"They came from Joe Strangeways here, if I'm not mistaken. Speak up, Joe! What have you got to say by way of proof?"
"Hannah see'd wi' her own een——" began Joe, then stopped. Lomax was so confoundedly cool about it all.
"Can you swear to that? Or am I right in guessing that Hannah lied to you, and taught you the lie pat off?"
This new suggestion staggered Joe's muddled wits; his knees shook under him, and he could make no answer. Griff waited for a space, nodding meanwhile at the landlord, who had come to the door to hear what was going on.
"Then I think I needn't keep you any longer, friends," he laughed at length. "Landlord, drinks round; it's thirsty work watching a liar try to moisten his tongue."
He turned to leave; and Joe was never the one to neglect the chance afforded by an adversary's back. He seized a pewter-pot and hurled it with all his strength across the room. Griff felt it whizz past his ear, turned sharp round, and made for Strangeways in a fit of mad fury. He already had his hands at his throat, when a sudden thought pulled him up—a brute the man might be, and a liar, but he was Kate's husband. Nay, he himself was, in a measure, the quarrymaster's debtor—he had filched a kiss that was rightly his; he had stolen his wife's love from him.
"You were born a liar, Joe Strangeways. I'll leave you to it," he said, and went out.
But a shout followed him through the door.
"I'll be even wi' ye yet, Griff Lummax!" yelled Joe, in impotent fury. "Tha'rt ower big to be talked sense to; but thy wench's body shall pay for what tha's said an' done to me. Ay, by God! we'll see which on us is th' maister up to Teewit House! Twice tha's called me a liar, an' I'll blacken her een for that—one for th' first time ye called me, an' one for th' second."
"Hod thy blethering din!" cried one of his mates, roughly. "Tha'rt nobbut a windbag, Joe, an' a foul-mouthed bag at that."