"If tha's getten a doubt i' thy heäd still, tha can mind what Griff Lummax did to my Joe's wife. He telled thee he war innocent as a sucking lamb, likely. Well, a man that 'ull do one kind o' dirty wark 'ull do another. What's a two or three lies when a Lummax hes owt to gain by telling 'em? An' now he's tired o' th' wench, an' off he goes speering after thy sweetheart. It's th' talk o' th' moorside; tha mun be daft to sit so long wi' thy hands i' thy lap."
Gabriel Hirst, in the simplicity of his nature, was always apt to fall into the delusion that, if any one prefaced a statement by a generous exposure of some other person's falsity, then the statement in question became at least doubled in value. It was easy just now to attribute dishonesty to Griff, and Griff's accuser shone by the contrast in the light of a rigid truth-teller. He pushed his empty plate from him and leaned his head on his arms.
"Well, tha's etten enow, seemingly," croaked the witch; "put thy mouth to th' bottle again, an' off tha wends to Griff Lummax, to settle thy scores like a man."
The preacher would have taken well-nigh any counsel in his present shiftlessness of mind. The withered hag, glowering across the peat-smoke at him, seemed to be preaching a new, an inspired, gospel. Her words smacked more of the Old Testament, which he loved, than of the New, which in his wilder moods he only tolerated. Slowly he got up from the table and went to the door.
"Lad, I've summat to ask of thee afore tha goes," said Mother Strangeways, shifting her voice to a whine.
Gabriel turned and glared at her, but said no word.
"Tha knows how th' owd clock goes a-wobbling, wobbling, wobbling, hour in an' hour out? Well, it's getten past all; it dithers fit to drive a body dizzy-crazy, an' my lad Joe, th' gaumless wastrel, willun't bring me a two or three screw-nails—nobbut a two or three screw-nails; that's all I'm fashed for, an' he willun't bring 'em—an' me that hes reared him fro' being a babby. Tha'll happen along wi' th' screw-nails, willun't tha, lad, sooin as tha's done wi' Griff Lummax?"
But Gabriel, before she had finished her appeal, was out of the door and off across the heather towards Gorsthwaite Hall. Now that he had a purpose, he could see the moor as he had known it from boyhood; he knew his way.