"Thoughtless of them to take her without her saddle or bridle," said Andrew bitingly. "Here they are behind the door!" The silence that followed this discovery was broken by Philippa. "I hear some one snoring!" she said in a conspirator's whisper. "Do come away. I'm sure it's a drunken man." "Quite so," said Andrew, who had been pursuing his researches. "Allow me to introduce Mr. John Sullivan." In the dark corner behind the door lay a stout youth, comfortably extended, with his flushed face half hidden in the dry and tawny bracken, and his open mouth framing long and quiet snores. He was obviously at peace with all the world. Some heartless assaults on the part of Captain Larpent had no appreciable result, so inveterate was the peace, so potent the means by which it had been invoked. The ladies had retired during the interview, and, as we rejoined them in the yard, we all became aware of muffled and thunderous sounds near at hand; they were suggestive of a ponderous and chaotic clog-dance, and proceeded from an outhouse, built against the bank that formed the upper side of the yard, with its gable askew to the other buildings. "'Lots of things is coor'us,' as Anthony said when I told him about Jonah and the Whale," remarked Philippa, who, throughout, had not taken the affair as seriously as it deserved. "I suppose the party that John Sullivan was at is going on up there." Miss Longmuir darted round the gable of the house, a wild and summoning cry followed, the call of the terrier who has run his rat to ground. We found her at the foot of a low flight of irregular stone steps (in telling the story I have formed the habit of saying that there were ten of them) that led to a doorway in a loft. In the doorway, with a cabbage leaf in her mouth, was the maroan pony, looking down at us with an expression of mild surprise. We all said unanimously, and with equal futility, "How--on--earth----?" After which Andrew, who dislikes miracles, arranged that she had, of course, got into the loft from the back, where the ground was high. Unfortunately the theory did not work, an inspection of the loft revealing nothing but four walls, a large store of dried bracken, and a donkey-panier filled with cabbages. "These mountainy ponies climb like monkeys," said Philippa, with her inevitable effort to shelter the discomfited, as Andrew returned with the ruins of his theory, "she must have walked up the steps!" Miss Longmuir, snatching out her watch, said she didn't care how the pony got there, the point was to get her down as quickly as possible. "If people would only do something and not talk!" she added, under her breath. "If she walked up she can walk down," said Andrew firmly. He mounted the steps and took the pony by the halter. The pony immediately backed thunderously out of sight, taking Andrew with her. Miss Longmuir flew up the steps to his assistance, and unseen sarabands pummelled the floor of the loft.