“Ay, is this all, Master Nic?” cried another.
“Why?” he said sharply.
“Because there aren’t enough, sir,” said the first man. “I got to hear on it down the village.”
“Ah! you heard news?” cried Nic.
“Ay, sir, if you call such ugly stuff as that news. There’s been a bit of a row among ’em, all along o’ Pete Burge.”
“Quarrelling among themselves?”
“That’s right, sir; ’cause Pete Burge said he wouldn’t have no more to do with it; and they’ve been at him—some on ’em from over yonder at the town. I hear say as there was a fight, and then Pete kep’ on saying he would jyne ’em; and then there was another fight, and Pete Burge licked the second man, and then he says he wouldn’t go. And then there was another fight, and Pete Burge licked Humpy Dee, and Humpy says Pete was a coward, and Pete knocked him flat on the back. ‘I’ll show you whether I’m a coward,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean to have no more to do wi’ Squire Revel’s zammon,’ he says; ‘but I will go to-night, for the last time, just to show you as I aren’t a cowards,’ he says, ‘and then I’m done.’”
“Ay; and he zays,” cried another man from the village, “‘If any one thinks I’m a coward, then let him come and tell me.’”
“Then they are coming to-night?” cried Nic, who somehow felt a kind of satisfaction in his adversary’s prowess.
“Oh, ay,” said the other man who had grumbled; “they’re a-coming to-night. There’s a big gang coming from the town, and I hear they’re going to bring a cart for the zammon. There’ll be a good thirty on ’em, Master Nic, zir; and I zay we aren’t enough.”