“Come out of that!” he raved, as poor Harry began ruefully and rather gingerly to pick himself up. “Come out of it. I’ll have twenty pound out of you for this little bit of fun. But first of all I’m going to give you the biggest licking you ever had in your life, you spick-and-span popinjay masher!”
“We’ll see about that part of the business,” said Gerard, who, seeing the hostile turn of affairs, had dismounted and hitched his bridle to a convenient rail. “If there’s going to be any fighting, it’ll have to be done fair, you understand.”
“What the blazes have you got to say to it anyhow?” cried the man, turning to Gerard, but with something of the light of battle gone out of his unprepossessing countenance as he took in the well-knit frame and determined aspect of his younger opponent.
“Just this,” said Gerard. “My chum there’s shaken by his fall, and I doubt if he’s much good with his fists or a match for you. So if there’s any licking to be done, just start here. See?”
But the man apparently did not see. He hesitated, staring at the speaker, his features working with rage. He was a hard-looking customer of about forty, with shifty eyes and a shaggy sandy beard. His raiment withal was slovenly, consisting of moleskin trousers none too clean, a collarless flannel shirt, also none too clean, and a slouch hat.
“Why don’t you fence your confounded mealie-field, or whatever you call it?” said Gerard, angrily, for although a good-tempered fellow he had all the average young Englishman’s objection to being bullied or crowed over. “You deserve all that’s happened for keeping a place like that practically unfenced, for one can’t call that broken-down thing a fence. And right by the roadside, too! Shouldn’t wonder if it was left that way on purpose.”
The man yelled out a fresh torrent of blasphemy. The last remark had all-unwittingly hit the right nail on the head. That mealie patch was a source of revenue to its owner beyond the mere value of its crop. But he hesitated to come to close quarters.
“Fence or no fence,” he shouted, “I’m going to have twenty pound out of that paper-collared, monkey-headed son of a bandbox. His brute of a horse has done more than twice that amount of damage. So shell out, Shiny-boots!”
Harry, to whom this remark was addressed, though, as his comrade had said, somewhat shaken by his fall, was quite alive to the situation. He realised what a tower of strength lay in Gerard’s thews and sinews, and was not at all unwilling that his comrade should fight his battles for him. So he answered with a spirit born of that confidence.
“Keep your confounded cheek to yourself, you dirty-looking clodhopper. Twenty pounds! Why, I’ll summon you for shying stones at me and starting off my horse. And if he’s lost you’ll have to pay for him.”