Frosty spoke when we had passed out of the home-field, even in our haste stopping to close and tie fast the gate behind us.
"You don't want to run your horse down in the first ten miles, Ellis; we'll make time by taking it easy at first, and you'll get there just as soon." I knew he was right about it, and pulled Shylock down to the steady lope that was his natural gait.

It was hard, though, to just "mosey" along as if we were starting out to kill time and earn our daily wage in the easiest possible manner.

One's nerves demanded an unusual pace--a pace that would soothe fear by its very headlong race against misfortune.
Once or twice it occurred to me to wonder, just for a minute, how we should fare in King's Highway; but mostly my thoughts stuck to dad, and how it happened that he was "critically ill," as the message had put it.
Crawford had sent that message; I knew from the precise way it was worded--Crawford never said _sick_--and Crawford was about as conservative a man as one could well be, and be human.

He was as unemotional as a properly trained footman; Jenks, our butler, showed more feeling.

But Crawford, if he was conservative, was also conscientious.