IMPORTED WELSH STALLION MY LORD PEMBROKE
Winner of First Prize at Chestnut Hill Horse Show 1912. Twelve hands
But I was recapitulating. The second salient factor in the production of our pony was the manner in which the Eastern blood was introduced—those repeated infusions from the earliest times in a form most favorable for mingling with his own. And a third influence was his remote, mountain home. Perhaps this ought to be put first, as it made possible the other two. It kept him a Pony Celticus long after the species in other parts of Britain had become mixed with the Forest tribe; and it prevented the rapid introduction of alien blood which, even when it is of the best, will if too liberally applied turn the hardy and valuable pony into an indifferent small horse.
These are the influences which, working together for seventeen hundred years (from the first to the eighteenth centuries), produced the precious and unexcelled foundation pony-stock of the Welsh mountains.
I suspect that this compression into stark outlines of my delectable wanderings after facts and conclusions has made me too prosy for your patience,—but if I make any apology it will be to the pony; remembering, as I do, one Sunday morning in Brecon, when I sallied out unmoved by the church-bells, which chime so indefatigably in Welshland, and climbed the highest, craggiest hill in sight.
LONGMYND ECLIPSE AND GROVE RAINBOW
As shown in double harness at a Boston Horse Show
On the top of it I found a small herd of ponies, living without bluff or boast the simple life. There were several mares with young foals, and some colts of poetic promise, which led me to press for entrance into the family circle; but with retreating dignity they let me know that I was a mere inquisitive bounder, and I was reduced to the old trick that used to work so successfully with the cows in the high meadow above the red cottage in Shelburne. I laid myself down, my hands over my eyes and my fingers craftily windowed, and in a few moments was surrounded by a group investigating me with scientific detachment. Then I found myself looking into eyes, very different from unimaginative Bossy's. Through their unguarded limpidity I was admitted to a realm where it seemed for the moment, at least, that
"beast, as man, had dreams,
And sought his stars."