THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 53 



be shut, with orders not to open the door until a 

 signal was given. After a tete-a-tete of about half 

 an hour, during which little or no bustle was heard, 

 the signal was made, and upon opening the door, the 

 horse appeared lying down, and the man by his side 

 playing with him like a child with a puppy dog. 

 From that time he was found perfectly willing to 

 submit to any discipline, however repugnant to his 

 nature before. 



Mr. Croker, to whom we are indebted for this ac- 

 count, once saw this man's skill tried on a horse which 

 could never before be brought to stand still for a smith 

 to shoe him. " The day after Sullivan's half hour's 

 lecture," he says, " I went, not without some incredu- 

 lity, to the smith's shop, with many other curious 

 spectators, where we were witnesses of the complete 

 success of his art. This, too, had been a troop horse, 

 and it was supposed, not without reason, that after 

 regimental discipline had failed, no other would be 

 found availing. I observed that the animal appeared 

 terrified whenever Sullivan either spoke to or looked at 

 him : how that extraordinary ascendency could have 

 been obtained it is difficult to conjecture. 



" In common cases this mysterious preparation was 

 unnecessary. He seemed to possess an instinctive 

 power of inspiring awe, the result, perhaps, of natural 

 intrepidity, in which, I believe, a great part of his art 

 consisted : though the circumstance of the tete-a-tete 



