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He was standing beside HIS mount Farmer, the plough-horse, who was arrayed in winkers with green-hide reins, and an old saddle with only one flap. He was holding an earnest argument with Joe...Still the crowd waited. Still Dad and Joe argued the point...There was a murmur and a movement and much merriment.
But it is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plough-horse that had outlived almost everything but his viciousness.
He thought that good could be done by mixing the racers and plough-horses, and as regarded the present experiment, Marion Fay was a plough-horse. No doubt he would not have made this special attempt had she not pleased his eye, and his ear, and his senses generally.
And thus he went on, expounding his opinions generally and his personal likings, until Justin came to fetch him for a mulled egg that was wanted. "Not a moment's peace!" he cried; "always at it! I can't go out for a minute! Like a plough-horse, I have always to be moiling and toiling. What drudgery!" Then, when he was at the door, "By the way, do you know the news?" "What news?"
A gaunt plough-horse stood motionless in the cold shelter of a skeleton haywagon; in one corner a drinking-trough gleamed, one solid mass of ice. And now across this dreary, God-forsaken stage passed the warmly clad, stalwart figure that Fate was waiting for. Rankin noted that he held the whip still in his hand as he made for the door of the cabin. Suddenly Rankin blocked his path. "You cur!"
Then he wove as though the clack of his shuttle were the beat of a drum going by, then in a vast impatience, then with the bridle hanging on the rim of the manger by the plough-horse which had a saddle gait. The morning that he clambered, frightened, into the saddle a great cold wave was on the Ridge, with a fierce wind continually blowing.
"I will arrange the matter." He went away, but reappeared about a quarter of an hour afterward, leading an old plough-horse by the mane. This clumsy and heavy steed he harnessed into the cabriolet as best he could. But even this did not satisfy the old trooper's complaisance.
She walks like a blind plough-horse in a broken pasture, up and down, over and over; with a gait as rigid and deliberate as if she trod among the hot cinders, and had corns on all her toes. She took us so by surprise that if we had not thought her beautiful we must have thought her ugly, and the chances are equal, that, on a second meeting, we shall both think her so.
"Plough-horse!" sparkling scorn. "It's the best sort of horse going." "What if it be? I'm a sea-man myself not a postboy.... How d'ye know he was ridin a what-d'ye-call-it?" "He always does." "Who does?" "The man they call the Gentleman the Galloping Gentleman." "Who told you?" "I picked it up, listening to the riding-officer." The old man cocked an eye over his shoulder at the boy.
But the star of Europe brought a different horoscope, and to mix destinies breaks the thread of both. The Arabian horse will not plough well, nor can the plough-horse be rode to play the jereed. But a man is a man wherever he goes, and something precious cannot fail to be gained by one who knows how to abide by a resolution of any kind, and pay the cost without a murmur.
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