Pony carriage

“ It is that of the severe-looking female in a low pony carriage. She may or may not be an old maid. Very likely she is; and no wonder, for she is flat-faced and painfully plain. Beside her sits her companion, and behind her a man in a cheap livery; while she herself handles the ribbons, driving a rough, independent, self-willed pony. These people sternly refuse to look at us. ”

“ At the bend of the avenue the pony-carriage, our link with the world without, was disappearing from view, the piebald pony heading for home at a pig-like but determined gallop. The job-cook clasped her hands on my arm and announced to the landscape that she would live and die with the Major.
IX
"A HORSE! A HORSE!" PART II
A quarter of an hour later Philippa and I stood in the high road, with the sense of deliverance throbbing in every grateful nerve, and viewed the car, with the job-cook and the policeman, swing heavily away towards the railway station. ”

“ He drove very nervously, afraid at every moment lest the pony should bolt; and when the animal's extreme docility assured him there was no such danger, he looked round right and left, expecting at every moment some friend to pounce down upon him. But the ways were empty, the breeze that came across the fields was fresh and sweet, and they were all beginning to enjoy themselves, when he suddenly espied a carriage following in his wake. He whipped up the pony, and contrived to distance his imaginary pursuer ”

“ Besides, a pony-carriage that is intended only to carry a light weight, and to run over smooth turf or a good road, need not be built so strongly as a travelling carriage, which is to convey luggage as well as passengers, and which will be exposed to all the rough treatment it is likely to meet with at inns, as well as the shaking it will probably undergo from the different kinds of roads to be driven over. ”

“ Every morning, under the guardianship of his tutor, Monsieur Donny, the prince was taken into the park in a little pony-carriage led by a groom, and made the tour of the domain four or five times. Towards the middle of the journey the pony and servant were changed, for the promenade was long, and often occupied several hours; and, occasionally, the poor father and mother, so soon to be bereaved, might be seen following on horseback, and wistfully regarding the little carriage which held the object of their dearest hopes. ”

“ If one must be locomotive, when alone with the ladye of our love (not a desirable necessity, some will say) , I doubt if we can be better than on horseback. A low pony-carriage, with a very steady animal in the shafts, has its advantages ”

“ It goes without saying that, profiting by the latitude allowed to caricature, I was represented as of elephantine bulk and appearance, like the god Ganesa, the Hindoo god of wisdom, and that my ponies were shown as no larger than poodles, rats, or mice. It is also true that I could readily enough have carried my pair one under each arm, and taken the carriage on my back. I did for a moment think of having a pony four-in-hand, but such a Liliputian equipage would have merely attracted greater attention. ”

“ They, too, could take their little friends driving, and this added a feeling of importance to their pleasure in the pony.
Had Tess had her way every sick or crippled child in town would have ridden behind the calico pony. She wanted at once to go to the Women's and Children's Hospital, where their very dear friend, Mrs. Eland, had been matron and for the benefit of which The Carnation Countess had been given by the school children of Milton, and take every unfortunate child, one after another, out in the basket carriage. ”

“ Lyons out from Brighton by the 9.30 train; if you like to drive the pony chaise down and meet him, you are welcome, and you can bring your parcel back with you in it.”
I gladly accepted her offer, and in a few minutes I was seated in a little low basket-carriage, drawn by a pretty iron-grey Welsh pony.
The station road commands the line of the South Downs from Chantonbury Ring, with its cap of dark firs, to Mount Harry, the scene of the memorable battle of Lewes. ”

“ The watchers identified his character at once, and needed not the sight of the broad flat flaps fastened across the saddle, one in front and the other behind him. He glanced toward the train, and observing all eyes upon him, raised a hand in salutation, but did not speak or make any further acknowledgment of the cheers. In a twinkling the emigrants were gazing upon his back, the ends of the fluttering handkerchief, fringes of clothing, streaming tail and flying hoofs of the pony, which flung chunks of earth into the air as he skimmed away on the wings of the wind. ”

“ He had intended meeting his friends at the train, but the girls arrived earlier than they had been expected, so that Will was busily working in the yard when he chanced to look up and see a pony-cart being driven at reckless speed down the road. It was a pleasant winter day, for a clear sun shone overhead and there had been no snowfall as yet, so the pony’s hoofs pattered merrily over the hard road and soon brought his driver within hailing distance. ”

“ Two sets of mail bags were approaching each other from points two thousand miles apart, and there were times when this approach was at the astounding speed of forty and even fifty miles an hour! The average daily rate was two hundred and fifty miles a day, but where everything was favorable, or when an express rider was fleeing from the vengeful red men, his pony struck a gait of twenty-five miles and maintained it, when an untrained horse would have dropped in his tracks. ”

“ It was a shriek—a single ringing scream—uttered as if in extremity of agony or terror. I galloped forward, and on reaching the angle of the road I was surprised to see his pony standing in the roadway, some sixty yards ahead, with the saddle empty. The rider was nowhere to be seen. ”

“ He knew the sand ridge was only used by horsemen, not being wide enough for the safe passage of wagons, but the depth of the water on either side was entirely problematical. He was taking a big chance, yet dare not wait for daylight. Summoning all his nerve and alertness, he urged his horse slowly forward, the intelligent animal seemingly comprehending the situation, and feeling carefully for footing. The actions of the animal gave the rider greater confidence, and he loosened his grip on the rein, leaving the pony's instinct to control. ”

