FOR MISTRESS LLOYD, OF MARYLAND.
In 1803 Morgan went to pass a week with his old friends, the Wings, and the visit was one long to be remembered.
The talk of the village was Mistress Hannah’s new silken gown—the first ever brought to Montpelier, so the town history tells. David Wing was now Judge and Secretary of State, and his wife had to wear fine clothes, as befitted her station, for many were the calls on her to entertain distinguished guests.
It was at a meeting in their new barn that Mistress Wing first wore the wonderful silk. All the other ladies present had on homespun and linen—silk would have been called “flunk and flummux” on them.
The Judge that day wore his Indian cotton shirt with the frills—hemmed and tucked. It made a brave show, for cotton was three shillings the yard at that time.
I mention these historic facts merely to show that Morgan played his part with the Quality of the times, as well as at the plow, and to occupy a stall in the Judge’s grand new barn was no small privilege to a horse!
But the greatest pleasure of all was when he heard that Colonel Lloyd of Maryland, and his daughter had come a’visiting the Judge and his lady.
The Wings and the Lloyds had met in New York the winter before and the Judge had unwoven some legal tangles for the Colonel. A friendship had resulted and now the Southerners had come all the way from Maryland in their coach to enjoy the cool, summer breezes of Vermont under the hospitable roof of their New England friends.
When the Judge brought them out to see his new barn Morgan recognized the swish of her petticoats at once, as Mistress Lloyd drew near the stable.
Knowing how they loved good horses their host threw open Morgan’s door.
There was an instant’s pause, then:
“Why, I know this horse!” cried Mistress Lloyd. “I gave him his first blue ribband!”
Oh, the melody of her voice, and the feel of her cheek against his! At last, after years of parting, they met—and she had not forgotten him. Oh, wondrous memory of such a woman as she!
Morgan was glad the Judge’s hired man had groomed him so carefully that morning, and that not long before, the stable floor had been strewn with fresh, sweet sawdust.
“What a noble animal you’ve grown to be!” she whispered in his waiting ear. “I predicted it full ten years agone!”
So it had been ten years since he had seen her last, yet he had cherished her, and she him, in memory, all that long time of busy scenes apart.
He pushed his small muzzle in and out among the laces and gauzes of her neck so gently they were not disarranged, and she pressed her cheek close to his. Something in the tones of her voice told him she was not happy, and as the delicious odor of her hair entered his nostrils he whinneyed a question, softly.
As if understanding, she answered, murmuring near his ear,
“Dear Little Horse,” there was a catch in her voice, “I cannot buy you, even now, for our money is all gone! Daddy is no manager; he has ever been what they call a ‘gentleman’ and our family mansion—‘where the Great Lloyd sets his Hall’—is to be sold to pay a most unjust ‘debt of honor’—I call it a debt of dishonor, for ’twas made at the gaming table; and though Judge Wing be ever so clever, he can do nothing now for my father and me!”
She leaned against Morgan; he heard a sob in her throat as she clasped his arched neck.
He whinneyed his tenderest sympathy, and maybe she would have told him more, but there came a sound of voices through the open door.
“Ah, here you are, my daughter!” It was the Colonel speaking. “Come and greet our friend who has ridden all the way from Boston to see us. He says he has a plan whereby we may save our home!” Colonel Lloyd spoke hopefully, if a little doubtfully.
Mistress Lloyd turned her face, flushed with emotion, and saw the Coxcomb, of whom Morgan had just caught scent.
“A plan?” she questioned him, after a cold greeting. “You mean a price! ’Tis the same old one,” she said wearily, “I do not need to be told!”
“My price,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders, “is offered out of friendship for your father and—”
“You need not say!” she interrupted him, contemptuously. “’Tis not for friendship you do kindnesses!”
“You know my price,” he said, with calm insolence. “I have waited long,” he added, under his breath.
“I will never pay it!” she replied with steady scorn, but so firmly Master Knickerbocker could not but believe her.
The truth was, he wanted her to be his wife, and she, knowing what manner of man he was, had withstood his importunities for years. She would none of him.
She held her head high.
He shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows.
“As you will, Mistress! In one week more you and your father will be beggars, and living on the charity of your friends—unless?” He flicked his riding boot with his whip and looked at her with defiance.
There was a short silence during which the lady grew very haughty, and then began to move away.
