“So you’re throwing that in my face! It’s like you to do it. If it wasn’t for Bumpett you’d be ready to turn me out into the road to take my chance. A man who’s down in the world isn’t fit company for you, and yet it isn’t long since I wouldn’t have spoken to a fellow like you, except to give orders.”
“Get down-stairs,” said George, controlling himself with difficulty. A man who cannot keep his temper is at the mercy of every other person who can. He knew that very well, but Rhys’ persevering insults were beginning to make his blood boil.
“I’m not a dog to go to my kennel for you.”
“I’ve seen many a dog that’s better than you’re ever like to be. Go down and leave me alone; I’ve other things to do than listen to your tongue. God! To think o’ you settin’ up to be above another, dog or no! I’m not thinking o’ the old man in his grave down the hill there—’twas in hot blood an’ never meant—but there was worse nor that, an’ I know it.”
Rhys’ calmness was leaving him, and his nostrils dilated.
“What’s to come to the girl you left? Tell me that!” cried the other, his voice shaking.
There was a silence, in which they eyed each other like two wild beasts.
“You’d better take her yourself,” said Rhys at last with his lips drawn back from his teeth; “perhaps she mightn’t look higher than a thief—now.”
The words had hardly left his mouth before Williams hurled himself across the room at him with a violence which sent him staggering against the partition at his back. It gave a loud crack, and Walters feared that the whole thing might give way and he might find himself on the ground among the ruins with the sheep-stealer on the top of him. George, whose methods of attack were primitive, had got him by the collar, and was shaking him about in a way which brought his head smartly in contact with the panels. At last his collar tore open, and, in the moment’s backward slip which this caused the enemy, he wriggled sideways and got himself almost free; then he flung his arms round Williams and tried hard to get his foot in behind his heel. Nothing could be heard in the cottage but the hard-drawn breathing of the two men as they swung and swayed about, their teeth shut tight and their eyes fixed; the pent-up hatred of weeks was in them and welled up in an ecstasy of physical expression.
George was conscious only of the craving to crush his opponent, to break his ribs with the grip of his arms, to fling him like a rag into a corner with the breath wrung out of his body, but Rhys fought for one end alone, to get his man under him upon the floor, and to this object his brain worked equally with his limbs. He had always been jealous of the other’s strength, and he longed and panted to see him lying prostrate below him and to taunt him with his overthrow. They were well matched, for though Williams’ weight was in his favour, the other was cooler-headed, and his suppleness in shifting his position saved him from being overborne by it. His nightly ranging about the hills had given him back much of the vigour he had lost during his illness, and he was, as he had always been, like a piece of tempered steel.