“Very well,” she sobbed; “but I’ve lost my hat.” “I’ll get your hat,” he answered. “And take Hamlet with you.” He watched her set off. No harm could come to her there, in the open. She had only to cross the beach and climb the hill. He watched her until she had jumped the stream, Hamlet running in front of her, then he turned back. He climbed the gate into the field. There was no one; only the golden sea of buttercups, and near the gate a straw hat. He picked it up and, back in the road again, stood hesitating. There was only one thing he could do, and he knew it. But he hesitated. He had been forbidden to enter the place. And, besides, there were four of them. And such a four! Then he shrugged his shoulders, a very characteristic action of his, and marched ahead. The gate of the farm swung easily open, and then at once he was upon them, all four of them sitting in a row upon a stone wall at the far corner of the yard and staring at him. It was a dirty, messy place, and a fitting background for that company. The farm itself looked fierce with its blind grey wall and its sullen windows, and the yard was in fearful confusion, oozing between the stones with shiny yellow streams and dank, coagulating pools, piled high with heaps of stinking manure, pigs wandering in the middle distance, hens and chickens, and a ruffian dog chained to his kennel. The four looked at Jeremy without moving. Jeremy came close to them and said, “You’re a lot of dirty cads.” They made neither answer nor movement. “Dirty cads to touch my sister, a girl who couldn’t touch you.” Still no answer. Only one, the smallest, jumped off the wall and ran to the gate behind Jeremy. “I’m not afraid of you,” said Jeremy (he was—terribly afraid). “I wouldn’t be afraid of a lot of dirty sneaks like you are—to hit a girl!” Still no answer. So he ended: “And we’ll go wherever we like. It isn’t your field, and we’ve just as much right to it as you have!” He turned to go, and faced the boy at the gate. The other three had now climbed off the wall, and he was surrounded. He had never, since the night with the sea-captain, been in so perilous a situation. He thought that they would murder him, and then hide his body under the manure—they looked quite capable of it. And in some strange way this farm was so completely shut off from the outside world, the house watched so silently, the wall was so high. And he was very small indeed compared with the biggest of the four. No, he did not feel very happy. Nothing could be more terrifying than their silence; but, if they were silent, he could be silent too, so he just stood there and said nothing. “What are you going to do about it?” suddenly asked the biggest of the four. “Do about what?” he replied, his voice trembling in spite of himself; simply, as it seemed to him, from the noisy beating of his heart. “Our cheeking your sister.” “I can’t do much,” Jeremy said, “when there are four of you, but I’ll fight the one my own size.”