LITMIR.BIZ

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a dozen youngsters crept silently into the stable yard. Angèle kicked up a dainty foot in a preliminary pas seul, but Evelyn stopped her unceremoniously. The village girl’s sharp ears had caught footsteps on the garden path beyond the hedge.

      It was George Pickering, with his arm around Kitty’s shoulders. He was talking in a low tone, and she was giggling nervously.

      “They’re sweetheartin’,” whispered a girl.

      “So are we,” declared Frank Beckett-Smythe. “Aren’t we, Angèle?”

      “Sapristi! I should think so. Where’s Martin?”

      “Never mind. We don’t want him.”

      “Oh, he will be furious. Let’s hide. There will be such a row when he goes home, and he daren’t go till he finds me.”

      Master Beckett-Smythe experienced a second’s twinge at thought of the greeting he and his brother would receive at the Hall. But here was Angèle pretending timidity and cowering in his arms. He would not leave her now were he to be flayed alive.

      The footsteps of Pickering and Kitty died away. They had gone into the orchard.

      Evelyn Atkinson breathed freely again.

      “Even if Kitty sees us now, I don’t care,” she said. “She daren’t tell mother, when she knows that we saw her and Mr. Pickerin’. He ought to have married her sister.”

      “Poof!” tittered Angèle. “Who heeds a domestic?”

      Someone came at a fast run into the yard, running in desperate haste, and making a fearful din. Two boys appeared. The leader shouted:

      “Angèle! Angèle! Are you there?”

      Martin had missed her. Jim Bates, who knew the chosen rendezvous of the Atkinson girls, suggested that they and their friends had probably gone to the haggarth.

      “Shut up, you fool!” hissed Frank. “Do you want the whole village to know where we are?”

      Martin ignored him. He darted forward and caught Angèle by the shoulder. He distinguished her readily by her outline, though she and the rest were hidden in the somber shadows of the outbuildings.

      “Why did you leave me?” he demanded angrily. “You must come home at once. It is past ten o’clock.”

      “Don’t be angry, Martin,” she pouted. “I am just a little tired of the noise. I want to show you and the rest a new dance.”

      The minx was playing her part well. She had read Evelyn Atkinson’s soul. She felt every throb of young Beckett-Smythe’s foolish heart. She was quite certain that Martin would find her and cause a scene. There was deeper intrigue afoot now than the mere folly of unlicensed frolic in the fair. Her vanity, too, was gratified by the leading rôle she filled among them all. The puppets bore themselves according to their temperaments. Evelyn bit her lip with rage and nearly yielded to a wild impulse to spring at Angèle and scratch her face. Martin was white with determination. As for Master Frank, he boiled over instantly.

      “You just leave her alone, young Bolland,” he said thickly. “She came here to please herself, and can stay here, if she likes. I’ll see to that.”

      Martin did not answer.

      “Angèle,” he said quietly, “come away.”

      Seeing that he had lived in the village nearly all his life, it was passing strange that this boy should have dissociated himself so completely from its ways. But the early hours he kept, his love of horses, dogs, and books, his preference for the society of grooms and gamekeepers – above all, a keen, if unrecognized, love of nature in all her varying moods, an almost pagan worship of mountain, moor, and stream – had kept him aloof from village life. A boy of fourteen does not indulge in introspection. It simply came as a fearful shock to find the daughter of a lady like Mrs. Saumarez so ready to forget her social standing. Surely, she could not know what she was doing. He was undeceived, promptly and thoroughly.

      Angèle snatched her shoulder from his grasp.

      “Don’t you dare hold me,” she snapped. “I’m not coming. I won’t come with you, anyhow. Ma foi, Frank is far nicer.”

      “Then I’ll drag you home,” said Martin.

      “Oh, will you, indeed? I’ll see to that.”

      Beckett-Smythe deemed Angèle a girl worth fighting for. In any case, this clodhopper who spent money like a lord must be taught manners.

      Martin smiled. In his bemused brain the idea was gaining ground that Angèle would be flattered if he “licked” the squire’s son for her sake.

      “Very well,” he said, stepping back into the moonlight. “We’ll settle it that way. If you beat me, Angèle remains. If I beat you, she goes home. Here, Jim. Hold my coat and hat. And, no matter what happens, mind you don’t play for any dancing.”

      Martin stated terms and issued orders like an emperor. In the hour of stress he felt himself immeasurably superior to this gang of urchins, whether their manners smacked of Elmsdale or of Eton.

      Angèle’s acquaintance with popular fiction told her that at this stage of the game the heroine should cling in tears to the one she loved, and implore him to desist, to be calm for her sake. But the riot in her veins brought a new sensation. There were possibilities hitherto unsuspected in the darkness, the secrecy, the candid brutality of the fight. She almost feared lest Beckett-Smythe should be defeated.

      And how the other girls must envy her, to be fought for by the two boys pre-eminent among them, to be the acknowledged princess of this village carnival!

      So she clapped her hands.

      “O là là!” she cried. “Going to fight about poor little me! Well, I can’t stop you, can I?”

      “Yes, you can,” said one.

      “She won’t, anyhow,” scoffed the other. “Are you ready?”

      “Quite!”

      “Then ‘go.’”

      And the battle began.

      CHAPTER VI

      WHEREIN THE RED BLOOD FLOWS

      They fought like a couple of young bulls. Frank intended to demolish his rival at the outset. He was a year older and slightly heavier, but Martin was more active, more sure-footed, sharper of vision. Above all, he had laid to heart the three-pennyworth of tuition obtained in the boxing booth a few hours earlier.

      He had noted then that a boxer dodged as many blows with his head as he warded with his arms. He grasped the necessity to keep moving, and thus disconcert an adversary’s sudden rush. Again, he had seen the excellence of a forward spring without changing the relative positions of the feet. Assuming you were sparring with the left hand and foot advanced, a quick jump of eighteen inches enabled you to get the right home with all your force. You must keep the head well back and the eye fixed unflinchingly on your opponent’s. Above all, meet offense with offense. Hit hard and quickly and as often as might be.

      These were sound principles, and he proceeded to put them into execution, to the growing distress and singular annoyance of Master Beckett-Smythe.

      Ernest acted as referee – in the language of the village, he “saw fair play” – but was wise enough to call “time” early in the first round, when his brother drew off after a fierce set-to. The forcing tactics had failed, but honors were divided. The taller boy’s reach had told in his favor, while Martin’s newly acquired science redressed the balance.

      Martin’s lip was cut and there was a lump on his left cheek, but Frank felt an eye closing and had received a staggerer in the ribs. He was aware of an uneasy feeling that if Martin survived the next round he (Frank) would be beaten, so there was nothing for it but to summon all his reserves and deliver a Napoleonic attack. The enemy must be crushed by sheer force.

      He was a plucky lad and was stung to frenzy by seeing Angèle offer Martin the use of a lace

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