Griff was frowning more than he knew of. He hated this resurrected doubt, after it had been laid to rest once and for all; he had not been proud of himself for feeling it, and Kate had no business to allow it to come into her head.
She saw the frown. Her lip trembled. The next moment she had buried her face, and was sobbing like a child.
"Wife, wife! what is it all about? Did I speak harshly? I didn't mean to; only, it was so absurd that you could shame me in any one's eyes, and—Kate, what is it? You have never given way like this before."
She made no answer for a long while; when she did raise her head at last, it was to whisper something that set strange new pulses beating in the man. He understood now; and as he took her on his knee and let her cry it out against his shoulder, all his wildness seemed to have merged into one steady wave of tenderness.
And then Kate laughed, low and soft, with a note in her voice that dated forward.
"He is to be a boy, Griff—he must be a boy—and—and—you will not be ashamed of him when he comes, will you, dear?"
CHAPTER XX. THE FIGHT AT THE QUARRY EDGE.
Griff Lomax, waking at half-past five of a morning towards the end of August, lay on his back for awhile, and thought how fine the moors would be looking at this time of day. Then he pictured that wooded cleft below Ling Crag, where the water came down sweet and cold from the uplands. He had not had a dip there since he learned that the old mill was occupied again; the aloofness of what he had once regarded as his own private bathing-place seemed to be violated, and he had not cared to risk a meeting, while under water, or during the process of towelling himself, with either of the miller's women-folk. But he argued, as he lay on his back this morning and watched the sun-chequers on the ceiling, that no one would be abroad at this time of day, and that if he made shift to slip into flannels forthwith, and run to the stream, he could enjoy his bath in peace. So he jumped out of bed without more ado, leaving Kate fast asleep, and crossed the moor at a gentle trot. He made his way through the dew-weighted grass, and reached the pool where Greta Rotherson had paddled on that long-ago Sunday when the preacher came over the crest of the ridge above. The rains had been heavy of late, and the water came dancing down at a rattling pace, white with foam-flecks, and brown with moorland peat. The pool, though neither deep nor wide enough for a swim, could give a tolerable bath to one who knew it as Griff did. He slipped out of his flannels, plunged in, grasped an outstanding branch of hazel that leaned low to the water, and let the current carry the rest of him as far as his six-feet-three would go; the stream broadened into shallows an inch beyond his toes, and Griff had always flattered himself with the belief that the pool had been made expressly for him. He shouted with glee, and kicked up his heels, and buried his head among the scattering minnows; and when he had had enough of it, he sought the fallen pine-log on the bank. The log, too, was an old friend; time and weather had stripped it of its bark, and the surface, smooth and porous, was quick at catching the sun-rays and keeping them. Griff filled a big pipe and lit it; then he lay along the log, and mutely thanked Heaven for a good many things, and left all drying operations to the sun and the log between them.