Out Of The Silence by Erle Cox — Read

MEANWHILE, way down the long white road between well-ordered vineyards and scattered homesteads nestling in orchards, sped Marian and Alan behind the fretting Billy, and with them a silence that neither seemed inclined to break. There were not many women even in that district of horse-women who would have sat calmly and care-free beside Dundas, knowing Billy's reputation. Where a city-bred girl would have clung with white knuckles to the side-rail, Marian sat with loosely folded hands, letting her body sway with the swing of the dogcart. Billy's breaking-in had been peculiar. His forebears had been remarkable more for speed than for good temper. George MacArthur had acquired him as a yearling, and under that gentleman's able tuition he had developed more than one characteristic that made sitting behind him more exhilarating than safe.

MacArthur, grown tired of buying new dogcarts, sent Billy to the saleyards, and insisted that the auctioneer should read a guarantee that described Billy as perfectly sound, and an ideal horse for a lunatic or anyone contemplating suicide, and it was under this guarantee that Alan purchased for a couple of sovereigns what had originally cost MacArthur fifty guineas.