“Tethered to the stable-door, my lady. He couldn’t have unslipped the bridle without human hands to help him. It was this way. I had to see Sir Jasper mounted, and Maister Maurice. They’re raither feckless-like, unless they’ve got Giles nigh handy to see that all goes well. Well, after they were up i’ saddle, I tried to get through the swarm o’ folk i’ the courtyard, and a man on foot has little chance. So I bided till they gat away, thinking I’d catch them up; and when they’d ridden a lile way down the road, I ran to th’ stable. Th’ stable-door was there all right, and th’ ring for tething, but blamed if my fiddle-headed horse warn’t missing. It was that way, my lady, take it or leave it--and maister will be sadly needing me.” He was business-like in all emergencies, and his glance wandered again, as if by chance, from Nance’s face to the mare’s bridle that she held. “There’s not a horse in Lancashire just the equal of my chestnut,” he said dispassionately; “but I’d put up with another, if ’twere offered me.” Nance, bred on the soil, knew what this sturdy, six-foot fellow asked of her. It was hard to give up the one solace she had brought to Windyhough--her mare, who would take her long scampers up the pastures and the moor when she needed room about her. “She could not carry you, Giles,” said the girl, answering the plain meaning behind his words. “Ay, blithely, miss. But, then, you wouldn’t spare her, like.” There was a moment’s silence. Nance was asked to give up something for the Cause--something as dear to her as hedgerows, and waving sterns of hounds, and a game fox ahead. Then she put the bridle into Giles’s hand. “On second thoughts”--she halted to stroke the mare’s neck--“I think, Giles, she’ll carry you. Tell Sir Jasper that the women, too, are leal, though they’re compelled to stay at home.” Giles wasted little time in thanks. Business-like, even in this matter of running his neck into a halter, he sprang to the mare’s back. He would be sore before the day was out, because the saddle was wringing wet by this time; but he was used to casual hardships. Lady Royd watched the bailiff ride quickly down the road, heard the last hoof-beats die away. “You are odd, you folk up here,” she said, with a warmer note in her tired voice. “You did not give up your mare lightly, Nance--and to Giles, of all men. Who stole his horse, think you?” Nance answered without knowing she had framed the thought. “Rupert is missing, too,” she said, with an odd, wayward smile. “I told you he had pluck.” Yet, after they had gone indoors, after she had changed her riding-gear, Nance sat in the guest-chamber upstairs, and could think only of Will Underwood. Her dreams of him had been so pleasant, so loyal; she was not prepared to trample on them. She saw him giving her a lead on many a bygone hunting-day--saw the eager face, and heard his low, persuasive voice.