“Went off too quick, I reckon. That’s their way. Main difficult to catch, they are.”
“They were going too fast for me to see the number. I should know the cart, though. You don’t often see a white horse, nowadays.”
The old man’s face lit up with the proverbial curiosity of the villager.
“That’ll be George Sturrock’s cart, I’m thinking. There’s not a many white horses round about here, as you say. Or it might be Mr. Giles, the farmer over to Grantley. ’E got a white mare. In a fine way, ’e’d be, if anything ’appened to ’er.”
“I expect you know most of the horses round here,” observed Fayre. “Living where you do.”
The old man chuckled.
“Always one for ’orses, I was. They’ve mostly got their allotted days for coming down to the farriers yonder. You wouldn’t believe ’ow I notice if one of ’em misses. Them two white ones, I see ’em regular, the mare on a Monday and the ’orse Saturday.”
“You’ll see one of them to-morrow, then,” said Fayre pleasantly.
“Saturday morning, regular as clockwork, ’e come. George ’as only got the one carter and ’e brings the old ’orse down afore ’e goes to ’is dinner.”
Fayre paid for the clips and strolled out of the shop, well satisfied with his opening move. The storm of chaff that greeted him as, flushed and breathless, he peddled up the drive to Staveley nearly an hour later failed to disturb his equanimity. He said he needed exercise and, as Lord Staveley sapiently remarked, he seemed to be getting it.