For a moment he lay still, and John was afraid that the man was really hurt.

Presently, however, he rose, and, without attempting any further hostile demonstration or saying a single word, tramped off towards the house, leaving his enemy to compose his ruffled nerves as best he could.

Now John, like most gentlemen, hated a row with all his heart, though he had the Anglo-Saxon tendency to go through with it unflinchingly when once it began.

Indeed, the incident irritated him almost beyond bearing, for he knew that the story with additions would go the round of the countryside, and what is more, that he had made a powerful and implacable enemy.
"This is all your fault, you drunken little blackguard!" he said, turning savagely on the Tottie, who, now that his excitement had left him, was snivelling and drivelling in an intoxicated fashion, and calling him his preserver and his Baas in maudlin accents.
"He hit me, Baas; he hit me, and I did not take the forage.

He is a bad man, Baas Muller." "Be off with you and get the horses inspanned; you are half-drunk," John growled, and, having seen that operation advancing to a conclusion, he went to the sitting-room of the hotel, where Bessie was waiting in happy ignorance of the disturbance.