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edwindvinas
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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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that now filled it uncomfortably. He was a tall, broad-shouldered
fellow, not ill-dressed or ill-looking but unmistakably half drunk. He
asked Valancy to dance. Valancy declined civilly. His face turned
livid. He threw his arm about her and pulled her to him. His hot,
whiskied breath burned her face.
“We won’t have fine-lady airs here, my girl. If you ain’t too good to
come here you ain’t too good to dance with us. Me and my pals have been
watching you. You’ve got to give us each a turn and a kiss to boot.”
Valancy tried desperately and vainly to free herself. She was being
dragged out into the maze of shouting, stamping, yelling dancers. The
next moment the man who held her went staggering across the room from a
neatly planted blow on the jaw, knocking down whirling couples as he
went. Valancy felt her arm grasped.
“This way—quick,” said Barney Snaith. He swung her out through the open
window behind them, vaulted lightly over the sill and caught her hand.
“Quick—we must run for it—they’ll be after us.”
Valancy ran as she had never run before, clinging tight to Barney’s
hand, wondering why she did not drop dead in such a mad scamper.
Suppose she did! What a scandal it would make for her poor people. For
the first time Valancy felt a little sorry for them. Also, she felt
glad that she had escaped from that horrible row. Also, glad that she
was holding tight to Barney’s hand. Her feelings were badly mixed and
she had never had so many in such a brief time in her life.
They finally reached a quiet corner in the pine woods. The pursuit had
taken a different direction and the whoops and yells behind them were
growing faint. Valancy, out of breath, with a crazily beating heart,
collapsed on the trunk of a fallen pine.
“Thanks,” she gasped.
“What a goose you were to come to such a place!” said Barney.
“I—didn’t—know—it—would—be like this,” protested Valancy.
“You _should_ have known. Chidley Corners!”
“It—was—just—a name—to me.”
Valancy knew Barney could not realise how ignorant she was of the
regions “up back.” She had lived in Deerwood all her life and of course
he supposed she knew. He didn’t know how she had been brought up. There
was no use trying to explain.
“When I drifted in at Abel’s this evening and Cissy told me you’d come
here I was amazed. And downright scared. Cissy told me she was worried
about you but hadn’t liked to say anything to dissuade you for fear
you’d think she was thinking selfishly about herself. So I came on up
here instead of going to Deerwood.”
Valancy felt a sudden delightful glow irradiating soul and body under
the dark pines. So he had actually come up to look after her.
“As soon as they stop hunting for us we’ll sneak around to the Muskoka
road. I left Lady Jane down there. I’ll take you home. I suppose you’ve
had enough of your party.”
“Quite,” said Valancy meekly. The first half of the way home neither of
them said anything. It would not have been much use. Lady Jane made so
much noise they could not have heard each other. Anyway, Valancy did
not feel conversationally inclined. She was ashamed of the whole
affair—ashamed of her folly in going—ashamed of being found in such a
place by Barney Snaith. By Barney Snaith, reputed jail-breaker,
infidel, forger and defaulter. Valancy’s lips twitched in the darkness
as she thought of it. But she _was_ ashamed.
And yet she was enjoying herself—was full of a strange
exultation—bumping over that rough road beside Barney Snaith. The big
trees shot by them. The tall mulleins stood up along the road in stiff,
orderly ranks like companies of soldiers. The thistles looked like
drunken fairies or tipsy elves as their car-lights passed over them.
This was the first time she had even been in a car. After all, she
liked it. She was not in the least afraid, with Barney at the wheel.
Her spirits rose rapidly as they tore along. She ceased to feel
ashamed. She ceased to feel anything except that she was part of a
comet rushing gloriously through the night of space.
All at once, just where the pine woods frayed out to the scrub barrens,
Lady Jane became quiet—too quiet. Lady Jane slowed down quietly—and
stopped.
Barney uttered an aghast exclamation. Got out. Investigated. Came
apologetically back.
“I’m a doddering idiot. Out of gas. I knew I was short when I left
home, but I meant to fill up in Deerwood. Then I forgot all about it in
my hurry to get to the Corners.”
“What can we do?” asked Valancy coolly.
“I don’t know. There’s no gas nearer than Deerwood, nine miles away.
And I don’t dare leave you here alone. There are always tramps on this
road—and some of those crazy fools back at the Corners may come
straggling along presently. There were boys there from the Port. As far
as I can see, the best thing to do is for us just to sit patiently here