The consequence was that he was jerked up in the air, and came down again as if bound to slip off.

But Tom and Dick had practised the art of riding almost ever since they could run alone, and in their early lessons one had ridden astride the top bar of a gate hundreds of times, while the other swung it open and then threw it back, the great feat being to give the gate a tremendous bang against the post, so as to nearly shake the rider from his seat.
The jerk was unpleasant, at times even painful; but it taught the lads to hold on with their legs, and made them better able to display their prowess in other mounts which were tested from time to time.
They were not particular as to what they turned into a steed.

Sometimes it was Farmer Tallington's Hips, the brindled cow, when she was fetched from the end of the home close to be milked.

This would have been one of the calmest of rides, and afforded plenty of room for both boys to ride Knight-Templar fashion, after old Sam had helped them on, but it was not a ride much sought for, because Hips was not a mollusc.

Quite the contrary: she was a vertebrate animal, very vertebrate indeed, and a ride on her back represented a journey upon the edge of a Brobdingnagian blunt saw, set up along a kind of broad lattice covered with a skin.
There was a favourite old sow at the Toft which was often put in requisition, but she only carried one.