greater liberty than usual to bantering speech,--the speedy ones paced
slowly up to the head of the street with Old Jack shambling demurely in
the midst of them.

But the horse was a knowing old fellow and had "scored" at too many
races not to know that the "return" was to be leisurely taken; and,
indeed, he was a horse of independence and of too even, perhaps of too
sluggish a temperament to waste himself in needless action; but he had
the right stuff in him and hadn't forgotten his early training, either,
for when he came to the "turn," his head and tail came up, his eyes
brightened, and, with a playful movement of his huge body, without the
least hint from the deacon, he swung himself and the cumbrous old
sleigh into line and began to straighten himself for the coming brush.

Now, Jack was, as I have said, a horse of huge proportions, and needed
"steadying" at the start, but the good deacon had no experience with the
"ribbons," and was, therefore, utterly unskilled in the matter of
driving. And so it came about that Old Jack was so confused at the start
that he made a most awkward and wretched appearance in his effort to get
off, being all "mixed up," as the saying is, so much so that the crowd
roared at his ungainly efforts and his flying rivals were twenty rods
away before he had even got started. But at last he got his huge body in
a straight line and, leaving his miserable shuffle, squared away to his
work, and with head and tail up went off at so slashing a gait that it
fairly took the deacon's breath away and caused the crowd that had been
hooting him to roar their applause, while the parson grabbed the edge of
the old sleigh with one hand and the rim of his tall black hat with the
other.

What a pity, Mr. Longface, that God made horses as they are, and gave