“Not at all, thank you—only humiliated. I did not mean to let her have her own way, but she took it in spite of me. How did you manage to catch her? And how come you to be so good a rider? You manage her far better than I do.”
“I broke her in, you see, sir,” answered Saul, who was stroking the glossy foam-flecked neck of the beautiful creature, whilst she dropped her nose into his palm, and was evincing every sign of satisfaction in the meeting. “His Grace bought her from Farmer Teazel. She was bred on these downs, and I had the breaking of her. She’ll make a capital hunter one of these days; but it’s not every rider she’ll let mount her, nor yet keep mounted when once they’ve been on her back. She’ll give you some trouble, I expect, sir, the next time you try to ride her. But Lady Bride can guide her with a silken thread. She took to her ladyship from the first moment she mounted her.”
“And she seems to take to you too. I think your name is Tresithny, isn’t it? You are grandson to the gardener at the castle?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Saul, and said no more, holding the stirrup for Eustace to mount, but without anything the least servile or obsequious in his attitude. The young man noted also in his speech the absence of the vernacular peculiarities that characterised all the ordinary rustics of the place. Saul’s voice was soft, and his speech had an intonation that bespoke him a native of these parts, but that was all. Just as it was with the grandfather, so it was with the grandson: they could put off the dialect when they chose, and use it when they chose. Abner had early taught his young charge the same purity of diction as he had acquired himself, and in speaking to his superiors Saul adopted it naturally.
“I don’t think I’ll ride again just yet, thanks,” said Eustace, with his frank and pleasant smile. “If you don’t object, I’ll walk your way, Tresithny. I’ve often wanted to talk with you, but I’ve never had the opportunity before.”
Saul’s face was not responsive; but he was too well trained to refuse to lead the horse for the gentleman when asked, and after all it was not so very far back to his work, where he must of necessity shake off this undesirable companion.
“I want to speak to you, Tresithny, about the cause which (in addition to the death of the Duchess) brought me just now into these parts. You know of course that, in the natural order of things, I shall one day be master here. It is not a position I covet. I hold that there is great injustice in making one man ruler and owner of half a county perhaps, and of huge revenues, holding vast powers in his hand whether he be capable or not of ruling wisely and well—simply from an accident of birth, whilst hundreds and thousands of his fellow-men are plunged in untold misery, and vice that is the outcome of that undeserved misery. I believe myself that the whole system of the country is rotten and corrupt, and that the day has come when a new and better era will dawn upon the world. But meantime, in the present, I have to look forward to succeeding his Grace, and I am naturally very greatly interested in the people of this place, and intensely anxious to see them elevated and ennobled.”
Saul suddenly looked at the young man as he had never looked at him before, and said between his teeth—
“That’s a strange thing for you to say, sir.”
“Why strange?” asked Eustace, half guessing the answer,