to see our county for the first time,
Agatha. If the sun were shining, these wide bleak sweeps of country
would look all purple with heather, and that dun-coloured, gloomy range
of hills;--we must call them hills out of compliment, though they are so
small--would stand out in a clear line against the sky. Beyond them lies
the British Channel, with its grand sea-coast."

"The sea--ah! always the sea."

"Nay, dear, don't be afraid, how don't'ee--as we Dorset people would
say. Kingcombe Holm lies in a valley. You would never know you were so
near the ocean. It is the same at Anne Valery's house."

"Where is that!" said Agatha, brightening up at the mention of the name.

"Why, this animal seems inclined to show me--even if I did not know
it of long habit," answered Mr. Harper, bestowing a little less of his
attention on his wife, and more on the obstreporous pony, who, in regard
to a certain turn of the road, had grown peculiarly wrong-headed.

"Don't'ee give in, sir! T'Squire bought he o' Miss Valery, and she do
gi' un their own way, terrible bad," hinted the groom.

"Unfortunately, his own way happens to be a wrong one," said Nathannael,
quietly, as he drew the reins tighter, and set himself to do that which
it takes a very firm man to do to conquer an obstinate and unruly horse.
Agatha remembered what she had heard or read somewhere about such a
case being no bad criterion of a man's character, "lose your temper, and
you'll lose your beast," ay, and perhaps your own life into the bargain.
She was considerably frightened, but she sat quite still, looking from
the struggling animal to her husband, in whose fair face the colour
had risen, while the boyish lips were set together with a will, fierce,
rigid, and man-like. She could hardly take her eyes from him.

"Agatha, are you afraid? Will you descend?" asked he, suddenly.

"No--I will stay with you."

The struggle between man and brute lasted a minute or two longer, at the
end of which, all danger being over, they were speeding on rapidly to
Kingcombe Holm. Agatha sat very thoughtful.

"I fear," she said--when he tried to draw her out of her contemplative
mood, showing her the wild furzy slopes and the fir-trees, almost the
only trees that grow in this region--standing in black clumps on the
hill-tops, like sentinel-ghosts of the old Romans, who used to encamp
there--"I fear you have made _me_ as much in awe of you as you have the
pony."

He smiled, and was qu