Hearing this, one can understand the origin of the old-time legends about headless horsemen galloping past on windy nights, and similar hair-raising stories. As a child, when I often visited at another house in this region (for four generations of us have climbed these hills and explored the valleys), I heard these same “headless horsemen” gallop along the slopes on many stormy nights; and despite my years and my common sense, I still feel the same creepy shiver in the back of my neck when they have a particularly mad stampede past my cottage door, for then they always pause to give the weirdest of howls through the keyholes!
“How dark it is getting!” exclaimed Ursula. “Where is your moon? And just hear the wind coming up the valley!”
It had not reached us as yet, but the words had scarcely left her lips before it came—swish—full upon us. We had to grip each other and plant our walking-sticks firmly on the ground to keep our feet. And then we knew what the sudden change meant, for next moment down came the snow—snow such as the town-dweller knows nothing about, for in cities there are buildings to break the force of the elements; but on these heights there is nothing to impede the fury of the storm as it gallops over the upper regions, crashing and smashing as it goes.
The snow dashed in our eyes; it got inside our coat-collars; it clogged up our hair; it swirled and “druv” (as they say locally) till it made our heads dizzy, and our eyes smarted with trying to see through the whirling mass.
Owing to our exposed position we felt the full force of the storm, and it was a difficult matter to make headway in the blinding flakes and stinging wind.
“There is a short cut through the wood, further along the road; let us get home as soon as we can,” I said, leading the way, and we staggered on against the blizzard, till we came to the wood, and plunged from the road into its recesses. But I soon found it is one thing to know the way through a dense mass of trees in bright sunshine with a path clearly defined, and quite another thing to find one’s way in the twilight, with a gale blowing in one’s teeth and every landmark obliterated by the rapidly falling snow.
We stumbled along for some time, over the rough stones and great boulders, lovely enough in summer with their coverings of ivy, moss, and fern, but very painful and cold for the shins when you tumble over them in the snow. Before long it was quite evident to me that we were merely wandering at large among the trees, and scrambling among the undergrowth of stalks and bracken, our hats catching in the hanging branches, our skirts being clutched at by the all-pervading bramble—path there was none. I had to admit I had lost my bearings, though as we were going steadily downhill, I knew we should arrive at the other side presently, as downhill was our destination. What little conversation we indulged in—beyond the usual exclamations every time we tripped over something—had to be done in shouts, so high was the wind.
In this way we tumbled on for about half an hour. Just as Virginia was confiding to me—fortissimo above the blizzard—how she wished she had been nicer to her family when she had the opportunity, and how sweet and forgiving she would have been to them all had she but known that I was going to take her out to an arctic grave, the snow ceased, the clouds broke, the moon appeared, and at the same time we cleared the wood and struck a familiar lane—“Agag’s Path” we had named it, on account of the need for walking delicately.
By way of keeping up our spirits, Ursula began to chant, to some lilting, sprightly tune, that most lugubrious poem, “Lucy Gray.”
“The storm came up before its time,