when she is married, although I shall hate that little brute with his rum and his treacle.  The cheek of him, in asking her to marry him, is astonishing.  He is the most hideous little beast that could have been picked out to marry any woman, but I suppose he has appealed to her compassion, and then she’ll do anything.  But if there was anybody else in love with her, if she cared the least bit about anybody else, wouldn’t I go straight to her and insist on her shunting that fellow aside?  What claim has he on any other feeling of hers but her compassion?  Why, if that fellow were to come and try to frighten her, and if I were in the affair, and if she appealed to me even by a look, then there would be short work with something or somebody.”

He got up hastily, with something of a gloomy and angry look on his face.  He did not notice that he had startled all the birds around from out of the bushes.  He picked up his rod and line in a morose fashion, not seeming to care about adding to the half dozen small and red-speckled trout he had in his basket.

While he was thus irresolutely standing he caught sight of a girl’s figure coming rapidly along the valley under the shadow of some ash trees growing by the stream.  It was Wenna Rosewarne herself, and she seemed to be hurrying toward him.  She was carrying some black object in her arms.

“Oh, Mr. Trelyon,” she said, “what am I to do with this little dog?  I saw him kicking in the road and foaming at the mouth; and then he got up and ran, and I caught him—­”

Before she had time to say anything more the young man made a sudden dive at the dog, caught hold of him and turned and heaved him into the stream.  He fell into a little pool of clear brown water:  he spluttered and paddled there for a second, then he got his footing and scrambled across the stones up to the opposite bank, where he began shaking the water from his coat among the long grass.

“Oh, how could you be so disgracefully cruel?” she said, with her face full of indignation.

“And how could you be so imprudent?"’ he said quite as vehemently.  “Why, whose is the dog?”

“I don’t know.”

“And you catch up some mongrel little cur in the middle of the highway—­He might have been mad.”

“I knew he wasn’t mad,” she said:  “it was only a fit; and how could you be so cruel as to throw him into the river?”

“Oh,” said the young man, coolly, “a clash of cold water is the best thing for a dog that has a fit.  Besides, I don’t care what he had or what I did with him, so long as you are safe.  Your little finger is of more consequence than the necks of all the curs in the country.”

“Oh, it is mean of you to say that,” she retorted warmly.  “You have no pity for those wretched little things that are at every one’s mercy.  If it were a handsome and beautiful dog, now, you would care for that, or if it were a dog that was skilled in getting game for you, you would care for that.”