Chapter V: on Greeley is prime, but it is hardly true to say (2)

The camp-meeting was in a brush arbor; the dry leaves on the boughs with which it was roofed rustled faintly when breathings of the coming tempest whispered across the highlands. The congregation, seated on backless puncheon benches, seemed to crouch beneath the uncertain illumination of a few torches and lanterns. Protracted meetings in the mountains are always held in midsummer, when the crops are laid by, so that perhaps the rising generation comes to associate their souls’ salvation and hot, breathless nights like this. Fleeing from the wrath to come no doubt gets hopelessly mixed in some minds with running for adequate shelter from the sudden passionate thunder-storms of the season.

There were six exhorters at work, swaying on their feet, shouting, two of them singing, the mourners’ bench partly filled, a promising tremor of excitement abroad in that portion of the congregation which had not yet come forward or risen for prayer--and the shower was almost upon them.

Vesta Turrentine, who always came up from the riverside store kept by her widower father at Turrentine’s Landing to stay with her Aunt Miranda during protracted meetings, had withdrawn to the end of a bench, where she sat with bowed head, watchful, agonizedly alert, letting her attitude pass for that of a penitent, hoping to be undisturbed. She was a slim, finely built young creature, already past the mere adolescence at which the mountain girl is apt to seek a mate. As she sat, chin on hand, dark eyes staring straight forward, her salient profile, a delicate feminine replica of old Jabe Turrentine’s own eagle outlines, relieved against the lights of the meeting, a man who crawled through the bushes found her very good to look upon. So absorbed was he in staring at her that he did not notice another man, deeper in shadow, who stared at him. Careless of observation, certain that the meeting was fully occupied with itself, Ross Adene, the first man, crept forward to the girl’s knee, touched it, laid his yellow head against it with a murmured greeting.

Drawn by F. E. Schoonover

Half-tone plate engraved by H. C. Merrill

“HE WORKED WITH THE AIR OF A MAN WHO HAS COME AT LAST TO SOME DECISION, TURNED TO REACH FOR THE TOWEL--AND LOOKED INTO THE MUZZLE OF HIS OWN GUN, WITH HIS DAUGHTER’S RESOLUTE EYES BEHIND IT” (SEE PAGE 69)]

“Ross?” The whisper was strangled by terror; her hand went down against his hair, spread protectingly to conceal its shine.

“Who did you reckon it was?” whispered the young fellow. “Anybody else hangin’ round hidin’ to get sight of ye and a chance to speak with ye?”

“Didn’t you get my word?” Vesta breathed. “Pappy’s on the mounting--unless’n the storm’s turned him back.”

“I reckon it has,” Ross answered, settling himself comfortably in the deep shadow beside her. “It’s shore goin’ to be a big one.”

As he spoke there was an instant’s breathless hush of the voices in the meeting, a dying down of the lights. It was followed by a white flash so blinding, so all-enveloping, that in it one could see nothing. Close after came a crash which seemed to rend earth and menace heaven. The young fellow leaped to his feet, regardless of all concealment, pulling the girl up beside him, flinging an arm about her. After that lightning-flash the torches and lanterns seemed darkness. Women were screaming, mothers calling to their children, men shouting hoarsely, and running toward plunging teams hitched in the grove.

It would have seemed that in such confusion even the rashest intruder might go unchallenged, unrecognized, yet Vesta pushed her companion from her and into the shadow again before she looked around for her people. Her Aunt Miranda was puffing ponderously down the aisle toward a shrieking infant which had awakened from its nap on a back bench.

“Aunt ’Randy,” Vesta called, “I’m goin’ home with--somebody. I’m all right. I’ll be thar afore ye.”

She could see Mrs. Minter’s lips shape themselves to some words which her vigorously nodded head suggested were those of assent. She dipped into the dark; Ross swept his sweetheart up on a capable arm, and they set off running down the wood path which led across the fields to the Minter place.

The noises of the meeting behind them diminished as they ran. Other people were hurrying through the forest, calling, assuring themselves of the whereabouts and safety of members of their parties. Here and there lanterns or torches flickered.

“Hadn’t we better go through the bushes?” panted the girl. “Somebody’s apt to see ye--an’ then--”

“No,” returned Adene, half lifting her along; “nobody’ll take notice in a storm like this; an’ if they should, I’m about tired of dodgin’. We got to marry sometime, girl. How about then? Yer pappy’ll know then, won’t he?”

Thereafter they ran in silence. Twice the lightning illuminated their way, diminishing peals of thunder following. It was after the second of these that a shot rang out, startling Vesta so that she clung to Ross’s arm and screamed. The young fellow made the usual dry comment of the mountain-born, “They’s a man standin’ somewhars right now with an empty gun in his hand.” Then they fled breathlessly under the cover of a projecting ledge in the small bluff among the bushes which had been Adene’s objective point. The heavens opened, and the floods descended.

There is something cozy and delightful about standing sheltered and dry, while the whole world falls down in rain, the elements themselves seeking all in vain to reach and destroy you. Vesta put out a hand to let the great drops strike on it, pushing back her hair and lifting her face to the keen, sweet coolness of the downpour.

“Don’t you love it?” she asked again and again. “Hit ’minds me of playin’ when I was a child, and just goin’ crazy hollerin’ ‘Rain flag’ when hit come down this a-way.”

