CHAPTER XXV.
Should I lapse into the easy-flowing style of the chroniclers of the period of which I write--( and how often has the scribe wished he could)--this chapter would open with the announcement that on this particularly bleak, wintry afternoon a gentleman in the equestrian costume of the day, and mounted upon a well-groomed, high-spirited white horse, might have been seen galloping rapidly up a country lane leading to an old-fashioned manor house.
Such, however, would not cover the facts.

While the afternoon was certainly wintry, and while the rider was unquestionably a gentleman, he was by no manner of means attired in velveteen coat and russet-leather boots with silver spurs, his saddle-bags strapped on behind, but in a rough and badly worn sailor's suit, his free hand grasping a bundle carried loose on his pommel.

As to the horse neither the immortal James or any of his school could truthfully picture this animal as either white or high-spirited.

He might, it is true, have been born white and would in all probability have stayed white but for the many omissions and commissions of his earlier livery stable training--traces of which could still be found in his scraped sides and gnawed mane and tail; he might also have once had a certain commendable spirit had not the ups and downs of road life--and they were pretty steep outside Kennedy Square--taken it out of him.
It is, however, when I come to the combination of horse and rider that I can with entire safety lapse into the flow of the old chroniclers.

For whatever Harry had forgotten in his many experiences since he last threw his leg over Spitfire, horsemanship was not one of them.