neck, and asked his master what to make of it.

"We must 'a come at last to Stormy Gap: it might be worse, and it might
be better. Rocks o' both sides, and no way round. No choice but to get
through it, or to spend the night inside of it. You and I are a pretty
good weight, old Dukie. We'll even try a charge for it, afore we knock
under. We can't have much more smother than we've gotten already. My
father was taken like this, I've heard tell, in the service of old
Squire Philip; and he put his nag at it, and scumbled through. But first
you get up your wind, old chap."

Marmaduke seemed to know what was expected of him; for he turned round,
retreated a few steps, and then stood panting. Then Jordas dismounted,
as well as he could with his windward leg nearly frozen. He smote
himself lustily, with both arms swinging, upon his broad breast, and he
stamped in the snow till he felt his tingling feet again. Then he took
up the skirt of his thick heavy coat, and wiped down the head, mane,
and shoulders of the horse, and the great pile of snow upon the crupper.
"Start clear is a good word," he said.

For a moment he stopped to consider the forlorn hope of his last
resolution. "About me, there is no such great matter," he thought; "but
if I was to kill Dukie, who would ever hear the last of it? And what a
good horse he have been, to be sure! But if I was to leave him so, the
crows would only have him. We be both in one boat; we must try of it."
He said a little prayer, which was all he knew, for himself and a lass
he had a liking to, who lived in a mill upon the river Lune; and then
he got into the saddle again, and set his teeth hard, and spoke to
Marmaduke, a horse who would never be touched with a spur. "Come on, old
chap," was all he said.

The horse looked about in the thick of the night, as the head of the
horse peers out of the cloak, in Welsh mummery, at Christmas-tide.
The thick of the night was light and dark, with the dense intensity
of down-pour; light in itself, and dark with shutting out all sight of
everything--a close-at-hand confusion, and a distance out of measure.
The horse, with his wise snow-crusted eyes, took in all the winnowing of
light among the draff, and saw no possibility of breaking through, but
resolved to spend his life as he was ordered. No power of rush or of
dash could he gather, because of the sinking of his feet; the main
chance was of bulk and weight; and his rider left him free to choose.