He Was Perpetually Waiting And Watching With Anxious
Interest For The Appearance Of A New Foal.
If it turned out not a
piebald he cared nothing more about it, no matter how beautiful in
colour it might be or what good points it had:
It was to go as soon as
he could get rid of it; but if a piebald, he would rejoice, and if
there was anything remarkable in its colouring he would keep a sharp
eye on it, to find out later perhaps that he liked it too well to part
with it. Eventually, when broken, it would go into his private
_tropilla_, and in this way he would always possess three or four
times as many saddle-horses as he needed. If you met Gandara every day
for a week or two you would see him each time on a different horse,
and every one of them would be more or less a surprise to you on
account of its colouring.
There was something fantastic in this passion. It reminds one of the
famous eighteenth-century miller of Newhaven, described by Mark Antony
Lower in his book about the strange customs and quaint characters in
the Sussex of the old days. The miller used to pay weekly visits on
horseback to his customers in the neighbouring towns and villages, his
horse, originally a white one, having first been painted some
brilliant colour - blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, or scarlet. The
whole village would turn out to look at the miller's wonderful horse
and speculate as to the colour he would exhibit on his next
appearance.
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