"Your'n! that's a likely story. I guess he ain't your'n, and so you won't mind if I touch him up a little; I want to see how well you can sit on a horse."
Passing his arm through the bridle as he said these words, Mr. Saunders led the pony down to the side of the road where grew a clump of high bushes, and, with some trouble, cut off a long, stout sapling. Ellen looked in every direction while he was doing this, despairing, as she looked, of aid from any quarter of the broad, quiet, open country. Oh, for wings! But she could not leave the Brownie if she had them.
Returning to the middle of the road, Mr. Saunders amused himself, as they walked along, with stripping off all the leaves and little twigs from his sapling, leaving it, when done, a very good imitation of an ox-whip in size and length, with a fine lash-like point. Ellen watched him in an ecstasy of apprehension, afraid alike to speak or to be silent.
"There! what do you think of that?" said he, giving it two or three switches in the air to try its suppleness and toughness; "don't that look like a whip? Now we'll see how he'll go!"
"Please don't do anything with it," said Ellen, earnestly "I never touch him with the whip he doesn't need it he isn't used to it pray, pray do not!"
"Oh, we'll just tickle him a little with it," said Mr. Saunders, coolly "I want to see how well you'll sit him just make him caper a little bit."
He accordingly applied the switch lightly to the Brownie's heels, enough to annoy, without hurting him. The Brownie showed signs of uneasiness, quitted his quiet pace, and look to little starts and springs, and whisking motions, most unpleasing to his rider.
"Oh, do not!" cried Ellen, almost beside herself "he's very spirited, and I don't know what he will do if you trouble him."
"You let me take care of that," said Mr. Saunders; "if he troubles me, I'll give it to him! If he rears up, only you catch hold of his mane and hold on tight, and you won't fall off; I want to see him rear."
"But you'll give him bad tricks!" said Ellen. "Oh, pray, don't do so! It's very bad for him to be teased. I am afraid he will kick if you do so, and he'd be ruined if he got a habit of kicking. Oh, please let us go!" said she, with the most acute accent of entreaty "I want to be home."