"If I carry you every step of the way," he said, roughly, "I will make you come with me."
She twisted herself in his grip; she set her hands against his shoulders and endeavoured to thrust him from her.
He threw aside his staff, with an oath, and set his teeth. Her hands were unbandaged. She had not been able to tie them up again, but she held the kerchiefs that had been wrapped round them in her fingers, and now they fell, and in her struggles her hands began to bleed, and the kerchiefs became entangled about his feet, and nigh on tripped him up.
"You will try your strength against me—wild cat?" he said.
She writhed, and caught at his hands, and endeavoured to unclinch them. She was angry and alarmed. In her alarm and anger she was strong. Moreover, she was a well-knit girl, of splendid constitution, and she battled lustily for her liberty. Anthony Cleverdon found that he had to use his whole strength to hold her.
"You are a coward?" she cried, in her passion. "To wrestle with a girl! You are a mean coward! Do you mark me?" she repeated.
"On my soul, you are strong!" said he, gasping.
"I hate you!" she said, exhausted, and desisting from further effort, which was vain.
"Well!" said he, as he set her down, "which is the strongest—your will or mine?"
"Our wills have not been tested," she answered, "only our strength; your male muscles and nerves are more powerful than those of a woman. God made them so, alack! That which I knew before, I know now, that a man is stouter than a woman. Boast of that, if you will—but as for our wills!" she shrugged her shoulders, then stooped and recovered her kerchiefs, and began impatiently, to cover her confusion, to re-adjust them about her hands, and to twist them with her teeth.