Away they went at a swinging pace along the good hard road that leads across the Lancashire border. They rattled 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!" "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 out half Gabriel's 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, Griff, 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.