Dance of the Years (7 page)

“Where?” he demanded anxiously.

“There,” said Larch, his eyes fixed on the opening under the loft. “Now!”

James looked, and had one of the great experiences of his life. He saw no ordinary sight; it is not easy to explain this, because all that actually came through the archway was a sunburned, red-haired man, hanging on to the mouth of an excitable red horse, in an attempt to check its reckless clattering down the slippery incline.

James saw animal strength in its most idealized and uplifted form. The lovely lines of bones and sinew of both man and horse rose up in a flurry of sparks, and seemed all cased in red gold, like fire blazing. It was a picture of pride and blood and natural pageantry. James was transported. In one moment he felt filled, satisfied, slaked. Immediately afterwards he was alarmed. Something alive appeared to have been born in him. Something expected to come out. He struggled for expression, and then as the realization that he had none, had no way of releasing the idea, which by passing through him could emerge a new, created thing, he began to cry.

Old Larch's grip tightened. He was a little rheumy himself, and Jason, who caught sight of the two of them, began to laugh in a high pitched, spiteful fashion. The spell was broken, but the ache remained in James. It was an ache of which he never did get quite rid in all the rest of his life, and from time to time during the years it was added to by other experiences.

The little gift of expression which Galantry had given him was more than outweighed by the dumbness which was Shulie's legacy, so he was never able to set free the pieces of created art which were conceived on those occasions. He never could tell anyone else in the world, ever, by any means at all, what exactly it was he had seen in the picture the archway framed. Yet they did not die in vain, for the blessed phoenix of desire rose out of them, and the desire to express was one of the things that James made in his life, and he passed it on, not only to his children, but to all sorts of other people whom he inspired.

At the moment, however, James was far too occupied with the next thing to worry about the mysteries and complications contained in the adventure of being alive. The red-haired man brought the horse dancing down the yard, and a small crowd of men and boys followed them admiringly.

“A rare 'un,” said Larch reverently. “Beautiful, ain't he?”

James did not know anything about the points of a horse, or even that an animal had any, but in the ten minutes which followed, he began to get a very vivid idea of what Larch and Jason meant by a “blood.”

The stallion's name was Mandrake, and in the background somewhere Mandrake had an ancestor called Poteightos. As far as James could gather, Poteightos was a heavenly steed, a sort of Jehovah horse, a Zeus. More than this, however, he in turn had had a sire whose name was so impressive that Larch could scarcely trust himself to mention it. “Eclipse.” James never heard the word afterwards without experiencing a faint, superstitious thrill.

James was not a fanciful little boy by nature, but he was not deeply
informed, and it did not seem to him unreasonable that horses should be a race co-equal with men, the bloods being as it were a divine, or at least angelic, strain among them. He felt he was fairly familiar with angels since Dorothy had assured him that there was always one in the wall just above the head of his bed. He had heard it scratching sometimes.

The whole thing was highly peculiar, of course, but seven years of life had convinced him that there was nothing to wonder at in that. Life was peculiar. The more you heard about it the more staggering it became. He saw clearly though, that Larch must be a sort of Dorothy of the horse world, and would know what he was talking about, so he listened with deep attention.

The hall-mark, the sign of Eclipse, Larch said, lowering his voice on the mighty name, was the dark spots on the chestnut rump of a horse. Always in the direct male line there were these dark spots in the fiery hide, just there, on the quarters.

James found the male line so mysterious that Larch had to explain it. “On the sire side,” he said, “come down through the father, see? Now the dam side, or as you might say, the mother's, that doesn't never carry it.”

“Mothers are not so good?” enquired James with interest, pouching another piece of information.

“Mothers are wonderful tricky,” affirmed Larch, with dark reminiscence. “Seems they can spoil a good 'un, but they can't never make one. A good dam will always throw to the sire, whatever he be, right or wrong, but a poor little old dam may do anything. She's a right dangerous thing. No mistake about it. Son may be all right, grandson likewise, and then trouble starts in a whole line on 'em.”

