dust, a rattling of wheels, a clatter of hoofs, and Peter and the parson were far down the road.  The people gazed after their departing spiritual guide in speechless astonishment.  The mourners’ heads were thrust far out of the coach windows.  Even the sleepy farm-horses pricked up their ears:  while old Bill, the sexton’s clumsy big-footed beast, which for fifteen years had carried the dead folks of Hilltown to their graves, and had never before been known, on these solemn occasions to depart from his slow walk, made a most astonishing departure; for, taking his driver unawares, he suddenly started after the flying white steed, breaking into a lumbering gallop, that set plumes nodding, curtains flapping, and glasses rattling, and made the huge unwieldly vehicle lurch and bob about in a way to threaten a shocking catastrophe.

“A vigorous twitch of the lines, and a loud ’Whoa, now, Bill!  Whoa, I tell ye!’ soon brought the sexton’s beast to a stand-still.  I am sure he must have shared his master’s surprise at such unseeming conduct, who wondered ‘What in time had got into the blamed crittur!’ But neither voice nor rein checked Peter’s speed.  On he flew, down the hill past the post-office, the meeting-house, and the tavern.  It was a straight road, and his driver kept him to it.  Fortunately there were no collisions, and at the last long ascent his pace slackened and he turned of his own accord in at the parsonage gate.

“At the village store and the tavern that evening, Peter’s evil behavior was talked about.

“‘He’s a sp’iled horse,’ Jonathan Goslee, the minister’s hired man, said, ’though you can’t make parson think so.  He’s dead sure to run ag’in.  A horse knows when he’s got the upper hand, jest as well as a child, and he’ll watch his chance to try it over ag’in, you see if he don’t.’

“But the next time Peter shied and tried to run, it was the minister who got the upper hand; and when the short excitement was over, and the horse quiet and subdued, he was driven back to within a few paces of the object of his fright.  A neighbor was called to stand at his head, while his master took down the flaming yellow placard that had caused all the trouble, and slowly and cautiously brought it to him, that he might see, smell, and touch it, talking soothingly to him and petting and caressing him.  When he had become accustomed to its appearance, and had learned by experience that it was harmless, it was nailed to the tree again and Peter passed it the second time without trouble.

“‘If I’d owned the horse,’ the minister’s helper said, when he told this story, ’I s’pose I should have licked him by,—­but I guess, in the long run, parson’s way was best.’

“This was one of many lessons Peter received to correct his only serious fault.  He was willing and swift, intelligent and kind, but so nervous and timid, and made so frantic by his fear of any unknown object, that he was constantly putting the minister’s life and limbs in jeopardy.  But he had a wise, patient teacher, and he was apt to learn.