'What?' she asked, dropping his hand and listening.
There were shouts and cries approaching. Then the crash of a stone against the supporters of the table. Next moment in dashed old Grizzly, without the hat, wild with alarm, and threw himself on the ground, where he tore off his coat and neckcloth, waistcoat and breeches, and, screaming with rage and terror, threw each article, as it came off, in the faces of the men that peered in at the entrance.
'Take mun! take mun! I will none of 'em! I will never have none o' the sort again.'
His legs were torn and bleeding. One was smeared with white to the knee, the other was of its natural tan.
Some of the miners had seen Cobbledick engaged in adorning his shins with whitewash, dressed out in his borrowed garb, and had set upon him with jeers. He had fled and been pursued.
'I'll hev none of it never more,' he cried, and swore horribly. 'Give me my rags again.'
That was the end of the transformation of Grizzly. But the transformation of Joyce, which was from within, was more enduring.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
HERRING'S STOCKINGS.
Joyce was unable to retain Herring. Those who had pursued her father saw him lying in the old cromlech, and the secret was out. Moreover, she herself began to see that it was not possible for her to keep him in the den. Her father's behaviour, when left in charge of the patient, had shown her how utterly untrustworthy he was, and Joyce could not always be there.