A Son of Hagar Part 83

"Ey, thoo'll manish that, I's warn," said Peter, in a caustic voice.

"Come, don't you know that what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband?"

"Don't know as I do. I'se never been larn't sec daftness," said Peter.

"Hand it over. Come, be quick!"

"Get ower me 'at can," said Peter, with a decisive twinkle.

"Gi'e him a slab ower the lug," shouted the miller from the road.

"You hear what they say? Come, out with it."

"Eh, you've rowth o' friends, you're a teeran crew, but I cares laal for any on you."

Drayton turned away with a contemptuous snort.

"Damme, what a clatter!" he shouted, and leaped on to the raised mound of a grave to look in at an open window. As he did so he kicked a gla.s.s for flowers that lay upon it, and the broken frame tumbled in many pieces. "I've done for somebody's money," he said with a loud guffaw.

"What, man, but it were thy awn bra.s.s as bought it," said the blacksmith.

"Ey, it's thy fadder's grave," said Job Sheepshanks.

Drayton glanced down at the headstone.

"Why, so it is!" he said; "d'ye see, I hain't been here since the day I buried him."

"Nay, that's all stuff and nonsense," said Job. "I mind the morning I found ye lying wet and frost.i.t on the top of that grave."

"D'ye say so? Well, I ain't for denying it; and now I think of it, I was--yes, I was here that morning."

"Nay, you warn't nowt o' the sort," said the blacksmith. "That were the varra morning as Giles Raisley saw you at the Pack Horse sleeping. I mind the fratch Job had with laal Gubblum about it long ago."

"It's all stuff and nonsense," replied Job. "He were here."

"The Pack Horse? Well, now, I remember, I was there, too."

The singing had ceased, and Greta came out into the porch on tiptoe, carrying in her arms a tiny mite, who was crying. Peter handed her the telegram, and turned up the path.

Drayton had rejoined his companions, and was in the act of knocking the neck off a bottle by striking it against the wall, when Peter walked through the lych-gate.

"Tee a pint o' yal down the Methodee's back," shouted d.i.c.k, the miller, and in another moment Brother Peter was covered with the contents of the broken bottle.

A loud, roystering laugh filled the air, and echoed from the hills.

"What a breck!" t.i.ttered the postman.

"What a breck!" shouted the blacksmith.

"What a breck!" roared the miller.

"Get ower me 'at can!" mimicked Natt.

"He's got a lad's heart, has Mister Paul," said the landlord of the Flying Horse.

"Ey, he's a fair fatch," echoed little Tom o' Dint.

Leaving Peter to shake himself dry of the liquor that dripped from him in froth, the noisy gang reeled down the road, the yelping dogs careering about them, and the c.o.c.ks squawking with the hugs they received from the twitching arms of the men convulsed with laughter.

At the head of the Vale of Newlands there is a clearing that was made by the lead miners of two centuries ago. It lies at the feet of an ampitheater of hills that rise peak above peak, and die off depth beyond depth. Of the old mines nothing remains but the level cuttings in the sides of the fells, and here and there the washing-pits cut out of the rock at your feet. Fragments of stone lie about, glistening with veins of lead, but no sound of pick or hammer breaks the stillness, and no cart or truck trundles over the rough path. It is a solitude in which one might forget that the world is full of noise.

To this spot Drayton and his cronies made their way. At one of the old washing troughs they drew up, and sat in a circle on its rocky sides.

They had come for a c.o.c.k fight. It was to be the bantam (carried by Natt and owned by his master) against all comers. Drayton and the blacksmith were the setters-on. The first bout was between the bantam and Lang Geordie's ponderous black Spanish. Geordie's bird soon squawked dolorously, and made off over the heads of the derisive spectators, whereupon Geordie captured it by one of its outstretched wings, and forthwith screwed its neck. Then came John Proudfoot's silver and black, and straightway steel gaffs were affixed to the spurs. When the c.o.c.ks felt their feet they crowed, and then pecked the ground from side to side. An exciting struggle ensued. Up and down, over and under, now beating the breast, now trailing the comb, now pecking at the gills. And the two men at opposite sides of the pit--the one in his shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbows, the other in his sporting plaid--stooped with every lunge and craned their necks at every fall, and bobbed their heads with every peck, their eyes flashing, their teeth set.

At one moment they drew off their birds, called for the files, and sharpened up the spurs. Later on they seized the c.o.c.ks by the necks, shouted for the pitch-pot and patched up the bleeding combs. The birds were equally matched, and fought long. At last their strength ebbed away. They followed each other feebly, stretching their long, lagging throats languidly, opening their beaks and hanging out their dry, white tongues, turning tail, then twisting about and fighting again, until both lay stretched out on the pit bottom.

As the energy of the c.o.c.ks subsided, the ardor of the men waxed sensibly. They yelled excitedly, protested, reviled, swore, laughed, jeered, and crowed.

At length, when the bantam fell and gave no signs of speedy resurrection, the anger of Drayton could not be supported. He leaped across the pit, his face red as his c.o.c.k's comb, and shouting, "Damme, what for did ye pick up my bird?" he planted a blow full on the blacksmith's chest.

A fight of yet fiercer kind followed. Amid shouts, and in the thick of a general scuffle, the blacksmith closed with his powerful adversary, gripped him about the waist, twisted him on his loins, and brought him to the ground with a crash. Then he stood over him with fierce eyes.

"I mak' no doubt you're not hankerin' for another of that sort!" he puffed.

"John's given him the cross-b.u.t.tock," said the miller.

"The master's lost all his wrustling," said Natt, blinking out of his sleepy eyes.

"I mind the day when he could have put John down same as a bit boy,"

said the little postman.

Natt helped Drayton to his feet. He was quiet enough, now, but as black in the face as a thunder-cloud.

"This comes of a gentleman mixing with them as is beneath him," he muttered, and he mopped his perspiring forehead with a bandanna handkerchief.

The miller snorted, the mason grunted, the little postman laughed in his thin pipe.

Drayton's eyes flashed.

"I'm a gentleman, I am, if you want to know," he said, defiantly.

The blacksmith stood by, leisurely rolling down his shirt-sleeves.

"Ey, for fault of wise folk we call you so," he said, and laughed. "But when I leet of a man, I's rather have him nor a hundred sec gentlemen as you!"

"Thoo's reet for once, John!" shouted d.i.c.k o' the Syke, and there was some general laughter.

"Gentleman! Ax the women-folk what they mak' of sec a gentleman,"