f his stick, the
restive animal was brought _up_ to the waggon of hay; but, for some
time, the inducements just mentioned failed to prevail on him to _pass_
it.

At length, however, Johnny having added greatly to the vigour of his
blows with his stick, and his neighbour to that of his strokes with the
whip, the horse _did_ pass the waggon, and that with a vengeance. Taking
heart, or rather becoming desperate, he bolted past it with the rapidity
of a cannon shot; and not only this, but when he had cleared it,
continued the velocity of his movements with unabated energy, to the
great discomfort and no small terror of both Johnny and his companion,
who now found themselves going at a rate which they had neither
anticipated nor desired. Indeed, this was so very great that both
directly saw that something was wrong. Both saw, in short, what was,
indeed, too true, that the horse had fairly run away with them; for he
was now going like the wind, with fury and distraction in his looks. It
was a shocking and most dreadfully alarming affair; and so Johnny and
his friend felt it to be, as might be distinctly seen by their
horror-stricken faces.

On discovering the predicament they were in, both the travellers--the
one dropping his whip, and the other his stick--seized on the reins, and
began pulling with all their might, in the desperate hope of checking
the animal's speed by main force; Johnny, in his terror, exclaiming the
while, distractedly--

"Mair o't yet, mair o't yet! Lord have a care o' me, but this is awfu'!
This is waur than onything I hae met wi' yet. Waur than the _Fifteen
Sisters_, Dutchmen, and a'. God be wi' us! are my misfortunes never to
hae an end, till they hae finished me outricht? Am I never to get safe
to either ae place or anither?--either to hame or to Brechin? Surely ane
o' them might be permitted to me. O, Jamie, see hoo he's gaun! He doesna
seem to fin' us at his hurdies, nae mair than if we war a pair o'
preencushions."

This was true enough. The horse in his fury did not indeed seem to feel
either them or the vehicle they were seated in, but pushed madly
onwards, till he came to where the road divided itself into two distinct
roads--the one being the right one, and the other, of course, the
wrong--when, as if inspired by Johnny's evil genius, he at once took the
latter, and in little more than twenty minutes, had him and his friend
fully half as many miles out of their way. Now, however, the cata