'You will have the matter of the past fought out between us?'
'Ay! Ay!'
Jake backed his horse, snorting and plunging under the curb.
Then, when he had retired some twenty yards, he uttered a halloo, whirled his flail above his head, drove his heels into the sides of his steed, and came on at a gallop.
Drownlands raised and brandished his flail, and brought it down with a sweep before him. This alarmed his own horse, which reared and started, but more so that of his rival, which suddenly leaped on one side, and nearly unseated Jake Runham. However, Jake gripped the pommel, and with an oath urged his horse into the path again.
Drownlands had forgotten about the call that had induced him to turn his horse. His attention was solely occupied with the man before him.
The situation was one in which two resolute men, each determined not to yield to the other, each inflamed with anger against the other, must fight their controversy out to the end. The way on the bank top would not admit of two abreast, consequently not of one passing the other without mutual concession. On the one side was the drove fourteen feet below, on the other the canal. He who had to give way must roll down the embankment into the drove or plunge into the water.
Each man was armed, and each with a like weapon.
It would seem as though the horses understood the feelings that actuated their riders, and shared them. They snorted defiance, they tossed their manes, they reared and pawed the air.
Again Runham spurred his steed, and the beasts clashed together, and as they did so, so also did the flails.