White horse

“ You see there’s an old White Horse cut out in the side of the highest hill hereabouts, (a regular break-neck place it is, and there ain’t three men in the country as’ll ride along the hill-side under the Horse,) and many folks sets a good deal of store by it, and seems to think the world’d come to an end if the horse wasn’t kept all straight. May be I’m a bit of that mind myself—anyhow you’ll see by the paper inside what’s going on; and being a scholar, may be you’ll know about the White Horse, and like to come down to a scouring. And I can tell you it will be good fun ”

“ Will he not, Sawdust Doll?"
"He certainly will! And now, please tell me about my friends in the store," she begged. "How are the Bold Tin Soldier and the Calico Clown?"
"Each sent you his love," said the White Horse. "And the Candy Rabbit, the Lamb on Wheels and the Monkey on a Stick—each and every one wanted to be remembered to you."
"That was very kind of them, I'm sure," said the Sawdust Doll. "But tell me—have you had any fun since I left?"
"Oh, a little," was the answer. "Only last night the Elephant, who borrowed some roller skates, started to race with me," said the Rocking Horse. ”

“ She watched the tip of his mustache that came beyond the line of his cheek, and when he was farther, his whole strong figure, while the clack of the hoofs on the dead ground grew fainter. [Pg 189] When the steeper fall of the cañon hid him from her she ran to the house, and from its roof among her peppers she saw him come into sight again below, the wide, foreshortened slant of ground between them, the white horse and dark rider and the mules, until they became a mere line of something moving, and so vanished into the increasing day. ”

“ THE VISION OF THE KING Before the gods that made the gods Had seen their sunrise pass, The White Horse of the White Horse Vale Was cut out of the grass. ”

“ A horseman dressed in black, and riding a white horse, was trotting along a portion of the road, which through a sudden break in the clouds was brilliantly illuminated by the rays of the sun. The black figure of the man was projected against a white cloud, and the horse appeared doubly brilliant from being seen against the dark-coloured road. ”

“ Fragments of verse used in The Ballad of the White Horse had come to Gilbert in his sleep; a great white horse had been the romance of his childhood; the beginning of his honeymoon under the sign of the White Horse at Ipswich had been "a trip to fairyland." ”

“ The most discouraging to the tenderfoot, but in reality the safest of all bad trails, is the one that skirts a precipice. Your horse possesses a laudable desire to spare your inside leg unnecessary abrasion, so he walks on the extreme outer edge. If you watch the performance of the animal ahead, you will observe that every few moments his outer hind hoof slips off that edge, knocking little stones down into the abyss. ”

“ Daylight is coming, and we dare no longer move about and talk. We have had some fun, but now we must get ready to be looked at by the shoppers. Quiet, everybody!"
And, as he spoke, the light suddenly grew stronger in the toy department, the clerks presently began coming in, and soon, when the sun was a little higher in the sky, the shoppers began arriving.
The White Rocking Horse, proud and stiff, stood near the counter. How his red saddle, of real leather, glistened in the light! How fluffy were his mane and tail! ”

“ CHAPTER IV THE SURPRISE Through all this talk between the young lady of the store and the father who was buying something for his son's Christmas, to help busy Santa Claus, the White Rocking Horse never said a word. But he was doing as much thinking as a wooden horse ever did; I am sure of that.
"I'll get some big sheets of paper and wrap the horse up for you," said the young lady clerk to the man. "Are you sure you can get him in your auto?"
"Oh, yes," the man answered. "I have plenty of room. There will be no one in the car but the horse and myself. We shall have a nice ride together. ”

“ You turn but a spur in the mountains: you dip into a valley smoking with the dews of the morning; or come up a mesa,—and a winged horseman spurs past, hair tied back by red scarf, pantaloons of white linen, sash of rainbow colors; and you are amid the dwellings of men. Strings of red chile like garlands of huge red corals hang against the sun-baked brick or clay. Curs come out and bark at the heels of your horse—that is why the Oriental always called an enemy "a dog." ”

