The two brothers immediately followed the boy, carrying with them a rope and a halter, as they guessed that _soft Simon_ would not have either. They found him wringing his hands beside the tan-pit, in which his horse lay smothering. A little ragged boy was tugging at the horse’s head, with a short bit of hay-rope. “Oh, murder! murder! What _will_ I do for a halter? Sure the horse will be lost, for want of a halter; and where in the wide world _will_ I look for one?” cried Simon, without stirring one inch from the spot. “Oh, the blessing of Heaven be with you, lads,” continued he, turning at the sight of the Grays; “you’ve brought us a halter. But see! it’s just over with the poor beast. All the world put together will not get him alive out of that. I must put up with the loss, and be content. He cost me fifteen good guineas, and he could leap better than any horse in the county. Oh, what a pity on him! what a pity! But, take it easy; that’s all we have for it! _Poor cratur! Poor cratur!_” Without listening to Simon’s lamentations, the active lads, by the help of Simon and the two boys, pulled the horse out of the pit. The poor animal was nearly exhausted by struggling: but, after some time, he stretched himself, and, by degrees, recovered sufficiently to stand. One of his legs, however, was so much hurt that he could scarcely walk; and Simon said he would surely go lame for life. “Who now would ever have thought of his straying into such an ugly place of all others?” continued he. “I know, for my share, the spot is so overgrown with grass and rubbish, of one kind or other, and it’s so long since any of the tanning business was going on here, in my uncle O’Haggarty’s time, that I quite forgot there were such things as tan-pits, or any manner of pits, in my possession; and I wish these had been far enough off before my own little famous Sir Hyacinth O’Brien had strayed into them, laming himself for life, like a blockhead. For the case was this: I came home late last night, not as sober as a judge, and, finding no one up but the girl, I gave her the horse to put into the stable, and she forgot the door after her, which wants a lock; and there being but a scanty feed of oats, owing to the boy’s negligence, and no halter to secure the beast, my poor Sir Hyacinth strayed out here, as ill luck would have it, into the tan-pit. Bad luck to my uncle O’Haggarty, that had the tan-yard here at all! He might have lived as became him, without dirtying his hands with the tanning of dirty hides.” “I was just going,” said John Gray, “to comfort you, Simon, for the laming of your horse, by observing that, if you had your tan-yard in order again, you could soon make up the price of another horse.”