The Ostler
BY OWEN TWEEDY.
SPRING was on the move, and I was sitting on the step of the car by a birch copse which was just beginning to burst, when I heard " John Peel " loudly whistled and perfectly in tune. Round the corner came an old man of about sixty-five, short, fairly erect and beautifully shaved. As he passed me he touched his hat and wished me the time of day. I asked him where he was going. He was making for Oxford. Was I going that way and would I give him a lift ? I was ; and we shared the remainder of my packet of sandwiches. He told me that he had been an ostler in Cirencester but horses were no good now and the likes of him had no chance.
" I'm too old to be a chauffeur, and the old lady, whose cob I looked after for five years, died on me the other day, and her place was sold up and no one wants me."
" But you won't find any more horses in Oxford," I said.
" Maybe no. But that's only a stage. I'm really going to Brighton. There was a gentleman I knew in the Badminton country called Major Park ; and when he left, he gave me a good tip—I was with a jobbing master then—and he told me he had got too old to hunt, and was going to settle in Brighton. So I am going there to see if I can find him and ask him for a job."
" But that was long ago, if you were five years with the old lady. Do you think you will find Major Park ? "
" Maybe yes. Maybe no. Anyhow, Brighton is not far from Eastbourne and the Little Sisters of the Poor are there ; and they won't shut the gate in my face. They are all right for the likes of me at my age. They will give me somewhere to sleep, and they will give me food to eat and clothes to wear, and I will work for them in the garden or anywhere ; . and when I am dead, they will give me a shroud and say a prayer for me—and that is all I can be expecting these days. It is the women who are good to us ; and when I get to Oxford, it is to some more women I am going. There is a place there—I do not know the name of it but I know where, it is, because a fellow: told . me last might in the barn where I slept that they were all right, and that if I went there and could Say the Lord's Prayer they would give me a, cup of tea and some bread and butter, and possibly, a bit of meat ; and that I could stay by the fire and that they would give me somewhere to sleep until I Was ready to go on in the morning. That is a decent sort of place."
" But," I said, " you're a Catholic, aren't you ? and the Lord's Prayer you know is in Latin—Ahe Pater Noster. The ladies won't want that."
" Well, I thought of that," he said. " But last night the man in'the barn knew the. Engligh way, and we had it out togaher, and I think I remember it all right. Perhaps you are a Protestant, and would hear me say it, to see . . that I don't make any Mistakes:" He made . lots—especially about. forgiving us- our tres passes as we forgive them that trespass against us ; but he slogged hard at it, and I got quite as keen as he was, until eventually, after about an hour, he, had. it pretty well all right. Then we talked of other things : of horses, and the season he had spent in Meath over in Ireland ; of the two years he had been • in the Mounted Infantry in South Africa. And then suddenly, he seemed to become pre- occupied. After a long pause he turned-to me.
" Didn't I see on the last signboard ' Oxford 8 miles ' ? It's getting a bit close, and I'm feeling a bit nervous over that Lord's Prayer. It would be terrible if I didn't • get through after all, and had to go to the Workhonse. Would you mind trying it over again with me ? "
So the two of us did the Lord's Prayer solidly until we got well into the Banbury Road. He then asked me to go a bit slow, because the place where the ladies were was up a side street. After two false alarms we got into the right road, and he made me his last request.
" You've been so good to me that I'm ashamed to pester you any more ; but would' it be too much to ask you to wait near by for a quarter of an hour, while I go within ? You see, they will put me at the Lord's Prayer straight- away, and I if make a mess of it and they won't let me stay, I'll be out in a quarter of an hour ; and perhaps, if you were waiting, you could take me on to Reading, where there is another lot of old ladies who run the same sort of party down there ; and if I make mistakes here, you and I between us could correct them between this and Reading."
I stopped the car down a little lane, three doors from the house of the charitable ladies. The old man got out.
" I wonder," he said, " is it good-bye or only so-long."
It was good-bye. I heard the door close behind him, and I gave him half an hour, instead of the quarter he had asked ; but he didn't come out again.
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