‘Romeo was the same,’ he told himself sheepishly, having taken to reading Shakespeare of late, to curry favour with that fervid little Shakespearian, Daphne; ‘madly in love with Rosaline at noon—over head and ears in love with Juliet before midnight. And critics say that Shakespeare knew the human heart.’ Sleep that night was impossible for the master of Hawksyard. Happily there was but a brief remnant of the night left in which he need lie tossing on his sleepless couch, staring at the brown oak panels, where the reflection of the night-lamp glimmered like a dim starbeam in a turbid pool. Cold wintry dawn came creeping over the hills, and at the first streak of daylight he was up and in his icy bath, and then on with his riding-clothes and away to the stable, where only one sleepy underling was moving slowly about with a lantern, calling drowsily to the horses to stand up and come out of a warm stable, in order to be tied to a wall and have pails of water thrown at them in a cold yard. To saddle Black Pearl with his own hands was but five minutes’ work, and in less than five more he was clattering under the archway and off to the nearest bit of open country, to take it out of the mare, who had not done any work for a week, and was in a humour to take a good deal out of her rider. Edgar this morning felt as if he could conquer the wildest horse that ever was foaled—nay, the Prince of Darkness himself, had he been called upon to wrestle with him under an equine guise. A hard gallop over a broad expanse of flat common, where the winter rime lay silver-white above the russet sward, quieted horse and rider; and, after a long round by lane and wood, Edgar rode quietly back to Hawksyard between ten and eleven, just in time to find his mother seated at breakfast, and wondering at her own dissipation. After this unusually late breakfast Mr. Turchill went to look at his horses—a regular thing on a non-hunting morning. ‘I took it out of the mare,’ he said, as Black Pearl stood reeking in her box, waiting to cool down before she was groomed. ‘Indeed you have, sir,’ answered his head man—a faithful creature, but not ceremonious with a master he adored. ‘You don’t mean hunting her to-morrow, I suppose?’ ‘Well, yes, I did, if the weather allows. Don’t you think she’ll be fit?’ ‘I think you’ve pretty well whacked her out for the next week to come. She won’t touch her corn.’ ‘Poor old woman!’ said Edgar, going into the box and fondling the beautiful black head. ‘Did we go too fast, my girl? It was as much your fault as mine, my beauty. I think we were both bewitched; but I must take the nonsense out of you somehow, before you carry a lady.’ ‘You didn’t think of putting a lady on that mare, did you, sir?’ asked the groom. ‘Yes, I do. I think she’d carry a lady beautifully.’ ‘So she would, sir; but she wouldn’t carry the same lady twice. There’d be very little left of the lady when she’d done.’