Redressing the Balance.

When I was a very small boy, my dad told me a story concerning something that had happened close to where he lived during his own childhood. It was about a horse and cart crossing a retractable wooden bride over the canal. A wheel of the cart had slipped over the edge of the bridge, the cart had tumbled into the water dragging the horse with it, and the horse had drowned.

I was only about three or four at the time, but I remember quite vividly how much it upset me. I wouldn’t have given a tuppeny toss if the carter had drowned, but the horse was an innocent, captive creature, and its death struck me as the most gut-wrenching of unbearable tragedies.

So, just to make up for it, I’m offering another song from the lovely Kate. It’s an old Scottish song which tells the story of a man so driven to see his lady that he dies in his attempt to cross the river. Tragedy enough, you might say. I agree, but the horse survives.