“No, my lady. I was not reared that way. Some cursed fool—asking pardon for my plain speech—has stolen my horse. I’ll just have to o’ertake them on foot, I reckon—unless——”
His glance rested on Nance’s mare, big and strong enough to carry him.
“But, Giles, we keep no horse-thieves at Windyhough,” said Lady Royd, in her gentle, purring voice. “Where did you leave him?”
“Tethered to the stable-door, my lady. He couldn’t have unslipped the bridle without human hands to help him. It was this way. I had to see Sir Jasper mounted, and Maister Maurice. They’re raither feckless-like, unless they’ve got Giles nigh handy to see that all goes well. Well, after they were up i’ saddle, I tried to get through the swarm o’ folk i’ the courtyard, and a man on foot has little chance. So I bided till they gat away, thinking I’d catch them up; and when they’d ridden a lile way down the road, I ran to th’ stable. Th’ stable-door was there all right, and th’ ring for tething, but blamed if my fiddle-headed horse warn’t missing. It was that way, my lady, take it or leave it—and maister will be sadly needing me.”
He was business-like in all emergencies, and his glance wandered again, as if by chance, from Nance’s face to the mare’s bridle that she held.
“There’s not a horse in Lancashire just the equal of my chestnut,” he said dispassionately; “but I’d put up with another, if ’twere offered me.”
Nance, bred on the soil, knew what this sturdy, six-foot fellow asked of her. It was hard to give up the one solace she had brought to Windyhough—her mare, who would take her long scampers up the pastures and the moor when she needed room about her.
“She could not carry you, Giles,” said the girl, answering the plain meaning behind his words.
“Ay, blithely, miss. But, then, you wouldn’t spare her, like.”
There was a moment’s silence. Nance was asked to give up something for the Cause—something as dear to her as hedgerows, and waving sterns of hounds, and a game fox ahead. Then she put the bridle into Giles’s hand.