They made neither answer nor movement.
“Dirty cads to touch my sister, a girl who couldn’t touch you.”
Still no answer. Only one, the smallest, jumped off the wall and ran to the gate behind Jeremy.
“I’m not afraid of you,” said Jeremy (he was—terribly afraid). “I wouldn’t be afraid of a lot of dirty sneaks like you are—to hit a girl!”
Still no answer. So he ended:
“And we’ll go wherever we like. It isn’t your field, and we’ve just as much right to it as you have!”
He turned to go, and faced the boy at the gate. The other three had now climbed off the wall, and he was surrounded. He had never, since the night with the sea-captain, been in so perilous a situation. He thought that they would murder him, and then hide his body under the manure—they looked quite capable of it. And in some strange way this farm was so completely shut off from the outside world, the house watched so silently, the wall was so high. And he was very small indeed compared with the biggest of the four. No, he did not feel very happy.
Nothing could be more terrifying than their silence; but, if they were silent, he could be silent too, so he just stood there and said nothing.
“What are you going to do about it?” suddenly asked the biggest of the four.
“Do about what?” he replied, his voice trembling in spite of himself; simply, as it seemed to him, from the noisy beating of his heart.