'By Jove! you're a girl worth knowing!' said the taller boy. 'The way you rolled him flat was the funniest sight I've seen for many a year! Get up, Jones, you sneaking, drivelling cur!'—kicking the prostrate form of that fallen hero. 'And if ever I catch you at any of your tricks with Vaughan again I'll settle you myself, I promise you, though I don't know whether I could have done it any better than this, after all!' glancing with an eye of admiration at the victorious Peggy, who, with split gloves, scarlet cheeks, and wild-flying curls, stood panting after the contest.
'Golly! if you were my sister, I'd be proud of you!' he continued, while the other boy picked up her hat from the roadway, and collected her scattered school-books. 'I like a girl with pluck, and you've got enough for ten of 'em. I say, Vaughan, I'll try you to fag for me, if you like. You're a good runner, I hear, and no butter-fingers. You can begin to-morrow.'
'And he is the Captain of the school eleven!' said Bobby afterwards, who would have felt it scarcely so great an honour to be noticed by the Prince of Wales. 'There isn't a boy in my class who isn't yearning to be Farrar's fag. They'll be just wild with envy! Peggy, you're about the biggest trump on the face of the earth, and I'll never forget this day if I live to be a hundred!'
Jones minor found he also had good reason to remember the occasion, for as Farrar and Henderson felt no obligation to observe secrecy, his life at Warford Grammar School was for some time a burden to him. Constant references as to his fondness for female society, offers to see him home to protect him on the way, tender inquiries as to the state of his eyes and the condition of his ears, filled him with confusion, while large portraits of Jones in the clutches of an imaginary Amazon, executed with schoolboy talent and vigour, adorned the walls of the playground and the palings of the cricket-field.
Peggy's onslaught really seemed to have done some good in the school, for the attention of the older and better boys being called to the subject of bullying, a stand was made, and public opinion ran high against it, so that for a time, at any rate, the little boys had peace, and Bobby was able to return daily by the ordinary high-road, instead of seeking the shelter of side-paths and back alleys.
Bobby's letter to Archie on the subject of the encounter, though hardly a model of orthography, was as stirring as the ballad of Chevy Chase.
'She lade the villin flat on the erth, and I just wish you cud have seen her punch his hed,' he wrote. 'She nocked him about like a pottatoe. Peggy is awful strong wen her blud is up, and she sez she wuld do it agen to save my Life. Jones minor stopt at home two days arfter. He cudunt stand the jeers of the other boys, and they still give it him badly. Farrar is jolly good to me now. I like fagging for him better than enything. Peggy won't tork about wot she has done at all. She sez she is rather ashamed of it now, and that you wuld think her a bigger tomboy than ever; but all the boys at skule call her a brick, and so do I, and if she comes to see the bote race at Easter they mean to chear her.'
Archie wrote back at once to congratulate the heroine, and Peggy treasured the letter for days, until the new pet lamb accidentally chewed it up. It ran thus:
'My dear Peggy,
'I think it was just elegant of you, and I won't call you t..b.y any more if you don't like it. Instead I will christen you Ta-ka-pun-ka, which in the language of the Chincowawas means "Girl-afraid-of-nothing," for you are as good as one of our Indian braves. I only wish you had taken his scalp, but I suppose you hadn't time. When I come back at Easter I will teach you to box, and then you will be ready for anybody, only please don't tackle me. I shall have to be careful how I quarrel with you now. If I am home in time for the boat-race I shall come and cheer, too. I am longing to get back to Gorswen. Bobby never said if the water-wheel was all right. I hope no one has touched it while I have been away. Why don't you write and tell me about it, and about Sky Cottage, too? I shall have heaps of school news for you when I come home, and I have thought of several fresh things we can make; but I shan't tell you what they are till I see you, so curb your curiosity until the holidays.
'Hoping Prickles, and the rabbits, and all the other pets are well,
'Your affectionate friend,
'Archie Forster.'