"'Cos I war drunk," retorted Joe, succinctly.
"Well, if you had been sober enough to take a square look at the weather, you'd have seen the snow and fog. I preferred a roof over my head last night, and your wife offered me one. I'm obliged to you both, Strangeways."
"Oh, th' wife offered it, did she? Then th' wife shall pay for it," muttered Joe.
Griff went up to Strangeways, and took him roughly by the coat-collar.
"And you shall pay double if you lay a finger on her. You surly brute! To threaten your wife because she kept a man from starving on the moor. Strangeways, I've a mind to give you one thrashing on account—another to follow if you don't behave yourself."
He took a square look at Joe's eyes, saw that the man feared him beyond all promptings of rage, and swung out of the house. But he was sorely troubled about Kate as he went across the glittering frost-flakes to Marshcotes Manor.