raw
as a calf, and Jim Silver rode well behind, giving him and his rider
plenty of room.

Before them was a low stake-and-bound with a drop on the far side.
Lollypop flopped along toward it like a boat in a swell, flapping his
long ears, bridling, and pondering whether he would have it or not. On
the whole, he thought he would. To lift over it would probably mean less
trouble in the end than to fight the quiet and resolute creature who
cooed so softly in his ears, and rode him with such iron resolution.
Moreover, he knew now as the result of experience that if it came to a
struggle he would be worsted in the end if it took all day. It would
certainly be less irksome, and more gracious, to get the thing behind
you. To jump, and to pretend you liked it, was the generous and the
politic thing to do. Moreover, it was all in the direction of home and
bran-mash; while there was Banjo golly-woshing through the mud close
behind him. And Lollypop not only had to live up to his reputation and
set his elder an example, which he loved to do, but he also wished to
show the gray what he could do himself when he tried.

The young horse had just made up his mind in the right way, cocked his
ears, gathered himself, and passed the thrill to his responsive and
expectant mistress, when a huge and black bird, vaster and far more
hideous than anything the young horse had ever seen upon the Downs, rose
suddenly underneath his nose on the far side of the hedge, flapped its
wings obscenely, spread them wide, and then twirled round insanely at
astonishing speed.

* * * * *

Joses, nursing his wounds, sat on in the parlour of _The Beehive_ long
after the cavalcade had moved off, and comforted himself in the usual
way.

When at length he rose with a drained tankard and paid his shot at the
counter, he gave his views on society to the landlord in such coloured
terms as genuinely to shock that worthy, who had been brought up
respectably in the shadow of a Duke.

"They're patriots and imperialists, they are," said the fat man. "Never
think of themselves. They hunt the fox, and shoot the pheasant, and
keep you and me under, not because they enjoy it and want all the fun to
themselves. Oh, no!--don't make that mistake. But because it's their
bounden duty to God and man so to do!"

The landlord gave him his change.

"Are you a Socialist?" he asked.

"No," laughed Joses. "I'm a ---- aristocrat. You might know i