ack! In our stables there was
only about one in four that returned.

"I never saw my dear master again. I believe he fell dead from the
saddle. I never loved any other master so well. I went into many other
engagements, but was only once wounded, and then not seriously; and when
the war was over I came back again to England, as sound and strong as
when I went out."

I said, "I have heard people talk about war as if it was a very fine
thing."

"Ah!" said he, "I should think they never saw it. No doubt it is very
fine when there is no enemy, when it is just exercise and parade and
sham fight. Yes, it is very fine then; but when thousands of good brave
men and horses are killed or crippled for life, it has a very different
look."

"Do you know what they fought about?" said I.

"No," he said, "that is more than a horse can understand, but the enemy
must have been awfully wicked people, if it was right to go all that way
over the sea on purpose to kill them."

35 Jerry Barker

I never knew a better man than my new master. He was kind and good, and
as strong for the right as John Manly; and so good-tempered and merry
that very few people could pick a quarrel with him. He was very fond of
making little songs, and singing them to himself. One he was very fond
of was this:

"Come, father and mother,
And sister and brother,
Come, all of you, turn to
And help one another."

And so they did; Harry was as clever at stable-work as a much older boy,
and always wanted to do what he could. Then Polly and Dolly used to come
in the morning to help with the cab--to brush and beat the cushions,
and rub the glass, while Jerry was giving us a cleaning in the yard, and
Harry was rubbing the harness. There used to be a great deal of laughing
and fun between them, and it put Captain and me in much better spirits
than if we had heard scolding and hard words. They were always early in
the morning, for Jerry would say:

"If you in the morning
Throw minutes away,
You can't pick them up
In the course of a day.
You may hurry and scurry,
And flurry and worry,
You've lost them forever,
Forever and aye."

He could not bear any careless loitering and waste of time; and nothing
was so near making him angry as to find people, who were always late,
wanting a cab horse to be driven hard, to make up for their idleness.

One day two wild-looking young men came out of a tav