Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1878 — THE TRUMPETER'S HOUSE. [ARTICLE]

THE TRUMPETER'S HOUSE.

I was nearly 10 years of ago, and felt myself bo safely anchored in the peaceable haven of a bachelor’s life that nothing would induce me to run the risk of disturbing it by marriage. But I had reckoned without the trumpeter’s horse. It wna at the end of September, 1864, that I arrived at Paris from Baden, intending only to remain four-aud-twenty hours. I had invited four or live friends to join mo in Poitou for the hunting season, and, as they were to arrive at the beginning of October, I had only allowed myself a week at La Roche Targe to prepare for their reception. A letter from home awaited my arrival at Paris, bringing me the disastrous intelligence that out of twelve horses five had fallen ill or lame during my stay at Baden, so that 1 was under the necessity of remounting ray cavalry before I left Paris. I made the. round of all the horsedealers of the Champs Elysees, where I was shown a collection of screws, the average price of which was .£l2O, but I was neither in a humor nor in cash to throw away my money upon such useless beasts. It was a Wednesday, the dty ol' Cheri’s autumn sale; I went to the Rue de Ponthien, and purchased at a venture eight horses, which cost me altogether £2OO. “Out of the eight,” said I to myself, “there will be surely four ©r five which will go.” Among these horses there was one which, I confess, I bought principally on account of his coat. The catalogue did not assigu to him any special qualifications as a hunter. All that it stated was, “Brutus, a saddle-horse, aged, well-broken. ” It was a large, dapplegray horse, but never had I seen oue better marked, its smooth, white skin dappled over witfi fine black spots, so regularly distributed. The next morning I let': for La Roche Targe, and the following day my horses arrived. My first care was for Brutus. This gray horse had been running for tlio last, forty-eight hours in my head, and I was anxious to try his paces, and see what he was good for. He had long teeth, and every mark of a respectable age, a powerful shoulder, and lie carried his head well; but what I most admired iu Brutus was the way in which he looked at me, following every movement with his attentive, intelligent, inquisitive eye. Even my words seemed to interest him ; he leaned his head on one side as if to hear me, and when I had finished speaking, replied with a merry neigh. The other seven horses were brought out to me in succession, but they resembled any other horses, and Brutus certainly was different from them all. I was anxious to take a little ride in the country, in order to make his acquaintance. Brutus a'l .wed liimself to be saddled, bridled and mounted as a horse who knew his work, and we started quietly together, the best friends possible. He had a beautiful mouth, and answered to ■fevery turn of the rein—arching his neck and champing his bit. His paces were perfect. He began by a slow measured canter, raising his feet very high, and letting them fall with the regularity of a pendulum. I tried him at a trot and a short gallop, but when I sought to quicken his pace he began to amble in grand style. “Ah,” said I; “I see how it is; I have bought an old horse out of the cavalry riding school at Saumur.” I was about to tnrn homeward, satisfied with the taleuts of Brutus, when a shot was heard a short distance off. It was one of my keepers firing at a rabbit, Sr>r which shot be it said, en passant, he afterward received a handsome present trom my wife. I was then exactly in the center of an open space where six long, green roads met. On hearing the shot Brutus stopped short, and put his ears forward iu an attitude oi' attention. I was surprised to see him so impression able. After the' brilliant military education I assumed he had received in his youth, he must be well accustomed to the report of a gun. I pressed ipy knees against him to make him move go, but Bruton w-jultl eot stir, { tried to

