ght back with
him to Munich a lord-mayor's coach, gilding, emblazonry, wigs, and
all, as the true type of a London equipage, down to those strange
merry-andrew figures in orange-plush breeches and sky-blue frocks, that
one sees galloping after their masters along the Champs Elysees, like
insane comets taking an airing on horseback. The whole thing is absurd.
They cannot accomplish it, do what they will; there's no success in the
endeavour. It is like our miserable failures to get up a _petit
diner_ or a _soiree_. If, then, French, Italians, and Germans fail so
lamentably, only think, I beseech you, of Flemings--imagine Belgium _a
cheval_! The author of _Hudibras_ discovered years ago that these people
were fish; that their land-life was a little bit of distraction they
permitted themselves to take from time to time, but that their real
element was a dyke or a canal. What would he have said had he seen them
on horseback?

Now, I am free to confess that few men have less hope to win the world
by deeds of horsemanship than Arthur O'Leary. I have ever looked upon it
as a kind of presumption in me to get into the saddle. I have regarded
my taking the reins as a species of duplicity on my part--a tacit
assumption that I had any sort of control oyer the beast. I have
appeared to myself guilty of a moral misdemeanour--the 'obtaining a ride
under false pretences.' Yet when I saw myself astride of the 'roan with
the cut on her knee,' and looked around me at the others, I fancied that
I must have taken lessons from Franconi without knowing it; and even
among the moustached heroes of the evening before, I bore myself like a
gallant cavalier.

'You sit your horse devilish like your father; he had just the same
easy _degage_ way in his saddle,' said the old colonel, tapping his
snuff-box, and looking at me with a smile of marked approval; while he
continued in a lower tone, 'I 've told Laura to get near you if the mare
becomes troublesome. The Flemings, you know, are not much to boast of as
riders.'

I acknowledged the favour as well as I could, for already my horse was
becoming fidgety--every one about me thinking it essential to spur and
whip his beast into the nearest approach to mettle, and caper about like
so many devils, while they cried out to one another--

'Regardez, Charles, comment il est vif ce "Tear away." C'est une bete
du diable. Ah, tiens, tiens, vois donc "Albert." Le voila, c'est,
"All-in-my-eye," fils de "Char