"Bless me!" I said; "You don't mean to say that that old horse is alive
still?"

"He looks like it," said the major. "He'd carry you a mile or two,
yet."

"I thought he had died while I was in England," I said. "Ah, major,
that horse's history would be worth writing."

"If you began," answered the major, "to write the history of the horse,
you must write also the history of every body who was concerned in
those circumstances which caused Sam to take a certain famous ride upon
him. And you would find that the history of the horse would be reduced
into very small compass, and that the rest of your book would assume
proportions too vast for the human intellect to grasp."

"How so?" I said.

He entered into certain details, which I will not give. "You would
have," he said, "to begin at the end of the last century, and bring one
gradually on to the present time. Good heavens! just consider."

"I think you exaggerate," I said.

"Not at all," he answered. "You must begin the histories of the Buckley
and Thornton families in the last generation. The Brentwoods also, must
not be omitted,--why there's work for several years. What do you say,
Brentwood?"

"The work of a life-time;" said the captain.