ever do. And here am I blaming him for being a 
 brute.” 
 
 ‘‘ Which woman ? ” asked Griff, who was still struggling 
 with his faculties. 
 
 “ The woman who calls herself his wife. The nurse sent 
 across, soon after I came, to say that she was unmanageable, 
 and Leo went with her. I expect him home every minute. I 
 want him back, too, though I know he will be angrier than 
 ever with me ; he always is after these struggles. It costs him 
 so much not to let her die at these times.” 
 
 “ Did Roddick allow you to stay here ? ” 
 
 This was another of Griff’s childishly direct questions. He 
 had got a little away from his own worries, and was growing 
 responsive to the interest in his friend’s situation. Somewhere, 
 too deep down to be brought to the surface as yet, was a feeling 
 that a certain plan, if he could once hit on it, would give all 
 three of them relief. 
 
 “ He had to. There could be no question of my returning 
 across the moors, so he was going to sit up here all night, 
 leaving his room to me. He had packed me off to bed a 
 moment before the nurse came, but I listened at the head of 
 the stairs and slipped down when he had gone, to see that 
 everything was nice and warm for him on his return.” 
 
 “ Just as Kate used to do, just as Kate used to do for me,” 
 muttered Griff. 
 
 “ But it will all have to be fought out again to-morrow,” the 
 girl went on. “ And father will guess where I am and fetch 
 me, when they find out in the morning that I have run away ; 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 276 
 
 and that will be the end of it, if Leo won’t let me be strong, 
 instead of just good in a worldly way.” 
 
 She felt, somehow, that this shaggy, unkempt man was 
 rather on the plane of the animals, to whom we talk freely of 
 the things that lie nearest our hearts. She was already losing 
 sight of the bitter personal grief that had brought him here. 
 
 Griff remembered that her father could never in this world 
 come to fetch her ; but that seemed a matter of lighter moment, 
 and he waited to hear more from her. That fugitive idea was 
 taking more definite shape in his brain. 
 
 “ Do you think we ought to wait, year after year, till my 
 hair is grey, and my face wrinkled, and I’m too unspeakably 
 hideous to give him a moment’s pleasure?” demanded the 
 girl, after a reflective pause. She leaned forward eagerly for 
 his answer. 
 
 ‘‘ No, I don’t,” said Griff, with sudden energy. Take 
 your chance while you have it, and thank the Lord for every 
 scrap of happiness you snatch out of the fire.” 
 
 “ Ah, I thought you would be on my side. Will you tell 
 Leo that ? Will you help me to show him that waiting is the 
 only real sacrifice ? It is only me he thinks of, you know, all 
 through, and that makes it all the harder to bear when I know 
 how blind he is to my needs.” 
 
 That nascent idea leaped in Griff’s brain. 
 
 “ I can help you to more than that, if once I see my way 
 clear,” he said. 
 
 She looked doubtfully at him, fearing a return of his first 
 distraught condition. But his mouth was firm, his eyes bright. 
 
 “ I don’t understand you,” she murmured. 
 
 “ I don’t understand myself yet. Give me time. — There’s . 
 Roddick. Shall I let him in ? ” he broke off, as a strong hand 
 was laid on the outer door. 
 
 She flushed a little. 
 
 “ No, I can’t let you do that. It is my privilege.” 
 
 Griff, sitting quietly by the fire, knew that she was lying in 
 Roddick’s arms out there, and for a moment he grudged them 
 their partial happiness. Then he smiled gravely, and tried to 
 
 V 
 
BY WAY OF WYN YATES. 
 
 277 
 
 understand how he might help these two. If only he could 
 find a deed of real charity to do, he might yet win peace for 
 himself. 
 
 In the midst of his pondering, Roddick stamped across the 
 hall and into the parlour. 
 
