One thing pleased her. The neighbourhood looked prosperous, and the charitable appeals, she thought, could not be very exacting. On this she reckoned without the knowledge that a large amount of English charity begins and ends abroad.
Then she turned, and, still delaying before going to see after the servants and Effie, she passed round to the stableyard.
Andy, who was passing across the yard with a bucket in his hand, touched his cap, put down the bucket, and with a grin on his face, but without a word, opened the upper door of the loose-box that held the treasure and pride of the Frenches.
Scarcely had he done so than the sharp sound of horse-hoofs on flags was heard, and a lovely picture framed itself in the doorway--the head of Garryowen.
Leaving aside the beauty of women, surely above all things beautiful and sentient the head of a beautiful horse is supreme. Where else in the animal kingdom will you find such grace, such sensitiveness, such delicacy, combined with strength? Where else, even in the faces of men, such soul?
Even in the faces of men! The girl thought of the faces of the men she had come across in life, and she contrasted those heads, stamped with dulness, with greed, with business, or with pleasure--she contrasted these images of God with the finely chiselled, benign, and beautiful head of Garryowen.
Could it be possible that Mr. Giveen would have the impudence to call Garryowen a lower animal?
Even Andy's "mug" looked like the mask of a gargoyle by contrast, as she turned from the loose-box and made her way back to the house.
"Botherations!" replied Miss Grimshaw. "Look at this."
She handed him a neatly-printed card, folded in the middle. It looked like a ball programme. Nearly four months had passed. The Frenches had settled down at The Martens. The whole neighbourhood had called; there had been several small dinner parties at the bungalow, and Garryowen was turning out a dream. Training a horse is just like painting a picture; the thing grows in spirit and in form; it has some of you in it; the pride of the artist is not unallied to the pride of the trainer. When you see swiftness coming out, and strength, endurance, and pluck, you feel just as the artist feels when, of a morning, he uncovers his canvas and says to himself: "Ah! yes, I put some good stuff into that yesterday."