When that evening she met him in the yard and said, "Will you come and see?" he was amazed and touched.
They stood together by the new-made grave under the wood. Jim was far more moved than when his mother died.
"Dear old Ragamuffin!" he said.
She seemed to quaver in the dusk.
"You mustn't," she said, in strained and muffled voice, and for a moment laid a finger on his arm.
Next day, as they were making their Sunday round of the horses together, Silver stopped at Heart of Oak's box.
"I don't quite know what to be at with this poor old cormorant," he said, slow and cogitating. "I'm looking for a home for him. But there are no bidders. A bit too good a doer, I guess. Eat 'em out of hearth and home."
The girl's eyes flashed on his face and away again.
"He's not old," she said, as her hand stroked the pony's neck.
"Well, he's like me," the young man replied. "He's older than he was."