However, the
unsightly tailless condition of the vigorous steed was, to the last
hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick
farmer not to stay too late in Ayr markets.
The last relation I shall give you, though equally true, is not so
well identified as the two former, with regard to the scene; but as
the best authorities give it for Alloway, I shall relate it.
On a summer's evening, about the time that nature puts on her sables
to mourn the expiry of the cheerful day, a shepherd boy, belonging
to a farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of Alloway Kirk, had just
folded his charge and was returning home. As he passed the kirk, in
the adjoining field, he fell in with a crew of men and women, who
were busy pulling stems of the plant ragwort. He observed that as each
person pulled a ragwort, he or she got astride of it, and called out,
'Up, horsie', on which the ragwort flew off, like Pegasus, through the
air, with its rider. The foolish boy likewise pulled his ragwort and
cried with the rest, 'Up, horsie', and, strange to tell, away he flew
with the company. The first stage at which the cavalcade stopped was
a merchant's wine-cellar in Bordeaux, where, without saying by your
leave, they quaffed away at the best the cellar could afford, until
the morning, foe to the imps and works of darkness, threatened to
throw light on the matter, and frightened them from their carousals.
The poor shepherd lad, being equally a stranger to the scene and the
liquor, heedlessly got himself drunk; and when the rest took horse he
fell asleep, and was found so next day by some of the people belonging
to the merchant.
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