“Yes, if you hold my hand; only you mustn’t go too fast. Oh, you’re hurting!”
Taffy took the child in his arms, and with the wind at his back went up the hill with long stride. “There he is!” cried Joey as they gained the ridge; and he pointed; and Taffy, looking along the ridge, saw a speck of scarlet moving against the lead-coloured moors—half a mile away perhaps, or a little more. He sat the child down, for the cottages were close by. “Run home, sonny. I’m going to have a look at the soldier, too.”
The first bad squall broke on the headland just as Taffy started to run. It was as if a bag of water had burst right overhead, and within a quarter of a minute he was drenched to the skin. So fiercely it went howling inland along the ridge that he half expected to see the horse urged into a gallop before it. But the rider, now standing high for a moment against the sky-line, went plodding on. For a while horse and man disappeared over the rise; but Taffy guessed that on hitting the cross-path beyond it they would strike away to the left and descend toward Langona Creek; and he began to slant his course to the left in anticipation. The tide, he knew, would be running in strong; and with this wind behind it he hoped—and caught himself praying—that it would be high enough to cover the wooden foot-bridge and make the ford impassable; and if so, the horseman would be delayed and forced to head back and fetch a circuit farther up the valley.
By this time the squalls were coming fast on each other’s heels, and the strength of them flung him forward at each stride. He had lost his hat, and the rain poured down his back and squished in his boots. But all he felt was the hate in his heart. It had gathered there little by little for three years and a half, pent up, fed by his silent thoughts as a reservoir by small mountain streams; and with so tranquil a surface that at times—poor youth!—he had honestly believed it reflected God’s calm, had been proud of his magnanimity, and said “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.” Now as he ran he prayed to the same God to delay the traitor at the ford.
Dusk was falling when George, yet unaware of pursuit, turned down the sunken lane which ended beside the ford. And by the shore, when the small waves lapped against his mare’s fore-feet, he heard Taffy’s shout for the first time and turned in his saddle. Even so it was a second or two before he recognised the figure which came plunging down the low cliff on his left, avoiding a fall only by wild clutches at the swaying elder boughs.
“Hello!” he shouted cheerfully. “Looks nasty, doesn’t it?”
Taffy came down the beach, near enough to see that the mare’s legs were plastered with mud, and to look up into his enemy’s face.
“Get down,” he panted.
“Hey?”
“Get down, I tell you. Come off your horse and put up your fists!”