y paid a small rent, which Jordas received on behalf of his ladies,
and always found it ready; and that being so, he had nothing more to
ask, and never meddled with them. They had been there before he came
into office, and it was not his place to seek into their history; and if
it had been, he would not have done it. For his sympathies were (as
was natural and native to a man so placed) with all outsiders, and
the people who compress into one or two generations that ignorance of
lineage which some few families strive to defer for centuries, showing
thereby unwise insistence, if latter-day theories are correct.

But if Master Jordas knew little of these people, somebody else knew
more about them, and perhaps too much about one of them. Lancelot
Carnaby, still called "Pet," in one of those rushes after random change
which the wildness of his nature drove upon him, had ridden his pony to
a stand-still on the moor one sultry day of that August. No pity or care
for the pony had he, but plenty of both for his own dear self. The pony
might be left for the crows to pick his bones, so far as mattered to Pet
Carnaby; but it mattered very greatly to a boy like him to have to go
home upon his own legs. Long exertion was hateful to him, though he
loved quick difficulty; for he was one of the many who combine activity
with laziness. And while he was wondering what he should do, and
worrying the fine little animal, a wave of the wind carried into his
ear the brawling of a beck, like the humming of a hive. The boy had
forgotten that the moor just here was broken by a narrow glen, engrooved
with sliding water.

Now with all his strength, which was not much, he tugged the panting and
limping little horse to the flat breach, and then down the steep of the
gill, and let him walk into the water and begin to slake off a little of
the crust of thirst. But no sooner did he see him preparing to rejoice
in large crystal draughts (which his sobs had first forbidden) than he
jerked him with the bit, and made a bad kick at him, because he could
bear to see nothing happy. The pony had sense enough to reply, weary as
he was, with a stronger kick, which took Master Lancelot in the knee,
and discouraged him for any further contest. Bully as he was, the boy
had too much of ancient Yordas pith in him to howl, or cry, or even
whimper, but sat down on a little ridge to nurse his poor knee, and
meditate revenge against the animal with hoofs. Presently pain