“No, daddy, you wonʼt be so cruel. And after the rime this morning! Ræbus will tell if you do. Wonʼt you now, my pretty”?
Coræbus was a handsome pony, but not a handsome doer. He could go at a rare pace when he liked, but he did not often like it. His wind was short, and so was his temper, and he looked at things unpleasantly. Perhaps he had been disappointed in love in the tenderness of his youth. Nevertheless he had many good points, and next to himself loved Amy. He would roll his black eyes, put his nose to her lips, and almost leave oats to look at her. His colour varied sensitively according to the season. In the height of summer, a dappled bay; towards the autumnal equinox, a tendency to nuttiness; then a husky bristle of deepest brown flaked with hairs of ginger; after the clips a fine mouse–colour, with a spirited sense of nakedness, fierce whiskers, and a love of buck jumps. Then ere the blessed Christmas–tide, nature began to blanket him with a nap the colour of black frost; and so through the grizzle of spring he came round to his proper bay once more. Amy declared she could tell every month by the special hue of Coræbus; but, albeit she was the most truthful of girls, her heart was many degrees too warm for her lips to be always at dew–point.
Both in the stable and out of it, that pony had a bluff way with his heels, which none but himself thought humorous. He never meant any harm, however—it was only his mode of expressing himself; and he liked to make a point when he felt his new shoes tingling. But as for kicking his Amy, he was not quite so low as that. He would not even jump about, when she was on his back, more than was just the proper thing to display her skill and figure. “Oh, you sad Coræby”, always brought him to sadness; and he expected a pat from her little gloved hand, and cocked his tail with dignity the moment he received it. Nevertheless, for her father, the rector of the parish, he entertained, when the oats were plentiful, nonconformist sentiments, verging almost upon scepticism. He liked him indeed, as the whole world must; he even admired his learning, and turned up his eyes at the Greek; but he was not impressed, as he should have been, by the sacerdotal office. Fatal defect of all, he knew that the rector could not ride. John Rosedew was a reasoning man, and uncommonly strong in the legs, but a great deal too philosophical to fit himself over a horse well. He had written a treatise upon the Pelethronian Lapiths (which he could never be brought to read before a learned society), he knew all about the Olympics and Pythics, and Xenophon gave him a text–book; but, for all that, he never put his feet the right way into the stirrups.
“Look at him now”, said John, as the boy led the pony up and down, while Amy was knotting the mufflers so that they never might come undone again; “how beautifully Xenophon describes him! ‘When the horse is excited to assume that artificial air which he adopts when he is proud, he then delights in riding, becomes magnificent, terrific, and attracts attention!’ And again, ‘persons beholding such a horse pronounce him generous, free in his motions, fit for military exercise, high–mettled, haughty, and both pleasant and terrible to look on’. Pleasant, I suppose, for other people, and terrible for the rider. But why our author insists so much upon the horse being taught to ‘rear gracefully’, I am not horseman enough as yet to understand. It has always appeared to me that Coræbus rears too much already. And then the direction—ʼbut if after riding, and copious perspiration, and when he has reared gracefully, he be relieved immediately both of the rider and reins, there is little doubt that he will spontaneously advance to rear when necessary’. What does that mean, I ask you? I never find it necessary, except, indeed, when the little girls jump up and pull my coat–tails, in their inquisition for apples, and then I am always afraid that they may suffer some detriment. But let us not overtask his patience; here he comes again. Jem, my boy, lead him up to the chair”.
“Any jam in your pocket, father”?
“No, my child, not any. Your excellent Aunt Eudoxia has it all under lock and key. Now I will mount according to Xenophon, though I do not find that he anywhere prescribes a Windsor chair. ‘When he has well prepared himself for the ascent, let him support his body with his left hand, and stretching forth his right hand let him leap on horseback, and when he mounts thus he will not present an uncomely spectacle to those behind. There, I am up, most accurately; excellent horse, and great writer! And now for the next direction: ‘We do not approve of the same bearing a man has in a carriage, but that an upright posture be observed, with the legs apart’”.
“How could they be otherwise, pa, when the horse is between them”?
“Your criticisms are rash, my child. Jem, how dare you laugh, sir? I will buy a pair of spurs, I declare, the next time I go to Ringwood. Good–bye, darling; Aunt Doxy will take you up to the park, when the sun comes out, to see all the wonderful doings. I shall be home in time to dress for the dinner at the Hall”.
Sweet Amy kissed her hand, and curtseyed—as she loved to do to her father; and, after two or three wayward sallies (repressed by Jem with the gardening broom), Coræbus pricked his little ears, and shook himself into a fair jog–trot. So with his elbows well stuck out, and shaking merrily to and fro, his right hand ready to grasp the pommel in case of consternation, and one leg projected beyond the other, after the manner of a fowlʼs side–bone, away rode John Rosedew in excellent spirits, to begin his Wednesday parochial tour.
Being duly victualled, and thoroughly found, for a voyage of long duration and considerable hazard, the good ship “John Rosedew” set sail every Wednesday for commerce with the neighbourhood. This expedition was partly social, partly ministerial, in a great measure eleemosynary, and entirely loving and amicable. There was no bombardment of dissenters, no firing of red–hot shot at Papists, no up with the helm and run him down, if any man launched on the mare magnum, or any frail vessel missed stays. And yet there was no compromise, no grand circle sailing, no luffing to a trade–wind; straight was the course, and the chart most clear, and the good ship bound, with favour of God, for a haven beyond the horizon. Barnacles and vile teredoes, algæ and desmidious trailers:—I doubt if there be more sins in our hearts to stop us from loving each other than parasites and leeching weeds to clog a stout shipʼs bottom. Nevertheless she bears them on, beautifies and cleanses them, until they come to temperate waters, where the harm has failed them. So a good man carries with him those who carp and fasten on him; content to take their little stings, if the utterance purify them.