University of Virginia Library

MR. WILLIAM'S TALE.

THE GREAT HORSE.

The hidden sun throughout a stormy day
Had roll'd unseen around its high-bow'd way,
And rain was wildly dashing, in the squall,
Against the dripping moss of tree and wall;
While gurgling brooks rolled foaming down their beds,
And winds were hissing through the timber's heads,
And waters, in a sea-wide sheet, o'erflow'd,
With sluggish eddies, stream-side mead and road,
Where Linda, riding home at eventide,
Was sitting by her stripling driver's side,
Behind her steed now loth to draw his load
By Whitburn-bridges o'er the flooded road.
And as she saw, with mind-bewild'ring dread,
The flood roll foaming through the willow's head,
And, sorely fearful that she might not win
Her home before the darksome night set in,
Was almost in the mighty stream that flow'd
With hollow eddies o'er her homeward road;
She heard a heavy horse that slowly beat
The shaking road behind, with coming feet;
And found, with leaping heart, 'twas one bestrode
By Erwin Akley riding home her road.
That horses lofty back was broad, and round,
And trusty as a grass-turv'd earthen mound;
His sleekly-flowing mane hung loosely down
Beside his lofty neck, unclipp'd and brown;
And, high above his loudly-snorting nose,
And lengthy face, his wide-tub'd ears arose;
And down his trusty legs were hung loose roofs
Of white-hair'd fetlocks o'er his heavy hoofs,
That left, in deeply-sinking turf, their flat
Round tracks, as hollow as the cheese-maid's vat.
Stay, cried young Erwin to the stripling, stay.
You know you cannot ford the stream to-day.
At least your mare shall never go this road
To-night with all that now makes up her load.
For I am on the only horse, I fear,
That I could trust to keep his footing here;
And so, Miss Linda, I beseech you, take
A seat upon his back, for others' sake.
Then, after much ado, she took her place
Behind young Erwin, with a blushing face,
While from her trim-set waist, outspreading wide,
Her skirt hung loosely o'er the horses side.
And now his legs, in water to their knees,
Withstand the deep'ning flood like rooted trees;
And now the whirling waves, with foamy crest,
Roll slowly-gurgling round his mighty breast;
And, now with lighter splashes, nearly through
The stream, he beats it with his glitt'ring shoe:
But ere he shook his streaming fetlocks dry
Poor Linda heard, dismay'd, a muffled cry;
And saw the stripling clinging to the trunk
Of some small willow, while his horse had sunk
In wheeling vortices that overflow'd
The sluggish wheels, and plung'd to find the road.
Then snatching off a new-bought rope that hung
Around his horses neck, young Erwin flung
Its quiv'ring noose, uptrailing from the strand
Its waving length, to that poor stripling's hand,
And sav'd him; but his horse was driven dead
On Whitburn meadow near the willow-bed.
So Mr. Farmund, thinking still to make
His child another's bride for money's sake,
Was thankful for her life, but griev'd to find
It owed twice over to a friendless hind.
“'Tis odd” quoth he, “why thus your life is thrown
On this young Akley's hands, and his alone;
For if you only go abroad to cast
Yourself upon him, I must keep you fast
Within the house—or else I sorely fear
That I shall find his kindnesses too dear.”
So down her burning cheeks young Linda shed
Salt tears, with swelling heart, and downcast head;
And shortly afterwards, as I have heard,
She found her father making good his word.
I do not know it for a truth, but true
Or false, the tale may not be new to you.