The farmer was approaching him, clumping down the road, staring at him openly - something that made Gendibal frown. No Hamish man or woman had ever looked at him in this manner. Even the children ran away and peered from a distance.
Gendibal did not slow his own stride. There would be room enough to pass the other with neither comment nor glance and that would be best. He determined to stay away from the farmer's mind.
Gendibal drifted to one side, but the farmer was not going to have that. He stopped, spread his legs wide, stretched out his large arms as though to block passage, and said, "Ho! Be you scowler?"
Try as he might, Gendibal could not refrain from sensing the wash of pugnacity in the approaching mind. He stopped. It would be impossible to attempt to pass by without conversation and that would be, in itself, a weary task. Used as one was to the swift and subtle interplay of sound and expression and thought and mentality that combined to make up the communication between Second Foundationers, it was wearisome to resort to word combination alone. It was like prying up a boulder by arm and shoulder, with a crowbar lying nearby.
Gendibal said, quietly and with careful lack of emotion, "I am a scholar. Yes."
"Ho! You am a scowler. Don't we speak outlandish now? And cannot I see that you be one or am one?" He ducked his head in a mocking bow. "Being, as you be, small and weazen and pale and upnosed."
"What is it you want of me, Hamishman?" asked Gendibal, unmoved.
"I be titled Rufirant. And Karoll be my previous." His accent became noticeably more Hamish. His r's rolled throatily.
Gendibal said, "What is it you want with me, Karoll Rufirant?"
"And how be you titled, scowler?"
"Does it matter? You may continue to call me 'scholar.'"
"If I ask, it matters that I be answered, little up-nosed scowler."
"Well then, I am titled Stor Gendibal and I will now go about my business."
"What be your business?"
Gendibal felt the hair prickling on the back of his neck. There were other minds present. He did not have to turn to know there were three more Hamishmen behind him. Off in the distance, there were others. The farmer smell was strong.
"My business, Karoll Rufirant, is certainly none of yours."
"Say you so?" Rufirant's voice rose. "Mates, he says his business be not ours."
There was a laugh from behind him and a voice sounded. "Right he be, for his business be book-mucking and 'puter-rubbing, and that be naught for true men."
"Whatever my business is," said Gendibal firmly, "I will be about it now."
"And how will you do that, wee scowler?" said Rufirant.
"By passing you."
"You would try? You would not fear arm-stopping?"
"By you and all your mates? Or by you alone?" Gendibal suddenly dropped into thick Hamish dialect. "Art not feared alone?"
Strictly speaking, it was not proper to prod him in this manner, but it would stop a mass attack and that had to be stopped, lest it force a still greater indiscretion on his part.
It worked. Rufirant's expression grew lowering. "If fear there be, bookboy, th'art the one to be full of it. Mates, make room. Stand back and let him pass that he may see if I be feared alane."
Rufirant lifted his great arms and moved them about. Gendibal did not fear the farmer's pugilistic science; but there was always a chance that a goodly blow might land.
Gendibal approached cautiously, working with delicate speed within Rufirant's mind. Not much - just a touch, unfelt - but enough to slow reflexes that crucial notch. Then out, and into all the others, who were now gathering in greater numbers. Gendibal's Speaker mind darted back and forth with virtuosity, never resting in one mind long enough to leave a mark, but just long enough for the detection of something that might be useful.
He approached the farmer catlike, watchful, aware and relieved that no one was making a move to interfere.
Rufirant struck suddenly, but Gendibal saw it in his mind before any muscle had begun to tighten and he stepped to one side. The blow whistled past, with little room to spare. Yet Gendibal still stood there, unshaken. There was a collective sigh from the others.
Gendibal made no attempt to either parry or return a blow. It would be difficult to parry without paralyzing his own arm and to return a blow would be of no use, far the farmer would withstand it without trouble.
He could only maneuver the man as though he were a bull, forcing him to miss. That would serve to break his morale as direct opposition would not.
Bull-like and roaring, Rufirant charged. GendibaI was ready and drifted to one side just sufficiently to allow the farmer to miss his clutch. Again the charge. Again the miss.
GendibaI felt his own breath begin to whistle through his nose. The physical effort was small, but the mental effort of trying to control without controlling was enormously difficult. He could not keep it up long.
He said - as calmly as he could while batting lightly at Rufirant's fear-depressant mechanism, trying to rouse in a minimalist manner what must surely be the farmer's superstitious dread of scholars - "I will now go about my business."
Rufirant's face distorted with rage, but for a moment he did not move. Gendibal could sense his thinking. The little scholar had melted away like magic. Gendibal could feel the other's fear rise and for a moment
But then the Hamish rage surged higher and drowned the fear.
Rufirant shouted, "Mates! Scowler he dancer. He do duck on nimble toes and scorns the rules of honest Hamish blow-for-blow. Seize him. Hold him. We will trade blow for blow, then. He may be firststriker, gift of me, and I - I will be last-striker."