The old mare grazed beside him in the dusk, and he began to laugh as he looked at her. Her laziness tickled and appealed to him. There was something great about it. She was indolent as was Nature, and for the same reason—that she was aware of immense reserves of power on which she could fall back at any moment.
A rabbit came out of the gorse to feed near by. The owl whooped and swooped and hovered behind her. The sea wind, fresh and crisp, came blowing up the valley; and the young stock, bursting with the ecstasy of life, thundered by in the dusk with downward heads and arched backs and far-flung heels.
Silver sat and smoked.
There was a funny feeling at his heart.
Some vast, deep, silent-running river of Life, of whose presence within him he had only become aware within the last few hours, had been thwarted for the moment, thrust back upon itself, and was tugging and tuzzling within him as it sought to pursue its majestic way toward the Open Sea.
CHAPTER VIII
The Great Beast
Joses had been haunting the village off and on for some time past.
Boy Woodburn knew nothing of him except that Monkey Brand disliked him.
Herself she had been given no chance of forming an opinion till lately, when Joses had asked permission of her father to paint some of the horses. Old Mat had given leave, and Joses had gained the entrée to the stables. He had made the most of his chance, haunting the yard, dogged by Monkey Brand, who resented his presence, watched him jealously, and made things as uncomfortable and precarious for the artist as he could. Joses, to do him justice, stuck to his self-imposed task with astonishing pertinacity in spite of opposition. He did not give up indeed until Flaminetta, a lengthy mare with an astonishing reach, suddenly exploded without warning and missed his head with a steel-shod heel by a short foot.