He was drunk; his eyes showed it with their gleam of bleared stars, his flushed cheeks and dark swelled veins, his hair hanging in a fringe over his brow, his mouth both fierce and loose.... He lurched towards her, and she just managed to brush past him, tumbling ungracefully over the hurdle that shut off the wood. He must have just come, for he had missed Seagrim—he might have stumbled over her as she lay and cried among the grasses. She did not fall as she jumped the hurdle, but her ankle turned, making her stagger, and by the time she could right herself, Jerry stood before her, blocking the way to the Street. Then she saw for the first time that he had a hammer in his hand. Ivy gave a loud scream, and darted sideways, scrambling through the hedge into Twelve Pound field. Jerry was after her, without a word, no longer the furtive, padding animal she had despised, but the armed and terrible beast of prey that would kill and devour the foolhardy huntress who had roused him. She staggered up the field, too breathless to cry, but he drew even with her in a few strides, and grabbed her by the arm. “Stop, Ivy, and say your prayers. I’m going to kill you.” She could not speak, for her throat was dried up. Jerry’s eyes were more of a threat than his word. They were on fire—his skin was on fire—liquor and madness had set him alight; and in his hand was a hammer to hammer out her brains. She could neither cry to his mercy nor appeal to his reason—her physical powers were failing her, and both mercy and reason in him had been burnt up. He gave her a violent push, and she fell on her knees. “That’s right. Say your prayers. I’m a clergyman’s son, and you shan’t die without asking pardon for your sins. I saw you go into the wood with him, as you wouldn’t with me.... I’ll kill you quick, you shan’t have any pain.... I loved you once, I reckon.” He swung up the hammer, but he was too drunk to take aim, and the action woke her out of the trance of fear into which he had plunged her. She felt something graze bruisingly down her hip—then she was scrambling on her feet again, rushing for the hedge. The hedge of Twelve Pound field is a thick hedge of wattles and thorn. Ivy, too mad to look for a gap, tried to force her way through it. Her head and arms stuck, and she heard Jerry running. Then at last loud screams broke from her—scream after scream, as he seized her by the feet and pulled her backwards through the brambles, leaving shreds of blue gown and yellow hair on every twig. He pulled her out, and flung her rolling on the grass; then the hammer swung again.... But the field was full of shoutings and voices, of feet trampling round her head. Then two hands came under her armpits, dragging her up, and she saw her father. She saw her brother Harry, looking very green and scared, and last of all Jerry plunging in the lock of two huge arms, which gripped him powerless and belonged to the Reverend Mr. Sumption.