But by this time the deacon had become somewhat alarmed, for Old Jack was going nigh to a thirty clip—­a frightful pace for an inexperienced driver to ride—­and began to put a good strong pressure upon the bit, not doubting that Old Jack, ordinarily the easiest horse in the world to manage, would take the hint and immediately slow up.  But though the huge horse took the hint, it was in exactly the opposite manner that the deacon intended he should, for he interpreted the little man’s steady pull as an intimation that his driver was getting over his flurry and beginning to treat him as a horse ought to be treated in a race, and that he could now, having got settled to his work, go ahead.  And go ahead he did.  The more the deacon pulled the more the great animal felt himself steadied and assisted.  And so, the harder the good man tugged at the reins, the more powerfully the machinery of the big animal ahead of him worked, until the deacon got alarmed and began to call upon the horse to stop, crying, “Whoa, Jack, whoa, old boy, I say! whoa, will 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 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!”]