At Loves Cost | Page 8

and was
well up in all the points of the game. After a time the dogs got the
sheep into a heap, and the young girl rode round them; but something
still seemed to be wrong, for she got down, and, leaving the horse quite
free, made her way into the flock.
At that moment Stafford saw a sheep and a lamb break from the mob
and make for the stream; the sheep jumped to a boulder with the agility
of a goat, the lamb attempted to follow, but missed the boulder and fell

into the stream. The water was wild here and the pools deep; and as the
lamb was swept down toward Stafford he saw that it was struggling in
an ineffectual way, and that it looked like a case of drowning.
Of course he went for it at once, and wading in made a grab at it; he got
hold of it easily enough, but the lamb--a good sized one--struggled, and
in the effort to retain his hold Stafford's feet slipped and he went
headfirst into a deep pool. He was submerged for a second only, and
when he came up he had the satisfaction of feeling that he had still got
the lamb; and gripping the struggling thing tightly in his arms, he made
for the opposite bank. And looking up, saw the girl standing waiting for
him, her face alive, alight, dancing with delight and amusement! The
laughter shone in her eyes like dazzling sunlight and quivered on the
firm but delicate lips. But it was only for a moment; before Stafford
had fully taken it in and had responded to it with one of his own short
laughs, her face was grave and calm again. "Thank you." she said, with
a gravity matching her face, and very much as one is thanked for
passing the salt. "It would have drowned if you had not been there. It is
lame and couldn't swim. I saw, from the top of the hill, that it was lame,
and I was afraid something would happen to it."
As she spoke, she took the lamb, which was bleating like mad, laid it
on the ground and holding it still, firmly but gently, with her knee,
examined it with all the confidence and coolness of a vet.
"You'll make yourself most frightfully wet," said Stafford.
She glanced up at him with only faint surprise.
"You are a Londoner," she said, "or you would know that here, in these
parts, we are so often more wet than dry that it makes no matter. Yes, I
thought so; there was a thorn in its foot. May I trouble you to hold him
a minute?"
Stafford held the lamb, which was tolerably quiet now; and she slowly
took off her gauntlets, produced a little leather wallet from the
saddle--the horse coming at her call as if he were a dog--took out a
serviceable pair of tweezers, and, with professional neatness, extracted

an extremely ugly thorn. Stafford stood and watched her; the collie and
the fox-terrier upright on their haunches watching her also; the collie
gave an approving bark as, with a pat she liberated the lamb, which
went bleating on its way to join its distracted mother, the fox-terrier
leapt round her with yaps of excited admiration; and there was
admiration in Stafford's eyes also. The whole thing had been done with
a calm, almost savage grace and self-possession, and she seemed to be
absolutely unconscious of his presence, and only remembered it when
the lamb and its mother had joined the flock.
"Thank you again," she said. "It was very kind of you. I am afraid you
are wet."
As Stafford had gone completely under the water, this was a fact he
could not deny, but he said with a laugh:
"Though I am a Londoner, in a sense, I don't mind a wetting--in a good
cause; and I shall be dry, or as good as dry, before I get to the inn. You
must have eyes like a hawk to have seen, from the top of the hill, that
that lamb was lame," he added, rather with the desire to keep her than
to express his admiration for her sight.
"I have good eyes," she said, indifferently. "One has to have. But I saw
that the lamb was lame from the way it kept beside its mother and the
fuss she made over it: and I knew, too, by Donald's bark, that
something was wrong. I am sorry you are wet. Will you--" She glanced
towards the opening in the hills, paused, and for the first time seemed
slightly embarrassed; Stafford fancied that a faint touch of colour came
to the clear pallor of the lovely young face. She did not finish the