A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car | Page 5

not say that I shared her mood. I
sympathized in her every step. I entered into all her royal humors. I
patted her neck and spoke loving and cheerful words to her. I called her
my beauty, my pride, my pet. And did she not understand me? Every
word! Else why that listening ear turned back to catch my softest
whisper; why the responsive quiver through the frame, and the low,
happy neigh? 'Well,' I exclaimed, as I leaped from her back at the close
of the review--alas! that words spoken in lightest mood should portend
so much!--'well, Gulnare, if you should die, your life has had its
triumph. The nation itself, through its admiring capital, has paid tribute
to your beauty, and death can never rob you of your fame. And I patted
her moist neck and foam-flecked shoulders, while the grooms were

busy with head and loins.
"That night our brigade made its bivouac just over Long Bridge, almost
on the identical spot where four years before I had camped my
company of three months' volunteers. With what experiences of march
and battle were those four years filled! For three of these years Gulnare
had been my constant companion. With me she had shared my tent, and
not rarely my rations, for in appetite she was truly human, and my
steward always counted her as one of our 'mess.' Twice had she been
wounded--once at Fredericksburg, through the thigh; and once at Cold
Harbor, where a piece of shell tore away a part of her scalp. So
completely did it stun her, that for some months I thought her dead, but
to my great joy she shortly recovered her senses. I had the wound
carefully dressed by our brigade surgeon, from whose care she came in
a month with the edges of the wound so nicely united that the eye could
with difficulty detect the scar. This night, as usual, she lay at my side,
her head almost touching mine. Never before, unless when on a raid
and in face of the enemy, had I seen her so uneasy. Her movements
during the night compelled wakefulness on my part. The sky was
cloudless, and in the dim light I lay and watched her. Now she would
stretch herself at full length, and rub her head on the ground. Then she
would start up, and, sitting on her haunches, like a dog, lift one foreleg
and paw her neck and ears. Anon she would rise to her feet and shake
herself, walk off a few rods, return and lie down again by my side. I did
not know what to make of it, unless the excitement of the day had been
too much for her sensitive nerves. I spoke to her kindly and petted her.
In response she would rub her nose against me, and lick my hand with
her tongue--a peculiar habit of hers--like a dog. As I was passing my
hand over her head, I discovered that it was hot, and the thought of the
old wound flashed into my mind, with a momentary fear that something
might be wrong about her brain, but after thinking it over I dismissed it
as incredible. Still I was alarmed. I knew that something was amiss,
and I rejoiced at the thought that I should soon be at home where she
could have quiet, and, if need be, the best of nursing. At length the
morning dawned, and the mare and I took our last meal together on
Southern soil--the last we ever took together.

"The brigade was formed in line for the last time, and as I rode down
the front to review the boys she moved with all her old battle grace and
power. Only now and then, by a shake of the head, was I reminded of
her actions during the night. I said a few words of farewell to the men
whom I had led so often to battle, with whom I had shared perils not a
few, and by whom, as I had reason to think, I was loved, and then gave,
with a voice slightly unsteady, the last order they would ever receive
from me: 'Brigade, Attention, Ready to break ranks, Break Ranks.'The
order was obeyed. But ere they scattered, moved by a common impulse,
they gave first three cheers for me, and then, with the same heartiness
and even more power, three cheers for Gulnare. And she, standing there,
looking with her bright, cheerful countenance full at the men, pawing
with her forefeet, alternately, the ground, seemed to understand the
compliment; for no sooner had the cheering died away than she arched
her neck to its proudest curve, lifted her thin, delicate head into the air,
and gave a short, joyful neigh.
"My arrangements for