Well, the girl started pretty early from her mother’s cottage down the valley and came up as a matter of course over the path-field past Cator Court; an’ for that matter, Yelland had long since given her special permission to do so. Her was halfway across the great meadow, with nothing in her thoughts but mushrooms an’ whortleberries an’ Benjamin Pearn, when there comed a sound very high-pitched an’ ugly. It got louder an’ deeper till she heard a proper bellow, an’ there, right ahead, she seed Nick Yelland’s great red Devon bull, a-pawing an’ a-prancing as if he was trying to dance the sailor’s hornpipe. If he’d been a thought farther off, no harm could have come, for the path-way ran nigh the hedge; but as it was, Mary Jane had a narrow squeak, for she’d roamed a bit to pick mushrooms, an’ when the old bull went for her, she’d got fifty yards to get to the hedge, an’ he’d got a bit more than a hundred to catch her. He was in a good temper, I believe, an’ never really tried to hurt her; but what’s a joke to a bull may be mighty serious earnest for a twelve-stone female. She dropped her basket an’ ran for her life. She weren’t built for running, but nature will do a great deal, even for the roundest of us, in a pinch like this, an’ for once her got over the ground in very fine fashion. She’d reached within ten yards of the hedge, when she heard a shout, an’ a man came tearing along; but he was too late. Mary Jane went head first into the hazel hedge, screaming to the Everlasting to spare her; an’ the bull’s horn just gave her the ghost of a touch—enough to swear by after—as she went through, all ends up. She weren’t really hurt, an’ only took a chair a thought gingerly for a day or two; but by God! her temper didn’t heal so easy, I promise you—not by no means; an’ presently, when the man as had shouted an’ runned to help her took the poor maiden home, she let him know what she thought about the world in general an’ Nicholas Yelland in particular, so soon as she had got wind enough to tell with. Of course the man was Benjamin Pearn. An’ he knowed really that the path-field ran nigh the hedge, an’ he’d been dead sure as Mary Jane would not get into no real danger. Besides, he had planned to be there in plenty of time, an’ it wasn’t till he actually seed Mary Jane flying an’ the bull a-bellowing after her with his tail up an’ his head down, that he knowed what he’d done. Then he rushed out from the hedge, where he was hid, an’ thanked his stars in secret, for everything had happened just ezacally as he wanted it to—though I don’t suppose he ever wished for the maiden to have such a narrow shave. “To think!” gasped Mary Jane. “To think as I might be a lifeless jelly this moment but for my own legs! As ’tis, that gert beast’s horn have horched me somewheres, an’ I may die of it yet. An’ if you’m a man, Benjamin Pearn, you’ll go an’ get your gun an’ shutt him.” “God’s goodness! you don’t mean Mr. Yelland?” said Ben.