keen eyes, fancied they could detect a horseman through the wood.
Presently Giles, from his perch at the door of the corn-crib, cried out:

"There's somebody a-comin' up the meadow. I don't know the hoss; rides
like Gilbert Potter. Gilbert it is, blast me! new-mounted."

"Another plough-horse!" suggested Mr. Joel Ferris, a young Pennsbury
buck, who, having recently come into a legacy of four thousand pounds,
wished it to be forgotten that he had never ridden any but plough-horses
until within the year.

The others laughed, some contemptuously, glancing at their own
well-equipped animals the while, some constrainedly, for they knew the
approaching guest, and felt a slight compunction in seeming to side with
Mr. Ferris. Barton began to smile stiffly, but presently bit his lip and
drew his brows together.

Pressing the handle of his riding-whip against his chin, he stared
vacantly up the lane, muttering "We must wait, I suppose."

His lids were lifted in wonder the next moment; he seized Ferris by the
arm, and exclaimed:--

"Whom have we here?"

All eyes turned in the same direction, descried a dashing horseman in
the lane.

"Upon my soul I don't know," said Ferris. "Anybody expected from the
Fagg's Manor way?"