The next week John Rhines made a pair of iron fetters, to fasten one of her hind legs to one of her fore ones, permitting her to scuffle along and feed, but not to jump, and made a present of them to Mr. Goodhue, saying, “She can’t jump with these, I know.”
Dapple now went quietly for some time. Captain Rhines said to her master, “I guess you’ve got her this time.”
Vain delusion! she was probably meditating, in the “recesses of a mind capacious of such things,” upon the means and methods of evading this new device; that her meditations bore fruit was soon manifest. Parson Goodhue, returning from meeting in the afternoon, found her in the midst of his own corn. There was not a length of fence down; the bars were all up, and pinned, so that she could not remove them with her teeth. There was not a stone displaced in the wall, and the fetters were fast to her feet. As her master took down the bars to lead her out, he gazed upon her almost with fear; he was not superior to the superstitions of his day, and was almost apprehensive of some satanic agency.
The story got abroad; John and Fred determined to watch her. They shut her up in the barn with nothing to eat, till she was very hungry, then turned her into the pasture just at night, and concealing themselves, kept watch. Dapple went to feeding, stopping every once in a while to look around and listen; at length, seeing or hearing no one, she made directly for the bars, and attempted to take them down with her teeth; but they were pinned at each end. She then tried to push them over by backing up against them; but they were braced by stakes nailed to the posts, and set in the ground; she then put her head between the lower bar and the one next to it above, sprung the two sufficiently to insert her shoulders, then her whole body, and shoved herself through, coming down whack on her side, while the bars sprung together as before; then getting up and shaking herself, with a look of profound satisfaction, was making for the corn, when she was accosted in not very flattering terms by her observers. John said he never saw anybody look more silly, or more worked, than she did.
It was a matter of great surprise to the neighbors, and the town talk, that the mare never paid her respects to Joe Griffin, as in the fields of all others (except Captain Rhines’s, where Tige kept watch and ward) she ran riot; while Joe’s (whose land was new, just taken from the forest, and raised splendid crops of corn and grain) were unmolested by the common enemy; they were passed by to commit depredations on the fields of Charlie Bell, that adjoined.
We will let our readers into the mystery. The second year after Joe worked his place, he got up very early one morning, just as the day broke, to go out gunning; there was Dapple in the corn for the first time. As Joe had recently moved into the neighborhood, she probably, as an old resident, felt it would be polite to call. Joe well knew the character of his visitor, and what he might expect in future. He, however, manifested not the least sign of anger; didn’t even throw a stone, or hit her with a stake; but turned her out, put up the fence, and went off gunning; not even mentioning the matter to his wife, who had not yet risen.
Dapple, who had made up her mind to receive a pounding, thought Mr. Griffin was one of the best of men, and resolved to cultivate his acquaintance.
Three nights after, she paid him another visit, and going along the fence, found the old gap but very indifferently mended; taking off some small poles with her teeth, she cleared the great bottom log at a jump; but the instant she touched the ground on the other side, it gave way beneath her feet, and she found herself in a pit. Bitter were her reflections; she accused herself of imbecility for not interpreting aright such forbearance in a Griffin; and awaited, with fear and trembling, the approach of morning. Just as the day broke, she heard footsteps, and Joe made his appearance. A smile of satisfaction passed over his face, as he gave one look, and disappeared, returning soon with a shovel in one hand, and a bundle of long, tough beech withes in the other. Then, standing on the edge of the pit, he began most unmercifully to apply them, with all the strength and endurance of an arm that had scarcely its rival in the community. On head, rump, and ribs the horrible tempest fell. In vain poor Dapple kicked, and reared, and ran round the pit, which was not large enough for her to get out of reach of the blows. For an hour, without intermission, this terrible scourging continued, when, reeking with perspiration, Joe threw down the rod, and took up the shovel.
Dapple expected nothing less than to be buried alive, and with death staring her in the face, remembered with compunction the manner in which she had abused the kindness of the good old man, and despised all his wise counsels. But her quick discernment soon discovered that Joe was about to dig the earth at one end to an inclined plane to let her out, and instantly all her remorse and resolutions for a better life were at an end.