ood, in fact, that Mr.
Humphrey Crewe (who believed he had an eye for horses) had peremptorily
hailed Austen from a motorcar and demanded the price, as was Mr. Crewe's
wont when he saw a thing he desired. He had been somewhat surprised and
not inconsiderably offended by the brevity and force of the answer which
he had received.

On the afternoon of the summer's day in which Austen had the conversation
with his father just related, Pepper was trotting at a round clip through
the soft and shady wood roads toward the town of Tunbridge; the word
"town" being used in the New England sense, as a piece of territory about
six miles by six. The fact that automobiles full of laughing people from
Leith hummed by occasionally made no apparent difference to Pepper, who
knew only the master hand on the reins; the reality that the wood roads
were climbing great hills the horse did not seem to feel. Pepper knew
every lane and by-path within twenty miles of Ripton, and exhibited such
surprise as a well-bred horse may when he was slowed down at length and
turned into a hard, blue-stone driveway under a strange granite arch with
the word "Fairview" cut in Gothic letters above it, and two great lamps
in wrought-iron brackets at the sides. It was Austen who made a note of
the gratings over the drains, and of the acres of orderly forest in a
mysterious and seemingly enchanted realm. Intimacy with domains was new
to him, and he began to experience an involuntary feeling of restraint
which was new to him likewise, and made him chafe in spite of himself.
The estate seemed to be the visible semblance of a power which troubled
him.

Shortly after passing an avenue neatly labelled "Trade's Drive" the road
wound upwards through a ravine the sides of which were covered with a
dense shrubbery which had the air of having always been there, and yet
somehow looked expensive. At the top of the ravine was a sharp curve; and
Austen, drawing breath, found himself swung, as it were, into space,
looking off across miles of forest-covered lowlands to an ultramarine
mountain in the hazy south,--Sawanec. As if in obedience to a telepathic
command of his master, Pepper stopped.

Drinking his fill of this scene, Austen forgot an errand which was not
only disagreeable, but required some fortitude for its accomplishment.
The son had this in common with the Honourable Hilary--he hated heroics;
and the fact that the thing smacked of heroics was Austen's only
deterr