"Plenty o chaps—not much walkin," chirped a voice of one unseen.
A treble laugh greeted the sally.
Round the Head a boat came paddling.
In it was a man fat as a sow, and not unlike one. Honey-coloured ringlets hung down to his neck. He had slits for eyes, and the great face, dough-like, was set in an ogreish smile.
Kit saw before him in the flesh the worst of the nightmare imaginings of his nursery days. He began to dither like a monkey in the presence of a snake. There was a horror of the unnatural about the man that turned him faint. Here was Mammon, Mammon in the flesh; and so close that the boy could smell him.
"Belike it's Black Diamond come after you, Jow!" wheezed the fat man— "to pay you for what you done to him night afore last." The shrill voice, squeezing from that vat-like carcass, added to the terror of the man.
'"Twarn't me, I tall you!" screamed the scarecrow.
"It were you, Fat George; and now you're for puttin it on me."
The fat man backwatered in-shore; the smile set and horrible on his face.
"None o that, my lad, if you please," he husked—"that's to say if you're wishful to stay friends with George—ole George, who don't forget."