ONE hot June afternoon, a group of ponies with their foals and yearlings
stood on the edge of a tableland or “plain” in the New Forest. The
ground about them was covered with stunted heather and fern, with here
and there patches of moss and bare white gravel showing the poverty of
the soil.
Beyond the company was a great expanse of blue sky flecked with pinkish
cloudlets, and, on the horizon, blue and violet wooded heights, a
crinkly contour denoting oak and beech and an evenly serrated line,
plantations of firs. As everyone who has journeyed from Southampton to
Bournemouth by road or rail knows, a great part of the forest is open
heath or moorland; but, unlike the barren wilds of the Highlands, the
New Forest has also extensive woods full of gigantic oaks and beeches,
while the open ground in many places is becoming choked with self-sown
firs.
Therefore, looking into the distance, the masses of woodland largely
concealed the open spaces. Emery Down showed on the horizon, the sun
fell on the spire of Lyndhurst Church, and in the middle distance a
white curving ribbon showed itself as a forest road, before it was lost
among the trees.
Below the ponies was a wide valley, covered with coarse grass, and
dotted with hollies, gorse and stunted firs. The mares had chosen the
hill for their afternoon siesta because up there were fewer flies and
biting torments than down below in the swampy bottoms, where, earlier in
the day, the ponies had been feeding. They stood mostly in pairs, head
to tail, so that the swish of the latter drove the flies from their
noses and flanks. Once in a while, a yearling—that is, one born the
previous year—finding the sun too hot, butted in between the mares.
The foals or “suckers” lay half-hidden in the heather, wandered here and
there nibbling at the herbage, or drew nourishment from their mothers.
These varied greatly in colour and size. The tallest was a black mare
with the graceful lines of the racehorse, as well there might be, seeing
she had some of the blood of that breed in her veins. Next her stood an
old white mare, bleached with age, for, while the forest ponies exhibit
the usual equine diversity of hues, there are none all white. In her
prime she had been a grey, perhaps a beautiful pearl grey with a few
darker dapplings, like her neighbour, a young mare with her first foal,
black of coat except for a white forehead blaze and fore-foot. Close by
stood, and dozed, a chestnut mare with a mane and tail of pure gold, or
so it seemed in the sunshine. There were also bays, with black manes and
tails, but the commonest colour in the group was a dark brown. It was
noticeable that most of the foals were darker in colour than their
mothers.
Standing by themselves were two dingy brown ponies, a mare and a
two-year-old, shorter of leg than the other adults. Their necks showed
little of the arch of a well-shaped animal—indeed, both ponies were
almost donkey-like in shape, with hollow backs, drooping bellies, and
“cow-hocked” hind-legs. The mare had a beard hanging below her chin.
Almost their exact counterpart, even to the beard, had been set down,
ages before, in the wall-paintings and drawings scratched on bone of the
old Stone Age. These two, one might suppose, were throw-backs to the old
forest pony, which was hunted, or possibly domesticated, by the men
whose remains were interred in the mounds dotted over the forest.
Indeed, close by stood a great tumulus, and some way off was a group of
nine mounds, big and little, like parents and children.
Of the other ponies, several showed the attempts at improving the breed
practised of late years. One had the short leg of the Exmoor pony,
another the tiny ear of the Shetland, others the shapely line of the
polo and even of the Arab, for at one time or another all these, and
others, have been used as sires. In some cases the importation
threatened to improve the race off the forest altogether. It is no land
of milk and honey, for the green pastures and lush spots are not in
themselves extensive enough to support the stock of ponies, and only
those which can exist on the coarse tussock grass, the sweet but prickly
shoots of gorse, and the astringent heather tufts, are sure of
surviving. Also a good proportion of the ponies stay out in the forest
all the winter; and though snow does not fall frequently or lie long in
this locality, yet the weather is often colder than in the Shetlands,
where the little pony of the far North, his ears buried in his shaggy
mane, and a doormat-like thatch on his back, winters without difficulty.
But here, at the other extreme of Britain, if there come a long spell of
bleak wet weather, and especially if sharp frosts intervene, the younger
ponies are likely to suffer, and a man, seeing his neighbour’s yearling
looking “seedy,” will think it his duty to inform the owner, who, unless
careless and improvident, will have the creature “caught in,” and give
it shelter and food.
Perhaps the most striking in colour of the group on the hill was a
chestnut mare, of that rich hue known as “liver” chestnut. In the sun
her coat flashed bright orange-red, while by contrast it appeared deep
purple in the shade. Her foal at the moment was lying in the heather,
out of sight. When at length he arose, one saw why he could lie hidden
so completely, for he was so small and evidently had not long been born.
Compared with the other foals, which were now well grown, though still
leggy, the colt seemed absurdly disproportioned, and with his big head,
long ears, and bent hind-legs looked, apart from his colour, more like a
fawn than a pony in the making. His body was so meagre that it seemed
merely a connecting-link between his fore and hind quarters. As he stood
up he swayed to and fro. His little napping tail looked exactly like the
strip of goatskin nailed on to form the tail of those wooden steeds
which were being made, not so far away from where the ponies stood, in
the toy factory at Brockenhurst.
