Dick o' the Fens Part 42

"Well, you see, squire," began the wheelwright; but his voice was drowned by another furious yell.

"Don't all speak at once!" cried d.i.c.k, who had planted himself upon a rough block of stone that had been dug out of the ruins and placed in the front of the house.

There was something so droll to the great band of workmen in a mere stripling shouting to them in so commanding a way, that they all burst into a hearty laugh.

"Here, let Hicky speak!" cried d.i.c.k.

"Yes!--Ay!--Ah!--Let big Hickathrift speak!" was shouted out.

"Keep quiet, then," said the wheelwright, "or how can I! You see, squire," he continued, "the lads came along by my place, and they said some one had put it about that one of them had fired a shot at the young engyneer, and they're all popped about it, and want to see Mr Marston and tell him it isn't true."

"You can't see Mr Marston, my lads," said the squire.

Here there was a fierce yell.

"The doctor says it would do him harm," continued the squire, "and you don't want to do that."

"Nay, nay, we wean't do that," shouted one of the men.

"But I may tell you that Mr Marston says that he does not believe there's a man among you who would do him any harm."

"Hooray!" shouted one of the men, and this was followed by a roar. "We wouldn't hurt the ganger, and we're going to pay out him as did."

There was a tremendous yell at this, and the men nourished their weapons in a way that looked serious for the culprit if he should be discovered.

"Ay, but yow've got to find out first who it was," said Hickathrift.

"Yes, and we're going to find out too," cried one rough-looking fellow standing forward. "How do we know as it warn't you?"

"Me!" cried Hickathrift, staring blankly.

"Ay, yow," roared the great rough-looking fellow, a man not far short of the wheelwright's size. "We've heered all on you a going on and pecking about the dree-ern being made. We know yow all hates our being here, so how do we know it warn't yow?"

The man's fierce address was received with an angry outburst by the men, who had come out on purpose to inflict punishment upon some one, and in their excitement, one object failing, they were ready to s.n.a.t.c.h at another.

It was perhaps an insensate trick; but there was so much of the frank manly British boy in d.i.c.k Winthorpe that he forgot everything in the fact that big Hickathrift, the man he had known from a child--the great bluff fellow who had carried him in his arms and hundreds of times made him welcome in that wonderland, his workshop, where he was always ready to leave off lucrative work to fas.h.i.+on him eel-spear or leaping-pole, or to satisfy any other whim that was on the surface--that this old friend was being menaced by a great savage of a stranger nearly as big as himself, and backed by a roaring excited crowd who seemed ready for any outrage.

d.i.c.k did not hesitate a moment, but with eyes flas.h.i.+ng, teeth clenched, and fists doubled, he leaped down from the stone, rushed into the midst of the crowd, closing round the wheelwright, and darting between the great fellow and the man who had raised a pick-handle to strike, seized hold of the stout piece of ash and tried to drag it away.

"You great coward!" he roared--"a hundred to one!"

It was as if the whole gang had been turned to stone, their self-const.i.tuted leader being the most rigid of the crowd, and he stared at d.i.c.k Winthorpe as a giant might stare at the pigmy who tried to s.n.a.t.c.h his weapon away.

But the silence and inert state lasted only a few seconds, before the black-bearded fellow's angry face began to pucker up, his eyes half closed, and, bending down, he burst into a hearty roar of laughter.

"See this, lads!" he cried. "See this! Don't hurt me, mester! Say, lads, I never felt so scared in my life."

The leader's laugh was contagious, and the crowd took it up in chorus; but the more they laughed, the more angry grew d.i.c.k. He could not see the ridiculous side of the matter; for, small as was his body in comparison with that of the man he had a.s.sailed, his spirit had swollen out as big as that of anyone present.

"I don't care," he cried; "I'll say it again--You're a set of great cowards; and as for you," he cried to the fellow whose weapon he had tried to wrest away, "you're the biggest of the lot."

"Well done, young un--so he is!" cried the nearest man. "Hooray for young ganger!"

The men were ready to fight or cheer, and as ready to change their mood as crowds always are. They answered the call with a stentorian roar; and if d.i.c.k Winthorpe had imitated Richard the Second just then, and called upon the crowd to accept him as their leader, they would have followed him to the attempt of any mad prank he could have designed.

"Thank ye, Mester d.i.c.k!" said Hickathrift, placing his great hand upon the lad's shoulder, as the squire forced his way to their side. "I always knowed we was mates; but we're bigger mates now than ever we was before."

"Ay, and so 'm _I_," said the big drain delver. "Shake hands, young un.

You're English, you are. So 'm I. He's English, lads; that's what he is!" he roared as he seized d.i.c.k's hand and pumped it up and down. "So 'm I."

"Hooray!" shouted the crowd; and, seeing how the mood of all was changed, the squire refrained from speaking till the cheering was dying out, when, making signs to the men to hear him, he was about to utter a few words of a peacemaking character, but there was another burst of cheering, which was taken up again and again, the men waving their caps and flouris.h.i.+ng their cudgels, and pressing nearer to the house.

For the moment d.i.c.k was puzzled, but he realised what it all meant directly, for, looking in the same direction as the men, it was to see that the young engineer had disregarded the doctor's orders, and was standing at the open window, with his face very pale and his arm in a sling.

He waved his uninjured arm to command silence, and this being obtained, his voice rang out firm and clear.

"My lads," he cried, "I know why you've come, and I thank you; but these people here are my very good friends, and as for the squire's son and the wheelwright there, they saved my life last night."

"Hooray!" roared the leader of the gang frantically; and as his companions cheered, he caught hold of Hickathrift's hand, and shook it as earnestly as if they were sworn brothers.

"As to my wound," continued the engineer, "I believe it was an accident; so now I ask you to go back home quietly, and good-night!"

"Well said, sir; good-night to you!" roared the leader as the window was closed. "Good-night to everybody! Come on, lads! Good-night, young un! We're good mates, eh?"

"Yes," said d.i.c.k, shortly.

"Then shake hands again. We don't bear no malice, do us? See, lads.

We're mates. I wean't laugh at you. You're a good un, that's what you are, and you'll grow into a man."

The great fellow gave d.i.c.k's hand another shake that was very vigorous, but by no means pleasant; and then, after three roaring cheers, the whole party went off, striking up a chorus that went rolling over the fen and kept on dying out and rising again as the great st.u.r.dy fellows tramped away.

"I'm not an inhospitable man, doctor," said the squire, as the former shook hands to go, after giving orders for his patient to be kept quiet, and a.s.suring the squire that the young fellow would be none the worse for the adventures of the night--"I'm not an inhospitable man, but one has to think twice before asking a hundred such to have a mug of ale. I should have liked to do it, and it was on my lips, but the barrel would have said no, I'm sure. Good-night!"

"Now, sir," said the squire as soon as he was alone with his son, "what have you got to say for yourself?"

"Say, father!" replied d.i.c.k, staring.

"Yes, sir. Don't you think you did about as mad and absurd a thing as the man who put his head into the lion's jaws?"

"I--I didn't know, father," replied d.i.c.k, who, after the exultation caused by the cheering, felt quite crestfallen.

"No, of course you did not, but it was a very reckless thing to do, and--er--don't--well, I hope you will never have cause to do it again."

d.i.c.k went away, feeling as if his comb had been cut, and of course he did not hear his father's words that night when he went to bed.

"Really, mother, I don't know whether I felt proud of the boy or vexed when he faced that great human ox."

"I do," said Mrs Winthorpe smiling, but with the tears in her eyes--"proud."