Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/69

 "And I shall see the carriages, and the ladies on horseback, and the ships, and the waxworks, and the wild beasts."

The eyes of Sunlocks grew misty and wet, but the little maiden rattled on, cocking her eye down as she spoke at her reflection in the smooth river, for it took a world of glances to grow familiar with the marvel that sat on her head.

"And I shall wear velvet frocks, and have new hats often, and lots of goodies and things; and—and didn't I always say a good fairy would come for me some day?"

"What are you talking of, you silly?" said Michael Sunlocks.

"I'm not a silly, and I'm going away, and you are not; and I'll have girls to play with now, not boys—there!"

Michael Sunlocks could bear no more. His eyes overflowed, but his cheeks reddened, and he said, "What do I care, you stupid? You can go if you like," and then down came his stick with a sounding thwack on the donkey's flank.

Now startled out of all composure by such sudden and summary address, the beast threw up his hinder legs and ducked down his head, and tumbled his rider into the water. Michael Sunlocks scrambled to his feet, all dripping wet, but with eyes aflame and his little lips set hard, and then laid hold of the rope bridle and tugged with one hand, while with the stick in the other he cudgelled the donkey until he had forced it to cross the river.

While this tough work was going forward, Greeba, who had shrieked at Michael's fall, stood trembling with clasped hands on the bridge; and when all was over, the little man turned to her with high disdain, and said, after a mighty toss of his glistening wet head, "Did you think I was drowned, you silly? Why don't you go, if you're going?"

Not all the splendour of bow and feather could help the little maiden to withstand indifference like this, so her lip fell, and she said, "Well, you needn't say so, if you are glad I'm going."

And Sunlocks answered, "Who says I'm glad? Not that I say I'm not, neither," he added quickly, leaping astride his beast again.

Whereupon Greeba said, "If you had been going away should have cried," and then, to save herself from bursting out in his very face, she turned about quickly and fled.

"But I'm not such a silly, I'm not," Michael Sunlocks