“You an’ me used to play that together,” Ross reminded her. “That was in the days before your dad took up the feud again.”

At this the girl turned and clutched him.

“Oh, Ross, I sent ye word not to come to-night,” she said, “but I wanted to see ye an’ warn ye, too. Pappy’s actin’ quare. He’s bound I shall marry.”

“Well, so ’m I,” assented Ross, half humorously. “Him an’ me won’t fall out over that.”

“Don’t make a joke of it,” said Vesta. “Hit’s as much as your life’s worth, an’ you know it. Hit’s as much as your life’s worth to be here to-night. We ort never to meet again.”

She added the concluding words in a lower tone not intended, perhaps, for her lover’s ears.

“Has he picked out a man for ye?” The young fellow returned to what she had first said.

“U-m--h-m,” assented Vesta, reluctantly.

“Who?”

“Sam Beath.” She spoke very low.

“Sam Beath.” The young fellow repeated her words louder. “That feller that come up from the Far Cove neighborhood to stay in the store?”

“Pappy don’t like him--for me--so very well,” Vesta faltered, “but he’s kin to kin of ourn, an’--you know, he’ll keep up the feud. Pappy says I’m gittin’ awful old; an’--”

“If what he wants is to see his gal married, you an’ me’ll wed to-morrow night after meetin’,” Ross declared.

Vesta laid hold of the lapels of his coat. She even slipped an arm about his neck in entreaty, a tremendous demonstration for a mountain girl, who feels that she must always be in the shy, reluctant attitude of one who is besought, whose scruples are overcome.

“Ross, I know ye don’t mean it, honey, but, oh, for any sakes! walk careful! Three years you an’ me has been promised to each other, a-meetin’ wherever we could, me scared to death for ye all the time; but pappy ain’t never found it out. Ross, give me yo’ word that you’ll be careful.”

A fleeting glow showed Adene his sweetheart’s pale, entreating face, and then came darkness and the steady drumming of the rain on the leaves.

“You an’ me are a-goin’ to be married to-morrow night after meetin’ at Brush Arbor,” he repeated doggedly. And Vesta, used to the men of her world, with whom action follows the word swiftly, if it does not precede, began to cry, leaning weakly against his shoulder.

“Ross, I’ll run away with ye, I’ll go anywhars you say. I’ll work my fingers to the bone for you. I’ll never look on the face of my kin again--for your sake.”

In her pleading she raised her voice until it was almost a cry. The storm had died down; the lisp of falling water scarcely blurred the sound of their words.

“Not for my sake you won’t,” returned her lover, sturdily, putting a strong arm about her, bending to cup her cheek in his hand. “Why, I like your daddy fine. I picked him out for a father-in-law same’s I picked you out for a wife. I ain’t never had any dad of my own to look to. Yourn suits me. I’ll make friends with him.”

“And why ain’t you got no father?” inquired Vesta, tragically. “’Ca’se my uncle shot him down when you was a baby in your mother’s lap--and there all the trouble began.”

“Hit’s a long time ago,” said Ross, philosophically. “I ain’t bearin’ any grudge till yet. I reckon if your uncle hadn’t ’a’ got my father, my father’d ’a’ got him. I aim to marry ye, here in Brush Arbor meetin’, an’ make friends with your daddy an’ put an end to the feud.”

As a spectacular conclusion to the storm, and apparently to Ross’s speech as well, there blazed through the woods a sudden greenish-white radiance of lightning. It flickered on the wet leaves, giving them a phosphorescent glow; it lit with an infernal illumination a face peering between those leaves, looking squarely into Adene’s own--a dark face, full of the strong beauty of age and courage, vivid yet with the zest of life. The young fellow’s hand went up to cover Vesta’s eyes, to press her head in against his breast.

“What is it?” she breathed.

“You said you was scared of lightning,” Ross answered close to her ear, as the thunder reverberated through a darkened, wet world.

Evidently she had not seen. Certainly he would not tell her. As the detonations died down, he stood rigid, waiting for the bolt of death, weighing with instant clearness the chance of whether old Jabe would kill only him, or slay as well the daughter who had proved treacherous.

Nothing came. A light wind sprang up and set drops pattering down from the boughs. The storm-clouds were rent, torn, scattered, rolling sullenly away to the north. A few drowned stars began to make the sky lighter.

All at once, as he waited for the death that came not, Ross remembered the shot they had heard as they ran through the woods. That was Jabe Turrentine’s gun. Turrentine had been the man standing with an empty weapon, without another cartridge to reload. When he was certain of this, Adene felt momentarily safe. The old panther had missed his spring; he would not try again to-night. Ross laughed a little softly to himself as he imagined Jabe skulking quietly between the dripping trees to the horse that must be tied somewhere near the timber’s edge, getting on the animal and riding down the river road to his store. Yes, that’s what the old man would do. And, after that, Ross Adene knew that the next move in the game was his.

“I reckon I’d better take you on home,” he said at length. “If we’re a-goin’ to be married to-morrow night, I’ve got some sev-rul things to do.”

Hand in hand they went through the drenched leafage, speaking low, Vesta trying feebly to remonstrate. When they came to where the lighted windows of the Minter cabin made squares of ruddy light in the blue-black darkness, Ross said his farewells.

“You put on whatever frock it is you want to be married in to-morrow night and go to meetin’,” he concluded. “For wedded we’ll shorely be at Brush Arbor church. I’ll speak to the preacher, an’ mebby your daddy’ll come to the weddin’ hisself.”

