Love of Brothers Part 10

"And yet," said Patsy, "Miss Stella's my choice. Did you ever take notice of her side-face? It's the purtiest, softest thing I ever seen.

I think I seen somethin' like it wance, but where I disremimber."

"Which of the young ladies is Mr. Terry sweet on, Mr. Kenny?"

"Bedad, I don't know, ma'am." Patsy scratched his head. "I wouldn't be sure he's not sweet on the two o' them."

A day came when the two girls, crossing the fields by a short cut, found themselves face to face with a very fine bull. They had not noticed him till they came quite near him. Their path wound round by a little wood which, since it belonged to the paddock of the mares, was surrounded by high hurdles. The bull must have broken into the field, for he had no right to be there. The piece of rope hanging from his neck showed that he had escaped from bondage.

The path curved gently by the edges of the coppice. They came upon the bull unawares. He was grazing when they first saw him, his fine curled head half-buried in the long gra.s.s.

"It is Brady's bull," Eileen said in a whisper. "He is not to be trusted. And--he sees your red cloak."

The bull lifted his head and stared at them. Eileen had slipped behind Stella and had begun to retreat backwards.

The bull stamped with his foot and emitted a low roar. Stella did not seem to feel afraid. She kept her eye steadily on the bull. The day was chilly and Lady O'Gara had wrapped the girls up in Connemara cloaks of red and blue flannel. She had put the blue one about Eileen's shoulders, remarking that it matched her eyes.

"Run, Eileen, run," Stella said quietly without taking her eyes from the bull. "Keep the gate open for me."

Eileen ran with a will, never looking back to see what was happening.

Stella took off the red cloak. The bull had put his head to the earth as though about to charge. He roared, a roar that seemed to shake the ground. As he came on she flung the offending garment on to his horns and stepped to one side.

She did not wait to see the result. She could run like Atalanta. It was a pretty good sprint to the gate, which closed and opened by an iron switch. As she ran, the roars of the bull followed her. He was rending Lady O'Gara's Connemara cloak. Presently he would discover that the perpetrator of this outrage upon his dignity was yet in sight.

She was some distance from the gate when she heard the thudding of the bull behind her. For a second or two she did not discover that Eileen was not holding the gate open for her. It was apparently shut to.

Would she have time to open it before the bull came up! The switch, which was new, took some pressure to move. Would she have time?

She had just a wild hope that Eileen might have left the gate unfastened. She flung herself against it. No, the switch had fallen into its place: there was no time, no time even to climb the gate. The bull was upon her with a rush. She felt the wind of his approach. She closed her eyes and clung to the gate. Her mind was never clearer.

She saw herself trampled and gored, flung in the air and to earth again a helpless thing for the bull to wreak his wrath upon.

Suddenly there was a shout, close at hand, almost at her ear.

Something hurtled through the air, a stone flung with an unerring aim which struck the bull in the forehead. The gate opened with her and she felt herself drawn through the opening while the switch fell with a sharp click.

"I say, that was a near thing!" said Terry O'Gara. "You're not going to faint, are you? Just look at that chap tearing up my old football blazer. Thank G.o.d, it isn't you."

"Where is Eileen?" she asked. "She was terribly frightened."

"I know," he answered, somewhat grimly. "I dare say she has done a faint. I left her over there by the stile. She was sitting down, recovering herself. Lucky I heard the roars of the bull and was so close at hand. I suppose it was Eileen who shut the gate. She made some sort of explanation, but there was no time to listen. What a fright you've had, you poor child!"

The bull, having reduced the blazer to rags like the Connemara cloak, had trotted away and was grazing quietly, some of the tattered pieces still hanging to his horns, with an odd effect of absurdity.

"I never thought an animal could be so alarming," said Stella.

"You must be more careful in future," he answered. "Not that I want you to be afraid--like Eileen. This brute had no business here. He must have broken through the hedge. He might have got into the foals'

paddock. There's a way in for anything very determined where the water runs in that far ditch."

"Oh, I'm glad he didn't get in among the pretty foals."

"It would have been a horrible thing, but better the foals than you."

He looked at her with a simple boyish tenderness. There was something childish about her beauty, something boyish about the slight figure and the curly head, borne out by her frank gaze.

"I wish I had killed the brute," he said, with a vengeful glance in the direction of the quietly-feeding bull.

"You probably cut him with that stone, poor beast."

"Yes: it had a good sharp edge. How lucky I found it just there!"

He noticed that she turned very pale. Quickly his arm went round her to give her support.

"You poor little thing!" he said. "I am so sorry. Are you better now?"

The colour came back to her face. She withdrew gently from his arm.

"I am all right," she said. "It was splendid how you came to my rescue."

Her frank eyes thanked him in a way he found bewildering. He was very goodly in his flannels, with his alert slender darkness and his bright eyes, softened now as his gaze rested upon her.

"It won't make you afraid?" he asked anxiously. "I mean, of course, you must be cautious; but any one would be afraid of Brady's bull.

Don't be timid like Eileen, who screams if a foal trots up to her, and is afraid even of Shot."

He had quite forgotten the time when he had found Eileen's timidity pleasing.

"Oh, I shall not be afraid of Shot, or the foals," she said, and laughed. "After all," she lifted her eyes to him as though she asked for pardon--"any one might be afraid of a bull. I'm not a coward for that."

"Of course you're not," he answered, with a sound in his voice as though she was very pleasant to him. "Bulls are treacherous brutes."

They went back slowly to where Eileen sat watching their approach gloomily.

"Well!" she said. "You've been a long time. Wasn't that a horrid brute? I never ran such danger in my life before."

"Stella ran a greater because you had taken care to slam the gate after you," Terry said, with young condemning eyes. "I was only just in time to save her from that brute."

"Oh well, I was frightened. I only thought of getting away as far as I could from him. I shan't walk in the fields again in a hurry. If it isn't horses, it's bulls."

Eileen's face kept its unbecoming gloom on the homeward way, even though she pressed very close to Terry for protection whenever they came near the feeding horses, or one of them trotted up to be petted and stroked. She knew she was disapproved of, and the knowledge was unpleasant to her, although it did not cause her any searchings of conscience. Eileen always took the line of least resistance, as her clever sister, Paula, who was a B.A. of Dublin University, had said.

CHAPTER VIII

SIR SHAWN SEES A GHOST

"There's a blast o' talk goin' through the place like an earthquake,"

said Patsy Kenny to Sir Shawn, "that the little cottage down by the waterfall is took by a stranger woman."

There was "a blast of talk" even about trifles among the country-people, from whom Patsy kept his distance with an abhorrence of gossip and curiosity about other people's business. Many a one had tried to pump Patsy,--the people had an inordinate curiosity about their "betters"--and of late tongues had been very busy with the return of Mrs. Comerford and the reconciliation with Lady O'Gara: also with Miss Stella and her parentage. Those who tried to pump Patsy Kenny about these matters embarked, and they knew it, on perilous seas.

Patsy's stiff face as he repelled the gossips was a sight to see. He had also to keep at bay many questions about Susan Horridge and her boy, in doing which he showed some asperity and thereby gave a handle to the gossips.