One of the greatest things about this wonderful bond is that it reaches
all classes of riders and horses. Every good rider and every good horse
may rely upon it, no matter which of the many roads through life they
may travel together: all may trustingly rely upon it till one or both
shall have breasted "Sleep's dreamy hill." The horse of the fox-hunter,
of the race-rider, of the mounted soldier--every one of these noble
beasts has the fullest understanding of his rider's calling, and gives
it his completest sympathy with the greatest assistance in his power.
Who that has known the horse at his best can have failed to observe and
recognize and be moved by this fact? We have all seen that the hunter
hardly needs the touch of his rider's knee to be off like the wind and
to go without urging from whip or spur on to the end of the chase; never
flagging, no matter how long or hard it may be; never flinching at the
deepest ditch nor fouling at the highest fence; straining every sinew to
the last, for his rider's defeat is his own failure, his rider's success
his own victory. And we have all seen the gallant response of the
race-horse to every movement of his rider's body--a loyal gallantry that
ennobles even the merely mercenary; and the sight of these two--now
one--flying toward the goal, always makes the heart beat faster and grow
warm with its brave showing of this magical bond. And above all, we have
seen the trooper's horse, which comes closer to him than the comrade
fighting by his side; for it is to his horse more than to his sword that
the soldier must owe any glory that he may hope to win; and when
strength and courage can no longer serve, it is his horse that often
gives his own body to shield his rider from death.
And if all this be true, as all horsemen know it to be--even when the
bond is strained by cruelty and tainted by gain and stained by
blood--how much closer and stronger must have been the tie between this
priest of the wilderness and his friend. Toby's loyalty was never tried
like the hunter's by seeing some dumb brother tortured and slain--and
that the hunter feels the test keenly, no one can doubt after seeing the
horror in his eloquent eyes. Toby never had to suffer from a broken
heart because of a lost race, or because he shared the disgrace of his
rider's dishonesty, and many noble beasts have seemed to suffer
something strangely like this. Toby never had to lend his strength to
the taking of human life, like the trooper's horse; and the soldier's
horse does not need the power of speech to tell that he suffers almost
as much in the spirit as in the flesh from the horrors of the
battle-field. Toby and his friend worked together solely for peace,
kindness, and mercy, for the relief of suffering, and the saving of
bodies and souls; all and always, solely for the good of the world, of
their fellow-creatures, and the glory of God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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