In pursuance of which plan, he undid an embroidered satin waistcoat, and began to push aside an inner muslin vest. A whiff of musk and roses mingled with the moonlight.
"Stinks and bites like a foumart," he muttered. "Soa lie thee still, will tha? an' tak' that to thissen ma--gor amoighty!"
Joe Banks was on his feet; so was his enemy. Both dazed, uncertain. Flight seemed to come uppermost to the latter's thought, when the big man suddenly laughed a low chuckle of sheer amusement.
"An' t' coom like a wild cat at Joey Banks--that caps owt!"
The next instant he was grappling with a whirlwind of knives and nails, anything.
"Woa! woa! ma lass! Hands off, tha little vixen, till a' git a look at tha!" he said soothingly, as he prisoned two small hands in one huge fist, and with the other held his adversary almost tenderly at arm's length. What he saw, as he afterwards described it to Craddock, was just a "moit o' pistols an' pouches."
"Well! well! _Aw'm,--aw'm_ jiggered!" he exclaimed at last; adding argumentatively, "Whatten iver mad tha' go fur t' do it, tha foolish lass?"
Something in his broad, not unkindly rebuke seemed to take the starch out of the Most Nailin' Bad Shot. It seemed to cower in on itself and become smaller; though, as Joe Banks told himself perplexedly, it had been small enough to begin with.
"Well, aw _am_ jiggered," he repeated more softly. "Whatten iver mad tha' do it, ma lass?"
The answer was feminine and disconcerting; a sudden storm of tears. So they stood, the quaintest couple in the world. She bristling with cold steel of sorts; he bareheaded in the moonlight, with nothing but his hands for weapons.
"Dunnot," he said soothingly, not without a certain trepidation. "Aw'm no[=a]n go[=a]n t' hurt thee, ma gell. We'm not thaat soort t' womenkind; an' tha's a main pratty gell." Here he laughed softly; a laugh that was lost in a third--
He appeared to be so, for he ceased thrusting her from him--she being, indeed, too much engaged with tears to make it dangerous--and passed his hand over his forehead as if to clear his brain.
"Aw'm no[=a]n go[=a]n t' hurt tha, ma lass," he repeated suddenly, as if for his own information. "Aw'm nobbut go[=a]n t' shame tha' fur tha' badness."