The Horse, as Comrade and Friend 



strikes out with a foreleg and begins to prance, 

 arching his neck and champing at the bit, 

 which is covered with foam. He swings him- 

 self quite round, prancing ; throws his head 

 about, and comes again to a dead stop. He 

 stands rigid, looking ahead with a most pierc- 

 ing gaze ; bit quite still, but muscles of his 

 mouth twitching spasmodically. He hears 

 something, for his ears are like steel. Then a 

 high pitched neigh — a call to come to be 

 obeyed — if ever there was one. Still he re- 

 mains rigid, and listening. 



Tumbhng over one another, bursting out of 

 some gorse bushes all at once, appear four 

 little woolly-black, long-maned, long-tailed 

 ponies all of a size, and, three lengths behind, 

 a little grey donkey, ears plastered down on his 

 neck, and braying like sin ! They are a good 

 hundred yards away when they break into the 

 dell all together, and badly jostle one another 

 as they race down in a mass, kicking and 

 squealing. It is quite a good race, for when 

 they reach Disciple they are all rushing abreast, 

 and their momentum is such that they all 

 but charge into him ; and, in the pull up 

 and sudden recoil, neddy dashes into their 

 rear, cutting short with the jerk a bray of a 

 pecuUarly rancorous kind. 



Disciple does not turn a hair, but if ever a 

 horse laughed he is doing so now. After all 

 his trouble it results in this ! As they spring 



134 



