ii8 TALES OF THE TURF AND THE CHASE. 



slight hold I had got of her equine affections ; but the worst was, 

 I had broken my resolution at the first trial. 



VII. 



To-morrow was the day when she was to have her first 

 ' phmgel as Joe phrased it, and my mother's anxiety visibly 

 deepened. 



Why could we not, she urged my father, let her plunge about 

 for a few days with a man-of-straw or a sand-man on her back ? 

 She had seen that done at home. 



' With a good result ?' asked my father. 



My mother did not know with what result ; but she thought 

 we might try it. 



I suggested as a compromise that she might wear a man-of- 

 straw in the night ; but my father at once put that aside by re- 

 minding me that the mare lay down in the night now, and that 

 if she found she could lie down comfortably with the man-of-straw 

 — (here my father could not refrain from laughter — whatever at, 

 my mother wondered ?j — she would try and lie down with me. 



* No, my dear,' said he ; ' we must try her with this man-of- 

 straw first,' looking at me and laughing. My father was unusu- 

 ally facetious. 



When I was mounted for the 'plunge — 



* Always a short stirrup,' said my father emphatically, ' when 

 you're on a horse you're not sure of 



While he on the one side and Joe on the other were short- 

 ening the leathers, the mare kept treading and treading (as if 

 she had been in the army and had learnt to mark time), cocking 

 and switching her long switch-tail, till she almost whisked old 

 Joe's withered head off 



'Woa !' cried Jack, 'you — ;' he felt my father's calm eye on 

 him, and said, ' you bonny Bess !' 



' We must cut it off,' said my father. 



He meant the mare's tail not Joe's old head. 



But before my father's sharp knife was produced, and while 

 he was still smiling at Joe's mishap, round came the terrible tail 

 on his side and whisked his hat away ; some of its loose longer 

 hairs even reached and stung my nose. I believe she knew well 

 what she was about ; I could detect the ardent mischief in her 

 eye and the backward prick of her ear. But we soon had her 

 tail abridged to some inches above her hocks. 



