The Rocking Horse of Veurne
The story that follows was told to me by someone whose words breathe truth. Someone who, as a child, wandered through Veurne and Nieuwpoort, in the time when Mister Lacluse’s house still stood, with its stables full of secrets. It concerns a wooden horse, but not merely a dead object — something that seemed to have its own life.
1 Mister Lacluse’s Stables
In Nieuwpoort, not far from Veurne, a certain Mister Lacluse owned a large house with magnificent stables. This was no ordinary riding school, but a place where animals and things were different. In those stables stood a rocking horse — a hobbelpaard — which it was said had been in the family for two generations.
The horse was not a small toy for little children, but a sturdy wooden construction, strong and carefully made. It had endured through decades, which testified to the care with which it had been crafted. But it was also very old, and like all old things, it began to suffer. It was split — literally in two — by the passage of years. Mister Lacluse, a jovial man, told the children who came to play: "It is nothing, you see. You may come and play here every day. This horse still has much strength in it."
2 The Child’s Wonder
A young child from the neighborhood — the child of the teller of this story — came to the stables one Thursday afternoon. What excitement! His sister worked for Mister Lacluse, so he was always warmly received. He ran to the corner where the rocking horse stood, and gazed in admiration at this large, broken toy.
Day after day the child returned to play with ’Morries,’ as the horse was called. The child climbed on its back, felt the wooden rocking motion, and forgot the world around him. Yet the child could not overlook the break in the horse — the two parts seemed only loosely fastened together. Mister Lacluse shrugged his shoulders: "Don’t worry. Just keep playing." The child trusted him.
3 The Miracle in the Night
Weeks passed. The child played and played, yet his suspicion and wonder grew. How could this horse, so broken, remain so strong? Every day the child came and every day the horse was there, ready to be ridden, not crumbling beneath his weight.
Until one particular day, when the child returned after a long absence of many days. The child pushed open the stable doors with a pounding heart. There stood the rocking horse — completely whole. No splits anymore, no breaks visible. It was as if someone had repaired it in the darkness, as if invisible hands had mended it in the night. Mister Lacluse simply smiled: "I told you it still had much strength, didn’t I?" And the child suddenly understood that some things in the world have their own secrets, their own life, beyond our understanding. The rocking horse of Veurne remained forever a mystery.
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