you now, that's a good fellow!" and many other coaxing calls,
while he pulled away steadily at the reins.

But the horse misunderstood the deacon's calls, as he had his pressure
on the reins, for the crowd on either side were now yelling, and
hooting, and swinging their caps, so that the deacon's voice came
indistinctly to his ears at the best, and he interpreted his calls for
him to stop as only so many encouragements and signals for him to go
ahead; and so, with the memory of a hundred races stirring his blood,
the crowd cheering him to the echo, the steadying pull and encouraging
cries of his driver in his ears, and his only rival, the pacer, whirling
along only a few rods ahead of him, the monstrous animal, with a
desperate plunge that half lifted the old sleigh from the snow, let out
another link, and, with such a burst of speed as was never seen in the
village before, tore along after the pacer at such a terrific pace that,
within the distance of a dozen lengths, he lay lapped upon him, and the
two were going it nose and nose.

What is that feeling in human hearts which makes us sympathetic with man
or animal who has unexpectedly developed courage and capacity when
engaged in a struggle in which the odds are against him? And why do we
enter so spiritedly into the contest, and lose ourselves in the
excitement of the moment? Is it pride? Is it the comradeship of courage?
Or is it the rising of the indomitable in us, that loves nothing so much
as victory, and hates nothing so much as defeat? Be that as it may, no
sooner was old Jack fairly lapped on the pacer, whose driver was urging
him along with reins and voice alike, and the contest seemed
doubtful, than the spirit of old Adam himself entered into the deacon
and the parson both, so that, carried away by the excitement of the
race, they fairly forgot themselves, and entered as wildly into the
contest as two ungodly jockeys.

[Illustration: THE RACE.]

"Deacon Tubman!" said the parson, as he clutched the rim of his tall
hat, against which, as the horse tore along, the snow chips were pelting
in showers, more stoutly, "Deacon Tubman! do you think the pacer will
beat us?"

"Not if I can help it! not if I can help it!" yelled the deacon in
reply, as, with something like a reinsman's skill, he instinctively
lifted Jack to another spurt. "Go it, old boy!" he shouted
encouragingly. "Go along with you, I say!" and the parson, also carried
away by the whirl of the m