A cry broke from him. Round and round his brain, in a dizzy, never-ending circle, ran those words of the doctor's—
It is all owing to that brute Strangeways; he led her a dog's life for years.
The frightened servants, listening by the kitchen fire, heard the door of the parlour open with a clash. The master went heavily down the passage and out at the front door. There was work for him yet in the world.
"Poor lad!" murmured the cook, who was older than her master, and eager to mother him with her phrases. "Poor lad, it fair goes to a body's heart to see th' way he's taking on."
"He war bad enow when th' missus died; but it's nowt to what's ta'en him since," said the housemaid, with a tug at her apron-corner.
"We've getten to dee, all on us. He mun grin an' bear it, same as other fowk do." But there was a huskiness in Simeon's voice that belied his avowed philosophical outlook on the tragedy.
One thought only held Griff—that he must find his enemy and exact an eye for an eye, a death for a death. Not a hint of carrying out a moral law, of ensuring justice where the law was powerless to demand it, lay at the bottom of his mind. Such weak shifts for the excusing of his deed were foreign to all Griff's ways: the splendid vengefulness of the savage was on him now, unspotted by weakness or self-questioning.
Instinct drove him back to the stables after he had traversed half a mile of the moor: he might have far to go in search of his quarry, and a horse would serve him better. The roads were bad enough for riding, but Lassie was well-sharpened against the frost, and she was sure-footed. At any rate, his neck mattered little, so long as he could reach Joe Strangeways before it was broken.
Off they went, he and Lassie, through the thickening snow to Sorrowstones Spring, where Strangeways had come to live since the old witch's death. Griff leaped from the mare's back and ran to the door. It was locked, and no trace of light showed through the unshuttered window on the left. He kicked at the door till the bottom panels gave way; then crept through the opening. But the cottage was empty.
"Where shall we go next, old girl?" he cried, with a hoarse laugh, as Lassie turned her head at his approach.