Kate tried to expostulate, but Mrs. Lomax cut her short.
"Quite right, my dear, quite right. All Griff's pet women are like dough that has been badly kneaded. I tell him so, often, and he doesn't half like it. Perhaps he took it more kindly from you?"
"I say, two to one! This isn't fair," protested her son.
"You will weather the storm, Griff," retorted the old lady, imperturbably. "After all, you have made a name for yourself; a knowledge of women was not necessary there. The whirr of a gale across the heather carried you through; you forgot your weaknesses sometimes."
"Would you like some tea, mother?" ventured Griff, mildly.
When Kate Strangeways finally rose to go, Lomax insisted on "setting her on her way." "I'll go agatards wi' ye," he laughed, translating his intentions into the language of the country, as he loved to do when talking to Mrs. Strangeways.
Kate, laughing too, congratulated him on his knowledge of the tongue, and they set off in high good spirits. He did not leave her till they reached the top of the last rise that lay between themselves and Peewit House; and when they said good-bye, he had secured a half-promise that she would sit to him for her portrait.
A surly-looking rascal, with a beard an inch long and a cutty pipe rammed tight in one corner of his mouth, was leaning over the fence; Lomax judged him to be a farm-hand, said his farewells to Kate, and set off back across the moor.
"Well, I'm beggared!" muttered Joe Strangeways, removing the cutty pipe from his jaws.
Griff went to look up his friend the preacher on the following afternoon. He found him in a state of wild self-castigation. Gabriel's eyes were far too bright, and his fingers twitched to the tune of each fresh thought. That marvellous straight-forwardness of his came to the front at once.