ied 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 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