Mr. Brander pushed him on one side so that he staggered, and picking up Olivia’s basket, signed to her to get over the stile, while he turned to give a few short and sharp words of farewell to the discomfited collier. A few seconds later Olivia, who had walked quickly on in shame, relief, and confusion, heard the vicar’s voice close behind her.
“And now, Miss Denison, I’ve a sermon ready for you.”
Coming up with her, he saw that the girl, who made no answer, had tears in her eyes.
“No, I’m not going to have any mercy on you because you choose to cry,” said he, pitilessly. “It’s no fairer of a girl to use her tears against a man than it is of a man to use his fists against a woman. If you don’t instantly leave off, I shall feel at liberty to hit you. You know you deserve it.”
“How?” asked she, tremulously.
“How! Why, by disregarding the emphatic warnings, not of one friend, but of two, and by dragging out a poor parson on Saturday, his sermon day, to protect you from the consequences of your folly.”
“Dragging you out!”
“Yes. This morning comes Mat Oldshaw post-haste to me just before luncheon to say that you were going off on a wild-goose—no, on a tame-hen—chase to Long Sedge Bend, and that he was certain you would come back over the very fields which he had just assured you were unsafe for a lady.”
“But, Mr. Brander,” put in Olivia, in real distress, “I’ve always been used to take care of myself; I have never been annoyed before. It’s an infamous thing that a girl shouldn’t be able to do what her powers enable her to do just as well as a man!”
“Infamous, perhaps, but indisputable. It is of no use to kick against custom.”