I seemed to be haunted by things unknown. I
have sometimes thought whether the spirits that love solitary places, may
not delight in appropriating, for embodiment momentary and partial, such
a present shape as may happen to fit one of their passing moods; whether
it is always the _mere_ gnarled, crone-like hawthorn, or misshapen rock,
that, between the wanderer and the pale sky, suddenly appals him with the
sense of _another_. The hawthorn, the rock, the dead pine, is indeed
there, but is it alone there?
Some such thought was, I remember, in my mind, when, about halfway from
home, I grew aware of something a little way in front that rose between
me and a dark part of the sky. It seemed a figure on a huge horse. My
first thought, very naturally, was of my uncle; the next, of the great
gray horse and his rider that John and I had both seen on the moor. I
confess to a little awe at the thought of the latter; but I am somehow
made so as to be capable of awe without terror, and of the latter I felt
nothing. The composite figure drew nearer: it was a woman on horseback.
Immediately I recalled the adventure of my childhood; and then remembered
that John had said his mother always rode the biggest horse she could
find: could that shape, towering in the half-dark before me, be indeed my
deadly enemy--she who, my uncle had warned me, would kill me if she had
the chance? A fear far other than ghostly invaded me, and for a moment I
hesitated whether to ride on, or turn and make for some covert, until she
should have passed from between me and my home.
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