tratingly, as if expecting an answer.

"Is he serious, or only joking me?" thought Tom the next moment. "He
must be a little wrong. Got windmills in his head, like Don Quixote."

"Yah! yah! Who shot the moon?" came in a coarse yell from outside the
gate.

Tom started, flushed, and turned round angrily, with his fists
involuntarily clenching.

"Yah! yah! old wind-grinders!" cried the voice again, followed by
several heavy bangs on the gate, evidently delivered with a stick.

"The impudent scoundrel!" cried Uncle Richard. "Go and tell that fellow
that--"

But he got no further, for, taking all this as an insult meant for his
uncle, Tom had darted off for the gate, which he threw open, and found
himself face to face with a big, shambling, hobbledehoy sort of fellow
of about eighteen or nineteen, who stepped back for a yard or two,
swinging a heavy stick to and fro, while a mangy-looking cur, with one
eye and a very thin tail like a greyhound's, kept close at his heels.

"What is it?" said Tom hotly. "Did you knock at the gate like that?"

"What's it got to do with you?" said the lad, insolently. "Get in, or
I'll set the dog at yer."

Tom glanced at the dog and then at its master, and felt as he often had
when his cousin Sam had been more than usually vicious.

"I'll jolly soon let yer know if yer give me any o' your mouth. Here,
Badger, smell him, boy--ciss--smell him!"

The cur showed his teeth, and uttered a low snarling growl, as its
master advanced urging him on; while Tom drew one leg a little back
ready to deliver a kick, but otherwise stood his ground, feeling the
while that everything was not going to be peaceful even in that lovely
village.

But before hostilities could begin, and just as the dog and his master
were within a yard, the gate was suddenly snatched open, and Uncle
Richard appeared, when the lout turned sharply and ran off along the
lane, followed by his dog, the fellow shouting "Yah! yah! yah!" his
companion's snapping bark sounding like an imitation.

"Come in, Tom," said Uncle Richard. "I don't want you to get into rows
with Master Pete Warboys. Insolent young rascal!"

Tom looked at his uncle inquiringly.

"That's the pest of the village, Tom. Nice young scoundrel. An idle
dog, who has had a dozen places and will not stay in them, though he has
no Cousin Sam to quarrel with."

Tom winced, for the words were a decided hit at him.

"So he has settled down into a regula