The Curate of Sadbrooke (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. THE BLACK COLT. A PLEASANT, very pleasant meal was breakfast at Fairleigh, especially when, as on this morning, the family were met together again after absence in town or at school. The day before being Christmas- day, which had taken James to Sadbrooke early, there was much left for inquiry this morning. But breakfast was never a very long business with the Knightlys; there was so much to be seen, so much to be looked after, and they were soon ready topay a visit to the stables; Hugh had scarcely seen his horse the day before, and he wanted to have a ride again, after being so long shut up in town. Of course the boys went with them. " Are you coming, William ?" asked Hugh. No, Hamilton was not coming; Alice and he were going to take a long ramble together; they had scarcely seen each other yet, and they had, of course, a great deal to ask and to tell each other. As they walked through the grounds, Cecil said: ? " Jem's black colt is grown such a beauty, Hugh, and he has broken it in himself; everybody says how handsome he is, but Jem expects him to be as good as he is; and only yesterday, when we had him out in the gig, an old woman wanted to speak to Jem, and, my! how the colt did start, and how the old woman did run !" " It was very foolish of her to stop," said James; " she must have seen how fresh the animal was; and it is nonsense of you to talk so, Cecil?you know he makes a capital riding-horse." " Then how was it that you managed nearly to ride over a little boy the other day, when I was out riding with you, only because you called out to know how his mother was?" replied the incorrigible Cecil. " I have no doubt it will make a capital parson's horse in time," said Hugh; "but the parson's only young himself yet, and they can't either ...