- end_line
- 1423
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.918Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1354
- text
- his stable slaves, if grand old Pierre found one horse unblanketed, or
one weed among the hay that filled their rack. Not that he ever had
Cranz, Kit, Douw, or any of them flogged--a thing unknown in that
patriarchal time and country--but he would refuse to say his wonted
pleasant word to them; and that was very bitter to them, for Cranz, Kit,
Douw, and all of them, loved grand old Pierre, as his shepherds loved
old Abraham.
What decorous, lordly, gray-haired steed is this? What old Chaldean
rides abroad?--'Tis grand old Pierre; who, every morning before he eats,
goes out promenading with his saddle-beast; nor mounts him, without
first asking leave. But time glides on, and grand old Pierre grows old:
his life's glorious grape now swells with fatness; he has not the
conscience to saddle his majestic beast with such a mighty load of
manliness. Besides, the noble beast himself is growing old, and has a
touching look of meditativeness in his large, attentive eyes. Leg of
man, swears grand old Pierre, shall never more bestride my steed; no
more shall harness touch him! Then every spring he sowed a field with
clover for his steed; and at mid-summer sorted all his meadow grasses,
for the choicest hay to winter him; and had his destined grain thrashed
out with a flail, whose handle had once borne a flag in a brisk battle,
into which this same old steed had pranced with grand old Pierre; one
waving mane, one waving sword!
Now needs must grand old Pierre take a morning drive; he rides no more
with the old gray steed. He has a phaeton built, fit for a vast General,
in whose sash three common men might hide. Doubled, trebled are the
huge S shaped leather springs; the wheels seem stolen from some mill;
the canopied seat is like a testered bed. From beneath the old archway,
not one horse, but two, every morning now draw forth old Pierre, as the
Chinese draw their fat god Josh, once every year from out his fane.
But time glides on, and a morning comes, when the phaeton emerges not;
but all the yards and courts are full; helmets line the ways;
sword-points strike the stone steps of the porch; muskets ring upon the
stairs; and mournful martial melodies are heard in all the halls. Grand
old Pierre is dead; and like a hero of old battles, he dies on the eve
of another war; ere wheeling to fire on the foe, his platoons fire over
their old commander's grave; in A. D. 1812, died grand old Pierre. The
drum that beat in brass his funeral march, was a British kettle-drum,
that had once helped beat the vain-glorious march, for the thirty
thousand predestined prisoners, led into sure captivity by that bragging
boy, Burgoyne.
Next day the old gray steed turned from his grain; turned round, and
vainly whinnied in his stall. By gracious Moyar's hand, he refuses to be
patted now; plain as horse can speak, the old gray steed says--"I smell
not the wonted hand; where is grand old Pierre? Grain me not, and groom
me not;--Where is grand old Pierre?"
He sleeps not far from his master now; beneath the field he cropt, he
has softly lain him down; and long ere this, grand old Pierre and steed
have passed through that grass to glory.
But his phaeton--like his plumed hearse, outlives the noble load it
bore. And the dark bay steeds that drew grand old Pierre alive, and by
his testament drew him dead, and followed the lordly lead of the led
gray horse; those dark bay steeds are still extant; not in themselves or
in their issue; but in the two descendants of stallions of their own
breed. For on the lands of Saddle Meadows, man and horse are both
hereditary; and this bright morning Pierre Glendinning, grandson of
grand old Pierre, now drives forth with Lucy Tartan, seated where his
own ancestor had sat, and reining steeds, whose
great-great-great-grandfathers grand old Pierre had reined before.
How proud felt Pierre: In fancy's eye, he saw the horse-ghosts a-tandem
in the van; "These are but wheelers"--cried young Pierre--"the leaders
are the generations."
- title
- Chunk 2