Alighting with some dim understanding of his instinct, she walked to the field-gate over which a horse was gazing at her. Lifting the latch, she wandered among other happily scampering horses in search of the kennels, finding at first only a barn-like structure, a glance through whose doors at the flagstoned paving that sloped to a centre turned her sick. For a pyramid of horses’ feet was the least repulsive indication, though even the homely skewers so agreeable to Squibs took on a sinister hue. The spectacle, however, served to make the kennels, when at last discovered, a lesser horror. But it was the first time she had seen dogs so far gone in distemper, and these rheumy-eyed skeletons, each chained in its niche, sullied the springtide and haunted her for days. She caught up Nip, who had come to heel, as though he too might pine suddenly into skin and bone. Nip himself, it must be confessed, regarded these shadows of his species with indifference, if not with satisfaction, as negligible competitors.
Elijah Skindle, discovered on his knees in the act of feeding a pathetic poodle, was as unstrung by the sight of Jinny as Jinny by the sight of the dogs. His black cutty pipe fell from his lips and he nearly stuck the dog’s spoon into his own open mouth. But mastering himself, and without raising his cap or his pipe or changing his attitude, he gasped out: “Hullo! Nip ill?”
Jinny replied curtly—for there was a familiarity that repelled her in his calling Nip by his right name—, “No, a sow at Frog Farm—Little Bradmarsh, you know.”
His heart leapt. Frog Farm meant an old inhabitant, local prejudice was then beginning to melt at last! But, “Rather out of my radius,” he said with pretended indifference. “Besides,” as he reached for his pipe, “my nag’s gone lame.”
“I could give you a lift,” said Jinny, outwitted for once, since it never struck her that this was precisely what Elijah had fished for and why he had lamed his beast. The spoon trembled in his hand, but he replied grumblingly, “But then I should have to come at once.”
Mr. Skindle rose and brushed his knees. “Anything to oblige a lady,” he said.
“It isn’t me, it’s Maria,” said Jinny icily.
But Jinny was not altogether outmanœuvred, for while Mr. Skindle was getting his case of utensils, she filled up the rest of her seat—it was a stuffed seat covered with sacking—by means of a peculiarly precious parcel, needing a vigilant eye: no new device this, but her habitual protection against bores or adorers, and Skindle, she feared, was both. This swain-chaser or maid-protector was kept in a corner of the cart ready for emergencies, being an elongated package of stones, marked “Fragile.” The stones had to be jagged and uncouth or Nip would have squatted on it and roused suspicion. This was the only parcel she lifted herself, and it figured in her own mind as “The Scarecrow.”