The mountaineer ran his mild-blue eyes over the Duke's big sinewy shoulders, then he moved over his woolen braces a trifle with his thumb.
"You mightn't be toughened to it," he said, apologetically.
The Duke doubled his right arm up in its good tweed sleeve, and presented it to the mountaineer's fingers. The muscles under that sleeve sat together, compact and hard as bunches of ivory. Doubt and anxiety departed slowly from the man's face. He made no comment. He removed his hand from the Duke's arm and set off to bring his mule. In a few minutes he returned with that animal and a piece of tarred rope which he had got from some boathouse back of the keeper's lodge.
He lifted the sack from the saddle and set it carefully down. "I'll pack that," he said, by way of explanation, "hit'll jist balance me." And he began to tie pieces of the luggage to the saddle; but the Duke of Dorset instantly took over this part of the preparation for the journey. He had adjusted loads to cavalry horses in India, to donkeys in' the Caucasian Mountains, to hairy vicious ponies in Russia, and he knew how to lay the pack so it would sit snug and firm to the beast. It was fortunate that he stood on this morning an expert in this craft, for the boxes made a difficult pack to manage with the primitive saddle.
When it was done the mountaineer tested it with his big forefinger hooked between the beast's belly and the rope. He arose from the test with an approving nod, glanced at the sun, standing over bay, and spoke his word of comment.
"Hit's a purty job," he said, "an' we better be a-hoofin' it." And this time the Duke of Dorset understood that expressive idiom.
The man lifted his sack tenderly onto his shoulder, slipped the rope bridle over his arm, and set out along the sea wall eastward toward the mountain.