He had pricked John’s pride, for the boy had an instinctive and uncontrollable fear of horses. He said nothing but his face flushed as he touched the glass to his lips and set it down again.
“Even Sally rides much better than you do,” Pierce went on. He was always stern to his sons and now he realized unwillingly, for he wanted to be a just man, that he was sterner toward John than any of them.
“Sally likes to ride and I don’t,” John murmured.
“A man ought to ride well whether he likes it or not,” Pierce retorted.
“Uncle Tom doesn’t,” John murmured again.
“I hope you do not intend to model yourself entirely on your Uncle Tom,” Pierce said. He was aware again of his injustice, for he recognized, that the boy hurt him by admiring his uncle too much.
“Drink your wine,” he said abruptly. John’s face hardened but he lifted the glass and drank the wine down like medicine and took up his goblet and gulped down water after it. Pierce flung out his hand and knocked the goblet aside and it fell to the floor in a silvery crash of broken crystal.
“Don’t let me see you do such a thing again!” he shouted. “When I say learn to drink wine I mean learn to like wine!”
“That I cannot do!” John cried at him.
Pierce glared at his son an instant and was suddenly pleased to see that the boy was glaring back at him. He burst into laughter. “Well, never mind,” he said amiably. “Just get out of my sight for a bit.”
“Yes, Papa.” John rose, pushed in his chair and went out of the room slowly, his narrow shoulders held very straight. Pierce watched him, his eyes twinkling under his heavy brows. He might have expected rebellion from the two elder lads, but it was the first he had ever had from John. His own blood told, after all. He felt better.
Then he remembered Tom’s mulatto boy he had seen this morning in Bettina’s yard and he sobered again and got up, sighing noisily, and threw his napkin on the floor. He stalked up to his room and put on his riding clothes and went out into the hot afternoon sun which he loved.
As always when he did not know how to solve a problem, he went to his stables. There at least life was simple and uncomplicated, for horses were better than people. One could control their propagation, at least, he thought, and grinned at himself. Inside the cool and aromatic stable the stalls were empty, except for the one where his mare had foaled a week before. She had her foal with her, and he could hear Jake mumbling over it.
“What have you got them inside for, a day like this?” he called sharply. He belonged to the school of horse breeders who believed in the open.
“She was layin’ down and I brung her in to see was she snake bit or somethin’,” Jake replied. Snakes had become Jake’s obsession, ever since the young mare’s mother, Beauty, had died from the bite of a copperhead by the river where she had gone to drink.
Pierce himself was more nervous than he let himself acknowledge and he hastened to the stall and looked at the mare. She was standing with her colt beside her, and Phelan, Jake’s son, was rubbing her down. “She looks all right,” Pierce said. “The mare turned her beautiful head and whinnied at him and he fished out a lump of sugar from his pocket and fed it to her. The colt came up and smelled his hand and licked the sweet tentatively with its pink tongue. Phelan sat back on his haunches, a thin wisp of a boy, so black that his big mouth was in startling contrast.
“This yere colt is awful smart, Mas’ Pierce,” he said. “He ain’t just anybody’s business — he’s somebody, yassuh.”
Pierce surveyed this first colt of his young mare. It was not large, but it controlled its long legs with unusual skill. The color was chestnut without a mark, and the eyes were large and intelligent.
“We’ll watch him,” Pierce said. “Maybe there is something in him. Get him out in the open and let him learn to take care of himself and get his hoofs tough. We’ll see how much nerve he has and whether he likes to race. That’s the first thing. He’s got to like it.”
He had won races with Beauty and he was always looking for the perfect race horse. Malvern had everything for producing it. The blue grass of this river valley was good for horses as well as for cattle. He had exhibited one of his bulls in the second fair the county had held and it had weighed nearly four thousand pounds and was the second largest bull in the world. He had just as good a one to show next year. This colt would not be old enough to race then, but by the year after—
He stooped and examined the small exquisite body and ran his hands over its firm haunches and straight legs. “Its body is good enough, I do believe,” he said in some excitement.
They looked at one another solemnly. Was this to be known in history as the first moment that a great horse was recognized?
“Watch him, you two,” Pierce ordered. “And saddle Rex for me.”
“Yassuh,” Jake said gravely.
Pierce rode away in a few minutes on the horse he had bought for Tom, who so seldom used it that he had forgotten it was not his own. He was still thinking of the colt. So much more than a fine body was needed to make the perfect race horse, he reminded himself. Even good blood was not enough. There was the imponderable, unknowable character of the creature that had to be discovered. He had bred colts as fine as this one who had nevertheless no greatness in them. Beauty had had greatness, but she had had an own sister, sired as she had been by the famous Whirling Dervish, the dam for both of them Mary Malabar, and Beauty was a great horse and Silver Girl, though more exquisite to look upon, had been only a placid mare. He had not named this colt and he would not do so until he could discover more of its nature. If it had the intelligence for training, if it had the pride to win, he would give it a good name and as he watched the colt he’d watch Phelan for its jockey. There would be, of course, the question of who should be the trainer. He frowned over this, and decided on Henry Shulter in Charlestown. He’d send the colt to him to be looked at as soon as it was weaned.
He was quite happy again and restored to his usual mood of hearty good humor. There was nothing like horses, he thought — nothing, indeed, like going around and seeing Malvern for himself. He lifted his head and saw on the hillside meadow his shorthorn cattle, bred from the early stock brought here by his father fifty years before. Now he shipped hundreds of head abroad. Englishmen across the ocean were at this moment doubtless eating beefsteaks and roasts from Malvern cattle. But he was proudest of all of his bulls. He was wont to bet that his bulls, bred even to the common cattle of the mountains, would produce within a few generations the finest herds in the country. He wanted to share his pride with someone and he turned and rode back to the stable doors and shouted into its depths.
“You Jake — get Lilly ready for Miss Sally! We’re going to ride around. Tell Phelan to take the horse and tell her I’ll meet her under the big oak.”
A quarter of an hour later he waited, his horse reined in sharply, under the big oak which his great-grandfather had brought as a sapling from Sussex and his eyes caught the first glimpse of his daughter, cantering over the grassy pathway from the house. She wore her sky-blue riding habit, and his heart beat when he saw her, graceful and erect upon the small bay horse. How lovely she was, how strong and proud! Where would he ever find a mate good enough for her? Somewhere, he supposed, a boy was growing up, God knew how or what! But if he were not good enough for Sally, he’d thrash him with his own hands and boot him out of the house.
She came up to him, her bright hair flying and her cheeks flushed. “Oh, Papa, you saved me!” she called. “Mama had just told me to take out my sewing.”