Casimir Vale rode up the Lessary Road to the river gate on the thirtieth day of the autumn with a leather case strapped to his saddle, a retinue of eleven men at his back, and a speech in his mouth that he had been polishing for three days. He had polished it at every inn between Thornwick and the Ford. He had polished it at the toll-house on the causeway, where the collector had asked him for his name and had been told, grandly, that it was on the census and so was the collector. He had polished it in the saddle, all the way up the last mile of the road, while the wind came down off the Caul and set the grass hissing on either side.
His horse was lame in the near fore. He had not noticed until the causeway. He noticed now, and it annoyed him, because it was a fine grey gelding from the Thornwick stud and it had been sound when he left home. He sat it at the gate-arch with his back very straight and his hat in his hand, and he looked down at the gate-guard, who was a broad, scowling, weather-beaten man with a bad shoulder and a face like a closed book.
