All the riders looked up.  The Whip looked up too, and turned to the old Squire with a wider grin than before.

“Shall I christen en, maister?”

The Squire nodded.  Before Taffy knew what it meant, the man was climbing toward him with a grin, clutching the rush bents with one hand, and holding out the blood-dabbled mask with the other.  The child turned to run, but a hand clutched his ankle.  He saw the man’s open mouth and yellow teeth; and, choking with disgust and terror, slung his boots at them with all his small force.  At the same instant he was jerked off his feet, the edge of the bank crumbled and broke, and the two went rolling down the sandy slope in a heap.  He heard shouts of laughter, caught a glimpse of blue sky, felt a grip of fingers on his throat, and smelt the verminous odour of the dead cub, as the Whip thrust the bloody mess against his face and neck.  Then the grip relaxed, and—­it seemed to him, amid dead silence—­Taffy sprang to his feet, spitting sand and fury.

“You—­you devils!” He caught up the visgy and stood, daring all to come on.  “You devils!” He tottered forward with the visgy lifted—­it was all he could manage—­at Squire Moyle.  The old man let out an oath, and the curve of his whip-thong took the boy across the eyes and blinded him for a moment, but did not stop him.  The grey horse swerved, and half-wheeled, exposing his flank.  In another moment there would have been mischief; but the Whip, as he stood wiping his mouth, saw the danger and ran in.  He struck the visgy out of the child’s grasp, set his foot on it, and with an open-handed cuff sent him floundering into a sand-heap.

“Nice boy, that!” said somebody, and the whole company laughed as they walked their horses slowly out of the hollow.

They passed before Taffy in a blur of tears; and the last rider to go was the small girl Honoria on her tall sorrel.  She moved up the broad shelving path, but reined up just within sight, turned her horse, and came slowly back to him.

“If I were you, I’d go home.”  She pointed in its direction.

Taffy brushed the back of his hand across his eyes.  “Go away.  I hate you—­I hate you all!”

She eyed him while she smoothed the sorrel’s mane with her riding-switch.

“They did it to me three years ago, when I was six.  Grandfather called it ‘entering’ me.”

Taffy kept his eyes sullenly on the ground.  Finding that he would not answer, she turned her horse again and rode slowly after the others.  Taffy heard the soft footfalls die away, and when he looked up she had vanished.

He picked up his boots and started in the direction to which she had pointed.  Every now and then a sob shook him.  By-and-by the chimneys of the house hove in sight among the ridges, and he ran toward it.  But within a gunshot of the white garden-wall his breast swelled suddenly and he flung himself on the ground and let the big tears run.  They made little pits in the moving sand; and more sand drifted up and covered them.