 ‘‘ So you're here," he began, with more than his usual gruff- 
 ness. But he stopped at sight of his friend's face. ‘‘ Old man, 
 what has happened to you? You look like a corpse, and your 
 clothes are dripping wet ! " 
 
 “ I came to talk things over with you, and found Miss 
 Laverack here instead. She has done me a world of good," 
 said Griff, simply. 
 
 “ She ought never to have been out of bed at this time. 
 Janet, off you go. Lomax and I will make an all-night sitting 
 of it, and thrash our troubles out together." 
 
 She came and gave Griff her hand, smiling at him with royal 
 friendliness. 
 
 “Good night," she whispered. “Try to make the best 
 of it." Then, turning before she had got half across the 
 room, “ Leo, can't you give your friend a change ? I ought 
 to have thought of it sooner. He will catch his death of 
 cold." 
 
 “ I won't bother. Tm used to getting wet through." 
 
 “Yes, you will bother," put in Roddick. “Upstairs you 
 come, and put dry things on at once. Janet, can you wait 
 down here a little ? We shan't be long." 
 
 When at last they were alone together, Roddick drew Griff 
 on to talk of his troubles, and afterwards — ^just as Janet had 
 done, but with less of self in his motive — he tried to beguile 
 him with details of his own sufferings. 
 
 “ This place goes by the name of Wynyates — ‘ Gates of the 
 Wind,' it means, they tell me ; and, God, I can well believe 
 it ! They couldn't have hit on a better name. Half a mile 
 north lives a woman I go out of my way to take care of, lest 
 she should give me my liberty; five miles to the other side 
 Janet lives. A cold blast and a warm wind screech and 
 whimper, day and night, round Wynyates. They seem to blow 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 278 
 
 clean through me, Lomax ; but I daren’t evade them. It gets 
 on the nerves in time,” he finished, tranquilly. 
 
 Griff sat up in his chair and glared across the hearth. 
 “You’re an immaculate fool, Roddick. Every time you save 
 your wife, conscience or no conscience, you stab the woman 
 you are in love with. — ^Was she bad to-night ? ” 
 
 “ Worse than I’ve seen her yet. The poor devil of a nurse 
 is half-killed with the work. She said I could leave her for the 
 rest of the night; but I shouldn’t have done if Janet had not 
 been here. I expect to have the nurse on my hands next. 
 Then there’s Janet ; how am I going to steer her through the 
 pretty mess she has got herself into ? ” 
 
 Griff had got hold of the right end of his idea now. “ Tell 
 me more about your wife,” he said eagerly. “ Where does she 
 live?” 
 
 “ At a cottage called Bents Foot, half a mile further up the 
 hill. You seem interested in the woman; are you thinking of 
 dropping a piece of paste-board on her?” snapped Roddick, 
 with bitter levity. 
 
 “ You’re sure you can’t get a divorce?” went on Griff, with 
 the same eager persistence. 
 
 “No, I tell you!” 
 
 The other gave vent to a sigh that was oddly suggestive of 
 relief. “ She can live any length of time, can’t she ? ” 
 
 “ Heaven only knows. Years ago she ought to have died; 
 years ahead she may be living. And meanwhile my little 
 darling is killing herself by inches.” 
 
 Again that quick, sharp sigh from Griff. 
 
 “ Killing herself by inches?” he repeated. 
 
 “Yes, damn you ! why play the parrot to a beggarly state- 
 ment of fact ? ” 
 
 Griff threw a couple of peats on a fire that needed no 
 replenishing. 
 
 “Well,” he said, settling back into his seat, “let us put 
 away our worries, old man ; we’re getting morbid. Perhaps a 
 talk about old times will do us good.” 
 
 Roddick failed to notice a something that lay very near to 
 
BY WAY OF WYNYATES. 
 
 279 
 
 the surface of the other’s apparent carelessness ; after chatting 
 of this and that, he began to nod, then to doze ; until finally 
 he was sleeping as soundly as if there were no perplexities to 
 be faced on the morrow. 
 
