III May flung back her cape. The fugitive in black was in her arms, his muzzle on her shoulder, his ears and eyes towards the wood, and his tail fast in that red remorseless hand. "Pardon, miss," said the keeper, touching his hat. "It's you're pullin'. I ain't." "Dutton!" wailed a boy's voice from the hillside. "Sir!" roared Dutton. "If you tell-" cried a sword-voice in his ear. "I've lost him," pursued the far voice. "Drop it!" ordered May, with eyes "Berserker can't hit it." like flame. "Pardon, miss," said the keeper, calm again now. "He nigh cost me my place 'fore this." "You're pulling his tail out of its socket," cried May, with heaving bosom. "Drop it!" "Try forrard, sir," roared Dutton. "Coward!" said the sword-voice; and a hand like a white scud smote his cheek. Dutton threw up his shoulder and hid his cheek behind it, grinning. "Dutton!" wailed the far-away voice. "Which way?" "Miss?" said Dutton, and hunched his ened fawn. shoulder. "I'm sorry I smacked you, Dutton.” "That's no matter, miss," said Dutton, cordially, touching his hat. "And now," said May, swift as a sword, "drop it!" "Pardon, miss," said Dutton the dogged. Nigh cost me my place 'fore this, miss." "I won't stand any nonsense, Dutton!" trembling. "No, miss," respectfully. "I order you!" with a stamp. "Yes, miss," grinning uncomfortably. "Yes, you may smile," cried May, white hot. "I'll make you-you'll see. Take your hands off! or I'll-I'll-I will." "Will what, miss?" "Gnaw you," said May, very white. "Very good, miss," said Dutton, patiently. "Brute!" said May, bowed her flower face over the huge hand, and gnawed. Then she looked up into the keep er's face. "I say!" she gasped, "did it hurt?" and scanned the hand where showed the ivory marks of her teeth. "Tickled a bit, miss," said Dutton, unmoved. "Take another taste, miss." "It's no good," panted May. "It's so tough. I can't get my teeth in.” "Very sorry, indeed, miss," said the grim keeper. With fevered fingers she began to tease at the great hand that wrapped round the tail like a selvage. As well might a sea-swallow peck at an iceberg in hope to move it. She saw it and gave up. "Oh, Dutton! Oh, please!" The voice was changed now, meek, pitiful, suppliant, full of tears. "I beg you." Dutton ceased to grin. Faintly the white fingers strove. "I do ask you, Dutton! We've always been such good friends, you and I—ever since you used to carry me about in your arms when I was a tiny thing." The squeal of excited terriers, and her brother's hateful voice cheering them on, was in her ears. The fugitive in her arms was shivering but not so much as she was-poor pale anemone shaken by the wind. She began to pull softly, edging away, with eyes aghast and ever on the hill. "Oh, Dutton!" appealing and piteous. Dear Dutton! And when I saved your Tommy's life last week-I did! I did! You know I did. Didn't I?" Dutton began to fidget. "When, miss?" "At the school feast-when he swallowed a bull's-eye,* and it stuck half-way down; and he couldn't breathe, and began to go black in the face. And Miss Pigott was down on her knees saying: Pray, child! pray! It's the only thing to do! And I said, 'Rot!' and put my paw in and clawed it out-and he bit a great piece out of my wrist,—and Mr. Hancock said-I hate having to remind you-that, humanly speaking, I'd saved his life. Now d'you remember?" Dutton grumbled and grunted. * A bull's-eye is a large round sweet. and flapping-jowled, had shot out of the wood, had sighted her, and now was plunging down the slope in chase at a long lolloping gallop. White as a driven snowflake, and as swift, she turned to her fleeing. Before her the land fell suddenly away in a steep slope, patched with bents and bogmyrtle. At the foot of the steep the foreshore lay, shining, pebbly, wet; and beyond it, a hundred yards away, the waters whispered about the lady - birches that have walked ankle-deep into the water, and stand there shivering and afraid. Down the steep pitch she swooped, as a bird swoops into an abyss; and at the bottom, out of sight of the pursuer, she set down the fugitive. "Run!" she panted-" for your life!" smacked him sharply to hurry him; then turned and fled up the steep. As she topped the crest, the old hound, his head up, plunging along at his floppety gallop, was not twenty yards away, racing for a view; she clapped her hands. "Bersie boy! Bersie boy!" she cried, cheering him, breathless but gallant. "Hya! hya! hya!" and led away, trailing her hand like a wounded wing, as though to lay him on the scent. The old hound swung from his going, came to her cry, flappety, floppety, bent to her trailing hand, flung here, flung there, thirsty, ferocious, and with thrashing tail, searching his clue. "Search him out! Push him out! Hya! hya! There's the boy!" panted May, leading ever away from the crest of the slope; and even as she did it she heard the sound of one, cautiously picking his way through shallow water beneath. Berserker heard too. He turned from her and her Delilah-like seductions. A moment he stood with high head listening, then plunged to the crest of the steep, and stood there splendidly at gaze. May flashed to his side. Below them, ankle-deep in the calm waters blood-stained by the dying