Martha, squalling horrid threats, hobbled halfway round the table after Ortho, who skipped in the opposite direction and nearly escaped her. She just cut him off in time, but she could not save the pasty. He slung it under her arm to his confederate and dodged behind the table again. Eli was fat and short-legged. Martha could have caught him with ease, but she did not try, knowing that if she did Ortho would have the second pasty. As it was, Ortho was hopelessly cornered; he should suffer for both. Ortho was behind the table again and difficult to reach. She thought of the broom, but it was at the other side of the kitchen; did she turn to get it Ortho would slip away. Eli reappeared in the doorway lumpish and stolid; he had hidden the booty and come back to see the fun. Martha considered, pushed the table against the wall and upturned it. Ortho sprang for the door, almost gained it, but not quite. Martha grasped him by the tail of his smock, drew him to her and laid on. But Ortho, instead of squirming and whimpering as was his wont, put up a fight. He fought like a little wild cat, wriggling and snarling, scratching with toes and finger nails. Martha had all she could do to hold him, but hold him she did, dragged him across the floor to the peg where hung her birch (a bunch of hazel twigs) and gave him a couple of vicious slashes across the seat of his pants. She was about to administer a third when an excruciating pain nipped her behind her bare left ankle. She yelled, dropped Ortho and the birch as if white-hot, and grabbed her leg. In the skin of the tendon was imprinted a semi-circle of red dents—Eli’s little sharp teeth marks. She limped round the kitchen for some minutes, vowing dreadful vengeance on the brothers, who, in the meanwhile, were sitting astride the yard gate munching the pasty. The pair slept in the barn for a couple of nights, and then, judging the dame’s wrath to have passed, slipped in on the third. But Martha was waiting for Eli, birch in hand, determined to carry out her vengeance. It did not come off. She caught Eli, but Ortho flew to the rescue this time. The two little fiends hung on her like weasels, biting, clawing, squealing with fury, all but dragging the clothes off her. She appealed to Teresa for help, but the big woman would do nothing but laugh. It was as good as a bear-bait. Martha shook the brothers off somehow and lowered her flag for good. Next day Ortho burnt the birch with fitting ceremony, and for some years the brothers ran entirely wild.