The yard gate was unbarred. The clock over the arch said twenty past four. Somebody had swept a path across the cobbles from the pump to the end box, and the lantern was lit there, and Enoch Pridmore was leaning on the half-door beside a man in a dark coat, both of them looking in at the straw with the same expression, which was the expression of men who have nothing whatever to say to each other and are perfectly content not to say it.
"Miss Thorley," said Pridmore, and touched his hat, and took himself off to the tack room with a speed that was very nearly tactful.
The Duke did not bow. He moved along the half-door to make room for her, and she came and leaned beside him, and they looked in together. The colt was on his feet, three weeks old now, all knees and opinions, butting at his mother's flank. Bathsheba bore it with the patience of a dowager at a christening.
"He's thriving," said Kezia.
"He's a thief. He'll have the oats out of her manger before Christmas." The Duke's breath smoked in the cold. "Pridmore had word from London yesterday. The hunters went on Monday last. Sibyl made two hundred and thirty guineas. A doctor's widow from Melton bought her. Pridmore asked particularly. He thought you'd want to know."
Kezia found she had to look at the colt very hard for a moment.
"Thank you," she said. "And thank Mr. Pridmore."
"I will." He was quiet a while. "The seed corn's out. Every cottage. The abatement's paid. Mrs. Oddie has had her wages and Quarrendon's interest, and has bought a new bonnet with it which she says she'll wear to church as a public rebuke. The agents in London have my letter. Sir Lionel has bought a fifth cottage on the Coldwell side, and he's been dining at Huntingdon with two of the county members, and I'm told he means to bring the bill again in the spring with or without me." He turned his head. "I don't know that I can stop him. I don't know that the estate can carry the mortgages without the common, either, in another year like this one. I've been through the books with the bank clerk three times and I can make them balance only if I shut up two-thirds of the house and live like a horse-dealer in the rest."
"You are a horse-dealer," said Kezia.
"So I am. It's a comfort." He looked back at the colt. "I'll need someone who knows the custom of the manor better than Sir Lionel's lawyers do, by spring."
"You have asked me already."
"I have. You said you'd think."