"My brother-in-law's first cousin had one--a
little red-haired beast--as vicious as any wild cat. It won a many
races, but it was the death of him at last, according to the
expectations of everybody. He was brought home on a shutter to his
family, and the pony grazing close by in the ditch as if nothing had
happened. Many's the time I've seen him on it expecting death as
little as yourself, and he refused twenty pound for it the Tuesday
fortnight before he was killed. But I was with his wife that's now his
widow when the body was brought."
By the time that I heard this anecdote I was happily too good a rider
to be frightened by it; but I did wish that Mrs. Bundle's relative had
died any other death than that which formed so melancholy a precedent
in her mind.
The strongest obstacle, however, to any chance of my nurse's looking
with favour on my new pet was her profound ignorance of horses and
ponies in general. Except as to colour or length of tail, she
recognized no difference between one and another. As to any
distinctions between "play" and "vice," a fidgety animal and a
determined kicker, a friendly nose-rub and a malicious resolve to
bite, they were not discernible by Mrs.
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