ran by the coach, directly afterward reining his horse into a walk as before.
A succession of similar manœuvres was kept up till the coach reached Holden, a distance of three or four miles, and during this time the facetious Stark, not content with these highly aggravating proceedings, added insult to injury by personal reflections on the skill of the driver and the character of his horses.
"Hallo, you driver!" shouted he derisively, "why don't you drive? If there's any of your passengers in a hurry, I'll take 'em on, and tell the folks that you'll be along in the course of a day or two."
To this the driver wisely answered nothing, but his tormentor did not profit by his example. After some ineffectual attempts on the part of the U. S. functionary to pass the wagon, which were foiled as before, Stark again essayed to beguile the time with a further display of his conversational powers.
"Guess your horses ain't very well trained to keep the road, are they? They seem to go from one side to the other as if they couldn't draw a bee-line. May be, though, they are kinder faint, and that's what makes 'em stagger about so. I'll try 'em."
So saying, he proceeded to open a bag which lay in his wagon; and, taking from it a handful of oats, he allowed the horses to come nearly up to him, when he held out the grain to them, calling "k'jock, k'jock," as if he was desirous of enticing them along.
Before this time, the occupants of the coach had become aware of what was going on, and were naturally highly indignant at the imposition practised on them by the audacious Stark and his fellow conspirator. One irascible gentleman did not bear the infliction with as much equanimity as his "guide, philosopher, and friend," upon the coach-box; but, every time that the wagon passed the coach, he popped his head out at the nearest window, and fired at the enemy a volley of reproach ful epithets that could be likened to nothing but the "nine-cornered Dutch oaths," which on special occasions were wont to rumble through the gullet of William the Testy, at the hazard of choking that illustrious individual, as we are assured by the grave and matter-of-fact historian of New York.
The persevering repetition of the provocation at last excited a degree of rage in the breast of our peppery friend which could not be allayed by the expedients we have mentioned. He called out, "Driver, I say, stop and let me out, and I'll see whether this sort of thing will go on much longer. Why don't you stop? Do you suppose we are going to stand this for ever? How the deuse do you think we shall ever get to Barre, at this rate?"
The driver advised him to keep cool, telling him that very likely they would get rid of the wagon before long; with which opinion another of the passengers coincided, who knew the men, remarking that they belonged in Hubbardston, and would probably turn off at the road leading to that place. This road was beyond Holden, where the coach stopped at the public-house. Here the men in the wagon came up, and expressed a wish to exchange their horse for the four coach-horses, provided sufficient "boot" were offered them. To this impertinence the driver made no reply; but the fiery passenger intimated to them that, if they would come within his reach, he would give them boot enough to make their accounts foot up even.
After leaving the mail, the coach started out of Holden, preceded by the wagon, which dodged back and forth along the road as heretofore. They passed the Hubbardston road, but the men did not turn off; and, about a mile from Rutland, they made that once-too-often attempt which such mischievous individuals usually make somewhere along their course. The patience of the much-enduring driver had become finally exhausted; and, as the annoying wagon was in the act of passing him, at a rather narrow place in the road, he drove on without particular reference to that vehicle, and experimentally tested the relative strength of the fore wheel of the coach and the body of the wagon. The latter structure was "nowhere," or, to speak more accurately, it was resolved into its original elements; while the aforesaid wheel rolled away uninjured, bearing its share of the triumphant passengers.