A Little Bush Maid, page 129 by Mary Grant Bruce
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ged a piebald horse. Then came some girls in bright frocks, on beautiful ponies; and some boys, in tights, on other ponies; and then men, also in tights of every colour in the rainbow, who rode round with bored expressions, as if it were really too slow a thing merely to sit on a horse's back, instead of pirouetting there upon one foot. They flashed round once or twice and were gone, and Norah sat back and gasped, feeling that she had had a glimpse into another world--as indeed she had.
A little figure whirled into the ring--a tiny girl on a jet-black pony. She was sitting sideways at first, but as the pony settled into its stride round the ring she suddenly leaped to her feet and, standing poised, kissed her hands gaily to the audience. Then she capered first on one foot, then on another; she sat down, facing the tail, and lay flat along the pony's back; she assumed every position except the natural one. She leapt to the ground (to Norah's intense horror, who imagined she didn't mean to), and, running fiercely at the pony, sprang on his back again, while he galloped the harder. Lastly, she dropped a handkerchief, which she easily recovered by the simple expedient of hanging head downwards, suspended by one foot, and then galloped out of the ring, amid the frantic applause of Cunjee.
"Could you do that, Norah?" laughed Mr. Linton.
"Me?" said Norah amazedly; "me? Oh, fancy me ever thinking I could ride a bit!"
One of the lovely ladies, in a glistening suit of black, covered with spangles, next entered. She also preferred to ride standing, but was by no means idle. A gentleman in the ring obligingly handed her up many necessaries--plates and saucers and knives--and she threw these about the air, as she galloped with great apparent carelessness, yet never failed to catch each just as it seemed certain to fall. Tiring of this pursuit, she flung them all back at the gentleman with deadly aim, while he, resenting nothing, caught them cleverly, and disposed of them to a clown who stood by