Vesta wept. She kissed her lover farewell as we bid good-by to the dead. In the dim radiance streaming out from the dwelling she watched his rain-gemmed, yellow head as he walked away, hat in hand, shoulders squared, moving proudly.

“O Lord,” she sighed to herself, “why can’t men persons take things like women does--a few ill words and no harm done?”

The night sky refusing answer, she went silently in and to bed.

* * * * *

Next morning Ross Adene put his house in order, as might a man on the eve of a duel. His day was busily spent. He notified the revivalist who was conducting meetings at Brush Arbor church of an intention to wed Vesta Turrentine directly after sermon that night, and, late in the afternoon, took his dugout canoe and dropped thoughtfully down the river toward Turrentine’s Landing. There was money in his pocket, but no weapon on him. He had not traveled the road, for he knew that even in daylight some wayside clump of trees might hide an ambush. He put his canoe into the current, crossed the stream, going down the farther bank, out of rifle-shot of the leaning willows that dipped long, green tresses to the water, offering a veil for a possible foe. When he was opposite the landing he came squarely across, his eyes searching the prospect ahead.

There was nobody about as he beached his boat, pulling it well up out of reach of the current, and walked deliberately toward the store. The landing had no village, the only buildings being the store, Turrentine’s dwelling, and barns. He approached the former by the front way, and stopped in the door, offering a glorious target to any hostile person who might be within; for he stood six feet tall and broad-shouldered against the westering light. The interior of the room was at first obscure to him, but almost immediately he made out old Jabe behind the counter and Sam Beath sitting humped in a chair at the back of the store.

For a moment no word was spoken. There was no exclamation, though there was a mental shock of encounter, evinced by not so much as the tremor of an eye upon the part of either of the principals. Beath it was who glanced stealthily toward the corner where Turrentine’s loaded rifle stood.

“Howdy,” said Ross in the even, musical monotone of his people.

“Howdy,” responded old Jabe’s deep bass.

Beath did not speak. Ross remained in the doorway until he considered that he had given quite sufficient opportunity for any gentleman who desired to pick a vital spot in his frame. When he felt he had been amply generous in this way, he came stepping slowly into the building, walked to the counter, and laid his empty hands upon it.

“And what can I do for you to-day?” inquired old Jabe with a sardonic exaggeration of the shopkeeper’s manner.

“I want to buy me a right good suit of clothes,” returned Ross, mildly.

The man in the back of the store, staring at the two, began to wonder when old Jabe would take advantage of the opening offered him.

“Err-um,” grunted Turrentine. “Somethin’ to be buried in--eh?”

“Well--no,” demurred the customer, amiably. “Somethin’ to be married in. A weddin’ suit is what I’m a-seekin’.”

Beath’s eyes went without any volition of his own to a bolt of fine white muslin on the shelf. From that Vesta had chosen a dress pattern the day her father bade him ask her in marriage. His proposal had been bafflingly received, but she had chosen the dress and taken it with her to her Aunt Miranda’s to finish.

Meantime, as though his customer had been any mountain man of the district, the storekeeper calmly estimated Ross’s height and breadth, turned to his shelves, and pulled down a suit. The two immersed themselves in a discussion of fabric and cut. The assistant, used to old Jabe’s browbeating, could scarcely believe his eyes as he noted the glances of approval his employer gave to the goodly proportions he was fitting. Beath’s ears seemed to him equally unreliable when Turrentine, a big man himself, remarked with apparent geniality on the chance of a wrestling-bout between them.

“I ain’t backin’ off,” responded Adene, “but I’d ruther stand up to you when I didn’t have somethin’ else on hand.”

“Aw, I’m gittin’ old,” said Turrentine, deprecatingly. “Time was when you might have said such of me; but I’m gittin’ old.”

The blue eyes of the younger man looked ingenuously into the face so like Vesta’s.

“Well, we’re all gettin’ older day by day,” Ross allowed, “but yet you don’t look as though you was losin’ your stren’th, an’ that’s a fact.”

Turrentine folded the suit and laid it on the counter.

“I think them clothes’ll fit ye,” he said. “An’ I’ll th’ow in this hyer necktie you looked at. I always th’ow in a necktie with a suit. That all?”

“Well--no,” Ross repeated his phrase. “I want to buy the best razor you’ve got in the shop.”

With a sudden movement that might have been excitement or even rage, Sam Beath took off his hat and cast it on the floor beside his chair. Turrentine bent down to get from under the counter a tray of razors, setting it on the boards and inviting his customer’s attention. Beath could scarcely bear to look at the two men facing each other across these bits of duplicated and reduplicated death, so tremendously did the juxtaposition excite him. He felt as he had sometimes on the hunting trail when the kill was imminent--as though he must cry out. Jabe and Ross were oblivious, trying, choosing, drawing their thumbs lightly over edges.

“I believe I like that un,” Ross said finally. “What say?”

“You’ve got a good eye for a blade,” old Jabe agreed, taking the razor in his fingers. “That thar’s by far the best un in the lot.” He opened and held it up, so that a stray gleam of sun winked wickedly upon the steel. “You could cut a man’s head off with that, slick an’ clean, ef ye had luck strikin’ a j’int--an’ I allers _do_ have luck.”

