LORDS AND COMMONS
By SEAN O'FAOLAIN
IN the sales ring there is no class-distinction. When the mares and the geldings break in and out of the ring of buyers and watchers—in from the stables, then out for a brief gallop—army-officers, semi-tinkers, horse-dealers, hunt- ing-folk, idlers, separate and merge together again like brothers-in-blood. The only thing that divides man from man is the envy to possess, and the power to buy. They see, hear, smell, feel nothing—not the biting wind, the smell of turf-smoke, or the peat-mould, or the sounds from the city streets of Dublin below the mart—but the horse, and the voice of the auctioneer : " Ten. Ten and a half. Bid from the railings. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fourteen bid. Fourteen bid. Fourteen bid from upstairs. Are you going to lose him? Fourteen . . . Fifteen. Fifteen. Fifteen below me. Fifteen bid." He lifts the black ruler which serves for mallet, and his voice lifts with it. " FIFTEEN BID. GOING FOR FIFTEEN. Fifteen for the liver-coloured chestnut? " His voice appeals for the honour of the chest- nut. " FIFTEEN? " He looks around for a last rise in the bidding and down bangs the ruler. They were army sur- plus, one hundred and forty-three of them, giving way to the mechanisation of transport.
In comes another discard. Like all these cast-offs the grey mare has the powerful chest and loins of the animal who has been pulling gun-wagons for all her years. The forelegs tend to be wide apart. Above them the muscles bulge. Across the chest is the mark of the army harness, which leaves the neck clear and smooth. Presently the farmer who buys her will chafe her neck with the collar. On her hoof is branded an army number. If you grip the mouth and lift the upper lip you will see the faint blue mark of the same number tattooed on the pink gums. Somewhere in County Kildare or Meath, in a few months' time, she will be walking patiently before the reaper-and-binder, over the golden stubble: for her at least all wars done. Only under the lip there will always be that mark of the needle in livid blue.
Any sales-ring has something primitive about it—men and horses, like a boat and the sea and a sailor. At this sale the primaeval touch was powerful. As you stood in the bitter wind and watched the animals gallop in and out you realised that the type of horse alone intensified that; for whatever the breed the result was the war-horse. None, it is true, were like the Shire horse, which is supposed to be directly descended from the mediaeval war-horse, a great brute weighing up to two thousand pounds and standing as much as seventeen hands high. But there were no thoroughbreds, either—that mingling with Arab blood which is said to have added an inch to its height every twenty-five years since r7oo. These were mostly about fifteen hands, as if the ancient Celtic ponies that Caesar found in Britain, racing before the scythe-wheeled chariots, had lived on, without mixture of blood, to gallop before Irish gun-wagons. That could not be, of course. The original Connemara pony, like the Shetland, was probably anything between a mere eight and fourteen hands ; the Irish polo pony is probably ideally fourteen and a half. But they were sturdy enough to carry the mind back, with that antique turf-smoke blowing its familiar stink into the air, back to the Norman-Irish garrane. As you looked at them you could see why it was no compliment to call a woman (in the familiar Irish phrase) " an idle garrane "—they had strength without grace ; if they did not work what was left to praise?
Not that, the army-officers, the semi-tinkers, the horse- dealers, the hunting-folk, and the idlers, all those brothers- in-bloodstock, had any thoughts for the history of the thing' One old chap beside me, with a battered hard-hat and his trousers of Irish tweed fraying at the heels, had enough money and interest to buy four horses running for about sixty pounds—a bargain for a man who wanted to buy strength, but with his mind so patently directed, like a finger pointing, to the one thing and the one thing only, he was not going to bother his head with anything but that thing alone. It is this keen-eyed concentration of the buyers, their eyes puckered as if there was a running-string about them, that consolidates in the ring the sense of the real and the elementary. Eyes all around. Grey, cold eyes. Eyes polished by the winds—crafty, measuring countrymen's eyes —eyes vibrating with desire. Those animals held them fixed more firmly than any beautiful woman ever held the eyes of any man. And they were only army " surplus "!
Until, suddenly, the whole crowd seemed to stiffen and lean forward an inch. A little bay or brown mare came in, fifteen-two high, with powerful quarters, fine thighs, neat, clean hocks. She was simply Lot so-and-so, number 4o. But she had a history. And what a history ! She had been in her day an international jumper. The winner of twelve firsts. Crowds had applauded her at the most famous horse shows in the world—Dublin, Brussels, Lucerne, Olympia, New York. She was little Slievenamon. She had the gallant, intelligent head of the hunter ; the courageous eye of the charger ; the powerful quarters, loin, and back of the jumper. About five years ago the Irish Army recorded her as " offi- cially dead "! Now she moves among those common brothers and sisters, as a number, a " lot," a piece of surplus. But she keeps her dignity, and her meed of grace, and the eyes that circle around her glitter their admiration and- possibly—their sympathy.
" Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two! On the railings, twenty-three!" The auctioneer in his box, like everybody else, knows that little mare. He does not need to tell anybody what her history is. There is not a soul here but knows her. The bidding mounts and slows. "Twenty-five. TWENTY- FIVE BID?"
She fell in the end for the highest figure of the day. The cheerful, ruddy-faced lieutenant who helped to buy her would not tell me who her new owner would be. But he said, " She'll jump again! " She will not, at any rate, become a hack at some riding-school. And I could see over at the edge of the crowd a dark-haired, lovely-looking young girl, with her hair hanging, blushing with a delight that told its own tale. Slievenamon has found a good home.
In came more draught-horses. The Dutch buyers were keen on them and gobbled them up. Another charger fol- lowed. I could see a grey-eyed young lieutenant lower his head as the jumper came under the hammer. He was taking badly the loss of an old friend—a chestnut with which he had carried off more than one valuable trophy. In the auc- tioneer's box his fellow-officers watched him with sympathy. In and out. Gone goodness knows where. The crowd keeps on bidding, watching, measuring. There were about six chargers in all. On their chests no scar of the gun-wagon belt: something in the arch of the neck to mark them out: lords among the commons both of animals and men.
The sale ends, and the yard empties, and outside the line of cars melts away—the mechanical horses of our time. A few horse-dealers making an odd pound on the turnover start putting the draught-horses through their paces. Then they, also, go: and only the wind-blown straw and the smell of the peat-mould to tell what the day saw.
In the morning papers there was a brief news-item. " At Clarke's Repository yesterday, a stock of army-surplus . . ." There was a photograph of Slievenamon, and a record of her triumphs. At her head stood the child who now owns her— shy, and beautiful. The other one hundred and forty-two have gone back to the anonymity of the labourer.
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