The little man obeyed sulkily. "It'll be in my room," she said. "And it'll stay there." "Very good, Miss," replied the jockey, and winked to himself as the girl ascended the ladder. That evening, as Old Mat slept noisily by the fire with open mouth, the two women worked. Mrs. Woodburn every now and then lifted her eyes to her daughter's face and let them dwell there, as the sky dwells on a tree. "D'you like him, Boy?" she asked at length, tranquilly. The girl for once was taken by surprise. She flushed a little and perhaps for the first time in her life fenced. "Who, mother?" "Mr. Silver." "Yes," said the girl. "He's like Billy Bluff--only less rowdy." CHAPTER XXIII The Duke's Hounds Silver's Leicestershire friends were under the delusion that he was keeping his hunters at Lewes. And so indeed he did till the hunting season began; and then he brought them over to Putnam's. The Duke's north-country stud-groom, who was in _The Beehive_ at Folkington, as they came along the road from Lewes, ran out of the bar to have a look at them. "Ma wud!" he whistled. "Champion!" And Mike Rigg was right. Silver's horses indeed were the one item of his personal expenditure on which the young man never spared his purse. He used to say with perfect truth that except for his stud he could live with joy on L3 a week. But there was no man in England who had a rarer stud of weight-carriers. "Big as blood elefunks," said Monkey Brand in the awed voice of a worshipper. "Flip a couple o' ton across country singin' hallelooyah all the way." The Duke, when first they appeared with his hounds at the covertside, shook his head over them: for Jim Silver came south with a formidable reputation as a thruster. "Too classy for my country, Silver," he said. "What d'you want with that sort of stuff down here?" "I didn't like to part with 'em, sir," replied the young man. "They've done me well in their time." "I don't want you young bloods from the shires down here," scolded the Duke. "You'll be all over my hounds. This is an old man's country, ain't it, Boy?" Thunderbolt stood on his hind legs and pawed deliberately at the heavens. "They're big, your Grace," answered the girl. "But Mr. Silver's bigger. He can hold them." "And you can hold him, my dear," said the Duke. "Keep him in your pocket, there's a good gal. Now, Joe, let's be moving on." The Duke was fond of the girl. It was said, indeed, that he liked her better than anybody in the hunt. Certainly he was never so happy as when showing her round his famous piggeries at Raynor's, or talking goats to her at an Agricultural Show.