Post horse

“ And from those earliest days when I rode, with the stirrups crossed on my brother's saddle, after some kind old straying ox, I was always satisfied to go where the horse would go. He could see better than I, and he could hear better, and if he tramped peacefully, the land was certainly clear of any evil thing.
We crossed the long wooded hill clattering like a troop of the queen's cavalry, and turned down toward the great level bow which the road makes before it crosses the Gauley. ”

“ Post-horses were always for hire in Italy, with a bit of fur attached to their bridles to mark their status. The owner gave the hirer a ticket to show his host at the end of the day's journey, who would then take care of the horse until a return fare was forthcoming; no security was asked. It was a novel experience for most foreigners to ride one post-horse all day: in England the stages were ten miles; in France, in the seventeenth century, four or five, so that a traveller in a hurry would change horses as many as eighteen to twenty-two times a day. ”

“ Up a slight slope we stand in our stirrups—to ease our horses, bien entendu—not to look at the forbidding obstacle in front of us, oh dear no! a post and rails, with no top bar broken anywhere, and what I hear a groom behind me calling a 'narsetty' great ditch on the landing side. Our gallant first Whip crams his horse at it, and but for the animal's forgetfulness in leaving both hind legs the wrong side, would have led over in great style; but 'tis an ill wind which blows nobody any good, and those legs break the top rail for us. ”

“ The post-coach and the heavy-draft horse are there to be met with upon the same ground. The post-coach horse is, to be sure, bred a little everywhere; his temperament and the conditions in which he is placed, prepare him for this specialty.
It is, as we see, at the two extremities of the ellipse (especially where the pasture grounds are) , that the mares are found. In the center, at Mauves, Regmalard, Lougny, etc., etc., the inhabitants turn their attention to bringing up the colts. ”

“ Abner's chestnut stood like a horse of bronze and I dozed in the saddle.
Shadows were entering the world through the gaps and passes of the mountains when I heard a horse. I stood up in my stirrups and looked.
The horse was traveling the path running through the wood below us. I could see the rider through the trees. He was a grazer whose lands lay westward beyond the wood. In the deep, utter silence I could hear the creak of his saddle-leather. Then suddenly as he rode there was the roar of a gun, and a cloud of powder smoke blotted him out of sight. ”

“ Oh! here they come, trotting, riding, and galloping to the meet from every point of the compass, and apparently from every region of the habitable globe,146 some of the young ones—diverging as usual from their path of rectitude—to lark over a fence or two. Along the turnpike and country roads, drags with four horses, light dog-carts with two, post-chaises and gigs, each laden with men muffled up in heavy clothing, showing no pink, save a little bit peeping out at the collar, are all hurrying onwards to the same goal ”

“ In the evening sunlight the Cardinal was a horse of bronze.
Opposite me in the shadow of the tall hickory timber the man Ump, doubled like a finger, was feeling tenderly over the coffin joints and the steel blue hoofs of the Bay Eagle, blowing away the dust from the clinch of each shoe-nail and pressing the flat calks with his thumb. No mother ever explored with more loving care the mouth of her child for evidence of a coming tooth. Ump was on his never-ending quest for the loose shoe-nail. ”

“ Presently in the deepening twilight a huge shadow appeared at the foot of the long hill, and the driller heard distinctly the sound of a horse coming leisurely up the sandy road. As it approached, the indefinite shadow took on a clear and decided outline, until one in the position of the driller could have seen that it was an enormous man, riding a red roan horse. The man was leaning forward, his head down and his hands resting on the pommel of his saddle, while the bridle reins dangled loose in his fingers. ”

“ The deep sapphire of the sea rippling under the brisk evening breeze, the turquoise heaven that swept down to the horizon softly shifting against the sapphire contrast to a mystery of fragile green, the field of battle boiling and eddying in the mellow orange glow of the long rays of the setting sun and bursting into masses of iridescent spray made a noble setting worthy of the cause, and in it eighty tons of mother-love and devotion measuring itself in horse-power and foot-tons was slowly drooping under the hail from a slim, glittering, iridescent arc. ”

