A RIDE WITH A MAD HORSE IN A CAR. 213 



lap. High in the ^^'ithers as she was, the line of 

 her back and neck perfectly curved, while her 

 deep, oblique slioulders and long thick fore-arm, 

 ridgy with sM^elling sinews, suggesting the perfec- 

 tion of stride and power. Her knees across the 

 pan were wide, the cannon-bone below them short 

 and thin ; the pasterns long and sloping ; her hoofs 

 round, dark, shiny, and well set on. Her mane 

 was a shade darker than her coat, fine and thin, 

 as a thoroughbred's always is whose blood is with- 

 out taint or cross. Her ear was thin, sharply 

 pointed, delicately curved, nearly black around the 

 borders, and as tremulous as the leaves of an 

 aspen. Her neck rose from tlie withers to the 

 head in perfect curvature, hard, devoid of fat, and 

 well cut up under the chops. Her nostrils were full, 

 very full, and thin almost as parchment. The eyes, 

 from which tears might fall or fire flash, were well 

 brought out, soft as a gazelle's, almost human in 

 their intelligence, while over the small bony head, 

 over neck and shoulders, yea, over the whole body 

 and clean down to the hoofs, the veins stood out as 

 if the skin were but tissue-paper against which the 

 warm blood pressed, and which it might at any 

 moment burst asunder. ' A perfect animal,' I said 

 to myself, as I lay looking her over, — ' an animal 

 which might have been born from the wind and 

 the sunshine, so cheerful and so swift she seems ; 

 an animal which a man would present as hi^ 



