"He is not my better," Ned retorted, flinging up his head, with his eyes sullen and angry.
"Do you grow saucy to contradict me?" Hopkins asked frowningly.
Too much had been said of Dotey for Ned to cast off rebuke with his usual shrug; flinging aside the tackle, he started to his feet, but, before he could walk away, Hopkins caught him by the shoulder. As they stood thus Miles noted, with sudden surprise, that alongside Master Hopkins Ned looked slight and almost boyish; somehow Miles had always thought of him as a man, because he was old enough to use a razor.
"You shall stay till I have done with speaking," said Master Hopkins; and then Ned made a sudden movement to free himself, flung up one arm, half involuntarily,—and Stephen Hopkins reached him a blow that, taking him beneath the chin, stretched him flat on the ground at his master's feet.
The women came to the house-door, and it surprised Miles that it was not Constance, but Mistress Hopkins, who cried, in a frightened voice: "Stephen, Stephen, I pray you—"
Ned rose to his feet with his face white, and stood brushing the dirt off the side on which he had fallen; there was a great brown streak of it along one sleeve and the shoulder of his shirt. "There's work you have made for the mistress, sir," he said, and began laughing in a high key.
"That's enough," Stephen Hopkins checked him. "Remember, I've never laid hands on you ere now, Edward Lister, but if you mend not your ways, this will not be the last time." He lingered yet a moment ere he turned away to the door, as if awaiting an answer, but Ned made no reply, just stood fumbling at the fishing tackle with one hand, while the other hung limp at his side.
Only when Master Hopkins had passed out of sight into the house did Lister raise his head, and then, squaring his shoulders, he led the way toward the street. "Will you not take the tackle, after all?" asked Miles, running at his side. Ned's only answer was a shake of the head, and to all Miles's further efforts at talk and one clumsy effort at sympathy he kept silent.
They left behind them the sandy street, and, skirting along the bluff, came to the path to the spring and the stepping-stones, beyond which lay the trail to the ponds. Ned did not turn off there, however, but trudged on till he reached the little stream that flowed from the pool where they had cut thatch. "Whither are you going?" panted Miles, for the third time.