delicacy
below; undisturbed by the mare's hoofs or the creaking of saddle leather,
he let us pass, absorbed in his world of tranquil turtledoves. The mist
had thickened to a white, infinitesimal rain-dust, and in it the trees
began to look strange, as though they had lost one another. The world
seemed inhabited only by quick, soundless wraiths as one trotted past.

Close to a farm-house the mare stood still with that extreme suddenness
peculiar to her at times, and four black pigs scuttled by and at once
became white air. By now we were both hot and inclined to cling closely
together and take liberties with each other; I telling her about her
nature, name, and appearance, together with comments on her manners; and
she giving forth that sterterous, sweet snuffle, which begins under the
star on her forehead. On such days she did not sneeze, reserving those
expressions of her joy for sunny days and the crisp winds. At a forking
of the ways we came suddenly on one grey and three brown ponies, who
shied round and flung away in front of us, a vision of pretty heads and
haunches tangled in the thin lane, till, conscious that they were beyond
their beat, they faced the bank and, one by one, scrambled over to join
the other ghosts out on the dim common.

Dipping down now over the road, we passed hounds going home. Pied,
dumb-footed shapes, padding along in that soft-eyed, remote world of
theirs, with a tall riding splash of red in front, and a tall splash of
riding red behind. Then through a gate we came on to the moor, amongst
whitened furze. The mist thickened. A curlew was whistling on its
invisible way, far up; and that wistful, wild calling seemed the very
voice of the day. Keeping in view the glint of the road, we galloped;
rejoicing, both of us, to be free of the jog jog of the lanes.

And first the voice of the curlew died; then the glint of the road
vanished; and we were quite alone. Even the furze was gone; no shape of
anything left, only the black, peaty ground, and the thickening mist. We
might as well have been that lonely bird crossing up there in the blind
white nothingness, like a human spirit wandering on the undiscovered moor
of its own future.

The mare jumped a pile of stones, which appeared, as it were, after we
had passed over; and it came into my mind that, if we happened to strike
one of the old quarry pits, we should infallibly be killed. Somehow,
there was pleasure in this thought, that