IN AN INSTANT PEGGY HAD SPRUNG ON HIS BACK AND WAS CAREERING ROUND AND ROUND THE PADDOCK.—Page [148].
This was by no means what the expectant girls desired. The Imp whispered a word to Grace and Anne, who rushed into the paddock, whirling their hockey-clubs.
“Lave me alone, will ye, or I’ll ride ye down!” cried Peggy. She rode Whinsie straight up to them, but the little animal shied violently and the girls stepped back in terror. They were veritable cowards, and so Peggy informed them. She sprang lightly off the animal’s back, patted him tenderly on his rough coat, and entered the hockey-field with a nonchalant air.
“Now thin,” she said, “whativer do ye want me for? I tell ye what,” she continued, standing still and facing the four girls, “it’s mighty cowardly ye look, grouped up together in a hape, and with them ugly shillalahs in yer hands. Is it to strike me ye want to be afther? Or what is it ye want at all, at all? For I can’t be idlin’ me time, I can tell ye; it’s back to Whinsie I want to go, he suits me much better than any of ye. Now thin, what’s up, what’s up?” She said this because she suddenly found herself surrounded. The Imp and Sophia stood in front of her, Grace Dodd and her sister stood behind, the hockey-clubs were suddenly raised so as to form a railing to right and left.
Peggy’s great sapphire eyes blazed with suppressed fury, her pretty face grew a trifle pale. She was quick enough to notice at once that she was caught in a trap. “Now, out with it,” she cried. “What do you want wid me at all, ye bits of cowards? Four to wan. Me word, we don’t do that sort of thing in Ould Ireland!”
“We are four to one,” said The Imp, “and we are not cowards, and don’t mean to take it from you, you common little Irish cabin-girl. You have no right to be in the school with ladies, and if you don’t do what I want directly you will be punished by me and by my friends.”
Peggy held herself very erect. Lady or cabin-girl, she looked glorious at that moment. Her arms were crossed, she flung back her small, stately head. “Go on with yer haranguin’,” she said. “I’m mighty curious to hear it out an’ out.”
“You know what you did to me last night?” said The Imp.
“Ah, to be sure, yes; I’m willin’ to do it again wid all the pleasure in life—in fact, me hands tremble to be at ye!”