Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/209

 With such a horse under you it seemed as if one could go on for ever. Mile after mile fled away, and still there was no abatement in the wonderful living mechanism of which the spring and elasticity seemed exhaustless. The sensation was so exquisite that you dreaded to terminate it. When at length you drew rein, it was, so to speak, with the tears in your eyes.

Then the safety of this miraculous performance. You were on a horse that never was known to shy or bolt, and that could not fall down. Nature had otherwise provided. With such a balance of forehand, he may have at rare intervals struck his hoof against root or stone, clod or other obstacle, but trip, blunder, fall—these were words and deeds wholly outside of his being. With legs of iron, and hoofs that matched them well, never once did I know Dermot to be lame during all the years of our acquaintance.

Fortunately for me, and for society generally, he was not quite fast enough for promotion to a racing stable. He was thus enabled to elude the turf dangers and so pass his life in a sphere where he was loved and respected as he deserved.

With regard to his stamina. I rode him a distance of seventy miles one day, being anxious to get home, during the last ten miles of which he waltzed along with precisely the same air and manner as in the morning—with thirteen stone up, too. In addition to other qualities, he was an uncommonly good feeder: would clear his rack conscientiously, and eat all the oats you would give him. I never knew him to be tired, or met any one that had heard of his being seen in that condition.

His graceful, high-bred air, his large, mild eye and intelligent expression, warranted one in crediting him with the perfect temper which indeed he possessed. So temperate was he, that the lady whose palfrey he habitually was (as such, beyond all earthly competition) was in the habit of sending him along occasionally at top speed in company, confident in her ability to stop him whenever she had the inclination.

He was utterly free from vice, either in the stable or out of it. But, if uniformly gentle, he was always gay and free—that most difficult combination to secure in a lady's horse. An angel enclosed in horse-hide, such was 'Dear Dermot.' The doctrine of alone can account for such a