"Mebbe, but I'm fain to hev squared th' reckoning, choose what comes. Ay, it war grand, warn't it, to get Hiram Hey to tell ye how mich ling an' bracken there war at Marsh, an' th' varry spot it war stored in? Ye went home fetching a rare crack o' laughter, I'll be bound, an' ye came that varry neet to mak use o' what I telled ye. What, ye're dizzy sick? An' I'm laughing. An' that's how th' world allus wags wi' them as thinks to best Hiram Hey."
Red Ratcliffe shook off his dizziness, and snatched a dagger from his belt. "Thou foul-mouthed sot, I'll teach thee to set thyself against thy betters," he cried.
Hiram stood, sturdy and stiff; he knew there was little chance for him, but still he hoped to come to grips with his assailant and crush his ribs in before he could compass a clean stroke with the dagger. He feared the upshot not at all, and even as he waited he smiled in his old sour fashion to think that he had settled his own private cause of quarrel with Red Ratcliffe. The wind, freshening from the west, brought up a sound of shouting with it; but Hiram had no eyes for what was chancing on the far side of the pinfold.
"Begow, I shall niver be wedded now to Martha," he thought; "a chap can go too slow, 'twould seem. Ay, well, I shall be saved a power o' worry, doubtless, an' wedlock's noan all cakes an' ale, they say. But, lord, I'd right weel hev liked to try it for myseln."
The fight at the pinfold was waxing keener all the while; but Shameless Wayne was hard-pressed now, and the first twinges of arm-tiredness were cramping his strokes a little. Yet his laugh rang deep as ever, and the sweetness of each stroke was doubled, since each must be near his last. One thought only held him, and that was a thought of pride—pride that he would die in the mid-day open, righting the old Wayne battle.
"He gives, he gives!" cried one of the two horsemen who were left to take their turn.
"Does he give?" panted Wayne, and made the quick cross-cut, following a straight lunge, which his father had taught him long ago.
The stroke told, and his opponent's bridle-arm dropped heavy to his side; but still he fought on, and still his comrades watched, eager to take his place the moment he fell back. Then Wayne was touched on the neck, and again on the side, just as Red Ratcliffe roused himself to leap on Hiram Hey.
Shameless Wayne in front, and Hiram, with whom he had waged many a stubborn contest, on the far side of the pinfold—it seemed that master and man would go out of life together, each dauntless, each proud in his own hard way, each ready, doubtless, to turn on the further shore of Death and take up some interrupted quarrel touching farm-matters—yet each dying because he had stayed to save the other when flight had been full easy.
Shepherd Jose, not caring to see such matters as he knew must follow, turned a pair of dim eyes down the slope, and started, and clutched his neighbour by the arm.