er let well alone, Mr. Melchard," said Dixon Mallaby sternly. "Your
servant has already made trouble enough."

Throughout these few strained moments Dick had borne himself as a man
concerned only with his daughter. But at this moment Dixon Mallaby
caught a gleam from his eyes which assured him that the least
familiarity or impertinence of Melchard's would be resented in a manner
likely to divert the crowd's lingering anger from Mut-mut to his master.
Much as he disliked Melchard and his indefinitely unpleasant reputation,
he was not going to have his match spoiled by the beating and kicking to
a jelly of a scented and dandified Millsborough dentist.

So, ignoring Melchard, he went up to Sam Bunce.

"I am afraid your daughter is hardly as strong as you thought, Mr.
Bunce," he said.

Melchard, with a finicking air of nonchalance, stood where he was left,
lighting a cigarette.

"'Tis nowt but she's frit with that flay-boggart of a Chinaman," said
Dick, "wi'out it be she trembles lest 'er daddy gets fightin' agen.
There, then, little lass," he said, stooping to her ear, and coaxing
back courage, thought the parson, with a voice extraordinarily tender.
"Way out o' t' crowd her vitals'll settle back to rights and she'll foot
it another six mile singing."

"Then you won't see our match, Mr. Bunce?"

"'T' lass knows nowt o' cricket," replied Dick. "'Mornin' seemed like
she relished going to t' fun and press o't. But now she's feared o'
seein' that blasted ogre again. So, thankin' you, sir, for your lift and
your good heart to us, we'll just foot it along o'er t' moor."

Dixon Mallaby shook hands with him; the girl, as she drew away from Sam
Bunce's arm, bobbed the parson a curtsey. But she never turned her face
to him, and Mallaby, thoughtfully watching the pair down the road to the
south-west, observed that she never once looked back; for even when,
being almost indistinguishable among the moving crowd at the corner of
the green, they were hailed by the ostler, toddling quickly from the
yard, waving a handkerchief and crying: "Hey, Mr. Bunce, Mr. Sam'l
Bunce!" it was only the man who turned his head, waving his hand as if
in reply to a belated farewell.

The parson swung round in time to see Melchard snatch the handkerchief
from the ostler's hand.

Feeling the clergyman's eyes upon him, he muttered: "Looks like one of
mine," and ran the hem quickly through his fingers, prying into the
corners.

At the third, he f