in sight of the windows of the farm the old man took
his hat off his shining head, put it on the end of his whip, and began
to twiddle it.

The signal was instantly answered.

A handkerchief was waved at a lower window.

"There's Mar!" Mat said comfortably, easing into a walk. "One thing, she
ain't dead. _That's_ a little bit o' better."

He gave his plump body a half-turn and began again to whimper over his
shoulder to the occupant of the back seat.

"You wouldn't get your old dad into trouble, would you then, Boy?--not
by tellin' Mar I done a lot o' things I never dreamed o' doin'. If you
was to say I betted now you'd say what wasn't true, wouldn't you?--and
you've often told me what come to Annie Nyas and Sophia in the Book,
haven't you? A lesson to us all that was--to be took to 'eart, as the
sayin' is. All I done was just this: An old friend come up to me--had a
drop in him, must have had!--and he says: 'Your old hoss won't win,
Mat,' he says, very insultifyin'. 'My old hoss _will_ win then,' I
answers, polite as you please. 'De we,' I says, mindful o' Mar. 'Will
you back your opinion?' says he, sneery. 'No,' I says, very firm. 'No; I
never bets--cause o' you know.' 'Oh, yes,' he says, 'I know you--and I
know your master,' meaning Mar." He swung round and addressed the young
man riding on his right. "That's 'ow they go on at me all the time, Mr.
Silver," he whined. "Persecute me somethin' shockin' because o' me
religion--for all the world as if I could help it."

"It's not your religion," came the deep voice from the back seat. "It's
mother's."

"What's it matter whose religion it is if they martyrizes you for it at
the stake?" wheezed the old man. He took up his tale anew. "So as I was
sayin' he says to me, Sam Buckland do: 'Man to man,' he says, 'I respeck
you for stickin' to principles what you don't 'old, Mat,' he says. 'And
far be it from me to undermine a man's faith what he learned acrost his
mother's knee,' he says. 'But see here,' he says; 'if that 'ole
rockin'-hoss o' yours gets round the course I'll give you fi' pun for
yourself; if a miracle happens and he gets a place I'll make it a
tenner; and if all the other hosses takes and lays down and dies so as
he wins outright, it's a pony to you.' And I says to him: 'As to my
champion, Mr. Buckland,' I says, 'you're jealous of him and I don't
blame you, seein' as he can roll faster nor any hoss o' yours can
gallip. But if he _don't_ win,' I says, 'I'