Two of these hopeless fugitives were still fortunate enough to get a
start of the hounds of retaliation and revenge. They were both mounted,
and had far to go to reach their destination. Home was the one word in
the mind of each; and they both came from Bonaventure.
The one was a tall, athletic young man, who had borne a captain's
commission in Papineau's patriot army. He rode a sorel horse--a great,
wiry raw-bone, with a lunge like a moose, and legs that struck the ground
with the precision of a piston-rod. As soon as his nose was turned
towards Bonaventure he smelt the wind of home in his nostrils; his
hatchet head jerked till he got the bit straight between his teeth; then,
gripping it as a fretful dog clamps the bone which his master pretends to
wrest from him, he leaned down to his work, and the mud, the new-fallen
snow and the slush flew like dirty sparks, and covered man and horse.
Above, an uncertain, watery moon flew in and out among the shifting
clouds; and now and then a shot came through the mist and the half dusk,
telling of some poor fugitive fighting, overtaken, or killed.
The horse neither turned head nor slackened gait. He was like a living
machine, obeying neither call nor spur, but travelling with an unchanging
speed along the level road, and up and down hill, mile after mile.
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