Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/92

 always ready with shouts of “Murderer!” and “Jailbird!”—words which always threw the boy into panic. Now he was all for flight, but he was too late. Young Crane spied him and leaped to his feet, grasping Lydia Canfield by the arm and pointing gleefully. “There he is,” he cried. “Murderer!… Jailbird!…”

Lydia shook his hand from her arm with petulant gesture and then peered curiously at Angus, whose white, quivering face she could see above the fence…. Mal Crane picked up a stick and shied it at Angus, who stopped, dodged, and held a protecting arm over his eyes.

No sooner had the stick clattered harmlessly against the fence than young Crane staggered under a stinging slap on his cheek. In sudden rage, most unladylike and unaristocratic rage, Lydia flew at him like a wild creature, slapping and kicking and gouging with all her dainty might, crying out as she struck, “You sha’n’t do it. You sha’n’t call him names…. Not in my yard. You sha’n’t, you sha’n’t, you sha’n’t!”

Crane let go a cry of surprised pain and turned tail in quick retreat, but the little fury followed, spatting him with eager palms until she chased him quite out of her yard. Then, flushed and lovely with a fairy-like beauty, she hurried back, calling as soon as her labored breathing would