THE HOUSE AND HIS RIDER. 3] 



he often displays the most generous solicitude, to 

 avoid injuring other creatures. It is not an uncom- 

 mon thing for a fallen soldier to escape without one 

 touch of a hoof, though a charge of cavalry pass over 

 his prostrate body, every animal in the line leaping 

 clear over him. An old horse belonging to a carter 

 in Strathnegie, Fifeshire, had become particularly 

 familiar with the ways of children, for his master had 

 a large family. One day, as this animal was dragging 

 a loaded cart through a narrow lane near the village, 

 a young child happened to be sprawling in the road, 

 and would inevitably have been crushed by the 

 wheels, if the sagacious old horse had not prevented it. 

 He carefully took up the child by the clothes with 

 his teeth, carried it for a few yards, and then placed 

 it on a bank by the wayside, moving slowly all the 

 while, and looking back as if to satisfy himself that 

 the wheels of the cart had cleared it. 



Gregarious in the wild state, the horse retains the 

 same sociable disposition in domestication, and shows 

 a great aversion to be left alone. This companion- 

 able temper appears very pleasingly in the field, in 

 the gambolings of horses with each other, in their 

 manifest curiosity when a strange horse comes in 

 sight, and the animated gestures and neighings with 

 which they try to strike up an acquaintance, and, 



