Chapter 51

ADVENTURES--EQUINE AND BOVINE.

Ward Glazier moves to the Davis Place.--"Far in the lane a lonely house he found."--Who was Davis?--Description of the place.--A wild spot for a home.--Willard at work.--Adventure with an ox-team.--The road, the bridge and the stream.--"As an ox thirsteth for the water."--Dashed from a precipice!--Willard as a horse-tamer.--"Chestnut Bess," the blooded mare.--The start for home.--"Bess" on the rampage.--A lightning dash.--The stooping arch.--Bruised and unconscious.

It will be remembered that when Ward Glazier left the Homestead, he removed to a neighboring farm known as the Goodrich Place,--a fine, comfortable, well-stocked and well-tilled farm, presenting an appearance of prosperity to the eye of the observer and calculated to make the impression that its owner must be well-to-do in the world. As we have heretofore hinted, however, Ward Glazier failed to prosper there. Why this was the case it is hard to tell. A late writer has suggested that "not only the higher intellectual gifts but even the finer moral emotions are an incumbrance to the fortune-hunter." That "a gentle disposition and extreme frankness and generosity have been the ruin in a worldly sense of many a noble spirit;" and he adds that "there is a degree of cautiousness and distrust and a certain insensibility and sternness that seem essential to a man who has to bustle through the world and engineer his own affairs,"--and if he be right, the matter may be easily understood.

However that may be, he failed to prosper, and as business misfortunes began to fall thick and fast upon his head, he gave up the farm to his creditors, together with all his other effects, and took up his abode at the Davis Place.

Who the particular Davis was whose name clung to the place we have been unable to ascertain, but when Ward Glazier moved there, the house seemed fairly to scowl upon the passer-by--so utterly unprepossessing was its appearance. A rude, capacious wooden structure, it stood fronting the highway, and was a place where the beautiful had no existence. The very soil looked black and rough--the vegetation rugged. Every inclosure was of stone or knotted timber, and even a dove-cot which in its fresher days some hand had placed upon the lawn, was now roofless and shattered, and lay prone upon the ground, a shapeless mass of collapsed boards. The lawn--if such it could be named--resembled a bleak shore, blackened with stranded wrecks of ships whose passengers had long years before gone down at sea. The broken windows in the dormitories were festooned with cobwebs that had housed long lines of ancestral spiders, and where a pane or two of glass remained among the many empty frames, one fancied a gibbering spectre might look out from the gloomy depths behind.

The back-ground against which this bleak and sombre place was thrown was no less grim and stern. Huge rocks in tiers, like stone coffins, rose in fierce ranges one above another up and up--back and farther back until they reached a point from whence a miniature forest of dwarf beech and maple, that appeared to crown the topmost bastion of them all, nodded in the swaying wind like funeral plumes upon a Titan's hearse.

In fact, the only gleam of light upon the place--and it was a crazy, fitful gleam at that--came from a rushing stream that took its source high up among the hills. This brook first seen off to the extreme left of the house, came dashing down the rocks until it reached a level. Then, swinging round with sudden swirl it engirdled the place, and after many a curious twist and turn got straight again and went onward far off among the neighboring fields and lost itself at last in the Oswegatchie. The interior of the house was just as wild and dreary as the exterior. The rooms, for the most part, were too large for comfort. When one spoke, a dozen ghostly echoes answered, and at twilight the smaller children huddled around the kitchen fire and seldom went beyond that cheerful room until bed time. Often, in the dead of night, the creaking of timber and the voices of the wind startled the little ones from sleep, and a sense of something unreal and mysterious overshadowed their young minds.

