The clatter of a horse’s hoofs came cheerfully from a stable, and, as Christian crossed the yard, a dishevelled young man, with a large red moustache, put his head over the half-door.

“I’m this half-hour striving to girth her, Miss,” he complained, “she got very big entirely on the grass; the surcingle’s six inches too short for her, let alone the way she have herself shwoll up agin me!”

Charles, once ruler and lawgiver, was dead, and, with the departure of the hounds, Major Dick’s interest in the stables had died too; his tall, grey horse was ending his days in bondage to the outside car; the meanest of the underlings who had grovelled beneath Charles’ top-boots, was now in sole charge, and had grown a moustache, unchecked; and Christian’s only mount was a green four-year-old filly, in whom she had invested the economies of a life-time, with but a dubious chance of their recovery.

“Can’t you get a bit of string and tie up the surcingle Tommy?” suggested Christian, who was now too well used to these crises in the affairs of the stable to be much moved by them.

“Sure, I’m after doing it, Miss.  T’would make a cat laugh the ways I have on it!  She’s a holy fright altogether with the mane and the tail she have on her!  I tried to pull them last night, and she went up as straight as a ribbon in the stable!”

The flushed face and red moustache were withdrawn, and with considerable clattering and shouting, the holy fright was led forth.  She was a small and active chestnut mare, with a tawny fleece, a mane like a prairie fire, and a tail like a comet.  Her impish eyes expressed an alarm that was more than half simulated, and the task of manoeuvring her into position beside the mounting block, was comparable only to an endeavour to extract a kitten from under a bed with the lure of a reel of cotton.  An apple took the place of the reel of cotton, and its consumption afforded Christian just time enough to settle herself in her saddle.  Since the days of Harry the Residue Christian had ridden many and various horses, and she had a reputation for making the best of a bad job that had often earned her mounts from those who, wishing to sell a horse as a lady’s hunter, were anxious to impart some slight basis of fact into the transaction.

Tommy Sullivan watched her admiringly.

“Where’s the meet, Miss?” he said, quickly, as she started, and as if he were struck by a sudden thought.

“Nad Wood.”

“If they run the Valley, Miss, mind out for wire!” called Tommy after her, as she rode out of the yard.  “Carmody’s fences are strung with it!”

He ran to the gate to watch the mare as she capered and lunged sideways along the drive, and thanked God, not for the first time, for the heavy hands that preserved him from the duty of riding Miss Christian’s horses.