We set off on a broad track across fields. Sheep scattered at the sight of us. Through a copse, and then suddenly the hounds picked up the scent. Their excited baying echoed through the mist. Off they went in full cry and we followed at a lively canter. Snowflake lived up to her reputation, trying to veer off to one side when any horse came near her, and it was all I could do to keep up with the other horses. We came to a low stone wall and she cleared it in a giant bound. As we dipped into a valley we were swallowed up into thicker mist. Snowflake veered off to the left as another horse came up on one side of us. It was the master on his gray—the whiteness of the horse making him almost invisible in the mist. I fought to hold her head and let him go ahead. I could hear the hounds what sounded like far ahead now, off to my left. I urged the horse into a gallop up a steep slope, with dead bracken and rocks around us. Suddenly a row of grotesque black shapes rose out of the mist, looking like giants with arms outstretched to grab us. Snowflake reacted by skidding to a halt and then rearing up. It was all I could do to keep my seat and it took me a while to calm her. And to calm myself too, as my heart was thudding until I realized that I was looking at a row of stunted Scotch pine trees, bent because of the wind, and behind them mist curling up from what looked like black water.

We stood still while I tried to get my bearings. I heard a sound that might have been a cry from a bird or the distant baying of a hound. I had no idea which direction the sound was coming from. But what I did begin to feel was a growing sense of danger, of being watched, hunted. I turned the horse around, peering into the mist, but it was so thick that the grass was swallowed up within a few feet of me. Suddenly a white shape rose up to one side of me. There was a loud flapping noise and something like a ghost seemed to come at us. That was enough for Snowflake. She took off again, this time to her right, while I fought to control her. Suddenly another flapping shape stepped out of the mist. The horse shied, skidded to a halt, and nearly threw me.

This shape with its waving arms was now identifiable as Wild Sal. “You don’t want to go that way, miss,” she said. “’Tis dangerous that way. You’d wind up in the bog and that would be the end of you. Go back the way you came and then take the downward track. That’ll set you right.”

“Thank you,” I called, but she had already vanished.