"Same with us," said Heathman. "These here men, who have got the places on their hands now, 'pear to think a Dartmoor farm's a gold mine. Me and my mother clear out too."
Mrs. Hacker drank again.
"And after this glass, one of you chaps will have to see me up over," she said.
"We'll all come, if you'll promise another drink at t'other end," declared Heathman; but Susan turned to Jack Head.
"You'd best to come, Jack," she declared.
He exhibited indifference, but she pressed him and he agreed.
"If I've got a man to look after me, there's no hurry," she concluded. "I'm in for a wigging as 'tis."
The easy soul stopped on until closing time, and then Mr. Head fulfilled his promise and walked homeward beside her through a foggy night. She rested repeatedly while climbing the hill to the Moor, and she talked without ceasing. Susan was exhilarated and loquacious as the result of too much to drink. Head, however, bore with her and acquired a most startling and unexpected piece of information.
He mentioned the attitude of Heathman Lintern and his fiery championship of the dead.
"I thought he'd have come across and hit me down, because I told the naked truth about the man. And he denied that his mother was the better by a penny when Nathan died. But how about it when he was alive?"