listening and looking
round. The breeze was oozing through the network of boughs as through
a strainer; the trunks and larger branches stood against the light of
the sky in the forms of writhing men, gigantic candelabra, pikes,
halberds, lances, and whatever besides the fancy chose to make of them.
Giving up the search, Melbury came back to the horses, and walked
slowly homeward, leading one in each hand.

It happened that on this self-same evening a boy had been returning
from Great to Little Hintock about the time of Fitzpiers's and
Melbury's passage home along that route. A horse-collar that had been
left at the harness-mender's to be repaired was required for use at
five o'clock next morning, and in consequence the boy had to fetch it
overnight. He put his head through the collar, and accompanied his
walk by whistling the one tune he knew, as an antidote to fear.

The boy suddenly became aware of a horse trotting rather friskily along
the track behind him, and not knowing whether to expect friend or foe,
prudence suggested that he should cease his whistling and retreat among
the trees till the horse and his rider had gone by; a course to which
he was still more inclined when he found how noiselessly they
approached, and saw that the horse looked pale, and remembered what he
had read about Death in the Revelation. He therefore deposited the
collar by a tree, and hid himself behind it. The horseman came on, and
the youth, whose eyes were as keen as telescopes, to his great relief
recognized the doctor.

As Melbury surmised, Fitzpiers had in the darkness taken Blossom for
Darling, and he had not discovered his mistake when he came up opposite
the boy, though he was somewhat surprised at the liveliness of his
usually placid mare. The only other pair of eyes on the spot whose
vision was keen as the young carter's were those of the horse; and,
with that strongly conservative objection to the unusual which animals
show, Blossom, on eying the collar under the tree--quite invisible to
Fitzpiers--exercised none of the patience of the older horse, but shied
sufficiently to unseat so second-rate an equestrian as the surgeon.

He fell, and did not move, lying as Melbury afterwards found him. The
boy ran away, salving his conscience for the desertion by thinking how
vigorously he would spread the alarm of the accident when he got to
Hintock--which he uncompromisingly did, incrusting the skeleton event
with a load of d