Wooden horse

“ He spurs his horse, he winds his horn, "Hark forward, forward, holla, ho!"— But off, on whirlwind's pinions borne, The stag, the hut, the hermit, go.
And horse and man, and horn and hound, And clamor of the chase, was gone; For hoofs, and howls, and bugle-sound, A deadly silence reigned alone.
Wild gazed the affrighted Earl around; He strove in vain to wake his horn, In vain to call: for not a sound Could from his anxious lips be borne.
He listens for his trusty hounds; No distant baying reached his ears: His courser rooted to the ground, The quickening spur unmindful bears. ”

“ To stand knee-deep in glass and gladiolas, to smell the mashed and mussed up mignonette and the last fragrant sigh of the scrunched heliotrope beneath the hoof of your horse, while far away the deep-mouthed baying of the hoarse hounds, hotly hugging the reeking trail of the aniseseed bag, calls on the gorgeously caparisoned hills to give back their merry music or fork it over to other answering hills, is joy to the huntsman's heart. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Again, in the hunting-field, a noble, high-couraged horse, a rusher at any description of fence, the very sight of which seems to inflame his ardour, in most gallant style charges a brook, which when he is in the air he sees is too broad to be cleared. On his chest striking against the bank, and while his rider, delighted at feeling that he is not a bit hurt, is luxuriously rolling over and over on the green grass like a rabbit that at full speed has been shot dead, this gallant steed makes two, three, or four desperate efforts to get to him ”

“ Look, when a painter would surpass the life, In limning out a well-proportioned steed, His art with nature's workmanship at strife, As if the dead the living should exceed; So did this horse excel a common one, In shape, in courage, color, pace, and bone.
Round-hoofed, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide, High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong, Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide: Look, what a horse should have, he did not lack, Save a proud rider on so proud a back. ”

“ They then stuff the horses skin with straw, and sew it up, so as to appear entire, fixing pieces of wood under the skin of the legs, that the stuffed animal may stand up as it did when alive. They next construct a scaffold, amid the branches of a large tree, upon which they fix the stuffed horse skin, and worship it as a god; offering up to it the furs of sables, ermines, grey squirrels, and foxes, which they hang among the boughs of the sacred tree, just as we offer up wax-lights to the images of the saints. ”

“ While she was managing to dry herself and dress, her horse limped off into the grassy swale below to drink in the stream and feed among the tender grasses.
Before she drew on the homespun gown she tucked her linen map into an inner skirt pocket, flat against her right thigh; then, fastening on the shabby skirt, she rolled up her riding habit, laid it with lantern, revolver, saddle, bridle, boots, and bags, in the hollow and covered all over with heaps of fragrant dead leaves and branches. ”

“ The horse wheeled towards the north, stepping quietly through the moonlight, steadily, slowly northward, through misty woodlands and ferny glades and deep fields swimming under the moon, across a stony stream, up through wet meadows, into a silvery road, and across a bridge which echoed mellow thunder under the trample of the iron-shod horse. ”

“ The young horse, caught at last,—our stud of four graze on the turfy acre fenced in about the house,—is a little restive at first in the unwonted restraint of the harness, but soon gets broken in to steady work by the heavy roads. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When a horse is standing still, or lying fast asleep in his stable, his shoes are, of course, firmer when wholly than when only half-nailed. So soon, however, as, mounted by say a heavy man, he begins to move, there commences, out of sight of every human eye, a desperate, and in deep ground a subterranean struggle between the works of Nature and of Vulcan the blacksmith, or, in plainer words, between the expansive efforts of the frog and hoof and the arbitrary metallic shoe that is restraining them. ”

“ They are generally smaller, yet stronger, than the domesticated animal, with rougher coats, stronger limbs, and larger heads. Even when adult, the wild horse is readily domesticated, and may be broken to any use without great difficulty, thus proving the natural gentleness and docility of his nature. ”

“ A horse is only picturesque from opposition of colour; as in Mr. Northcote's study of Gadshill, where the white horse's head coming against the dark, scowling face of the man makes as fine a contrast as can be imagined. An old stump of a tree with rugged bark, and one or two straggling branches, a little stunted hedge-row line, marking the boundary of the horizon, a stubble-field, a winding path, a rock seen against the sky, are picturesque, because they have all of them prominence and a distinctive character of their own. ”

“ A rounded log of wood, not less than 15 feet in length, and 10 inches or more in diameter, may then be placed across the horse’s track, which should have been made soft. If the animal shews a little reluctance to face the obstacle, we may “work” him up to it with the reins, keeping him straight by the pressure of the outward rein{189} against his quarter, as he turns from one side to the other, and stimulating him with the voice and sound of the whip. ”

“ Over the horse's hind-quarters a large wet blanket or hide is laid to protect it from the sparks or coals that might fall out of the pan. It is the easiest way of killing game, and in places not thickly covered with wood this mode of hunting promises an extraordinary charm, through the wondrous illumination which the fire produces on the green, flower-clad foliage. A whole forest may be depopulated in this way, and hence I regard it as quite unworthy of a true sportsman. ”

“ It was composed of living forms—the most beautiful known in nature: for in this man must give way to the horse. Not the unsexed horse of civilisation, with hunched shoulders, bandied limbs, and bowed frontlet—scarce one in a thousand of true equine shape—and this, still further, mutilated by the shears of the coper and gentleman jockey—but the wild steed of the savannas, foaled upon the green grass, his form left free to develop as the flowers that shed their fragrance around him. ”

