Unknown - Heartsease

The bridge was three hundred yards away, straight ahead but half hidden by the patchy saplings of a neglected hedge. Much nearer, more to her right, stood the enemy of her dreams. The bull was already dis-

turbed in his furious wits by the crowd on the bridge, and had strained to the limit of his tether in the hope of wreaking his anger and frustration on them. The best thing would be to snake through the grass and cut his tether while he fumed at Mr. Gordon and his cronies. Surely he wouldn’t notice if she came from straight behind. There was plenty of time.

But she couldn’t do it. To be caught there, helpless, too slow to escape the charging monster . . . She lay and sweated and swore at herself, but her limbs wouldn’t take her over the bank.

Suddenly a savage cackling and hooting rose from the bridge. Through the bare branches of the hedge she could see arms pointing upstream. She looked that way herself. Clear above the distant wood rose a foul cloud of murk, that could have come only from some wicked engine.

She ran back to Scrub, mounted and trotted him along the bank until she thought they were opposite where the bull was tethered; then she nudged her heel into his ribs and he swept up over the bank, and down the far side. She’d been hoping to catch the bull while he was straining towards the shouting voices; but he must have heard the drub of hoofs, for his head was already turned towards her and even as Scrub was changing feet to take the downward slope the horns lowered and the whole mass of beef and bone was flowing towards her as fast as cloud-shadow in a north wind. She could see from the circle of trampled grass how far his tether reached; she was safe outside it, but

she could never cut the rope unless she took Scrub inside it.

Scrub saw the coming enemy and half-shied away, but she forced his head round and touched his ribs again to tell him that she knew what she was up to. When the bull was so close that she could see the big eyes raging and the froth of fury round the nostrils, she jerked sideways at the precise moment in Scrub’s stride which would whisk him to the right, and as the bull belted past she leaned forward to slash at the tautening rope.

The first slash missed completely, and the second made no more than a white nick in the gray hemp; then the enemy had turned.

The bull was dreadfully quick on his feet, considering how much he weighed; he seemed to flick his mass round and be flowing towards her before she had really balanced herself back into the saddle. But Scrub was still moving towards the center of the trampled circle, and even before she asked him he accelerated into a gallop. She knew he didn’t like this game at all.

But he turned when she told him, out on the unchurned grass, and they tried again. It was a question of swaying out round the charge of the bull, allowing for the extra width of the sweep of his awful horns, and then at once swaying in to come closer to the rope than they had before. And this time she would have to lean backwards, away from the pommel and stirrups of the sidesaddle. But Scrub’s pace was all wrong, and she knew this before they reached the circle, so she took him wide out of range with several yards to spare. They halted on the far side of the circle and prepared for

another pass. In the stillness between the two bouts of action she heard the men’s voices again, deeper and more menacing than before. She glanced up the canal and saw the black funnel about three hundred yards away. It would have to be this time.

By now Scrub seemed to know what was wanted of him. As the eight hoofs rushed the two animals together he swayed sideways at the last moment in a violent jerk, and then in again. Margaret couldn’t tell whether she’d controlled him into this perfect movement, or whether he’d done it on his own, but there was the rope, taut as a bowstring, beside her knees. She stabbed the knife under it and hacked upwards. The rope broke and the bull was free.

She flashed a glance over her shoulder; the bull had already turned and was coming at her again. Something about the way he held his head told her that he too knew that the rules of the game had changed. Now all that mattered was which of the two animals was faster. And where was the best gap in the ruined hedge.

There was no time to think. She saw a wide hole in the bushes a little to her left, just behind the bridge, so she nudged Scrub towards it. The men were making such a clamor now that she couldn’t hear the hoofbeats of the bull. As she came through the gap she saw that her moment was exactly ripe: the men were on the bridge still, all their attention towards the tug which was booming down towards them with a solid wave under its bows; two of them had arrows ready, tense on the pulled strings; the rest had spears and billhooks.

Above them all Mr. Gordon crouched in his swaying litter, his face purple, his fist raised to the bleak sky.

Margaret gave a shrieking yell, and two heads turned.

A mouth dropped open, an arm clutched at the elbow of one of the bowmen. More heads turned, and the color of the faces changed. Then, like reeds moving in a gust of wind, the whole group of bodies altered their stance — no longer straining towards the tug, but jostling in panic flight away from the bull. As Margaret reached the white railing that funneled in to the bridge, a halfgap opened in the crowd. She leaned over Scrub’s neck, yelled again, and drove him through it. His shoulder slammed into the back of one of the litter-bearers and she saw the crazy structure begin to topple, and heard, above all the clamor, a wild, croaking scream. Then she was over the bridge and wrenching him round to wait beside the canal while the rout of men fled down the lane and the bull thundered behind them.

She rushed Scrub back onto the bridge and leaped down by the crank. The wreck of the litter hung half over the railings and something was flopping in the water below her, but she hadn’t time to look. She snapped the locks up and began to turn the handle. The bull was snorting in the middle of the lane while the men struggled through hedges. One man lay still in the middle of the road, and the legs of another wriggled in a thorny gap. She cranked on, and suddenly found that the handle would turn no more. The bridge was open, and pat on time Heartsease came churning through.

“Look out!” yelled Jonathan from the wheelhouse, pointing up the road.

She looked over her shoulder. The bull had turned. Beyond it two men with spears hesitated by gaps in the hedges. The bull snorted, shook its head, lowered its horns and was surging back towards her; and the men behind it were coming in her direction too.

“I’ll wait for you,” shouted Jonathan. Margaret swung onto Scrub’s back and skipped him from the end of the bridge onto the little path that ran up beyond the deserted cottage where the bridge-keeper had lived. Forty yards further up, Heartsease was edging in to the bank, and by the time they reached it, was almost still; without orders Scrub picked his way over the bulwark and stood quivering where Caesar had been. Margaret slipped down and caressed the taut neck while the engine renewed its heavy boom and the smoke rose, puff-puff-puff, from the ridiculous funnel.

When Scrub had stopped quivering she walked along to the wheelhouse.

“Father was there,” said Jonathan.

“I didn’t see him.”

“I think he got away all right.”

“There was one man lying in the lane, but his trousers were the wrong color. And somebody fell into the water, I think.”

“That was Mr. Gordon — I saw him topple. I wish Father hadn’t come.”

“Perhaps he was going to try and do what he could for us if we were caught.”

“I hope so.”

“How long must we wait for Tim and Lucy?”