Shrewd as our friend Rufus was, he could not be charged with low cunning, and never guessed that those two men had donned the show of mourning, and made the most of it round their neighbourhood to impress people with their kinship to the great Nowells of Nowelhurst, but that their guardian angels had disarrayed them ere they started, having no desire to set Rufus thinking about their chance of succession. As the sharp little doctor began to revolve all he had heard about Corklemore, his mare came to the Burley–road where they must leave the turnpike. Good Polly struck into it, best foot foremost, and, as she never would bear the curb well, her rider had quite enough to do, in the gathering darkness, and on that cross–country track, to attend to their common safety.
She broke from the long stride of her trot into a reaching canter, as the moon grew bright between the trees, and the lane was barred with shadow. Pricking nervously her ears at every flaw or rustle, bending her neck to show her beauty, where the light fell clear on the moor–top, then with a snort of challenge plunging into the black of the hollows, yet ready to jump the road and away, if her challenge should be answered; bounding across the water–gulley and looking askance at a fern–shadow; then saying to herself, “It is only the moon, child”, and up the ascent half ashamed of herself; then shaking her bridle with reassurance to think of that mile of great danger flown by, and the mash and the warm stable nearer, and the pleasure of telling that great roan horse how brave she had been in the moonlight——
“Goodness me! Whatʼs that”?
She leaped over road and roadside bank, and into a heavy gorse–bush, and stood there quivering from muzzle to tail in the intensity of terror. If Rufus had not just foreseen her alarm, and gripped her with all his power, he must have lain senseless upon the road, spite of all his rough–riding in India.
“Who–hoa, who–hoa, then, Polly, you little fool, you are killing me! Canʼt you see itʼs only a lady”?
Polly still backed into the bush, and her unlucky rider, with every prickle running into him, could see the whites of her eyes in the moonshine, as the great orbs stood out with horror. Opposite to them, and leaning against a stile which led to a footpath, there stood a maiden dressed in black, with the moonlight sheer upon her face. She took no notice of anything; she had heard no sort of footfall; she did not know of Pollyʼs capers, or the danger she was causing. Her face, with the hunterʼs moon upon it, would have been glorious beauty, but for the broad rims under the eyes, and the spectral paleness. One moment longer she stared at the moon, as if questing for some one gone thither, then turned away with a heavy sigh, and went towards the Coffin Wood.
All this time Rufus Hutton was utterly blind to romance, being scarified in the calf and thighs beyond any human endurance. Polly backed further and further away from the awful vision before her—the wife of the horse–fiend at least—and every fresh swerve sent a new lot of furze–pricks into the peppery legs of Rufus.
“Hang it”! he cried, “here goes; no man with a haʼporth of flesh in him could stand it any longer. Thorn for thorn, Miss Polly”. He dashed his spurs deep into her flanks, the spurs he had only worn for show, and never dared to touch her with. For a moment she trembled, and reared upright in wrath worse than any horror; then away she went like a storm of wind, headlong through trees and bushes. It was all pure luck or Providence that Rufus was not killed. He grasped her neck, and lay flat upon it; he clung with his supple legs around her; he called her his Polly, his darling Polly, and begged her to consider herself. She considered neither herself nor him, but dashed through the wild wood, wilder herself, not knowing light from darkness. Any low beech branch, any scrag holly, even a trail of loose ivy, and man and horse were done for. The lights of more than a million stars flashed before Rufus Hutton, and he made up his mind to die, and wondered how Rosa would take it. Perhaps she would marry again, and rear up another family who knew not the name of Hutton; perhaps she would cry her eyes out. Smack, a young branch took him in the face, though he had one hand before it. “Go it again”! he cried, with the pluck of a man despairing, and then he rolled over and over, and dug for himself a rabbit–hole of sand, and dead leaves, and moss. There he lay on his back, and prayed, and luckily let go the bridle.
The mare had fallen, and grovelled in the rotten ground where the rabbits lived; then she got up and shook herself, and the stirrups struck fire beneath her, and she spread out all her legs, and neighed for some horse to come and help her. She could not go any further; she had vented her soul, and must come to herself, like a lady after hysterics. Presently she sniffed round a bit, and the grass smelled crisp and dewy, and, after the hot corn and musty hay, it was fresher than ice upon brandy. So she looked through the trees, and saw only a squirrel, which did not frighten her at all, because she was used to rats. Then she brought her forelegs well under her stomach, and stretched her long neck downwards, and skimmed the wet blades with her upper lip, and found them perfectly wholesome. Every horse knows what she did then and there, to a great extent, till she had spoiled her relish for supper.
After that, she felt grateful and good, and it repented her of the evil, and she whinnied about for the master who had outraged her feelings so deeply. She found him still insensible, on his back, beneath a beech–tree, with six or seven rabbits, and even a hare, come to see what the matter was. Then Polly, who had got the bit out of her mouth, gave him first a poke with it, and then nuzzled him under the coat–collar, and blew into his whiskers as she did at the chaff in her manger. She was beginning to grieve and get very uneasy, taking care not to step on him, and went round him ever so many times, and whinnied into his ear, when either that, or the dollop of grass half chewed which lay on his countenance, revived the great spirit of Rufus Hutton, and he opened his eyes and looked languidly. He saw two immense black eyes full upon him, tenderly touched by the moonlight, and he felt a wet thing like a sponge poking away at his nostrils.