“Yes, sir, I know.”
“It must catch the mail!”
“I promise it shall, sir.”
Sir Peter seemed satisfied, and said no more. He let Winkfield do what he wished with him. Only when his head lay on the pillow did he revive a little, and open his eyes. They were surprisingly bright, even rather impish. “I can still keep my horses well together!” he said. “I’ll show you!”
Chapter 10
CAPTAIN STAPLE found no one stirring in the stables, when he left the house, and was soon trotting down the road towards the toll-gate. The light was dim, gathering clouds obscuring the moon, and a little chill wind was bringing a few leaves fluttering down from the trees. He encountered nobody on the road, and in a few minutes saw ahead of him the yellow glow of the storm-lantern hanging on the gate. He dismounted when he reached it, and, before opening the gate, trimmed the lamp, which was flaring too high. Having done this to his satisfaction, he turned, and went to pull back the gate a little way, to enable Beau to pass. As he set his hand on it, the fitful wind blew towards him the unmistakable smell of burning tobacco. Faint though it was, his nostrils caught it, and while he pretended to be fumbling for the fastening on the gate, keeping his head bent, his eyes searched the shadows cast by the overgrown hedge which flanked the road, beyond a rough grass verge and a ditch. Almost immediately he saw the tiny thread of smoke, creeping upward from the faintest red glow just discernible in the long grass not six feet from where he stood. Someone had knocked out a pipe within the last few minutes, and the dottle was still smouldering.
The Captain flicked over the staple that held the gate to the side-post, and stepped back a few paces, pulling the gate with one hand, and with the other, holding Beau’s bridle, imperceptibly maneuvering that sagacious animal into presenting his haunch instead of his head to the opening. Beau, who knew very well that his stable lay beyond the gate, snorted, and threw up his head, as though he were jibbing (which indeed he was), and the Captain backed him a little, saying soothingly: “Steady, now, you old fool! What’s the matter with you? Come along! You know a gate when you see one!
Beau certainly knew a gate when he saw one, and would have passed through the narrow opening without the smallest hesitation had his master permitted him to do so. But the hand on his bridle was acting in direct contradiction to the voice, and was forcing him back. Fretted, he tried to jerk his head away, presenting all the appearance of a horse unwilling to approach an obstacle. Meanwhile, the Captain, still talking gently to him, was rapidly scanning the hedge. It was difficult to see more than its ragged outline, but a rift in the clouds disclosed the moon for a few seconds, and in the faint lightening of the scene he thought he could detect a movement in the shadows, as though a man, crouching in the ditch, had shifted his position slightly.
Beau found that the extremely irksome hand on his bridle had relaxed its pressure, and at once stepped forward.
“That’s more like it!” said the Captain encouragingly, and led him through the aperture. He fastened the gate again, and walked past the toll-house, and down the road, to where, fifty yards away, a white farm-gate gave access to the big meadow at the top end of which was situated the barn that stabled Beau. Opening it, he turned Beau into the meadow, and pulled the gate shut with a clap behind him. Then he strode back to the toll-house, along the grass verge, keeping in the shadow of the hedge, and treading noiselessly over the soft ground. There he took up a position, just round the corner of the house from the road, and waited.