And so, with any amount of good-natured chaffing from the drivers of the "fast uns," and from many that lined the roads, too,--for the day gave 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 them such grandeur of appearance and action, and put such an eaglelike spirit between their ribs, so that, quitting the plodding motions of the ox, they can fly like that noble bird and come sweeping down the course as on wings of the wind. It was not my fault, nor the deacon's, nor the parson's, either, please remember, then, that awkward, shuffling, homely-looking Old Jack was thus suddenly transformed by the royalty of blood, of pride and of speed given him by his Creator from what he ordinarily was into a magnificent spectacle of energetic velocity.