A Hundred Years Ago
In a comfortable stable in the town of Haddington, there dwelleth a horse, whose name is Cakes. He knows all the landlords and public-houses on the road from Haddington to Dunbar, and is so well acquainted with the different stages and stoppages, that he could take the coach thither and back again, although the driver were at Sakatoo. While at work, experience has taught him the most efficient method of applying his power —he notices a stone on the road, knows how to make the wheels avoid the concussion ; and, while others are sweating and foaming in the yoke, you will not see a " turned hair " on Cakes, although he never grumbles to take his fair share of the draught. This patient endurance gives him the advantage of his neighbours in all weathers ; for in wind and rain, and hail and snow, when his companions in harness are fretting themselves to death at the hardness of their lot, or fatiguing themselved by gnawing their bridle bits and capering like born idiots, Cakes keeps his mind easy, and, putting his cheek to the blast, saws away through the tempest with the patience and perseverance of a philosopher. His humanity, too, deserves well to be recorded. When he sees a tipsy tinker, or a deaf gaberlunzieman, too near him in the track of the coach, he invariably gives a kind of snort or " nicchar," which, in his own language, signifies " Hulloah ! out of my way friend—I'd be sorry to harm you with my own hoofs, but I cannot be answerable for the wheels." One instance of his philanthropic bearing, in this respect, exceeds, perhaps, the noblest instance of humanity over recorded of a horse. One morning, the driver of a certain stage had been longer than usual in discussing his gill at an East Lothian Pussie Nancie's, and Cakes that morning znadesome little extra exertion to save the time of the coach and the credit of the dilatory driver. They were scouring along at twelve knots an hour, when a child happened to cross the road directly before the coach. The driver did not notice the child, but Cakes saw it ; and at the moment it was among his feet, he took the little innocent by the pinafore, and put it out of harm's way in the gentlest manner possible for a horse at the gallop : that is, he pitched it over a sod dike, and the uninjured bairn came thresh among some turnip shaves on the opposite side.—Scotionart.
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