A load of oak timber was to be sent away that morning to a builder

whose works were in a town many miles off. The proud trunks were taken

up from the silent spot which had known them through the buddings and

sheddings of their growth for the foregoing hundred years; chained down

like slaves to a heavy timber carriage with enormous red wheels, and

four of the most powerful of Melbury's horses were harnessed in front

to draw them.

The horses wore their bells that day. There were sixteen to the team,

carried on a frame above each animal's shoulders, and tuned to scale,

so as to form two octaves, running from the highest note on the right

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or off-side of the leader to the lowest on the left or near-side of the

shaft-horse. Melbury was among the last to retain horse-bells in that

neighborhood; for, living at Little Hintock, where the lanes yet

remained as narrow as before the days of turnpike roads, these

sound-signals were still as useful to him and his neighbors as they had

ever been in former times. Much backing was saved in the course of a

year by the warning notes they cast ahead; moreover, the tones of all

the teams in the district being known to the carters of each, they

could tell a long way off on a dark night whether they were about to

encounter friends or strangers.

The fog of the previous evening still lingered so heavily over the

woods that the morning could not penetrate the trees till long after

its time. The load being a ponderous one, the lane crooked, and the

air so thick, Winterborne set out, as he often did, to accompany the

team as far as the corner, where it would turn into a wider road.

So they rumbled on, shaking the foundations of the roadside cottages by

the weight of their progress, the sixteen bells chiming harmoniously

over all, till they had risen out of the valley and were descending

towards the more open route, the sparks rising from their creaking skid

and nearly setting fire to the dead leaves alongside.

Then occurred one of the very incidents against which the bells were an

endeavor to guard. Suddenly there beamed into their eyes, quite close

to them, the two lamps of a carriage, shorn of rays by the fog. Its

approach had been quite unheard, by reason of their own noise. The

carriage was a covered one, while behind it could be discerned another

vehicle laden with luggage.

Winterborne went to the head of the team, and heard the coachman

telling the carter that he must turn back. The carter declared that

this was impossible.




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