boy, Billy Donnellan, had told us (of course, like all those
sort of youngsters, he was fond of getting among the men and listening
to them talk) all about Miss Falkland's new mare.

She was a great beauty and thoroughbred. The stud groom had bought
her out of a travelling mob from New England when she was dog-poor and
hardly able to drag herself along. Everybody thought she was going to be
the best lady's horse in the district; but though she was as quiet as
a lamb at first she had begun to show a nasty temper lately, and to get
very touchy. 'I don't care about chestnuts myself,' says Master Billy,
smoking a short pipe as if he was thirty; 'they've a deal of temper, and
she's got too much white in her eye for my money. I'm afeard she'll do
some mischief afore we've done with her; and Miss Falkland's that game
as she won't have nothing done to her. I'd ride the tail off her but
what I'd bring her to, if I had my way.'

So this was the brute that had got away with Miss Falkland, the day
we were coming back from Bundah. Some horses, and a good many men and
women, are all pretty right as long as they're well kept under and
starved a bit at odd times. But give them an easy life and four feeds of
corn a day, and they're troublesome brutes, and mischievous too.

It seems this mare came of a strain that had turned out more devils and
killed more grooms and breakers than any other in the country. She was
a Troubadour, it seems; there never was a Troubadour yet that wouldn't
buck and bolt, and smash himself and his rider, if he got a fright, or
his temper was roused. Men and women, horses and dogs, are very much
alike. I know which can talk best. As to the rest, I don't know whether
there's so much for us to be proud of.

It seems that this cranky wretch of a mare had been sideling and
fidgeting when Mr. Falkland and his daughter started for their ride; but
had gone pretty fairly--Miss Falkland, like my sister Aileen, could ride
anything in reason--when suddenly a dead limb dropped off a tree close
to the side of the road.

I believe she made one wild plunge, and set to; she propped and reared,
but Miss Falkland sat her splendidly and got her head up. When she saw
she could do nothing that way, she stretched out her head and went off
as hard as she could lay legs to the ground.

She had one of those mouths that are not so bad when horses are going
easy, but get quite callous when they are over-eager and excited.
Anyhow, it