‘Go back to the bottom of the hill this instant, and pick up the child and carry it up here,’ he said.
‘Go and insert your foolish old head in a receptacle for pommes-de-terre,’ was Dot’s flippant retort.
Larrie’s hands pressed harder, his chin grew squarer.
‘I’m in earnest, Dot, deadly earnest. I order you to fetch the child, and I intend you to obey me,’ he gave her a little shake to enforce the command. ‘I am your master, and I intend you to know it from this day.’
Dot experienced a vague feeling of surprise at the fire in the eyes that were nearly always clear, and smiling, and loving, then she twisted herself away.
‘Pooh,’ she said, ‘you’re only a stupid overgrown, passionate boy, Larrie. You my [p 8] ]master! You’re nothing in the world but my husband.’
‘Are you going?’ he said in a tone he had never used before to her. ‘Say Yes or No, Dot, instantly.’
‘No,’ said Dot, stormily.
Then they both gave a sob of terror, their faces blanched, and they began to run madly down the hill.
Oh the long, long way they had come, the endless stretch of red, red road that wound back to the gold-tipped wattles, the velvet grass, and their baby!