Pink came back, terrified, puzzled, shamed, but faithful—faithful even beneath the rain of knotted blows, hobnailed kicks and purple objurgations. She cried a little as she pressed her slim little body against the turf and screwed up her frightened eyes, and Dixon from his corner heard her. He stood up suddenly, and thrust himself contemptuously between executioner and victim.
“Hold on a bit, lad,” he said grimly, “and answer a civil question before you get through with your leatherin’. D’you mind yon clashy winter’s night as you nabbed Geordie Garnett’s best pup from his shippon?”
Bowman accomplished the almost incredible feat of turning blacker in the face than ever.
“That’s a—something—lie!” he stormed thickly.
Dixon stooped and turned up one of Pink’s soft ears, showing the letter “G” within, faint but still discernible.
“I know that breed as a man knows his own barns,” he said slowly. “Geordie an’ I have always been thick as inkle-weavers, you’ll think on, and I’m not like to forget what he had to say, yon night. I’ll just step up and have a crack with him. He’ll be rarely set up to have lit on his lost pup at last.”
Bowman was understood to remark that not for all the Dixons gone before to a certain unmentionable locality should Geordie Garnett lay a finger on what was not, and never had been, his. Dixon eyed him steadily. The fight was healing the hurt places in his soul.
“Look you here,” he said firmly. “I’ll make you a fair offer, and you can take it or leave it, just as suits you! You’ve shamed the poor brute before the whole countryside. She was game for the work, right enough, but you were fair maiselt. Now, I’ll do this for you. Let me take her round just once, just to show Lyndesay and all the lot of them what she can do when she’s given half a chance, and when Geordie Garnett gets her back, I’ll never let wit where I clapped eyes on her. Is it a deal?”
Bowman laughed murderously.
“A deal?” said he. “Ay, a deal, right enough! Take her, my fine lad—take her!”