er green;

"Yet--yet--"

Ah, there was the difficulty,--I had begun with the plaintiff, and
I really had n't a word to say for the defendant; and so, voting
comparisons odious, I set forward on my journey.

As I rode into Enniskerry to breakfast, I had the satisfaction of
overhearing some very flattering comments upon Blondel, which rather
consoled me for some less laudatory remarks upon my own horsemanship. By
the way, can there possibly be a more ignorant sarcasm than to say a
man rides like a tailor? Why, of all trades, who so constantly sits
straddle-legged as a tailor? and yet he is especial mark of this
impertinence.

I pushed briskly on after breakfast, and soon found myself in the deep
shady woods that lead to the Dargle. I hurried through the picturesque
demesne, associated as it was with a thousand little vulgar incidents
of city junketings, and rode on for the Glen of the Downs. Blondel and
I had now established a most admirable understanding with each other.
It was a sort of reciprocity by which I bound myself never to control
_him_, he in turn consenting not to unseat _me_. He gave the initiative
to the system, by setting off at his pleasant little rocking canter
whenever he chanced upon a bit of favorable ground, and invariably
pulled up when the road was stony or uneven; thus showing me that he was
a beast with what Lord Brougham would call "a wise discretion." In like
manner he would halt to pluck any stray ears of wild oats that grew
along the hedge sides, and occasionally slake his thirst at convenient
streamlets. If I dismounted to walk at his side, he moved along unheld,
his head almost touching my elbow, and his plaintive blue eye mildly
beaming on me with an expression that almost spoke,--nay, it did speak.
I 'm sure I felt it, as though I could swear to it, whispering, "Yes,
Potts, two more friendless creatures than ourselves are not easy to
find. The world wants not either of us; not that we abuse it, despise
it, or treat it ungenerously,--rather the reverse, we incline favorably
towards it, and would, occasion serving, befriend it; but we are not,
so to say, 'of it.' There may be, here and there, a man or a horse that
would understand or appreciate us, but they stand alone,--they are not
belonging to classes. They are, like ourselves, exceptional." If his
expression said this much, there was much unspoken melancholy in his sad
glance, also, which seemed to say, "What a deal of sorrow co