No wonder I feel at home on Brilliant, who never did wrong in his life, who will eat out of my hand, put his foot in my apron-pocket, follow me about like a dog, and is, I am firmly persuaded, the very best horse in England. He is quite thoroughbred, though he has never been in training--and is as beautiful as he is good. Bright bay, with such black legs, and such a silky mane and tail! I know lots of ladies whose hair is coarser than Brilliant's. Fifteen hands three inches, and Cousin John says well up to his weight--an honest fourteen stone. With the smallest nose, and the leanest head, and the fullest dark eye, and the widest, reddest nostril--his expression of countenance, when a little blown, is the most beautiful I ever beheld; and not a white mark about him except a tiny star in the very middle of his forehead; I know it well, for I have kissed it often and often. The picture over my chimney-piece does not half do him justice; but then, to be sure, its _pendant_, painted by the same artist, and representing my other horse, White Stockings, flatters that very plain and excellent animal most unblushingly.
Of all delights in the world give me my morning canter up the park on Brilliant. Away we go, understanding each other perfectly; and I am quite sure that he enjoys as much as I do the bright sunshine and the morning breeze and the gleaming Serpentine, with its solitary swan, and its hungry ducks, and its amphibious dogs continually swimming for the inciting stick, only rescued to produce fresh exertions; and the rosy children taking their morning walk; and, above all, the _liberty_ of London before two o'clock in the day, when the real London begins. I pat Brilliant's smooth, hard neck, and he shakes his head, and strikes an imaginary butterfly with one black fore-leg, and I draw my rein a thought tighter, and away we go, much to the admiration of that good-looking man with moustachios who is leaning on his umbrella close to the rails, and smoking the cigar of meditation as if the park was his own.
I often wondered who that man was. Morning after morning have I seen him at the same place, always with an umbrella, and always with a cigar. I quite missed him on the Derby day, when of course he was gone to Epsom (by-the-bye, why don't we go to the Derby just as much as to Ascot?); and yet it was rather a relief, too, for I had got almost shy about passing him. It seemed so absurd to see the man every day and never to speak; besides, I fancied, though of course it could only be fancy, that he looked as if he was expecting me. At last I couldn't help blushing, and I thought he saw it; for I'm sure he smiled, and then I was so provoked with myself that I sent Brilliant up the ride at a pace nothing short of a racehorse could have caught.