his pressure upon the reins, for the crowds on
either side were yelling and hooting and swinging their caps so that the
deacon's voice came indistinctly to his ears at 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 crowds cheering him to the echo, the steadying pull, the
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 rein 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: "_Go it, old boy!_"]

"Deacon Tubman," said the parson, as he clutched more stoutly the rim of
his tall hat, against which, as the horse tore along, the snow chips
were pelting in showers, "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 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
moment, cried, "Go along, old boy! Go along with you, I say!"

This was the very thing, and the only thing, that the huge horse, whose
blood was now fairly aflame, wanted to rally hi