“ As it has been found entirely practical to follow out this course with enlisted men on remounts at a regimental post, it is to be hoped that heavy, hard-gaited, uncomfortable horses to ride will soon disappear from the ranks. ”

“ Well, by taking post-horses, Monsieur cannot reach Arras before to-morrow. We are on a crossroad. The relays are badly served, the horses are in the fields. The season for ploughing is just beginning; heavy teams are required, and horses are seized upon everywhere, from the post as well as elsewhere. ”

“ A crew of runners would meet the train, pile all the freight and passengers that were possible inside, lash the rest on the roof, and then with their four or six horse teams—never an animal free from a collar gall—on a dead run race for a place at the edge of the mesa in order to be the first on the winding trail that led downward to the city. Whips cracking, horses on the jump, coaches swinging and banging, here a hairy rawhide trunk goes off, and there an Indian hotel mozo is snapped straight out in the rush as he tries to crawl up on the baggage rack behind ”

“ At the mud walled tambo of Cocuta the first change of horses was made. Before we reached Machicomaca, the next tambo for new horses where we ate breakfast in a mud walled, windowless room, the brake broke or fell off and had been lost somewhere on the rough trail. The steady gallop of the tough, rough mountain horses kept time to the steady singing and punctuating 263 crack of the whip. And yet rarely was a horse struck. An Aymará will drive a crippled animal or leave it to die of starvation on a lonely trail without a thought, but it is rarely that he will abuse a beast with actual violence. ”

“ If the horse was frightened he was not more so than I. To be horseless and on foot in an Indian plain and with the uncertain rumors of Aymará outbreaks that might have spread like a flame among that dull, hostile population was the most unpleasant situation I have ever faced. The little Indian towns where I expected to camp, Copencara and the tambo of Cocuta, were safe enough, but the thought of getting even to Achicachi—where I might be able to get a fresh horse—gave me five minutes of cold and clammy quivers of panic at the pit of my stomach. ”

“ She pulled the reins so taut that her horse reared as she urged him forward, but again the duke ranged his horse close beside her, heading off her attempt to get past.
"A woman's 'won't' as often means she will," he answered deliberately. "It is when she says she is not certain that her irrevocable decision is made."
"I hate you, I utterly hate you!" cried Nina, her anger getting the better of her fear.
The duke laughed maliciously. "I had scarcely hoped to make so deep a mark on your emotions! ”

“ Early in the morning I was off; some of the celebrants of the night before were strewn along the streets, still drunk, and among them the sociable hogs rooted or wandered. The horse I looked over anxiously, but he was sound as a dollar and even a little frisky in the keen air. ”

“ They were of all sizes, from tiny remolinos that died in a few puffs to towering whirlwinds that spiraled fifteen hundred feet in the air with a base of fifty feet that juggled boulders in its vortex like so many cork chips. They would move leisurely for a short space and then dart like a flash in an erratic path. Sometimes fifteen or twenty of these would be in sight at the same time. Herds of llamas grazed over the plain, sometimes a flock of sheep or an occasional horse, each with a wary eye on the whirlwinds; if one approached too near they galloped off. ”

“ Even in such seeming exceptions to the Economic importance of money as are offered by barter, in which no money passes and no money accounting is made, comparisons of the objects thus directly exchanged are nevertheless contemplated by the exchangers in terms of money. The owner of a horse that might sell for two hundred dollars, would not barter it for a horse that could sell for only one hundred—not unless he got “boot” enough to even up the money difference to his satisfaction. ”

“ Ever hear a horse shake himself, like a water-spaniel fresh from a dip, when he has been tied for a long time in one place with the dead weight of a heavy stock saddle on his back? There is a little by-play of grunting and clearing of nostrils, then the slap of skirts and strings and stirrup-leathers—a man never forgets or mistakes the sound of it, if he has ever slept in a round-up camp with a dozen restless night-horses saddled and tied to a wagon twenty feet from his bed. But it made us jump, welling up out of the dark so unexpectedly and so near. ”

