"First-rate," he replied.
"Not in a funk?"
"Not with you."
"That's a blessing. The filly needs watching—little demon! But she sha'n't smash your other arm for you, Mr. Engelhardt, if I can prevent it. No screws loose, Sam, I hope?"
"Not if I knows it, miss!"
Sam Rowntree had jumped on behind to come as far as the first gate, to open it. Already they were there, and as Sam ran in front of the impatient pair the filly shied violently at a blue silk fly-veil which fluttered from his wide-awake.
"That nice youth is the dandy of the men's hut," explained Naomi, as they tore through the gates, leaving Sam and his fly-veil astern in a twinkling. "I daren't say much to him, because he's the only man the hut contains just at present. The rest spend most nights out at the shed, so I should be pretty badly off if I offended Sam. I wasn't too pleased with the state of the buggy, as a matter of fact. It's the old Shanghai my father used to fancy, and somehow it's fallen on idle days; but it runs lighter than anything else we've got, and it's sweetly swung. That's why I chose it for this little trip of ours. You'll find it like a feather-bed for your bruises and bones and things—if only Sam Rowntree used his screw-hammer properly. Feeling happy so far?"
Engelhardt declared that he had never been happier in his life. There was more truth in the assertion than Naomi suspected. She also was happy, but in a different way. A tight rein, an aching arm, a clear course across a five-mile paddock, and her beloved Riverina breeze between her teeth, would have made her happy at any time and in any circumstances. The piano-tuner's company added no sensible zest to a performance which she thoroughly enjoyed for its own sake; but with him the exact opposite was the case. She was not thinking of him. He was thinking only of her. She had her young bloods to watch. His eyes spent half their time upon her grand strong hand and arm. Suddenly these gave a tug and a jerk, both together. But he was in too deep a dream either to see what was wrong or to understand his companion's exclamation.
"He didn't!" she had cried.
"Didn't what?" said Engelhardt. "And who, Miss Pryse?"