CHAPTER CXXXVII.
DIFFERENCE OF OPINION BETWEEN THE DOCTOR AND NICHOLAS CONCERNING THE HIPPOGONY, OR ORIGIN OF THE FOAL DROPT IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.
———his birth day, the eleventh of June
When the Apostle Barnaby the bright
Unto our year doth give the longest light.
BEN JONSON.
It's as fine a foal as ever was dropt, said Nicholas;—but I should as soon thought of dropping one myself!
If thou hadst Nicholas, replied the Doctor, 'twould have been a foal with longer ears, and a cross upon the shoulders. But I am heartily glad that it has happened to the Mare rather than to thee; for in the first place thou wouldst hardly have got so well through it, as with all my experience I should have been at a loss how to have rendered thee any assistance; and secondly, Nicholas, I should have been equally at a loss how to account for the circumstance, which certainly never could have been accounted for in so satisfactory a manner. The birth of this extraordinary foal supports a fact which the wise ancients have attested, and the moderns in their presumptuous ignorance have been pleased to disbelieve: it also agrees with a notion which I have long been disposed to entertain. But had it been thy case instead of the Mare's it would have been to no purpose except to contradict all facts and confound all notions.
As for that matter, answered Nicholas, all my notions are struck in a heap. You bought that Mare on the 29th of July, by this token that it was my birth-day, and I said she would prove a lucky one. One,—two,—three,—four,—five,—six,—seven,—eight,—nine,—-ten,—he continued, counting upon his fingers,—ten Kalendar months, and to-day the eleventh of June;—in all that time I'll be sworn she has never been nearer a horse than to pass him on the road. It must have been the Devil's doing, and I wish he never did worse. However, Master, I hope you'll sell him, for in spite of his looks I should never like to trust my precious limbs upon the back of such a misbegotten beast.
Unbegotten, Nicholas, replied the Doctor; unbegotten,—or rather begotten by the winds,—for so with every appearance of probability we may fairly suppose him to have been.
The Winds! said Nicholas; he lifted up the lids of his little eyes as far as he could strain them, and breathed out a whistle of a half minute long, beginning in C alt and running down two whole octaves.