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For a mile beyond, and some way past Froyl, was safe going if we avoided the ruts. But here the moon failed us; and when Carey lit a lantern to help, it showed us that the carriers had no stomach left in them. One, though the froth froze on him, was sweating like a resty colt. The other two, if we slacked hold on their halter-ropes, would lurch together, halt, and slue neck to neck like a couple of timid dowagers hesitating upon a question of delicacy.

It was here that there came into my head the ill-starred thought of leading them off the road and through the fields close alongside of it on our left hand. The road itself I knew pretty well, and that it bore gradually to the left, all the way to Alton. Carey, whom I consulted, agreed that we could find it again at any time we chose. So, and without more ado, we opened the next gate we came to and herded the beasts through.

The first two fields, being stubble, served us well; and the next, a pasture, was even better. Beyond this we had some trouble to find a gate, but at length Masters hit on one a little way out of our course, and it led to a wide plowland, freshly turned but hard-frozen, in the furrows of which our horses boggled a good deal. We pushed across it, holding our line in a long slant back towards the loom of the tall hedge that (as we agreed) marked the course of the highway. On the far side of the plow this hedge ran down hill towards us and more sharply than I had reckoned: yet before regaining it we had to cross another pasture. I was the surer that this must be the road because of a light that shone straight ahead of us, which I took to be the direction of Holibourne village. I should mention, too, that on our left all the way the ground descended in an easy slope, but the frost had bound the little river running below and held it silent.

Sure enough on the far side of the pasture we came to a gate, and Shackell, who was leading, announced that the high-road lay beyond. But a minute later he called to us that this could not be: it was too narrow, a mere lane in fact; and with that, as we pressed up to the gate, the mischief happened.

The cause of it was a poor starved jackass, that had been sheltering himself under the lee of the hedge, and now, as we all but trampled him, heaved himself out of the shadow with a bray of terror. The sound, bursting upon us at close quarters, was as a stone hurled into a pool. Round went our horses’ rumps, and up went heels and hoofs. I heard Little Owens cry aloud that his nose was broken. ‘Catch hold of the pack-beasts!’ I shouted, as they shied back upon us, and two were caught and held fast–I know not by whom. The third, the resty one, springing backwards past me, almost on his haunches, jerked his halter wide of my clutch, and in a moment was galloping full flight down the slope.

With a call to the others to stand steady and wait for me, I wheeled my mare about and rode off in chase, to round him up. The almost total darkness made this hunting mighty unpleasant; but I knew that, bating the chance of being flung by a mole-hill, I had my gentleman safe enough. For, to begin with, he must soon find the pace irksome, with two firkin casks jolting against his ribs; and at the foot of the descent the river would surely head him off. To be sure it was frozen hard and he might have crossed it dry-footed, but the alders on the bank frighted him back, and presently I had him penned in an angle between hedge and stream. Here, as I slowed up and advanced to coax him, from out of the darkness behind him there broke suddenly a shouting and pounding of hoofs, and close in front of me (but hidden by the hedge) a troop of horsemen clattered down from the farther slope and up the lane where my comrades were gathered.