Familiar as this picture of emptiness was to the piebald gelding, it seemed to have a melancholy effect upon him. He slowly, as though making a bow, lowered and lifted his head, sighed as deeply as the tightly drawn girth permitted, and dragging his somewhat bent and decrepit legs, he started off after the herd, carrying the old Nester on his bony back.
“I know now. As soon as we get out on the road, he will go to work to make a light, and smoke his wooden pipe with its copper mounting and chain,” thought the gelding. “I am glad of this, because it is early in the morning and the dew is on the grass, and this odor is agreeable to me, and brings up many pleasant recollections. I am sorry only that when the old man has his pipe in his mouth he always becomes excited, gets to imagining things, and sits on one side, far over on one side, and on that side it always hurts. However, God be with him. It’s no new thing for me to suffer for the sake of others. I have even come to find some equine satisfaction in this. Let him play that he’s cock of the walk, poor fellow; but it’s for his own pleasure that he looks so big, since no one sees him at all. Let him ride sidewise,” said the horse to himself; and, stepping gingerly on his crooked legs, he walked along the middle of the road.