“‘I always knew,’ Jonathan Goslee said, ’that the critter had tricks and ways different from common horses, I’ve catched him at ’em sometimes.  One day I found him with his bran-tub bottom upwards, amusin’ himself tryin’ to stand with all four legs on it at once.  And he’ll clear marm’s clothes-line at a leap as easy as you’d jump over a pair of bars.  But I never happened to catch him practisin’ his dancin’-lesson—­must have done it, though, on the sly, or he couldn’t have footed it so lively that day over to Centerville.  Well, sometimes I think—­and then ag’in I don’t know.  If that there sailor feller stole the horse he sold in such a hurry to parson, why didn’t the owner make a hue and cry about it, and follow him up?  ’Twould have been easy enough to track the beast to Hilltown.  And then ag’in, if ’twas all fair and square, and he took the horse for a debt, why didn’t he sell him to a show company for a fancy price, instead of shippin’ him off to the Indys in one of them rotten old tubs, that as like as not would go under before she’d made half the voyage.  But there, we never shall get to the bottom facts in the case, any more than we shall ever know how much money parson paid down for that horse,’

“And they never did.

“My grandmother remembered Parson Lorrimer as an old man, tall and straight, with flowing white hair, a placid face, and kind, dim eyes that gradually grew dimmer, till their light faded to darkness.  For the last four years of his life he was totally blind, She remembered how he used to mount the pulpit-stairs, one hand resting upon the shoulder of his colleague, and, standing in the old place, with lifted face and closed eyes, carry on the service, repeating chapter and hymns from memory, his voice tremulous, but still sweet and penetrating.

“She remembered going to visit the old man in his study.  It was summer-time, and he sat in his arm-chair at the open window, and on the grass-plat outside—­so near that his head almost touched his master’s shoulder—­the old white horse was standing; for they had grown old together, and together were enjoying a peaceful and contented old age.  Every bright day for hours Peter stood at the window, and in the winter-time, when he was shut in his stable, the old man never failed to visit him.

“But one November afternoon, Parson Lorrimer being weary laid himself down upon his bed, where presently the sleep came to him God giveth to his beloved.

“The evening after his funeral a member of the household passing the study-door was startled at seeing in the pale moonlight a long, ghostly white face peering in at the window.

“It was only Peter, that had slipped his halter and wandered round to the old place looking for his master.  He allowed them to lead him back to his stable, but every time the door was opened he whinnied and turned his head.  As the days passed and the step he waited for came no more, hope changed to patient grief.  His food often remained untasted; he refused to go out into the sunshine; and so, gradually wasting and without much bodily suffering, he one day laid himself down and his life slipped quietly away.