“Liar!” he shouted, “liar! liar!”
At every word he shook the old man as though he would jerk the life out of him.
The Pig-driver, though naturally cautious, was not altogether a coward, and rage and bewilderment are sharp spurs. He struck out as fiercely as he could; words were impossible, for he had not the breath with which to utter them. When Walters threw him back into the chair from which he had dragged him, he was livid and lay against the back of it with hardly strength left in him to speak.
“That’s not true!” shouted Rhys, standing over him. “It’s a lie! Speak up, or I’ll twist your neck like a jackdaw’s!”
His face was twitching all over and his hands clasped and unclasped themselves.
The Pig-driver opened his mouth.
“The truth!” cried Rhys, “do you hear? The truth, or out of this you don’t go a living man!”
“I’ve told ye the truth,” snarled Bumpett. “’Twas no more nor last week, an’ every one knows it now.”
“It can’t be, it can’t be.”
“But I tell ye it is,” cried Bumpett, turning the knife in the wound. “She’s a tiert lass, she is, not one o’ the sort that gives a bean for a pea.”