“Arrah, isn’t he a darling, a real beauty, every inch of him?”
“That ‘ere splint don’t signify nothing; he aren’t the worse of it,” said the English groom.
“Of coorse it doesn’t,” replied Mike. “What a fore-hand, and the legs, clean as a whip!”
“There’s the best of him, though,” interrupted the other, patting the strong hind-quarters with his hand. “There’s the stuff to push him along through heavy ground and carry him over timber.”
“Or a stone wall,” said Mike, thinking of Galway.
My own impatience to survey my present had now brought me into the conclave, and before many minutes were over I had him saddled, and was cantering around the lawn with a spirit and energy I had not felt for months long. Some small fences lay before me, and over these he carried me with all the ease and freedom of a trained hunter. My courage mounted with the excitement, and I looked eagerly around for some more bold and dashing leap.
“You may take him over the avenue gate,” said the English groom, divining with a jockey’s readiness what I looked for; “he’ll do it, never fear him.”
Strange as my equipment was, with an undress jacket flying loosely open, and a bare head, away I went. The gate which the groom spoke of was a strongly-barred one of oak timber, nearly five feet high,—its difficulty as a leap only consisted in the winding approach, and the fact that it opened upon a hard road beyond it.
In a second or two a kind of half fear came across me. My long illness had unnerved me, and my limbs felt weak and yielding; but as I pressed into the canter, that secret sympathy between the horse and his rider shot suddenly through me, I pressed my spurs to his flanks, and dashed him at it.
Unaccustomed to such treatment, the noble animal bounded madly forward. With two tremendous plunges he sprang wildly in the air, and shaking his long mane with passion, stretched out at the gallop.