we were about buying the horse back, but he seems equally keen on keeping it.  He said he must have horse exercise now that he’s living in the country, and he’s going to start riding to-morrow.  He’s ridden a few times in the Row, on an animal that was accustomed to carry octogenarians and people undergoing rest cures, and that’s about all his experience in the saddle—­oh, and he rode a pony once in Norfolk, when he was fifteen and the pony twenty-four; and to-morrow he’s going to ride the Brogue!  I shall be a widow before I’m married, and I do so want to see what Corsica’s like; it looks so silly on the map.”

Clovis was sent for in haste, and the developments of the situation put before him.

“Nobody can ride that animal with any safety,” said Mrs. Mullet, “except Toby, and he knows by long experience what it is going to shy at, and manages to swerve at the same time.”

“I did hint to Mr. Penricarde—­to Vincent, I should say—­that the Brogue didn’t like white gates,” said Jessie.

“White gates!” exclaimed Mrs. Mullet; “did you mention what effect a pig has on him?  He’ll have to go past Lockyer’s farm to get to the high road, and there’s sure to be a pig or two grunting about in the lane.”

“He’s taken rather a dislike to turkeys lately,” said Toby.

“It’s obvious that Penricarde mustn’t be allowed to go out on that animal,” said Clovis, “at least not till Jessie has married him, and tired of him.  I tell you what:  ask him to a picnic to-morrow, starting at an early hour; he’s not the sort to go out for a ride before breakfast.  The day after I’ll get the rector to drive him over to Crowleigh before lunch, to see the new cottage hospital they’re building there.  The Brogue will be standing idle in the stable and Toby can offer to exercise it; then it can pick up a stone or something of the sort and go conveniently lame.  If you hurry on the wedding a bit the lameness fiction can be kept up till the ceremony is safely over.”

Mrs. Mullet belonged to an emotional race, and she kissed Clovis.

It was nobody’s fault that the rain came down in torrents the next morning, making a picnic a fantastic impossibility.  It was also nobody’s fault, but sheer ill-luck, that the weather cleared up sufficiently in the afternoon to tempt Mr. Penricarde to make his first essay with the Brogue.  They did not get as far as the pigs at Lockyer’s farm; the rectory gate was painted a dull unobtrusive green, but it had been white a year or two ago, and the Brogue never forgot that he had been in the habit of making a violent curtsey, a back-pedal and a swerve at this particular point of the road.  Subsequently, there being apparently no further call on his services, he broke his way into the rectory orchard, where he found a hen turkey in a coop; later visitors to the orchard found the coop almost intact, but very little left of the turkey.

Mr. Penricarde, a little stunned and shaken, and suffering from a bruised knee and some minor damages, good-naturedly ascribed the accident to his own inexperience with horses and country roads, and allowed Jessie to nurse him back into complete recovery and golf-fitness within something less than a week.