“I wasn’t aimin’ to put it to no such use,” Ross commented gently. “An’ yit, when you’re a-buyin’ a tool, hit’s but reasonable to know what its cay-pacities may be. I’ll take that un.”

“Now--is that all?” Jabe put his query with the half-smile of a man who might easily suggest something else. He laid the razor with the other purchases.

“Is it honed, ready to use?” inquired Ross.

“Why, yes,” agreed old Jabe in a slightly puzzled tone. “A few licks on a strop or your boot-laig’ll make it all right.”

Ross was rubbing a rough cheek with thoughtful fingers, looking sidewise at the storekeeper.

“I’m a-goin’ to git married to-night,” he murmured. “Looks like I need a clean shave. They tell me you’re a master hand at shavin’ folks. Will ye shave me?”

Beath’s chair dropped forward with a slam, but neither of the men started or turned. The black eyes burned deep into the blue; the blue were unfathomable. Behind a mask of primitive civility the two men interrogated savagely each other’s motives. Jabe was the first to speak.

“Why, shorely, shorely,” he said with what seemed to Beath ominous relish. “Set down on that thar cheer that’s got a high back to it, so’s you can lean yo’ head right. Sam,”--Beath leaped as though he had been struck,--“bring me the wash-pan an’ soap an’ a towel. I’ll git the lather-brush.”

Beath finally arrived with the required articles. His shaking hand had spilled half the water from the basin; his eyes gloated. He put the things down on a box and retired once more to his chair, seating himself with the air of a man at a play.

Ross leaned back, found a comfortable rest for his head, and closed his eyes. The strong, brown young throat exposed by the turned-down collar of his shirt fascinated Beath so that he could not look away from it.

Jabe took the towel and put it about his customer’s neck with expert fingers. As he did so, Beath’s hand began to play about his own throat, and there was a click as it nervously contracted. Turrentine dipped his brush in the water and whirled it on the soap-cake, lathering Ross’s face silently and with a preoccupied manner. Beath’s glance flickered from the man in the chair to the man who worked over him. When Jabe took up the razor, passed it once or twice across the strop and approached it to Ross’s cheek, Beath swallowed so noisily that the sound of it was loud in the silent room.

Suavely--the old man was grace itself--the operation of shaving the bridegroom was begun. Placidly it progressed, with a murmured word between the two men, the deft turning of the inert head by the amateur barber, an occasional deep-toned request.

Yet always the onlooker shook with anticipation of the sweep of old Jabe’s arm which must come. Continually Beath figured to himself the sudden jetting out of crimson from that artery in the neck that was beating evenly and calmly under old Jabe’s touch. Perhaps the end might have arrived then and there, and swiftly, had those fingers felt the swell of excitement in the blood of a possible victim. But Ross had closed his eyes and seemed to be dozing. Jabe made an excellent job of it.

“Thar--I believe that’s about all you need,” he remarked at length.

The low sun came through the door between piles of calico, heaps of ax-handles, and glinted on Adene’s yellow head. Suddenly Beath felt the light for a moment obscured. He glanced up to see a woman’s figure, black against the glow, yet unmistakable in its slim alertness, and clothed, as his eye accustomed to fabrics told him, in the white muslin he had believed to be selected for a wedding-dress. Neither old Jabe nor his customer appeared to mark as Vesta Turrentine slipped like a shadow through the doorway and stole to the corner where her father’s rifle stood. Sam watched as she lifted the weapon in practised fingers. His mouth was open, but he did not cry out.

Ross unclosed his eyes lazily, raised his thumb to his cheek, close by the ear, very near indeed to the great veins and arteries Beath had looked to see the razor sever.

“Ain’t they a rough place right thar?” he inquired with a half-smile.

The ultimate spark of daring was in the eyes that gazed up into those of the man Ross had chosen for a father-in-law. Old Jabe, with a portentously solemn face, muttered an assent, dabbed the lather on, and made a pass with his razor.

“U-m-m--looks like they was a little more to do in that direction. Maybe I ain’t quite finished ye up yit,” the old man’s voice had a lilt of laughter in it, and it seemed that the end had surely arrived. Turrentine’s devil was always a laughing fiend. He worked with the air of a man who has come at last to some decision, turned to reach for the towel--and looked into the muzzle of his own gun, with his daughter’s resolute eyes behind it.

There was no start, no outcry; the old fellow only stood, scowling, formidable, checked midway in some spectacular vengeance, Beath was sure. The clerk crept, stooping behind the piles of merchandise, toward Vesta.

“Put down that thar razor.”

The girl’s tone had a ring of old Jabe’s own power.

“Ye say,” drawled Jabe, making a jest of a necessity, as he laid the blade on the counter. “What else?”

“You let him walk out o’ that door with me, same as he walked in,” Vesta’s air was resolute, her aim steady.

At the first word Adene had turned his head merely, showing no disposition to get beyond Jabe’s reach. But in the instant of her demand Beath rose up from behind some boxes, grasped the gun, twisting its barrel upward, and disarming Vesta. Ross sprang toward his sweetheart, hit out at the clerk’s unguarded side, and sent him staggering across the room, to fall sprawling at his employer’s feet. For a long moment while Beath was scrambling to hands and knees, life and death seemed to hang in the balance as old Jabe studied the two opposite; mechanically he had taken the gun Beath thrust into his hand. When Vesta saw it in his grasp, she flung herself upon her lover’s breast, clasping her arms about him, protecting his life with hers.

