“I can’t ride any longer,” she said. “I am so tired; let me walk.”
She took his arm; in a few minutes she began to lean heavily upon it. With the other hand he upheld the mare; thus the woman and the animal relied upon the man. But Margaret’s spirit was unbroken—she walked as fast as she could.
“Ah, this is not the Firs either!” she cried, as they reached some low underwood—nut-tree and hawthorn and thick bramble, overtopped by some stunted beeches, with but two or three firs among them. Passing round the small copse they came to an opening, and in the dimness saw some large grey stones inside. Utterly wearied and disappointed she left his arm, sat down on the soft turf, and leaned against a boulder. He looked closer.
“There is a dolmen under the trees,” he said. “Margaret dear, have you ever heard of this place?”
“These are Grey Wethers,” she said, in a low tone. “And no doubt what you call the dolmen is the Cave.”
“Then you know where we are?”
“Oh, no; just the reverse. I have only heard people talk of it; I have never been here before; all I know is we must have been going right away from Millbourne, just the opposite direction.”
“Do not trouble, dear; it seems a little lighter. Stay here while I go out of the copse and look round.”
“You will not go far away?” She could not help saying it.
“No, indeed I will not.” He went out some thirty yards, and then stopped, finding the ground began to decline. As she sat on the turf she could see his form against the sky; it was certainly lighter. In a rude circle the great grey boulders crouched around her; just opposite was the dolmen. It was built of three large flat stones set on edge, forming the walls, and over these an immense flat one—the table-stone—made the roof, which sloped slightly aside. A dwarf house, of Cyclopaean masonry; a house of a single chamber, the chamber of the dead. The place, she had heard, was the sepulchre of an ancient king—of a nameless hero. This Cave, as the shepherds called it, was a tomb. They had a dim tradition of the spirits haunting such magic circles of the Past. A sense of loneliness came over her—the silence of the vast expanse around weighed upon her; an unwonted nervousness took possession of her, as it naturally might in that dreary gloom. She tried to smile at herself, and yet put out her hand, and touched the mare’s neck—she was grazing near: it was companionship.