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
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.