“Ay, ay, Bill, I expect most of us are of one mind there; wait a minute, and I am with you.”
“Ay, ay,” said a chorus of men round; and in little groups they put on their coats, and went off towards the town, until not a single being was left, and the great cutting, which half an hour before had been so full of life, stood idle and deserted, with the picks, and shovels, and tools strewn idly about, and the teams munching their oats without a driver.
For a long time Fred Bingham stood immoveable; then, with a deep curse, he turned away.
“I’ll be even with you yet, Maynard; this is one for you, but I’ve had the best of it yet.”
The news rapidly spread over the works that Mr. Maynard had left; and the next morning, out of the thousand men previously at work, not twenty answered to their names.
Fred Bingham was riding moodily homewards, when he came up to a young navvy, who was walking in the same direction. Fred Bingham wanted to go up to one of the cuttings which was close to the road, and so he dismounted, and called to the lad, in his usual sharp, imperious way, “Here, you boy, hold my horse for me.”
The lad looked round—“Hold it yourself,” he said.
“Oh, it’s you, is it, Holl? don’t give me any of your insolence, or I’ll lay my whip over your back.”
“It’s more than you dare do,” the lad said.
Fred Bingham was personally not a coward, and in his present state of sullen fury he did not hesitate a moment, but struck the boy across the cheek with all his force with the riding-whip.