The little blue veins in her arms swelled and blackened;
The reins were like fiddle-strings stretched in her grip;
When the break hove in sight, the mad gallop had slackened:
She had done it, by God! they were under the whip.
They still had the pace on; but Polly was able
To steer ’twixt the fences with never a graze:
They flashed past the change, where the groom at the stable
Just stood with his mouth open, dumb with amaze.
On the level she turned them—the best bit of driving
That ever was done on this side of the range—
And trotted them back up the hill-side, arriving
With not a strap broken in front of the change.
And the wife? Well, she prayed to the Lord till she fainted:
I reckon He answered her prayers: all the same,
He must have helped Polly, It’s curious now, ain’t it?
To see a thin slip of a girl be so game.
Did I summons the driver? I had no occasion
The coroner came with his jury instead,
Who found that he died from a serious abrasion—
Both wheels of the coach had gone over his head.
