“Oh, I’ll give it you right enough,” said the farmer, “and you can lay to that.”
Certainly he was a most formidable-looking fellow, and he spoke with a truculence sufficient to strike terror into all save the very stout of heart. But Gervase, having slept soundly and breakfasted well, was not inclined to quail. He stepped briskly into the yard at the farmer’s behest. But there a rude shock awaited him.
“Diggory,” called the farmer to one of his hands at work in the yard, “you just fetch my horsewhip along. Ask mistress to give it thee. Now then, step lively.”
Gervase, however, proceeded to show cause why Diggory should not step lively. “Oh no, you don’t, Master Giles,” he said to the farmer with a laugh. “Pray don’t think I am going to take it that way.”
“Then what way are you going to take it, my lad?”
“Man to man with the bare knuckles if I take it at all.”
“Then by God you shall!” The farmer suddenly flung off his coat. “But you don’t know what you are out for, young fellow. A bit o’ whipcord will come a lot kinder to you than these ten commandments o’ mine.”
“I think I’ll risk that,” said Gervase modestly.
The farmer rolled up his sleeves, disclosing a pair of mighty arms. “I’m the man,” he said, “who pretty nigh killed Job Nettle in the fight at Lichfield twenty years ago. They talk about it to this day. And I reckon, young fellow, I’ll pretty nigh kill you. There was never none as could stand against Gideon Partlet as ever I heard tell of. Did you, Diggory, ever hear o’ such?”
“Naw,” said Diggory, “naw, I niver.”