atred--
displaying an animus which had become intensified since Mike had called
in Vince's help to put a stop to raids and forays upon the old manor
orchard when the apples, pears and plums were getting ripe, the result
being a good beating with tough oak saplings.

Not that this stopped the plundering incursions, for Carnach junior told
the two lads, and probably believed, as an inhabitant of the island,
that he had as good a right to the fruit as they.

Of course the many assaults and insults dealt out by Carnach junior--for
he was prolific in unpleasant words and jeers, whenever the companions
came within hearing--had results in the shape of reprisals. Vince was
not going to see Mike Ladelle's ear bleeding from a cut produced by a
forcibly propelled oyster-shell, without making an attack upon the young
human catapult; and Mike's wrath naturally boiled over upon seeing a
piece of rock pushed off the edge of the cliff, and fall within a foot
of where Vince was lying on the sand at the foot. But the engagements
which followed seemed to do no good, for Carnach junior was so extremely
English that he never seemed to realise that he had been thrashed till
he had lain down with his eyes so swollen up that there was hardly room
for the tears to squeeze themselves out, and his lips so disfigured that
his howls generally escaped through his nose.

"I never saw such a fellow," Vince used to say: "if you only slap his
face, it swells up horribly."

"And it's of no use to lick him, it doesn't do any good," added Mike.
"Why, I must have thrashed him a hundred times, and you too."

This was a remark which showed that either Mr Deane's instructions in
the art of calculation were faulty, or Mike's mental capacity inadequate
for acquiring correctness of application.

Still there must have been some truth in Mike's words, for Vince, who
was a great stickler for truthfulness, merely said:

"Ah! we have given it to him pretty often."

Vince and Mike did not take to Young 'un or Youngster, as a sobriquet
for Carnach junior, and consequently they invented quite a variety of
names, which were chosen, not for the purpose of distinguishing the fat,
flat-faced, rather pig-eyed youth from other people, but it must be
owned for annoyance, and by way of retaliation for endless insults.

"You see, we must do something," said Mike.

"Of course," agreed Vince; "and I'm tired of making myself hot and
knocking my knuckles about against hi