back him, to make him tarn to the right or to the left, but in vain. I made him feel my riding-whip, but still he was immovable. Brntas was not to be displaced; and yet—do not smile, for mine is a true history—each time I urged him to move the horse turned his head round, and gazed upon me with an eye expressive of impatience and surprise, and then relapsed into his motionless attitude. There was evidently some misunderstanding between me and my horse. I saw it in his eyes. Brutus was saving as plainly as he could without speech, “I, horse, do what I ought to do ; and yon, horseman, do not perform your part.” I was more puzzled than embarrassed. “What a strange horse Cheri has sold me ! and why does he look upon me in such a way ?” I was about to proceed to extremities and administer to him a good thrashing, when another shot was fired. The horse then made one bound. I thought I had gained my point, and again tried to start him, but in vain. He stopped short, and planted himself more resolutely than ever. I then got into a rage, and my riding-whip entered into play; I took it in both hands, and struck the horse right and left. But Brutus, too, lost patience, and, finding passive resistance unavailing, defended himself by rearing, kicking and plunging; and, in the midst of the battle, while the horse capered and kicked, and I, exasperated, was flogging him with the loaded butt-end of my broken whip, Brutus, nevertheless, found time to look at me, not only with impatience and surprise, but with rage and indignation. While I required of the horse the obedience he ' refused, he, on his part, was expecting of me something I did not do. How did this end ? To my shame be it spoken, I was relentlessly and disgracefully unseated. Brutus saw there was to be nothing gained by violence, so judged it necessary to employ malice. After a moment’s pause, evidently passed in reflection, the horse put down his head and stood upright on liis fore legs with the address and equilibrium of a clown upon his hands. I was, consequently, deposited upon the sand, which, fortunately, happened to be rather thick in the place where I fell. I tried to raise myself, but I cried out and fell stretched with my face toward the ground. I felt as if a knife were sticking in my left leg. The hurt did not prove serious—the suapping of one of the small tendons —but not the less painful. I succeeded, however, in turning myself, and sat down; but while I was rubbing my eyes, which were filled with sand, I saw the great foot of a horse descend gently upon my head, and again extend me on my back. I then felt quite disheartened, and was ruminating in my mind what this strange horse could be, when I felt a quantity of sand strike rae in the face. I opened my eyes and saw Brutus throwing up the dust with both fore and hind feet, trying to bury me. This lasted for several minutes, when, apparently thinking me sufficiently interred, Brutus knelt by my grave, and then galloped around me, describing a perfect circle. I called out to him to stop. He appeared to be embarrassed ; but seeing my hat, which had been separated irom me in the fall, he took it between his teeth, and galloped down one of the green paths out of sight. I was left alone. I shook oft the sand which covered me, and with my arm and right leg—my left I could not move—dragged myself to a bushy bank, where I seated myself, and shouted with all my might for assistance. But no answer ; the wood was perfectly silent and deserted. , I remained alone in this wretched condition above half an hour, when I saw Brutus in the distance, returning by the same roiul by which he went, enveloped in a cloud of dust. Gradually, as it cleared away, I saw a little carriage approaching—a pony chaise—and iu the pony-cliaise a lady, who drove it, with a small groom iu the seat behind. A few instants after Bratus arrived covered with foam. He stopped before me, let fall my hat at his feet, and addressed me with a neigh, as much as to say: “I have done my duty; I have brought you help.” But I did not trouble myself about Bratus and his explanations; I had no thought or looks save for the beautiful fairy who had come to my aid, and who, jumping from her little carriage, tripped lightly up to me, and suddenly two exclamations were uttered at the same moment: “ Madame de Noriolis !”

