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Updated: May 11, 2025
I have now come hither on a wind-broken and spring-halt horse, for which I did pay a price to a thief. And now thou sayest that for all this which I have undergone in the service of the king I shall have not preferment but a dungeon or death." "Yea," was the calm rejoinder, "I say it; for where is the young lord? Knowest thou?" "Nay," answered Walter Skinner, slowly.
They forded three creeks before emerging upon a boggy, open space, covered with a mass of flattened, wind-broken reeds and swamp grass, in the centre of which lay a wide, still bayou partially fringed by willows with the first sickly signs of spring upon them in the shape of timid mole-ear leaves.
Very quickly the neighborhood discovered this propensity of his, and there was a constant stream of farmers who came to offer second-hand buggies, and wind-broken horses, and dried-up cows, and patent hay-rakes and churns and corn-shellers at reduced values; all of which rather tended to reveal to Thyrsis the unlovely aspects of his neighbors, and to weaken his faith in the perfectibility of the race.
When, after what seemed like an eternity of lung-bursting struggles, he came out upon the bare summit of the ridge, his tongue was like a dry stick in his mouth, refusing to shape the curses that his soul was heaping upon the alcohol which had made him a wind-broken, gasping weakling in the prime of his manhood. For, after all the agonizing strivings, he was too late.
Seeing which, Walter Skinner went on: "And, when all the rest were gone to York, did I not see the young lord and his Saxon serving-man ride forth? And did I not give chase? And do I not now seek them on this wind-broken and spring-halt horse as best I may?" The king beckoned the little man nearer. "Where hast thou sought?" he asked.
The race which had flushed the girl's cheeks and deepened her breathing, left the fat squatter wind-broken and exhausted. "Let 'im go, then," gasped Sandy. "Go back, Boy dear," urged Tess. Boy didn't move. He seemed mesmerized by the strangely white face of the drunken man. "Mummy, come home, too," he hesitated. "Yer mummy can't. Git out, ye beggar, afore I kick ye!" threatened Sandy.
The group lugubriously settled in a circle upon an assemblage of wind-broken red velvet chairs and wooden stools. They resembled the aftermath of a funeral on a damp day. Claire was the cheerful undertaker, Mrs. Gilson the grief-stricken widow.
There was a great outcry in a feminine voice, and a large woman rushed forward and flung her arms about the highwayman. "Oh, Jemmie, my son, my son!" she screamed, "whatever have they done to ye this time?" "Silence, mother dear," said Bottles. "'Tis nought but a wind-broken bough fallen on my head. Have you no manners? Do you not see the gentleman waiting to enter and warm himself?"
At last he gained the plateau and saw the road-house light beneath, so drove his heels into the flanks of the wind-broken creature, which lunged forward gamely. He felt the pony rear and drop away beneath him, pawing and scrambling, and instinctively kicked his feet free from the stirrups, striving to throw himself out of the saddle and clear of the thrashing hoofs.
An evil and mysterious influence seemed to be at work in his affairs. Whatever he did after consulting his wife or at her suggestion resulted favorably enough; but all his own schemes and projects were unaccountably marred and defeated. If he bought a horse, it was sure to prove spavined or wind-broken. His cows either refused to give down their milk, or, giving it, perversely kicked it over.
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