pressing against the publican with his chest.
The lad with the turned-up sleeve gave the smith a blow in the face and cried wildly: “They’re fighting us, lads!”
At that moment the first smith got up and, scratching his bruised face to make it bleed, shouted in a tearful voice: “Police! Murder! … They’ve killed a man, lads!”
“Oh, gracious me, a man beaten to death—killed! …” screamed a woman coming out of a gate close by.
A crowd gathered round the bloodstained smith.
“Haven’t you robbed people enough—taking their last shirts?” said a voice addressing the publican. “What have you killed a man for, you thief?”
The tall lad, standing in the porch, turned his bleared eyes from the publican to the smith and back again as if considering whom he ought to fight now.