he dies on the eve of another war; ere wheeling to fire on the foe, his platoons fire over their old commander's grave; in A.D. 1812, died grand old Pierre. The drum that beat in brass his funeral march, was a British kettle-drum, that had once helped beat the vain-glorious march, for the thirty thousand predestined prisoners, led into sure captivity by that bragging boy, Burgoyne.
Next day the old gray steed turned from his grain; turned round, and vainly whinnied in his stall. By gracious Moyar's hand, he refuses to be patted now; plain as horse can speak, the old gray steed says—'I smell not the wonted hand; where is grand old Pierre? Grain me not, and groom me not;—where is grand old Pierre?'
He sleeps not far from his master now; beneath the field he cropt, he has softly lain him down; and long ere this, grand old Pierre and steed have passed through that grass to glory.
But his phaeton, like his plumed hearse, outlives the noble load it bore. And the dark bay steeds that drew grand old Pierre alive, and by his testament drew him dead, and followed the lordly lead of the led gray horse; those dark bay steeds are still extant; not in themselves or in their issue; but in the two descendants of stallions of their own breed. For on the lands of Saddle Meadows, man and horse are both hereditary; and this bright morning Pierre Glendinning, grandson of grand old Pierre, now drives forth with Lucy Tartan, seated where his own ancestor had sat, and reining steeds, whose great-great-great-grandfathers grand old Pierre had reined before.
How proud felt Pierre: in fancy's eye, he saw the horse-ghosts a-tandem in the van; 'These are but wheelers,' cried young Pierre—'the leaders are the generations.'
