“Of course not; idle boys never do. Not likely to get fighting, either. I see young Ralph Darley’s at home. Fine chance for you,” said the old man, with a sarcastic ring in his voice, as he slipped his trout into the basket.
“Is he?” cried the lad excitedly.
“Oh yes; he’s up at the Cliff. Now then, why don’t you fill your pockets with big stones to throw at him, or cut a big club? Oh, I see, though. You’ve mounted a skewer. Pull it out, and try if the point’s sharp. I suppose you’re going down the river to lay wait for him and kill him.”
“There, you’re as bad as ever, Master Rayburn,” cried the lad, flushing, and looking mortified. “Last time I saw you it was just the same: laughing at, and bantering, and sneering at me. No wonder my father gets angry with you, and doesn’t ask you to the Tor.”
“Yes, no wonder. Quarrels with me, boy, instead of with himself for keeping up such a mad quarrel.”
“It isn’t father’s fault, sir,” cried the lad quickly. “It’s the old feud that has been going on for generations.”
“Old feud! Old disgrace!” cried the fisherman, throwing away the worm he was about to impale on his hook, to see it snapped up at once by a good fish; and standing his rod in the water, like a staff to lean on, as he went on talking, with the cold water swirling about over his knees, and threatening to wet his feather-stuffed breeches. “I’m ashamed of your father and Ralph’s father. Call themselves Christian gentlemen, and because a pair of old idiots of ancestors in the dark ages quarrelled, and tried to cut one another’s throats, they go on as their fathers did before them, trying to seize each other’s properties, and to make an end of one another, and encouraging their sons to grow up in the same vile way.”
“My father is a gentleman and a knight, sir,” cried Mark Eden hotly; “and I’m sure that he would never turn cut-throat or robber if he was left alone.”
“Of course; and that’s what Sir Morton Darley would say, or his son either; and still the old feud is kept up. Look here, boy; suppose you were to run against young Ralph now, what would happen?”
“There’d be a fight,” cried the lad, flushing up; and he drew in his breath with a hiss.