A. T. Quiller-Couch

“ But for mile on mile, all was desolate.
Now and then I caught the cry of a pee-wwit, or saw a snipe glance up from his bed; but mainly I was busied about the mare. “Let us but gain the ridge ahead,” thought I, “and there is a chance.” So I rode as light as I could, husbanding her powers.
She was going her best, but the best was near spent. The sweat was oozing, her satin coat losing the gloss, the spume flying back from her nostrils—“Soh!” I called to her: “Soh! my beauty; we ride to save an army!” ”

“ Joan stepped to the door and flung it wide. As my eyes grew used to the gloom inside, they saw this:—
A rude kitchen—the furniture but two rickety chairs, now toss'd on their faces, an oak table, with legs sunk into the earth, a keg of strong waters, tilted over and draining upon the mud floor, a ladder leading up to a loft, and in two of the corners a few bundles of bracken strewn for bedding. To the left, as one entered, was an open hearth; but the glowing peat-turves were now pitch'd to right and left over the hearth-stone and about the floor, where they rested, filling the den with smoke. ”

“ I reined up the mare—and then, in the same motion, wheeled her sharp to the right.
High above, on the hill-side, a voice was calling.
I look'd up. Below the steeper ridge of the tor a patch of land had been cleared for tillage: and here a yoke of oxen was moving leisurely before a plough ('twas their tinkling bells I had heard, just now) ; while behind followed the wildest shape—by the voice, a woman.
She was not calling to me, but to her team: and as I put Molly at the slope, her chant rose and fell in the mournfullest singsong. ”