we might, or might not, strike
that old quarry pit. The blood in us being hot, we had pure joy in
charging its white, impalpable solidity, which made way, and at once
closed in behind us. There was great fun in this yard-by-yard discovery
that we were not yet dead, this flying, shelterless challenge to whatever
might lie out there, five yards in front. We felt supremely above the
wish to know that our necks were safe; we were happy, panting in the
vapour that beat against our faces from the sheer speed of our galloping.
Suddenly the ground grew lumpy and made up-hill. The mare slackened
pace; we stopped. Before us, behind, to right and left, white vapour.
No sky, no distance, barely the earth. No wind in our faces, no wind
anywhere. At first we just got our breath, thought nothing, talked a
little. Then came a chillness, a faint clutching over the heart. The
mare snuffled; we turned and made down-hill. And still the mist
thickened, and seemed to darken ever so little; we went slowly, suddenly
doubtful of all that was in front. There came into our minds visions, so
distant in that darkening vapour, of a warm stall and manger of oats; of
tea and a log fire. The mist seemed to have fingers now, long, dark
white, crawling fingers; it seemed, too, to have in its sheer silence a
sort of muttered menace, a shuddery lurkingness, as if from out of it
that spirit of the unknown, which in hot blood we had just now so
gleefully mocked, were creeping up at us, intent on its vengeance. Since
the ground no longer sloped, we could not go down-hill; there were no
means left of telling in what direction we were moving, and we stopped to
listen. There was no sound, not one tiny noise of water, wind in trees,
or man; not even of birds or the moor ponies. And the mist darkened. The
mare reached her head down and walked on, smelling at the heather; every
time she sniffed, one's heart quivered, hoping she had found the way.
She threw up her head, snorted, and stood still; and there passed just in
front of us a pony and her foal, shapes of scampering dusk, whisked like
blurred shadows across a sheet. Hoof-silent in the long heather--as ever
were visiting ghosts--they were gone in a flash. The mare plunged
forward, following. But, in the feel of her gallop, and the feel of my
heart, there was no more that ecstasy of facing the unknown; there was
only the cold, hasty dread of loneliness. Far asunder as the poles were
those two sen