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The driver was a young fellow in a nankeen regulation coat, belted below the waist, sitting sidewise on the box. He was the more willing to carry on a conversation because the broken-down, lame, emaciated, foaming shaft-horse could then walk, which these horses always preferred.
I can learn nothing about Captain Franklin; but in one of my villages there is an old sleigh that no one claims, and it may be his equipage." We carried one and sometimes two bells on the yoke of our shaft-horse to signify that we traveled by post. Every humbler vehicle was required to give us the entire road, at least such was the theory.
"Oh, yes, indeed!" replied Pierre, roughly; "one must have money in one's pocket for that, and this fellow has only debts instead of savings." "But you," said I, rather astonished; "are you not his friend?" "Friend!" interrupted the bookbinder. "Yes, as much as the shaft-horse is friend to the leader on condition that each will take his share of the draught, and eat his feed by himself."
They heaped the coach up with hay, put the collar off the lame shaft-horse under the seat, in case we might want to fit it on to the horse to be bought at Tula.... Filofey, who had managed to run home and come back in a long, white, loose, ancestral overcoat, a high sugar-loaf cap, and tarred boots, clambered triumphantly up on to the box.
When traveling any distance, a second horse is added on the left, abreast of the first, and attached to the volante by an added whiffletree and traces. When there are two horses the postilion rides the one to the left, thus leaving the shaft-horse free of other weight than the vehicle.
And, secondly, I had an acquaintance in Tula, a horsedealer; I might buy a horse off him to take the place of the disabled shaft-horse. 'The thing's decided! I thought; 'I'll drive over myself; I can sleep just as well on the road luckily, the coach is comfortable. 'I've brought him! cried Yermolai, rushing into the hut a quarter of an hour later.
The driver sits on the bow directly behind the shaft-horse, and one part of his duty is to keep from falling off. The traveler spreads his baggage inside as evenly as possible to form a bed or cushion. Angular pieces should be discarded, as the corners are disagreeable when jolted against one's sides. Two shafts are fixed in the forward axle, and a horse between them forms a sort of point d'appui.
Come, Shaggy, my trusty little horse, Filofey addressed the shaft-horse; 'step on, brother! Do your last bit of service! It's all the same... And he urged his horses into a trot We began to get near the bridge near that motionless, menacing cart.... In it everything was silent, as though on purpose. Not a single halloo!
One of our drivers was a Russian peasant from Yaroslavl, the other, an Ossete. The latter took out the leaders in good time and led the shaft-horse by the reins, using every possible precaution but our heedless compatriot did not even climb down from his box!
The shaft-horse, with his tightly bound tail under his decorated breechband, galloped smoothly and briskly; the smooth road seemed to run rapidly backwards, while the driver dashingly shook the reins. One of the lawyers and the officer sitting opposite talked nonsense to Makovkina's neighbour, but Makovkina herself sat motionless and in thought, tightly wrapped in her fur.
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