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"Stand back inside of the hole," said Kernel Cob, and he drew his sword and stepped outside. On came the wolves, yelping and growling and showing their great yellow teeth. And one by one as they came up to devour our little friends, Kernel Cob's sword flashed, and with each stroke down came a wolf. And when the last one had been slain Kernel Cob wiped his sword upon his coat and went inside.
Anyhow, in that fiftieth of a second allowed, just when it seemed as if nothing could save his eye, Cob's head snicked round and up, and he slid the enemy's beak down off his own with as neat a parry as ever you saw. And he did more. He caught hold of the said raven's beak, got a grip on beak in beak, and once having got hold, he kept hold. This was nothing new to him.
Peter, it appeared, had taken quite a fancy to us and frequently brought him round to meals. The Padre had no word of say in the matter. He confessed that, when he embarked upon Peter in the morning, he had not the vaguest idea where mid-day would find him. Nothing but the black cob's fortunate rule of going home to supper saved the Padre from being posted as a deserter.
And just then a great wind came and raised the parasol from the ground, and the hook of the handle caught in Kernel Cob's belt and pulled him up with it and Sweetclover was just in time to catch hold of him as he sailed away. And Jackie and Peggs sat upon the grass and cried because they had lost their little dolls.
Cob's first delirium seemed to have spent him, and perhaps taught him how much a leg can hurt when tugged by the full lift of sixty-nine-inch wings, especially when one tries to whirl round upon it when it cannot turn.
Then he looked again. Outlined against the sky a man climbed to the tow-path and walked away. Shelby recognized Bernard Graves. "Ride on slowly," he directed. "I'll join you in a minute. There's something needs looking after in the Eureka." The intruder wheeled at the hoof-beats and waited. Purpling with rage, Shelby thrust the cob's nozzle fairly in Graves's face.
He had brought up a quiet cobby sort of stock horse from the Hollow, plain enough, but a wonder to go, particularly over broken country. Of course, it didn't do to bring Rainbow out for such work as this. For a wonder, he had a short tail. Well, he'd squared this cob's tail and hogged his mane so that he looked like another animal. He was pretty fat, too.
I see'd the old boy's face flush and look plaguy awkward, and I thought we was in for somethin' nasty. "He turns his cob's head and rides quietly after us just out of shot. How that 'ere cob did step! We never shook him off not a dozen yards in the six miles.
Then came a day when, feeling dull and bitter and as if he were not enjoying himself at home, as he did the last time he was there, Mark mounted one of the stout cob ponies kept for his and his sister's use, and went for a good long round, one which was prolonged so that it was getting toward evening, and the sun was peering over the shoulder of one of the western hills, when, throwing the rein on his cob's neck, and leaving it to pick its own way among the stones of the moorland, he entered a narrow, waste-looking dale, about four miles from the Tor.
"Why, Margaret," he said, "they're dolls." And you should have seen Kernel Cob's face as he turned to Sweetclover and said: "I don't see any woman, do you?" But Sweetclover only smiled. "Do you see the one that isn't John?" she said. "Of course," said Kernel Cob, "I'm not blind." "Well," said Sweetclover, "she's a woman." "But she's got a man's suit on," said Kernel Cob.
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