Beyond Rope and Fence

by David Grew

Beautifully tolerant of all things, always moved by the spirit of “live and let live,” Queen could not understand men and insects. She could easily see why one horse might kick at another when the other came along and greedily seized upon his find of grass; but the desire to attack without reason or excuse, as it seemed to be in the character of men and insects, was unfathomable and wholly foreign to her nature. Whenever men appeared there was fear and confusion and anguish. So, too, as soon as insects arrived, there was pain and discomfort.

Had she been a meat eater, she would have perceived some connection between the joy of eating and the tragedy of being eaten; but Queen belonged to the sweetest-tempered race on earth, whose sustenance required neither pain nor blood, and so she could not understand, and being unable to understand, she feared.

There followed a period of windstorms which carried the pests away. For a long time the herd enjoyed once more the freedom of the wilds; but another hot spell came and one day as they were eagerly seeking the higher places, they ran into a cloud of a new kind of insect, which was worse than anything they had ever experienced. This new pest settled upon them in such numbers that they changed the appearance of their heads and when in fear they tried to shake them off, the insects crept into their ears and noses, stinging viciously.

It was now the last part of the summer, the time of the year when young ants, having acquired their wings, began swarming; and this was one of the summers when these ants were more annoying than they usually are. Queen did not remember ever having come upon this pest before, and felt that it was peculiar to the particular neighbourhood in which they happened to be at the time. Accordingly, when first attacked by an unusually large swarm, she turned to the south, and the herd loped at her heels. By running, they rid themselves of the young ants and so continued running, till the cool of the evening cleared the air of all insects.

Next day, however, they ran into another swarm and again took to flight. Thus they were driven back again into the vicinity of the bowl-like valley. There because things seemed familiar they remained.

A season of constant raining followed. The cold, the excessive wetness, and the strong winds drove all pests from the plains. The rainy season passed and frosts came night after night, spreading layers of white dew on the grass and freezing the surface of the spring lake. The exhilarating days of autumn were at hand, cool, clear, and sunny. The peaceful nights scintillated with the colours of the aurora borealis and the unhindered brightness of the stars. Life became again a protracted festival.

They were startled one afternoon by the sudden appearance of four strange horses who came plodding along in single file from the south. Queen discovered them first as they were coming down the slope of a hill. Like the rest of the herd she stopped grazing and stared at them curiously. Because she saw no men on them or near them and because they came so wearily, so unenergetically, she was not afraid of them, though she regarded them with suspicion.

When they came within a few hundred feet, the herd moved off to the side, from where they studied them curiously to learn their intentions. But the strangers did not even look toward them. Doggedly bobbing their weary heads, they made straight for the lake. The leader was a big, red horse with an ugly pugnacious face, the nose bone of which curved, very peculiarly, outward. His hip bones protruded out of deep hollows in his back and his sides, fallen in, revealed distinctly every hair covered rib. Behind him lumbered a white mare so bent upon limping fast enough to keep up with him that she did not take her eyes off him. The third was a miserable-looking bay pony and the last was an old jade, black as a crow. All were thin and bedraggled and two of them had sores on their necks and breasts. The white mare seemed to have suffered most, for one of her hind legs was swollen to twice its normal size, and she limped very painfully.

When the queer-looking procession caught sight of the lake, they broke the line and ran down to the water, where they drank as if they had been without water for many days. While they were drinking the herd surrounded them, intending peacefully to sniff noses with them and to find out who and what manner of horses they were; but the ugly leader met the first approach with a kick and an angry whinny. They soon discovered that though the other three horses were not as mean, they, too, were ill-tempered and disagreeable. The first attempt at understanding resulted in a noisy quarrel and a stampede. When they settled down to grazing, the herd was off by itself and the four strangers were in a corner of the valley not any too near each other.

Queen did not like these strangers at all. She felt that they were responsible for the unpleasant feeling that now seemed to hang in the very atmosphere. She did not know then that slavery and cruelty such as these poor creatures had endured would sour the best-tempered horse. What that slavery really meant she had yet to learn.