‘Nowhere where thaa couldn't go wi' me, lass,’ and so saying, Moses kissed his wife, an act which he had dexterously and passionately performed several times since his immersion in the Green Fold Lodge on the previous day.
‘Whatever's come o'er thee, Moses? Thaa fair maks me shamed. It's thirty year an' more sin' thaa kissed me. Hasto lost thi yed?’
‘Yi, lass, but I've fun mi heart,’ and he again clasped his startled wife, and grew young in his caresses.
‘I thought thaa kept thi luv for Captain, Moses. But I durnd mind goin' hawves wi' th' owd dog. I awlus said that a chap as could luv a dog hed summat good abaat him somewhere—and thaa's luved Captain sum weel.’
‘And others a deal too little, lass. But all that's o'er’—and Moses burst into tears.
‘Nay, lad—forshure thaa'rt takken worse. Well, I never seed thee cry afore. Mun I ged thee a sooap o' summat hot, thinksto? or mun I run for th' doctor?’ and Mrs. Fletcher looked at her husband with a scared and troubled face.
‘Why, lass, I've been cryin' all th' day—and that's why I've bin so long away fro' thee—I didn'd want to scare thee. I cornd help but cry. I tell thee I've fun mi heart.’
And Moses again sobbed like a child.
That night, when his wife was in bed, and Captain slept soundly on the rug in front of the fire, Moses opened a safe that stood in the corner of the room, and, taking therefrom a bundle of deeds, selected one docketed ‘Crawshaw Fold.’ He then took from a drawer a number of agreements, and carefully drew forth those which gave him his hold on the Crawshaws. These he enclosed with the deeds in a large blue envelope, and in a clerkly hand addressed them, with a note, to James Crawshaw. After this he knelt down, and, as he prayed, Captain came and laid his head upon the clasped hands of his master.