"I've a mind to him!"
"O! Ye have, eh?"
"I have. Do I get him?"
"Be curst for a black, ugly rogue."
"That's no answer!"
"'Tis all you'll get o' we, save 'ard knocks!" says the man, spitting in his hand and taking firm grip of his bludgeon.
"Why then I must take him!" says I.
"Try and be damned!" roared the fellow. "Ha—look alive, Jem!" And whirling up his staff, he made at me amain; but I sprang aside and, as his rush carried him past, my answering stroke caught him fairly 'twixt wrist and elbow and his cudgel spun harmlessly into the hedge; breathing curses he sought to close with me, but I, keeping my distance, smote him (very blithely) how and where I would until he (his arm useless), misliking my bludgeon-play and reading no mercy in my look, very wisely betook him to his heels. Hereupon I turned to find the little peddler sitting astride his man's neck and his fist against the fellow's nose:
"Smell it, Job!" he was saying. "Smell it, lad, 'tis the fist of a man as would be a-groping for your liver if it weren't for the respect I do bear your old mother—skin me else! So thank your old mother, lad, first as you've got a liver and second for a-saving o' that same liver. And now, get up, Job—begone, Job, arter your pal, and tell folk as kind Godby, though sore tempted, never so much as set finger on your liver, and all along o' your good old mother—away wi' ye!" So the fellow got him to his legs (mighty rueful) and sped away after his comrade.
"Pal," says the little peddler, reaching out and grasping my hand, "here's full quittance for that pannikin o' water as you never got! And now—what's the word?"