ch
was the marvellous equine wisdom he displayed that at the finish of his
third hunt in Lemon County, he was rechristened Solomon by his new
owner--soon shortened to Sol for tighter fit among sulphurous hunt
expletives. At that night's dinner Sol and his deeds were the chief
topic of conversation and also its principal toast. And why not, when
no hunting stable in the world holds a horse in all respects his equal?
Why not toast a horse now twenty-six years old who has missed no run of
the Lemon County hounds for the last eight years, never for a single
hunting-day off his feed or legs? Why not toast a horse that takes
ordinary timber in his stride and eats up the stiffest stone walls for
eight full hunting seasons without a single fall? Why not toast a
horse with the prescience and generalship of a Napoleon, a horse who
drives straight at all obstacles in a fair field, but who never
imperils his rider's head beneath over-hanging boughs; who foresees and
evades the "blind ditches" and other perils lurking behind hedges and
walls and who lands as steady and safe on ice as he takes off out of
muck? Why not toast this venerable but still indomitable King of
Hunters?

The next morning it was my privilege to meet him. In midwinter, he of
course was not in condition. Descriptions of his weird physique, and
jests over his grotesquely large and ill-shaped head, made by half a
dozen voluble huntsmen over post-prandial bottles, I thought had
prepared me against surprise. Certainly they had described such a
horse as I had never seen.

But having come to the door of his box, I was astounded to see
slouching lazily in a corner with eyes closed, the nigh hip dropped
low, a horse that at first glance appeared to be Don Quixote's
Rosinante reincarnate, a gigantic "crow-bait" with a head as long and
coarse as an eighteen-hand mule's, an under lip pendulous as a camel's
dropping ears nearly long enough to brush flies off his nostrils, with
such an ingrowing concavity of under jaw and convexity of face as would
have enabled his head to supply the third of a nine-foot circle, a face
curved as a scimitar and nearly as sharp. Both in shape and dimensions
it was the grossest possible caricature of a Roman-nosed equine head
the maddest fancy could conceive.

Slapped lightly on the quarter, Sol was instantly transformed.

Eyes out of which shone wisdom preternatural in a horse, opened and
looked down upon us with the calm question