“Me first,” she screamed. “You’ll have to kill me first.” She waited for the bullet.

Jabe interrogated the pair with remorseless eye; he moved forward a pace, though Sam Beath on all fours thought it was plenty close to shoot. His gun was not raised. Instead, the old man and the young were studying each other once more, speeding messages from eye to eye above Vesta’s bent head. At last Jabe seemed to find that for which he sought. He looked long at the daughter who defied him in words, and her lover who braved him in action. Adene read the look aright.

“You’re bid to the weddin’ at Brush Arbor church, father-in-law,” he said in the tone of one who finds a satisfactory answer to a riddle.

The gun-butt rattled on the puncheon floor.

“Will your dugout hold three?” asked Jabe.

Vesta stirred, but still feared to look up.

“Shore; five, by crowdin’,” came the answer.

The girl raised her head, glanced incredulously from father to lover, and a light of comprehension dawned in her eyes.

“An’ me,” yammered Sam Beath. “What about me?”

“You can keep sto’ or come along to the weddin’, accordin’ to yo’ ruthers,” allowed old Jabe, generously; “ye hearn my son-in-law say his boat would hold five.”

TO ANY ONE

BY WITTER BYNNER

Whether the time be slow or fast,
Enemies hand in hand
Must come together at the last
And understand.

No matter how the die is cast
Or who may seem to win,
You know that you must love at last!--
Why not begin?

BY E. S. NADAL

Drawn by Joseph Clement Coll]

Ever since the employment of an English judge of saddle-horses at the New York Horse Show, a few years ago, a lively discussion has been going on between the advocates of thoroughbreds and of our American saddle-horse, which is for the most part trotting-bred, upon the subject of their respective merits as saddle-horses. The English judge had of course an Englishman’s preference for a thoroughbred. He has shown this in his awards, and he has established a class of thoroughbreds under saddle. His view has naturally not found favor with the friends of the American saddle-horse, an animal usually a cross between the trotter and the Kentucky saddle-horse, which is a registered family, and is itself largely of trotting ancestry. The discussion, however, has not been confined to the merits of these two animals as saddle-horses, but has covered the whole subject of their respective characteristics.

Against the thoroughbred it is charged that he is unsound, wanting in stamina, flighty and excitable, and has not the trotting action to make a comfortable hack under the saddle or to become a good harness-horse, and even that he is inferior to some other horses in style and beauty. There is a certain truth in these accusations; but they contain also a great deal of untruth.

It is not possible to say that there is a want of stamina in a family of horses to which belong all runners, virtually all steeplechasers, and from which are directly descended all hunters and nearly all cavalry horses. Nearly all steeplechasers are thoroughbreds, and these horses do their four miles like old-fashioned runners, besides going over the exhausting jumps. And how can blood be said to want stamina which is the basis of the blood of all the cavalry horses in Europe? In 1870 the German cavalry horses of this breeding could do their thirty-five miles a day for three months during the roughest winter weather. And taking it nearer home, do any horses surpass in toughness the half-bred horses of Canada and tide-water Virginia? The old Virginians say that Kentucky can show a better head and tail than can be found in Virginia, but that for everything between Virginia is better, and the assertion is not without a color of truth. My observation is that, as a rule, trotting and saddle-bred horses have not the stamina of the best horses descended from the thoroughbred.

When we come to speak of gaits under the saddle, it will of course be admitted that thoroughbreds can walk, canter, and gallop. Their deficiency is in the trot. Most thoroughbreds do not show good hock action. They do not give one that definite rise and fall which one should have when riding at a trot. But there are thoroughbreds that have good hock action. Where, for instance, can one find better hock action than in the thoroughbred mare Jasmine, which has lately been seen about New York? There are many thoroughbreds with such a trot.

When we come to speak of disposition, the case against the thoroughbred is rather stronger. It cannot be denied that he is hot-tempered. That an animal should be used for generations for an exciting employment, and that employment an artificial one, must result, one would expect, in some eccentricity of temper. And the bad effects are rendered worse by certain necessary concomitants of the employment. It cannot be good for the temper of an animal two years old to be an hour getting away at the start, and to be whipped and spurred for the last hundred yards of every race. As a matter of fact, they are frequently as excitable and often as vicious as one might expect animals to be which had been subjected to such an experience. There is a thoroughbred stallion in Kentucky that has killed two grooms. It is said that an attempt, which for some reason was not successful, was made to put out his eyes in order that he could be handled with safety. A few years ago at Lexington I was told that a thoroughbred stallion at a stable near by had just taken two fingers off a groom’s hand. I went to the stable, had the animal brought out, and studied his countenance from a respectful distance, and he looked to me as though he could do it. The eye was somewhat ruthless, perhaps, but I should not say that the countenance was vicious or ill tempered. It had rather the opaque look of faces one will see behind the bars of a menagerie--faces unrelated to kindness or unkindness, and expressive only of the wish to survive and the readiness to perish in the struggle for existence. A few years ago we had in my native county, Greenbrier County, West Virginia, a celebrated performer on the turf, King Cadmus, which had killed at least one person. Once, when racing, he seized with his teeth a jockey on a horse that was passing him, threw him under his feet, and killed him. He was a lop-eared, rough-made brute, and if a man did not know him and took him for some harmless old screw, which might easily be possible, without any sign of ill temper he would allow the man to approach till he was in reach of his teeth, when he would try to seize him and throw him under his feet. Some of his colts are still about Greenbrier, and, strangely enough, do not seem to have inherited his vicious disposition,--an instance, I suppose, of failure to transmit acquired characteristics. I remember when a boy seeing Rarey leading about his celebrated Cruiser, which must have been very much such a horse as Cadmus. Possibly the animals I have mentioned might have been reformed if they had had such a handler as Rarey.