“ Men had a feeling, too, that the white horse was so beautiful that he must be sacred, a special gift of the gods. Without any special merit, being indeed of lower stamina and endurance than any other horses, the white stock were favoured by breeders. Left to themselves, they would die out rapidly in any sunny climate. One notes, however, that the Persian wild ass has a silvery white coat, the hue of his native desert. There are many animals whose {36} dark hair is white at the tips, so that they are really brunettes who masquerade as blondes. ”

“ It is strange, also significant, that in almost every age allusion has been made to the respect habitually paid to white horses, especially pure white horses. From Homer we know that in his period, or towards the latter part of the eighth century B.C., the Thracians, the Illyrians and the people of Upper Europe spoke of white horses as though they almost worshipped them as gods. ”

“ I hung my saddle on the rack and was just about to lead the old skate to water when we all heard the sound of a horse galloping on the road.
"It's a light boss," said somebody after a moment, meaning a horse without a burden.
We nodded and resumed our occupation. A stray horse coming in to water was nothing strange or unusual. But an instant later, stirrups swinging, reins flapping, up dashed my own horse, Tiger. ”

“ Woe betide the man who rides a white horse into the Ilongot country, for above all things white hair is desired, and unless he stands guard over it, he will find its mane missing and its tail cropped to the skin. ”

“ The little ponies make their feet go so fast, the feathers and trappings of the warriors stream behind so frantically, the whole attitude of horse and man is so eager, that one gets an impression of fearful speed and resistless power. The horizon seems full of Indians. ”

“ The horseman on the white horse was clad in a showy and barbarous attire. His Oriental countenance was contracted with hatred as if smelling out his victims. While his horse continued galloping, he was bending his bow in order to spread pestilence abroad. At his back swung the brass quiver filled with poisoned arrows, containing the germs of all diseases—those of private life as well as those which envenom the wounded soldier on the battlefield. ”

“ It is very convenient stealing a white horse in this country, because the natives always paint them, sometimes in stripes like zebras, and sometimes in zigzags, and always give them scarlet, or orange tails, and orange legs ”

“ A gentle caress on the white neck. To show his happiness and demonstrate the fact that he was strong again, the white horse rose high on his hind legs, then came down without a jar. He would prove to this white man who had defended him that he was glad to have a friend. ”

“ Each, for body, has one very long thin sweep.
4. And this expressed in two continuous curves, and no more.
It may be added that in both forms not only are the curves beautifully designed—which, in the case of the White Horse, on the steep hillside in vast dimensions, is truly wonderful—but in every part of the figure the curves are admirable and almost perfect, however rude may be the shape. Let them be minutely observed.
On the serpent are excrescences not found in nature, two, with knobs on the ends; these might seem to answer, occultly, to the double dividing to form the horse's limbs. ”

“ If there had been no one there to look on, the Horse might have tried to get up, even with all his pain. But, as it was against the rules to move or say anything as long as human eyes were watching, the poor White Rocking Horse just had to lie there.
"Dear me, one of the legs really is broken," said Mother, as she set the Horse upright. And, being a wooden horse with rockers under him, such as some chairs have, the Horse could stand upright, even though one of his legs was cracked clear through.
"Yes, his leg is broken, and now I can never have a ride on him any more!" sobbed Dick. "Oh, dear!" ”

“ In an emergency the Western horse is not apt to lose his head. When a pack-horse falls down, he lies still without struggle until eased of his pack and told to get up. If he slips off an edge, he tries to double his fore legs under him and slide. Should he find himself in a tight place, he waits patiently for you to help him, and then proceeds gingerly. A friend of mine rode a horse named Blue. One day, the trail being slippery with rain, he slid and fell. My friend managed a successful jump, but Blue tumbled about thirty feet to the bed of the cañon. ”

“ Down the mountain again, with never a shy or a snort––the horse knowing the rider, and the man the noble beast; the lizards wheetling merrily, and the paroquets on the tree-tops waking up to chatter with satisfaction. Then into the beaten track along by the sea-shore, the horse increasing his stride at every minute, the spume flying in flakes from his flaming nostrils, and the man bending to his 261 hot neck, smoothing away the white foam, until, with a panting stagger, horse and rider stood still in the town of Kingston. ”

