eer that
you'll be a regular rough-rider by the time you come back.'

And so it proved; I followed the directions of the groom, and the cob
gave me every assistance. How easy is riding, after the first timidity
is got over, to supple and youthful limbs; and there is no second fear.
The creature soon found that the nerves of his rider were in proper tone.
Turning his head half round, he made a kind of whining noise, flung out a
little foam, and set off.

In less than two hours I had made the circuit of the Devil's Mountain,
and was returning along the road, bathed with perspiration, but screaming
with delight; the cob laughing in his equine way, scattering foam and
pebbles to the left and right, and trotting at the rate of sixteen miles
an hour.

Oh, that ride! that first ride!--most truly it was an epoch in my
existence; and I still look back to it with feelings of longing and
regret. People may talk of first love--it is a very agreeable event, I
daresay--but give me the flush, and triumph, and glorious sweat of a
first ride, like mine on the mighty cob! My whole frame was shaken, it
is true; and during one long week I could hardly move foot or hand; but
what of that? By that one trial I had become free, as I may say, of the
whole equine species. No more fatigue, no more stiffness of joints,
after that first ride round the Devil's Hill on the cob.

Oh, that cob! that Irish cob!--may the sod lie lightly over the bones of
the strongest, speediest, and most gallant of its kind! Oh! the days
when, issuing from the barrack-gate of Templemore, we commenced our hurry-
skurry just as inclination led--now across the fields--direct over stone
walls and running brooks--mere pastime for the cob!--sometimes along the
road to Thurles and Holy Cross, even to distant Cahir!--what was distance
to the cob?

It was thus that the passion for the equine race was first awakened
within me--a passion which, up to the present time, has been rather on
the increase than diminishing. It is no blind passion; the horse being a
noble and generous creature, intended by the All-Wise to be the helper
and friend of man, to whom he stands next in the order of creation. On
many occasions of my life I have been much indebted to the horse, and
have found in him a friend and coadjutor, when human help and sympathy
were not to be obtained. It is therefore natural enough that I should
love the horse; but the love which I entertain for him has alwa