“He trotted leisurely up, stopped before the platform, and made a bow, then began to dance, keeping time to the music, and going round and round in a space quickly cleared for him by the lookers-on.  I don’t know whether it was a waltz the band was playing, or if horses were taught to waltz so long ago; but whatever kind of dance it was,—­gallopade, quickstep, or cotillion,—­Peter, in his horse-fashion, danced it well.  Faster and faster played the music, and round and round went the pony.  The people laughed and shouted, and Peter made his farewell bow and trotted soberly out of the ring, in the midst of a great shout of applause.

“How did Parson Lorrimer feel?  Of all that amused and wondering crowd, not one was more taken by surprise than he—­both at this exhibition of Peter’s accomplishments and at the tale it told of his early days; for it was impossible to doubt that at some time in his life he had been a trained horse in a circus.  From the field near by he had recognized the familiar strains that used to call him to his task, and had leaped the fence and made his way to where the crowd was gathered, to play his pretty part on the village green, before the sober citizens of Centerville and Hilltown, as he had played it hundreds of times before, under the canvas, to the motley crowd drawn together by the attractions of the ring.

“Of course the minister felt sorry and ashamed when he learned, in this public way, of the low company Peter had kept in his youth.  Whenever a traveling circus had stopped at Winterport, Parson Lorrimer had not failed to warn his young people from the pulpit to keep their feet from straying to this place of sinful amusement.  But mingled with his chagrin, I think he must have felt a little pride in the ownership of the beautiful creature, so intelligent to remember, and so supple of limb to perform, the unaccustomed task.

“He took pains to narrate more fully than he had thought necessary before, how he had come in possession of the animal.  He had gone, he said, on business to Winterport, and on the wharf, early one morning, had met a man in the dress of a sailor leading the white horse.  In answer to inquiries, the stranger said he had taken the horse In payment of a debt, and was about to ship him on board a trading-vessel then lying in the dock, bound to the East Indies.  Would he sell, the minister asked, on this side of the water?  Yes, if he could get his price.  While they talked, Parson Lorrimer caressed the horse, who responded in so friendly a way that the minister, who had lost his heart at first sight to the beautiful creature, then and there made the purchase, waiting only till the banks were open to pay over the money.  He had asked few questions; had known, he said, by Peter’s eyes that he was kind, and by certain unmistakable marks about him that he came of good stock.  Of the stranger, he had seen nothing from that day, and could not even remember his name.