FEBRUARY 107 



reach the end of the field and are called upon to turn round. Even 

 if you have mastered the mystic word, or rather noise ^ it sounds 

 like wo-is-shDlun (Dlun represents the name of the mare, which 

 afterwards you ascertain to be ' Darling ') — the Open Sesame, at the 

 sound of which, and at nothing else, the horses will turn at all — 

 the probability is that you bring them about too sharply, throwing 

 the plough on to its side and yourself into the ditch. Or perhaps 

 you wheel them round too widely, with the result that you find 

 yourself a yard or two beyond the spot where you purposed to 

 begin the new furrow, vaguely wondering how you are going to drag 

 a heavy plough and two very solid horses back into position. 



The end of it is that, having in vain endeavoured to take the 

 half-sarcastic counsel offered to you by Mr. Hodge, who at last feels 

 himself your superior, as, if all the truth were known, very likely 

 he is in more than ploughing, you wipe your perspiring brow and 

 present him with the handles and a shilling. These things, and 

 others, I observed happening to my companion yesterday afternoon. 

 For my own part, whether by good luck or good management 

 modesty forbids me to say, with the exception of a few contre- 

 temps unworthy of notice, I got on exceedingly well. 



The intelligence evinced by farm horses at ploughing, and 

 indeed all other work — if only you are master of the language 

 which they understand — always strikes me as astonishing. The 

 carriage and riding horse is generally very much of a fool and 

 misbehaves himself, or gets frightened, or runs away upon most 

 convenient occasions. How different it is with his humble farm- 

 yard cousin, who, through heat or cold, sun or snow, plods on 

 hour after hour at his appointed task, never stepping aside or 

 drawing a false line, always obedient to the voice of his driver, 

 and, provided he is fairly fed and rested, always ready for his 

 work the long year through. I often wonder whether, taken as 

 a class, the common plough horse is really more intelligent than 

 the aristocrat of the stable, or whether it is simply that the latter 

 has, as a rule, so little to do and so much to eat that he seldom 

 comes to understand the responsibilities of life. On the whole, 



