he pony's mane
as he talked quickly to the doctor.

For my father and Doctor Chowne were great friends, having once served
for a long time in the same ship together; and so it was that, when my
father left the service and settled down to his quiet life at the little
bay, Doctor Chowne bought the practice off the last doctor's widow, and
settled himself, with his boy, at Ripplemouth.

As I say, the doctor and my father were very great friends, such great
friends that when one day my father felt himself to be dangerously ill,
and sent over in great haste for Doctor Chowne, that gentleman galloped
over and examined him carefully, and then began to bully him and call
him names. He told him there was nothing the matter with him but fancy,
and made him get up and go out for a walk, and told him afterwards that
if they had not been such great friends he--the doctor--would have run
him up a twenty-pound bill for attendance instead of nothing at all.

And there before me were those two, one walking and the other riding,
with their heads close together, talking in a low eager tone, while I
was thinking about how hard it was for Bob Chowne that he should be sent
away, and began to wish that I had not found that piece of stone.

We reached home, and our Sam, who kept the garden in order, and cleaned
the boots and knives, and washed the boat, was called to take the
doctor's pony, after which Doctor Chowne whispered something to my
father.

"Oh, no," my father said. "He found it, and we can trust him."

Doctor Chowne whispered something else, and it set me wondering how my
father could be such good friends with a man who made himself so very
disagreeable and unpleasant to every one he met; but all at once it
seemed to strike me that I was always good friends with Bob Chowne, who
was the most disagreeable boy in our school, and that though he could be
so unpleasant, there was something about him I always liked; for though
he bullied and hectored, he was not, like most bullying and hectoring
boys, a coward, for he had taken my part many a time against bigger and
stronger fellows, and at all times we had found him thoroughly staunch.

As soon as Sam had gone off with the pony, my father called Kicksey, our
maid, a great, brawny woman of forty, who was quite mistress at our
place, my father being, like Doctor Chowne and Jonas Uggleston, a
widower.

Kicksey came in a great hurry, with her muslin mob-cap flopping and her
eyes st