sun, stood one like a wee bull, shaggy, swart, four-square, with ears like spears and bayonet-points, grinning up at them villainously. "Fool!" cried May, and stamped. "Ow!" roared Berserker, and with a bound and a boom was flinging down the steep. (6 No, you don't!" cried May, and flung herself on top of him. 66 Berserker's hit it! Get to him, little ladies!" came her brother's triumphant scream, as he blurted out of the wood. "Loose him, miss!" roared Dutton, running towards her. "Never!" cried May, her hands like a white collar about the old hound's throat. "Help! help! Oh, you beastly brute!" as Berserker plunged booming into her hands as a horse into his collar. "You sha'n't!" with set teeth. "You pig! you sha'n't!" and yet for all her pulling she was heaved forwards, flung off her feet, and so pulled slithering down the slope, still clinging desperately; while Berserker plunged and tugged and boomed in throttled voice. "Help!” cried May, in last-gasp voice. "Hold him!" as Dutton came over the crest of the slope, running furiously. "I got him, miss," cried the keeper, seized the old hound by the collar, wrenched him clear, wrestled with him, flung him, and knelt on him. Poor May had collapsed. "Hullo, May!" he cried, trotting anxiously over to her. "Hurt?" "Never mind!" came an uncertain voice. George knelt beside her. "I say, May!" almost in tears, and tenderly he drew aside the curtain of her hair. "I say, old lady." "Go away!" cried May, and drew again her curtain that she might hide behind it. George, abashed, rose to his feet and looked across the water. Far out he saw a black snout resting on the calm bosom of the lake, a little eddying ripple in its wake. "Gone away!" he cried. But there was no heart in his halloa, "Hya! hya! hya!" but there was no dash in the run with which he led the terrier pack to the water's edge. May raked aside her curtain to peep out with brimming eyes. She saw that low-lying snout far out on the bosom of the lake; she saw the terriers idly yapping in the shallow waters; she saw George throwing stones in the direction of the retreating enemy (the stones fell short; George, even George, could not throw a quarter of a mile), and the tears were hunted from her eyes by an April smile. "That's all right," she sighed, and shook her splendid mane. "Ah," grunted Dutton. cost me my place yet.” "And he'll May peeped at him round a mass of intervening hair. "No, he won't, Dutton," she said. "I'll see to that," and overcame him with a smile. "You needn't sit on Bersie any more," she added, considerately. The keeper rose. So did Berserker, "Are you hurt, miss?" panted the shook his loose old skin till it rattled, keeper, anxiously. "Don't know," said May, in small and rather weepy voice, sitting dishevelled beneath a heap of golden hair. Over the brow came her brother and his waspish pack, thirsting for blood. "Where is he?" he cried. 66 Half-way across t' watter by this," said Dutton, kneeling on the flopping Berserker. "Best look to Miss May. She's a bit shook up." then came to her, grinning a great war grin, for much he loved her. "Rough old wretch!" she said, and raising an elegant toe, prodded him delicately in the ribs. "You've wrenched me all to nothing," and patted the wrinkled head he thrust into her bosom. George was coming back from the water's edge slowly, the drowned terriers at his heels. He was throwing stones disconsolately at reed tussocks, and re George turned and beheld his sister fusing to lift his eyes. huddled beneath her hair. "Suck'd again, old boy!" chuckled a rich voice above him. "You're about as "Good-by, my own!" she cried in demuch good as an apple dumpling." voted voice, kissing her hand across the The boy lifted his handsome face, and water. "Au revoir, sweetest! Come again soon!" the light was back in it. May was sitting on the bank above him, her arms about her knees, her eyes dancing through a veil of invading hair. She executed three steps of a skirtdance, pirouetted with widespread skirts, and bowed gravely to Dutton. George turned and looked out over the water. 66 It's all you!" he said, grinning at her delightedly. May was rude; May was grinning; May was herself again-good "Well, I'm jiggered!" he said, for on old May. "We'd have had him but a spit of land on the opposite shore, unfor you." der a solitary fir, stood a wee figure, "Yes, you would," chuckled May. shaggy, swart, four-square, with ears like "Scored you off for Peter." spears, the sunset in his eyes, waving his Suddenly she skipped to her feet, tail at them over the stained water; and straining on tipmost toe. almost they could see his villainous smile. H The Roman Way BY ARTHUR COLTON I AVING such sadness then we turned aside From the straight road and Roman Way that goes "Captain, too stern this granite road!" we cried, And, "For whose right in militant array And so we turned aside: and day by day Men passed us with set faces to the road, With all its dewy herbage and the fleet II Then in the main of living we were glad Of that resolve which took us from the Way, Stealthy and slow, and passed and passed again Now for our heads are stricken, our lives are Beyond the snows are blissful births of pain, VOL. CVII. No. 640.-69 |