mber, or there boomed from the distant
wooded hollow the drum of some pheasant lover, keeping a forgotten
tryst.

It was now two hours of midday, and the October sun was warm. Tiny
streaks of dampness were beginning to appear on the sleek necks of the
Cardinal and El Mahdi, and the Bay Eagle was swinging her head, a clear
sign that the good mare was not entirely comfortable.

I turned to Ump. "There's something wrong with that bridle," I said.
"Either the brow-band or the throat-latch. The mare's fidgety."

He looked at me in astonishment, like a man charged suddenly with a
crime, and slid his long hand out under her slim throat, and over her
silk foretop; then he growled. "You don't know your A, B, C's, Quiller.
She wants water; that's all."

Jud grinned like a bronzed Bacchus. "The queen might wear Spanish
needles in her shirt," he said, "an' be damned. But the Bay Eagle will
never wear a tight throat-latch or a pinchin' brow-band, or a rough bit,
or a short headstall, while old Mr. Ump warms the saddle seat."

The hunchback was squirming around, craning his long neck. If the Bay
Eagle were dry, water must be had, and no delay about it. Love for this
mare was Ump's religion. I laughed and pointed down the road. "We are
almost at Aunt Peggy's house. Don't stop to dig a well." And we broke
into a gallop.

Aunt Peggy was one of the ancients, a carpet-weaver, pious as Martin
Luther, but a trifle liberal with her idioms. The tongue in her head
wagged like a bell-clapper. Whatever was whispered in the Hills got
somehow into Aunt Peggy's ears, and once there it went to the world like
the secret of Midas.

If one wished to publish a bit of gossip, he told Aunt Peggy, swore her
to secrecy, and rode away. But as there is often a point of honour about
the thief and a whim of the Puritan about the immoral, Aunt Peggy could
never be brought to say who it was that told her. One could inquire as
one pleased. The old woman ran no farther than "Them as knows." And
there it ended and you might be damned.

The house was a log cottage covered with shingles and whitewash, set by
the roadside under a great chestnut tree, its door always open in the
daytime. As we drew rein by this open door, the old woman dropped her
shuttle, tossed her ball of carpet rags over into the weaving frame, and
came stumbling to the threshold in her long linsey dress that fell
straight from her neck to the floor.

She pulled her square-rimmed spectacl