256 THE HUNTING FIELD 



*' Cripplegate Pet," as he is called by the horse 

 dealers, who invariably expatiates on the advantages 

 of any infirmity about a horse that he wants to sell, 

 but we may observe that real standing over legs, such 

 as Lambkin had, are a recommendation. Standing 

 over legs are of two sorts, the natural and the 

 acquired. The natural, of course, are those with 

 which a horse is foaled, while the acquired are the 

 result of hard work, as are too strikingly portrayed by 

 stage coach and cab horses, knuckling towards the 

 ground. It is a truism for which we will vouch the 

 great Tat himself, that naturally standing over legs 

 never fail, while the others have too palpably failed 

 already. That however is beside the subject. The 

 question before the house is " what was the matter 

 with Lambkin ? " Well, reader, what do you think it 

 was ? D'ye give it up ? Well, we'll tell you. He 

 ■was difficult to moii7it ! 



We have already stated that he was good tempered 

 — even playful — but he had his peculiarity, and that 

 peculiarity consisted in kicking people over his head 

 the moment they mounted. To further his amiable 

 •designs, nature had endowed him with the most 

 powerful back and loins that ever horse possessed. 

 Even in leaping, it required a good seat to keep in 

 the saddle with the tremendous lashes out he gave 

 behind, and the reader may easily imagine what 

 redoubled force he would muster for a premeditated 

 kick, and with what awful violence it would tell on 

 the unsuspecting confidence of a half acquired seat. 

 Lambkin could spanghew a rider as clean as ever 

 schoolboy spanghewd a sparrow from a trap. 

 Send him flying through the air like an arrow or a 

 darting hawk. It was only at the first mounting he 

 did it. If the rider — or would-be rider — kept his 

 seat — the horse would give in after a fight, a piece of 

 politeness that tells more with a master than a stranger, 

 •seeing that the stranger, if he gets kicked off, in all 



