ABOUT BUYING A HORSE. 131 



Will Trott's horse go in harness? Yes. I can try him. 

 In Trott's trap. Luckily Gloppin is able to accompany me 

 on the occasion. Trott doesn't come, no Ostler or e?nploye 

 of Trott's comes. My Aunt so admires the horse that she 

 proposes joining us, and does so. 



1 drive. Aunt by my side. Gloppin behind. The horse 

 starts easily. Almost too easily, as he goes with a high step 

 suddenly out of the yard, and we nearly graze the gate-post 

 and take the paint off Trott's wheels. It makes me gasp. 

 Though I'm quite accustomed to the reins, yet I feel as 

 though I were driving now for the first time. I turn him to 

 the left with no decided object in view of going anywhere in 

 particular, and he steps out freely. 



But — there's a something— a sort of upheaving of his back 

 and hind-quarters — which suggests an inclination on his 

 part to get out of his harness. To my mind his very pace, 

 his arched neck, and his eagerness to bulge out his chest 

 and throw himself forward, suggest the idea of his feeling 

 fettered, and wanting to chuck it all otfand become the wild 

 horse of the prairie, or, at all events, the browser on the 

 common. As I uiay be wrong, I keep these reflections to 

 myself, not wishing to make my Aunt nervous. 



I feel, though, that she'll make me nervous very soon. 

 She is perpetually clutching at the side-rail, and throwing 

 herself back whenever the horse makes a start forward ; of 

 which movement (perfectly in keeping with my theory about 

 his wishing to get out of it altogether) he seems to be 

 remarkably fond. 



"He doesn't want the whip," Gloppin rem.arks. 



K 2 



