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I asked, daunted, but still curious. "Who is he?" cried Alan. "Well, and I'll tell you that. When the men of the clans were broken at Culloden, and the good cause went down, and the horses rode over the fetlocks in the best blood of the north, Ardshiel had to flee like a poor deer upon the mountains he and his lady and his bairns.
Towards the evening a gentleman and lady, the first middle-aged, the latter very young father and daughter approach, their horses seeming to linger as they walk through the shallow stream, and the cool water splashes above their fetlocks. The shooting season is near at hand, Parliament has risen, and the landlords have returned home.
But he only sank to his fetlocks in the dry sand, piled with pop-weed: and I tried to make him face the waves; and then I looked about me. 'Watchett town was not to be seen, on account of a little foreland, a mile or more upon my course, and standing to the right of me.
They were now going by Clapham Common with an unbroken stream of vehicles of every sort coaches with outriders, landaus, hansom cabs, omnibuses, costers' spring carts and barrows. Every coach carried its horn, and every horn was blown at the approach to every village. The sun was hot, and the roads were rising to the horses' fetlocks in dust.
He was still "hunting trouble," as one of the men expressed it, but with the confining ropes about his fetlocks was powerless. He was left hobbled, and the gate to his corral was fastened securely this time. "That was sure a great ropin' stunt you pulled off, boss," said "Curley" to Mr. Melton. "I never seen the trick done neater, nohow." "It was great!" Bert exclaimed.
Although the night was dark, a strong, lurid glow, which seemed to emanate from all over it, enabled me to see distinctly its broad, muscular breast; its panting, steaming flanks; its long, graceful legs with their hairy fetlocks and shoeless, shining hoofs; its powerful but arched back; its lofty, colossal head with waving forelock and broad, massive forehead; its snorting nostrils; its distended, foaming jaws; its huge, glistening teeth; and its lips, wreathed in a savage grin.
At his own little farm there was yet another plague in the form of an old broken-winged gander, "the pest and tryant of the yard," whose unpleasant habit it was to go for the beasts and seize them by the fetlocks.
He leaned towards me and added in a whisper, "I'm giving 'em bouse I wudna wesh my mare's fetlocks in, an' they're neckin' it as if it was my rale October." "It was thundery in the summer," said I gravely, whereat he grinned intelligently. "Y'r 'onour's up to snuff," said he. "Be there owt I can do for y'r, sir?" "Fetch the missus," said I, "and we'll talk." The hostess came.
He mounted his horse and rode out and met us. "Well, fellows, it's the expected that's happened this time," said he. "Yes, there's a sooner on it, and he puts up a fine bluff of having ridden from the line; but he's a liar by the watch, for there isn't a wet hair on his horse, while the sweat was dripping from the fetlocks of this one."
The rainy season converted this rich loam into a pudding, and the dry season baked it into a pie-crust. The entire surface was loose, flaky, and hollow; there was not a yard of ground that was not split into deep crevices, that were regular pitfalls; and so unsound was the general character of the country, that a horse sank above his fetlocks at every footstep.
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