A young gentleman had joined us as a fellow-student under the care of
our tutor. He was an only son; indeed, the only child of an amiable
widow, whose love and hopes all centred in _him_. He was destined to
inherit several separate estates, and a great deal had been done to
spoil him by indulgent aunts; but his good natural disposition defeated
all these efforts; and, upon joining us, he proved to be a very amiable
boy, clever, quick at learning, and abundantly courageous. In the
summer months, his mother usually took a house out in the country,
sometimes on one side of Manchester, sometimes on another. At these
rusticating seasons, he had often much farther to come than ourselves,
and on that account he rode on horseback. Generally it was a fierce
mountain pony that he rode; and it was worth while to cultivate the
pony's acquaintance, for the sake of understanding the extent to which
the fiend can sometimes incarnate himself in a horse. I do not trouble
the reader with any account of his tricks, and drolleries, and
scoundrelisms; but this I may mention, that he had the propensity
ascribed many centuries ago to the Scandinavian horses for sharing and
practically asserting his share in the angry passions of a battle. He
would fight, or attempt to fight, on his rider's side, by biting,
rearing, and suddenly wheeling round, for the purpose of lashing out
when he found himself within kicking range. [20] This little monster was
coal black; and, in virtue of his carcass, would not have seemed very
formidable; but his head made amends--it was the head of a buffalo, or of
a bison, and his vast jungle of mane was the mane of a lion. His eyes, by
reason of this intolerable and unshorn mane, one did not often see,
except as lights that sparkled in the rear of a thicket; but, once seen
they were not easily forgotten, for their malignity was diabolic. A few
miles more of less being a matter of indifference to one who was so well
mounted, O. would sometimes ride out with us to the field of battle; and,