Read "The Splendid Spur" by Arthur Quiller-Couch online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Night came, and found us but midway between Temple and Launceston: for though my comrade stepp'd briskly beside me, 'twas useless to put Molly beyond a walk; and besides, the mare was new from her day's journey. This troubled me the less by reason of the moon (now almost at the full), and the extreme whiteness of the road underfoot, so that there was no fear of going astray. And Billy engaged that by sunrise we should be in sight of the King's troops.
"Nay, Jack," he said, when by signs I offered him to ride and tie: "never rode o' horseback but once, and then 'pon Parson Spinks his red mare at Bideford. Parson i' those days was courtin' the Widow Hambly, over to Torrington: an' I, that wanted to fare to Barnstaple, spent that mornin' an' better part o' th' afternoon, clawin' off Torrington. And th' end was the larboard halyards broke, an' the mare gybed, an' to Torrington I went before the wind, wi' an unseemly bloody nose. ‘Lud! ' cries the widow, ‘ 'tis the wrong man 'pon the right horse! ' ‘Pardon, mistress,' says I, ‘the man is well enow, but 'pon the wrong horse, for sure."