“My sweet little horse,” said she, patting him and throwing her arm round his neck. “I did treat you very ill—very ill indeed. It was soft spongy ground, too, and not fair in any way, and you were not in the least to blame. Do you know, Gardy, it was a mere bit of bark that caught his foot; for, after all, it is not above four feet high, is it?”
“I don’t know—I don’t care how high it is. It very nigh cost you your life, and cost me more than I wish to tell;” and he muttered these last words beneath his breath.
“You have never helped me to mount, I think, Gardy! Mind, now, don’t touch Cid’s bridle; he won’t bear it. Just give me a slight lift—that’s it; thanks. Oh, how nice to be on the saddle again. If you wouldn’t think very ill of me, I’d ask a favour?”
“Anything in the whole world, Ma Mie; what is it?”
“Then, like a dear kind Gardy, let me ride him at it again; I’ll do it so quietly—”
“Not for a dukedom—not if you went on your knees to beg it. I declare, you can have but little feeling in your heart to ask it. Nay, I didn’t mean to say that, my sweet child; my head is wandering, and I know not what I say.”
“I hope you’ll not tell of my disaster, Gardy,” said she, as they rode slowly along towards home. “A fall brings one down at once to the level of all the people who do nothing but fall. Don’t smile; I mean simply what I say as applied to matters of horseflesh, not morals, and promise you’ll not tell of me.”
“The doctor must hear of it, certainly.”
“No, Gardy, I’ll have no doctor.”
“I insist upon it—you shall—and you must, Kate. Surely, when I say it is for my happiness, you will not refuse me.”