Some Visitors

Miss Grant looked up, and saw through the trees a large and very
frightened bay horse, with a white face. On further inspection, a
youth of about eighteen or twenty was noticed on the horse's back,
but he seemed so much a part of the animal that one might easily
overlook him at a first glance. The horse had stopped at the sight
of them, and was visibly affected with terror.

They advanced slowly, and the animal began snorting and sidling
away among the timber, its rider meanwhile urging it forward. Then
Emily cried, "Hello, Poss!" and the horse gave a snort, wheeled round, jumped
a huge fallen tree, and fled through the timber like a wild thing,
with its rider still apparently glued to its back. In half a second
they were out of sight.

"Who is it? and why does he go away?" asked Miss Grant.

"That's Poss," said Emily carelessly. "He and Binjie live over at
Dunderalligo. He often comes here. They and their father live over
there That's a colt he's breaking in. He's very nice. So is Binjie."

"Well, here he comes again," said Miss Grant, as the horseman
reappeared, riding slowly round them in ever-lessening circles;
the colt meanwhile eyeing them with every aspect of intense dislike
and hatred, and snorting between whiles like a locomotive.

Emily waited till the rider came fairly close, and said, "Poss,
this is Miss Grant."

The rider blushed, and lifted his hand to his hat. Fatal error! For
the hundredth-part of a second the horse seemed to cower under him
as if about to sink to the ground, then tucked his head in between
his front legs, and his tail in between the hind ones, forming
himself into a kind of circle, and began a series of gigantic
bounds at the rate of about a hundred to the minute; while in the
air above him his rider described a catherine wheel before he came
to earth, landing on his head at Miss Grant's feet. The horse was
soon out of sight, making bounds that would have cleared a house
if one had been in the way. The rider got up, pulled his hat from
over his eyes, brushed some mud off his clothes, and came up to
shake hands as if nothing had happened; his motto apparently being
toujours la politesse.