James was not much clearer after all this, but he did not forget the maxim. It remained in his memory for years, and he regarded it as gospel long after he had forgotten where he had learned it.

The notion of the Sign interested him immensely. He looked at the dark, irregular patches on the stallion's soft gold skin, which were like oil stains on satin, and a thrill ran through him; for glory of glories, had not he himself a great black mole on his own seat? At one time it had alarmed him slightly, but Dorothy had said it was quite common, and nothing to fidget about.

So hitherto he had accepted it without interest, but now he was indignant with her. Nothing to worry about indeed! That was just like Dorothy; always hiding important things in case they might make him conceited. He, James, had the Sign, too. True, he was not a horse, but might not this mark of superiority be universal? Belong to men as well as horses?

He was so delighted, so pleased, and so eager to see the admiration of the gathering transferred from the stallion to himself, that all other considerations went out of his head, and with a single-mindedness which was pure Shulie, he pulled open his breeches, scruffed up his shirt, and nudging Larch displayed his buttock proudly to him, pointing out the big mole which was nearly the size of a shilling, and black as a coal.

The shout of laughter went up all round in one great brutal roar, the clap of it burst over his head like a storm. Realization poured over him, chilling him, almost taking his breath away, and after its cold came the great heat of shame.

“Taking down your breeches before folk!” Had Dorothy appeared like an outraged goddess, he could not have heard and seen her more vividly.

Death, eternal nothingness, he thought, would have been merciful in that instant of exquisite chagrin. The old Will Galantry in him was appalled. His instincts rebelled with a horror out of all proportion to the enormity of the crime he had committed against his own dignity. All through his life he suffered from the same sort of experiences, and gradually came to recognize his tendency to do for innocent reasons naïve things which shocked his own instincts. Fortunately for him on this occasion the laughter started the stallion, who let fly with his heels and began to plunge like a lunatic, taking the amusement off the faces behind him. But even so Jason had to hold on to a door post to keep himself upright, while Larch had to sit down on a mounting block, he was so overcome. They were still sniggering and James was still burning when they paused outside a loose box halfway down the yard.

Jason was all for getting on and taking a look at “the mare” they kept talking about, but old Larch was quietly obstinate about the knee of a bay, which had suddenly cropped up in the conversation.

James trailed after them wretchedly, and when they opened the half-door and stood on the threshold, peering into the warm, dusky interior, he followed.

A coach horse leader, a very big Cleveland, was fidgeting in the straw, and Larch went forward discreetly to squat down in successive positions of vantage round it's puffy foreleg. He surveyed it from all angles, but he did not touch it, and presently he came back to Jason shaking his head. While they were talking, James went in unnoticed.

The salty warmth of the animal came up to meet him comfortingly. It smelt right and friendly to James, and as he bent over the enormous, iron-tipped leg, and prodded the short hairs over the joint, he felt a large muzzle blowing and lipping over his shoulder blades. He put up his hand to caress it, gratefully. Here, anyway, was one member
of the co-equal race who was prepared to acknowledge his superiority on sight.

The horse took his hand in its mouth, but deciding magnanimously not to bite it off at the wrist, thrust it out again with a powerful tongue. James went on prodding the knee. He was looking for the thorn he expected to find in the swelling, for when he had one himself, that was usually the cause. Finally he found it, and brought his other hand down to help squeeze it out. At the first pinch the brute snorted and reared away from him, a hoof passing within an inch of his eye. James was irritated. “Stop it,” he said angrily. “Stop it, I've just found it. Stand still, please!”

It is an odd thing that most domestic animals seem to catch the meaning of remarks if the speaker for some reason or other honestly expects them to, and on this occasion the Clevelend clearly caught the drift of James's statement, for he dropped his feet quietly and stood shivering. The small boy worked hard, but the pin-point of wood did not move. Presently he spoke over his shoulder to Larch.

“I can see it, but I can't get it out,” he said.

The old man did not reply immediately, and when he did his voice was far more soothing than usual. “That's a bush, is it?” he enquired. “I didn't think of that. He ain't been out to pick up anything.”

