But as girls crouched in the hay at the ladder-head, arms down-stretched to oust the besieger, that besieger, when he thrust a wild gray head up into the light, showed signs of amazement—blank amazement—rather than hostility.
“My soul! So it’s you birds!” He wagged a crinkly beard. “You city birds that I met ’way back there on the trail—dark-benighted, wet-benighted!... An’ I thought ’twas Her. An’ s’elp me, if it had bin Her, I’d ha’ come within a cow’s thumb o’ shootin’ Her.”
He pulled his right hand, with something in it, up the ladder.
CHAPTER XI
Her
“If it had ha’ been Her, I’d ha’ come within the breadth of a cow’s thumb of shooting Her!”
“But who’s—‘Her’?” The Guardian thrust a peering face forward, benighted merriment in her eyes; so did other lively girls; this was worth a wetting.
“Um-m. If you ask me, I’ll say she’s as rank a witch as ever rode on ragwort—I’ll say so! The wife she was talking about her jest now, when the thunder woke us hoping she’d ridden safe home—with my slippers—posy slippers.”
Pemrose suddenly sat up stiffly—ear-hungry.
“Your—slippers!” It was a hen-like cackle from the hay.
“Um-m.” The farmer caressed his shotgun—growling like a bear with a sore paw.