Read "The Interloper" by Violet Jacob online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
THE yellow cabriolet stood at the entrance to the close. The iron-gray / mare, though no longer in her first youth, abhorred delay, and was / tossing her head and moving restlessly, to the great annoyance of the / very small English groom who stood a yard in front of her nose, and / whose remonstrances were completely lost on her. Now and then she would / fidget with her forefeet, spoiling the ‘Assyrian stride' which had / added pounds to her price and made her an object of open-mouthed / amazement to the youth of the Kaims gutter.
A crowd of little boys were collected on the pavement; for the company / which emerged from the Miss Robertsons' house on Sundays was as good as / a peep-show to them, and the laird of Whanland was, to their minds, the / most choice flower of fashion and chivalry which this weekly / entertainment could offer. Not that that fact exempted him from their / criticism -- no fact yet in existence could protect any person from the / tongue of the Scotch street-boy -- and the groom, who had been exposed to / their comment for nearly twenty minutes, was beginning, between the / mare and the audience, to come to the end of his temper.