a herself was not
more free from sentiment than this young girl who rode her horse just
like a Mexican, who was vet enough to perform a surgical operation on a
lamb, and who knew how many bushels of wheat should run to an acre, and
the best dressing for permanent pastures. It did occur to her that she
might, at any rate after he had rescued the lamb, have given him
permission to go on fishing; but she was not very sorry for having
failed to do so, for after all, he had been poaching, and, as she had
said, poaching was in her eyes a crime.

She went down the road at a swift trot, and presently it was blocked by
a pair of wrought-iron gates, so exquisite in their antique
conscientiousness that many a mushroom peer would have given almost
their weight in gold to place them at the beginning of his newly made
park; but no one came to open them, they were closed by a heavily
padlocked chain, and the lodge beside them was empty and dilapidated;
and the girl rode beside the lichen-covered wall in which they stood
until she came to an opening leading to an old arch which faced a broad
and spacious court-yard. As she rode beneath the arch a number of dogs
yelped a welcome from kennels or behind stable half-doors, and a bent
old man, dressed like something between a stableman and a butler, came
forward, touching his forehead, to take her horse. She slipped from the
saddle, patted the horse, and murmured a word or two of endearment; but
her bright eyes flashed round the court-yard with a glance of
responsibility.

"Have you brought the colt in, Jason?" she asked.

Jason touched his forehead again.

"Yes, Miss Ida. It took me three-quarters of an hour; it won't come to
me like it does to you. It's in a loose stall."

"Saddle it to-morrow morning," she said, "and I will come and try it.
The brindle cow has got into the corn, and the fence wants mending down
by the pool; you must get William to help you, and do it at once. He
has taken the steers to market, I suppose? I didn't see them in the
three acre. Oh, and, Jason, I found someone fishing in the dale; you
must get a notice board and put it up where the road runs near the
river; the tourists' time is coming on, and though they don't often
come this side of the lake, some of them may, and we can't afford to
have the river poached. And, Jason, look to Ruppert's off-hind shoe; I
think it's loose; and--" She stopped with a short laugh. "But that's
enough for one time, isn't it?