Cai was taunting Bias as the crowd pressed
around. So true is it that:--

"To be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain."

"Who wants to back out?" answered 'Bias sullenly.

"If a man insults me, I hold him to his word: either that or he takes it
back."

"Quite right, Cap'n';" prompted a voice. "And he can't tell us he
didn't say it, for I heard him!"

"I ain't takin' nothin' back." 'Bias faced about doggedly.

By this time, as their wits cleared a little, each was aware of his
folly, and each would gladly have retreated from this public exhibition
of it. But as the crowd increased, neither would be the first to yield
and invite its certain jeers. Moreover, each was furiously incensed:
anything seemed better than to be shamed by _him_, to give _him_ a cheap
triumph.

News of the altercation had spread. Soon two-thirds of the spectators
were trooping to join the throng in the upper field, pressing in on the
antagonists, jostling in their eagerness to catch a word of the dispute.
The competitors in Class D were left to plough lonely furrows and finish
them unapplauded. Young Mr Crago had run off meantime to secure the
services of the two judges.

Now Mrs Bosenna, after waiting some ten minutes by the lower gate for
Dinah (whose capital fault was unpunctuality), had lost patience and
walked back towards Rilla to meet and reproach her. She had almost
reached the small gate when she spied Dinah hurrying down the steep path
to the highroad, and halted. Dinah, coming up, excused herself between
catches of breath. She had been detained by the plucking of a fowl, and
a feather--or, as you might call it a fluff--had found its way into her
throat. "Which," said she, "the way I heaved, mistress, is beyond
belief."

Mrs Bosenna having admonished her to be more careful in future, turned
to retrace her steps to the field.

They reached it and climbed the slope crosswise. They had scarcely
gained the edge of the upper plateau when Mrs Bosenna stopped short and
gave a gasp. For at that moment there broke on their view, against the
near sky-line, the figure of a man awkwardly turning a plough, behind a
team of horses.

"Save us, mistress!" cried keen-eyed Dinah. "If it isn't--"

"It can't be!" cried Mrs Bosenna, as if in the same breath.

"It's Cap'n Hunken," said Dinah positively.

"But why? Dinah--why?"

"It's Cap'n Hunken," repeated Dinah. "The Lord knows why. If he's