54 FACT AGAIXST FICTION. 



They, the men, see a fence to which they are 

 ajiproachiug ; they desire to get over it, without a 

 thought of there being two ways to do so, or a single 

 idea that the horse they are on needs his own mental 

 consideration, with not much time for it, as greatly 

 as they do. As people swallow a noxious dose of 

 medicine with all the haste they can make, a species 

 of nervous energy, not cool determination, urges the 

 rider to face the danger as he would the doctor, well 

 knowing that the more he looks at it the less he will 

 like it ; kicking his heels, therefore, and shutting his 

 eyes, he hurries the horse, disturbs animal calcula- 

 tion, feels a maddened rush, hears a crash, and finds 

 himself either safely over the dreaded obstacle, or 

 on liis nose, with the possible fact of the position of 

 steed and rider being reversed, and the latter the 

 beast of burden. 



If a young horse falls, in the first instance, into 

 good hands, no matter whether he is in colour white 

 or black, chestnut, bay or grey, he scarcely ever be- 

 comes unpleasantly hot or too nervously excitable* 

 A chestnut horse is not always hasty ; I have had 

 as many ^' slugs" of that colour as I have had tliem 

 otherwise ; it is the man that makes the steed to go, 

 well or ill, as the case may be; and on tlic temper of 



