“Then here goes to make you.”
The man dashed at Dinass, who struck at him with the pick, but the handle was cleverly caught, the tool wrested from his grasp and thrown on the floor, while, before the striker could recover himself, he was seized, there was a short struggle, and his opponent, who was a clever Cornish wrestler, gave him what is termed the cross-buttock, lifted him from the ground, and laid him heavily on his back.
The men raised a frantic cheer of delight, which jarred terribly on the two boys in their anxious state, though all the same they could not help feeling satisfied at seeing Dinass prostrated and lying helpless with the miner’s foot upon his chest.
“Let him get up,” said Gwyn; “we’d sooner go alone than with him; but if you’ll come with us I should be glad.”
“I’d come with you, sir, or any on us would—”
“Ay, ay,” chorused the men.
“But we feel, as miners, that when a man’s got his dooty to do, he must do it. So Master Tom Dinass here must go by fair means or foul.”
“I’ll go,” cried Dinass. “Set o’ cowards—ten or a dozen on you again’ one.”
“Nay, there was only one again’ you with bare hands and without a pick. You go down, mate, and when you come up t’others’ll see fair, and I’ll show you whether I’m a coward.”
“Don’t I tell you I’ll go?” growled Dinass. “Let me get up.”