“Come,” the Coxcomb spoke again, in a different tone, following after her. “You love a good race—you’re a Southerner—what say you to a race—yourself and your home the stake? If you win I will cancel all these notes I hold against your father and accept your refusal to marry me as final. If I win, ah——”
Mistress Lloyd silenced him with a movement; she was no longer the slip of a girl True knew at Hartford. Here was a mature character of spirit and dignity, yet not lacking in the sweetness of perfect womanhood.
“I understand—you need not put the rest in words. I will ride your race, on this very horse—and you?”
“I have Silvertail with me,” he answered, and in an undertone added, “You will not have the ghost of a chance!”
If Mistress Lloyd did not hear this, Morgan did, and switched his tail with satisfaction, moving his ears to and fro, to miss nothing.
Silvertail! If horses could laugh aloud, Morgan would have laughed. He recalled a race six years before against Silvertail and it seemed almost a miracle that he should meet him again—of all the other horses in America—in so important an event.
“I am not afraid of Silvertail,” came Mistress Lloyd’s brave reply.
The Coxcomb looked at Morgan scornfully, not remembering how he, too, had been defeated by him years ago, at Chase’s Mill!
“Then ’tis settled,” he said, confidently.
“Nay, not settled!” cried the lady, with well-feigned gaiety. “We’ve yet to put the matter in writing, all in due form with the Judge to advise.” For Mistress Lloyd was no careless person, when it came to business, nor no mean reader of men.
She placed her hand for a moment under Morgan’s jaw and felt his pulses surge in response to her touch; then she drew herself erect, reassured—as if the race were already won!
They left the stable making their plans.
An hour later, Judge Wing and the Colonel came into the Morgan’s stall.
“My dear sir,” the Colonel was saying, “the folly of it! My daughter—and to ride for such a stake! But you know the girl. She has set her heart on it—I can do nothing. She winds me about her finger as if I were a piece of string, since her dear mother died. Our trouble is all my fault, what with mortgages and debts of honor, I am well paid for my follies—and, after all, this race is better than seeing her married to the author of all our unhappiness. Yet if she should not win!”
“No need to worry over that, my friend,” the Judge said. “Morgan has already beaten this Silvertail horse.”
“You don’t tell me!”
“I recall the circumstances perfectly,” continued the Judge. “Silvertail[10] is a horse with a reputation; he was bred in St. Lawrence County, New York, and the Morgan once won a stake of fifty dollars in a race against him. It was in the life-time of Justin Morgan himself, and Master Morgan, sir, offered Silvertail two chances to redeem himself afterwards, in either walking or running, but the offer was declined. The world doesn’t know Morgan, but I do, and our race is already won!”
The horse arched his crest at these words of praise.
“Then all is said!” cried the Colonel, in a tone of relief. “My daughter is the finest horse-woman in Maryland, and that is no mean praise.”
He came to Morgan and placed his hand lightly on the horse’s broad forehead, and seeing the Judge had turned away, spoke softly near the pricking ear.
“Save her, Little Horse, and I will never touch another card!”
Already Morgan could feel the finish of that race and see the flaxen-maned Silvertail toiling behind. He had little regard for a horse with light points (but which do well enough for mere beauty); deep in his heart his respect was for dark points, at once indicating possibilities of strength, docility and endurance—he had proven these qualities and knew!
That afternoon, the sun still high, he was led out to be exercised and prepared for the race.
Then She came, and, mounting him, rode easily and gaily down the stretch of road to the blacksmith shop where the course, as usual, was marked out along the highway.
In the fashion of the day her purple habit almost swept the ground as she sat her saddle with firm confidence; her wide hat and plume falling to her shoulders, framed her high-bred face. Her eyes sparkled—for the moment she almost seemed to have forgotten the nature of the stake! Hers was the embodiment of that Southern spirit of which Beautiful Bay had so often told True.
Her grasp of the bridle rein was as gentle as a caress, but as firm as steel—showing, well, she would brook no foolishness from a horse.
Against the sky the Green Mountains reared their heads, the pastureland on their sloping sides was patched here and there with cloud-shadows, and, where the sun’s rays slanted on the Winooski it glittered like a silver line in the valley. No wind, and a late rain, made the condition of the road perfect.
Loitering about the smithy were a few men who roused themselves at sight of the Morgan cantering up with a lady on his back.
Across the way, on the Inn porch, the sound of voices rose and fell in argument over the policies of Thomas Jefferson, the “Farmer” President; the purchase of Louisiana from the French, and such topics of the time. The idle men to whom the voices belonged sat in a row, their chairs tilted against the wall, but when they saw the Coxcomb swagger forth, they brought them down to the floor, simultaneously, and stared curiously.