 But Griff had no inclination to sleep. He sat there, 
 watching now the live peats, now his friend’s face. As the 
 dawn crept white over the white snow, he went quickly from 
 the house towards a cottage called Bents Foot. 
 
28 o 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE MOOR MAN GOES OUT TO HIS OWN. 
 
 At the top of the rise that overlooked Wynyates, the chimney- 
 stack of Bents Foot stood out, black and rigid as a funeral 
 mute, against the grey-white of the sky. Griff plodded his way 
 through the snow, till he stood at the cottage window. A figure 
 was standing inside, its queer, distorted face pressed close 
 against the glass. He motioned towards the door, and the 
 figure fell back a little, so that he could no longer see anything 
 more than a faint shadow moving up and down in the twilight 
 of the room. He tried the door, and found it locked, as he 
 had expected. But he felt no impatience ; he only stood 
 and looked out over the snow-sea, wondering at his calm and 
 thinking it sanity. 
 
 After awhile he heard the sound of a key turning in the 
 lock. Roddick’s wife crept out, and came and peered into 
 his face. 
 
 “ What do you want ? Have you come to take me to Leo ? ” 
 she mumbled. 
 
 ‘‘ No.” 
 
 ‘‘ Then you can go away. I must find him myself.” She, 
 too, looked across the waste of snow, and shivered. “ Jt’s only 
 a little way off, but the road is hid. I might fall in the snow 
 and die ; and Leo, for all his rough ways, would break his heart 
 if he lost me.” She was in one of her cringeing moods ; her 
 words came ramblingly, and dropped with the helpless fall of 
 a withered leaf. ‘‘ He’d break his heart if he lost me,” she 
 wailed. 
 
 “ So he would,” said Griff, with equal gravity. “ Wait till 
 
THE MOOR MAN GOES OUT TO HIS OWN. 28 1 
 
 he comes for you. I’ll stay with you, if you’ll give me some- 
 thing to drink.” 
 
 Her eyes brightened as she clutched at his arm. 
 
 ‘‘ Drink ? How can I give you drink, when he — he, and 
 she, the woman in there — lock it all up out of reach ? ” 
 
 “ We can soon alter that. What’s the nurse doing ? ” 
 
 She rubbed her hands together and chuckled softly. 
 
 ‘‘ Fast asleep. After Leo went, her eyes were too tired to 
 keep open. It isn’t often she goes to sleep.” 
 
 Griff followed her into the room, through the window of 
 which he had first seen her. The nurse was half-sitting, half- 
 lying in a long cane-chair near the fireplace. The peats were 
 smouldering dully in the grate. Roddick’s wife pointed across 
 at her, but would not go near ; when her quieter fits were on, 
 she dreaded the great, raw-boned woman in the chair, who 
 helped Leo to keep the drink from her. 
 
 “ It’s all in here,” she whispered, scratching at the door of 
 a cupboard just above her head. “ The key is in her pocket.” 
 
 With the deftness of a pickpocket Griff felt for the key 
 and took it out. He unlocked the cupboard, and crossed over 
 to the window. 
 
 “ Take what you want,” he said. 
 
 The mad woman peered into the cupboard, uttering little 
 screams of delight. She ran her hand caressingly along the 
 bottles. The nurse moved in her sleep, then opened her eyes. 
 
 “ It’s all right,” murmured Griff ; ‘‘lam looking after her.” 
 
 “ Mind you do. It’s death if she touches a drop to-day,” 
 said the nurse, drowsily, and closed her eyes again. 
 
 When Griff came out into the road again, the sun was 
 sparkling on the frozen snow. The strain of his great endeavour 
 was not past yet \ his face showed strong, his mind was clear. 
 He was thinking — not of what he had done, but of the happi- 
 ness he had secured for two of his friends. It seemed almost 
 better than if he had won happiness for himself. The glow 
 of a fine altruism lit up his eyes. 
 
 He walked quickly down till he came opposite Wynyates 
 
282 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Hall, and turned as if to go through the garden gate. But he 
 thought better of it. 
 
