The Carroll Girls

by Mabel Quiller-Couch

Esther was not alarmed at his outcry. She guessed the cause of it, and rising with feigned indifference went out from her shelter to meet her sister. With cold, hard eyes and unsmiling face she looked towards Penelope, framing the while her explanation of her presence there—only to see that explanation had come too late.

The cattle, roused to anger by Guard's sudden bark and spring, were coming down on him in a body, their pace growing faster, their anger increasing with every step. In charging him they must inevitably charge Penelope too. There was no escape for her, unless Guard ran away from her, drawing the enemy off; but that, of course, he was not likely to do, he was too pleased at seeing her again.

Esther saw and realised all at a glance, and the horror of it struck her dumb. Once, twice, three times she tried to call. If she could only get Guard away the cattle would follow him; but no voice came. She grew desperate, mad with fear for her sister. Oh, if she could but get them to come towards her and leave Pen. She tried to whistle, but her lips trembled too much. She tried to shriek and failed, and when at last she succeeded, the weak, strained voice could hardly be recognised as hers. But Guard heard it. "Guard, Guard, come here!" she called, running a little to draw him after her. The obedient old dog turned, saw the enemy, and, all his fury aroused by the danger, charged them like a hurricane.

But what was one amongst so many! They overwhelmed him, were on him, closed around him, and around Penelope too.

Esther saw it—saw her sister fall, saw the big beasts trampling over her, and Guard in their midst barking, snarling, flying at their noses, dodging away from their horns, and punishing them so severely that in spite of their numbers the poor brutes gave up the game at last, worsted, and tore away over the moor in the direction whence they had come, as though they had a pack behind them.

When Anne Roth came panting up a moment later, having seen the cattle disappearing and been filled with alarm lest Penelope should have been frightened by them, he found the two sisters unconscious on the ground, with their poor protector lying bleeding and exhausted between them, and whining piteously as he licked his bleeding wounds.

Here was a sight for one man in a lonely spot! For a moment Anne was bewildered; then, picking up Penelope, who he saw was the most injured, he carried her with all the speed he could back to his own house. But he was full of a double dread, for to the most casual eye it was plain that the child was seriously injured, and the sight of her, bruised, bleeding, and unconscious could not but be a shock to his mistress.

But Mademoiselle bore the shock well. "Let me attend to her while you and Laura go to poor Miss Esther and the dear dog," she said promptly; and Penelope was taken up to her own room, where she undressed her and got her to bed, and bathed her cuts, while they went out and brought in the other two.

Esther was in a swoon, but quite uninjured, so they laid her on the couch in the little sitting-room and administered restoratives, while Guard was taken to the kitchen to have his wounds bathed and dressed, and Anne hurried off for a doctor and Miss Ashe, for Penelope's injuries were far too serious for home dressing. She was bleeding so profusely from the cuts on her head that there was real cause for alarm; her arm was broken, and her collar-bone, too, they feared, while her poor body was bruised and crushed all over.

When Esther came back to consciousness twilight had fallen. She looked about her for a moment in the dimness, bewildered and incredulous. That she was in the dear familiar room she loved so well, she felt sure, yet how came she there? and what had happened? She lay still for a moment, wondering; then, her head growing confused, she raised herself a Little and looked again. This time she recognised a figure seated by the window, but so quiet and drooping she scarcely seemed alive.