The dalesmen gathered about the fire at the Red Lion with the silence that comes of awe.
“A sad hap, this,” said Reuben Thwaite, lifting both hands.
“I reckon we must all turn out at the edge of the dawn to-morrow, and see what we can do to find old Betsy,” said Mr. Jackson.
Matthew Branthwaite's sagest saws had failed him. Such a contingency as this had never been foreseen by that dispenser of proverbs. It had lifted him out of himself. Matthew's sturdy individualism might have taken the form of liberalism, or perhaps materialism, if it had appeared two centuries later; but in the period in which his years were cast, the art of keeping close to the ground had not been fully learned. Matthew was filled with a sentiment which he neither knew nor attempted to define. At least he was sure that the mare was not to be caught. It was to be a dispensation somehow and someway that the horse should gallop over the hills with its dead burden to its back from year's end to year's end. When Mr. Jackson suggested that they should start out in search of it, Matthew said,—
“Nay, John, nowt of the sort. Ye may gang ower the fell, but ye'll git na Betsy. It's as I telt thee; it's a Fate. It'll be a tale for iv'ry mother to flyte childer with.”
“The wind did come with a great bouze,” said John. “It must have been the helm-wind, for sure; yet I cannot mind that I saw the helm-bar. Never in my born days did I see a horse go off with such a burr.”
“And you could not catch hold on it, any of you, ey?” asked one of the company with a shadow of a sneer.
“Shaf! dost thoo think yon fell's like a blind lonnin?” said Matthew.
“Nay, but it's a bent place,” continued Mr. Jackson. “How it dizzied and dozzled, too! And what a fratch yon was! My word! but Ralph did ding them over, both of them!”
“He favors his father, does Ralph,” said Matthew.