"Well, now, you take this for a warning. If you don’t you’ll wish you ’ad." "We’ll see about that," and being of those whose spirits rise at the prospect of a fight he smiled. "We’ll see who is the best man of the two, me or you." A grimmer smile was on Byron’s face. Knowing his strength he could look forward, past the irritating unpropitious moment, to the happy hour when they should come to grips. "Oo d’yer think’s afraid of you, yer banty cock?" he cried, contemptuously, and prepared to ride on. "If you was as big as a church and tower I ain’t afraid," cried the youth after him. As the affair seemed to be hanging fire, he tried a rousing word. "An’ if I’m in yer way I shall stay where I’m to." Byron flashed him a look full of sinister possibilities, the look of one who had taken into consideration that cliffs are sheer and nights dark. "I’ll see about that, then." The prospect of a fight was dwindling into nothingness. "There’s people," said Jim, on a last hope, "’ud rather see me than you." "Any more of your cheek, young sprat, and I’ll wring your neck." But he had realized the countryside would cry shame if he were seen brawling in public while his wife lay dead at home. They would not be blinded to the reason and such knowledge might breed suspicion. He must wait. Grinding his heel into the stallion’s side he started at a gallop, leaving Jim disappointed but smiling, for with him, too, it was a case of ’Gay go the Gordons.’ A little annoyance was enough to upset Byron for hours. In a fume of exasperation and bitter feeling he now urged his horse to a speed which drew on him the attention of other wayfarers. "If ’e ride that rate ’e must be goin’ after a doctor. I should think man’s missis was goin’ to straw—first child, too," said a man from Little Petherick to whom Leadville was a stranger. "Thiccy feller’s Mr. Byron to Wastralls," corrected his companion, "and I know there’s no chick nor child there, nor any comin’. ’E do always ride as if Old Nick was after ’un. ’E’ll break ’is neck one of these odd days."