It was long before Miss Spitfire could be induced to do the like.
“Get another horse, Zube,” said one; “Sall will never do for a gander pullin’.”
“I won’t,” said Zube. “If she won’t do, I’ll make her do. I want a nag that goes off with a spring, so that when I get a hold, she’ll cut the neck in two, like a steel trap.”
At length Sally was rather flung, than coaxed, into the track, directly a-head of Gridiron.
“Now, gentlemen,” said the master of the ceremonies, “no man’s to make a grab till all’s been round; and when the first man are got round, then the whole twist and tucking off you grab away, as you come under (Look here, Jim Fulger, you’d better not stand too close to that gander, I tell you!), one after another. Now blaze away!” (the command for an onset of every kind, with people of this order.)
Off they went, Miss Sally delighted; for now she thought the whole parade would end in nothing more nor less than her favourite amusement, a race. But Gridiron’s visage, pronounced this the most nonsensical business that ever a horse of sense was engaged in since the world began.
For the first three rounds Zubly was wholly occupied in restraining Sally to her place; but he lost nothing by this, for the gander had escaped unhurt. On completing his third round, Zube stretched forth his long arm, grabbed the gander by the neck, with a firmness which seemed likely to defy goose-grease, and at the same instant, he involuntarily gave Sally a sudden check. She raised her head, which had been kept nearly touching her leader’s hocks; and for the first time, saw the gander in the act of descending upon her; at the same moment she received two pealing lashes from the whippers. The way she now broke for Springfield “is nothin’ to nobody.” As Zube dashed down the road, the whole circus raised a whoop after him. This started about twenty dogs, hounds, curs, and pointers in full chase of him (for no man moved without his dog in those days). The dogs alarmed some belled cattle, which were grazing on Zube’s path, just as he reached them; these joined him, with tails up, and a tremendous rattling. Just beyond these went three tobacco-rollers, at a distance of fifty and a hundred yards apart, each of whom gave Zube a terrific whoop, scream, or yell, as he passed.
He went in and out of Hawk’s Gully like a trap-ball, and was in Springfield “in less than no time.” Here he was encouraged onward by a new recruit of dogs, but they gave up the chase as hopeless before they cleared the village. Just beyond Springfield, what should Sally encounter but a flock of geese, the tribe to which she owed all her misfortunes.
She stopped suddenly, and Zube went over her head with the last-acquired velocity. He was up in a moment, and the activity with which he pursued Sally satisfied every spectator that he was unhurt.
Gridiron, who had witnessed Miss Sally’s treatment with astonishment and indignation, resolved not to pass between the posts until the whole matter should be explained to his satisfaction. He therefore stopped short, and by very intelligible looks, demanded of the whippers, whether, if he passed between them, he was to be treated as Miss Spitfire had been. The whippers gave him no satisfaction, and his rider informed him by reiterated thumps of the heel that he should go through, whether he would or not. Of these, however, Gridiron seemed to know nothing. In the midst of the conference, Gridiron’s eye lit upon the oscillating gander, and every moment’s survey of it begat in him a growing interest, as his slowly rising head, suppressed breath, and projected ears plainly evinced. After a short examination, he heaved a sigh, and looked behind him to see if the way was clear. It was plain that his mind was made up: but to satisfy the world that he would do nothing rashly, he took another view, and then wheeled and went for Harrisburg, as if he had set in for a year’s running. Nobody whooped at Gridiron, for all saw that his running was purely the result of philosophic deduction. The reader will not suppose that this occupied half the time which has been consumed in telling it, though it might have been so, without interrupting the amusement, for Miss Spitfire’s flight had completely suspended it for a time.