"A sight worse; he's a braave picksher, I tell 'e! I doubt he won't come to schule this arternoon. That'll shaw. I be gwaine, if I got to crawl theer."
"An' him a year older than what you be!" said Joan.
"Iss, Mat's 'leben year old. I'll have some vinegar an' brown paper to this here eye, mother."
"Ait your mayte, ait your mayte fust," she answered. "Plague 'pon your fightin'!"
"But that Bent bwoy's bin at en for months; an' a year older too," said
Joan.
"Iss, the bwoy's got no more'n what 'e desarved. For that matter, they Bents be all puffed up, though they'm so poor as rats, an' wi'out 'nough religion to save the sawl of a new-born babe 'mongst the lot of 'em."
Tom, with his mouth full of fish and potato pie, told the story of his victory, and the women made a big, hearty meal and listened.
"He cockled up to me, an' us beginned fightin' right away, an' in the third round I scat en on the mouth an' knocked wan 'is teeth out. An' in the fifth round he dropped me a whister-cuff 'pon the eye as made me blink proper."
"Us doan't want to knaw no more 'bout it," declared his mother after dinner was over. "You've laced en an' that's enough. You knaw what faither'll say. You did ought to fight no battle but the Lard's. Now clap this here over your eye for a bit, then be off with 'e."
Tom marched away to school earlier than usual that afternoon, while the women went to the door and watched him trudge off, both mightily proud of his performance and his battered brown face.