ther than that he did not look. He would not even tell Edmund.
Before Hobbs and the Holstein breeder whose name was Maher, left that afternoon Derek took them into the house for something to drink. When the whiskey and soda had been set on the table Hobbs asked after the health of Mrs. Vale. Mrs. Vale was not very well, Derek said. She was lying down. Hobbs was disappointed. He had been anxious to have Maher meet her. As the bottle became almost empty he grew more and more solicitous for her health, and he begged Derek to fetch the boy down, if only for a moment, that Maher might see for himself the sort of heir she had produced for Grimstone. So Buckskin came on Derek's shoulder, very bright-eyed and wondering, and was set on Mr. Maher's knee, and was hefted, and had his muscles felt, and his massive legs admired, and his eight teeth admired, and his curly yellow head rumpled, and Maher said he was the sweetest thing that had ever been foaled. "If you'll believe me," he said, "my missus has given me six daughters, all of them high-shouldered and short-necked—like me. Nary a son. Women are kittle cattle. Nary a son."
"Give me boys every time," said Hobbs. "If a boy misbehaves you give him a good leatherin', if he does it again you give him a harder one—but a girl—keep your six, Maher, I don't want 'em."
"They're all right," declared Maher, bridling. "They're nice girls—good and all that—but why had they got to go and have high shoulders and thick necks like me?"
Derek scarcely heard their talk. An overwhelming weight of loneliness had fallen on him. Fawnie was gone. No more would she sit beside him watching the fire, with that mysterious, sombrous look that had sometimes almost frightened him; no more would her hair fall like a silken
