to draw nearer to the master of Jalna through the horses which were so plainly his absorbing interest.
"Kicked himself." He was pressing a practised thumb along the dappled grey flank.
"Really! How did he happen to do that?"
"Shied." He straightened himself and turned to Wright. "How is Darkie's indigestion?"
"Better, sir, but he'll have those attacks just as long as he bolts his oats the way he does. He's more like a ravening wolf than a horse with his feed."
A shadow fell across Renny's face. "Has he had his oats?"
"Yes, sir. I divided them into two lots, like you said to. After he'd had the first lot, I made him wait ten minutes. I've just give him the last half now."
Renny strode with irritable swiftness to a stall farther down the passage, where a tall black horse was feeding with ferocious eagerness. He ceased champing his oats for a second to look back at his master entering the stall, then, with his mouth full, the oats dribbling from his lips, he plunged his face once more into his feed-box.
Renny caught his head and jerked it up. "Cut out that guzzling!" he ordered. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"
The horse tried to shake him off, straining desperately toward his oats, his great eyes rolling in anger at the interruption. After a few moments he was allowed to fill his mouth once more, and again restrained. The rest of the meal was a struggle. He bit at Renny. Renny cuffed him. He snorted his outraged greed. Renny became suddenly hilarious and broke into noisy laughter.
"I should think that such irritation would be worse for the beast's digestion than bolting," observed Leigh.
"Should you?" grinned Finch, highly pleased with his brother.
The horse now was showing his big teeth, as though he too felt a kind of grim amusement.
Finch whispered to Leigh: "Now would be a good time to speak to him about the play. At least," he added, rather pessimistically, "as good as any."
