USE AND ABUSE OF SPUES. 71 



them, infuriated by ardour, whicli neither he nor his 

 rider have power to control, he looks at nothing, thinks 

 of nothing, until at full speed coming to say a stiff fence 

 he disdains to rise at, a lesson is offered to him, which, 

 however, he is a great deal too much excited to learn by 

 heart; and so, before his rider has had time enough to 

 uncoil himself from his roil, the " young ^un," without a 

 thought or disposition to wait for the old gentleman, 

 leaves him on the ground to think about the hounds; 

 while with dangling stirrups, reins hanging loose on his 

 neck, and outstretched neck and tail, he is once again 

 " up and at 'em ! '* 



Although, however, a horse, when his blood is hot, 

 does not appear to notice a fall, he thinks a good deal 

 about it in the stable; and, accordingly, the next time 

 he comes out, instead of being infuriated, he only evinces 

 a superabundance of eagerness and excitement to follow 

 the hounds, which his rider can gradually and often 

 rapidly succeed in allaying, until the animal may be 

 honestly warranted as " steady with hounds," which 

 means that, although he will follow them over anything 

 till he drops, he has lived to learn that to enable him 

 to do so he had better not unnecessarily maim his legs or 

 tumble himself head over heels. With this mixture of 

 high courage and discretion he does his best; and, as 

 affecting evidence of this truth, although, after having 



