“I’ve told you I cannot hold out much longer,” said Joe, “and I cannot.”

“Hod thy tongue, then,” growled Mrs. Garth over the kettle.

There was a minute’s silence between them.

The blacksmith donned his upper garments.  His mother listened for the simmer and bubble of the water on the fire.

“How far did ye bargain to tak them?”

“To Gaskarth—­the little lame fellow will make for the Carlisle coach once they’re there?”

“When was t’horse and car to be ready?”

“Nine o’clock forenoon.”

“Then it’s full time they were gitten roused.”

Mrs. Garth rose from the stool, hobbled to the door which had been previously indicated by sundry nods and jerks, and gave it two or three sharp raps.

A voice from within answered sleepily, “Right—­right as a trivet, old lady,” and yawned.

Mrs. Garth put her head close to the door-jamb.

“Ye’d best be putten the better leg afore, gentlemen,” she said with becoming amiability; “yer breakfast is nigh about ready, gentlemen.”

“The better leg, David, eh?  Ha! ha! ha!” came from another muffled voice within.

Mrs. Garth turned about, oblivious of her own conceit.  In a voice and manner that had undergone a complete and sudden change, she whispered to Joe,—­

“Thou’rt a great bledderen fool.”

The blacksmith had been wrapped in his thoughts.  His reply was startlingly irrelevant.

“Fool or none, I’ll not do it,” said Joe emphatically.

“Do what?” asked his mother in a tone of genuine inquiry.

“What I told you.”

“Tut, what’s it to thee?”

“Ay, but it is something to me, say I.”

“Tush, thou’rt yan of the wise asses.”

“If these constables,” lurching his head, “if they come back, as they say, to take Ralph, I’ll have no hand in’t.”

“And why did ye help them this turn?” said Mrs. Garth, with an elevation of her heavy eyebrows.

“Because I knew nowt of what they were after.  If I’d but known that it were for—­for—­him—­”

“Hod thy tongue.  Thou wad mak a priest sweer,” said Mrs. Garth.  The words rolled within her teeth.

“I heard what they said of the warrant, mother,” said Joe; “it were the same warrant, I reckon, as old Mattha’s always preaching aboot, and it’s missing, and it seems to me that they want to make out as Ray—­as Ralph—­”

“Wilt ye never hod yer bletheren tongue?” said Mrs. Garth in a husky whisper.  Then in a mollified temper she added,—­

“An what an they do, laddie; what an they do?  Did ye not hear yersel that it were yan o’ the Rays—­yan o’ them; and what’s the odds which—­what’s the odds, I say—­father and son, they were both of a swatch.”

At this moment there came from the inner room some slight noise of motion, and the old woman lifted her finger to her lip.