ices as soon
as possible. He had been called Andy by the late Sir Florian, and,
though every one else about the place called him Mr. Gowran, Lady
Eustace thought it became her, as the man's mistress, to treat him
as he had been treated by the late master. So she called him Andy.
But she was resolved to get rid of him,--as soon as she should dare.
There were things which it was essential that somebody about the
place should know, and no one knew them but Mr. Gowran. Every servant
in the castle might rob her, were it not for the protection afforded
by Mr. Gowran. In that affair of the garden it was Mr. Gowran who had
enabled her to conquer the horticultural Leviathan who had oppressed
her, and who, in point of wages, had been a much bigger man than
Mr. Gowran himself. She trusted Mr. Gowran, and hated him,--whereas
Mr. Gowran hated her, and did not trust her. "I believe you think
that nothing can be done at Portray except by that man," said Lady
Eustace.

"He'll know how much you ought to pay for the pony."

"Yes,--and get some brute not fit for my cousin to ride, on purpose,
perhaps, to break his neck."

"Then I should ask Mr. Macallum, the postmaster of Troon, for I have
seen three or four very quiet-looking ponies standing in the carts at
his door."

"Macnulty, if there ever was an idiot you are one!" said Lady
Eustace, throwing up her hands. "To think that I should get a pony
for my cousin Frank out of one of the mail carts."

"I daresay I am an idiot," said Miss Macnulty, resuming her novel.

Lady Eustace was, of course, obliged to have recourse to Gowran, to
whom she applied on the Monday morning. Not even Lizzie Eustace, on
behalf of her cousin Frank, would have dared to disturb Mr. Gowran
with considerations respecting a pony on the Sabbath. On the Monday
morning she found Mr. Gowran superintending four boys and three old
women, who were making a bit of her ladyship's hay on the ground
above the castle. The ground about the castle was poor and exposed,
and her ladyship's hay was apt to be late. "Andy," she said, "I shall
want to get a pony for the gentlemen who are coming to the Cottage.
It must be there by Tuesday evening."

"A pownie, my leddie?"

"Yes;--a pony. I suppose a pony may be purchased in Ayrshire,--though
of all places in the world it seems to have the fewest of the
comforts of life."

"Them as find it like that, my leddie, needn't bide there."

"Never mind. You will have the kindness to