It was, take it all in all, a grim, gaunt, strange place in which to fix a home. It was there, however, in the midst of such sterile surroundings, that the next five years of Willard's life were mainly passed. There were no external influences brought to bear upon this portion of his existence that were not harsh and wild and stern. His father, honest even to the verge of fanaticism, was letting his heart corrode to bitterness under the sense of hopeless indebtedness. The churlish fields attached to the place offered but a grudging reward for the hardest labor. There was no hope of his acquiring a profession or even an education beyond the scant opportunity of Allen Wight's school, unless he himself could earn the means to pay for it. Still he was neither discouraged nor without hope. Instead of sinking under this accumulation of difficulties, his moral fibre was rendered more robust, and with it his physical strength and usefulness developed daily.

Thus a year sped on, and at the end of that time his father, as one means of adding something to his scanty resources, obtained the job of hauling a quantity of iron ore from the ore beds near Little York to a forge and furnace at Fullerville. Willard with an ox-team and his uncle Henry with a span of fine horses, were employed for the most part to do the actual hauling.

By this time Willard was quite familiar with the management of horses, and he had also learned to drive oxen, so that at the age of thirteen he worked with his ox-team as regularly and almost as efficiently as any of his grown-up uncles or even his father. The management of an ox-team, by the way, is quite different from that of horses, and at times it becomes very troublesome business, requiring for its successful accomplishment the very nicest admixture of courage, coolness and discretion. Willard, however, with the self-reliance that always characterizes a boy of his age, never for a moment doubted that he was adequate to the task, and as he had been placed in charge of a very fine yoke of oxen, took much pride in driving them in the same manner as he would have driven a span of horses, seated on the top of his load upon the wagon instead of being on foot and close by their heads, as prudence would have taught an older driver to do. The truth is, that if there was any human being before whom the boy delighted to exhibit himself as doing a manly part in his little circle of existence, that being was Henry Glazier.

Consequently, when his uncle's team was on the road, Master Willard took a position upon his own load with as important an air as if he were on the box of a coach-and-four, and guided his cattle as if they were animals of the most docile disposition, to halt at his whisper or proceed at his word. As the principal part of the work was performed at midsummer under the rays of a scorching sun, the cattle were, of course, irritable and restive to a degree that in colder weather would have seemed inconsistent with the phlegmatic characteristics of their race.

The road from Little York to Fullerville is a winding, narrow road, somewhat hilly in places, and neither very smooth nor level at any point. Midway between the two villages a brawling stream crosses the road, and making a turn empties itself, at the distance of about thirty yards, into the waters of the Oswegatchie. This stream is spanned by a rustic bridge at a very considerable elevation above the water. The banks are high and abrupt, and, as the traveler approaches them, he cannot fail to be attracted by the silvery sparkle of the waters far below. The view from the bridge takes in the white farm-houses with their emerald setting of rich grain-fields and meadowlands, the distant forge with its belching smoke-stacks, the winding Oswegatchie, and the distant blue hills. If the month happens to be August, the traveler may hear the cheerful hum of busy industry, the swinging cradles of the harvesters or the steady roll of the reaper. Upon a day, late in this richest of summer months--August--in the year of our Lord 1854, Willard and his uncle Henry were slowly wending their way towards Fullerville--the former with his ox-team and the latter with a spanking span of horses. The beasts of burden by their drooping heads and slow pace evinced the fact that the loads of ore they were drawing were unusually heavy, and this, combined with the sultry atmosphere, was telling upon the strength of even such powerful beasts as they.

Willard, as usual, was seated upon the top of his load, and, as they neared the bridge, despite his familiarity with every detail of the scene, a sense of its exquisite beauty took possession of him, and, for a moment, he forgot that he was driving an ox-team. For a moment he was oblivious to the fact that it takes all a driver's care and skill to prevent mischief whenever a thirsty ox obtains a glimpse of water upon a summer's day. As they neared the bridge, the fevered eyes of the cattle caught sight of the limpid stream away down below, and, just as a cry of warning from his uncle recalled the boy to a sense of the deadly peril of his position, the cattle made an oblique plunge over the edge of the bank with two tons of iron-ore in lumps varying from five pounds to fifty, pouring a huge and deadly hail over their reckless heads. With rare presence of mind for a boy of his age, the instant he heard his uncle's warning cry, Willard realized the situation and jumped sideways from the wagon. As he did so, his hat fell off and rolled a short distance away. At the same moment a lump of ore, weighing not less than one-hundred pounds, fell upon it and crushed it so deeply into the ground that it was completely hidden from view. Many months afterwards, some boys digging for fish-bait found the hat buried there, and returned to the village with a tale of some possible and unknown murder, committed when or by whom no one could tell.

