Light as the touch was, however, it was enough. The unruly horse
reared and plunged. The startled scholar, with a cry of terror,
flung up his hands, and then clutched black Hannibal around the
neck. Thus, in the manner of John Gilpin,
"His horse, who never in that way
Had handled been before,
What thing upon his back had got
Did wonder more and more.
"Away went Gilpin, neck or nought;
Away went hat and wig;
He never dreamt when he set out,
Of running such a rig."
Minus hat and wig, too, the poor envoy dashed up the Maelar
highway, while Christina, laughing loudly, galloped after him in
a mad race, followed by all her hunting-party.
The catastrophe was not far away. The black horse, like the
ill-tempered "bronchos" of our western plains, "bucked" suddenly,
and over his head like a flash went the discomfited Dutchman. In
an instant, Greek learning and Dutch diplomacy lay sprawling in a
Swedish roadway, from which Jous, the groom, speedily lifted the
groaning would-be horseman.
Even in her zeal for study, really remarkable in so young a girl,
Christina could not forego her misguided love of power and her
tendency to practical joking, and one day she even made two grave
philosophers, who were holding a profound discussion in her
presence over some deep philosophic subject, suddenly cease their
arguments to play with her at battledore and shuttlecock.
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