His tone was of grave warning, as between men of responsible position. But it was Foxy Pinsent, standing with Maddox, who replied to him. "We'll drink all we may brew," Foxy Pinsent said, and sneered: "We're not fat old women this side, Stingo."
The flag of a temper kept in control but now burst from his command came in violent purple into old Stingo's face. His huskiness went to its most husky pitch, "By God, Foxy! I'll stuff it into ye, if need be," he throated.
He took a calmer and wiser mood back to his followers, joining with Japhra in counselling a making the best of it across the stream to-night and a deputation to Boss Maddox, when heads on both sides were cooler, on the morrow. They would not listen to him. They would stay where they were, they told him. They could not open their booths here—they would not open them there; here, to assert their rights, they would stay. What was Boss Maddox's game?—to rid himself of them altogether?—they who had worked the West Country boy and man, girl and woman, in this company before Boss Maddox was heard of? Were they going to be turned adrift from it—from the roads they knew and the company they knew? Not they!—not if Boss Maddox and his crowd came at 'em with sticks! Let 'em come! Ah, let Boss Muddy Maddox and his crowd try 'em a bit further and the sticks would come out in their own hands as they came in their fathers' in the big fight that sent the Telfer crowd north in '30....
IV
So the Stingo vans remained where they had been driven up on the edge of the Fair ground. The men for the most part shared their afternoon meal in groups that sullenly discussed their hurt. Some broodingly watched the erection of their rivals' booths. A few gathered about Egbert Hunt, who had oratory to deliver on this act of oppression. The winters Hunt had spent with "unemployed" malcontents had given a flow of language to a character that from boyhood had shaped away from honest work and towards hostility against authority. In the vans, among men who sweated as they toiled, and worked in the main for their own hands, he was commonly an object of contempt. To-day he found audience. He had words and ranted his best—"Tyrang!" the burden of it; rising, as he tossed his arms and worked himself up, to "'Boss' Maddox is he? 'Oo appointed 'im boss over you or over me? 'Boss' Maddox? Tyrang Maddox—that's what I name 'im."
He observed a titter run round those who listened to him; turned to seek its cause; with Tyrang Maddox found himself face to face; and before he could make movement of escape was sent to the ground with a stunning box on the ear. He shouted a stream of filthy abuse and made to spring to his feet. Boss Maddox's hand pinned him down and Boss Maddox's whip came about his writhing form in a rain of blows that, when they were done and he had taken the kick that concluded them, left him cowering.
"Whose hand are you, you whelp?" Boss Maddox demanded.
Egbert Hunt looked up at him. He was gasping with sobs of pain and sobs of rage. He looked up, hate and murder in his eye, and pressed his lips between his sobs.
The whip went up. "Whose hand?"
Egbert cowered back: "Old One-Eye's."