But these horses are exceptions, as it is hardly necessary to point out. A few years ago in Kentucky I rode for some weeks a four-year-old thoroughbred stallion that a child could have ridden, a very handsome bay, sixteen hands high, very fashionably bred (half-brother to Foxhall). He had been raced, but had not been found fast enough for the track. He was perfectly gentle. His only fault was not one of temper at all. He was a little sluggish, sluggishness being sometimes a fault of thoroughbreds. This fault affected his trot. A certain ambition and steady force in a horse are necessary to a comfortable trot.

But apart from the subject of gaits and disposition, it is claimed that the thoroughbred is inferior in style and beauty to certain other horses, such, for instance, as the Kentucky saddle-horse. That, of course, is a matter of taste, and tastes differ and change from time to time. I prefer the Kentucky horse myself, and believe him to be the handsomest horse in the world, and yet I find that when I go to England and live among people to whom the thoroughbred type seems perfection, I begin insensibly to see it as they do, and so I think will almost any one. There is no doubt that the type at its best is very beautiful. I have now in mind a chestnut mare, Miss Trix, which I saw at a pretty little show in the west of England summer before last and which afterward took the first prize at the international in London. A more beautiful creature it would be hard to find, or one better gaited or better mannered. And even when one sees this type in this country, where the taste and feeling are mostly on the side of the Kentucky horse, it is impossible to deny that it is beautiful. Three years ago at the State fair at Lexington I saw a class of thoroughbred stallions judged very early before the crowd was on the grounds. It was an extraordinary display of equine beauty that was gaily paraded before the stand on that bright and fragrant September morning, and, difficult as the choice seemed, the blue ribbon went deservedly to the most beautiful, a brown horse named Jack-pot. Later in the day I saw Jack-pot judged for the championship against the superbly handsome and universally accomplished chestnut stallion Bourbon King, the champion saddle-horse of Kentucky. The prize went to Bourbon King, and I myself should have so voted; but surely no one would propose that such a type of beauty as Jack-pot should be allowed to disappear from the earth.

There is one point in which the thoroughbred is doubtless superior to the Kentucky saddle-horse. I mean the shoulder. The fault of the Kentucky saddle-horse often is that he is thick in the shoulder. The Kentucky horse would be about perfect if one could give him the shoulder of the thoroughbred; yes, and if one could give him a little heavier bone. No doubt the Kentucky men would say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and since the Kentucky horse, as he now is, is about perfect in gaits, there is no occasion to change him. There is reason in this, and yet there are practical advantages in the thoroughbred shoulder. The rider grasps it with his knees more easily than a thicker shoulder. And for women who ride with a side-saddle a deep and slender shoulder and high withers are a necessity; they are needed to hold a side-saddle in place. If the horse is thick-shouldered, the groom must be continually getting off to tighten the girths, which thus have to be made so tight that the animal can scarcely breathe. And then, quite apart from its utility, there is no doubt of the beauty of the thoroughbred shoulder. It is beautiful whether you see it in Jack-pot or Miss Trix, or in some old screw of thoroughbred ancestry that pulls a grocer’s wagon. You will sometimes see about a stable a half-starved, uncared-for animal with a shoulder the memory of which will remain with you for years. That shoulder is entirely the property of the thoroughbred. You never see it except in a thoroughbred or a descendant of thoroughbreds. I do not know whence it comes. It does not appear to come from the Arab, from which are derived most of the characteristics of the thoroughbred. It can come only from the thoroughbred. For this reason I cannot agree with those critics who have opposed the recent action of the Kentucky saddle-horsemen in admitting to registration the product of Kentucky saddle-horses crossed with thoroughbreds. Of course it is to be hoped that breeders will choose those thoroughbreds that are without certain thoroughbred faults.

AWARDING THE BLUE RIBBON]

There is one purpose for which thoroughbreds are certainly necessary. Hunters must be of thoroughbred blood. There are horses not of thoroughbred blood that can be taught to jump, but a hunter must also be able to run. It is often said that hunting in this country is not serious, and that is probably true. Hunting over timber is too dangerous to be widely and generally practised. It is different from hunting over hedges, which can be broken through. A horse must clear a wood fence if he is to get over it safely. If he strikes the fence with his knees, he may turn a somersault and fall on his rider, and horses cannot be relied upon to clear fences. The most celebrated of English hunters, Assheton Smith, who had made a study of falling and had learned how to fall, had sixty falls the year he was eighty. (By the way, one wonders what kind of horses he rode; they could have done better for him than that in Virginia.) We may be sure he did not have those falls over timber.

But it is not certain that hunting has no considerable future in this country. Knowing what the spirit of sport has accomplished here within the memory of most of us, there is no saying what it may yet do. I have sometimes wondered why some such large preserves of land, stretches of forest and meadow as are taken by clubs for shooting and fishing, are not set apart for hunting, in which it would be possible to hunt the stag and the fox or even to revive sports more old fashioned.

