"Let un be." "Put her down." "Dang thee, how dare'st meddle here?" "I'll knock thee head off," and other shouts sounded loudly and threateningly.
"For shame!" Jack said indignantly. "Be ye men! For shame, Bill Haden, to match thy old dog, twelve year old, wi' a young un. She's been a good dorg, and hast brought thee many a ten-pun note. If be'est tired of her, gi' her poison, but I woant stand by and see her mangled."
"How dare 'ee kick my dorg?" a miner said coming angrily forward; "how dare 'ee come here and hinder sport?"
"Sport!" Jack said indignantly, "there be no sport in it. It is brutal cruelty."
"The match be got to be fought out," another said, "unless Bill Haden throws up the sponge for his dog."
"Come," Tom Walker said putting his hand on Jack's shoulder, "get out o' this; if it warn't for Bill Haden I'd knock thee head off. We be coom to see spoort, and we mean to see it."
"Spoort!" Jack said passionately. "If it's spoort thee want'st I'll give it thee. Flora sha'n't go into the ring agin, but oi ull. I'll fight the best man among ye, be he which he will."
A chorus of wonder broke from the colliers.
"Then thou'st get to fight me," Tom Walker said. "I b'liev'," he went on looking round, "there bean't no man here ull question that. Thou'st wanted a leathering for soom time, Jack Simpson, wi' thy larning and thy ways, and I'm not sorry to be the man to gi' it thee."