“Dogs!” said Kenrick, stamping angrily, while his face was scarlet with rage.
“If they’re trying to annoy you, Ken,” said Whalley, who was a very gentle, popular boy, “don’t give them the triumph of seeing that they succeed. They’re only Varnish and White-Feather—we all know what they’re like.”
“Dogs!” said Kenrick again; “I should like to pitch into them.”
“Let’s leave them, and go and sit by the river, Ken.”
“No, Whalley. I’m sure they mean to insult me, and I want to hear how, and why.”
There was no difficulty in doing this, for Jones and his ally were again approaching, and Jones was talking purposely loud.
“I never could bear the fellow; gives himself such airs.”
“Yes; only fancy going to meet his friends in a hay-waggon! What a start! He! he! he!”
“It’s such impudence in a low fellow like that...” and here Kenrick lost some words, for, as they passed, Jones lowered his voice; but he heard, only too plainly, the words “father” and “dishonest parson”—the rest he could supply with fatal facility.
For half an instant he stood paralysed, his eyes burning with fury, but his face pale as ashes. The next second he sprang upon Jones, seized with both hands the collar of his coat, shook him, flung him violently to the ground, and kicked his hat, which had fallen off in the struggle, straight into the river.