“It's a sliver,” said James after another inspection. “Very likely it's off the wall.”

He went round the box looking carefully at the tarred boards which lined it, and did not notice anything unusual in the lack of comment from the doorway. He had to move the bay's tail to get by at one point. It was lashing, and he protested bitterly to the animal as he brushed it out of his face. He never found the new, white scar on the tar, for as he passed the half-door, a steely hand came over it and drew him out into the sunlight. Jason set him on his feet, and James saw in amazement that he had become sallow, and his thin face looked discoloured and faded round the eyes. The epithets which burst from him were new to the child, but the insult in them was unmistakable. He was astounded and offended, and Larch intervened hastily.

“You don't want to go up to a beast you don't know till you know more,” he said mildly. “That's an ugly tempered little old brute. He uses his front feet like a man fighting. We'd look wonderfully funny if he'd killed of ye, shu'nt we?”

James glanced behind him, his nose on a level with the top of the half-door. The horse was watching him with an eye which was like a big, blue alley marble. There was no animosity there, rather a sort of silly, affable dependency. James could not raise any fear of him.

“Well, he's got a sliver in his knee,” he said, with dignity. “I'll
get it out if you're frightened.” He was quite conscious of his condescension, and aware, too, that he was asserting the authority which had been given him by his private understanding with the animal. He glanced from one to the other, and was comforted to see the impression he was making.

It was true that Larch refused his help, but he did so with sincere respect. He said he would poultice the sliver out later, and would tie up the joint in a cabbage leaf afterwards to cool it. But he made the explanation as if to a colleague. So when they went on towards the mare, James walked abreast of the others. It was only his extreme niceness which prevented him from walking in front of them. Things were going to be all right after all. His momentary lapse had been forgiven, if not perhaps so much by man, at least by fate. His new friend, the horse, had put them in their place for laughing.

Meanwhile, Larch and Jason were eyeing each other over his head. “That's a wonderful, strange thing, so it is,” remarked Jason. “Never seen 'em, never handled 'em, but come to it by Nature.”

“Come to it by Nature,” echoed Larch. “By the blood in his little old mother's body. Reckon I'll have to take you down to the forge, boy, and see if you can shoe.”

The thought appeared to tickle him, and he thumped James familiarly between the shoulder blades. “You got some strength there,” he added, with interest. “Extraordinary strength for a little old boy. Feel of him, master.” Jason felt James's back as if he had been a little animal.

“Eh,” he said approvingly, “wonderful strong. He's a Smith all right. We'll have to run and take the washing off the line when you come by, young 'un.”

This subtle joke bewildered James, but it delighted Larch, who wheezed nearly as much as he had done over the mole. James showed the whites of his eyes, as the crackle of laughter shuttled over his head. Dismay crept over him. Something had gone wrong. He had triumphed over the incident of the coach horse, but not in the right way. He had an uncomfortable impression that there was some fate which was being confirmed about him by whatever he did, and it was not altogether something to be proud of. Like most children he was very much aware of fate.

The mare they went to see was sulking in a shed leading off a barn yard which gave on to the green meadow James had seen through the archway. She was an ugly little thing, and was still smarting and ill-tempered from the hobble and its indignities. Jason said she was a cross-bred cart mare; part Suffolk, and part a Russian “pound-a-legger,” but her virtues were that she was sturdy and soundly healthy, with a lot of work in her.

The two men looked at her briefly, and shut the door again.

James listened to their short sentences, and by guessing during the blanks, came to understand that some sort of experiment was afoot. He made cautious enquiries, and was half flattered, and half affronted to find they were prepared to answer him freely, having assumed, no doubt, that since he had shown an affinity with the beasts he would automatically know a great deal about them, and the peculiar mechanism of reproduction generally. He never forgot how offended he was by this; he was not shocked in the ordinary sense, having had a fairly accurate notion of the principal facts for some time, but he was shaken to the roots of his pride by something strange in their manner. There was a sort of “he's funny, he doesn't matter” note in their talk, and he found it very hard to bear, especially as he felt that they might possibly be right.