“But it seemed so one-sided, and as if I had it all my own way. They couldn’t fight because they were afraid of you.”
“Of you, you mean, boy, when it was man to man.”
“No,” said Marcus; “they’d have fought better if you and the dog hadn’t been here.”
“Yes, and they could all have come on you at once. A set of mongrel young hounds—half savages, that’s what they are. You didn’t thrash them half enough.”
“Quite as much as I wanted to,” cried the boy, “for my knuckles are as sore as sore. But oh, I say, Serge, it was comic!”
“They didn’t think it was, my lad.”
“I mean, to see you hooking them out one after another with your old crook, yelling and squealing like pigs.”
“Humph!” grunted the old soldier, with his grim face relaxing. “Well, it has given them a pretty good scaring, and I don’t suppose that they will come after our grapes again.”
“Yah–h–ah!” came in a defiant chorus from a distance, where the young marauders had gathered together, and the dog sprang upon his feet, growling fiercely, before bursting into a deep, baying bark.
“Hear that?” cried Marcus.