“Ah, you don’t know, or you would not talk about a little. Why, Ralph, boy, the country round is full of complaints of their doings. About a dozen great idle scoundrels are living up at Ergles in that cave, laying the people for miles round under contribution; picking the fat of the land, and committing outrage after outrage. Only during the past week, I’ve had to bind up two broken heads, and strap up a broken shoulder, where the poor fellows had made a brave fight for it—one man against seven or eight.”
“You don’t mean that!” cried Ralph flushing.
“But I do, boy. They are growing worse and worse, and making themselves a scourge to the country.”
“I did not know it was so bad.”
“No, I suppose not, sir; and here are you people living safely in your castles, with plenty of stout men about you, ready to arm and defend you behind your walls and gates. But if the scoundrels came and robbed you, perhaps you would do something. Don’t you think you ought to begin?”
“Yes, that I do,” cried Ralph quickly. “My father has been talking about it for some time.”
“Yes; and so has Sir Edward Eden been talking about it for some time; but neither of them does anything, and the wasps’ nest thrives; all the best things in the country are carried up there—the wasps robbing the bees; and I, though I am a man of peace, say that it is the duty of you gentlemen to burn that wasps’ nest out before anything worse is done, for the ruffians grow more bold and daring every day, feeling, I suppose, that they can do these things with impunity.”
“Father shall do something at once,” cried the lad.
“That’s right,” cried the old man, patting his late patient on the shoulder. “I don’t want blood shed, and I hardly think any of your people would come to much harm, for, like most scoundrels of their kind, I believe the enemy would prove miserable cowards.”
“They have proved to be so,” cried Ralph warmly. “Father must act now.”