"A vigorous twitch of the lines, and a loud 'Whoa, now, Bill! Whoa, I
tell ye!' soon brought the sexton's beast to a stand-still. I am sure he
must have shared his master's surprise at such unseeming conduct, who
wondered 'What in time had got into the blamed crittur!' But neither
voice nor rein checked Peter's speed. On he flew, down the hill past the
post-office, the meeting-house, and the tavern. It was a straight road,
and his driver kept him to it. Fortunately there were no collisions, and
at the last long ascent his pace slackened and he turned of his own
accord in at the parsonage gate.
"At the village store and the tavern that evening, Peter's evil behavior
was talked about.
"'He's a sp'iled horse,' Jonathan Goslee, the minister's hired man,
said, 'though you can't make parson think so. He's dead sure to run
ag'in. A horse knows when he's got the upper hand, jest as well as a
child, and he'll watch his chance to try it over ag'in, you see if he
don't.'
"But the next time Peter shied and tried to run, it was the minister
who got the upper hand; and when the short excitement was over, and the
horse quiet and subdued, he was driven back to within a few paces of the
object of his fright.
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