“That’s comforting, if true,” answered Mrs Beer. “An’ no doubt it is true,” she added. “When did man or woman find you wrong?”
They retired and talked on, full of this great matter, until dawn touched their white window-blind, and Johnny slept.
A moment later sounds of a galloping horse broke the tremendous silence of the Moor, and Jane Beer leapt from her bed and ran to the window.
A rider passed swiftly in the dull beginning of light. Beyond the inn he turned from the highway and proceeded in the direction of Hangman’s Hut.
“He wasn’t the black man—that I’m sure!” she exclaimed; but her husband did not hear, and his only answer was a snore.
Mrs Beer crept back to his side.
“White as a dog’s tooth his face was!” she said to herself. “Even in the cock-light I could see that.”
She reflected uneasily. Then an explanation came.
“Why, the chap washed hisself, to be sure! No doubt the black comes off, like the Christy’s Minstrels us seed to Exeter. He wouldn’t go to see his wife like a black gorilla.”