"Gad! but she's a beauty and no mistake, Major," said Cleek as he went over and, leaning across the low barrier of the enclosure, patted the mare's shoulder and smoothed her glossy neck. "I don't wonder that you and her ladyship have such high hopes for her future. The creature seems well nigh perfect."
"Yes, she is a pretty good bit of horseflesh," replied he, "but not to be compared with Highland Lassie in speed, wind, or anything. There _she_ is, Mr. Cleek; and it's as natural as life, the beauty!"
Speaking, he waved his hand toward a framed picture of the missing animal--a coloured gift plate which had been given away with the Easter number of _The Horseman_, and which Farrow had had glazed and hung just over her box. Cleek, following the direction of the indicating hand, looked up and saw the counterfeit presentment of a splendidly proportioned sorrel with a splash of white on the flank and a white "stocking" on the left forefoot.
"A beauty, as you say, Major," agreed he, "but do you know that I, for my part, prefer the charms of Chocolate Maid? May be bad judgment upon my part but--there you are. What a coat! What a colour! What splendid legs, the beauty! Mind if I step in for a moment and have a look at her?"
The major did not, so he went in forthwith and proceeded to look over the animal's points--feeling her legs, stroking her flanks, examining her hoofs. And it was then and then only that the major remembered about the visit to the farrier's over at Shepperton Old Cross and began to understand that it was not all simple admiration of the animal, this close examination of her.
"Oh, by Jove! I say!" he blurted out as he made--with Cleek--a sudden discovery; his face going first red and then very pale under the emotions thus engendered. "She _hasn't_ any new shoes on, has she? So she can't have been taken to the farrier's after all."
"No," said Cleek, "she can't. I half suspected that she hadn't, so--well, let it go. Let's have a look round Highland Lassie's box, please. H'm! Yes! Very nice; very splendid--everything of the best and all in apple pie order. By the way, Major, you surely don't allow harness to be washed and oiled in here?"
"Certainly not! What in the world could have put such an idea into your head?"