Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/229

 Kirke gave forth a great yell:

"Mrs. Jessop! Woman alive! Are ye gone mad? Ye've killed the lass. Are ye all out of your senses?"

A scream of defiance rose from the women. One shouted: "Never fear. She ain't dead—yet!"

The other men now thronged to Kirke's side. As the women had screamed defiance at them, they shouted impotent rage at the women. They shook their fists to heaven. Macy, the constable took out his handcuffs, and waved them in the air, threatening to clap them all in gaol. . . . But Kirke, more practical, was pulling off his coat.

"I'll swim across," he snarled.

Other men began to follow his example, though the water was icy cold. Seeing what they were about to do Mrs. Jessop turned and spoke to her girls, with a jerk of the head towards a pile of broken bricks, ruin of an old smoke-house. They fell on the pile with screams of triumph and half hysterical laughter. They were more like malicious children now than furies. With Mrs. Jessop as captain, they would hold the fort. Pelt any man who ventured near their side till he would be glad to turn back. They filled their skirts with the fragments and some began to throw pieces into the water, and to invite the men sarcastically to join them. When Mr. Mayberry saw that Kirke was preparing to enter the water, an heroic flame transfigured his sallow face.

"I go first, Mr. Kirke," he said, and without waiting to remove his coat, he leaped into the lagoon, his long coattails flying like the tail of some grotesque water fly. His body smote the water flatly with a loud splash and he struck out with short, pawing strokes, coughing and groaning. A cheer went up from the opposite shore and a shower of missiles splashed into the water.