His countenance
habitually expressed disapproval, and his shaggy brows were drawn
down now in an angry frown. I perceived that he said something to
his companion, and then I saw no more for a while, a mist seeming
to gather before my eyes.
When I regained possession of my faculties, dreading what might
have happened, I found myself on the skirts of a group of five or
six, and heard the loud voice of Mr. Vetch bellowing forth words
which, for modesty's sake, I forbid my pen to write. He was not
dead, then, I thought, nor even hurt, or assuredly he would not
have had the strength to curse with such vigor. But what of Cyrus?
"I'll have the law on the villain! Run for a potticary! D'you hear,
you gaping jackass? Run for Mr. Pinhorn and bid him come here!"
And then followed a string of oaths like to those I had heard
before. The group parted hastily, and out came Dick Cludde, with a
face as white as milk, and sped up the town as fast as his long
legs would carry him. No doubt he was the "gaping jackass" whom Mr.
Vetch had so addressed in his fury.
Pushing my way through the townsmen who had gathered, and whose
numbers were swelled every moment by the afflux of aproned grocers,
and potboys, and 'prentices, and others from the streets, I saw
Cyrus laid on his back by the parapet, white and still, his father
pacing heavily up and down, and his friend Captain Galsworthy
fending off the prying onlookers with his cane.
"I'll thrash the villain to a pulp! I'll send him to the
plantations, I will! I'll break every bone in his body!"
So Mr.
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