“Be persuaded, and go home with me,” he continued gently. “The most—nearly the only foolish thing you ever did, was to run from our dead.”
I pressed the horse’s ribs, and he was off like a sudden wind. I gave him a pat on the side of the neck, and he went about in a sharp-driven curve, “close to the ground, like a cat when scratchingly she wheels about after a mouse,” leaning sideways till his mane swept the tops of the heather.
Through the dark I heard the wings of the raven. Five quick flaps I heard, and he perched on the horse’s head. The horse checked himself instantly, ploughing up the ground with his feet.
“Mr. Vane,” croaked the raven, “think what you are doing! Twice already has evil befallen you—once from fear, and once from heedlessness: breach of word is far worse; it is a crime.”
“The Little Ones are in frightful peril, and I brought it upon them!” I cried. “—But indeed I will not break my word to you. I will return, and spend in your house what nights—what days—what years you please.”
“I tell you once more you will do them other than good if you go to-night,” he insisted.
But a false sense of power, a sense which had no root and was merely vibrated into me from the strength of the horse, had, alas, rendered me too stupid to listen to anything he said!
“Would you take from me my last chance of reparation?” I cried. “This time there shall be no shirking! It is my duty, and I will go—if I perish for it!”
“Go, then, foolish boy!” he returned, with anger in his croak. “Take the horse, and ride to failure! May it be to humility!”
He spread his wings and flew. Again I pressed the lean ribs under me.