'No, sir,' answered the groom with sympathetic alacrity, 'and if I was you, sir, I wouldn't--'
But the groom's good advice was checked by an unexpected phenomenon. Mr. Van Torp was suddenly up, and the black was plunging wildly as was only to be expected; what was more extraordinary was that Mr. Van Torp's expression showed no change whatever, the very big cigar was stuck in his mouth at precisely the same angle as before, and he appeared to be glued to the saddle. He sat perfectly erect, with his legs perpendicularly straight, and his hands low and quiet.
The next moment the black bolted down the drive, but Mr. Van Torp did not seem the least disturbed, and the astonished groom, his mouth wide open and his arms hanging down, saw that the rider gave the beast his head for a couple of hundred yards, and then actually stopped him short, bringing him almost to the ground on his haunches.
'My Gawd, 'e's a cowboy!' exclaimed the groom, who was a Cockney, and had seen a Wild West show and recognised the real thing. 'And me thinkin' 'e was goin' to break his precious neck and wastin' my bloomin' sympathy on 'im!'
Since that first day Mr. Van Torp had not ridden more than a score of times in two years. He preferred driving, because it was less trouble, and partly because he could take little Ida with him. It was therefore always a noticeable event in the monotonous existence at Torp Towers when he ordered a horse to be saddled, as he did on the day after he had got Lady Maud's note from Craythew.
He rode across the hilly country at a leisurely pace, first by lanes and afterwards over a broad moor, till he entered a small beech wood by a bridle-path not wide enough for two to ride together, and lined with rhododendrons, lilacs, and laburnum. A quarter of a mile from the entrance a pretty glade widened to an open lawn, in the middle of which stood a ruin, consisting of the choir and chancel arch of a chapel. Mr. Van Torp drew rein before it, threw his right leg over the pommel before him, and remained sitting sideways on the saddle, for the very good reason that he did not see anything to sit on if he got down, and that it was of no use to waste energy in standing. His horse might have resented such behaviour on the part of any one else, but accepted the western rider's eccentricities quite calmly and proceeded to crop the damp young grass at his feet.