to mount, was a raving beauty with a pale pink mouth and thick curly eyelashes which she knew very well how to use. She had tied a green head-scarf over her chestnut hair, and she wore a black and white harle- quined skiing jacket to keep out the cold. She was carrying some bright green woollen gloves.
'You're new,' she observed, looking up at me through the eyelashes.
'What's your name?'
'Clan… miss,' I said. I realized I hadn't the faintest idea what form of address an earl's daughter was accustomed to. Wally's instructions hadn't stretched that far.
'Well… give me a leg up, then.'
I stood beside her obediently, but as I leaned forward to help her she ran her bare hand over my head and around my neck, and took the lobe of my right ear between her fingers. She had sharp nails, and she dug them in. Her eyes were wide with challenge. I looked straight back.
When I didn't move or say anything she presently giggled and let go and calmly put on her gloves. I gave her a leg up into the saddle and she bent down to gather the reins, and fluttered the fluffy lashes close to my face.
'You're quite a dish, aren't you, Danny boy,' she said, 'with those goo goo dark eyes. '
I couldn't think of any answer to her which was at all consistent with my position. She laughed, nudged the horse's flanks, and walked off down the yard. Her sister, mounting a horse held by Grits, looked from twenty yards away in the dim light to be much fairer in colouring and very nearly as beautiful. Heaven help October, I thought, with two like that to keep an eye on.
I turned to go and fetch Sparking Plug and found October's eighteen-year-old son at my elbow. He was very like his father, but not yet as thick in body or as easily powerful in manner.
'I shouldn't pay too much attention to my twin sister,' he said in a cool, bored voice, looking me up and down, 'she is apt to tease. ' He nodded and strolled over to where his horse was waiting for him; and I gathered that what I had received was a warning off. If his sister behaved as provocatively with every male she met, he must have been used to delivering them.
Amused, I fetched Sparking Plug, mounted, and followed all the other horses out of the yard, up the lane, and on to the edge of the moor.
As usual on a fine morning the air and the view were exhilarating. The sun was no more than a promise on the far distant horizon and there was a beginning-of-the-world quality in the light. I watched the shadowy shapes of the horses ahead of me curving round the hill with white plumes streaming from their nostrils in the frosty air. As the glittering rim of the sun expanded into full light the colours sprang out bright and clear, the browns of the jogging horses topped with the bright stripes of the lads' ear warming knitted caps and the jolly garments of October's daughters.
October himself, accompanied by his retriever, came up on the moor in a Land Rover to see the horses work. Saturday morning, I had found, was the busiest training day of the week as far as gallops were concerned, and as he was usually in Yorkshire at the weekend he made a point of coming out to watch.
Inskip had us circling round at the top of the hill while he paired off the horses and told their riders what to do.
To me he said, 'Clan; three-quarter speed gallop. Your horse is running on Wednesday. Don't over-do him but we want to see how he goes.' He directed one of the stable's most distinguished animals to accompany me.
When he had finished giving his orders he cantered off along the broad sweep of green turf which stretched through the moorland scrub, and October drove slowly in his wake. We continued circling until the two men reached the other end of the gallops about a mile and a half away up the gently curved, gently rising track.
'OK,' said Wally to the first pair.
'Off you go.'
The two horses set off together, fairly steadily at first and then at an increasing pace until they had passed Inskip and October, when they slowed and pulled up.
'Next two,' Wally called.
We were ready, and set off without more ado. I had bred, broken, and re broken uncountable racehorses in Australia, but Sparking Plug was the only good one I had so far ridden in England, and I was interested to see how he compared. Of course he was a hurdler, while I was more used to flat racers, but this made no difference, I found; and he had a bad mouth which I itched to do something about, but there was nothing wrong with his action. Balanced and collected, he sped smoothly up the gallop, keeping pace effortlessly with the star performer beside him, and though, as ordered, we went only three-quarters speed at our fastest, it was quite clear that Sparking Plug was fit and ready for his approaching race.
I was so interested in what I was doing that it was not until I had reined in not too easy with that mouth
and began to walk back, that I realized I had forgotten all about messing up the way I rode. I groaned inwardly, exasperated with myself: I would never do what I had come to England for if I could so little keep my mind on the job.
I stopped with the horse who had accompanied Sparking Plug in front of October and Inskip, for them to have a look at the horses and see how much they were blowing. Sparking Plug's ribs moved easily: he was scarcely out of breath. The two men nodded, and I and the other lad slid off the horses and began walking them around while they cooled down.
Up from the far end of the gallop came the other horses, pair by pair, and finally a bunch of those who were not due to gallop but only to canter. When everyone had worked, most of the lads remounted and we all began to walk back down the gallop towards the track to the stable. Leading my horse on foot I set off last in the string, with October's eldest daughter riding immediately in front of me and effectively cutting me off from the chat of the lads ahead. She was looking about her at the rolling vistas of moor, and not bothering to keep her animal close on the heels of the one in front, so that by the time we entered the track there was a ten-yard gap ahead of her.
As she passed a scrubby gorse bush a bird flew out of it with a squawk and flapping wings, and the girl's horse whipped round and up in alarm. She stayed on with a remarkable effort of balance, pulling herself back up into the saddle from somewhere below the horse's right ear, but under her thrust the stirrup leather broke apart at the bottom, and the stirrup iron itself clanged to the ground.
I stopped and picked up the iron, but it was impossible to put it back on the broken leather.
'Thank you,' she said.
'What a nuisance.'
She slid off her horse.
'I might as well walk the rest of the way.'
I took her rein and began to lead both of the horses, but she stopped me, and took her own back again.
'It's very kind of you,' she said, 'but I can quite well lead him myself. ' The track was wide at that point, and she began to walk down the hill beside me.
On closer inspection she was not a bit like her sister Patricia. She had smooth silver-blonde hair under a blue head-scarf, fair eyelashes, direct grey eyes, a firm friendly mouth, and a composure which gave her an air of graceful reserve. We walked in easy silence for some way.
'Isn't it a gorgeous morning,' she said eventually.
'Gorgeous,' I agreed, 'but cold. ' The English always talk about the weather, I thought: and a fine day in November is so rare as to be remarked on. It would be hot ting up for summer, at home… ' Have you been with the stable long? ' she asked, a little farther on.
'Only about ten days.'
'And do you like it here?'
'Oh, yes. It's a well-run stable…'
'Mr. Inskip would be delighted to hear you say so,' she said in a dry voice.
I glanced at her, but she was looking ahead down the track, and smiling.
After another hundred yards she said, 'What horse is that that you were riding? I don't think that I have seen him before, either.'
'He only came on Wednesday…' I told her the little I knew about Sparking Plug's history, capabilities, and prospects.
She nodded.
'It will be nice for you if he can win some races.
Rewarding, after your work for him here. '
