The lids were lifted but the blush deepened. “My name is Mary Dana. I live with my father on Pettingill Street.”
“Why,” cried Quincy, “Ezekiel Pettingill is my uncle--I live with him. I'm going home your way, and, with your permission, I will escort you to your father's house.”
“All right, Quincy--you go ahead,” said Tom. “But you must excuse me. I've kept Mr. Wood waiting.”
They were around a bend in the road by this time. When Tom returned to the scene of the encounter, Mr. Wood was not in sight. Mr. Chripp laughed, and paraphrased an old couplet.
“He who fights, then runs away, Will have to fight some other day.”
Quincy walked beside Mary, but said little. He would not acknowledge it, but the exertion had been too much for him. His knees felt weak, his sight grew dim, and, before Mary was aware of his condition, he sank upon the grass by the roadside.
She knelt beside him, took off his straw hat and fanned him. Then she lifted his head upon her knee and fanned more vigorously. Her big blue eyes were gazing at him when he opened his and looked up into her face. Again, a rosy flush came to her cheeks.
“I'm better now,” said he. “I'm not very strong, but I can walk now.”
He got up with a show of vigour that did not deceive Mary.
“You rest here, and I'll send your uncle for you with a carriage.”
“By no means, Miss Mary, It was only a momentary feeling. Throwing him over my head is what did it.”
“Well, I'm not, Miss Mary. Uncle 'Zeke told me that Bob Wood's father used to be the town bully, and that my father, when they were both young, gave him a good thrashing. I've watched Bob--we were in school together, and he was always impudent and overbearing to me when I was a little fellow. I've felt that some day we'd have it out together. I'm glad it's over, and that I had the good fortune to serve you at the same time.”
Mr. Dana thanked Quincy for his defence of his daughter from further insult and perhaps injury.
“I've been in a good many scraps myself, Mr. Sawyer. For seventeen years I was a member of the detective squad in Boston. I resigned because of injuries received in a fight with some bank robbers,” and he pointed to the crutches beside his chair, “and although they wanted me to stay at police headquarters I wouldn't hang onto a job I couldn't do to my own satisfaction.”