more of adventure
here, for not only was the ride longer, but the horses were more
frisky, and would sometimes set off at the gallop. Then the chief
danger was again the door, lest they should dash in, and knock knees
against posts and heads against lintels, for we had only halters to
hold them with. But after I had once been thrown from back to neck,
and from neck to ground in a clumsy but wild gallop extemporized by
Dobbin, I was raised to the dignity of a bridle, which I always
carried with me when we went to fetch them. It was my father's express
desire that until we could sit well on the bare back we should not be
allowed a saddle. It was a whole year before I was permitted to mount
his little black riding mare, called Missy. She was old, it is
true--nobody quite knew how old she was--but if she felt a light
weight on her back, either the spirit of youth was contagious, or she
fancied herself as young as when she thought nothing of twelve stone,
and would dart off like the wind. In after years I got so found of
her, that I would stand by her side flacking the flies from her as she
grazed; and when I tired of that, would clamber upon her back, and lie
there reading my book, while she plucked on and ground and mashed away
at the grass as if nobody were near her.

Then there was the choice, if nothing else were found more attractive,
of going to the field where the cattle were grazing. Oh! the rich hot
summer afternoons among the grass and the clover, the little
lamb-daisies, and the big horse-daisies, with the cattle feeding
solemnly, but one and another straying now to the corn, now to the
turnips, and recalled by stern shouts, or, if that were unavailing, by
vigorous pursuit and even blows! If I had been able to think of a
mother at home, I should have been perfectly happy. Not that I missed
her then; I had lost her too young for that. I mean that the memory of
the time wants but that to render it perfect in bliss. Even in the
cold days of spring, when, after being shut up all the winter, the
cattle were allowed to revel again in the springing grass and the
venturesome daisies, there was pleasure enough in the company and
devices of the cowherd, a freckle-faced, white-haired, weak-eyed boy
of ten, named--I forget his real name: we always called him Turkey,
because his nose was the colour of a turkey's egg. Who but Turkey knew
mushrooms from toadstools? Who but Turkey could detect earth-nuts--and
that with the cert