The Dorsetshire farmer’s plan of teaching horses to jump timber [8]

“If he should drop his hind legs, shoot yourself off over his shoulders in an instant, with a fast hold of the bridle, at which tug hard, even though you may not have regained your legs” [32]

“Lastly, when it gets upon Bachelor, or Benedict, or Othello, or any other high-flyer with a suggestive name, it sails away close, often too close, to the hounds leaving brothers, husbands, even admirers, hopelessly in the rear” (Frontispiece) [123]

“Perhaps we find an easy place under a tree, with an overhanging branch, and sidle daintily up to it, bending the body and lowering the head as we creep through, to the admiration of an indiscreet friend on a rash horse who spoils a good hat and utters an evil execration, while trying to follow our example” [138]

“When we canter anxiously up to a sign-post where four roads meet, with a fresh and eager horse indeed, but not the wildest notion towards which point of the compass we should direct his energies, we can but stop to listen, take counsel of a countryman, &c.” [193]

At bay [208]

“‘Come up horse!’ and having admonished that faithful servant with a dig in the ribs from his horn, blows half-a-dozen shrill blasts in quick succession, sticks the instrument, I shudder to confess it, in his boot, and proceeds to hustle his old white nag at the best pace he can command in the wake of his favourites” [225]

“The King of the Golden Mines” [242]