mill-horse

To say the truth, but for the beautiful Menie Gray, I should feel like a mill-horse, walking my daily round in this dull country, while other gay rovers are trying how the world will receive them.

The Surgeon's Daughter 2008

And what a couple of old patriarchs shall we become, going in the mill-horse round; getting sons and daughters; providing nurses for them first, governors and governesses next; teaching them lessons their fathers never practised, nor which their mother, as her parents will say, was much the better for!

Clarissa Harlowe 2006

He did his little daily task like a mill-horse, who goes round and round with his eyes bandaged, not knowing what work he is doing.

Madame Bovary 2003

When they had gone, without even glancing up into the tall oak-tree, he came down, and rode away from the wood on an old mill-horse, with his friends the wood-cutters walking beside him to take care of him as best they could.

True Stories of Wonderful Deeds Pictures and Stories for Little Folk Anonymous

Roland is a great personage, an honest nobody, a mill-horse at the wheel of office.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 Various

Their strength lies in their political blindness, like the mill-horse that thinks that he is moving up when really he is only pushing down the belt-wheel.

My Life Trotsky, Leon 1930

He did his little daily task like a mill-horse, who goes round and round with his eyes bandaged, not knowing what work he is doing.

Madame Bovary 1902

But I had achieved a frigate and a Princess, and that was not so bad for a beginning, and more than enough to show off with before those dull unadventurous folk who continued on their mill-horse round at home.

Dream Days 1898

Princess, and that was not so bad for a beginning, and more than enough to show off with before those dull unadventurous folk who continued on their mill-horse round at home.

Dream Days Kenneth Grahame 1895

And the time of night being come, the king was impatient of delay; but his feet were sore from the rough shoes he had worn on his journey, so that he was scarce able to walk; therefore he was mounted on Humphrey's mill-horse, and, the four loyal brothers forming a guard, they directed their way towards Moseley.

Royalty Restored 1883