 “ Good news is better for the keeping ; I will wait a while,” 
 he said to himself softly. 
 
 Then he fell to wondering what the old home looked like, 
 and a yearning to see it again took hold of him. He went 
 down the hill, and up the other side, and on until he gained 
 Ling Crag. As he passed Gabriel Hirst’s house, the preacher 
 was standing in the doorway, kissing Greta good-bye before he 
 went out. Griff smiled in a fatherly way, and called to Gabriel 
 by name. 
 
 “What, you?” cried the preacher, hastening across the 
 newly-swept flagstones to the gate. 
 
 Greta followed him, and they stood there, staring at GrifFs 
 dishevelled hair and happy face. 
 
 “You mean to make a honeymoon of your whole lives, 
 you two ? ” said Griff. 
 
 The preacher’s hand went out to him. 
 
 “ I’ve lived a life of fear. Griff — constant fear. And now 
 I’m free at last ; free to look the sun in the face, and hob-nob 
 with the wind, and feel that God’s strength is His mercy, too. 
 There is none like Greta.” 
 
 “ Except Gabriel,” whispered the lass. But the laugh died 
 on her lips, for she remembered the man’s troubles. “ What 
 can any one say to help you ? ” she asked simply. 
 
 “ Help? I don’t need help. All’s for the best in the long 
 run. God bless you both ! Good-bye.” 
 
 “ But, man ” began Gabriel. 
 
 His friend did not hear — or, hearing, disregarded it. He 
 swung out along the road to Marshcotes. 
 
 Greta looked after him, and shook her head. 
 
 “ He is not in his senses, Gabriel.” 
 
 “Likely not, poor chap. He’s had enough to turn any 
 man’s head. But I never dreamed it would take him like this 
 — he might be off to his wedding. Greta, lass, you must never 
 leave me as Griffs wife left him.” 
 
 Instinctively his arms went round her — to protect her even 
 
THE MOOR MAN GOES OUT TO HIS OWN. 283 
 
 against God; and old Jose Binns, coming round at that 
 moment from the lathe, set his mouth to a cynical shape. 
 
 “ Kissing an' cuddling," muttered Joe. “ Nay, there’s no 
 mak o’ gooid can come o’ yon.’’ 
 
 The hard weather had driven grouse and plover alike to 
 tameness. They walked up and down the streets of Marshcotes, 
 and perched on the window-sills in search of crumbs, and 
 looked at passers-by in the light of old foes turned allies. A 
 mirthless old cock grouse, and a drabbled hen, sat on the 
 Manor wall as Griff came up, and made their plaints to him ; 
 but the cock-bird’s call had none of that noisy self-assurance 
 about it which had startled Griff many a time in the darkness 
 of the moors. The same tenderness that had prompted his 
 pity for Laverack’s horse bade him go to the baker’s at the 
 corner and buy a quartern loaf. He took the bread with him 
 into the Manor garden and crumbled it on the doorstep. It 
 was an act his father would have applauded, he thought. 
 
 He stood for awhile, looking at the grey old walls with eyes 
 that saw only the past. But the sharp stab of the present took 
 him unawares, and blinded his eyes with tears. He turned, 
 knowing himself for evermore an outcast. 
 
 The reaction came on apace, as he crossed the churchyard 
 and struck into the moor. He had an old man’s look, an old 
 man’s droop of the shoulders. He began to mutter as he 
 walked, in a disjointed, senile way. The clear conception of 
 duty, the needlessness of self-excuse, were fast disappearing ; he 
 had to explain to himself why his course had been the right one. 
 
