The voice of Mrs Wannop—of course it was only mother! Twenty feet on high or so behind the kicking mare, with a good round face like a peony—said:
‘Ah, you can jam my Val in a gate and hold her…but she gave you seven yards in twenty and beat you to the gate. That was her father’s ambition!’ She thought of them as children running races. She beamed down, round–faced and simple, on Tietjens from beside the driver, who had a black, slouch hat and the grey beard of St Peter.
‘My dear boy!’ she said, ‘my dear boy; it’s such a satisfaction to have you under my roof!’
The black horse reared on end, the patriarch sawing at its mouth. Mrs Wannop said unconcernedly: ‘Stephen Joel! I haven’t done talking.’
Tietjensns was gazing enragedly at the lower part of the horse’s sweat–smeared stomach.
‘Y
