“Mr. Shapleigh,” said Mrs. Shapleigh, as soon as she was settled in the coach, “I know what I shall do, after your threat to resign from the vestry. I shall have Mr. Conyers pray for you in church!” Now, this was the one threat which never failed to infuriate old Tom, because he knew Mrs. Shapleigh was fully capable of asking it, and Conyers was fully capable of doing it. So his reply was a shout of wrath: “The hell you will! Very well, madam, very well. The day that Conyers has the effrontery to pray for me, that day my subscription to his salary stops. I’ll not be prayed for, madam--I’ll be damned if I will! And I am a very good Churchman, but if I am prayed for in Abingdon church, I’ll turn Baptist, and be baptized in Hunting Creek just as soon as we have a freeze, so I can risk my life and say my wife drove me to it. And I’ll die impenitent--see if I don’t, Mrs. Shapleigh. No, I’ll do worse: I’ll join the Methodists and pray for _you_, madam, in prayer meeting--damn me, that’s what I’ll do!” This last terrible threat prevailed; for once, Mrs. Shapleigh was beaten, and she knew it. Blair had continued to feel an almost wild solicitude about Alabaster, and to regard him more and more as a horse of destiny. Nothing could shake this belief, not even when Alabaster suddenly developed in training the most diabolical temper that could be imagined. This, Blair professed to believe, was another guarantee of Alabaster’s speed and endurance; he declared he had never known one of those devilish horses that was not invincible on the race track. But here a serious difficulty occurred. The horse, being so watched and tended by Blair and Hilary, took the most vicious dislike towards the negro stablemen generally, and especially the boy that was to ride him--for most of the jockeys in that part of the world were negro boys. Hilary was the only person that could ride him, and even then he would sometimes kick and bite and plunge furiously; but there was no getting Hilary off a horse’s back, as Alabaster found out. In those days in Virginia the boys rode almost before they walked, and amused their adolescence by riding unbroken colts barebacked. They rode like Comanche Indians or Don Cossacks. Occasionally an accident happened, but it was regarded in the light of falling downstairs, or slipping upon the ice, or any other unlooked-for dispensation.