“Ay, I hear ’em,” Harry replied grimly; “but th’ mare’s doin’ th’ best she can, an’ it’s what’s afore us that’s troublin’ me, sitha!”
She caught her breath.
“Yon’s never th’ dawn, Harry!”
“Not wi’out th’ dawn’s come i’ th’ north for once,” he muttered. “Come up, then, Polly!”
The mare sprang more quickly forward at the trailing of the whiplash over her quarters, and the dark hedges made a long blur on either hand. The odd brightness rose and sank over the distant fell.
“Rebecca afore, an’ th’ father ahint,” he said to himself, “an’ we canna hide th’ trap; we maun chance it. Come up, Polly!—Hark!—Ay, yon’s Beeswing; I ken her trot; thou canna leave Beeswing, Polly, poor lass; we can but go forrard. Polly’s my own, but I ha’ borrowed th’ trap. Come closer, Bess.”
“Oh, Harry, ha’ a care; we were a’most i’ th’ dike then! Sitha, how th’ hills swing!—Yon leet’s growin’ breeter.”
“We’se see at th’ next turn,” he said between his teeth.
“Ho’d me close.”
Again he touched the mare; the sombre fell seemed to close in on them, and then to open out again into a further fold. The luminousness ahead grew brighter, and an outlying barn flashed past. They took the dip at Litton village and the rise on the other side without a check; two of the trap wheels left the ground at the turn, touching again twenty yards further on; the light leaped; they saw the blazing toll-bar and the figures that moved about it; and Harry muttered, “We can but go forrard—nay, we maun stop. I could ha’ ta’en yon burnin’ yett alone, but wi’ lass and trap—we’re done!”