Everything would be there, exactly as his imagination had placed it, even down to the bob-tailed sheep-dogs; the horse of his imagining would be there waiting for him, or if not absolutely the ideal animal, something very like it.

He might even go beyond the limits of his dream and pick up a couple of desirable animals--there would probably be fewer purchasers for good class hunters in these days than of yore.

And with the coming of this reflection his dream faded suddenly and his mind came back with a throb of pain to the things he had for the moment forgotten, the weary, hateful things that were symbolised for him by the standard that floated yellow and black over the frontage of Buckingham Palace.
Yeovil wandered down to his snuggery, a mood of listless dejection possessing him.

He fidgetted aimlessly with one or two books and papers, filled a pipe, and half filled a waste-paper basket with torn circulars and accumulated writing-table litter.

Then he lit the pipe and settled down in his most comfortable armchair with an old note-book in his hand.
It was a sort of disjointed diary, running fitfully through the winter months of some past years, and recording noteworthy days with the East Wessex.
And over the telephone Cicely talked and arranged and consulted with men and women to whom the joys of a good gallop or the love of a stricken fatherland were as letters in an unknown alphabet..