They dropped down the hill into the Paddock Close, graying faintly in the dusk.
Boy's high spirits were pouring back on her in merry little rivulets, all the readier to brim their banks for having been dammed so long.
"Come and see Four-Pound-the-Second," she cried, and led away along the hillside at a trot.
"How's he coming on?" asked the young man, jogging at her side, delighting in her returning life.
"Father thinks he's going to be a great horse," laughed the girl. "But he won't admit it to me, of course."
"So he is, plea Gob," said Jim.
Boy looked at him severely. Then she tapped him with her crop.
"He may," she said. "You mayn't. And you mustn't mimic dad."
He touched his forehead.
At the Bottom, not far from the place where the old mare had died, a rough thatched shed of tarred sleepers had been run up for the colt.