 “No one can say I have wasted my life no\y. But for me, 
 she might have lived for years ; and Roddick and the girl 
 would have grown old in misery. So easy, too : it wasn’t as if 
 I killed her ; she did it herself. Strange — to watch her drink 
 and drink — her head falling lower — how could any sane man 
 have stopped her ? Just a bit of filthy clay she was, standing 
 between Roddick and his heart’s desire. Roddick, old man, 
 you are free of your love at last ; may she stick to your side 
 
 longer than God, how still the moor is ! Why doesn’t it 
 
 blow and rain and hail, in the good moor way ? Nothing but 
 
A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 284 
 
 snow, and snow on the top of that, with mile on mile of that 
 devilish, everlasting sun-shimmer.” 
 
 He stopped and gazed fearfully across the waste. It seemed 
 that even the moor-face, his friend, had hid itself in anger at 
 his deed. He was homeless altogether. His hands clawed 
 fitfully through the air. 
 
 “Whafs that whisper going abroad? Mtirder. No, no; 
 merely a drinking bout, and a good riddance. I must be the 
 first to tell Roddick. It seems further to Wynyates than it 
 used to do.” 
 
 He crossed at the head of Hazel Dene, and the drone of 
 the mill-wheel sounded below him. 
 
 “ They are grinding corn for bread down there,” he said ; 
 then laughed at some odd side-shaft of incongruity that the 
 thought suggested. 
 
 He hurried on till he gained Wynyates. One window of the 
 parlour was open to the dry, sharp air, and he heard voices 
 within. Cautiously he crept under the window and raised his 
 head a few inches above the sill. 
 
 Roddick was standing with his back to the window. Facing 
 him was Janet, her eyes red with weeping, her whole body 
 shaken with sobs. 
 
 “ Listen, child,” Roddick was saying ; “ you must go back 
 at once. I will walk home with you across the moor. Come 
 quickly, for God's sake ! I am arguing against myself all the 
 while, and I cannot hold out much longer. Come ! ” 
 
 He dropped her hands, and turned to the chair over which 
 her cloak was hanging. He took the cloak and tried to place 
 it round her shoulders. She struggled, threw it aside, put both 
 hands about his neck. 
 
 “Leo, Leo!” she sobbed; “I won't, I can't go back! I 
 have eaten my heart out long enough. We have waited and 
 waited, you and I, for that other woman to die, and we have 
 done enough.” 
 
 A feeble chuckle came from without, but they did not 
 hear it. 
 
 “ Wait a little longer, sweetheart,” Roddick pleaded. His 
 
THE MOOR MAN GOES OUT TO HIS OWN. 285 
 
 voice was strained and husky. “ It cannot be for long. Think 
 of the future; suppose we went away together to-night, and 
 she died to-morrow — should we ever forgive ourselves ? ” 
 
 ‘‘Yes, we should. It may be years yet — and meanwhile it is 
 killing us. Soon we shall be too old, too grey, too riven by 
 the strain of it all. Leo, darling, come away while we can ! 
 
 She kissed him, wildly, beseechingly. For a moment he 
 trembled, fell weak, all but gave in. But he was made of 
 stubborn stuff ; love was to conquer desire, so long as he had 
 a trace of will-power left to him. 
 
 The man outside, with his pale face peering above the 
 window-ledge, forgot everything in the excitement of this 
 terrible drama. Mile on mile of desolate moor, and in the 
 middle of it two people, a man and a woman, taking opposite 
 sides in a conflict of honour; the man pleading for what he 
 knew to be the woman's gain, and she pleading for a change 
 of misery. Not a hope of interruption; the battle to be fought 
 out just by these two. The impartial moor was willing to show 
 them a path of flight, if they needed it — or a way to honour, 
 if so the issue ran. Not a sound stirred; the wind and Griff 
 spoke not a word. 
 
 “ Wait ! " gasped Roddick. 
 
 “ I have waited too long, too long," she wailed, with childish 
 repetition. “ Leo, do you care for me so much, after all ? You 
 cannot, or you would not be hard like this." 
 
 He made as if to kiss her, then drew back. He dared not 
 risk it. 
 
 “ Oh, hush, Janet ! You know I care for you. If I cared 
 less, should I hesitate like this? You don't understand what 
 you are asking me to do — you see only the first few steps." 
 
