Then came misfortune Number 3, for the wheels of the Wanderer began to sink deep in the miry meadow. We must draw on to the road forthwith, so Corn-flower and Pea-blossom were got out and put-to.
But woe is me! they could not start or move her. They plunged and pawed, and pawed and plunged in vain—the Wanderer refused to budge.
“I’ve a horse,” said Mr R—, quietly, “that I think could move a church, sir.”
“Happy thought!” I said; “let us put him on as a tracer.”
The horse was brought out. I have seldom seen a bigger. He loomed in the rain like a mountain, and appeared to be about nineteen hands high, more or less.
The traces were attached to buckles in our long breeching. Then we attempted to start.
It might now have been all right had the trio pulled together, but this was no part of Pea-blossom’s or Corn-flower’s intention.
They seemed to address that tall horse thus: “Now, old hoss, we’ve had a good try and failed, see what you can do.”
So instead of pulling they hung back.
I am bound to say, however, that the tall horse did his very best. First he gave one wild pull, then a second, then a third and a wilder one, and at that moment everything gave way, and the horse coolly walked off with the trace chains.