I thought it must be between seven and eight of the clock, but I could not be sure. It did not matter. If I was anxious to see the time there would be a village church with a steeple and a clock soon enough, even on this deserted road. I was not hungry. I was exhausted with fatigue but I did not crave sleep. It did not matter to me if this night was just begun, or half done, or if it never ended at all. I slouched in the saddle and let Sea make his own way carefully down the hill, under the shadows of trees again, the reins loose on his neck.

We came to a village at the foot of the hill. A pretty little place with a stream running alongside a bigger broader lane, and several of the cottages had little bridges over the water so that the householders could walk dry-shod to the road even when the stream was in flood. There were candles set at some of the windows to light the way home for weary men who had been out working late in the fields. I wondered idly what farm workers found to do at this time of year, perhaps ploughing? or planting? I did not know, I had never needed to know. I thought then, as Sea stepped like a ghost of a horse through the evening village, that there was precious little I did know about ordinary life; about life for people who did not dress up and dance on horseback. I thought then that I would have served Dandy a good deal better if I had worked on my skill at training horses for farmers and gentry rather than letting us be bound on the wheel of the show season. And now broken by that wheel, too.

The road went uphill out of the village and Sea brightened his pace and I let him trot uphill. If it had been light I guessed there would have been a great sweep of country on our left. I could smell the fresh greenness of it, and the hint of meadow flowers closing their little faces for the night. On our right was the high shoulder of the hill. The hill of the South Downs, I thought. I considered for a moment where I was.