“ With haunches in quivering contact with the sward, and frontlet faced to the rear, he continues to gaze—his large brown eyes straining upon the intruder in a mingled expression of fear and bewilderment.
What has challenged the stag to such protracted scrutiny?
The horse is perfect in all its parts—a splendid steed, saddled, bridled, and otherwise completely caparisoned. In it there appears nothing amiss—nothing to produce either wonder or alarm. But the man—the rider? ”

“ This is the perfection of a walking pace. By degrees any nervousness wears off, the rigid trussed appearance gives place to one of pliancy and comparative security, the body loses its constrained stiffness, and begins to conform to and sway with the movements of the horse. The rider, sitting perfectly straight and erect, approaches the correct position, and lays the foundation of that ease and bearing which are absolutely indispensable. ”

“ Holding on to the animal, pulling my best at the bridle-rein all the while, the ferryman pushing with all his might, we finally scrambled over the ice and through narrow passageways until a place of safety was reached. How thankful I felt when it was all over, and how I loved that horse! Doctor Warner used to tell how his faithful horse once swam an angry stream, and that after the shore had been reached in safety he dismounted, put his arms around the neck of his deliverer, kissed his lips, and wept for joy. ”

“ He cracks his whip; the horses throw up their heads and break into a canter; the cavaliers turn pea-green about the chops, let go the reins and clutch saddle-pommels.
The leading horse, a rakish chestnut, finding his head free at last and being heartily fed-up with the whole business, suddenly bolts out of the manège and legs it across the meadow, en route for stables and tea. ”

“ In most instances, a faulty position in the saddle, an unsteadiness of seat, and a lack of sympathy between horse and rider, occasion in the mind of the spectator a sense of uneasiness lest the horse, in making playful movements, or, perhaps, becoming slightly fractious, may unseat his rider,—a feeling which quite destroys the charm and fascination she might otherwise exercise. ”

“ Confident in the qualities of his steed, he knows he will not long ride in the rear.
And the blood-bay answers his expectations. As if joyed at being relieved from his inert load—to him an incubus inexplicable—and inspired by the pressure of his master’s knees, the noble horse springs off over the prairie turf—in long sinewy strides, showing that his body still retains its strength, and his limbs their elasticity. ”

“ When I was about two miles on my way, and was rising a mountain where the road was scarcely six inches wider than my buggy, a man met me, riding a poor old horse without a saddle, all in rags and dirt, with nothing on him but remnants of a torn shirt and pants, with a rope tied round his waist, and a bottle of whiskey in his bosom. ”

“ There is no retreat, and the plunging horses ahead, on a precarious trail, promise little safety. My horse overruns Charmian’s horse, and that sensitive creature, fresh-stung at the psychological moment, planks one of his hoofs into my horse and the other hoof into me. I thank my stars that he is not steel-shod, and half-arise from the saddle at the impact of another flaming dagger. I am certainly getting more than my share, and so is my poor horse, whose pain and panic are only exceeded by mine. ”

“ Throughout the United Kingdom, civilians of all classes, gentlemen, farmers, and yeomen, especially those who occasionally follow the hounds, adopt what is commonly called "the hunting seat," in which, instead of "the fork," the knees form the pivot, or rather hinge, the legs beneath them the grasp, while the thighs, like the pastern of a horse, enable the body above to rise and fall as lightly as a carriage on its springs.
In this attitude the rider cannot turn his body to the right or left, or look behind him as easily as he could revolve upon his "fork." ”

“ The rider must always bear in mind, that every [16] movement of the bridle, the leg, and of the whip, is felt, and responded to, by the sensitiveness of the horse; when she errs, the horse goes wrong, it is therefore indispensable that they should act in conjunction. ”

“ For one thing, that peculiar animal, the jockey, on whom so many eager eyes are fastened, who in the paddock there looks so grim, a colourless face between his brilliant jacket and cap, one body and soul with the prancing horse he rides, how interesting to analyse his professional movements, the bright splash of colour he makes, with the horse's coat blending in it, as they stream down the course. ”