oms of her ex-military master,
the old mare's dormant talents owed their "fetching out."

Old "Captain Maguire" had served with credit to himself and honor to the
State, in her early struggles against the Indians and French Canadians.
"Bonny Doon" was then in her "fille"-hood, and probably the most
beautiful, as well as the most saucy jade, in the frontier army. Some
twenty-five years had passed, and still the old captain and the mare
were about, every-day cronies, for the old man no more thought of
walking fifty rods, premeditatedly, than a South Carolina dandy would
dream of the possibility of getting a glass of water without the
immediate assistance of a son of Ethiopia! The old man had become
possessed of wealth as well as years--was likewise the progenitor of a
large and flourishing family, of the finest looking men and women in the
State, and having gotten all things in this pleasant kind of train, he
"laid off" in perfect lavender. The old captain's farm was about four
miles from the large and flourishing town of Z----, and here the captain
spent most of his time. Riding in on "Bonny Doon," in the morning, and
hitching her to the sign-post, the poor beast would stand there--unless
taken in by the ostler or others--until midnight, while the captain
swigged whiskey, and smoked his pipe in the tavern. Yet "Bonny Doon's"
affection for her old master did not flag; she waited patiently until he
came--her mane and long tail would then switch about, while she'd
"snigger eout" with gladness at his coming, and carry the old man
through rain or snow, moonshine, or total darkness, over corduroy
railroads, bridges, ravines, and last, though by no means least, over
the narrow plank-way of Captain Maguire's saw-mill dam, while the waters
on each side foamed and roared like a mountain torrent, and while the
old man was either asleep or his hat so full of "bricks," that he was
about as difficult to balance in the saddle as a sack of potatoes or
Turk's Island salt! A better citizen, when sober, never paid taxes or
trod sole leather in that State, than old Captain Maguire; but when he
was "up the tree," a little sprung, or _tight_, as you may say, he was
ugly enough, and chock full of wolf and brimstone! One day the captain
was summoned to attend court, and testify in a case wherein his evidence
was to give a lift to the suit of a neighbor, for whom the old man
entertained a most lively disgust and very unchristianly hate. The old