Mere. Nasty bog on the far side. Got it? Jolly good.”
We set off on a broad track across fields. Sheep scattered at the sight of us. Through a copse, and then suddenly the hounds picked up the scent. Their excited baying echoed through the mist. Off they went in full cry and we followed at a lively canter. Snowflake lived up to her reputation, trying to veer off to one side when any horse came near her, and it was all I could do to keep up with the other horses. We came to a low stone wall and she cleared it in a giant bound. As we dipped into a valley we were swallowed up into thicker mist. Snowflake veered off to the left as another horse came up on one side of us. It was the master on his gray—the whiteness of the horse making him almost invisible in the mist. I fought to hold her head and let him go ahead. I could hear the hounds what sounded like far ahead now, off to my left. I urged the horse into a gallop up a steep slope, with dead bracken and rocks around us. Suddenly a row of grotesque black shapes rose out of the mist, looking like giants with arms outstretched to grab us. Snowflake reacted by skidding to a halt and then rearing up. It was all I could do to keep my seat and it took me a while to calm her. And to calm myself too, as my heart was thudding until I realized that I was looking at a row of stunted Scotch pine trees, bent because of the wind, and behind them mist curling up from what looked like black water.
We stood still while I tried to get my bearings. I heard a sound that might have been a cry from a bird or the distant baying of a hound. I had no idea which direction the sound was coming from. But what I did begin to feel was a growing sense of danger, of being watched, hunted. I turned the horse around, peering into the mist, but it was so thick that the grass was swallowed up within a few feet of me. Suddenly a white shape rose up to one side of me. There was a loud flapping noise and something like a ghost seemed to come at us. That was enough for Snowflake. She took off again, this time to her right, while I fought to control her. Suddenly another flapping shape stepped out of the mist. The horse shied, skidded to a halt, and nearly threw me.
This shape with its waving arms was now identifiable as Wild Sal. “You don’t want to go that way, miss,” she said. “’Tis dangerous that way. You’d wind up in the bog and that would be the end of you. Go back the way you came and then take the downward track. That’ll set you right.”
“Thank you,” I called, but she had already vanished.
I made my way back, the horse moving cautiously, and I could feel the shudders of apprehension going through her flanks. As we approached the Scotch pines I looked to see what logical explanation I could find for the white flapping shape that had so startled us. I could make out something white moving through the mist. Then I heard a jingling of harness, the soft muted sound of hoofbeats on turf, and heaved a sigh of relief. I wasn’t so far from the others after all. A white horse loomed out of the mist and it took me a minute to notice that it was riderless.
In spite of Snowflake’s protests I managed to get close enough to grab the reins.
“Hello!” I called into the mist. “Anyone out there? Do you need help?”
Silence met me, followed by that strange flapping sound echoing back from an unseen crag. I wasn’t going to wander into trackless moor so I took Sal’s advice and followed the track down the hill, leading the gray. It followed me reluctantly and I thought this might have something to do with my horse’s bad temper until I turned around and noticed it was lame in the left foreleg. I went more slowly. As I came down the hill I met other riders coming toward me.
“Lost the scent at Downey Brook,” one of them called, “and the mist is so dashed thick that we’re packing it in. No sense in risking breaking a leg.” The man came closer, riding a big, solid dark horse. He stopped when he noticed the horse I was leading.
“I say. That’s the master’s horse, isn’t it? Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I found the horse wandering in the mist.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Up there.” I pointed to the track I had just descended.
“But that’s Barston Mere,” he said. “What were you doing up there?”
“I became separated from the rest of the hunt,” I said. “I thought I was following the master. Something spooked my horse and by the time I’d controlled it I hadn’t any idea where I was.”
“It’s not like the master to come off,” the man said. “Damned fine horseman, and his horse can jump anything you put in front of it.”
“The horse seems to have injured its foreleg,” I said. “It’s limping badly.”
“I can see some blood. Maybe cut itself trying to jump a wall,” the man said. “Maybe fell at a jump. The master can be a trifle reckless at times. Still thinks he’s twenty-one.” And he laughed, a dry
Other riders had now caught up with us.
“The young lady says she found the master’s horse up beside the mere,” he said.
“We’d better go and take a look,” someone else suggested, “but for heaven’s sake stay together. We don’t want to lose anybody in the bog.”
We made our way slowly up the hill, calling as we went. No sound answered us. As we reached the top of the hill, the mist suddenly stirred and parted and I found myself looking at a sheet of black water, upon which a group of swans was swimming peacefully.
A swan, I thought. Maybe that could have been the white flapping thing that came at us. Probably defending its territory. I had known swans to be aggressive before. I wondered if it had similarly attacked the master and caused him to be thrown from his horse. We picked our way around the lake until we came to an area on the far side where the grass was an unusually bright green. Having grown up on the Scottish moors I knew a bog when I saw one and I knew what would happen to anyone foolish enough to venture onto that bright green grass. He would instantly find that his feet were trapped in thick, sucking mud. He would feel himself sinking. The more he struggled, the deeper he would sink. I had known bogs to swallow a horse or a steer in a few minutes.
We sat on our horses, not moving, just staring at the green grass as it merged into black water.
“You don’t think . . . do you?” someone ventured to say at last.
“Not possible,” someone retorted. “The master knows this area like the back of his hand. He warned us himself to stay clear of the bog, didn’t he? He wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it.”
“And yet his horse was found up here,” someone else pointed out.
“Well, there’s no sign of him now,” the second speaker declared. “My bet is that he tried to jump too big a wall and the horse threw him, then took off on its own.”
“That’s what I’d surmise too,” another rider said. “Let’s divide up and search the entire area.”
We were divided into teams of two and set off in different directions. After an hour or so of combing the wild and rocky terrain, calling futilely, we assembled again, with disappointing results. Nobody had seen any trace of the man.
“Of course he could have been knocked cold and is lying among the bracken,” someone said.
The big man who had organized the search shook his head. “He wouldn’t be out cold for a couple of hours, surely.”
“Then he could have recovered, realized he’d lost his horse and made his way down to the road on foot, hitched a lift and gone home.”
“Yes. Perhaps he did that,” several voices agreed. Everyone seemed eager to prove that their worst fears had not come true. Lady Hawse-Gorzley assembled us and we made our way home, hardly saying a word.
* * *
AS WE RODE Darcy urged his mount closer to me. Snowflake was too tired to protest by now and allowed her stablemate to come up beside her.
“It’s one rum do after another, isn’t it?” he said. “They said you were the one who found the horse, is that right?”
“I did. Up by that bog.” I shuddered. “I only hope he didn’t come a cropper there. Not an end I’d want for myself.”
“If he got stuck, why didn’t he yell?” Darcy said. “Sound carried rather well today. I could hear the hounds when they were miles away.”
“That’s true,” I said. “And I was up there, quite close to him. I would have heard.”
“You don’t gradually sink into a bog and do nothing,” Darcy said. “Surely there would be some sign of a struggle.”
“Not necessarily. I’ve known a bog to swallow a Highland steer in a few minutes, although the poor thing did
