Tom felt certain now; and just then the little gate swung to, giving a bang which brought the yawner to the doorway in the person of the big lad who had shouted after Uncle Richard on the afternoon of Tom’s first arrival, and next morning had been caught poaching. In fact, there was a ferrets’ cage under the window with a couple of the creatures thrusting out their little pink noses as if asking to be fed.
The boys’ eyes met, and there was no sleepiness in the bigger one’s eyes as he caught sight of the screw in Tom’s hand.
“Here!” he cried, rushing at him and trying to seize the piece of iron; “what are you doing here? That’s mine.”
“No, it isn’t,” cried Tom sturdily. “How did it come here?”
“What’s that to you? You give that here, or it’ll be the worse for you.”
“Where did you get it?” cried Tom.
“It’s no business of yours,” cried the lad savagely. “Give it up, will yer.”
He seized Tom by the collar with both hands, and tried then to snatch away the screw, but Tom held on with his spirit rising; and as the struggle went on, in another minute he would have been striking out fiercely, had not there been an interruption in the arrival of the old woman with the newly-filled kettle.
“Here, what’s this?” she croaked, in a peculiarly hoarse voice; and as Tom looked round he found himself face to face with a keen-eyed, swarthy, wrinkled old woman, whose untended grey hair hung in ragged locks about her cheeks, and whose hooked nose and prominent chin gave her quite the aspect of some old witch as fancied by an artist for a book.
“Do you hear, Pete, who’s this?” she cried again, before the lad could answer. “What does he want?”