The mixture was soon turned into a stiff mud, and the immaculate Trollope was ordered to fill his hands with it and follow his master.
Every eye was fixed on Jim Stafford, as he approached the man who had the ox in charge and ask permission to try his experiment. Carter, left on the coach with the women, who she felt, instinctively, were not the friendly element of the party, watched with a confidence not unmixed with anxiety. How could she tell that these Yankee oxen would respond to Virginia treatment? And if they did not, where would she hide her humiliated head? She realized that, like many another act of daring, its only justification would be in its success.
“Stop up both nostrils at once, and hold it in,” she called to Trollope, in her pretty, low voice.
The crowd made way for the groom and his master to approach, and the performance was quickly accomplished.
The next instant, there was a heaving and panting on the part of the ox, and, with a frantic motion of consternation, it had scrambled to its feet, and stood there snorting out the mud and shaking its great head from side to side.
The man in charge of it caught hold of its harness, and without the least difficulty, led it away.
The road was open.
“Three times three for Miss Ayr of Virginia!” cried Jim Stafford, and his companions, imitating him, waved their hats around their heads and echoed his words.
It was not loud enough to be positively rowdy, but it was too loud, it seemed, to suit Mrs. Emory’s sense of decorum, for she was heard to say rather severely:
“Really, Jim, if you ask me to chaperon your parties, I must insist upon decent behavior. This is unbearable!” and she turned upon poor little Carter a glance that was meant to be perfectly annihilating.