282 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER 



CHAPTER XX. 



ECCENTRIC LITERARY AND CLERICAL HORSEMEN. 



LITERATURE has produced a few equestrian curiosities. 

 So has the Church. The typical fox-hunting parson 

 has his opposite. 



An absent-minded man was the eccentric poet 

 Bowles, who resided at Bremhill, in Wiltshire. His 

 chief mode of locomotion being on horseback, he was 

 one day met by a friend walking leisurely along the 

 road, book in hand, with the reins of his bridle hang- 

 ing on his arm, and the head-piece with the bit 

 trailing on the ground behind him. 



* Why, Bowles ! ' exclaimed his friend, ' what has 

 become of your horse ? ' 



' Behind me,' was his reply, without taking the 

 trouble to look back. 



'Then he is an uncommon long way behind, 

 Bowles ; for I can see a mile of road, but no horse.' 



On this occasion, during one of his absent fits, 

 while stopping and taking notes as he proceeded by 

 the wayside, the chin-stay being loose the horse 

 had disengaged the bridle from his head without his 



