’Poor Honor!’ mused Hillary. ’Whatever will she and her father and all those little uns do without the horse? A carrier without a horse is a helpless animal. I don’t like to ask my father too much for the Luxmores, and seem hot about them, or he will be thinking I am in love with Honor, which I am not. Some chaps think a young fellow cannot speak to a girl, or even look at her, without being in love with her. I like Honor well enough, as a friend, but no more.’ The road was very rough, he could not descend fast because of the loose stones. In rainy weather the way was a watercourse, and the water broke up the shale rock that formed the floor and scattered it in angular fragments over the road. ’What a ridiculous notion, that I should be in love with a carrier’s daughter! I a Nanspian of Chimsworthy, and heir——’ he stopped. ’No—that part is not to be, though how Uncle Taverner will do us out of Langford is more than I can imagine. That he should marry and have a family is clean too ridiculous! Confound that stone! It nigh turned and broke my ankle. If Honor’s father had Coombe Park it would be another matter. Then, possibly, I might think of her in a different way; but—a cottage girl!—a carrier’s daughter! Luxmore is not a bad name. But then they have the name and nothing else. I’ll cut myself a stick, or I shall be down on my nose. I should not care for Honor to see me to-morrow with a broken nose. These pines may be a shelter, but they cast a very black shadow, and the rabbits breed in the plantation like midges in a duck-pond.’ He cut himself a stick and went on. ’If Honor were here, I should be forced to lend her a hand, and then if father or any one were to meet us, there’d be laughter and jokes. I’m mighty glad Honor is not here.’ Presently he got beyond the pines. The hedges were high, the way still dark. ’Good heavens!’ he exclaimed, ’the white hare again!’ As he cried out, a white animal ran up the lane, passed him and disappeared. ’Confound it,’ said Hillary. ’I wish I had not seen that. Why——what have we here?’ He ran forward. In the lane, across it, where the stile to the Look-out Stone allowed a streak of western light to stream across the road, lay Hillary Nanspian senior, insensible, on his face, with the broken cyder jug in his hand. ’Father! what ails you? Speak!’ cried Hillary junior. He tried to lift the old man; he could raise but not carry him. The anger aroused by his contention with Langford had brought on a fit. *CHAPTER V.* *’TIMEO DANAOS ET DONA FERENTES.’*