“I am sorry,” began Liftore a little embarrassed.
“Oh! don’t trouble yourself to apologise,” said Florimel. “I have always understood that great horsemen find a horse more interesting than a lady. It is a mark of their breed, I am told.”
She knew that Liftore would not be ready to confess he could not hold his hack.
“If it hadn’t been for Mr Lenorme,” she added, “I should have been left without a squire, subject to any whim of my four-footed servant here.”
As she spoke she patted the neck of her horse. The earl, on his side, had been looking the painter’s horse up and down with a would-be humorous expression of criticism.
“I beg your pardon, marchioness,” he replied; “but you pulled up so quickly that we shot past you. I thought you were close behind, and preferred following.—Seen his best days, eh, Lenorme?” he concluded, willing to change the subject.
“I fancy he doesn’t think so,” returned the painter. “I bought him out of a butterman’s cart, three months ago. He’s been coming to himself ever since. Look at his eye, my lord.”
“Are you knowing in horses, then?”
“I can’t say I am, beyond knowing how to treat them something like human beings.”
“That’s no ill,” said Malcolm to himself. He was just near enough, on the pawing and foaming Kelpie, to catch what was passing.— “The fallow ’ll du. He’s worth a score o’ sic yerls as yon.”