“He b’longed to the man who owned this place first off; and I don’ know for sure, but I’ve heard tell that _he_ fixed it some way so’s that the horse would sort of go with the place.” Mr. Brimmington felt irritation rising within him. “But,” he said, “it’s preposterous! There was no such consideration in the deed. No such thing can be done, Mrs. Sparhawk, without my acquiescence!” “I don’t know nothin’ about that,” said Mrs. Sparhawk; “what I do know is, the place has changed hands often enough since, and the horse has always went with the place.” There was an unsettled suggestion in the first part of this statement of Mrs. Sparhawk that gave a shock to Mr. Brimmington’s nerves. He laughed uneasily. “Oh, er, yes! I see. Very probably there’s been some understanding. I suppose I am to regard the horse as a sort of lien upon the place--a--a--what do they call it?--an incumbrance! Yes,” he repeated, more to himself than to Mrs. Sparhawk; “an incumbrance. I’ve got a gentleman’s country place with a horse incumbrant.” Mrs. Sparhawk heard him, however. “It _is_ a sorter cumbersome horse,” she said. And without another word she gathered her shawl about her shoulders, and strode off into the darkness. Mr. Brimmington turned back into the house, and busied himself with a vain attempt to make his long-cherished furniture look at home in his new leaden-hued rooms. The ungrateful task gave him the blues; and, after an hour of it, he went to bed. He was dreaming leaden-hued dreams, oppressed, uncomfortable dreams, when a peculiarly weird and uncanny series of thumps on the front of the house awoke him with a start. The thumps might have been made by a giant with a weaver’s beam, but he must have been a very drunken giant to group his thumps in such a disorderly parody of time and sequence.