The girl broke away and ran. She was swift and hard as a greyhound. For a moment the other stood, leaning over a bed of nettles, snorting and sniffing as the blood dripped from his nose. Then he pursued. She heard him thundering behind her. It was like the pursuit of a fawn by a grizzly. She had only a hundred yards to go to the open; and as she fled with her head on her shoulder, and her plait flapping, feeling the strength in her limbs and the courage in her heart, she mocked her pursuer silently. That drink-sodden grampus catch her! Her pride came toppling down about her. She tripped, wrenched her ankle, and knew that she was done. Before her was a familiar tree she had often climbed, with a branch some six feet from the ground. She swung herself up. The Great Beast came snorting up. He was a dreadful sight. His nose was bleeding profusely, and the blood had mingled with his beard and moustache. He had lost his cap, and his head shimmered bald at her feet beneath wisps of hair. He seemed like a great vat full of spirit into which she had tossed a lighted match. "I got you, my beauty!" he panted in smothered and unnatural voice. He put his hands on the branch. She stamped on them with her heels: and she stamped hard. He swore, and drew from a leather sheath a wooden-handled knife such as Danish fisher-folk use. She grasped the branch above her and swung in the air; but she could not swing forever thus. "I can wait," said the Great Beast beneath, laughing dreadfully. Then there came the sound of a man singing some kind of boating-song. The voice was deep and drawing nearer. "_Then we'll all swing together, Steady from stroke to bow._" It was Silver strolling home through the wood. Boy heard him; so did Joses, and withdrew into the dusk. The girl slipped down from the tree. The young man dawdled up, and looked at her with some surprise. "Anything up?" he asked. "Yes," said Boy. "Up a tree." She limped coldly away. He followed her. "Are you lul-lame?" he asked, shy and anxious. "Sprained my off-hind fetlock," she replied. BOOK II THE WATCHER CHAPTER IX Patience Longstaffe Patience Longstaffe was the only child of Preacher Joe, of God-First Farm, on the way to Lewes; and she was very like her father. He had been brought up a Primitive Methodist and had first heard the Word at Rehoboth, the little red brick place of worship of the sect on the outskirts of Polefax; but being strong as he was original he had seceded from the church of his fathers early in life to the Foundation Methodists and started a little chapel of his own, which bore on its red side the inscription that gave the popular name to its founder's farm. The chapel was hidden away down a lane; but as you drove in to Lewes along the old coach-road, with the Downs bearing on your left shoulder, you could not mistake Mr. Longstaffe's farm: for a black barn on the roadside carried in huge letters the text,