THE BRUSHWOOD BOY
they cantered over the great dun down that overhangs Bassett and the Western coaching-road. Insensibly the pace quickened without thought of mole-hills; Rufus, gentleman that he was, waiting on Miriam's Dandy till they should have cleared the rise. Then down the two-mile slope they raced together, the wind whistling in their ears, to the steady throb of eight hoofs and the light click-click of the shifting bits.
"Oh, that was glorious!" Miriam cried, reining in. "Dandy and I are old friends, but I don't think we 've ever gone better together."
"No; but you 've gone quicker, once or twice."
"Really? When?"
Georgie moistened his lips. "Don't you remember the Thirty-Mile Ride—with me—when 'They' were after us—on the beach—road, with the sea to the left—going toward the lamp-post on the downs?"
The girl gasped. "What—what do you mean?" she said hysterically.
"The Thirty-Mile Ride, and—and all the rest of it."
"You mean—? I didn't sing anything about the Thirty-Mile Ride. I know I did n't. I have never told a living soul."
"You told about Policeman Day, and the lamp at the top of the downs, and the City of Sleep. It all joins on, you know—it 's the same country—and it was easy enough to see where you had been."
"Good God!—It joins on—of course it does; but—I have been—you have been—Oh, let 's walk, please, or I shall fall off!"
Georgie ranged alongside, and laid a hand that shook
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