MAURICE AND THE BAY MARE
The true horseman, born to it and bound to it by an inbred love of theanimal, admires a spirited horse. Old Maurice, the groom, in the daysbefore he had to turn to the less-glorious branch of the game, hadexperienced his share of thrills with lively thoroughbreds.
Maurice the groom sidled up to me, indecision in the flicker of hisbright brown eyes—indecision, which held him, with one hand raised tothe level of my shoulder affectionately, as though he wished toemphasize the appeal so evident in his attitude. A quaint smile touchedthe corner of his mouth and vanished. A stranger might have thoughtMaurice timorous—Maurice, who had in his day ridden many a steeplechasein Ireland.
“Why do you take the mare out?” he said and glanced about to make surethat the other grooms could not hear him. “Why not have one of the boysgive her a half hour in the ring, first? She has stood up three days,sir. I’m begging your pardon for mentioning it, but we’ve both beenhurted by horses before, sir, and, you know, it ain’t like when we wereyounger. Why do you take the risk?”
There was a fine deference in his manner and more—a solicitude thatrather astonished me.
“Then the mare is in your string?” I asked.
“They fetched her up from the lower stable three days ago,” he replied.
I had forgotten that Maurice did not know the mare well. She had butrecently arrived from Tennessee, and even more recently she had beentransferred to his stable.
“I wouldn’t take the risk, sir,” he reiterated in a whisper.
I was about to say, “Oh, yes, you would!” but I could hardly resort tosuch a cheap acknowledgment of his kindness. To have overcome his usualdiffidence and made any suggestion at all, had cost him an effort,evident in the heightened color of his clean-shaven, pink cheeks. Heglanced toward the grooms. A quick light shone in his brown eyes when heagain looked up at me.
“You’ll ride her, sir?”
This was not so much a question as a challenge. He had raised his voicea bit, evidently intending the other grooms should hear him. I thankedhim and told him to get the mare ready. I wondered if she had developedsome dangerous trick since he had been taking care of her. I was curiousand, I admit, a trifle nervous.
Instantly Maurice’s manner changed. He nodded, shuffled to the stall,and led the mare out. Deftly he snapped the pillar reins in the halterring. With brush and cloth he went over her from muzzle to hoofaccompanying each stroke with a sibilant breath. The mare was spotlessand sleek, yet Maurice’s old-country pride would not allow him to turn ahorse out that did not shine like burnished copper. Even in thesemidarkness of the runway, her coat glowed and shimmered like sunlighton water. When it came to “doing” horses, Maurice had no favorites. Hewas as impartial as a machine.
I could hear him talking to the mare.
“There, now! Be quiet, ye huzzy! ’Tis old Maurice that’s taking up yourfoot and not some murdering horseshoer, me lady! Be a good girl, now!’Tis not I that would hurt you!”
Schooled to the pillar reins, yet resenting them, the mare stamped withhaughty impatience.
Bridled and saddled, she was led out, her fine, glossy coat changinghue, as she moved, her head high, her ears sharply to the front. In herfull eye glowed the courage