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. CHAPTER VII. 'TWIXT WYNYATES AND LING CRAG. It was nine o'clock of the next evening when Lomax, remembering 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"; but Lassie could do a good deal when she felt Griff's 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."