"I war passing th' Bull one neet a while back——" began Joe.
"Nay, lad, nay," put in Jack o' Ling Crag, with a mellow chuckle. "Passing, did'st say? It's not oftens tha passes by a public, Joe."
"An' I thowt as I'd turn in for a glass o' bitter," went on the quarrymaster, doggedly, not heeding the interruption. "There war no one i' th' back room, an' I stood waiting i' th' passage till somebody should come to sarve me. I heärd voices i' th' front bar, an' I fell to listening to 'em. One war Griff Lummax's, an' he war agate wi' telling all about these here sprees up o' Gorsthet Moor. I crept a-tip-toe an' peeped in at th' door; an' I see'd 'at t' other chap war a police inspector. Well, Lummax, he said as how he hed fooiled th' lot on ye, an' that it 'ud be an easy job to land ye all i' quad. Is that enow for ye, or mun I wend back th' way I came, an' say niver a word to this Lummax chap?"
The poaching trio was silent, and the rest looked ominously black.
"Is this gospel truth?" said Jefferson, at last.
"Gospel truth, so help me God!" Joe answered.
Griff Lomax, meanwhile, had topped the rise, and was sauntering easily towards them. They watched him cross the two hundred yards of heather that divided them; they listened to his cheery "Good-day," but answered never a word. He felt that there was trouble in the air.
"What the deuce is the matter with you all? Do you think I'm a spy, or what?" he laughed.
That emphasizing of what lay uppermost in the mind of each was an unlucky move for Griff.