“Came round the back of the stables,” laughed Norah, waking up. “You two old gossips were muttering away with your heads over the rail—I believe we could have stolen all the horses without your knowing anything about it. It’s just extraordinary how boys will gossip—Jean and I never get lost in our own eloquence, like you and Wally. What were you being eloquent about?”
“Never you mind,” said her brother, shooting an amused look at his chum. “Matters of State too high for your little minds. But you’re not going to ride Warder, are you, Norah?”
“No,” said Norah, slipping off Wally’s mount. “I knew it was no good trying to be quiet if I got on Bosun, bless him!” She patted the brown pony’s neck, and fished a lump of sugar out of her pocket for him.
Mr. Linton came hurriedly over from the house.
“Sorry to keep you all waiting,” he said, taking Monarch’s bridle. “I had to give Brownie some directions; and Hogg is in tears because something’s wrong with the longest hose—I left him trying to mend it with bicycle solution and strips of rubber cut from one of Brownie’s old goloshes, which she nobly sacrificed on the altar of the garden.”
“There are always excitements in being out of reach of shops,” Jim said. “I hope it’s not the hose I used this morning?”
“Oh, no; your skin’s safe this time!” said his father, laughing. “That was a shorter one. I don’t like the big one being out of order, in case of fire; not that a fire at the house is likely—but it’s as well to be prepared. Stirrups all right, Jean?”
“Yes, thank you,” Jean answered. Nan, staid stock horse though she was supposed to be, was impatient to get away, and Jean was walking her round in a circle, pursued by Wally with anxious inquiries as to whether she were qualifying for the circus ring. Bosun’s eagerness to start had been manifested so strongly that Norah had at length given up trying to restrain him, and was some distance across the paddock, the pony fretting and sidling, and trying to break into a canter.
Mr. Linton and Jim mounted, and they all cantered after Norah. She gave Bosun his head as they came up to her—a liberty he acknowledged by executing two or three tremendous bounds in mid-air.
“Mind him, my girl,” her father cautioned. “Don’t let him get his head down; he’s quite happy enough to buck this morning.”