Page 32 - An Australian Lassie

"Oh, my poor boy, whatever is the matter?" she cried in her most motherly way.

"The g-g-great big bully!" sobbed Cyril.

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Betty in distress.

"Oh the b-b-big bully. Let's get home."

"Big John Brown?" asked Betty, for only yesterday this same John Brown had sent her small brother home
weeping over a sore head.

"Yes, of course. He--he said he'd knock me into next year. Come on, can't you?"

Betty was running by his side at quite a brisk trot to keep up with him.

"T--T hope you knocked him down," she said.

"He said grandfather isn't our grandfather at all."

"Oh!--and you did give him a black eye Cywil dear?" asked Betty eagerly. Her "r's" had a way of rolling
themselves into "w's" whenever she was excited.

They were at the wicket-gate now, and Cyril slackened his speed, and looked over his shoulder. No one was in
sight.

"Oh, T will do!" he said boldly. "T told him no Bruce was afraid!"

"That's right," said Betty eagerly. "That's right Cywil. No Bruce is afraid. But you did knock him down, didn't
you."

Cyril hesitated--then his trouble broke from him in a burst. "We fight to-night down at our coral islands at
seven," he said.

"Oh my bwave Cywil!" exclaimed Betty admiringly. "Oh, T am so glad--oh, T am so very glad!"

But Cyril looked doleful, and was lagging behind his small eager sister.

"T'm not so sure that he meant us to fight," he said. "He--he never asked me to."

"What did he say?"

"He only said something about a challenge and things."

"Oh," said Betty, eager again in a minute; "if he said 'challenge' you must fight. There's no get out."

"But T've hurt my leg."

"Oh never mind your leg--think of the honour of the Bruces!" said the fervent Betty, who regarded the family
cognomen as something sacred and against which no breath of evil must be allowed to come.

"Honour of the Bruces be hanged, if T'm lame," said Cyril savagely.