"There! how do like that, Sam Rover!" he cried, triumphantly, and gave the youngest Rover a shove which sent him over the bank and into the rocky stream below.
Sam gave out one yell and then, with a loud splash, sank beneath the surface.
Lew Flapp gazed for a second in the direction, wondering when Sam would reappear. But then a new fear took possession of him and off he ran, this time harder than ever.
His course was along the river bank for a distance of a hundred yards, and then he came out on a road leading to a small place called Hacknack.
"To Hacknack!" he muttered, after reading a signboard. "That's the place I'm looking for. One mile, eh? Well, I had better lose no time in getting there."
The bully was a fair walker and now fear lent speed to his limbs, and in less than fifteen minutes he reached the hamlet named. He gazed around and presently located a small cottage standing near the edge of a sandpit.
"That must be the cottage," he told himself, and walking to it he rapped on the door four times in succession and then four times again.
There was a stir within and then an old woman, bent with age and with a wicked look in her sharp, yellowish eyes, came to answer his summons.
"Is this Mother Matterson's place?" he asked.
"Yes, I'm Mother Matterson," squeaked the old woman. "Who are you and what do you want?"