Here on the upland she pulled
herself together, and reaching out into a gallant stride, started on
the long descent towards Troy at a pace that sent the night air
whizzing by Gunner Sobey's ears. Past Carneggan she thundered, past
Tredudwell; and thence, swinging off into the road for the Little
Ferry, still down hill by Lanteglos Vicarage, by Ring of Bells, to
the ford of Watergate in the valley bottom, where now a bridge
stands; but in those days the foot-passengers crossed by a plank and
a hand-rail. Splashing through the ford and choosing unguided the
road which bore away to the right from the silent smithy, and steeply
uphill to Whiddycross Common, she took it gamely though with fast
failing breath. She had been foaled in Troy parish, and marvellously
she was proving, after thirty years (her age was no less), the mettle
of her ancient pasture. While he owned her, Gunner Sobey--who in
extra-military hours traded as a carrier and haulier between Troy and
the market-towns to the westward--had worked her late and fed her
lean; but the most of us behold our receding youth through a mist of
romance, and it may be that old worn-out Pleasant conceived herself
to be cantering back to fields where the grass grew perennially sweet
and old age was unknown. At any rate, she earned her place this
night among the great steeds of romance--Xanthus, Bucephalus,
Harpagus, Black Auster, Sleipnir and Ilderim, Bayardo and
Brigliadoro, the Cid's Babieca, Dick Turpin's Black Bess; not to
mention the two chargers, Copenhagen and Marengo, whom Waterloo was
yet to make famous.
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