Dark clouds rush to smother a garish orange sunset. Lightning briefly illuminates the woman on the back of a dark gray stallion racing across the moor, her dark hair and cloak streaming behind her. She casts a furtive glance over her shoulder and urges her mount to greater speed.
As the woman on horseback races across the fields, another rider comes into view. Faster and faster the horses speed across the stormy landscape. For a moment the pursuer appears to gain ground. Then his quarry pulls away. The woman gallops into the woods at full speed, but after a moment she slows as a small cottage comes into view. Coming to a stop so abruptly that she nearly flies over the stallion’s head, she leaps from his back and bursts into
the cottage in a rapid succession of minor chords.
Now that the piece shifts into a major key, the second rider burst through the door of the cottage carrying a black satchel. The woman has lifted a crying baby from the arms of a girl. She carries the small child to the second rider, who, after a
moments observation, removes a stethoscope from the satchel. Together, the mother and the doctor tend to the baby with compresses and medicines. Then the mother, still wearing her riding cloak, lifts the baby to her shoulder and paces the room.
The baby gradually stops crying, but the doctor cannot stay. He throws his medicines and stethoscope back into his black bag and runs from the cottage, leaping onto his horse. The minor chords return, as he rides into the night to save another patient.
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