“ She tried to hold on to the saddle with her shaking hands, for the bridle was already flying loose to the breeze, but her hold seemed so slight that each moment she expected to find herself lying huddled on the plain with the pony far in the distance.
Her lips grew white and cold; her breath came short and painfully; her eyes were strained with trying to look ahead at the constantly receding horizon. Was there no end? Would they never come to a human habitation? Would no one ever come to her rescue? How long could a pony stand a pace like this? ”

“ He rode like a Centaur, giving with his lithe, supple body to every motion of the animal. But though he took steep hillsides of shale on the run, the pony slithering down in a slide of rubble like a cat, the rider's alert eyes watched the footing keenly. He could afford if necessary to break a leg himself, but he could not afford to have the horse suffer such an accident. ”

“ From fifteen to twenty-five miles a day, according to the character of the country to be ridden through, is an excellent day’s work for pack ponies, and from two to three miles an hour a fair pace to travel at.
Keep your temper in driving pack ponies across a side hill, or along a steep and narrow trail. Pack ponies are as mean as—civilised words won’t express their ‘meanness’—and when a pony knows that he has another between himself and the whip, and that the whip cannot reach him owing to the narrowness of the trail, he will stop and browse. ”

“ At the same instant, a wiry pony, with flashing eyes and dilated nostrils and fine muscles aquiver, made a tremendous leap which carried him almost to the middle of the street, and heading toward the river, plunged away under the prick of the spur, on a dead run.
Horse and rider made a fine picture. Silver mounted trappings decorated both. The man might have been mistaken for a circus performer, in his brilliant uniform, with plated horn, pistol, scabbard and belt, gay, flower-worked leggings, jingling spurs and fine boots with high heels, such as cowmen and rustlers affect. ”

“ These ponies are much used all over the kingdom, for good roads for wheel traffic hardly exist in the country, and wide horse-tracks form practically the whole means of communication between the capital and the most important ports and cities in the different provinces of Corea. They are used both for riding purposes and as pack-ponies, "for light articles only," like the racks in our railway carriages, but when heavy loads are to be conveyed from one place to another, especially over long distances, the frail pony is discarded and replaced by the sturdy ox. ”

“ To begin with, we were late in starting—our men, with most of the ponies and heavy baggage, had gone up the Bow valley, leaving us three ponies for the remainder of the luggage. At the very start, if it had not been for the help of an obliging man at Laggan railway station, I do not think we should ever have satisfactorily tied on all the odd packages. To pack an Indian pony, and finish all off neatly with a good tight diamond hitch, is an accomplishment not possessed by every one. ”

“ It requires a strong pull upon the rein and a dig of the heel into the ribs of the pony to get him out of the path he has chosen. As soon as this is accomplished to the satisfaction of the rider and he settles down in the saddle conscious of his superior wisdom over the brute creation, without the least warning the pony takes a side step which lands him in the bottom of the forbidden trail. After a few of these unexpected rebuffs the rider is content to let the pony have the choice of trails providing it leads in the general direction of the rider’s choice. ”

“ My experiences must certainly be put on record somewhere and sometime, for, alas! the horse is dying out and with him will die the bridle-paths and the pack-roads. The night-riding part of my Surrey Guide work was to me particularly attractive. No one who has not tried night-riding across country will realise how fascinating it is and, comparatively speaking, how easy. Provided you ride a pony, instead of a huge, long-legged, heavy- weighted, badly-balanced horse, there is neither danger nor difficulty. ”

“ There could be no mistake as to the young man’s enthusiasm. During the brief conversation his pony, like the others, kept walking briskly. At the top of the incline the rider waved a good bye to his new acquaintances, and the horse of his own accord struck into a gallop which speedily carried him out of sight around a sweeping curve in the trail. ”

“ At this particular time a young man who, a couple of years previous, had never known anything less comfortable than a feather bed, or a job harder than writing railroad way-bills, was one of two in the cross-country freighter crew who had been assigned by Wagon-boss Watson to mount a "pinto" pony and ride all day at least 1,000 yards away from the trail and keep to the high places where he could see what was going on, if anything, in the vicinity. ”

“ Inasmuch as he had decided to keep up the effort to reach the next station, the obvious thing to do was to follow in the hoof prints left by the pony. Doubtless he was making for the station and would reach it within the coming hour. What would the agents think when he dashed up without rider, saddle or mail pouches? What could they think except that the man had been killed and the bags stolen? It is a difficult but not impossible task to trail a horse by night. To do it, however, requires the finest woodcraft. ”

“ The approaching rider was now seen to be a young fellow, scarcely more than a big boy. He came up the long bare drive, stopped at the porch edge and took off his hat before he spoke to the woman in the rocking-chair. She noted that the pony he rode stumbled with weariness, while the led horse trotted briskly, unencumbered with saddle or rider. She saw, too, that while the tired pony bore a brand unfamiliar to her, the led one was marked with a G in a horse-shoe--Harvey Grannis's brand. ”

“ The family wagon was drawn by four yoke of choice oxen, the others by three yoke. Then we had saddle horses and cows, and last of all my pony. He was a beauty, and his name was Billy. The chief pleasure to which I looked forward in crossing the plains was to ride on my pony every day. But a day came when I had no pony to ride, for the poor little fellow gave out. He could not endure the hardships of ceaseless travel. When I was forced to part with him, I cried as I sat in the back of the wagon watching him become smaller and smaller as we drove on until I could not see him any more. ”

“ During our drive, he observed, "I like ponies, they are so little trouble; and I prefer them to driving one horse in this vehicle, as I can put my wife and daughters into it. It's selfish to keep a carriage for yourself alone, and one horse in a four-wheeled double chaise appears like an imposition upon the poor animal." ”