surmise) he also pastured the old mare,
Pleasant: and if Pleasant browsed anywhere within earshot, why the
chances were she would remember and respond to her former master's
call.

I repeat that Gunner Sobey was a ready man and a brave. Without
pausing to reflect that the French might hear him, he put two fingers
in his mouth and whistled into the night.

For a while there came no reply. He had his two fingers in his mouth
to repeat the call when, happening to glance at the jackass, he
perceived the beast's ears go up and its head slew round towards the
ridge. Doubtless it had caught the distant echo of hoofs; for half a
minute later a low whinny sounded from the summit of the dark slope,
and a grey form came lumbering down at a trot, halted, and thrust
forward its muzzle to be caressed.

"Pleasant! Oh, my dear Pleasant!" stammered Gunner Sobey, reaching
out a hand and fondling first her nose, then her ears. He could have
thrown both arms around her ewe neck and hugged her. "How did I come
to sell 'ee?"

To be sure, if he had not, this good fortune had never befallen him.

Neither Gunner Sobey nor the mare--nor, for that matter, the
jackass--had ever read the eighteenth book of Homer's Iliad; and this
must be their excuse for letting pass the encounter with less
eloquence than I, its narrator, might have made a fortune by
reporting. For once Gunner Sobey's readiness failed him, under
emotion too deep for words. He laid a hand on the mare's withers and
heaved himself astride, choosing a seat well back towards the
haunches, and so avoiding the more pronounced angles in her
framework. Then leaning forward and patting her neck he called to
her.

"Home, my beauty! I'll stick on, my dear, if you'll but do the rest.
Cl'k!"

She gathered up her infirm limbs and headed for home at a canter.

For a while the jackass trotted beside them; but coming to the
gate and dismounting to open it, Gunner Sobey turned him back.
Possibly the mare had a notion she was being stolen, for no sooner
had her rider remounted than she struck off into a lane on the right
hand, avoiding the road to Polperro where her present owner dwelt;
and so, fetching a circuit by a second lane--this time to the left--
clattered downhill past the sleeping hamlet of Crumplehorn, and
breasted the steep coombe and the road that winds up beside it past
the two Kellows to Mabel Burrow. Here on the upland she pulled
herself together, and reaching o