‘Come!’ he grumbled presently, when we had covered four leagues or so, ‘you have not told me yet, sieur, where we stay to-night. You are travelling so slowly that—’
‘I am saving the horses,’ I answered shortly. ‘We shall do a long day to-morrow.’
‘Yours looks fit for a week of days,’ he sneered, with an evil look at my Sardinian, which was, indeed, in better case than its master. ‘It is sleek enough, any way!’
‘It is as good as it looks,’ I answered, a little nettled by his tone.
‘There is a better here,’ he responded.
‘I don’t see it,’ I said. I had already eyed the nags all round, and assured myself that, ugly and blemished as they were, they were up to their work. But I had discerned no special merit among them. I looked them over again now, and came to the same conclusion—that, except the led horses, which I had chosen with some care, there was nothing among them to vie with the Cid, either in speed or looks. I told Fresnoy so.
‘Would you like to try?’ he said tauntingly.
I laughed, adding, ‘If you think I am going to tire our horses by racing them, with such work as we have before us, you are mistaken, Fresnoy. I am not a boy, you know.’
‘There need be no question of racing,’ he answered more quietly. ‘You have only to get on that rat-tailed bay of Matthew’s to feel its paces and say I am right.’
I looked at the bay, a bald-faced, fiddle-headed horse, and saw that, with no signs of breeding, it was still a big-boned animal with good shoulders and powerful hips. I thought it possible Fresnoy might be right, and if so, and the bay’s manners were tolerable, it might do for mademoiselle better than the horse I had chosen. At any rate, if we had a fast horse among us, it was well to know the fact, so bidding Matthew change with me, and be careful of the Cid, I mounted the bay, and soon discovered that its paces were easy and promised speed, while its manners seemed as good as even a timid rider could desire.