"It’s yon danged car!" Simon growled, feeling somehow as though he were galloping, too. He was quite sure now that a boggle was hot on his track, and the sweat stood on his brow as he slapped and lashed. Losing his nerve completely, he got to his feet with a shout, at the same time waving the car to pass ahead. It obeyed instantly, drawing level in a breath, and just for a breath slowing again as it reached his side. The hired driver was wearing a cheerful grin, but the man leaning out of the back of the car was perfectly grave. He was a big man, tanned, with steady grey-blue eyes, fixed on the old couple with an earnest gaze. Simon, however, would not have looked at him for gold, and after its momentary hesitation, the car shot on. The horse felt its master drop back again in his seat, and subsided, panting, into its slowest crawl. Sarah straightened her bonnet, and tugged at her mantle upon which Simon had collapsed. "Whatever took you to act like yon?" she asked. "There was nowt to put you about as I could see." "It was yon danged car!" Simon muttered again, but beginning already to feel rather ashamed. "It give me the jumps, taking so long to get by. What, I got thinking after a bit it wasn’t a motor-car at all! More like a hearse it seemed, when it ganged past,--a gert, black hearse wi’ nid-noddin’ feathers on top...." He let out a great sigh, mopping his face as if he would never stop. "Danged if yon new strap baint gone and give out first thing!" He climbed down, grumbling at the new strap which had gone back on him so soon, and began to add a fresh ornamentation to the mended gear. The horse stood with drooped head, emitting great breaths which shook and stirred the trap. Simon’s hands trembled as he worked at his woolly knot, his eyes still full of that vision of sweeping plumes. Further down the road the car had stopped again, but as soon as Simon had finished, it moved away. It went over the hill as if it indeed had wings,--feathery, velvet-black and soft on the misty air.... II Another thing happened to them on the road to Witham, though it was even more trivial than the last. The first, perhaps, was meant for Simon,--that face coming out of the void and trying to look him in the eyes. The other,--a voice from the void,--was a call to the woman with the failing sight. But to most people there come these days of slight, blind, reasonless events. Something that is not so much memory as re-vision reaches out of the past into the present; faint foretellings shape themselves out of some far-off hour. And then on the following morning there is sun, and clear outlines and a blowing sky. The firm circlet of To-Day is bound again shining and hard about the narrow earth.