"Come," said he, roughly, as he caught the bridle, "get on the horse; we must waste no more time talking folly." He put his hands under her foot, and with a leap she was in the saddle.
"You can ride of course," said he, churlishly; he detested the spell that had been thrown over him; the conviction that he had been very nearly falling wholly into her power.
"Of course I can ride—I am a moor-maid."
With his hand at the bit he urged the horse on, and strode forward, looking down at the turf, without speaking. The sudden drunkenness of brain that had come over him left its vapours that were not withdrawn wholly and at once. But Anthony was not a man to brood over any sensation or experience, and when Urith asked, "Did you find your father's colts?" he recovered his good humour and gaiety, and answered in his wonted tone, "No, the fire must have driven them further north, maybe they are lost in Cranmeer." Then, with a laugh, he added, "I have been like Saul seeking my father's beasts, and like Saul, have found something better." He looked up at her with a flashing eye.
She turned her head away.
"You came to the moors alone?" she asked.
He did not reply, but pointed to the west. "The wind is shifting, I hold. The direction of the smoke and flames is changed."
She did not observe that he evaded giving her a reply to her question.
The way now dipped into a broad valley, where the fire had already burnt, and had exhausted itself.