第32章

During the first day and the next, Donal did not even come in sight of any other of the family; but on the third day, after their short early school--for he seldom let Davie work till he was tired, and never after--going with him through the stable-yard, they came upon lord Forgue as he mounted his horse--a nervous, fiery, thin-skinned thoroughbred. The moment his master was on him, he began to back and rear. Forgue gave him a cut with his whip. He went wild, plunging and dancing and kicking. The young lord was a horseman in the sense of having a good seat; but he knew little about horses; they were to him creatures to be compelled, not friends with whom to hold sweet concert. He had not learned that to rule ill is worse than to obey ill. Kings may be worse than it is in the power of any subject to be. As he was raising his arm for a second useless, cruel, and dangerous blow, Donal darted to the horse's head.

"You mustn't do that, my lord!" he said. "You'll drive him mad."

But the worst part of Forgue's nature was uppermost, in his rage all the vices of his family rushed to the top. He looked down on Donal with a fury checked only by contempt.

"Keep off," he said, "or it will be the worse for you. What do you know about horses?"

"Enough to know that you are not fair to him. I will not let you strike the poor animal. Just look at this water-chain!"

"Hold your tongue, and stand away, or, by--"

"Ye winna fricht me, sir," said Donal, whose English would, for years, upon any excitement, turn cowardly and run away, leaving his mother-tongue to bear the brunt, "--I'm no timorsome."

Forgue brought down his whip with a great stinging blow upon Donal's shoulder and back. The fierce blood of the highland Celt rushed to his brain, and had not the man in him held by God and trampled on the devil, there might then have been miserable work. But though he clenched his teeth, he fettered his hands, and ruled his tongue, and the Master of men was master still.

"My lord," he said, after one instant's thunderous silence, "there's that i' me wad think as little o' throttlin' ye as ye du o' ill-usin' yer puir beast. But I'm no gaein' to drop his quarrel, an' tak up my ain: that wad be cooardly." Here he patted the creature's neck, and recovering his composure and his English, went on. "I tell you, my lord, the curb-chain is too tight! The animal is suffering as you can have no conception of, or you would pity him."

"Let him go," cried Forgue, "or I will make you."

He raised his whip again, the more enraged that the groom stood looking on with his mouth open.

"I tell your lordship," said Donal, "it is my turn to strike; and if you hit the animal again before that chain is slackened, I will pitch you out of the saddle."