“Lung-trouble’s best, sir,” replied the little jockey gravely.  “I reck’n you can’t go far with lung-trouble.  See, we all dies o’ shortness o’ breath in the latter end.  That is lung-trouble in a manner o’ speakin’.”

“Lung-trouble’s good,” said the old man.  “Vairy good.  You’re a good little lad, Brand.  You help me in my hour o’ need....”

“Father!” came the stern voice from the back seat.

The old man began to flap with his elbows.

“There she goes, givin’ tongue!  Is that you, Miss?” he called, in his half-humorous whimper.  “You wasn’t meant to hear that.  Your ears is altogether too long—­like that young Lollypop hoss o’ mine.”

They swung away off the crest of the Downs and began to drop down the slope into the village of Cuckmere lying beneath them in the valley among trees.

The sun dipped into the sea as they turned with a noise of grinding wheels into the village street.  The news of Goosey Gander’s victory had preceded them and they drove slowly through little crowds of cheering children, between old flint cottages with tiled roofs, and gardens white with arabis and overspread with fig-trees.

As they turned a corner, Putnam’s lay before them, a Queen Anne manor-house, homely, solid, snug, with low blue parapeted roof, standing a little back from the road, and buttressed by barns and stable-buildings.

Directly they came in sight of the windows of the farm the old man took his hat off his shining head, put it on the end of his whip, and began to twiddle it.

The signal was instantly answered.

A handkerchief was waved at a lower window.

“There’s Mar!” Mat said comfortably, easing into a walk.  “One thing, she ain’t dead. That’s a little bit o’ better.”

He gave his plump body a half-turn and began again to whimper over his shoulder to the occupant of the back seat.

“You wouldn’t get your old dad into trouble, would you then, Boy?—­not by tellin’ Mar I done a lot o’ things I never dreamed o’ doin’.  If you was to say I betted now you’d say what wasn’t true, wouldn’t you?—­and you’ve often told me what come to Annie Nyas and Sophia in the Book, haven’t you?  A lesson to us all that was—­to be took to ’eart, as the sayin’ is.  All I done was just this:  An old friend come up to me—­had a drop in him, must have had!—­and he says:  ’Your old hoss won’t win, Mat,’ he says, very insultifyin’.  ‘My old hoss will win then,’ I answers, polite as you please.  ‘De we,’ I says, mindful o’ Mar.  ’Will you back your opinion?’ says he, sneery.  ‘No,’ I says, very firm.  ’No; I never bets—­cause o’ you know.’  ‘Oh, yes,’ he says, ’I know you—­and I know your master,’ meaning Mar.”  He swung round and addressed the young man riding on his right.  “That’s ’ow they go on at me all the time, Mr. Silver,” he whined.  “Persecute me somethin’ shockin’ because o’ me religion—­for all the world as if I could help it.”