Gaits (dated usage) (French allure, «walk, gait») — the various ways a horse moves: walk, trot, canter, and pace. Gaits are divided into natural and artificial.
«Gait of three crosses» (full gallop) is an expression denoting the fastest possible speed of a horse. The term originally came from the vocabulary of coachmen and the postal service of the Russian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The expression’s origin ties back to the system of post stations, where special roadside markers indicated the maximum permitted speed of travel with a symbol of three crosses. At that speed, a horse moved at an all-out gallop, covering ground as fast as possible.
In professional equestrian sport, «gait of three crosses» corresponds to the fastest of all gaits — the full-out gallop, at which a horse can reach speeds of up to 60 km/h. An ordinary canter reaches 40-45 km/h.
The main horse gaits, in ascending order of speed:
- Walk (4-7 km/h)
- Trot (8-20 km/h)
- Canter (20-45 km/h)
- Full gallop (40-60 km/h) — corresponding to the expression «gait of three crosses»
In modern colloquial speech, the expression is used metaphorically to describe very fast movement, haste, a headlong dash. That’s exactly the sense in which it’s used in the context of the novel — the hero, hurried along by Zhorik, quickly covers the distance from the building to the bus stop, moving as fast as he possibly can.
The expression has become part of a set of fixed Russian idioms and often appears in literary fiction as a vivid image of hurried motion.