“What are you going to do to him? What more?” hurriedly asks Henry, seeing that Nigel has flung away the stick, and stands threateningly with his knife. “Surely you don’t intend—”
“To split his ear! That is what I intend doing!”
“For shame! You shall not!”
“Shall not? But I shall, and will!”
“You shall split my hand first!” cries the humane youth, flinging himself on his knees, and with both hands covering the head of the setter.
“Hands off, Henry! The dog is my own; I shall do what I please to him. Hands off, I say!”
“I won’t!”
“Then take the consequences.”
With his left hand Nigel clutches at the animal’s ear, at the same time lunging out recklessly with the knife blade. Blood spurts up into the faces of both, and falls in crimson spray over the flax-like coat of the setter.
It is not the blood of Nigel’s dog, but his brother’s—the little finger of whose left hand shows a deep, longitudinal cut traversing all the way from knuckle to nail.