With a yelp which was half a bark, and which said plainly enough, “I am coming,” he dashed his fore-paws against a window. The glass was shivered into flinders, and Ralph sprang through, escaping with only a cut or two, which he minded no more than my brave young reader would mind the scratch of a pin or a thorn.
He ran hither and thither for a few seconds, uncertain.
But, see! the noble beast has found the trail, and with nose to the earth, his long ears touching it, goes speedily onwards in the direction Peggy had taken. On and on, and he is soon swallowed up in the woodland depths. In less than five minutes he is out of the gloom and in the open glade. He meets Peggy, frightened and fleeing. He dashes past her—no time at present for even congratulations.
Now woe is me for the foremost of his mistress’s pursuers! Ralph bounds at him, straight for his chest. Down rolls the Frenchman as if struck by a war-rocket, and the blood-hound already has him by the throat. It is a gurgling scream the man emits—a half-stifled cry for help. Then all is over. No; the fellow is not killed, for brave little Peggy McQueen, knowing well what would happen, has retraced her steps, and seized Ralph by the collar. And this splendid hound lets Peggy haul him off, and the villain slowly and timorously struggles to his feet, his shirt-front stained with blood.
“Merci, merci,” he mutters, meaning “thanks, thanks.” “Merci, my little forest flower. I meant not to harm you. Non, ma petite!”
But little Peggy looked quite the sylvan queen now, standing there erect on the heath, her hand still on Ralph’s collar, her tippet of fern-green slightly disarranged, the heightened tints upon her cheeks, the sparkle in her eye, with sun-rays playing hide-and-seek amidst the wealth of her wavy auburn hair. She seemed for a moment to fancy herself on the stage acting in the play. One long brown arm was outstretched towards the bush into which the other Frenchman had fled.
“Go at once,” she cried, in the voice of a tragedienne. “Go! The forest around us holds no meaner reptile than thou. Go, and thank Heaven that my faithful hound has not torn you limb from limb.”
She turned as she spoke, and walked slowly back towards the forest, while the Frenchman slunk away to join his more fortunate companion.
As he turned to look back at the retreating figure of poor Peggy, he shook his fist. “Sacré! maiden!” he muttered to himself, “you have now the best of it, but—Jules Furet’s time will come. Jules can afford to wait.”
Just as she was, without pausing to divest herself of a single green fern, but joyful now, and with the beautiful hound bounding on by her side, only stopping now and then to awaken the echoes of the forest with the melody of his baying, Peggy ran homewards through the dark wood, never even pausing to breathe until she reached the camp and stood for a moment to look at the sea.