"Tha looks too mich of a fooil to be a liar, Gabriel Hirst," she said meditatively; "what's agate atween thee an' him?"
The preacher was tired and disposed to seek sympathy. The aptness of Mother Strangeways' questions seemed to call for straightforward answers. He told her what he had seen in Hazel Dene. The woman's face ran into queer wrinkles as she listened; it seemed that her prayers had brought to Sorrowstones Spring a man well fitted to compass what was now her one aim in life.
"It's i' th' breed; it's a trick of his father's, yon. He'll hev his way wi' th' lass, an' then he'll leave her i' th' mud, to fend for herseln an' th' babby," she muttered eagerly.
The preacher rose, his face on fire.
"Woman!" he cried, "if you frame your unclean lips to such words again, I'll——"
"Nay, nay, lad. It's noan me 'at wants to hurt thee. Tak a bit o' that sperrit wi' thee when next tha wends to Griff Lummax.—Summat to eat, sayst 'a? Ay, an' gladly, though I'd hev seen thee starve on th' doorstun if tha'd been a friend o' Lummax's."
Gabriel's fire went out; there was no bodily fuel to keep it going. He ate of the coarse stuff that was set before him, and drank of Mother Strangeways' rum. She watched him from under her white eyelashes.
"Vengeance is th' Lord's, tha says?" she muttered. "Happen it is, if tha taks th' thing far enow back. But this I tell thee, Gabriel Hirst, th' Lord 'ull damn thee for a fooil if tha waits for Him to help thee. Dost think summat is bahn to shooit out on th' sky an' strike this Lummax deäd? I thowt that myseln, lad, for a while; but now I know 'at just as mich as a man fends for hisseln, so mich will th' Lord fend for him. It's share an' share alike wi' wark o' yon kind, an' tha cannot look to get all an' do nowt."
Gabriel muttered incoherently to himself, and Rachel Strangeways thought that a new intensity of purpose was gripping him.