"Can't you get a bit of string and tie up the surcingle Tommy?"
suggested Christian, who was now too well used to these crises in the
affairs of the stable to be much moved by them.
"Sure, I'm after doing it, Miss. T'would make a cat laugh the ways I
have on it! She's a holy fright altogether with the mane and the tail
she have on her! I tried to pull them last night, and she went up as
straight as a ribbon in the stable!"
The flushed face and red moustache were withdrawn, and with
considerable clattering and shouting, the holy fright was led forth.
She was a small and active chestnut mare, with a tawny fleece, a mane
like a prairie fire, and a tail like a comet. Her impish eyes
expressed an alarm that was more than half simulated, and the task of
manoeuvring her into position beside the mounting block, was
comparable only to an endeavour to extract a kitten from under a bed
with the lure of a reel of cotton. An apple took the place of the reel
of cotton, and its consumption afforded Christian just time enough to
settle herself in her saddle. Since the days of Harry the Residue
Christian had ridden many and various horses, and she had a reputation
for making the best of a bad job that had often earned her mounts from
those who, wishing to sell a horse as a lady's hunter, were anxious to
impart some slight basis of fact into the transaction.
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