remembered that he had said I would not fail him, and I put all my grim
vigour into my fibres and held by sheer will. Then the soul shouted to me
to give way, but I said:

"'No; you vexed the man.'

"Then it screamed for me to leave go of the rafter, and already I was
slipping, for I only held on to it by a careless knot, but I gripped with
my prison grip and said:

"'You vexed the man.'

"And very swiftly it said other things to me, but I answered not; and at
last the soul that vexed the man that had trusted me flew away and left
him at peace. I was never able to bind things any more, for every one of
my fibres was worn and wrenched, and even my relentless heart was weakened
by the struggle. Very soon afterwards I was thrown out here. I have done
my work."

So they spoke among themselves, but all the while there loomed above them
the form of an old rocking-horse complaining bitterly. He said: "I am
Blagdaross. Woe is me that I should lie now an outcast among these worthy
but little people. Alas! for the days that are gathered, and alas for the
Great One that was a master and a soul to me, whose spirit is now shrunken
and can never know me again, and no more ride abroad on knightly quests. I
was Bucephalus when he was Alexander, and carried him victorious as far as
Ind. I encountered dragons with him when he was St. George, I was the
horse of Roland fighting for Christendom, and was often Rosinante. I
fought in tournays and went errant upon quests, and met Ulysses and the
heroes and the fairies. Or late in the evening, just before the lamps in