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"I heven't forgot, I heven't forgot." "Are you all right again, Bargle?" said Dick, trying in vain to extricate his hand. "Yeees. Knock o' the yead don't hot me. See here." He slowly drew out of his pocket a great piece of dark-yellow ivory, evidently the point, and about a foot in length, of the tusk of some animal, probably an elephant. "Theer's what I promised you, lad. That's a tush, that is.
If they used the word then, I would have to exaggerate only slightly to say that Sir Bargle was, as they say in French, or maybe don't, a jerque. The prospect of this knight nuzzling the hair or nibbling the earlobes of Jennifrella was in itself sufficiently revulsive to Sir Philo; the prospect of his becoming king was absolutely unthinkable.
By the way, Dick, did that man Bargle ever give you the big tusk he said he had found?" "No, he has never said any more about it, and I don't like to ask." "Then I will. Perhaps it is the tooth of some strange beast which used to roam these parts hundreds of years ago." "I say, Marston," said the squire, "you'd like to see your great band of ruffians at work excavating here, eh?"
"I tell you what, boys, we'll bring Big Bargle over, and a couple of men; the wheelwright shall cut us some posts, rafters, and a door, and we'll make a great hut, and " He stopped short at that point and stared, as they all stood in the depths of the little fir-wood, with the water and reed-beds hidden from sight.
That might or might not have been the case. At any rate there was the body of a man in a wonderful state of preservation, kept from decay by the action of the peat; and, judging from the clothing, the body must have been in its position there for many hundred years. "What's got to be done now?" said Bargle. "We want to get on."
Bargle had not come up to his work, and the foreman of the next gang went to see why his fellow-ganger had not joined him, and found him lying on the floor of the peat-built hut quite insensible, with the marks of savage blows about the head, as if he had been suddenly attacked and beaten with a club, for there was no sign of any struggle.
"There's a party of the drain-men coming. Let's run!" Dick was right, and five minutes after, he and his companions had joined a group gathered round Mr Marston, while Bargle, the big labourer, was talking. "Ay, mester, we all tumbled out, and went away down to the gaats as soon as we'd tumbled out, and they're all knocked down and the water in." "Knocked down!" cried the squire.
"Nay, no fear o' hotting him," growled Bargle, grinning, and, bending to his work, he deftly cut away the black peat till the figure stood before them upright in the bog as if fitted exactly in the face of the section like some brownish-black fossil of a human being.
Dick said, "Thank you," for the promised "tush," and walked away. "I don't like it," said Mr Marston. "Someone shooting at me; someone striking down this man. I'm afraid it's due to ill-will towards me, Dick. But," he added, laughing, "I will not suspect you, as Bargle lets you off." The time glided on.
First, strictly from a philosophical standpoint, a shooting contest was a completely irrational method of choosing either a spouse or a future king, and irrationality like this always troubled the young knight. Second, though Sir Fassade was a very good shot, capable of satisfactorily humiliating most of the other contestants, he was no match for Sir Bargle.
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