First came Mistress Stephen, Stumpin Steenie the policeman's cow, with her tail at full stretch behind her.

To the end of her tail was tied the nose of Jeames Joss the cadger's horse--a gaunt sepulchral animal, which age and ill-treatment had taught to move as if knees and hocks were useless refinements in locomotion.

He had just enough of a tail left to tie the nose of another cow to; and so, by the accretion of living joints, the strange monster lengthened out into the dim fiery distance.
When Mrs Stephen reached the square, she turned to lead her train diagonally across it, for in that direction lay her home.

Moved by the same desire, the cadger's horse wanted to go in exactly the opposite direction.

The cow pulled the one way, and the horse pulled the other; but the cow, having her head free, had this advantage over the horse, which was fast at both ends.