As for the boy himself, he escaped with only a scratch or two and a few bruises, but that he escaped with his life or with sound limbs was almost a miracle; and, as his big-hearted uncle picked him up, he hugged the lad as one snatched from the very jaws of death. Willard was somewhat awed by the narrowness of his escape, and it was observed that his face wore an expression a shade graver than was its wont for several days after the occurrence.

The lesson, however, made no lasting impression. Scarce a week had gone by ere his life was once more imperilled, and this time the danger resulted from his own reckless over-confidence in himself.

It is a singular fact in the boy's history that every danger to which at this period of his life he was exposed, seems to have been twin-brother to some other hazard equally great, and which tripped upon its very heels.

As already stated, Willard was a good horseman for a boy of his age. He possessed considerable nerve, and, having been brought up among horses, knew a good deal about their ways. But his real knowledge upon the subject was nothing to that which he thought he possessed; and, though a stout little fellow, of course he lacked the muscle of steel that is required to master an enraged horse. But he had never hesitated to ride any steed in all that neighborhood, with the single exception of one of a pair of extremely beautiful but vicious mares, which on account of her color was named "Chestnut Bess."

This horse was as wild and untamed as the famous steed of Mazeppa, and even Henry Glazier, master-horseman though he was, seldom attempted to use this one, except in harness with her mate. The knowledge of this fact excited an overweening desire in Willard's breast to show them what _he_ could do in the way of taming the hitherto untamed creature, and never having been unhorsed in his life, he determined, upon the first favorable opportunity, to try his powers upon the vicious animal. That opportunity was not long in coming. One summer morning it was arranged that Willard should go over to his grandfather's and aid in the cultivation of a large corn-field on the Homestead Farm. Willard made up his mind that, if he went, he would go in style on the back of "Chestnut Bess." He wanted to show his Uncle Henry and the others what the "little runt" was capable of accomplishing as an equestrian. Accordingly, he placed a good strong bridle upon the mare's head, gave an extra pull at the saddle-girth to assure himself there was no possibility of _that_ failing him, and, taking a hoe, which he wished to use in his work on the farm, in his right hand, he led the mare quietly down the path, out through the gate, and into the road. Gathering the reins in his left hand, without giving her time to conjecture his object--for mounting her was no easy task--he jumped lightly into the saddle, and screwed his knees into her sides with all his might.

Now, this mare was not one of those ordinary quadrupeds possessing a single vice, which the rider may learn and master. She was an animal of infinite resources. Her modes of attack were innumerable. It is true she rather preferred to settle matters upon the very threshold of the contest in a short, sharp way, by kicking her man before he could mount. But, if baffled in this design, she would vary the proceedings by dashing her head down between her knees, sending her heels up in the air, and, if possible, plunge the rider over her head to the ground; or, she would waltz round on her hind legs in such a way as to render the best balanced brain somewhat dizzy and uncertain; in the event of the failure of these coquettish pleasantries, she had not a single scruple against playing Shylock, and taking her pound of flesh out of his leg with her teeth. Thus, you see, it would not do to go to sleep upon her back; and Master Willard Glazier no sooner found himself firmly seated than he made up his mind that for the time, at least, he had his hands full of business. As the mare had been deprived of an opportunity to kick him, by the suddenness with which he sprang upon her back, she concluded to try her next favorite line of strategy and shake him off. So down went her head and up went her heels, and, had he been less on the alert, he must have gone to earth; but, with his knees dug into her sides as if they were the opposite jaws of a vice, for every jerk of her head _down_ he gave one with the reins _up_, and at each jerk the hoe-handle gave her a rap over the ears, so that she began to find the fun less agreeable than usual. Changing her tactics, with a bound she proceeded to execute a fine imitation of the "German," and spin round like a Fifth Avenue belle or a humming-top. But the boy's young, clear, temperate brain and well-disciplined nerves were proof even against this style of attack, and still firm in his seat, he belabored the brute with his hoe with such a perfect rain of blows that she gave up her prancing and dashed down the road at a break-neck pace. For perhaps five hundred yards the road led down hill, and then, crossing a stream, ascended again, the ascent being quite steep and by no means smooth.

