the town, who for thirty years had been toiling and moiling in a
business of some kind until he had built a small fortune. It then
occurred to him, or more likely his wife and daughters suggested it,
that it was time to get a little way out of the hurly-burly, and they
accordingly came to live at the house. There were two daughters, tall,
slim, graceful girls, one, the elder, dark and pale like her old
Cornish father, with black hair; the other a blonde with a rose colour
and of a lively merry disposition. These girls happened to be friends
of my sisters, and so it fell out that I too became an occasional
visitor to Cannon House.

Then a strange thing happened, which made it a sad and anxious home to
the inmates for many long months, running to nigh on two years. They
were fond of riding, and one afternoon when there was no visitor or any
person to accompany them, the youngest girl said she would have her
ride and ordered her horse to be brought from the paddock and saddled.
Her elder sister, who was of a somewhat timid disposition, tried to
dissuade her from riding out alone on the highway. She replied that she
would just have one little gallop--a mile or so--and then come back.
Her sister, still anxious, followed her out of the gate and said she
would wait there for her return. Half a mile or so from the gate the
horse, a high-spirited animal, took fright at something and bolted with
its rider. The sister waiting and looking out saw them coming, the
horse at a furious pace, the rider clinging for dear life to the pummel
of the saddle. It flashed on her mind that unless the horse could be
stopped before he came crashing through the gate her sister would be
killed, and running out to a distance of thirty yards from the gate she
jumped at the horse's head as it came rushing by and succeeded in
grasping the reins, and holding fast to them she was dragged to within
two or three yards of the gate, when the horse was brought to a