RIDING IN MIST

Wet and hot, having her winter coat, the mare exactly matched the
drenched fox-coloured beech-leaf drifts. As was her wont on such misty
days, she danced along with head held high, her neck a little arched, her
ears pricked, pretending that things were not what they seemed, and now
and then vigorously trying to leave me planted on the air. Stones which
had rolled out of the lane banks were her especial goblins, for one such
had maltreated her nerves before she came into this ball-room world, and
she had not forgotten.

There was no wind that day. On the beech-trees were still just enough of
coppery leaves to look like fires lighted high-up to air the eeriness;
but most of the twigs, pearled with water, were patterned very naked
against universal grey. Berries were few, except the pink spindle one,
so far the most beautiful, of which there were more than Earth generally
vouchsafes. There was no sound in the deep lanes, none of that sweet,
overhead sighing of yesterday at the same hour, but there was a quality
of silence--a dumb mist murmuration. We passed a tree with a proud
pigeon sitting on its top spire, quite too heavy for the twig delicacy
below; undisturbed by the mare's hoofs or the creaking of saddle leather,
he let us pass, absorbed in his world of tranquil turtledoves. The mist
had thickened to a white, infinitesimal rain-dust, and in it the trees
began to look strange, as though they had lost one another. The world
seemed inhabited only by quick, soundless wraiths as one trotted past.

Close to a farm-house the mare stood still with that extreme suddenness