Buying a Horse | Page 5

he abandoned himself to
despair, and really gave up the hope of being able ever to buy a horse.
During this interval he removed from Charlesbridge to the country, and
found himself, to his self-scorn and self-pity, actually reduced to hiring
a livery horse by the day. But relief was at hand. The carpenter who
had remained to finish up the new house after my friend had gone into
it bethought himself of a firm in his place who brought on horses from
the West, and had the practice of selling a horse on trial, and constantly
replacing it with other horses till the purchaser was suited. This seemed
an ideal arrangement, and the carpenter said that he thought they had
the very horse my friend wanted.

The next day he drove him up, and upon the plan of successive
exchanges till the perfect horse was reached, my friend bought him for
one and a quarter, the figure which he had kept in mind from the first.
He bought a phaeton and harness from the same people, and when the
whole equipage stood at his door, he felt the long-delayed thrill of pride
and satisfaction. The horse was of the Morgan breed, a bright bay,
small and round and neat, with a little head tossed high, and a gentle
yet alert movement. He was in the prime of youth, of the age of which
every horse desires to be, and was just coming seven. My friend had
already taken him to a horse-doctor, who for one dollar had gone all
over him, and pronounced him sound as a fish, and complimented his
new owner upon his acquisition. It all seemed too good to be true. As
Billy turned his soft eye on the admiring family group, and suffered
one of the children to smooth his nose while another held a lump of
sugar to his dainty lips, his amiable behavior restored my friend to his
peace of mind and his long-lost faith in a world of reason.
The ridiculous planet, wavering bat-like through space, on which it had
been impossible for an innocent man to buy a suitable horse was a
dream of the past, and he had the solid, sensible old earth under his feet
once more. He mounted into the phaeton and drove off with his wife;
he returned and gave each of the children a drive in succession. He told
them that any of them could drive Billy as much as they liked, and he
quieted a clamor for exclusive ownership on the part of each by
declaring that Billy belonged to the whole family. To this day he
cannot look back to those moments without tenderness. If Billy had any
apparent fault, it was an amiable indolence. But this made him all the
safer for the children, and it did not really amount to laziness. While on
sale he had been driven in a provision cart, and had therefore the habit
of standing unhitched. One had merely to fling the reins into the bottom
of the phaeton and leave Billy to his own custody. His other habit of
drawing up at kitchen gates was not confirmed, and the fact that he
stumbled on his way to the doctor who pronounced him blameless was
reasonably attributed to a loose stone at the foot of the hill; the misstep
resulted in a barked shin, but a little wheel-grease, in a horse of Billy's
complexion, easily removed the evidence of this.

It was natural that after Billy was bought and paid for, several
extremely desirable horses should be offered to my friend by their
owners, who came in person, stripped of all the adventitious mystery of
agents and middle-men. They were gentlemen, and they spoke the
English habitual with persons not corrupted by horses. My friend saw
them come and go with grief; for he did not like to be shaken in his
belief that Billy was the only horse in the world for him, and he would
have liked to purchase their animals, if only to show his appreciation of
honor and frankness and sane language. Yet he was consoled by the
possession of Billy, whom he found increasingly excellent and
trustworthy. Any of the family drove him about; he stood unhitched; he
was not afraid of cars; he was as kind as a kitten; he had not, as the
neighboring coachman said, a voice, though he seemed a little loively
in coming out of the stable sometimes. He went well under the saddle;
he was a beauty, and if he had a voice, it was too great satisfaction in
his personal appearance.
One evening after tea, the young gentleman, who was about to drive
Billy out, stung by the reflection that he had not taken blackberries and
cream twice,