"
And, in very sooth, Tom found himself quickly fitted with a pair of
stout leathern breeches, a cloth waistcoat, and a pair of riding
boots adorned with silver spurs. A riding switch was put in his
hand, and he stood flicking his boots at the top of the staircase
till Lord Claud joined him, dressed in a quiet and most
irreproachable riding suit, which became the elegance of his figure
almost better than the frippery of the first toilet.
The horses stood at the door. Tom walked up to the great mare and
renewed acquaintance with her before swinging himself lightly to
the saddle. She made an instinctive dart with her head, as though
to seek to bite his foot; but he patted her neck, touched her
lightly with the spur, and sat like a Centaur as she made a quick
curvet that had unseated riders before now.
The next minute the pair had started forth in the murky twilight of
the autumn evening; but the moon was rising and the mists were
dispersing. Before they had left the houses behind they could see
the road clear before them, and were able to give their impatient
steeds their heads, and travel at a steady hand gallop.
Tom had approached London from the north, so that all this country
was new to him. He delighted in the feel of a horse betwixt his
knees again; and the vagaries of the high-bred mare, who shied and
danced at every flickering shadow, kept his pulses tingling and his
heart aglow during the whole of that moonlight ride.
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