The Old Rugged Horse

Arthur Greenan

1955

The Old Rugged Horse by Arthur Greenan

It was a pleasant afternoon, the sky was clear and the Lammermuir hills, by late August, had taken on the hue of the purple heather. The grieve at East Windygoul farm sent Bobby, my dappled grey farm horse, and I, on the long trip to the coal depot at Ormiston. By nightfall, it would be for Bobby and me, both rising sixteen, a day not readily forgotten.

On reaching the coal depot a shunting engine passed belching out black smoke and hissing white steam. Bobby took fright and shot off down the railway line. I reversed him back to the wagon. With twenty-five hundredweights of coal in the cart we set off for home.

Carter McNeill, the pigman, begged me to reverse the horse into the main piggery building and tip up the coal to save him barrowing it in. The row of piggery buildings were parallel to the farm track but were set at a lower level. I put Bobby at right angles to the piggery door which lay down a short decline and from where the piggery floor rose up a short steep incline. I grabbed his bridle and thrust him backwards down the slope. He poured all his honest might into the task. His front legs were straining at forty-five degrees His hind legs, with sparks flying from his shoes, were level with the ground. Yet the cart stuck firm! I hauled him back up the incline and thrust him back down again but at a different angle. Despite his grunts and snorts the cart refused to budge. Again we scrambled up the bank. By now Bobby was pretty well spent. We charged backwards in a final attempt. He pushed with all he had. His tail was swishing the ground when suddenly his leather bellyband snapped!

The weight of the coal swung the cart shafts up into the air pulling Bobby up with them. He was hanging by his collar with his feet flailing in mid-air. I too was hanging up in the air with one hand clutching his bridle and the other clinging to his hames.

The pig man smashed the back door of the cart with a large hammer. The coal fell out. The horse came down. I came down. The cart thudded down but with one shaft lying across his back and shoulders. Bobby took off in a blind gallop. Still holding onto his bridle and hames I was being dragged backwards and Bobby was trampling my feet with his clattering hooves. I swung my feet criss-cross around his knee but with every stride his great knee dealt a sickening thud between my legs. The pain was so excruciating that my hold on the horse was slipping fast - and still he thundered on!

If I had let go he would have trodden over the top of me and the cart would have finished me off. Two hundred yards down the farm road I finally got him stopped. One wheel was off the cart. One shaft lay along his back and the other down his side. His saddle was under his belly and his breeching around his hind feet. I tried to stand, but slumped semi-consciously at his feet. Bobby trembled from tip to toe as the lather dripped from his belly and sweat poured down the insides of his rear legs. The froth snorting from his mouth fell upon my head and down inside my shirt.

As that elderly horse and this young laddie staggered home to the stable, we were, that evening, a pitiful sight.

In the cool of the evening I returned to the farm. Bobby nickered. Leaving the stable without a halter as we always did, he pranced behind me giving me the occasional playful nudge. I leapt upon his back then spun myself completely around and lay with my head on his neck and my feet along his hips as he meandered towards the field.

He had recovered from the earlier shock and felt refreshed after his wash. Turning him out into the field, Bobby gave a gleeful little fling, bent his knees and proceeded to roll over and over on his back with all fours punching the sky. Then, with a quick shoogle, he dusted the stoor from his coat and galloped off, tail whisking, mane flowing, to join the other horses.

Next morning I waited in the stable with trepidation as the grieve approached. I was convinced my end was nigh. But, to my complete surprise, Geordie Smith, a stout man with a glowering cherubic face, put his arm across my shoulder and said,

'Well, Arthur, son, you did right to hold on to the horse.'

In the autumn of 1955, the second pair of Clydesdale horses, Sandy and Wull was sold at Lanark horse market. In the spring of 1956, the first pair, Billy and Jock was also sold. That left only Bobby. That autumn, a cattle float emerged slowly from the farm. I spotted Bobby's head swaying frantically out of the top. His neighing, his helpless pleading, as the lorry approached was heart-rending. I whistled and bawled out,

'Bobby! Bobby!'

He swung his head round and nickered. The lorry slowly trundled over the hill and disappeared from sight. It was on its way to the slaughterhouse in Edinburgh. I was mortified! I loved him but I could not save him. That was the last time I saw Bobby.

I knew that within an hour and a half Bobby, who had given his all in this life, would be winging his way to that great stable in the sky. Perhaps he did meet again with his other memorable contemporaries - Wull and Sandy, Hector and Victor, Sandy and Star, Prince and Paddy, Donald and Clyde, Jean and Mary, all of whom, with great credit, had ploughed old Scotland's lands.

Perhaps, too, the Good Lord may reserve a place for me as their groom.

It will be a noble eternity.