"You have," said I, "a remarkable horse."
At this word he brightened up as men do when something is spoken of
that interests them nearly, and he answered: "Indeed, I have! and I
am very glad you like him. There is no such other horse to my
knowledge in England, though I have heard that some still linger in
Ireland and in France, and that a few foals of the breed have been
dropped of late years in Italy, but I have not seen them.
"How did you come by this horse?" said I; "if it is not trespassing
upon your courtesy to ask you so delicate a question."
"Not at all; not at all," he answered. "This kind of horse runs wild
upon the heaths of morning and can be caught only by Exiles: and I
am one.... Moreover, if you had come three or four years later than
you have I should have been able to give you an answer in rhyme, but
I am sorry to say that a pestilent stricture of the imagination, or
rather, of the compositive faculty so constrains me that I have not
yet finished the poem I have been writing with regard to the
discovery and service of this beast."
"I have great sympathy with you," I answered, "I have been at the
ballade of Val-es-Dunes since the year 1897 and I have not yet
completed it.
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