"God forgive me!" he muttered. "I had it in mind to kill a man just now—but a horse——"
He went to the two men lying a little further down the hill. Laverack's heart made no response to the hand that was laid on it, and the snow lay unmelted on Joe's set lips.
"Come, Lassie; it's home now," said Griff, as he untethered the mare.
CHAPTER XXX. BY WAY OF WYNYATES.
By the time that Lassie had been put up in the stable, groomed, and fed, the snow had ceased, though the frost bit harder than ever. Griff fastened the stable-door, and moved irresolutely towards the house. Then he remembered what was inside, on the seat in the parlour where he had laid it. The bairn, indeed, was lying on a bed upstairs, washed and laid out by the women-folk; but to Griff's fancy it was still in the chair, and he shrank from the thought of entering.
Out there in the cold he stood and tried to feel, and wondered at the hideous blank that stretched on, on before him, characterless as the even plain of snow to north and south and east and west of this mid-moor house. He cried aloud in his desolation, and hard on the heels of the need to voice his trouble came the need for fellowship. He must have touch of human sympathy; that was the one thing needful, the one thing vital. Then, slowly, he began to think of the preacher, of Greta, of Leo Roddick. And Roddick seemed the strongest of them all, the fittest to give him help.
Yes; he would hurry across to Wynyates. Old Roddick was never the man to mind being knocked up in the middle of the night, if there were need for it. And God knew there was need for it now; he must save his reason, since all else had gone by the board.
The snow was crisping under the frost fingers, and the stars shone clear. He tried not to let the quick motion, the keen air, bring back his scattered impressions of all that had happened during the past few days. When a memory cut at his heart, he walked faster, thinking to drive it out; when the memory returned, he quickened to a run, as if to dodge it by flight. He reached Wynyates at last, and pounded at the door with his fists. From within sounded a low cry, in a woman's voice, and the patter of feet across the hall.