e was beginning to feel
worried, because seen together it was plain that the big Doughty
overtopped Ishmael by nearly a head. Suddenly he had an inspiration and
threw himself between them as Doughty swung out at the younger boy,
thereby incidentally getting the blow himself.

"I'll lick you for that later, Doughty," he ejaculated. "Meanwhile,
kindly shut up while I say something. Ruan can't fight you--"

"Can't he? Then what did he hit me for?"

"I can fight him all right, thanks," said Ishmael.

"But he can wrestle you," went on Polkinghorne imperturbably, "because
he's a clever wrestler and he'll stand a fair chance. You can take it or
leave it, but if you leave it I'll give you a thrashing for the honour
of the school."

A murmur of assent came from the others, who saw an impossibly difficult
situation thus in a way to be solved as far as the two principals in the
quarrel were concerned, while to themselves it gave time to adjust their
attitude, which they did not all take as simply as had Killigrew. In a
fight Doughty's superior size would have given him all the advantage; in
the West Country method of wrestling this would not necessarily hold
true. And Ishmael was in far better condition.

Polkinghorne turned to Hilaria.

"Someone will see you home, of course," he said politely. "I shall have
to stay as stickler, and Carminow as well, but I'll send Moss and the
young 'un with you. And mind you keep your jaws shut about it when you
get back to the school, you two."

Polkinghorne minor and Moss both looked considerably taken aback, but
not more so than Hilaria. "Oh, I must stay, Polkinghorne," she pleaded,
feeling for the first time a terrible sensation of not being wanted, of
an unimportance essential to her sex and beyond her power to alter
whatever her tastes or her justifiable reliance on her own nerves. But
Polkinghorne, backed by Killigrew and Ishmael himself, was adamant,
though Carminow saw no reason why she should not stay if it interested
her. They stood waiting till her crinoline, like a huge piece of blown
thistledown, had swayed around a curve of the path which hid it and the
two little boys from sight, and then they prepared for business.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WRESTLING

It was growing swiftly dusk, though the amphitheatre of turf where the
boys stood, cupped the last of the light from the west, backed as it was
by the semi-circle of tall rocks.

Polkinghorne made a quick survey of t