ined face, tender laughter upon her lips. She drew the
boy's hands on to her shoulders, clasped her hands across his extended
arms, and kissed him upon the mouth.

"No, no, my beloved, you shall ride," she said. "You shall have your
saddle--twenty thousand saddles if you want them. We will talk to Uncle
Roger and Chifney to-night. All shall be as you wish."

"But you're not angry, mother, any more?" he asked, a little bewildered
by her change of tone and by the passion of her lovely looks and
speech.

Katherine shook her head, and still that tender laughter curved her
lips.

"No, I am never going to be angry any more--with you at least, Dick. I
must learn to be plucky too. A pair of us, Dickie, trying to keep up
one another's pluck! Only let us go forward hand in hand, you and I,
and then, however desperate our doings, I at least shall be content."

CHAPTER VIII

TELLING, INCIDENTALLY, OF A BROKEN-DOWN POSTBOY AND A COUNTRY FAIR

The Brockhurst-mail phaeton waited, in the shade of the three large
sycamores, before Appleyard's shop at Farley Row. A groom stood stiff
and straight at the horses' heads. While upon the high driving-seat, a
trifle excited by the suddenness of his elevation, sat Richard. He held
the reins in his right hand, and stretched his left to get the cramp
out of his fingers. His arms ached--there was no question about it. He
had never driven a pair before, and the horses needed a lot of driving.
For the wind was gusty, piling up heavy masses of black-purple
rain-cloud in the southeast. It made the horses skittish and unsteady,
and Dickie found it was just all he could do to hold them, so that
Chifney's reiterated admonition, "Keep 'em well in hand, Sir Richard,"
had been not wholly easy to obey.

From out the open shop-door came mingled odour of new leather and of
horse clothing. Within Mr. Chifney delivered himself of certain orders;
while Appleyard--a small, fair man, thin of nose, a spot of violent
colour on either cheek-bone--skipped before him goat-like, in a fury of
complacent intelligence. For it was not every day so notable a
personage as the Brockhurst trainer crossed his threshold. To Josiah
Appleyard, indeed--not to mention his two apprentices stretching eyes
and ears from the back-shop, to catch any chance word of Mr. Chifney's
conversation--it appeared as though the gods very really condescended
to visit the habitations of men. While Mrs. Appleyard, peeping from
behind th