But Lassie had no counsel to give, and his eyes went up to the line of sentinel stoups: the white under-part could not be seen, and each blackened tip seemed to hang, self-supported, in mid air. Vague echoes of a sorrow spent long ago came to Griff: the stoups seemed to speak to him in some sad, far-off way. Perhaps they pointed the road he should go—at least he might try a mile or two of it, and gallop an inspiration into his musty brain. A Marshcotes man, trudging lumpily down the hill, stopped in amazement as horse and rider clattered past him.
"Griff Lummax, I'll warrant, though it's ower dark to be sartin sure. What's agate wi' th' lad, ony way?" he muttered.
Griff turned as soon as he gained the top of the hill. What fool's errand was this—riding straight to Ludworth, when the man he sought was to be found either in Cranshaw or Marshcotes? He must go first to Cranshaw, straight down the highroad, and search the inns there; then to Marshcotes; and, if that failed, he would look in at Jack o' Ling Crag's hostelry.
Joe Strangeways, meanwhile, was drinking in the bar of the Bull at Marshcotes. He had failed in his quarry-business since his wife left him, and he laid the blame of this on Griff. If, he reasoned, he had not been robbed of his one inducement to keep sober, he would have gone less on the drink; and if he had gone less on the drink, then he would have kept his quarries. He forgot how little influence of any kind Kate had had over him; he grew to believe that she had been the pole-star of his life, and he thought with lachrymose tenderness of the cosy hearth that had once tempted him away from the Bull. And now here he was, spending his last half-crown in the beer that had leagued with Griff Lomax to ruin him.
"Has tha heärd o' young Lummax's trouble?" some one dropped to his neighbour.
"Ay; an' they say th' bairn is nobbut weakly like, an' noan like to live. It's been a sorry winter for young Lummax, that it hes."
"A sorry winter?" flashed Joe from his corner. "It'll be a sorrier afore I've done wi' him."
"We've heärd a like tale afore now, Joe. Happen tha's getten to think there's summat in it, same as a cock makes fine sense out on his crowing when he's been at it a bit."
"Thee bide, lad, thee nobbut bide."