Whack!
“Ow! ah!” A scramble, and Pete disappeared as an angry voice was heard on the other side of the wall.
“How dare you, sir? Insolent young scoundrel! Be off with you!”
“Don’t you hit me!” came in a yelping, snivelling tone. “Don’t you hit me! You hit me, and I’ll—Get out!”
There was a dull thud, a yell, and the succession of cries uttered by a dog in pain, generally known as “chy-ike.” For, unable to vent his spleen upon his aggressor, Pete had turned upon his wretched dog, which was unfortunate enough to get between his master’s legs, nearly sending him down as he backed away from a quivering malacca cane. The dog received an awful kick, and ran down the narrow lane, and Pete followed him in a loose-jointed, shambling trot, turned into the pathway between the hedges at the bottom of Uncle Richard’s field, thrust his head back, relieved his feelings by yelling out “Yah!” and disappeared.
By this time Tom and his uncle were down at the yard gate, which they threw open, to find themselves face to face with the vicar, a little fresh-coloured, plump, grey man of five-and-forty. His brow was wrinkled with annoyance, and his grey hair and whiskers seemed to bristle, as he changed the stout cane into his left hand, pulled off his right glove, and shook hands.
“Good-morning,” he cried; “good-morning—nephew, arn’t you? Glad to know you. Only came back last night, Brandon, and the first thing I encounter in my first walk is that young scoundrel insulting you.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Uncle Richard, smiling.
“But it is something, my dear sir. After all the pains I took with that boy at our school—when I could get him there—he turns out like this. Really,” he continued, laughing very good-humouredly, and looking down at his cane, “I ought not to have done it,—not becoming in a clergyman,—but the young dog was insulting you, and he was stretched over the wall so tightly. Really—ha, ha!—it was so tempting that I felt obliged.”
“Yes, it must have been tempting,” said Uncle Richard. “Well, have you come back quite strong?”