“Who makes cloth o’ devil’s dust?” yelled another. “Yah! You d—d cotton-spawn!”
Basset laughed in their faces, but he was not sorry when the friendly doorway received his party. The country gang, satisfied with their victory, began to fall back after breaking a dozen panes of glass; and the panting and discomfited Yellows, thronging the passage and pulling their coats into shape, were free to exchange condolences or recriminations as they pleased. More than one had been against the open-air meeting, and Hatton, a sorry figure, hatless, and with a sprained knee, was not likely to hear the end of it. Two or three had black eyes, one had lost two teeth, another his hat, and Brierly his note-book.
But almost before a word had been exchanged, a man pushed his way among them. He had slipped into the house by the back way. “For God’s sake, gentlemen,” he cried, “get the constable, or there’ll be murder!”
“What is it?” asked a dozen voices.
“They’ve got Ben Bosham, half a hundred of them! They’re away to the canal with him. They’re that mad with him they’ll drown him!”
So far Basset had treated the affair as a joke. But Bosham’s plight in the hands of a mob of angry farmers seemed more than a joke. Murder might really be done. He snatched a thick stick from a corner—he had been hitherto unarmed—and raised his voice. “Mr. Banfield,” he said, “go to Stubbs and tell him what is doing! He can control them if any one can. And do some of you, gentlemen, come with me! We must get him from them.”
“But we’re not enough,” a man protested.
“The man must not be murdered,” Basset replied. “Come, gentlemen, they’ll not dare to touch us who know them, and we’ve the law with us! Come on!”
“Well done, Squire!” cried Brierly. “You’re a man!”
“Ay, but I’m not man enough to take you!” Basset retorted. “You stay here, please!”