Читать книгу The Horse and His Rider онлайн

19 страница из 44

The principle of Mr. Rarey's system of domination is at this moment curiously exemplified in the little dairy farm-yard of Mr. Roff, residing on the Brighton road, near Croydon.

Some months ago, on approaching these premises, we observed a lot of children playing with a yearling colt, who, to our surprise, was allowing them to crawl between his legs and fondle him in various ways, just as if he were a dog. On riding into the yard to inquire by what magical means the little quadruped had been made so gentle and tame, we were informed by the old farmer who owned him that his wife, kind to all her beasts,—

"She milk'd the dun cow that ne'er offer'd to stir:

Though wicked to all, it was gentle to her,"—

had for many years been yearning to add to them a pet colt; that accordingly he had lately bought her one, and that she had tamed it: with uxorious pride he added "she could tame anything." As, however, we were perfectly convinced that his good wife, in spite of her comely, honest face, could not fascinate a horse's heart quite as easily as a husband's, we cross-questioned the latter for a considerable time, until he at last mentioned (as if it had nothing whatever to do with the subject) that when he purchased the yearling (whose mother had just died), not knowing how to bring it to his wife, with the assistance of one or two men he strapped together all its four feet, and then, lifting it into his cart, just as if it had been a calf, he trotted away with it, jolting it and jumbling it till he reached his home, where he uncarted it, and, in due time, with his own hands, restored to it the use of its limbs.