I lately found a hunting-man in Virginia, a nice fellow and a gentleman, who has a whole valley to himself in which to pursue the fox. He has his own pack of hounds, and as his business is training hunters, he has always in his stable half a dozen animals he can use. To be sure he does not own the valley, a beautiful one; but he is quite as well off as though he did, for there are no wire fences, the timber fences are not too plentiful, and he tells me he can always start a fox. He hunts entirely alone, and does not mind the lack of company. He happens to be afflicted with an infirmity of speech, which makes the society of all but a few of his fellow-creatures irksome to him. This kind of sport was a new idea to me, who had always thought of hunting as done in company and with the accompaniment of red coats and blowing horns and the like. It struck me as a pretty idea, quite like Fitz-James’s pursuit of the stag in the first canto of “The Lady of the Lake.” This gentleman rides mostly thoroughbreds. He told me that he found it more and more necessary to ride thoroughbreds, or, at any rate, horses as clean bred as he could get them, for the reason that they are now breeding faster hounds than formerly. I wondered why they should breed faster dogs unless at the same time they bred faster foxes.

THE MASTER OF FOX HOUNDS, ORANGE COUNTY HUNT (NEW YORK), ON HIS THOROUGHBRED HUNTER, GREEK DOLLAR]

I may add that the evidence in favor of fox-hunting is pretty strong, to judge from the testimony of those who know most about it. A celebrated hunter has expressed the opinion that all the time that is not spent in hunting is wasted, and that is what men like Assheton Smith and Anstruther Thompson really thought and have thought for two hundred years. If that view is the correct one, the sport will probably continue to exist and grow in this country. In the end Americans are likely to have whatever is good.

With regard to the questions of type and taste, I may say here that a certain deference is due to the opinion which the world’s best horsemen have long entertained. We should not dismiss too lightly the views of such men as Admiral Rous, Assheton Smith, and Mackenzie Grieve. The last-named famous horseman, who lived in Paris and was a member of the well-known Jockey Club there, I once saw in his old age in Rotten Row. One afternoon in Hyde Park I noticed an acquaintance on foot in conversation over the railing with some one on a black horse. The horse, which had not a white hair, was a beautiful creature, of the kind not usual in Rotten Row, having the graceful curves of the _haute école_, preferred on the Continent, and attractive to the finer Latin perceptions rather than the straight lines of the half-bred English hack. The horse of the _haute école_ is very thoroughbred in type, however, as this animal was. But perfect as the horse was, I was even more interested in the man in the saddle. All he was doing was sitting on a horse that was standing still, but there was a singular grace in his manner of doing this. The pose and attitude were beautiful. An old dandy, much made up, and dyed to the eyebrows, there was in every detail of his dress, from his silk hat to his patent-leather boots, a correctness and thoroughness that argued great courage and spirit in a man of his age. The tight trousers of some dark color were worn over Wellington boots, which a good London tailor will tell you is the only way to have them set well. The frock-coat showed the slender waist essential to good looks in the saddle. I wondered if this waist might not be the result of pretty severe banting, being sure that the plucky old fellow would have preferred death to abating one jot his pretensions to the character of a perfect horseman. Greatly interested in this survivor of the dandies, it pleased me to think that he might in his youth have been the model from which Bulwer made his sketch of Pelham riding in the park in Paris. Some days later, happening to meet my acquaintance, I asked him who his friend was, and he told me that he was Mr. Mackenzie Grieve. Before forming a final opinion of the thoroughbred from the point of view of taste and beauty, I should like to consult the shade of Mackenzie Grieve. His opinions, whatever they were, he no doubt held strongly.

When we come to speak of horses partly thoroughbred (and that is of course the subject most interesting to breeders), I can say that I myself have known numbers of them that were neither flighty nor weedy nor wanting in physical stamina nor deficient in gaits or in looks. I may take occasion to mention one or two of these. There was a big roan mare, nearly thoroughbred, in my native county, which was sent to New York and was for some years ridden by an eminent lawyer. She was a most distinguished horse. No matter how many good horses this gentleman has ridden or may ride, he can never forget Betsey, nor be in danger of confusing her with any other horse. She was sixteen hands high, and in condition would weigh nearly twelve hundred pounds. She had been a favorite runner at county fairs and of course could gallop. She could walk like a storm, she had a single foot that was a lullaby, she had a perfectly square trot, she was excellent in harness, and she could be ridden or driven by anybody. A little plain in the quarters, she had as fine a neck, head, and shoulders as I ever saw. “She has a grand front on her,” said the owner’s young Irish coachman, who knew the type. I had at first some misgivings as to the appearance she would make by the side of New York prize-winners; but when I went to the Riding Club and she was brought out with the saddle on, her fine head carried high, her large, prominent eyes awake, with her deep shoulder and sweep of neck looking as though she had just descended from one of the classic engravings of the eighteenth century, I wondered that I should have had any doubts as to the appearance she would make when put in competition with the equine upstarts of the present day.

