This Merry Bond Read Online Free PDF Page A

the river if she wants to,” he said. “After all it can’t hurt us. ”
    “If she’d asked, I wouldn’t have minded. But they’re all so durn high-handed, these Bredons. Swindle you out of your rights if they can and take what they want whether it’s theirs or not.”
    “Yes, they’re pretty well the salt of the earth, aren’t they?”
    The old man began to chuckle.
    “That durn girl! Told me she’d never ask a favor of any Shand as long as she lived,” he said, and sat down at the breakfast table.
    “Oh, she said that, did she?” Simon said slowly and picked up the morning paper. But presently he threw it down and stood at the window, jingling the coins in the pockets of his riding breeches. He looked away to where in the distance the tall chimneys of Nye rose in gracious strength among the trees.
    His father’s voice sounded abruptly behind him.
    “Made up your mind to stop the winter, lad?”
    “Yes—till Christmas at any rate.”
    “That’s good. No need for you to look after the business now. Crow’s a good man. We want our son at home. Your mother misses you, Simon, and I’m danged if I don’t too.”
    Simon turned and regarded his father thoughtfully. There was not the same affection between them as between Mary Shand and her son, but there was a very real mutual respect. John Shand was proud of the boy. Public school and university had turned him out a gentleman—a thing John had no ambition to be himself—and with it all' he hadn’t lost his sense of proportion. The lad was shrewd in business and honest as he was himself. A son to be proud of.
    Simon, in his turn, respected his father for what he had made of his life. While there had never been any deep affection between the two, there was liking and trust. With all his faults, old John was a sterling person, and his son was grateful to him.
    “I can’t do nothing indefinitely, father,” he said with a smile.
    “Stuff and nonsense,” Shand retorted in his blunt fashion. “Look around for a wife for yourself, my boy. It’s time you were settled—you’re thirty-four. I was married to your mother long before I was your age.”
    Simon smiled and left the room. Later in the morning he rode down to the village to give an order to the saddler, afterwards turning onto the stretch of common that bordered the coverts of Bassetts Ponds. There were wide grassy trails through the woods and it was pleasant to canter gently between the trees on a September morning.
    As he came out by one of the old hammer ponds that gave the place its name, he saw another rider emerge from the opposite ride. His lips twitched as he recognized Nicky Bredon. The girl had a positive genius for trespassing.
    “Good morning,” he said and for a moment she looked friendly and eager as she returned his greeting, then as she saw who it was, her expression grew angry.
    She was riding a young chestnut mare, and her bare head, catching the sunlight filtering through the trees, was only a shade darker than the animal’s gleaming skin.
    “I hear you had an unfortunate encounter with my father earlier this morning,” Simon remarked, his eyes twinkling.
    “Your father—” She began to get angry all over again, and the nervous mare fidgeted, “Your father ordered me off my own premises, at least”—she had the grace to amend her statement— “what used to be my own premises until you held us to a most unfair bargain the other day.”
    He let that pass.
    “I understood you had a few harsh things to say to him ,” he observed with humor.
    She glanced at him suspiciously. Had they been laughing at her, Simon Shand and his abominable old father?
    “To tell me I was trespassing—like any common poacher.”
    “Well you were, you know.”
    “Wha t !”
    Her slim hands instinctively tightened their grip on the reins, and the mare wrenched at her bit in startled surprise and started plunging.
    “Steady! She’s young, isn’t she?” he said and watched