But there was another series of lessons which Luigi was compelled by his grandfather to undergo, and which to him were a source of torture almost as keen, although different in kind, as that caused him by his classical studies. The lessons in question were those necessitated by the art of learning to ride. As it happened, Luigi had never been on horseback in his life, nor would he ever of his own free will have aspired to that “bad eminence.” Both morally and physically he was an arrant coward, and, from his point of view, everyone who bestrode a horse ran a certain amount of risk to life and limb, which, for his part, he would very gladly have eschewed had it been in his power to do so. But his grandfather’s orders were imperative, and there was nothing for him but to obey with the best grace possible. So, there being no such thing as a riding-school at Mapleford, Mr. Marsh from the livery-stables came over to the Chase on three afternoons in each week “in order to put the young squire through his paces,” as he termed it. Never, as later on he openly avowed, had he had a pupil who made such slow progress and did him so little credit. “He’s a regular funker, that’s what he is,” he would tell his wife in confidence. “He has no more pluck than a chicken. Not a bit like his father used to be at his age. Why, before Master Alec was eighteen, there was hardly a fence or a gate in the county that he hadn’t topped. This chap will never top one as long as he lives.” Truth to tell, Luigi never succeeded in getting the better of the nervousness which invariably assailed him the moment he found himself astride a horse’s back. After he had taken his twentieth lesson his timidity was as extreme as when he took his first. He was a coward by nature, and it was impossible for him to be anything else. Being the kind of young man he was, that he should be terribly bored by the limitations of his life at the Chase goes without saying. To begin with, he hated the country. He missed his London acquaintances and the free-and-easy life to which he had been used in the metropolis. Then again, as the days and weeks went by, he never quite succeeded in feeling at his ease when in the presence of Sir Gilbert, nor even of demeaning himself as if he were. When they were together, it seemed as though he were unable to rid himself of a vivid sense of the guilty part he was playing, such as rarely troubled his easy-going conscience at other times. His manner was timid and nervous; indeed, whenever the Baronet betrayed an extra touch of irritability, it might almost be termed servile. He had somewhat the air of a cur who is conscious that the lash may come down on him at any moment.