Mary was a busy creature, but she found time that evening to stalk across the moor and down to Helmen Barton, where she banged at the door like the good champion Ethelred, hero of the Mad Trist, until the noise of her stick upon the door "alarummed and reverberated" throughout the hollow. When Annie appeared she was bidden to inform her master that if he ventured again near Lewside Cottage, or dared to frighten "my little maid," she, Mary, would come again with the stick in her hands, and use his body as she had just used his door. When Mary had spoken she turned to go, but the friendless woman called her, feeling perhaps that she too needed a champion, and Mary turned back. "Come inside," said Annie in a strange voice, and Mary went, with the statement that she could not remain as the cows were waiting to be milked. "Been to Lewside Cottage, has he? He'm crazed for money. He'd rob the little maid of her last penny, and pray for her whiles he was doing it," said Annie bitterly. Mary said nothing, but her anger rose, and she spat noisily upon her hands to get a good grip of the stick. "I've been wi' 'en twenty years, and don't know 'en yet I thought once he was a man, but I know he bain't. If yew was to shake your fingers at 'en he'd run." "Yew ha' been drinking, woman," said Mary. "Ah, I've had a drop. There's nought else to live vor. Twenty years, Mary Tavy, he've had me body and soul, twenty years I've been a slave to 'en, and now he've done wi' me." "What's that, woman?" cried Mary, lifting her long stick, and poking at Annie's left hand and the gold ring worn upon it. "That!" cried Annie furiously. "It be a dirty thing, what any man can buy, and any vule of a woman will wear. Ask 'en what it cost, Mary Tavy. A few shilluns, I reckon, the price of a joint o' meat, the price of a pair o' boots. And it ha' bought me for twenty years." "You'm drunk, woman." "Ah, purty fine. Wimmin du main dafty things when they'm drunk. Your brother ha' made a mommet of 'en, and like a vule he went and broke it for a bit o' dirty money." "It bain't broke," said Mary. "Peter made a new mommet, and broke that." "Glory be to God," cried Annie wildly, plucking out some grey hairs that were falling upon her eyes. "I'll tell 'en. 'Twill work, Mary Tavy. The devil who passed over last month will see to it. He never passed the Barton. He didn't want his own. I never knowed a mommet fail when 'twas made right." "Du'ye say he bain't your husband?" Mary muttered, looking at the grey hairs in the woman's hand. "See beyond!" screamed Annie, losing all self-control, pulling Mary to the kitchen window, pointing out. It was a dark cold kitchen, built of granite, with concrete floor. There was nothing to be seen but the big brake of furze, black and tangled, swaying slightly. It was a mighty brake, twenty years untouched, and there were no flowers upon it. The interior was a choked mass of dead growth. "Why don't ye burn 'en, woman?"