H 



orses. 



73 



encumbered with tins and pans for rude cookery, and bun- 

 dles of hay, and coarse coverings for the bitter bivouac. 

 Here and there a wearied brute was led slowly by a merciful 

 master ; a few were still suffering from wounds, all were 

 meagre and overworked, not one had been groomed for 

 weeks. Yet here, I said, as the weary troops passed by, 

 and others like them loomed in gray masses as they ap- 

 proached through the falling snow, — here, and not on the 

 brilliant parade-ground, now in this busy harvest-time of 

 death, not then in the lightness of their leisure, are the bat- 

 tle-steeds most subHme ! All the fopperies of soldiering 

 had been rubbed away by the rough hand of implacable 

 Necessity, but instead of them what a moving pathos ! 

 what grandeur of patient endurance ! Grotesque they all 

 were certainly, but it was a grotesqueness of that highest 

 kind which is infinitely and irresistibly affecting. The 

 women laughed at those sorry brutes, those meagre Rosi- 

 nantes, and at the wonderful odd figures that sat upon 

 them, like Quixotes in quilts, riding on the wildest of ex- 

 peditions to meet starvation under the dark Jura pine- 

 trees, — but whilst the women laughed the tears ran down 

 their cheeks. . . . 



The conspicuous merit of the horse, which has given 

 him the dearly-paid honour of sharing in our wars, is his 

 capacity for being disciplined, — and a very great capacity 

 it is, a very noble gift indeed ; nobler than much clever- 

 ness. Several animals are cleverer than the horse in the 

 way of intelligence ; not one is so amenable to discipline. 

 He is not observant, except of places ; not nearly so obser- 

 vant as half-a-dozen other animals we know. His eye never 

 fixes itself long in a penetrating gaze, Hke the mild, wistful 



Rosinante, Don Quixote's horse, " so lean, lank, meagre, drooping, sharp- 

 backed, and raw-boned as to excite much curiosity and mirth." 



