sitting on the stile was Mr. Ryle's eldest son. There came, scuffling along the field-path from the village, as fast as her dilapidated shoes permitted her, a wan-looking, undersized girl. She had almost reached the pond, when a boy considerably taller and stronger than the boy on the stile came flying down the field on the left, and planted himself in her way. "Now then, little toad! Do you want another buffeting?" "Oh, please, sir, don't stop me!" she cried, beginning to sob loudly. "Father's dying, and mother said I was to run and tell them at the farm. Please let me go by." "Did I not order you yesterday to keep out of these fields?" asked the tall boy. "The lane and roads are open to you; how dare you come this way? I promised you I'd shake the inside out of you if I caught you here again, and now I'll do it." "I say," called out at this juncture the lad on the stile, "keep your hands off her." The child's assailant turned sharply at the sound. He had not seen that any one was there. For one moment he relaxed his hold, but the next appeared to change his mind, and began to shake the girl. She turned her face, in its tears and dirt, towards the stile. "Oh, Master George, make him let me go! I'm hasting to your house, Master George. Father's lying all white upon the bed; and mother said I was to come off and tell of it." George leaped off the stile, and advanced. "Let her go, Cris Chattaway!" Cris Chattaway turned his anger upon George. "Mind your own business, you beggar! It is no concern of yours." "It is, if I choose to make it mine. Let her go, I say. Don't be a coward." "What's that you call me?" asked Cris Chattaway. "A coward? Take that!" He had picked up a clod of earth, and dashed it in George Ryle's face. The boy was not one to stand a gratuitous blow, and Mr. Christopher, before he knew what was coming, found himself on the ground. The girl, released, flew to the stile and scrambled over it. George stood his ground, waiting for Cris to get up; he was less tall and strong, but he would not run away. Christopher Chattaway slowly gathered himself up. He _was_ a coward; and fighting, when it came to close quarters, was not to his liking. Stone-throwing, water-squirting, pea-shooting--any annoyance that might safely be carried on at a distance--he was an adept in; but hand-to-hand fighting--Cris did not relish that. "See if you don't suffer for this, George Ryle!" George laughed good-humouredly, and sat down on the stile as before. Cris was dusting the earth off his clothes. "You have called me a coward, and you have knocked me down. I'll enter it in my memorandum-book, George Ryle." "Do," equably returned George. "I never knew any _but_ cowards set upon girls." "I'll set upon her again, if I catch her using this path. There's not a more impudent little wretch in the whole parish. Let her try it, that's all." "She has a right to use this path as much as I have."