‘So, Mister Constable, it was enough to meddle with my baking, and bully, and make short work of me, though you have not a word to say to me for the wrong done me—not a word as from man to man, when we meet like equals. Anyhow, the meeting-place is on a road as is free to both of us, and under the dark night which is going to come down, and cover both of us—and what one of us may choose to do to settle the question between us,’ said Webster incoherently and grandiloquently. ‘What should I have to say to you?’ demanded Oliver. ‘You broke faith as a servant, you were not in the bakehouse when it was your duty to me and the other men that you should be there. I simply did my duty as a master in turning you adrift, not without repeated notice beforehand of what must happen.’ Webster was not open to reason. He was brutal with unrestrained passion and distraught with strong drink. He shouted the lie direct to Oliver, following the accusation of falsehood with a fierce curse and a furious blow. Such things happen still, occasionally, in England, in spite of civilisation, propriety, and the rural police. Oliver could have best parried the blow by a counter-blow, which, directed by a strong, steady, not untrained hand, would have laid the reeling assailant at the assailed man’s feet. But he had an objection to this aggressive mode of self-defence in which he was certain to come off conqueror, and in trying merely to parry the violent lunge made at him, Oliver entangled his long legs with those of his enemy, swerved, swayed, and fell, somewhat ignominiously, to the ground. Webster, notwithstanding his half-furious, half-dazed malice, was still so much the creature of order, and of a peaceful if bragging past, as to take no advantage of Oliver’s lying prone at the man’s feet and at his mercy for one decisive minute—the next, Webster uttered a crow of triumph, administered a not unnatural, but most unchivalrous kick to the shins of the antagonist struggling on his feet again, and meandered away in the gathering darkness. Oliver stood wincing with pain, pulling himself together, and not believing his senses till he was forced to laugh at his own incredulity. He might have given chase to the fellow in the heat of the fray, since Oliver imagined any damage which he had received would have yielded, for the moment, to the fighting cock in him, while it ought to have been about matched by the enemy which Webster had put into his mouth, to steal away his brains and the right use of his legs. Oliver could, with still greater ease, have called aloud, and reckoned with security on his call being heard as far as Ned Green’s and the other millers’ cottages, bringing him instant assistance, which Oliver did not believe would have been withheld because of the disaffection common both to the mill and the bakehouse. Webster’s outrage had been too gross and included the chance of turning the tables, and effectually scaring many of the conspirators.