Argosy, September 1955 — page 118: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

116 JOHN WYNDHAM My father had been heard to declare that Angus lacked moral fibre, and that the broadness of his principles, if he had any, was a serious menace to the rectitude of the neighbourhood; Angus reciprocated by considering my father to be a hard man and bigoted beyond the brink of stupidity. Though they were on the opposite sides of every question, the antipathy remained almost entirely verbal until the affair of Angus’s greathorses came up. My father had heard of greathorses, though none had previously been seen in our district, but when he went to look at the pair that Angus had bought, doubt was already in his mind. ‘The moment he set eyes on the huge creatures, standing nearly twenty- eight hands at the shoulder, it was confirmed. He knew that they were wrong. He went straight to the Inspector and demanded that they should be destroyed as Offences But the Inspector shook his head. ‘‘ You’re out of order,” he told my father cheerfully, with an air of relishing the fact that his grounds were incontestable. ‘‘ They’re Government-approved.” ** I don’t believe it,’ said my father. ‘“‘ God never made horses the size of these. ‘The Government can’t have approved them.” “They have,” the Inspector assured him. ‘‘ What’s more, knowing this district pretty well by now, Angus took the precaution of getting individual certificates for them.” “Any Government that could pass such creatures as normal is corrupt and immoral,” said my father. “Possibly,” agreed the Inspector, calmly, ‘“‘ but it is still the Government.” My father was roused. “It is easy to see why they’d approve them,” he said. ‘‘ One of those brutes could do the work of two or more ordinary horses, for a lot less than double the feed. But that’s no excuse for casuistry. A horse like that is not one of God’s creatures—and if it isn’t His, then it is an Offence, and should be destroyed as such.” “'The official approval states that the breed was produced simply by mating for size. And I defy you to find anything identi- fiably wrong with them, anyway,’ the Inspector told him. “It doesn’t follow that they’re right,’’ my father persisted. ‘“ No horse that size could be right. It is your moral duty to issue an order against them,” he told the Inspector. “Tt is my official duty to protect them and their owner against attacks by bigots, or any other irresponsibles,”’ said the Inspector, growing suddenly short-tempered. My father nursed his wrath for an address in chapel next Sunday in which he seared the whole community for tolerating Mutants. The dispute died to a smoulder. My father did not change his opinions, but in face of the Government approval, they found little support. Six weeks later he shot at one of the greathorses on the grounds that it had broken down our fence and was on our land alarming our cattle. The creature was only lightly touched, but the incident did nothing to improve relations with Angus Morton. The greathorses remained. My father continued to mention their presence as the cause of any divine displeasure manifested locally. comicbooks.coml 5