“You’re like to get a wipe over the head, dang you!” the man growled, “whoever you be! Go to—— and mind your own brats! He’ll know better now than to preach against them as he gets his living by! You be gone!”
But Mary stood her ground. She declared afterwards that, brutally as the man spoke, the fight had gone out of him. Etruria, on the contrary, maintained that, finding only women before them, the ruffians would have murdered them. Fortunately, while the event hung in the balance, “What is it?” some one shouted from the road below. “What’s the matter there?”
“Murder!” cried Etruria shrilly. “Help! Help!”
“Help!” cried Mary. She still kept her face to the men, but for the first time she began to know fear.
Footsteps thudded softly on the turf, figures came into view, climbing the slope. It needed no more. With a volley of oaths the assailants turned tail and made off. In a trice they were round the corner of the house and lost in the dusk.
A moment later two men, equally out of breath and each carrying a gun, reached the spot. “Well!” said the bigger of the two, “What is it?”
He spoke as if he had not come very willingly, but Mary did not notice this. The crisis over, her knees shook, she could barely stand, she could not speak. She pointed to the fallen man, over whom Etruria still crouched, her hair dragged down about her shoulders, her neckband torn, a ghastly blotch on her white cheek.
“Is he dead?” the new-comer asked in a different tone.
“Ay, dead!” Etruria echoed. “Dead!”
Fortunately the curate gave the lie to the word. He groaned, moved, with an effort he raised himself on his elbow. “I’m—all right!” he gasped. “All right!”