Selifan tightened his reins, and the other driver did the same.
The horses stepped back a little, and then came together again--this time getting a leg or two over the traces.

In fact, so pleased did the skewbald seem with his new friends that he refused to stir from the melee into which an unforeseen chance had plunged him.

Laying his muzzle lovingly upon the neck of one of his recently-acquired acquaintances, he seemed to be whispering something in that acquaintance's ear--and whispering pretty nonsense, too, to judge from the way in which that confidant kept shaking his ears.
At length peasants from a village which happened to be near the scene of the accident tackled the mess; and since a spectacle of that kind is to the Russian muzhik what a newspaper or a club-meeting is to the German, the vehicles soon became the centre of a crowd, and the village denuded even of its old women and children.

The traces were disentangled, and a few slaps on the nose forced the skewbald to draw back a little; after which the teams were straightened out and separated.

Nevertheless, either sheer obstinacy or vexation at being parted from their new friends caused the strange team absolutely to refuse to move a leg.
Their driver laid the whip about them, but still they stood as though rooted to the spot.