The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him

by Paul Leicester Ford

The last remarks had relation to more clattering of hoofs. In a moment a groom was in view, going also at a gallop.

“Hout of the way,” cried the groom, to Peter, for Mutineer was waltzing round the path in a way that suggested “no thoroughfare.” “Hi’m after that runaway.”

Peter looked after the first horse, already a hundred feet away. He said nothing to groom nor horse, but Mutineer understood the sudden change in the reins, even before he felt that maddening prick of the spurs. There was a moment’s wild grinding of horse’s feet on the slippery road and then Mutineer had settled to his long, tremendous stride.

“Now, I’ll show you,” he remarked, “but if only he wouldn’t hold me so damned tight.” We must forgive Mutineer for swearing. He lived so much with the stablemen, that, gentleman though he was, evil communications could not be entirely resisted.

Peter was riding “cool.” He knew he could run the mare down, but he noticed that the woman, who formed the mount, was sitting straight, and he could tell from the position of her elbows that she was still pulling on her reins, if ineffectually. He thought it best therefore to let the mare wind herself before he forced himself up, lest he should only make the runaway horse the wilder. So after a hundred yards’ run, he drew Mutineer down to the mare’s pace, about thirty feet behind her.

They ran thus for another hundred yards. Then suddenly Peter saw the woman drop her reins, and catch at the saddle. His quick eye told him in a moment what had happened. The saddle-girth had broken, or the saddle was turning. He dug his spurs into Mutineer, so that the horse, who had never had such treatment, thought that he had been touched by two branding irons. He gave a furious shake of his ears, and really showed the blood of his racing Kentucky forebears. In fifteen seconds the horse was running even with the mare.

Peter had intended merely to catch the reins of the runaway, trusting to his strength to do what a woman’s could not. But when he came up alongside, he saw that the saddle had turned so far that the rider could not keep her seat ten seconds longer. So he dropped his reins, bent over, and putting his arms about the woman lifted her off the precarious seat, and put her in front of him. He held her there with one arm, and reached for his reins. But Mutineer had tossed them over his head.

“Mutineer!” said Peter, with an inflection of voice decidedly commanding.

“I covered a hundred yards to your seventy,” Mutineer told the roan mare. “On a mile track I could go round you twice, without getting out of breath. I could beat you now, even with double mount easily. But my Peter has dropped the reins and that puts me on my honor. Good-bye.” Mutineer checked his great racing stride, broke to a canter; dropped to a trot; altered that to a walk, and stopped.

Peter had been rather astonished at the weight he had lifted. Peter had never lifted a woman before. His chief experience in the weight of human-kind had been in wrestling matches at the armory, and only the largest and most muscular men in the regiment cared to try a bout with him. Of course Peter knew as a fact that women were lighter than men, but after bracing himself, much as he would have done to try the cross-buttock with two hundred pounds of bone and brawn, he marvelled much at the ease with which he transferred the rider. “She can’t weigh over eighty pounds,” he thought. Which was foolish, for the woman actually weighed one hundred and eighteen, as Peter afterwards learned.