Various other bundles and bags lie bulkily distributed under a rope net. The animal carries a seam, or wooden frame, with a large leather portmanteau tied to one side, and a smaller wooden box, brassbound at its corners, on the other. Behind these two a leading-line runs back to a packhorse. She is enveloped in a brown hooded cloak, and muffled so that only her eyes and nose are visible. Behind him, on a stouter beast, sit two people: a bareheaded man in a long-sleeved blouse, heavy drugget jerkin and leather breeches, his long hair tied in a knot, with in front of him, sitting sideways and resting against his breast-he supports her back with his right arm-a young woman. His greatcoat is in dark grey, his hat black and plainer, and he too looks neither to left nor right, but reads a small volume held in his free hand, letting his placid pad tread its own way. Some paces behind comes an older man on a smaller, plumper horse. He rides with a slack rein and a slight stoop, staring at the track ahead as if he does not see it. The underparts of his bay, and of his clothes, like those of his companions, are mud-splashed, as if earlier in the day they have travelled in mirier places. Only in the extreme west does a thin wash of yellow light offer some hope of better weather to come.Ī man in his late twenties, in a dark bistre greatcoat, boots and a tricorn hat, its upturned edges trimmed discreetly in silver braid, leads the silent caravan. The day is quite windless, held in a dull suspension. All the farthest distances fade into a mist, and the travellers' clothes are by chance similarly without accent. The peaty track they follow traverses a waste of dead heather and ling below, in a steep-sided valley, stand unbroken dark woodlands, still more in bud than in leaf. There lies about them, in the bleak landscape, too high to have yet felt the obvious effects of spring, in the uniform grey of the overcast sky, an aura of dismal monotony, an accepted tedium of both journey and season.
All are on horseback, proceeding at a walk along the moorland track. I N THE LATE AND LAST AFTERNOON of an April long ago, a forlorn little group of travellers cross a remote upland in the far south-west of England. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at Thank you for your support of the author's rights. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property.
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