"Now, sir, hes Marshcotes gi'en ye a welcome, or hesn't it?" demanded Jack, relinquishing his post at the shaft and going to Griff's side.
"It has that! We'll not forget to-day, Kate, will we?"
"Durn it, it's nowt so mich to crack on—on'y we thowt as we'd just try our best, Mr. Lummax," muttered Jack, and dropped modestly to the rear of the procession.
Mrs. Lomax was at the Manor gate when they arrived. She had heard the shouting, and a tune that seemed vaguely connected with wedding festivals, and the clatter of clogs on the stones; but she could scarcely believe her eyes when she saw the fashion of Griff's home-coming, nor her ears when she heard the shouts of good fellowship. The old lady's eyes dimmed with tears; it was good to believe in such friendliness as had prompted these rackety demonstrations.
Much would have more, and up went three cheers for the mother. Griff helped Kate down, kissed his mother, and turned to the crowd.
"We can't entertain you all here," he laughed, "but come in, as many as can squeeze a way."
"An' them as can't, will find quarters at th' Dog an' Grouse!" cried Jack o' Ling Crag.
"An' th' Bull can mak room for a two or three," chimed in the rival landlord.
After the noisy crowd had been got rid of, they had supper, the three of them; and after that Griff lit his pipe, and stretched out his long legs to the blaze, and looked from the mother on one side of the hearth to the wife on the other—wondering the while that this vexed problem of marriage worked itself out so exceeding smoothly in practice.
It seemed odd to Kate to find herself once again in that firelit parlour, where she had waited till Griff might return to claim her, where she had sickened with dread lest an ever-watchful Providence should snatch the coming happiness from her grasp. She had forgotten, in the midst of her dread, that it is only the things we fear most abjectly which never happen; keen terror would seem to act as a buffer between its object and its fulfilment, but she had not stopped to think of that. And now she was here, with Griff beside her—with an earnest, too, from those she had known, her life through, that they were minded to esteem her a woman of honour. Impulsively she put her arms round Griff's neck and drew his face down.