“ The stirrups are of wood closed in front, carved generally into the figure of a lion's head, or that of some other beast; they are very heavy, and to us present a very clumsy appearance. The horseman, seated on his horse, has a small bag tied behind him, his blankets either under him, or lying with his cloak between his body and the bow, which makes him at his ease. ”

“ Horses are abundant, but are small, and are not up to heavy weights. They are entirely unshod, and, though their hoofs are very shallow and grow into turned-up points and other singular shapes, they go over rough ground with facility at a scrambling run of over four miles an hour following a leader called a "front horse." ”

“ And the horse itself seemed conscious of the exceeding beauty of its master, as it arched its neck, and pricked up its ears, and frowned its brows, and advanced proudly, giving ready obedience to the rein, balancing on alternate shoulders, lightly striking the tips of its hoofs on the ground, and attuning its pace to a gentle motion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The clumsy-barrelled, cloddy-shouldered, round-legged, black family horse, neither a coach nor a dray-horse, but something between both, as fat as an ox, and, with all his pride and prancing at first starting, not equal to more than six miles an hour, and knocking-up with one hard day’s work, is no more seen; and we have, instead of him, an animal as tall, deep-chested, rising in the withers, slanting in the shoulders, flat in the legs, with even more strength, and with treble the speed. ”

“ The water, running through wet places, could be heard distinctly trickling among roots and coarse grasses and patches of rush, as well as the quick cropping of sheep and occasional scuttering of their feet over muddy bits of path; and along the track from the direction of Llangarth came the dull thud of a horse’s advancing hoofs and the constant sneezing of the animal as he tried in vain to blow the clinging damp from his nostrils. ”

“ As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating, screaming grey object that struggled up and down, there came a clatter of hoofs, and the little man, in act of mounting, swordless, balanced on his belly athwart the white horse, and clutching its mane, whirled past. ”

“ The long, easily bending limb offers no resistance to the movements of the horse in fighting flies, and there is no liability of getting the reins or halter under his feet. It has often been a pleasant sight to me to see scores or hundreds of horses [Pg 175] hitched in this manner, and standing comfortably in the shade of forest trees, surrounding a church, preaching-stand, or camp-ground. As we returned from this care of our horses, the mystery in regard to the fire was all explained. It had been placed in a large stump, which was burning freely, near the log church. ”

“ Following bad attacks of founder the hoof grows out long at the toes, shows marked grooves and ridges, is convex at the points of the frogs, and the horse tends to thrust his forefeet out in front when standing and walks and trots on his heels. ”

“ One morning, as I stood near the window of my room, I remarked a tall and powerful man alight from his horse, loose the girth of the saddle, raise the latter with one hand, pass the bridle over the head of the animal with the other, and move towards the house, while the horse betook himself to the little brook to drink. ”

“ In the night time he stakes his horse in front of her roost, house, hovel, encampment, bivouac, or whatever a few slender branches, with their butt ends in the ground and their tops bound together, may be termed. The lover then retires and awaits the issue. Should the girl favor the suitor, his horse is taken by her, led to water, fed, and secured in front of his lodge ”

“ Further evidence of this we have in the shape of crude engravings on pieces of bone and deer horns, carved by the more artistic spirits amongst these early hunters. From these drawings we gather that the horse they hunted was small in size and heavy in build, with a large head and rough, shaggy mane and {198}tail—a horse, in fact, almost identical with the above-mentioned tarpan. But long before historic records begin these horses must have been domesticated; man discovered that they could be even more useful alive than dead, and from that time forth the horse became his inseparable companion. ”

“ The long-legged horse with his ill-groomed coat, all hairs on end like the fretful porcupine his quills, and his tail whisking with derisive defiance in the face of the fare, carries his head on one side, foams at the mouth, and is evidently a dissipated quadruped, guilty, I am afraid, of every vice except hypocrisy. ”

“ My impression is, despite the numerous bits devised and advertised to stop runaways, that nothing short of a long and steep hill, a steam-cultivated, stiff clay fallow, or the Bog of Allen, will stop the determined bolt of a self-willed, callous-mouthed horse. There is no use pulling at him, for the more you pull the harder he hardens his heart and his mouth. ”

“ The old horse, whose hair was of the roughness and color of heather, whose leg-joints, shoulders, and hoofs were distorted by harness and drudgery from colthood—though if all had their rights, he ought, symmetrical in outline, to have been picking the herbage of some Eastern plain instead of tugging here—had trodden this road almost daily for twenty years. ”

“ They never groom their horses and never clean the harness or bits, yet the horses keep fit as fiddles and look really well too. Their intelligence is extraordinary. Almost every night I see the old chap, at whose farm I keep my own horses, come in with four or five horses from ploughing—riding on one, not in the orthodox fashion, i.e., astride, but with both legs hanging over the horse's near side, something like ladies' style of riding, but without saddle, braces, or stirrups. He is leading no fewer than four other horses on one rein—a remarkable thing in itself. ”

“ The right foot of the horse must be raised. After you have satisfied yourself in regard to the form of the animal, take cheap cotton cloth and sew over all parts of his body. Cover this with three coats of white paint, and sprinkle slightly with black. The eyes can be imitated by using the bottom of a small black glass bottle; the ears should be made of leather; the mouth and nostrils can be painted; make the mane and tail of flax or hemp. Insert the feet into a heavy plank, and decorate him with a showy military saddle and bridle. ”