COLONEL CODSHEAD 295 



horse, is of a piece with his master— a great plethoric, over-fed 

 creature, incapable of exertion if his rider wished it. Indeed 

 the evenness of condition of the two is the only point we can 

 praise; and certainly it is much more sensible for men to 

 regulate their horse's strength to their own, than to strive for that 

 tip-top condition, the property and prerogative of stout nerves. 

 What is the use of having a horse equal to double the exertion 

 the rider is capable of ? The Colonel's horse, in the palmy days 

 of machiners, would always have commanded forty pounds, 

 for he has size and strength enough for a wheeler ; indeed we 

 do not know but he might fetch forty pounds now, prices being 

 somewhat up. He is a dull, inanimate, heavy-countenanced, 

 ugly-looking animal, rendered still worse from having been 

 badly clipped, and being now in that state of transition so trying 

 to all horses, the half-way house between his two coats. A badly 

 clipped horse looks wretched on a frosty, or cold, drying day. 



There is something about hunters— indeed about horses that 

 have any pretensions to that character— that shows itself 

 before you come to the real hedging and ditching work. The 

 horse that evinces no increased pleasure or activity of action 

 on changing from hard ground to grass, has seldom any seeds 

 of the chase in his composition. His/orie is harness. The 

 horse that puts his feet into ruts, grips, and water furrows, 

 instead of hitching himself over them as it were, will be very 

 apt to do the same in the field, and it is perfectly notorious 

 that a man may break his neck at a small place as well as at a 

 large one. Indeed, we believe, if the catalogue of accidents 

 was canvassed, it would be found that the majority of them 

 have happened at small places. Horses either do not see them 

 or will not give themselves the trouble to clear them. Hence 

 men who hunt in parts of Essex, and other widely-ditched 

 countries, declare that their formidable-looking leaps are the 

 safest— a comfortable theory to those who can bring themselves 

 to believe it. 



