This, since I dared not return by the way I had come, terribly perplexed me. I dismounted, and wet and shivering stood by my horse, which hung its head, and restlessly lifted its feet by turns as if it already felt the engulfing power of the moss. Peering out every way I saw nothing but gloom and mist, the dark waste and unknown depths of the marsh. It was a situation to try the stoutest, nor did it need the mournful sough of the wind as it swept the flats, or the strange gurgling noises that from time to time rose from the sloughs about me to add the last touch of fear and melancholy to the scene.
Though, for my own part, I sank in no farther than my ankles, the horse by its restlessness evinced a strong sense of danger, and I dared not stand still. But as clouds had again obscured the moon and the darkness was absolute, to advance seemed as dangerous as to remain. However, in fear that the horse, if I stood where I was, would break loose from me, I led it forward cautiously: and then the track growing no worse but rather better, and the beast seeming to gain confidence as it proceeded, I presently took courage to remount again, and dropping the reins allowed it to carry me whither it would. This it did slowly and with infinite caution, smelling rather than feeling the way, and often stopping to try a doubtful spot. Observing how wonderfully the instinct of the beast aided it, and remembering that I had once been told that horses feared nothing so much as to be smoored (as the fenmen call it), and would not willingly run that risk, I gained confidence myself; which the event justified, for by-and-by I caught the dull sound of sea-waves booming on a beach, and a few minutes afterwards discerned in the sky before me the first faint streaks of dawn.
Heaven knows how welcome it was to me! I was wet, weary and shivering with cold and with the aguish air of that dreary place; which is so unwholesome that I am told the natives take drugs to stave off the fever, as others do ale and wine. But at the sight I pricked up, and the horse too; and we moved on briskly; and presently by the help of the growing light, and through a grey mist which trebled the size of all objects, I saw a huge wall or bank loom across my path. I was close to it when I discerned it; and I had no more than time to despair of surmounting it, before the horse was already clambering up it. Scrambling and slipping among the stones, in a minute or so and with a great clatter we gained the summit; and saw below and before us the smooth milky surface of the sea lifting lazily under the fog.