While watering their horses on the way to the Eyrie, a farmer reprimands the pair for trespassing. Arya engages in some quick thinking and claims Clegane as her father, representing him as a soldier for House Tully. The lie not only gets them room and board for the night but also a job proposal for the Hound. The farmer offers a few pieces of silver if Clegane stays to defend the farmer's homestead from bandits during the winter. The Hound agrees, but when Arya wakes in the morning, he's killed the farmer and his daughter. The move causes Arya to proclaim, "You're the worst shit in the Seven Kingdoms!" To which Clegane replies that the man never would have survived the winter because he's weak. "There's plenty worse than me," he says. "I just understand the way things are. How many Starks they got to behead before you figure it out?"
The statement is harsh, but it reiterates a lesson Arya is slow to learn — kill or be killed.