arose among them, rising steadily.  He could only hear snatches of their words:  ’Give it back to him,’ ‘He won’t get it,’ ’How can he be travelling without the Can with the Diamond Notch?’ ‘Is it the Can with the Diamond Notch?’ ‘No,’ ’Maybe it is, maybe it is not,’ ‘Who knows that?’ ‘I say yes,’ ’Hold your tongue,’ ‘Be off, you slut,’ ‘Rattle away.’

People from the town were attracted to the place.  Festus Clasby, the dispute stirring something in his own blood, shook his fist in the long narrow face of Mac-an-Ward.  As he did so he got a tip on the heels and a pressure upon the chest sent him staggering a few steps back.  One of the old women held him up in her arms and another old woman stood before him, striking her breast.  Festus Clasby saw the wisps of hair hanging about the bony face and froth at the corners of her mouth.  Vaguely he saw the working of the bones of her wasted neck, and below it a long V-shaped gleam of the yellow tanned breast, which she thumped with her fist.  Afterwards the memory of this ugly old trollop remained with him.  The youngsters were shooting in and out through the group, sending up unearthly shrieks.  Two of the men peeled off their coats and were sparring at each other wickedly, shouting all the time, while Mac-an-Ward was making a tumultuous peace.  The commotion and the strife, or the illusion of strife, increased.  “Oh,” an onlooker cried, “the tinkers are murdering each other!”

The patient horse at last raised its head with a toss and a snort over the rabble, and then wheeled about to break away.  With the instinct of his kind, Festus Clasby rushed to the animal’s head and held him.  As he did so the striped petticoats and the tossing shawls of the women flashed about the shafts and the body of the cart.  The men raised a hoarse roar.

A neighbour of Festus Clasby, driving up the street at this moment, was amazed to see the great man of lands and shops in the midst of the wrangling tinkers.  He pulled up, marvelling, then went to him.

“What is this, Festus?” he asked.

“They have robbed me,” cried Festus Clasby.

“Robbed you?”

“Ay, of money and of property.”

“Good God!  How much money?”

“I don’t rightly know—­I forget—­some shillings, maybe.”

“Oh!  And of property?”

“No matter.  It is only one article, but property.”

“Come home, Festus; in the name of God get out of this,” advised the good neighbour.

But Festus Clasby was strangely moved.  He was behaving like a man who had drink taken.  Something had happened wounding to his soul.  “I will not go,” he cried.  “I must have back my money.”

The tinkers had now ceased disputing among themselves.  They were grouped about the two men as if they were only spectators of an interesting dispute.

“Back I must have my money!” cried Festus Clasby, his great hand going up in a mighty threat.  The tinkers clicked their tongues on the roofs of their mouths in a sound of amazement, as much as to say, “What a terrible thing!  What a wonderful and a mighty man!”