pplied with an
animal to ride upon?"

"My leddie, I've said nowt o' the kind. There ain't no useful animal
as I kens the name and nature of as he can't have in Ayrshire,--for
paying for it, my leddie;--horse, pownie, or ass, just whichever you
please, my leddie. But there'll be a seddle--"

"A what?"

There can be no doubt that Gowran purposely slurred the word so that
his mistress should not understand him. "Seddles don't come for nowt,
my leddie, though it be Ayrshire."

"I don't understand what it is that you say, Andy."

"A seddle, my leddie,"--said he, shouting the word at her at the top
of his voice,--"and a briddle. I suppose as your leddyship's cousin
don't ride bare-back up in Lunnon?"

"Of course there must be the necessary horse-furniture," said Lady
Eustace, retiring to the castle. Andy Gowran had certainly ill-used
her, and she swore that she would have revenge. Nor when she was
informed on the Tuesday that an adequate pony had been hired for
eighteen pence a day, saddle, bridle, groom, and all included, was
her heart at all softened towards Mr. Gowran.

CHAPTER XXIII

Frank Greystock's First Visit to Portray

Had Frank Greystock known all that his cousin endured for his
comfort, would he have been grateful? Women, when they are fond of
men, do think much of men's comfort in small matters, and men are apt
to take the good things provided almost as a matter of course. When
Frank Greystock and Herriot reached the cottage about nine o'clock in
the morning, having left London over night by the limited mail train,
the pony at once presented itself to them. It was a little shaggy,
black beast, with a boy almost as shaggy as itself, but they were
both good of their kind. "Oh, you're the laddie with the pownie, are
you?" said Frank, in answer to an announcement made to him by the
boy. He did at once perceive that Lizzie had taken notice of the word
in his note, in which he had suggested that some means of getting
over to Portray would be needed, and he learned from the fact that
she was thinking of him and anxious to see him.

His friend was a man a couple of years younger than himself, who had
hitherto achieved no success at the Bar, but who was nevertheless a
clever, diligent, well-instructed man. He was what the world calls
penniless, having an income from his father just sufficient to keep
him like a gentleman. He was not much known as a sportsman, his
opportunities for shooting not having