Dick did not hesitate a moment, but with eyes flashing, teeth clenched, and fists doubled, he leaped down from the stone, rushed into the midst of the crowd, closing round the wheelwright, and darting between the great fellow and the man who had raised a pick-handle to strike, seized hold of the stout piece of ash and tried to drag it away.
“You great coward!” he roared—“a hundred to one!”
It was as if the whole gang had been turned to stone, their self-constituted leader being the most rigid of the crowd, and he stared at Dick Winthorpe as a giant might stare at the pigmy who tried to snatch his weapon away.
But the silence and inert state lasted only a few seconds, before the black-bearded fellow’s angry face began to pucker up, his eyes half closed, and, bending down, he burst into a hearty roar of laughter.
“See this, lads!” he cried. “See this! Don’t hurt me, mester! Say, lads, I never felt so scared in my life.”
The leader’s laugh was contagious, and the crowd took it up in chorus; but the more they laughed, the more angry grew Dick. He could not see the ridiculous side of the matter; for, small as was his body in comparison with that of the man he had assailed, his spirit had swollen out as big as that of anyone present.
“I don’t care,” he cried; “I’ll say it again—You’re a set of great cowards; and as for you,” he cried to the fellow whose weapon he had tried to wrest away, “you’re the biggest of the lot.”
“Well done, young un—so he is!” cried the nearest man. “Hooray for young ganger!”
The men were ready to fight or cheer, and as ready to change their mood as crowds always are. They answered the call with a stentorian roar; and if Dick Winthorpe had imitated Richard the Second just then, and called upon the crowd to accept him as their leader, they would have followed him to the attempt of any mad prank he could have designed.
“Thank ye, Mester Dick!” said Hickathrift, placing his great hand upon the lad’s shoulder, as the squire forced his way to their side. “I always knowed we was mates; but we’re bigger mates now than ever we was before.”