“ Monsieur de la Roche Targe !” I have an aunt between whom and myself my marrying is a source of continual dispute. “ Marry,” she would say. “I will not,” was my answer. “Would you have a young lady? There are Miss A, Miss B, Miss 0. ” “But I won’t marry.” “ Then take a widow; there are Mrs. D, Mrs. E, Mrs. F, etc.” “ But marry I will not.” Madame de Noriolis was always in the first rank among my aunt’s widows. To tell me she was rich, lively, and pretty was unnecessary; but, alter setting forth all her attractions, my aunt would take from her secretary a map of the district where she lived, and point out how the estates of Noriolis and La Roche Targe joined, and she had traced a red line upon the map uniting the two properties, which she constantly obliged me to 1 ok at. “ Eight hundred acres within a ring fence! a fine chance for a sportsman.’ Rut I would shut my eyes aud repeat as before, “I will never marry." Yet, seriously speaking, I was afraid of Madame de Noriolis, and alwaj s saw my head encircled with an aureole of her aunt’s red line. Charming, sensible, t dented, and 800 acres within a ring fence! Escape for your safety if you will not marry. And I always did escape, but this time retreat was impossible. I lay extended on the turf, covered avith sand, my hah' in disorder, my clothes in tatters, and my leg stiff. “What are you doing here?’*inquired Madame de Noriolis. “ What has happened?” I candidly confessed I had been thrown. “But you are not much hurt?” “ No; but I have put something out in my leg—nothing serious, I am Bure.” ‘ ‘ And where is the horse which has played you this trick ?” I pointed out Brutus, who was quietly grazing upon the shoots of the broom. “How! it is him, the good horse! He has amply repaired his wrongs, us I will relate to you later. But you must go home directly.” “ How ? I cannot move a step,” “ But I am going to drive yo'u home, at the risk of compromising you. ” And calling her little groom Bob, she led me gently by one arm, while Bob took the other, and made me get into her carriage. Five minutes afterward we were moving in the direction of La Roche Targe, she holding the reins and driving the pony with a light hand; I looking at her, confused, embarrassed, stupid, ridiculous. Bob was charged to lead back Brutus. “Extend your leg quite straight,” said Madamo de Noriolis, “and I will drive you very gently to avoid jolting. ” When she saw me comfortably installed, “Tell me,” she said, “how you were thrown, and I will explain how I came to your assistance.” I began my story, but, when I spoke of the efforts of Brutus to unseat me afte.r the two shots, “ I understand it all, ’ she exclaimed; “you have bought tiie trumpeter’s Horse. “ The trumpeter’s horse?” “ Yes, that explains it all. You have seen many scenes in the Cirque de l lmperatrice, the performance of the trumpeter’s horse, A Chasseur d’Afrique eate?? the arena upon a gray horse; theg

come the Arabs, who fire upon him, and he is wounded and falls; and, as you did not fall, the horse, indignant at your not performing your part in the piece, threw you down. What did he do next ?” I related the little attempt of Brutus to bury me. “ Exactly like the trumpeter’s horse. He sees his master wounded; but the Arabs may return and kill him, so what does the horse do ? He buries him and gallops off, carrying away the colors that they may not fall into the hands of the Arabs. ” “ That is my hat which Brutus carried off.” “ Precisely. He goes to fetch the vivandiere—the vivandiere of to-day being your humble servant the Countess de Noriolis. Your great gray horse galloped into my courtyard, where I was standing #n the doorsteps, patting On my gloves and ready to get into my carriage. My grooms, seeing a horse saddled and bridled, with a hat in his month and without a rider, tried to catch him; but he escapes their pursuit, goes straight up to the steps, and kneels before me. The men again try to capture him; but he gallops off, stops at the gate, turns round and looks at me. I felt sure he was calling me; so I jumped into my carriage and set off. The horse darts through roads not always adapted for carriages, but I follow him, and arrive where I find you. ” At the moment Madame de Noriolis had finished these words the carriage received a fearful jolt, and we saw in the air the head of Brutus, who was standing erect on his hind legs behind us. Seeing the little back seat of the carriage untenauted, he had taken the opportunity of giving us another specimen of his talents, by executing the most brilliant of all his circus performances. He had placed his fore feet upon the back seat of the little carriage, and was trauquilly continuing his route, trotting upon his hind legs alone, Bob striving in vaiu to replace him upon four. Madame de Noriolis was so frightened that she let the reins escape from her hands and sank fainting in my arms. Witn my left hand I recovered the reins, with my right arm I supported Madame de Noriolis, my leg all the time causing me most frightful torture. In this manner Madame do Noriolis made her first entry into La Roche Targe. WheD she returned there six weeks later she had become my wife. “ Such, indeed, is life,” she exclaimed. “ This would never have come to pass if you had not bought the trumpeter’s horse.”— London Society.