; the
dejection of a faded and remembered prosperity lay heavy on all things
in the thin, cold air of that September dawn.

The clatter of a horse's hoofs came cheerfully from a stable, and, as
Christian crossed the yard, a dishevelled young man, with a large red
moustache, put his head over the half-door.

"I'm this half-hour striving to girth her, Miss," he complained, "she
got very big entirely on the grass; the surcingle's six inches too
short for her, let alone the way she have herself shwoll up agin me!"

Charles, once ruler and lawgiver, was dead, and, with the departure of
the hounds, Major Dick's interest in the stables had died too; his
tall, grey horse was ending his days in bondage to the outside car;
the meanest of the underlings who had grovelled beneath Charles'
top-boots, was now in sole charge, and had grown a moustache,
unchecked; and Christian's only mount was a green four-year-old filly,
in whom she had invested the economies of a life-time, with but a
dubious chance of their recovery.

"Can't you get a bit of string and tie up the surcingle Tommy?"
suggested Christian, who was now too well used to these crises in the
affairs of the stable to be much moved by them.

"Sure, I'm after doing it, Miss. T'would make a cat laugh the ways I
have on it! She's a holy fright altogether with the mane and the tail
she have on her! I tried to pull them last night, and she went up as
straight as a ribbon in the stable!"

The flushed face and red moustache were withdrawn, and with
considerable clattering and shouting, the holy fright was led forth.
She was a small and active chestnut mare, with a tawny fleece, a mane
like a prairie fire, and a tail like a comet. Her impish eyes
expressed an alarm that was more than half simulated, and the task of
manoeuvring her into position beside the mounting block, was
comparable only to an endeavour to extract a kitten from under a bed
with the lure of a reel of cotton. An apple took the place of the reel
of cotton, and its consumption afforded Christian just time enough to
settle herself in her saddle. Since the days of Harry the Residue
Christian had ridden many and various horses, and she had a reputation
for making the best of a bad job that had often earned her mounts from
those who, wishing to sell a horse as a lady's hunter, were anxious to
impart some slight basis of fact into the transaction.

Tommy Sullivan watched her admiringly.

"Where's the meet, Miss?"