“Oi do,” replied Howlie, his words leaving his grin intact; “if oi hadn’t, yew moightn’t be a-settin’ up there loike a poor zany, an’ on yew’re road to the joil.”
Turnbull grew purple. “I’ll do for ye yet,” he said thickly.
At this moment the officer came out and got on his horse, throwing a copper to the boy as he let the bridle go.
“You’re a young fool, for all that,” he observed as the coin rang upon the road; “that’s not Walters of Masterhouse.”
“Naw,” answered Howlie, his gaze still fixed upon the auctioneer.
As the three men rode on towards Llangarth his boots could be heard toiling heavily up Crishowell Lane.
[CHAPTER VII
TO ABERGAVENNY]
THAT the toll-gate raid would end in a murder was the last thing expected by Rhys. In all the riots which had taken place since the beginning, nothing worse had happened than broken limbs and bruised bodies, such having been the luck of Rebecca and her followers that only a few captures of unimportant hangers-on had been made. Indeed, it is likely that without Howlie’s unseasonable prowlings and recognition of his adversary Turnbull, and his determination to pay off old scores, the matter might have had no greater consequences than the terrifying of society in general and the building up of a new gate.
As Rhys took the young mare by the head, and turned out of the crowd, a man who had been some way from Hosea when he shouted, was so much demoralized by the cry, that his hand, almost on one of the rioters’ collars, dropped to his side. In a flash there came back to Harry Fenton the evening he had strayed in the mist round the spurs of the Black Mountain, and his eyes were opened. This tall, shock-headed figure which was scattering the people right and left as it made for Crishowell Lane was the man he had ridden beside and talked to so frankly in the innocence of his soul. With wrath he remembered how much he had admired his companion, and how apparent he had allowed his interest to become. He had returned home full of talk about his new acquaintance, his good-nature in turning out of his road for a stranger, his fine seat on horseback, and now it made the boy’s face hot to think how Rhys must have laughed in his sleeve as his victim had fallen into the trap laid for him. He had been put on the wrong scent by the very ringleader of the mischief he had come so far to help in preventing. His wounded vanity ached; he had been tricked, bested, mocked, deceived. There was only one solace for him, and that was action, action which would not only be his refuge, but his bounden duty. He almost jerked the bit out of his horse’s mouth as he wrenched his head round and shot after his enemy, through the crowd and up the resounding highway on the young mare’s heels.