“He’ll know how much you ought to pay for the pony.”
“Yes—and get some brute not fit for my cousin to ride, on purpose, perhaps, to break his neck.”
“Then I should ask Mr. Macallum, the postmaster of Troon, for I have seen three or four very quiet-looking ponies standing in the carts at his door.”
“Macnulty, if there ever was an idiot you are one!” said Lady Eustace, throwing up her hands. “To think that I should get a pony for my cousin Frank out of one of the mail carts.”
“I daresay I am an idiot,” said Miss Macnulty, resuming her novel.
Lady Eustace was, of course, obliged to have recourse to Gowran, to whom she applied on the Monday morning. Not even Lizzie Eustace, on behalf of her cousin Frank, would have dared to disturb Mr. Gowran with considerations respecting a pony on the Sabbath. On the Monday morning she found Mr. Gowran superintending four boys and three old women, who were making a bit of her ladyship’s hay on the ground above the castle. The ground about the castle was poor and exposed, and her ladyship’s hay was apt to be late. “Andy,” she said, “I shall want to get a pony for the gentlemen who are coming to the Cottage. It must be there by Tuesday evening.”
“A pownie, my leddie?”
“Yes;—a pony. I suppose a pony may be purchased in Ayrshire—though of all places in the world it seems to have the fewest of the comforts of life.”
“Them as find it like that, my leddie, needn’t bide there.”
“Never mind. You will have the kindness to have a pony purchased and put into the stables of the Cottage on Tuesday afternoon. There are stables, no doubt.”
“Oh, ay—there’s shelter, nae doot, for mair pownies than they’ll ride. When the Cottage was biggit, my leddie, there was nae cause for sparing nowt.” Andy Gowran was continually throwing her comparative poverty in poor Lizzie’s teeth, and there was nothing he could do which displeased her more.
“And I needn’t spare my cousin the use of a pony,” she said grandiloquently, but feeling as she did so that she was exposing herself before the man. “You’ll have the goodness to procure one for him on Tuesday.”
“But there ain’t aits nor yet fother, nor nowt for bedding down. And wha’s to tent the pownie? There’s mair in keeping a pownie than your leddyship thinks. It’ll be a matter of auchteen and saxpence a week—will a pownie.” Mr. Gowran, as he expressed his prudential scruples, put a very strong emphasis indeed on the sixpence.
“Very well. Let it be so.”
“And there’ll be the beastie to buy, my leddie. He’ll be a lump of money, my leddie. Pownies ain’t to be had for nowt in Ayrshire, as was ance, my leddie.”
“Of course I must pay for him.”
“He’ll be a matter of ten pound, my leddie.”
“Very well.”
“Or may be twal; just as likely.” And Mr. Gowran shook his head at his mistress in a most uncomfortable way. It was not surprising that she should hate him.
“You must give the proper price—of course.”
“There ain’t no proper prices for pownies—as there is for jew’ls and sich like.” If this was intended for sarcasm upon Lady Eustace in regard to her diamonds, Mr. Gowran ought to have been dismissed on the spot. In such a case no English jury would have given him his current wages. “And he’ll be to sell again, my leddie?”
“We shall see about that afterwards.”
“Ye’ll never let him eat his head off there a’ the winter! He’ll be to sell. And the gentles’ll ride him, may be, ance across the hillside, out and back. As to the grouse, they can’t cotch them with the pownie, for there ain’t none to cotch.” There had been two keepers on the mountains—men who were paid five or six shillings a week to look after the game in addition to their other callings, and one of these had been sent away, actually in obedience to Gowran’s advice;—so that this blow was cruel and unmanly. He made it, too, as severe as he could by another shake of his head.
“Do you mean to tell me that my cousin cannot be supplied with an animal to ride upon?”
“My leddie, I’ve said nowt o’ the kind. There ain’t no useful animal as I kens the name and nature of as he can’t have in Ayrshire—for paying for it, my leddie;—horse, pownie, or ass, just whichever you please, my leddie. But there’ll be a seddle—”
“A what?”
There can be no doubt that Gowran purposely slurred the word so that his mistress should not understand him. “Seddles don’t come for nowt, my leddie, though it be Ayrshire.”
“I don’t understand what it is that you say, Andy.”
“A seddle, my leddie,”—said he, shouting the word at her at the top of his voice—“and a briddle. I suppose as your leddyship’s cousin don’t ride bareback up in Lunnon?”
“Of course there must be the necessary horse-furniture,” said Lady Eustace, retiring to the castle. Andy Gowran had certainly ill-used her, and she swore that she would have revenge. Nor when she was informed on the Tuesday that an adequate pony had been hired for eighteen pence a day, saddle, bridle, groom, and all included, was her heart at all softened towards Mr. Gowran.
XXIII
Frank Greystock’s First Visit to Portray
Had Frank Greystock known all that his cousin endured for his comfort, would he have been grateful? Women, when they are fond of men, do think much of men’s comfort in small matters, and men are apt to take the good things provided almost as a matter of course. When Frank Greystock and Herriot reached the cottage about nine o’clock in the morning, having left London over night by the limited mail train, the pony at once presented itself to
