I tried to walk the brown horse through the ford where it was not more than three or four feet deep; but he first refused; then, when pressed, plunged fiercely in, and was out of his depth in a moment. He swam boldly enough, but obstinately kept his head down the stream, so that, instead of landing on an easy, shelving shore, he came out where all but a perpendicular bank of soft sand had to be leaped and climbed over. After several unsuccessful efforts, I was obliged to slip off, and climb up on foot, side by side with my horse, holding on by the flap of the saddle. If I had not dismounted, we should probably have rolled back together.
When I reached the top of the bank, rather out of breath, I looked back, and saw David making piteous signs, as he moved off rapidly, for me to push along. But this was easier said than done; the brown horse would not let me come near him. Round and round he went, rearing and plunging, until I was quite exhausted. Coaxing and threatening were alike useless; every moment it was getting darker. Once I thought of letting the brute go, and swimming back to David. But when I looked at the stream, and thought of Laura, that idea was dismissed. Another tussle, in which we plowed up the sand in a circle, was equally fruitless, and I began to think he would keep me there to be drowned, for to cross the Parkgate on foot before the tide came up strong, seemed hopeless. At length, finding I could not get to touch his shoulder, I seized the opportunity, when he was close to the bank of the stream, and catching the curb sharply in both hands, backed him half way down almost into the water. Before he had quite struggled up to the top, I threw myself into the saddle, and was carried off at the rate of thirty miles an hour toward the sea.
But I soon gathered up the reins, and, firm in my seat, turned my Tartar's head toward the point where I could see the white wind-mill gleaming through the twilight on the Cheshire shore.
I felt that I had not a moment to spare. The sand, so firm in the morning, sounded damp under my horse's stride; the little stagnant pools filled visibly, and joining formed shallow lakes, through which we dashed in a shower of spray; and every now and then we leaped over, or plunged into deep holes. At first I tried to choose a path, but as it rapidly grew darker, I sat back in my saddle, and with my eyes fixed on the tower of the wind-mill, held my horse firmly into a hand gallop, and kept a straight line. He was a famous deep-chested, long-striding, little fellow, and bounded along as fresh as when I started. By degrees my spirits began to rise; I thought the danger past; I felt confidence in myself and horse, and shouted to him in encouraging triumph. Already I was, in imagination, landed and relating my day's adventures to Laura, when with a heavy plunge down on his head, right over went the brown stallion, and away I flew as far as the reins, fortunately fast grasped, would let me. Blinded with wet sand, startled, shaken, confused, by a sort of instinct, I scrambled to my feet almost as soon as my horse, who had fallen over a set of salmon-net stakes. Even in the instant of my fall, all the honor of my situation was mentally visible to me. In a moment I lived years. I felt that I was a dead man; I wondered if my body would be found; I thought of what my friends would say; I thought of letters in my desk I wished burned. I thought of relatives to whom my journey to Parkgate was unknown, of debts I wished paid, of parties with whom I had quarreled, and wished I had been reconciled. I wondered whether Laura would mourn for me, whether she really loved me. In fact, the most serious and ridiculous thoughts were jumbled altogether, while I muttered, once or twice, a hasty prayer; and yet I did not lose a moment in remounting. This time my horse made no resistance, but stood over his hocks in a pool of salt water, and trembled and snorted—not fiercely, but in fear. There was no time to lose. I looked round for the dark line of the shore; it had sunk in the twilight. I looked again for the white tower; it had disappeared. The fall and the rolling, and turning of the horse in rising, had confused all my notions of the points of the compass. I could not tell whether it was the dark clouds from the sea, or the dizzy whirling of my brain; but it seemed to have become black night in a moment.
The water seemed to flow in all directions round and round. I tried, but could not tell which was the sea, and which the river side. The wind, too, seemed to shift and blow from all points of the compass.
Then, "Softly," I said to myself, "be calm; you are confused by terror; be a man;" and pride came to my rescue. I closed my eyes for a moment, and whispered, "Oh Lord, save me." Then with an effort, calmer, as though I had gulped down something, I opened my eyes, stood up in my stirrups, and peered into the darkness. As far as I could see, were patches of water eating up the dry bits of sand; as far as I could hear, a rushing tide was on all sides. Four times, in different directions, I pushed on, and stopped when I found the water rising over the shoulders of my horse.
I drew up on a sort of island of sand, which was every minute growing less, and gathering all the strength of my lungs, shouted again and again, and then listened; but there came no answering shout. Suddenly, a sound of music came floating past me. I could distinguish the air; it was the military band playing "Home, sweet Home." I tried to gather from what quarter the sound came; but each time the wind instruments brayed out loudly, the sounds seemed to come to me from every direction at once. "Ah!" I thought, "I shall see home no more." I could have wept, but I had no time; my eyes were staring through the darkness, and my horse plunging and rearing, gave me no rest for weeping. I gave him his head once, having heard that horses, from ships sunk at sea, have reached land distant ten miles, by instinct; but the alternation of land, and shallow and deep water confused his senses, and destroyed the calm power which might have been developed in the mere act of swimming.
At length, after a series of vain efforts, I grew calm and resigned. I made up my mind to die. I took my handkerchief from my neck, and tied my pocket-book to the D's of the saddle. I pulled my rings off my fingers, and put them in my pocket—I had heard of wreckers cutting off the fingers of drowned men—and then was on the point of dashing forward at random, when some inner feeling made me cast another steady glance all round. At that moment, just behind me, something sparkled twice, and disappeared, and then reappearing, shone faintly, but so steadily, that there could be no doubt it was a light on the Cheshire shore. In an instant my horse's head was turned round. I had gathered him together, dug in the spurs, and crying from the bottom of my heart, "Thank God!" in the same moment, not profanely, but with a horseman's instinct, shouting encouragingly, and dashed away toward the light. It was a hard fight; the ground seemed melting from under us—now struggling through soft sand, now splashing over hard, now swimming (that was easy), and now and again leaping and half falling, but never losing hold of my horse or sight of the beacon; we forced through every obstacle, until at length the water grew shallower and shallower; we reached the sand, and, passing the sand, rattled over the shingle at high-water mark—and I was saved! But I did not, could not stop; up the loose shingles I pressed on to the light that had saved me. I could not rest one instant, even for thanksgiving, until I knew to what providential circumstance I owed my safety. I drew up at a fisherman's hut of the humblest kind, built on the highest part of the shore, full two miles from Parkgate; a light, which seemed faint when close to it, twinkled from a small latticed window. I threw myself from my horse, and knocked loudly at the door, and as I knocked, fumbled with one hand in my soaked pocket for my purse. Twice I knocked again, and the door, which was unhasped, flew open. A woman, weeping bitterly, rose at this rude summons; and at the same moment I saw on the table the small coffin of a young child, with a rushlight burning at either end. I owed my life to death!