Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/219

Rh "What has happened, Mr. Lord?" exclaimed Gwyneth, smiling despite her sad thoughts.

"What has not happened?" was the reply. "I never imagined before how stupid are the ways of horses. You must know I started off this morning in my buggy to see Mr. Bloakes the banker at Gumford. I 'hung up,' as they call it, my horse and trap to the post set for the purpose in front of the stuccoed building. It was literally a 'hang up.' I came out in a few moments to find my Rosinante actually strangling, tied up in the most awful way. The more it backed, the more it somehow pulled itself together, till down it fell, its head tied round its neck. Even now I don't know how it all happened. There's something very wrong about the ways of harness that acts like that."

"You left the reins in the rings on the saddle," suggested Gwyneth, laughing, "and then tied him up by them."

"Yes, I looked to see all was right."

Gwyneth explained, as best she could, that the Australian way, whatever gentlemen practised in England, was to draw the reins out of the rings under such circumstances.

"Oh, I see now," replied Tom; "why can't they give a fellow all these wrinkles, and not leave him to find them out by bitter experience?

"It's the way of the world," he continued, solemnly shaking his head. "No doubt it would take a long time to tell a man all he needs to know before he graduates as a bushman. Cambridge and 'the Little-go' are nothing to this 'big-go' in Australia.

"Well, that wasn't all," the rusticated undergraduate continued. "Some grinning urchins and a blacksmith, who, I know, was laughing in his greasy, upturned sleeve