Drownlands turned on him with an oath.
'I will punish you,' he said, stamping with fury, and he rushed upon Mark with his gun raised over his head, grasping it by the barrel.
Then Zita sprang between them, holding the flail in both her hands, as a ward against the stock.
'Stand back, Mark!' she cried. 'He dare not touch you across this flail.'
It was as she said.
The man stood as one paralysed, the uplifted gun in his hands, his eyes glaring at young Runham, and the red reflections of the fire flashing on his face and turning it to blood. But the blow did not fall. His muscles remained immovable, the gun suspended in the air, till Zita lowered the flail, and put it behind her back. Then the spell was off him. He let the gun fall on the ground, and his head sank on his bosom.
The discharge of the fowling-piece had produced a hush in the voices outside.
None knew whether, in the darkness, some one had been hit. But when, after a pause, it was found that no harm had been done, then there broke forth loud cries and execrations; the courage of the rabble rose with a sense of its immunity, and a rain of brickbats beat against the windows of the house, shivering the panes. The kitchen-maid fell on the floor in a fit. Mrs. Tunkiss went into a series of shrieks. Renewed blows were raised against the house door, and they were accompanied with cries of, 'Smash it in! Tear the tiger's house down! He has hundreds of pounds put away somewhere. If he will not pay twenty sovereigns when we ask civil, we will take two hundred.'
Then one shrill voice cried, 'Make a bonfire of the wheat ricks.'