‘You ha’nt no call to be wild with her, Mus Noke. Me and Cis wanta get married, sir. I’ll treat her praaper, gogzoons I will, Mus Noke.’
Noke came a step nearer. His right hand held a cudgel.
‘Come you here, Charity Noke. I’ll not ask again, mindee.’
The movement fired in Seth a train of fear. ‘Draap that!’ He unfastened the girl’s grip on his shoulder and pushed himself in front of her. ‘Us daun’t want a belvering then, do us?’ He spoke mildly, in a tone of friendly persuasion.
Noke, snarling, came at him with the cudgel. But the boy’s stillness seemed to disconcert him; for he did not strike. ‘You’d best get outa my road while you may,’ said he. ‘I’ll have a word wi’ me darter first, I bluv. And settle with you prensley, me fine lubber.’ But, seeing the young man standing his ground solid and stupid, he raised his cudgel again and struck out savagely. But the target moved and the violence of his assault pitched him forward; and Seth, having stepped aside, drove at him with a fury equal to his own. The blow caught him on the ear and filled his head with a thunder that presently dissolved into a monotonous singing; his fall was heavy, and when he angrily tried to raise himself there came so sharp a pain in his left ankle that he sank back again and in a loud voice cried curses on the world. There was dew already fallen, and the freshened earth gave out a rich smell. His hands were sticky with sap from the bruised grass. The world rocked about him. There was thunder again, and voices speaking in the thunder; there was a crack in the sky, a zigzag scarlet crack from which, as he watched, blood came dropping down, and he shut his eyes and felt its warm plash upon his sweating face. He was lying alone in a dark hut, and the thunder was the thunder of galloping hooves, and the voice the voice of a horseman. A dead face stared at him from the grass. He fell on his knees; a wooden yoke was made fast about his neck; and there, at a little distance, the eyes and lips of a young girl mocked and allured him. And when presently he came to himself, and to Glatting Wood, and to the memory of all that had befallen, he wondered what had become of his daughter Charity, for whom he had set this snare tonight. He raised himself cautiously on one elbow and took careful stock of his surroundings. Not knowing that all his phantasmagoria had flashed past in an instant, he was astonished to see the young man still within a yard of him. To be powerless, and at this young man’s mercy, even for a moment, made him choke and cough and spend himself in curses. But the young man paid no heed to him. He, too, was looking to see where Charity had hid herself. And at that moment he saw, not Charity indeed, but a man creeping towards him from the shadows. A man stalking him; and there, another. Having no weapon, he turned to run. Two other faces confronted him. He was surrounded by the sons of Noke.