What is to be done?
"Just leave it to the pownies," the guide says.
"Do you mean leave the ponies to find the way?"
"That's it," says the guide. "Drop the bridle, and leave it to the pownies. See for yourselves. I'm away on my powny."
He drops his bridle on the pommel of his saddle, whistles to his pony, and disappears in the mist; riding with his hands in his pockets, and his pipe in his mouth, as composedly as if he were sitting by his own fireside at home.
We have no choice but to follow his example, or to be left alone on the moor. The intelligent little animals, relieved from our stupid supervision, trot off with their noses to the ground, like hounds on the scent. Where the intersecting tract of bog is wide, they skirt round it. Where it is narrow enough to be leaped over, they cross it by a jump. Trot! trot!--away the hardy little creatures go; never stopping, never hesitating. Our "superior intelligence," perfectly useless in the emergency, wonders how it will end. Our guide, in front of us, answers that it will end in the ponies finding their way certainly to the nearest village or the nearest house. "Let the bridles be," is his one warning to us. "Come what may of it, let the bridles be!"
It is easy for the guide to let his bridle be--he is accustomed to place himself in that helpless position under stress of circumstances, and he knows exactly what his pony can do.
To us, however, the situation is a new one; and it looks dangerous in the extreme. More than once I check myself, not without an effort, in the act of resuming the command of my pony on passing the more dangerous points in the journey. The time goes on; and no sign of an inhabited dwelling looms through the mist. I begin to get fidgety and irritable; I find myself secretly doubting the trustworthiness of the guide. While I am in this unsettled frame of mind, my pony approaches a dim, black, winding line, where the bog must be crossed for the hundredth time at least. The breadth of it (deceptively enlarged in appearance by the mist) looks to my eyes beyond the reach of a leap by any pony that ever was foaled. I lose my presence of mind. At the critical moment before the jump is taken, I am foolish enough to seize the bridle, and suddenly check the pony. He starts, throws up his head, and falls instantly as if he had been shot. My right hand, as we drop on the ground together, gets twisted under me, and I feel that I have sprained my wrist.