went upstairs, while Jonathan started for the
barnyard. A few minutes later I heard from that direction the sounds of
exhortation such as are usually employed towards "critters." They seemed
to be coming nearer. I glanced out of a front window, and saw Jonathan
and his cow coming up the road past the house.

"Where are you taking her?" I called. "I thought you meant to go the
other way."

"So I did," he shouted, in some irritation. "But she swung up to the
right as she went out of the gate, and I couldn't head her off in time.
Oh, there's Bill Russell. Head her round, will you, Bill? There, now
we're all right."

"I'll be back in ten minutes," he called up at my window as he
repassed.

I watched them go back up the road. At the big farm gate the cow made a
break for the barnyard again, but the two men managed to turn her. Just
beyond, at the fork in the road, I saw Bill turn down towards the
cider-mill, while Jonathan kept on with his convoy over the hill. I
glanced at the clock. It was not yet nine. There was plenty of time, of
course.

At half-past nine I went downstairs again, and wandered out toward the
big gate. It seemed to me time for Jonathan to be back. In the Sunday
hush I thought I heard sounds of distant "hi-ing." They grew louder;
yes, surely, there was the cow, just appearing over the hill and
trotting briskly along the road towards home. And there was Jonathan,
also trotting briskly. He looked red and warm. I stepped out into the
road to keep the cow from going past, but there was no need. She swung
cheerfully in at the big gate, and fell to cropping the long grass just
inside the fence.

Jonathan slowed down beside me, and, pulling out his handkerchief, began
flapping the dust off his trousers while he explained:--

"You see, I got her down there all right, but I had to let down the
bars, and while I was doing that she went along the road a bit, and
when she saw me coming she just kicked up her heels and galloped."

"How did you stop her?" I asked.

"I didn't. The Maxwells were coming along with their team, and they
headed her back for me. Then they went on. Only by that time, you see,
she was a bit excited, and when we came along back to those bars she
shot right past them, and never stopped till she got here."

I looked at her grazing quietly inside the fence. "She doesn't look as
though she had done so much,"--and then, as I glanced at Jonathan, I
could not forbear saying,--"but you do."