“The Old Horse.”
Yes, taken all round, he was, without doubt, the best horse I ever owned. Good at every kind of fence; bold, yet clever as a cat; never sick or sorry after the hardest day; and nothing too big for him. Oh, yes, I had a few falls off him. For myself, I have always thought the horses that never fall rather mythical animals. It has always seemed to me that the hunter of whom the fond owner proudly says: “He doesn’t know how to fall,” can scarcely know how to jump. For a horse that can cross a difficult country without sometimes making a mistake must really be somewhat uninteresting, like the good people who always do and say the absolutely correct thing.
That is his picture just above the mantel-piece. Made all over like a hunter; blood, bone—and look at his girth. Ewe-necked? Just a trifle; but he put on a lot of muscle there after the picture was done, and I have noticed that a horse with that formation, or fault, is often a real stayer.
Perhaps so; those good bits of the past always look a good deal brighter than when they made our present; but still, I will insist that the old horse—he will always be “the old horse” to me—was the very best I ever rode. He had a little temper; but, then, the best horses and men have that—and women? rather!—and when they are, all through, the right sort, and generous, it improves them. And the old horse was generous! Why, if he had been a man, I always thought he would have made an ideal one. It is just ten years ago to-night since I lost him. Bless me! how time does go. I had returned, well pleased, after a good day’s hunting. We had had one of those real old-fashioned sporting runs in which hounds hunt steadily on, though nothing very brilliant in the way of pace occurs. I had dined, my coffee had been slowly sipped, my cigar had been under way some fifteen minutes, and was being enjoyed with that feeling of extraordinary contentment which a long day in the open air gives to the sportsman. I had tried several favourite books, and found all impossible, as usual after a hard day’s hunting; Baily’s had just dropped from my hand, and I had given way to a reverie on the performances of my friends and myself during the day. The wind had been rising gradually, and now blew in strong and fitful gusts, and again, with faint moaning “sough” through the trees. I must have been dozing; but a tap at the door suddenly roused me, and Stablem entered the room and said: “Please sir, the old ’oss ain’t nearly so well to-night.” I was alert then. The old horse! He had not been well for some time; indeed, latterly, he had been failing fast. I had bought him as a four-year-old, and had ridden him for twelve seasons, but only two or three days at the beginning of this. He had suddenly seemed to lose all his form, and got listless, and then he became, all at once—old. He had since been given only gentle exercise, and passed his time in his box; and the “vet.” said he could not do very much for him. So, very sadly, I rose and followed my man to the stables. The old horse was lying curled up in a corner, more in the way one sees a dog lie. He was moaning, in a low, crooning key, which to me seemed terribly human. When I spoke to him he raised his head and tried to prick his ears. I stroked his muzzle and looked into his eye, once so prominent and bright, now so sunk and dull. Yet I felt he was glad to see me. Ah, he and I had ever been on the best of terms. Other friends had sometimes been far from true. We had found them—those whom we had trusted—mean, and not running straight; but the old horse, he had ever been the same—brave, generous, and cheery. He stretched himself out, and lay stiff and flat. Poor fellow! He looked so small and “gone”; his once rich coat, a mahogany chestnut, was dry and colourless. He was the mere shadow of his former self—the slashing, sixteen-hand hunter had shrunk to this.
A hundred memories rushed through my brain of the halcyon days he and I had spent together. The best runs I had ever ridden had been on his back. The longest day had never been too long for him. Of course, you know he was thoroughbred, and up to fourteen stone, and I ride only a little over twelve, and how game he was! He only refused once, and we found there was a great quarry hole behind that fence! He was always so flippant and free, and now—and the thought struck me like a knife—he would never hunt again.
In perfect health the thought seldom occurs to us that we may never do this or that thing again; never again see some loved face, nor hear our friends’ cheery chaff, nor again gaze on some familiar scene. If we could know, how miserable we should be long before our misery comes. So it was with the old horse and me, I had ridden him so long that I somehow seemed to think I should go on riding him. Nothing much had ever happened him; a few slight cuts, but nothing serious, in all the years we had been together. A fine feeder, he had gone on like clockwork; but, at last, the wheels had run down; and I realised, with a grief that some may consider out of place when only a horse is the object, that our friendship was being severed. It seemed so strange that we should part; we who had only parted in our falls; we who had galloped through so many brilliant bursts and struggled on to the end of so many long runs. It was hard indeed; but the very strangeness of it seemed greater than my grief. I had never known how fond I was of the old horse.
To watch a dumb animal die is, in one sense at least, more pathetic than in the case of a human being. In a way it seemed harder, more cruel, than if a man lay dying, for then there would be some consciousness of the coming change or end of things; and, if not, humanity has all along been educated for this inevitable termination. This is the looked-for goal, which lies—always far off, of course, but still ever there—at the further side of life; a something to be seldom thought or spoken of. But the old horse did not know these things. He did not know that life was slipping from him. The future, at any rate, had no terrors for him, and the past brought no remorse. He was even hardly unhappy in the present; and of pain he had little or none. With him it was almost an euthanasia. If he thought at all, it was probably of finer and happier hunting grounds than any he had ever seen; fields that he would cross without tiring, and where “the going” was all grass and no plough. Perhaps he dreamt of this as he feebly neighed. I hoped he did. I hoped that, in some vague, mysterious fashion, the old horse felt that he was going to be at rest. For surely one who had been so dear to me could never be allowed to die—to go out—unaware like that he was going to something better? And, as I watched him, I thought that he was one of the few hunters who never seemed to have “bad days.” Poor fellow! What pleasure I owed him! For what pleasure in life is there to be compared to that which we owe to our hunters? And this union, wherein lay so many exquisite memories, was to be dissolved. I would still have the memories, but the old horse was going. He even now seemed suddenly to get further away from me. A stupor had fallen on him, and, once or twice, I fancied that he thought he was galloping hard in the same field as the flying pack. I hoped he did, for it seemed good and right that he should be there in spirit, as he passed away from me. A few minutes more and I was alone, for the old horse had gone.
Hugh Henry.