"Urchin," she called out, "if you hurt that bird the Little People will take you; I thought I'd knocked that into you all right, even if you are English and slow in the uptake."
"All right," said the Urchin with a grin. "We conquered you, anyway."
"As a matter of fact," said the girl, "it was we who annexed you. If your people were as bad shots as you, Urchin, it must have been quite easy. You can't hit a bird sitting."
"Can't I?" said the Urchin. "You watch." Another fling, and horrors! the shore lark rolled over, twittering helplessly and miserably.
Fiona was across the rocks like a young goat; and when the Urchin, contrite but defiant, arrived, she had the wounded bird in her hands and was holding it to her breast, feeling gently for its hurt. It lay quite still, panting, and watching her with quick bright eyes.
"Broken wing," she said. "I believe it will mend. Urchin, you are a mere beast. You'd better go home; I don't want ever to see you again."
The Urchin turned scarlet.
"That's just like a girl," he said. "First you tell me I can't hit the old bird, which is the same thing as telling me to hit it; and then when I do hit it you turn round on me and call names; and all the time you're just as bad as I am." And the Urchin turned and stalked off, an heroic figure with the mien of a Marcus Curtius about to save his country by leaping into the gulf. Unhappily there was a real gulf, and the boy, head in air, rolled neatly into it, and emerged from between two rocks, dripping and no longer heroic, rubbing a torn stocking and a scraped shin.
It was too much for Fiona's gravity.
"Urchin," she called, "come back here, quick." And as the unhappy Urchin stood in doubt, hither and thither dividing the swift mind, she slid over the rocks and caught him. "My fault," she said, "and I'm sorry all the way through. Now I'll mend you first, and then we must mend the bird."