"If you think I'll tamely submit to open robbery by such insolent rascals as you, you're mistaken, young man," he returned.
The next instant he sprang aside and knocked up Archie's gun, which had been levelled at him. The boy's face was white under his sunburn, and the feathers on the partridges that hung from his shoulder trembled as though a strong wind were blowing.
"Rascal, indeed!" he stammered, and spat on the ground after his words in the effort to get rid of the taste of them, "as if the whole county doesn't know that you're another blackguard like your uncle before you. Ask any decent woman in the neighbourhood if she would have been seen in his company!"
His rage choked him suddenly, and before he could speak again the other struck him full in the mouth.
"Take that and hold your tongue, you young savage!"
Then as he stooped for his gun, which he had laid down, a shot passed over his head and whizzed lightly across the meadow.
"The next time I'll take better aim!" called Archie, turning away. "I'll shoot as straight as the man who gave your uncle his deserts down at Poplar Spring!"
Whistling to his dogs, he ran on for a short distance; then vaulting the rail fence he disappeared into the tangle of willows beside the stream which flowed down from the mill.
While he watched him the anger in Gay's face faded slowly into disgust.
"Now I've stirred up a hornet's nest," he thought, annoyed by his impetuosity. "Who, I wonder, was the fellow, and what a fool—what a tremendous fool I have been!"