“Good work,” said the stranger, as he and Mat sat down for an instant to recover their wind. “This part of the business I understand, at all events,” and taking a flask of brandy from his pocket, he poured the contents down the throat of the colt.
They then made him up a bed of “sedge,” and cutting a quantity of the best herbage they could find, placed it under his nose, and left him lying comfortably down; Mat observing that he looked brighter, and that he hoped “to get him home afore night.”
This incident occurred in Boldre Wood, and as the day was getting on, the stranger said,—
“Take a straight line to Lyndhurst, and we’ll get something to eat and then go out again.”
Mat acquiesced, and, leading the way through Mark Ash, brought his new acquaintance in an hour’s time to Braken Lodge, outside Lyndhurst.
It is now time to introduce the stranger.
His name was “Stephen Burns.”
Three months only had elapsed since he was pursuing his studies, or rather, perhaps, his sporting instincts, at Oxford, when he was suddenly summoned home to Braken Lodge, the paternal seat.
His father had long been ailing, but the end came suddenly, and Stephen was only just in time to see him before he died, and to find himself an orphan, having lost his mother during his infancy, and alone in the world, at all events the civilized world, for his only relative, an elder brother, had emigrated to Australia some years previous to this.
Braken Lodge he hardly looked upon as home, for he had left it early for a preparatory school, and his father, whose sole aim and interest in life consisted of betting and racing, was rather relieved to get his two sons comfortably disposed of, that he might the better indulge his favourite pursuits, which he continued until he left the estate heavily mortgaged, as Stephen found when he returned to the Forest.