 “ No, I have set it all before me — all. I will risk it, 
 Leo." 
 
 The man outside, seeing the girl's full beauty, the tearfulness 
 of her entreaty, scrabbled with his finger-nails up and down the 
 stone of the window-sill. 
 
 “ Roddick, you fool," he gasped, “ why don't you take love 
 in your two hands while you have the chance ! Life is so 
 
286 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 damnably short — and liable to accident — yes, accidents — the 
 girl mayn^t live. Oh, you unutterable fool, why ddn't you take 
 the bit between your teeth ? Cut and run ; you told me to do 
 as much once.’’ 
 
 But Roddick was answering Janet in the same tone of eager 
 entreaty. And Griff, forgetting his own feelings again, lost 
 himself in the progress of the drama. 
 
 ‘‘ Such a life, Janet, would grind you into the dust. It is 
 easy to say you will face it — now. But wherever we went, how- 
 ever we hid ourselves, some one would drive it home to us. 
 They would shatter your peace of mind, Janet, and I should 
 go mad for pity of what I had brought you to. Come, little 
 girl,” he finished, with quiet decision. “ I know you will trust 
 me to do what is best.” 
 
 “ Bravo, Roddick ! A plucky fight you’re making ! ” cried 
 the man without, breathlessly. The intensity of his excitement 
 hurt him. He wanted the scene to close now. 
 
 Roddick had taken the girl in his arms with his last words ; 
 he was whispering tender incoherencies to her, as one does 
 to a frightened child. Then he wrapped her, unresisting this 
 time, in her cloak. The tears had dried in long stains down 
 her white face, and she was gazing at him apprehensively. 
 
 “ Leo.” 
 
 “ Yes, sweetheart ? ” 
 
 “You are right, quite right, and I am wrong. It was 
 wicked of me to come here and tempt you. Only, you don’t 
 know how hard the home life is. Others come and make love 
 to me, Leo, and it seems such an insult — to both of us. Yet I 
 can say nothing, do nothing. But I oughtn’t to have tempted 
 you. Can you forgive me ? ” 
 
 “ Forgive you ? Come along, little woman, and we won’t 
 talk about forgiveness till we have struck home across the 
 moor ; and then ” 
 
 “And then, dear?” she asked wistfully. It seemed so 
 cold, this homeward journey. 
 
 “ Then / shall plead iox your forgiveness. You must have 
 thought me a brute, Janet.” 
 
THE MOOR MAN GOES OUT TO HIS OWN. 287 
 
 The man outside the window breathed again. The play, 
 to all intents and purposes, was finished. Roddick had won, 
 and there was only that twitching of the mouth to show how 
 much it had cost him. 
 
 Griff Lomax awoke to a sense of his own importance in 
 the drama. He remembered that a certain disreputable waif- 
 and-stray, with a shipwrecked heart and a partially deranged 
 understanding, held the key of the situation. He went to 
 the door, opened it without ceremony, and stepped into the 
 room. 
 
 Roddick turned quickly on the intruder. Janet cowered 
 back against the window. 
 
 “ What do you want ? demanded Roddick. The room 
 was low and gloomy, and he failed to recognize Griff at a first 
 glance. 
 
 “ Don’t you know me ? I’m Lomax,” laughed the new- 
 comer. 
 
 Roddick stood staring at him for awhile ; then went up to 
 him. 
 
 “ God in Heaven, man ! what have you been doing ? Last 
 night you looked wild enough in all conscience, but now ” 
 
 ‘‘ Doing ? ” interrupted Griff. “ Something you will approve 
 of, you two. I’ve tramped across the moor — and a pretty cold 
 moor it is, by the way — to tell you that your wife is dead.” 
 
 They noticed nothing out of the way in his voice or manner 
 of giving the information. The tidings were too great to allow 
 room for any thought of the bearer’s looks. 
 