But the interesting thing about him was his colour, for he was a
“skewbald,” patterned boldly in chestnut and white. Nearly all the other
foals were dark, and it was as yet almost impossible to foretell their
exact adult colour. Alone among the youngsters, the skewbald foal showed
what his coat would be like when he was full grown. Although so young,
he possessed the agility of young creatures which have no period of
sheltered repose, unlike fledglings in the nest, or the young fawn
hardly able to stand, and hidden by its mother while it gathers
strength. In his way the foal was as nimble and alive as young partridge
or lapwing chicks. He trotted to his mother, took nourishment with the
curious twisted neck characteristic of the attitude of a foal when
feeding, and relapsed from sight among the heather.
Nearly all the mares had shaggy manes and tails, and the hair hung down
over their foreheads so as almost to conceal their eyes. The foals had
manes standing up along their necks as if they had been “hogged,” and
their fore hair rose in a curious tuft between their ears.
The ponies, to all appearance, were as tame as any stable animal, and
they would not have retreated if a man had quietly approached them or
gone past at a distance of a few yards; unless, of course, he had used a
binocular or camera, when the flash of light from glass or metal would
have caused them to start and make off. A horseman, however, would be a
different matter, and they would have been on the move long before he
reached them.
At a nearer view the branding marks on the mares and yearlings could be
seen, mostly on the back where a saddle would cover it, but sometimes on
the shoulder. These marks indicated the initials or devices of their
owners, commoners of the forest, or Crown tenants, who have the right of
pasturing their ponies, the Crown demanding a small annual sum for each
animal put out in the forest.
These marked ponies had the hair of their tails cut curiously. This had
been done by the agisters, forest officers with numerous and complicated
duties. The forest is divided into three districts, each served by an
agister, and each district has its own way of marking the tails of the
ponies registered by him. In one district the lower third of the hair is
cut away, leaving a centre tassel; in the other two half the lower third
is cut off on the right and left respectively. Thus an agister can tell
at a glance whether a pony belongs to his district or not. The cut tail
is, in effect, a receipt, testifying that the pony’s owner has
registered it and paid the dues.
* * * * *
The lord and master of the herd on the hill, the stallion, was not, for
the moment, in sight. He might have been cooling his heels in a stream,
dozing among the gnarled, ingrown hollies, which, with their twisted
branches, look fully as grotesque as any of Mr. Rackham’s picturing, or
have gone off to turn back a mare wandering away down the valley.
Presently a shrill whistling call was heard, and the mares showed signs
of animation; ears were pricked up and heads flung round. Up the hill
came the stallion with a pounding step. He was a bright bay with a big
white blotch on his back. His forelock covered his white forehead blaze,
and his eyes also, for all one could see. The black hair of his mane and
tail was crimped or waved, unlike the lank locks of the mares. He moved
with a vigorous action, lifting his feet high, and with a long stride.
He carried his tail with a finer sweep than the mares, while his mane
rose and fell with the energetic movement of his neck. His coat was
glossy, and the high lights rippling to and fro on the bright sienna
surface were golden in the sun and blue in the shade. When he reached
the summit he stopped, looking back with twitching ears. He snorted and
hurried to the group of ponies, and past them, then stopped, and the
herd, understanding, prepared to follow their leader, the mares calling
to their recumbent foals, which rose to their feet and stretched before
cantering to their mothers. The cavalcade moved off, only the dappled
grey remaining motionless. She was wilful or lazy. The stallion took a
few quick paces back and touched her with his nose as a hint to move on.
She whinnied crossly and tried to strike him with a fore-foot. He
lowered his head, bared his teeth and snorted, whereupon she thought
better of it, and moved off. The stallion trotted to the head of the
column, and looked round to see that all were following.
As they went down the hill, two riders showed on the ridge to the right,
a man on a tall white horse and a boy on a forest pony.
“Look, sonny,” said the horseman, “that was the stallion walking before
us up the hill. He has warned his mares and set them all going. How fine
they look in a bunch with their varying colours! Seems a pity,” he
continued, “that these fine creatures should have to go down into the
coal-mines.”
“Let’s ride down and stir them up, dad,” suggested the lad.
“Not a bit of it,” his father answered. “We should want a good reason to
disturb mares with young foals. The forest people would think us very
inconsiderate. Remember,” with a smile, “you may be a verderer yourself
some day, and sit in the court hall at Lyndhurst, where the big stirrup
hangs on the wall. We’ll make off to the right and watch them as we go.”
As the ponies saw their supposed pursuers getting further from them,
they relaxed their pace, stopped, and fell to grazing.
Only the stallion, still suspicious, kept his head up, and trotted a
little way towards the receding figures, watching the intruders until
they disappeared behind a rise.
Then he turned and walked to the little stream in which some of the
ponies were standing, fetlock-deep, or drinking.
[Illustration: _Blackdown._]
[Illustration]