The little horse turned round to look at them from his stall in the big stables. It was really rather a big horse.
What colored horse would you choose—if a horse were to be yours for the choosing? Dickie would have chosen a gray, and a gray it was.
"What is his name?" Dickie asked, when he had admired the gray's every point, had had him saddled, and had ridden him proudly round the pasture in his father's sight.
"We call him Rosinante," said his father, "because he is so fat," and he laughed, but Dickie did not understand the joke. He had not read "Don Quixote," as you, no doubt, have.
"I should like," said Dickie, sitting square on the gray, "to call him Crutch. May I?"
"Crutch?" the father repeated.
"Because his paces are so easy," Dickie explained. He got off the horse very quickly and came to his father. "I mean even a lame boy could ride him. Oh! father, I am so happy!" he said, and burrowed his nose in a velvet doublet, and perhaps snivelled a little. "I am so glad I am not lame."
"Fancy-full as ever," said his father; "come, come! Thou'rt weak yet from the fever. Be a man. Remember of what blood thou art. And thy mother—she also hath a gift for thee—from thy grandfather. Hast thou forgotten that? It hangs to the book learning. A reward—and thou hast earned it."
"I've forgotten that, too," said Dickie. "You aren't vexed because I forget? I can't help it, father."
"That I'll warrant thou cannot. Come, now, to thy mother. My little son! The Earl of Scilly chid me but this summer for sparing the rod and spoiling the child. But thy growth in all things bears out in what I answered him. I said: 'The boys of our house, my lord, take that pride in it that they learn of their own free will what many an earl's son must be driven to with rods.' He took me. His own son is little better than an idiot, and naught but the rod to blame for it, I verily believe."