Another of our mountain horses, also nearly thoroughbred, went to the Riding Club. He was perhaps a little eccentric in temper, if one was rough with him, and I think once he did run up the steps into the Plaza Bank; but for gaits, sureness of foot, and physical endurance he was remarkable. All his gaits were perfection, and, as for strength, I can only say that I first rode him in 1890, then a full-grown horse, and I believe he is still living, a pretty good horse yet. His purchaser, a well-known New York specialist in nervous diseases, said to me, “I am nervous, and he’s neurotic,” but he admitted that his trot was, as he said, “the poetry of motion.” The animal came fairly by his eccentricities of temper and his tenacity of life and strength. His mother died not long ago at the age of twenty-five, and up to the day of her death she would run away if you struck her.

A MORNING CANTER IN CENTRAL PARK]

It should not be forgotten that, whatever faults modern thoroughbreds may have, there is a lot of good old-fashioned thoroughbred blood behind such horses as I have mentioned--such blood as that of Diomed, the winner of the first English Derby in 1780. Diomed, one of many good horses imported here from England, was the ancestor of perhaps three fourths of the horses now running in this country. Mr. Moses Green, of Warrenton, Virginia, a man widely learned in pedigrees, whose grandfather imported Diomed, writes me, “I have often heard my grandfather say that he did not consider a race-horse one that could not run four miles in good company in fast time and repeat.” One little story of Mr. Green’s I may mention in passing. He once told me that he had passed a considerable part of his childhood on the back of Diomed, and the story is in a sense true, notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Green, although by no means a young man, was of course born long after the death of Diomed. It was the custom to spread the skin of an animal under a mattress to keep the mattress from sinking in between the cords of the bedstead, and the skin of Diomed served this purpose on the bed on which Mr. Green slept when a child.

AT A COUNTRY HORSE SHOW]

The objection urged by thoroughbred men against American saddle-horses is that they are of harness rather than saddle type. The objection most commonly made to trotting-horses in general is, however, from the breeder’s point of view. It is claimed that they do not breed true. Of course, trotters can scarcely be said to be a family as thoroughbreds and hackneys are. A thoroughbred[2] must be the progeny of animals themselves thoroughbred. Trotters may become “standard” by performance. Any animal that has trotted a mile in 2:30 at some recognized fair is entitled to registration as standard. The offspring of parents that are themselves standard by performance and not by birth are entitled to registration as standard by birth. There are thus many standard animals whose pedigree cannot be traced. Nevertheless, although we may not know the pedigree of an animal that is standard by performance, we know that he must be trotting bred, since no horse can trot a mile in 2:30 that is not trotting bred. It must be admitted, however, that trotters cannot be bred with the certainty with which you can breed thoroughbreds and hackneys.

Thoroughbreds and hackneys, being, as families, older than trotters, hold their qualities more intensely and are more capable of reproducing them. In the matter of speed, however, you cannot breed a Derby winner any more certainly than you can breed a two-minute trotter. But the trotter’s inability to reproduce himself with certainty is not altogether without its advantages. One would be sorry to lose the variety in types thrown off by the trotter, which is a result of this inability. There is no family which produces animals that have such various uses as trotters, and in which a single animal will be found to have so many good qualities. He will be a good saddle- and a good harness-horse, and he will combine spirit with the best manners and the kindest disposition. For instance, that wonderful animal sought for with such avidity by ladies, a combination of opposite, if not irreconcilable, qualities, “a bed by night, a chest of drawers by day,” if he exists anywhere, can surely be found only among trotters. In horses for use in harness one will get in the same animal, besides speed, action nearly as good as that of the best hackneys, with a vigor and endurance greater than theirs, and a head and neck that for quality and fineness one will rarely see in hackneys, and will not often find surpassed among thoroughbreds. We in this country are so used to that head and neck that the English, who send us their best hackneys, are careful not to send us animals that are deficient in quality. Two years ago I saw at Bath, which has the best show in the west of England, a pair of hackneys that won there and had been winning all over England, very fine movers, but with plain heads and necks. They would have been sent to this country had it not been for their want of quality. Furthermore, a trotter will have, with the quality of a thoroughbred, a sense and kindness, to find which among thoroughbreds you must pick and choose.

A famous saddle-horse and winner of many blue ribbons. Owned and
ridden by Mrs. W. A. McGibbon.
]

A fine type of heavy-weight Virginia trotting bred hunter and jumper.
Owned by Mr. Paul D. Cravath.
]

One of the most famous registered saddle horses in the world. He was
sold for $7500, the record price for a Kentucky saddler. Owned by
Mrs. Richard Tasker Lowndes.
]

A critic who objected to the trotter on account of his inability to breed true has lately proposed to get a coach-horse from the Kentucky saddle-horse, a suggestion which, if somewhat novel, seems to me a good one. I fancy that this writer must have had in mind the pair of Forest Denmarks I saw at the Lexington Fair three years ago. These horses were by Forest Denmark, a registered Kentucky saddle-horse. One of them, Tattersall, was not only a saddle-horse, but had been the champion gaited saddle-horse of Kentucky. They were undoubtedly the best pair in the State. They were afterward bought by an ardent adherent of Christian Science from Texas for presentation to Mrs. Eddy, and were sent to her. Mrs. Eddy, after trying them and finding them not entirely amenable to influence, requested her Texan admirer to take them back, which he did. I know the Forest Denmarks well. They are largely trotting bred. One of them, the champion heavy-weight saddle-horse in a recent New York Horse Show, the Cardinal, was originally a harness-horse. The official spelling of the name of these horses, by the way, is probably incorrect. The founder of this branch of the Denmarks was a horse called Ned Forrest and must have been named after Edwin Forrest, the actor.