422 
THE A M E RICA N -SC A N1) IN A FI AN RE FI E TV 
to listen to the sermon with folded hands and not once to glance in the 
direction of the women’s pews—afterward he would step forward to 
the altar and partake of the sacrament. These penitential pilgrimages 
occasioned more than one good laugh. 4 Peter has had a sorry adven¬ 
ture again,” people would say. 
A day or two later you would see him tearing down the highway 
with Skobelef. So he kept on laying up stores of gayety and aesthetic 
appreciation of the beautiful, until his conduct became more reprehen¬ 
sible than ever. His wife insisted upon Skobelef s deportation from 
the farm; it was impossible to convert Peter to virtuous ways so long 
as he maintained a companionship of that sort. 
Meanwhile, round about in the parish there grew up a numerous 
race of black, prancing horses, and the wheels rumbled faster on all 
the roads. A whinnying joy of life took sovereign possession of the 
community. Men lifted up their heads and cast jovial eyes on their 
surroundings, women plucked up courage actually to laugh out loud, 
and young folks discovered anew the pleasures of the dance. 
But Skobelef was not to reach old age. He broke out of the stable 
one night and ran off in the mountains to find his affinities, who were 
accustomed to graze there during the summer. 
When Peter Lo came along and saw the empty stable, he started 
shouting clamorous complaints; he evidently suspected at once that 
misfortune had stamped her mark upon his brow. He had a pretty 
shrewd idea where his comrade had fled; and witnesses reported that 
the whole day long they heard Peter Lo tramping over the hills neigh¬ 
ing just like Skobelef, calling and coaxing his old chum. 
At last he found him. Skobelef was standing up to his neck in a 
marsh far off in the foothills. He had fought so hard to extricate him¬ 
self that he had broken one of his forelegs, out of which protruded 
splinters of bone. The Hies had stung his eyes till they bled. 
Peter wiped his pal’s eyes with a tuft of grass and gave him a raw 
egg and a shot of whiskey. For a little while he let his own tears roll, 
but finally there was nothing to do but to draw his knife. 
After that day Peter Lo drove more slowly along the roads. His 
head bent lower and his whiskers turned gray. 
Xow he is an old man; but he still dresses better than most of his 
neighbors and affects a city brogue as before. When someone reminds 
him of Skobelef, his eyes grow dim. “Yes, yes,” he replies; “Skobelef 
was not like other horses. He was a regular high school; he taught us 
all a thing or two.” 