Silvertail was led up and the slender New Yorker swung himself lightly into the saddle.
The idlers rose, gazed after the retreating horseman a moment, then strode with one accord down the Inn steps and on to the smithy, just in time to see the Coxcomb give Mistress Lloyd a grand sweep of his hat, as he said gallantly:
“’Tis hard to beat so fair an antagonist, but the stake is one I must win!”
“The race is yet to be run!” the lady made reply, smiling, securely.
She released the fastenings of her plumed hat and tossed it to her father.
“Catch, Daddy, dear! I ride with no frills and furbelows to-day! I wish I were that light Francis Buckle. Do you recall, Father, how he won last year at Epsom on Tyrant, the very worst horse that ever won a Derby?”
“My daughter is almost as light as Buckle and the Morgan a better horse. We have nothing to fear!” So spoke Colonel Lloyd, bravely, and, patting Morgan’s long shoulder, he raised his hat with courtly grace and bade his daughter, “God-speed!” right gaily.
And Mistress Lloyd? She laughed serenely—that same brook-like laugh of long ago; her lip did not quiver nor her voice tremble. With such spirit do men go into battle. She gathered the reins in her slim, bare hands—no gloves should come between her and Morgan’s mouth that day—and smiled at her antagonist, as if to say:
“Morgan and I do not fear you and Silvertail!”
When Silvertail recognized Morgan, which he did at once, he began to fret and prance. Morgan, however, made no false motions; he was saving every fibre of energy. With eager nostrils and arching crest he waited the signal to start.
The Coxcomb sat his horse with consummate grace, but his eyes glittered cruelly, in a way that boded ill for Silvertail. In his hand he carried a silver-mounted whip, on his heels spurs shone.
Mistress Lloyd, on the other hand, had neither whip nor spur; she ever depended on the tones of her voice for success with horses; sitting like a model for an Amazon, she waited, calm, serene.
A furtive backward glance from Silvertail’s eye said plainly enough, “For less than a carrot I’d bolt, to get out of this race!”
Once Morgan quivered as he remembered what his father had told him of Eclipse: “Eclipse first, the rest nowhere!”
To-day it should be “Morgan first, Silvertail nowhere!” The breeze blew lightly at his mane, his eyes glowed, his neck strained as the signal was given.
Morgan leaped forward. They were off!
Swift, as one of a race divine who flies, rather than treads the earth, Morgan’s deep, wide chest cleaved the air.
Pressing close came Silvertail, breathing heavily.
Mistress Lloyd had given Morgan his head, with intimate trust and understanding. He would win—in his own way—and she knew it. She was low in the saddle, leaning close to his extended neck, pressing her knees against his side. In a tender, restrained voice she whispered, almost in his ear:
“Win, my beauty! Win me my soldier at West Point! Win me my love, my home, my father, and my freedom from the persecutions of this man! Fly on! Fly on, you ‘Bird of the Desert’! Win, and Allah will bless you!”
She was stretched like an Indian along the back of her running horse.
Then—there they were at the end of the course, Morgan a full length ahead of Silvertail!
In an instant she was off and had buried her face in Morgan’s mane; she was sobbing and laughing all at once, with her arms close about the horse’s neck, as if she would never let him go!
Silvertail came up, a small spot of blood showing on his side where the cruel spur had wounded him.
Master Knickerbocker drew from his pocket a packet of papers, taking his defeat outwardly in better part than might have been expected.
“You have won, ma’am,” he said in a low, hoarse voice, for he had much to do to control himself. “You have won, and that right fairly. I could have wished it otherwise, nor do I yet see how ’twas done! Your horse was better than mine, I suppose; and now I shall bid you good-bye, forever.”
Mistress Lloyd took the packet in her trembling fingers; with her face still screened behind the Morgan, she said gently,
“Nay, but I must thank you for these——”
But she was interrupted, brusquely:
“There is naught to thank me for,” he said, with truth. “Thank that Canadian scrub of yours. Since the race is over methinks I have tried conclusions with him before, many years back when we were both younger; I shall look to it that I am not deceived into competing with him again! That horse ought to be on The Plains of Abraham; he is wasted here!”
Mistress Lloyd extended her hand across the Morgan’s neck, and Master Knickerbocker raised it to his lips with his usual grace; then he swung himself into his saddle and galloped out of sight.