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G. J. Whyte-Melville
A Story of Exmoor
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"I've heard tell of men feeling just like me," said he, holding Nelly's hand rather longer than good breeding required, "and being found next morning stark dead on the moor. There was a woman up at my place only last Martinmas, and she says, 'Parson,' says she, 'there's something coming to me that's past praying for; I know as well as if I saw it. I'm that down-hearted I don't seem to fill my bodice, and there's a din in both my ears like the waves of a flood-tide, so as I can't scarce hear myself speak.' It wasn't a month before her only brother got drowned off the Lizard, and will you tell me now, Mistress Nelly, as you did once before, that such warnings are but idle fancies and old women's fables? I'm down-hearted too; I'm not ashamed to say so. And when it's fallen on me, whatever it is, I should like to know who will care a pinch of snuff what's gone with wild Abner Gale?"
"I wouldn't speak so, if I were you," answered the girl, who, having disengaged her hand, was now standing at the cottage door to see him mount for his homeward ride across the moor. "There are plenty of all sorts to welcome you when you come, and wish you 'good-speed' when you go away—you that have so many friends."
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