Before noon Lord Liftore came round to the mews: his riding horses were there. Malcolm was not at the moment in the stable.
“What animal is that?” he asked of his own groom, catching sight of Kelpie in her loose box.
“One just come up from Scotland for Lady Lossie, my lord,” answered the man.
“She looks a clipper! Lead her out, and let me see her.”
“She’s not sound in the temper, my lord, the groom that brought her says. He told me on no account to go near her till she got used to the sight of me.”
“Oh! you’re afraid, are you?” said his lordship, whose breeding had not taught him courtesy to his inferiors.
At the word the man walked into her box. As he did so he looked out for her hoofs, but his circumspection was in vain: in a moment she had wheeled, jammed him against the wall, and taken his shoulder in her teeth. He gave a yell of pain. His lordship caught up a stable-broom, and attacked the mare with it over the door; but it flew from his hand to the other end of the stable, and the partition began to go after it. But she still kept her hold of the man. Happily, however, Malcolm was not far off, and hearing the noise, rushed in. He was just in time to save the groom’s life. Clearing the stall-partition, and seizing the mare by the nose with a mighty grasp, he inserted a fore-finger behind her tusk, for she was one of the few mares tusked like a horse, and soon compelled her to open her mouth. The groom staggered and would have fallen, so cruelly had she mauled him, but Malcolm’s voice roused him.
“For God’s sake gang oot, as lang ’s there’s twa limbs o’ ye stickin’ thegither.”
The poor fellow just managed to open the door, and fell senseless on the stones. Lord Liftore called for help, and they carried him into the saddle room, while one ran for the nearest surgeon.
Meantime Malcolm was putting a muzzle on Kelpie, which he believed she understood as a punishment, and while he was thus occupied, his lordship came from the saddle-room and approached the box.