"But are you not riding also?" she asked as he took the leading-rein.
"No. I shall walk beside you to-day . . . Now take up the reins—so; in both hands, please. That will help you to sit square and keep the right shoulder back, which with a woman is half the secret of a good seat. Where a man uses grip, she uses balance. . . . For the same reason you must not draw the feet back; it throws your body forward and off its true poise on the hips."
She began to learn at once and intelligently; for, unlike her other tutors, he started with simple principles and taught her nothing without giving its reason. He led her twice around the open gravelled space before the house, and so aside and along a grassy pathway that curved between the elms to the right. The pathway was broad and allowed him to walk somewhat wide of the mare, yet not so wide as to tauten the leading-rein, which he held (as she learned afterwards) merely to give her confidence; for the mare was docile and would follow him at a word.
"I am telling you the why-and-how of it all," he said, "because after this week you will be teaching yourself. This week I shall come every morning for an hour; but on Wednesday you start for Sweetwater Farm."
"And will there be nobody at the Farm to help me," she asked, a trifle dismayed.
"The farmer—his name is Cordery—rides, after a fashion. But he knows nothing of a side-saddle, if indeed he has ever seen one."
"Then to trot, canter, and gallop I must teach myself," she thought; for among the close plantations of Sabines there was room for neither. "If I experiment here, they will find me hanging like Absalom from a bough." But aloud she said nothing of her tremors.
"Dicky sits a horse remarkably well for his age," said Sir Oliver after a pause. "I had some thought to pack him off holidaying with you. But the puppy has taken to the water like a spaniel. He went off to the Venus yesterday, and it seems that on board of her he struck up, there and then, a close friendship with Harry's lieutenant, a Mr. Hanmer; and now he can talk of nothing but rigging and running-gear. He's crazed for a cruise and a hammock. Also it would seem that he used his time to win the affections of Madam Harry; which argues that his true calling is not the Navy, after all, but diplomacy."
Ruth sighed inaudibly. Dicky's companionship would have been delightful. But she knew the child's craze, and would not claim him, to mar his bliss—though she well knew that at a word from her he would renounce it.
"Diplomacy?" she echoed.