"You thought it was safe to meet in Hazel Dene, before folk were out of their beds. You laughed to yourself often, I'll warrant, when I told you what store I set by Greta—and all the while you were——"
His friend broke in with a hearty laugh.
"Is that all? I knew you were a tolerable ass, old fellow; but I didn't credit you with going quite so far as this. The last time you turned jealous, you were very drunk; are you sober now? Why, the girl has eyes for none but you, and I've done all I can to plead your cause. This very morning I was telling her that we are soft at the core up here, though hard in the rind; and she said, with a pout in her voice, 'But you never confess it when people want you to.'"
"She said that?" cried the preacher, hoarsely.
"She did. You should know best what she meant, Gabriel."
Again Griff laughed, and Hirst fancied the laugh was one of mockery. He had his settled view of that meeting by the stream, and Griff was assuredly taunting him with Greta's own avowed preference for his rival.
"You're a liar, and I'll fight to prove it," he yelled, and leaped on his adversary.
Despite ill-treatment of his body, the preacher was tough; but Lomax was the better man in a tussle. They were locked close together now, swaying this way and that. Griff, though, was not heated as Hirst was; he was conscious of the mistaken cause of fight and felt loth to do his mad friend a hurt; and Gabriel, consequently, had the better of it at the first. Then Griff roused himself; he hoisted the other well into the air and let him drop with a thud.
"It's soft falling, Gabriel; lie there awhile till you're cool enough to listen to reason."
But the preacher was up again. He knew little of wrestling in the theory, yet by force of blind instinct he compassed a good imitation of the trick known to Cornishmen as the "Flying Mare." One hand he planted in the pit of Griff's stomach; with the other he seized him by the right arm, and lifted him clean over his head. The force of his own throw sent Gabriel staggering back; he was conscious of coming to rest against some hard body, while down below he heard the splash, splash, splash, of loosened stones and rubble—that, and the deeper sound of some heavy mass plunging into the water that filled the pit-shaft.