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. "Has tha heärd 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 heärd 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 fooil'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 crowbar, 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.