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.
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