The coming of Mistress Kit, as I said before, made life at Knockowen tolerable for me. It mattered little if his honour neglected me, and my lady never looked at me; it mattered little if my fellow-servants ill- used me and put upon me; it mattered little that I had not a friend but Con and the horses to talk to, and not a holiday to call my own. Miss Kit made all the difference. Not that she concerned herself specially about me, or went out of her way to be kind; but it did one good to see her about the place, with a smile for every one and a friendly word for man and beast. She even beat down the gloom that, in her absence, had weighed both on her father and mother. The former, indeed, was as indifferent as ever to his wife and the latter to her husband. But this daughter of theirs was one interest in common for both--perhaps the one object in the world about which both agreed. It fell to my lot, as my young lady was an ardent horsewoman, to attend her on many a long ride, riding discreetly twenty yards in the rear, and never forgetting my duty so far as to speak when not spoken to. One day, some weeks after she had come home, as we were riding on the cliffs near Dunaff, she turned in her saddle and beckoned me to approach. "What road is that?" she said, pointing with her whip to a grass-grown track which led off the shore. "That's the Kilgorman road," said I, guessing what was to follow. "Kilgorman!" repeated she. "I should like to see the house." "By your leave," said I, "his honour forbids any one to go there without his permission." She tossed her head. "I am not any one," she said. "I shall go where I please. Fall behind, sir; and if you are afraid to follow, stay where you are till I return." And without more words, she flicked her horse and cantered over the turf to the road. Of course I followed. If I feared the place, it was all the less possible to allow her to go there alone. It was one comfort to me that it was still broad daylight, so that the mystery, whatever it might be, would lose its chief terror. She looked round once to see if I was following or not, and then, changing her canter to a trot, turned into the road. Now his honour's order to me about Kilgorman had been a very strict one, so much so that I suspected he had a shrewd idea who it was, eighteen months ago, had broken the window and knocked over the stand of arms in the kitchen. "Mind, Barry," said he, "I allow no one on the road that leads up to Kilgorman. No one is to go to the house on any excuse. If my orders are disobeyed, he who trespasses will be sorry for it." This had prevented my going near the place since. But now I followed the little mistress I felt myself in another case, and, any way, Gorman or no Gorman, I was not going to let her go alone.