Part 59 (2/2)

”Oh, do let me go home, Jim dear; I am so frightened!”

”Then you must learn not to be frightened,” he said. ”Jump up now!”

But meanwhile the bull had the best of it, and had got out of the yard.

A long lithe lad, stationed outside on horseback, was in full chase, and Jim, leaping on one of the horses tied to the rails, started off to his a.s.sistance. The two chased the unhappy bull as a pair of greyhounds chase a hare, with their whips cracking as rapidly and as loudly as you would fire a revolver. After an excursion of about a mile into the forest, the beast was turned and brought towards the yard. Twice he turned and charged the lad, with the same success. The cunning old stockhorse wheeled round or sprang aside, and the bull went blundering into empty s.p.a.ce with two fourteen-foot stock-whips playing on his unlucky hide like rain. At length he was brought in again, and one by one those ent.i.tled to freedom were pa.s.sed out by Sam, and others reserved unto a day of wrath--all but one cow with her calf.

All this time Alice had sat by Halbert. Cecil had given no a.s.sistance, for Jim would have done anything rather than press a guest into the service. Halbert asked her, what she thought of the sport?

”Oh, it is horrible,” she said. ”I should like to go home. I hope it is all over.”

”Nearly,” said Halbert; ”that cow and calf have got to go out. Don't get frightened now; watch your brother and Buckley.”

It was a sight worth watching; Sam and Jim advanced towards the maddened beasts to try and get the cow to bolt. The cattle were huddled up at the other end of the yard, and, having been so long in hand, were getting dangerous. Once or twice young beasts had tried to pa.s.s, but had been driven back by the young men, with a courage and dexterity which the boldest matador in Spain could not have surpa.s.sed. Cecil Mayford saw, with his well-accustomed eye, that matters were getting perilous, and placed himself at the rails, holding one ready to slip if the beasts should break. In a moment, how or why none could tell, they made a sudden rush: Jim was borne back, dealing blows about him like a Paladin, and Sam was down, rolled over and over in the dust, just at Alice's feet.

Half-a-dozen pa.s.sed right over him as he lay. Jim had made good his retreat from the yard, and Cecil had quietly done just the right thing: put up the rail he held, and saved the day's work. The cattle were still safe, but Sam lay there in the dust, motionless.

Before any of them had appreciated what had happened, Alice was down, and, seizing Sam by the shoulders, had dragged him to the fence.

Halbert, horrified to see her actually in the presence of the cattle, leaped after her, put Sam through the rails, and lifted her up to her old post on the top. In another instant the beasts swept furiously round the yard, just over the place where they had been standing.

They gathered round Sam, and for an instant thought he was dead; but just as Jim hurriedly knelt down, and raising his head began to untie his handkerchief, Sam uprose, and, shaking himself and dusting his clothes, said,--

”If it had been any other beast which knocked me down but that poley heifer, I should have been hurt;” and then said that ”it was bathing-time, and they must look sharp to be in time for dinner:” three undeniable facts, showing that, although he was a little unsteady on his legs, his intellect had in nowise suffered.

And Halbert, glancing at Alice, saw something in her face that made him laugh; and, dressing for dinner in Jim's room, he said to that young gentleman,--

”Unless there are family reasons against it, Jim, which of course I can't speak about, you know, I should say that you would have Sam for your brother-in-law in a very short time.”

”Do you really think so, now?” said Jim; ”I rather fancied she had taken up with Cecil. I like Sam's fist, mind you, better than Cecil's whole body, though he is a good little fellow, too.”

”She has been doing that, I think, rather to put Sam on his mettle; for I think he was taking things too easy with her at first; but now, if Cecil has any false hopes, he may give them up; the sooner the better.

No woman who was fancy free could stand seeing that n.o.ble head of Sam's come rolling down in the dust at her feet; and what courage and skill he exhibited, too! Talk of bull-fights! I have seen one. Bah! it is like this nail-brush to a gold watch, to what I saw to-day. Sam, sir, has won a wife by cattledrafting.”

”If that is the case,” said Jim, pensively brus.h.i.+ng his hair, ”I am very glad that Cecil's care for his fine clothes prevented his coming into the yard; for he is one of the bravest, coolest hands among cattle, I know; he beats me.”

”Then he beats a precious good fellow, Jim. A man who could make such play as you did to-day, with a stick, ought to have nothing but a big three-foot of blue steel in his hand, and Her Majesty's commission to use it against her enemies.”

”That will come,” said Jim, ”the day after Sam has got the right to look after Alice; not before; the governor is too fond of his logarithms.”

When Sam came to dress for dinner he found that he was bruised all over, and had to go to the Captain for ”s.h.i.+n plaster,” as he called it.

Captain Brentwood had lately been trying homeopathy, which in his case, there being nothing the matter with him, was a decided success. He doctored Sam with Arnica externally, and gave him the five-hundredth of a grain of something to swallow; but what made Sam forget his bruises quicker than these dangerous and violent remedies, was the delightful change in Alice's behaviour. She was so agreeable that evening, that he was in the seventh heaven; the only drawback to his happiness being poor Cecil Mayford's utter distraction and misery. Next morning, too, after a swim in the river, he handled such a singularly good knife and fork, that Halbert told Jim privately, that if he, Sam, continued to sport such a confoundedly good appet.i.te, he would have to be carried half-a-mile on a heifer's horns and left for dead, to keep up the romantic effect of his tumble the day before.

They were sitting at breakfast, when the door opened, and there appeared before the a.s.sembled company the lithe lad I spoke of yesterday, who said,--

”Beg your pardon, sir; child lost, sir.”

<script>