While upon the descent, it was all Willard could do to hold on, for he was encumbered with the hoe, which at every jump of the mare struck the top of her head, until she absolutely flew. The few pedestrians upon the road that morning stopped in amazement to stare after the mad flight of horse and rider.

As soon as the bridge was crossed and they commenced the abrupt rise, "Chestnut Bess" began to slacken her pace, but the young gentleman, who by this time considered himself her master, would not agree to this. He proposed to give her a lesson, so he administered a good thrashing with his novel style of whip and compelled her to keep her pace all the way to the top of the hill, where horse and rider at length arrived in safety. From that point to the Old Homestead the mare was perfectly willing to jog along quietly, and when they reached the farm you may be sure that the "spirit" of one "mortal" at least was "proud," as he related to his wondering kinsman how he had taken the mischief out of the chestnut mare.

The boy rose immeasurably in his uncle Henry's estimation by this feat, and all were delighted with his pluck, though Jabez Glazier, his grandfather, with his greater experience, warned him not to trust the beast too far, for, according to his belief, her eye had danger in it yet. When the day of work was ended, Willard once more mounted upon "Chestnut Bess" and rode towards home. For a short time the mare trotted quietly along, and the boy was more than ever convinced that he had broken her of her tricks.

This agreeable belief however was of short duration. The thought had hardly entered his head when she commenced her antics again. Her heels went skyward and her nose went down, and a repetition of the morning's performances succeeded.

There was quite as much vigor and pertinacity in her movements as if she were just starting out for the day. This time Willard had provided himself with a stout beech switch, and used its stinging persuasion with good effect. She danced, she pranced, she waltzed, she made sudden dashes and full stops. She would have rolled in the gravel if the boy's switch had ceased stinging her into motives for action, but she could not shake him off. He clung to her back like a little leech, and it began to look as if human will-power was going to conquer brute stubbornness, when suddenly a new idea seemed to enter the animal's head. Without a moment's warning, and utterly scorning the control of the bit which she had taken in her teeth, she swung round and at full gallop made straight for the Homestead farm from which she had so lately come. The farm-yard gate was wide open and she dashed in, making directly for the wagon-shed at the extreme end of the place, which was now empty. This shed, the top of which was supported by a cross-beam, was only just high enough to permit a wagon to be sheltered there, and if the horse got in, Willard saw at a glance that she would be obliged to lower her head to do so, and that in the course of her entry he must inevitably strike the beam and perhaps be instantly killed or swept off her back upon a pile of rocks that on either side walled the entrance to the shed.

His heart for once failed him, for there seemed no earthly hope of escape. There was no time to spring off, even if the speed at which he was going would have permitted him to do so, for in a shorter time than it has taken to describe the scene, the shed was reached, bang went the mare's head against the opposite end, and at the same instant Willard felt a dull thud against his person, realized the fact that he was being thrown into the air, and then came darkness and unconsciousness. He was dashed violently upon the stones, and when picked up his body was found to be much lacerated and bruised.

Fortunately, however, no bones were broken, though he was obliged to keep his bed for some days afterwards. No doubt while lying there during slow convalescence he mused upon the vicissitudes attendant upon the career of a horse-tamer. At all events from this time he became much steadier and more prudent,--the wild adventures of his earlier boyhood having entirely lost their attraction for him.