“ In those early times it was deemed criminal intentionally to wound a white horse, while to kill one even by accident was thought to be but little less blameworthy—save, of course, upon occasions when a white horse was to be sacrificed to please the gods or to appease their anger. ”

“ But most marvellous was a clean-limbed, deep-chested, slender running horse, accompanied by a sawed-off English groom. Billy spent a good share of the next week with this individual, constructing a corral of small timber in which the new horse might roll about. Each morning the groom led the animal, astonishingly hooded, blanketed, and leather-banded, up and down the hundred yards or so of level road which was all that strip of rugged country offered fit for such delicate hoofs and fine limbs. The beast always progressed teetering a little sideways, nearly dragging the groom from his feet. ”

“ Where a black, a white or a bay horse would stand out and make a mark for hostile sharpshooters, a mottled gray might well elude their view. And the horse, apart from this, was just what he wanted. He paced fast, he galloped fast, and he walked fast, which is a rare and precious accomplishment in a horse. ”

“ You do not know the beauties of your own country, until, having hunted from Northumberland to Cornwall, you have viewed the various counties under the three aspects of a fox-hunter’s day—the ‘morning ride,’ ‘the run,’ and ‘the return home.’
“The morning ride, slowly pacing, full of expectation, [207] your horse as pleased as yourself; sharp and clear in the gray atmosphere the leafless trees and white farmhouses stand out, backed by a curtain of mist hanging on the hills in the horizon. With eager eyes you take all in; nothing escapes you; you have cast off care for the day. ”

“ Aubrey, however wide of the mark, who, in the additions to the Britannia, says: ‘I leave others to determine, whether the White Horse on the Hill was made by Hengist, since the Horse was the arms or figure in Hengist’s standard.’ The author of a ‘Tour through England,’ is a little more particular, though he leaves us as much in the dark about the antiquity and design of it. ‘Between this town of Marlborow and Abingdon, is the Vale of White Horse. The inhabitants tell a great many fabulous stories of the original of its name ”

“ The ideal mountain horse, when you come to pick him out, is of medium size. He should be not smaller than fourteen hands nor larger than fifteen. He is strongly but not clumsily built, short-coupled, with none of the snipy speedy range of the valley animal. ”

“ The eye enables us with tolerable accuracy to guess at the animal’s temper. If much of the white is seen, he is not to be lightly trusted. The mischievous horse is always slyly on the look out for opportunities to indulge his malice, and the frequent backward direction of the eye, which makes the white most perceptible, is only to give surer effects to the blow which he is about to aim. ”

“ In some spots they contract to an arm's length of space, outside of which limit they drop sheer away; elsewhere they stand up on end, zigzag in lacets each more hair-raising than the last, or fill to demoralization with loose boulders and shale. A fall on the part of your horse would mean a more than serious accident; but Western horses do not fall. The major premise stands: even the casual tourist has no real reason for fear, however scared he may become.
Our favorite route to the main ridge was by a way called the Cold Spring Trail. ”

“ It was a fascinating stretch of country, partly marshy, partly dry, but all of it overgrown with tall and rustling tules. These reeds were sometimes so dense that one could not force his way through them; at others so low and thin that they barely made good quail cover. Almost everywhere a team could be driven; and yet there were soft places and water channels and pond holes in which a horse would bog down hopelessly. From a point on the main north-and-south ditch a man afoot left the bank to plunge directly into a jungle of reeds ten feet tall. ”

“ A cream-coloured horse, with a black tail and mane, is reckoned strong. The horses that have one fore-leg white, and the other of the colour of the body, are supposed to be liable to stumble. The usual colours are bay and grey; but chesnut, black, and cream-colour are less common; those most esteemed for work are dark bays, with black tails and manes, and greys dotted with small bay spots. ”

“ Equine intelligence is of a higher grade West than East, mainly because a western horse is all his life thrown on his own resources. It is perfectly possible to find a horse both handsome and spirited, which will nevertheless permit himself to be directly approached in pasture, and will stand until further orders on the trail. ”