as a sort, of loving-kindness
in that movement, as of a hand which had in its time felt the joints and
sinews of innumerable horses.

"H'm!" he said; "can you stand a bit of a jerk? Catch hold of him
behind, Eustace. Sit down on the floor, Charles, and hold the legs of
the chair. Now then!" And taking up the foot, he pulled. There was a
click, a little noise of teeth ground together; and Bertie said: "Good
man--shan't have to have the vet. to you, this time."

Having conducted their lame guest to a room in the Georgian corridor
hastily converted to a bedroom, the two brothers presently left him to
the attentions of the footman.

"Well, old man," said Bertie, as they sought their rooms; "that's put
paid to his name--won't do you any more harm this journey. Good plucked
one, though!"

The report that Courtier was harboured beneath their roof went the round
of the family before breakfast, through the agency of one whose practice
it was to know all things, and to see that others partook of that
knowledge, Little Ann, paying her customary morning visit to her mother's
room, took her stand with face turned up and hands clasping her belt, and
began at once.

"Uncle Eustace brought a man last night with a wounded leg, and Uncle
Bertie pulled it out straight. William says that Charles says he only
made a noise like this"--there was a faint sound of small chumping teeth:
"And he's the man that's staying at the Inn, and the stairs were too
narrow to carry him up, William says; and if his knee was put out he
won't be able to walk without a stick for a long time. Can I go to
Father?"

Agatha, who was having her hair brushed, thought:

"I'm not sure whether belts so low as that are wholesome," murmured:

"Wait a minute!"

But little Ann was gone; and her voice could be heard in the
dressing-room climbing up towards Sir William, who from the sound of his
replies, was manifestly shaving. When Agatha, who never could resist a
legitimate opportunity of approaching her husband, looked in, he was
alone, and rather thoughtful--a tall man with a solid, steady face and
cautious eyes, not in truth remarkable except to his own wife.

"That fellow Courtier's caught by the leg," he said. "Don't know what
your Mother will say to an enemy in the camp."

"Isn't he a freethinker, and rather----"

Sir William, following his own thoughts, interrupted:

"Just as well, of course, so far as Miltoun's concerned, to have got him
her