“Hang his lordship! Well, perhaps I am, wife, and it’s because I’m afraid that Luke Ross is the better man of the two. Why, look here, it’s getting quite dark, and that girl not home,” he cried, angrily, as he strode towards the front door.
“Do come and sit down,” said Mrs Portlock. “She’s all right I tell you. I’ll be bound to say that some one has gone to meet her and see her home, and, look here, Joseph, don’t be foolish when Mr Cyril comes, but make yourself pleasant to him for Sage’s sake. She quite worships him, poor girl.”
“Hah!” said the Churchwarden, with a grim smile upon his lip. “No one ever worshipped me,” and he opened the front door.
“Now don’t keep letting in the cold wind, Joseph,” cried Mrs Portlock, and then, “Gracious! What’s that?”
She heard the faint scream of some one at a distance, but almost as it reached her ears the Churchwarden had gone off at a heavy trot across the home field, in the direction from whence the sound had come, and he burst through the gate, to find Sage upon her knees, nursing Cyril Mallow’s bleeding head, as the sound of steps was heard from the side lane.
“What’s this? Who did this?” cried the Churchwarden. “Is he much hurt?”
“I—I don’t know,” faltered Sage. “Oh, uncle, uncle, is he killed?”
“Killed—no,” said the Churchwarden, going down on one knee, “cut—stunned. How was it—a fall?”
“No, uncle,” sobbed Sage, who was now half beside herself with grief—“they—they fought.”
“Who did? Who has been here?”