with
portentous hisses. Ted had been carrying his coat over his arm for the
sake of coolness, and now, whether because he thought it would be a
humorous thing to do, or because he was secretly a little terrified at
the rapid advance of the bellicose gander, he struck with it at the
luckless bird with such force that he stretched it on the sod.

"Hello!" cried Ted, stopping short, astonished and perturbed at his
sudden victory, "I b'lieve I've done for th' owd chap."

"My word," commented Joe, "if thou has thou'll be like to hear on it!
That theer's Margaret Hep.'s gander; hoo thinks the world on't, hoo
does."

Ted was meanwhile bending over his prostrate foe, which, to his
relief, was not absolutely dead, though it was gasping and turning up
its eyes in rather a ghastly manner. He took it up in his arms, still
enfolded in his coat.

"It's wick still, as how 'tis," he remarked. "Eh! how it's kickin' out
with they ugly yaller legs! Now then, owd lad, what mun we do wi'it,
think'st thou? Mun I finish it off an' carry it wi' me to Jack Orme's
for a marlock? Eh! the lads 'ud laugh if they see me coomin' in wi'
it! I'll tell 'em I'd brought 'em a Crestmas dinner in July. My word,
it's tough enough! I reckon it 'ud want keepin'; it wouldn't be ready
mich afore Crestmas!"

Joe's wits, at no time very nimble, required some time to take in this
audacious proposal, and he was just beginning the preliminary
deprecating roll of the head, which he intended to precede a remark to
the effect that Margaret 'ud happen have summat to say about that,
when the angular figure of Miss Heptonstall herself appeared at the
corner of the lane. She paused a moment aghast at the sight of the
struggling gander, still enveloped in Ted's coat, and then, with
extended hands and wildly-flapping drapery, hastened towards him--her
aspect being not unlike that assumed by the unfortunate biped in
question when he had first advanced to the attack.

"Victoria!" she gasped, when she at last halted beside the men. "Eh!
whatever's getten Victoria?"

"Do ye mean this 'ere?" questioned Ted, hoisting the gander a little
higher up under his arm. "Well, I cannot think whatever coom to the
poor thing. Joe and me was goin' our ways along to Orme's when we
heerd it give a kind of skrike out, and we looked round, and it were
staggerin' along same as if it were fuddled, ye know, and all at once
it give another skrike an' tumbled down aside o' th' road. Didn't it