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"Meaning," she returned steadily, "your size and form; meaning the unusually wide hat you wear; meaning your blue shirt and grey neck-handkerchief ... grey handkerchiefs aren't so common, are they?... meaning your tall sorrel horse that limped, and your bridle with the red tassel swinging from the headstall!
The horse went in reeling circles round Ireland. Cuculain mightily thust the bit into his mouth and made fast the headstall. The Liath Macha went a second time round Ireland. The sea retreated from the shore and stood in heaps. Cuculain sprang upon his back. A third time the horse went round Ireland, bounding from peak to peak. They seemed a resplendent Fomorian phantom against the stars.
'No, no; I'll not forget, never fear', said the man. So when he came to the fair, he got three hundred dollars for the horse, and as it wasn't to be a dry bargain, Farmer Weathersky made him drink so much that he quite forgot to take the headstall off, and away went Farmer Weathersky with the horse.
The headstall was formed commonly of three straps: one was attached to the bit at either end, and passed behind the ears over the neck; another, which was joined to this above, encircled the smallest part of the neck; while a third, crossing the first at right angles, was carried round the forehead and the cheek bones.
Jumbo's equipment consisted of a cinch girth and a pair of bridle reins connected with a headstall. There was no bit, but the effect was to arch his neck like that of a proud stallion. "You'd make the hit of your life if you did," laughed Miaco. "Wonder the boss don't have you do it." "Would if he knew about it," spoke up a performer.
He had cracked the lobster which Miss Hannah had promptly put on to boil, and I saw the old gray cat having a capital lunch off the shells; while the horse looked meeker than ever, with his headstall thrown back on his shoulders, eating his supper of hay by the fence; for Miss Hannah was a hospitable soul.
We chose a headstall of such splendor that no heart could have resisted it, and while he sewed to it the twine muzzle which Spanish donkeys wear on their noses for the protection of the public, our guide expatiated upon us, and said, among other things to our credit, that we were from America and were going to take the head-stall back with us. The harness-maker lifted his head alertly.
Peggy called for a bridle, which Shelby himself brought, saying as he slipped the light snaffle into Shashai's sensitive mouth and the headstall over his ears: "So you've bruck trainin', Miss Peggy, an' are a-going for a real old-time warm-up? Well, I reckon it's about time, an' the best thing you can do, for you look sort o' pinin' an' down-in-the-mouth.
He quivered slightly but stood the test and a lump of sugar was held beneath his eager nostrils, If THAT followed it was worth while standing to have that ugly, stiff thing adjusted. "Now the headstall, Bud. Did you coat the bit with the melted sugar as I told you?" "Yes'm, missie. It's fair cracklin' wid sugar, an' onct he gits a lick ob dat bit he ain' never gwine let go, yo' hyar me."
And he neighed and capered for the homeward road, though he knew how full it was of hardships; for never yet looked horse through bridle, without at least one eye resilient toward the charm of headstall. And now he had both eyes fixed with legitimate aim in that direction; and what were a few tiny atoms of snow to keep a big horse from his household?