 “ Dead ? ” cried Roddick. 
 
 “ Yes, dead. I saw her not long ago.” 
 
 Roddick fell back against the mantelpiece. A giddiness 
 came over him. He could move neither hand nor foot, he 
 could not speak, though he realized vaguely that he ought to 
 shake his friend by the hand and give him hearty thanks. 
 
 But Janet made ample atonement for his remissness. She 
 fell at Griffs feet, and kissed his hands, and named him the 
 dearest man in the world. She was beside herself with joy ; 
 she scarcely knew what she was doing. 
 
288 
 
 A MAN OF THE MOORS. 
 
 Griff raised the girl and gravely put her away from him. 
 
 ‘‘ I killed her/’ he said, quietly. 
 
 Roddick stared at him from his place against the mantel- 
 shelf. He had had a stiff fight with conscience not long ago, 
 and the pace of these new developments was altogether too 
 fast for him. 
 
 Janet shuddered, and put the width of the room between 
 herself and the man whom she had lately named a saviour. 
 
 “ You — ^killed — her ? ” she whispered. 
 
 Yes. Don’t look at me like that. It is a mere nothing.” 
 His manner was growing wild. He laughed causelessly at 
 intervals, and seemed to think his story rather humorous than 
 otherwise. “ I came last night, you remember, to see if old 
 Roddick here could help me. I was going mad for want of a 
 purpose. I felt like a derelict ship that has been tossing 
 about aimlessly, day after day, week after week. I was willing 
 to give anything to the man who would fit me out with sails 
 and a rudder. Well, I found you, instead of Roddick, and you 
 stood me a true friend — told me there was a woman to be 
 killed — fitted a purpose to my hand at once. God bless you 
 both!” 
 
 He ceased. Down the side of Roddick’s nose a ridiculous 
 tear was creeping, but Griff smiled, with a sort of paternal 
 tenderness, on the two people for whom he had lately performed 
 a trifling service. 
 
 ‘‘ Old man 1 ” cried Roddick. His voice was a woman’s, 
 inaudible almost in its desperate pity. 
 
 “ Don’t trouble about that,” put in the other briskly, as if in 
 answer to unspoken words of gratitude. “ The least said, the 
 soonest mended. You want to thank me, I know, and talk 
 nonsense generally. I won’t have it. Why, man, it’s the easiest 
 thing I ever did in my life ! ” On the sudden his face fell. He 
 gibbered dumbly, like some voiceless ghost. The moor, the 
 moor,” he whispered at last. “ How still and white it is. It’s 
 not the moor I have known — not the moor I have loved my 
 life through — it seems to shudder.” 
 
 Still Roddick watched him. He could not break through 
 
THE MOOR MAN GOES OUT TO HIS OWN. 289 
 
 the miserable, obstinate silence that hid his sympathy. Reason 
 came back to Griffis face, and firmness to his voice. 
 
 “ There are two pictures in my studio at Gorsthwaite. I 
 seem to care so little for that sort of thing now, but I know 
 they are good. Will you look after them, Roddick, old man ? 
 Send them out into the world ; they are the best work I ever 
 did — and Kate lives in one of them.” 
 
 Janet had forgotten Griff while teaching herself to realize 
 the glad news he had brought them. In the utter selfishness 
 of her love, in the sudden lifting of a burden she had borne too 
 long, she surrendered herself wholly to delight. Her joy grew 
 intolerable ; she had to cry aloud. 
 
 “ Leo, Leo, you are mine, mine altogether ! ” she said, in a 
 voice between laughter and tears. 
 
 But Roddick, thinking of his true friend in need, was silent. 
 He turned his back on them, and leaned his forehead on the 
 mantelshelf, and wondered what would be the end of it for 
 Lomax. 
 
 And Griff, meanwhile, passed quietly out into the stillness 
 of the moor. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. 
 
4 
 
 *Kr- 
 
 
 ‘i' 
 
 •HAW