Dance of the Years by Margery Allingham Page B

must.
    â€œFrightened?” he enquired.
    â€œNo,” gasped James, and squealed again.
    Larch began to laugh. “You like it, don’t ye,” he asked roughly, “don’t ye? Blood’s coming out. That will. Nothing won’t never stop it. He likes horses, don’t ye, boy, don’t ye? You little old smith. You little old traveller.”
    The epithets were incomprehensible to James, but he realized they were not exactly unkind, and yet not complimentary. At any rate, they were insultingly familiar coming from this old person.
    Jason saw the child’s expression and let his eyes wander.
    â€œBest be quiet along of that together,” he said briefly.
    â€œNo. No. I’m old,” said Larch, a triumphant quack breaking his voice. “I’m old. No need for me to be quiet. I’ve always got me grave to goo to now. By the time you could harm me, little ’un, I’ll be in it, see. He likes the old entire, don’t ’ee, boy? I’ll tell yon somewhat; so do I. I love ’un. Give me your hand, you little old smith. You stand here with I. Now you watch. Loveliest sight in all the world. Loveliest sight between here and Chelmsford town.”
    James submitted to having his hand held. He found he could feel the excitement better that way. He felt more secure; less likely to be burst in pieces by the delicious goings on in his chest and stomach.
    â€œWhere?” he demanded anxiously.
    â€œThere,” said Larch, his eyes fixed on the opening under the loft. “Now!”
    James looked, and had one of the great experiences of his life. He saw no ordinary sight; it is not easy to explain this, because all that actually came through the archway was a sunburned, red-haired man, hanging on to the mouth of an excitable red horse, in an attempt to check its reckless clattering down the slippery incline.
    James saw animal strength in its most idealized and uplifted form. The lovely lines of bones and sinew of both man and horse rose up in a flurry of sparks, and seemed all cased in red gold, like fire blazing. It was a picture of pride and blood and natural pageantry. James was transported. In one moment he felt filled, satisfied, slaked. Immediately afterwards he was alarmed. Something alive appeared to have been born in him. Something expected to come out. He struggled for expression, and then as the realization that he had none, had no way of releasing the idea, which by passing through him could emerge a new, created thing, he began to cry.
    Old Larch’s grip tightened. He was a little rheumy himself, and Jason, who caught sight of the two of them, began to laugh in a high pitched, spiteful fashion. The spell was broken, but the ache remained in James. It was an ache of which he never did get quite rid in all the rest of his life, and from time to time during the years it was added to by other experiences.
    The little gift of expression which Galantry had given him was more than outweighed by the dumbness which was Shulie’s legacy, so he was never able to set free the pieces of created art which were conceived on those occasions. He never could tell anyone else in the world, ever, by any means at all, what exactly it was he had seen in the picture the archway framed. Yet they did not die in vain, for the blessed phoenix of desire rose out of them, and the desire to express was one of the things that James made in his life, and he passed it on, not only to his children, but to all sorts of other people whom he inspired.
    At the moment, however, James was far too occupied with the next thing to worry about the mysteries and complications contained in the adventure of being alive. The red-haired man brought the horse dancing down the yard, and a small crowd of men and boys followed them admiringly.
    â€œA rare ’un,” said Larch reverently. “Beautiful, ain’t he?”
    James did not know anything about the points of a horse, or even