these were the night-riders, come to return Nigger, so I told Hugh to
go back to bed and forget about it. I waited at the window for a few
moments, wondering if the men would pass the house; I felt a horrible
longing to see those huge and ghastly things in skirts and bee-skeps
striding across the snow, going home from their night's prowl like
skulking foxes; but whoever they were they took no risks. Some one
softly whistled a scrap of a tune ("Tom, Tom, the piper's son") as
though he were pleased at having finished a good piece of work, and
then I heard footsteps going over the gap in the hedge and the
crackling of twigs in the little wood on the other side of the lane. I
went back to bed and slept like a top until nearly breakfast time.

I went out to the stable as soon as I was dressed, to find Joe
Barnicoat, our man, busy at his morning's work; he had already swept
away the snow from the doors of the house and stable, so that I could
not see what footmarks had been made there since I went to fetch
Greylegs at eight the night before. Joe was in a great state of
excitement, for during the night the stable had been broken open. I
had left it locked up, as it always was locked, after I had made
Greylegs comfortable. When Joe came there at about half-past seven, he
had found the broken padlock lying in the snow and the door-staple
secured by a wooden peg cut from an ash in the hedge. As I expected,
Nigger was in his stall, but the poor horse was dead lame from a cut
in the fetlock: Joe said he must have been kicked there. I was
surprised to find that the trap also had come home--there it was in
its place with the snow still unmelted on its wheels. I helped Joe to
dress poor Nigger's leg, saying that it was a pity we had not noticed
it before. Joe was grumbling about "some people not having enough
sense to know when a horse was lame," so I let him grumble.