DURING July the herd wandered over moor and “plain” or in the woods,
keeping to their unmarked, though to them fairly well-defined, territory
of several square miles. Outside those limits were other herds, with
their leaders ready to take offence at the presence of strange males.
The little skewbald foal kept away from the other youngsters, for they
were too big and strong for him to play with; but by good fortune a
brown mare with a colt of the same colour, and about the same age as
Skewbald, joined the party. What with milk and nibblings of heather and
the lush grass of the bottoms, the little foals grew apace and became
playmates.
In the late afternoons before the long evening feed, the pair would
gambol with all the abandon of youth, while their mothers stood head to
tail, jerking manes, waving tails, shaking fore-legs, and ever and anon
changing the weight from one hind-leg to another. The colts would race
across the meadow where the herd was pasturing, then stop dead, and
stand nose to nose, watching for the other’s next move; one would rear
up suddenly, startling his playfellow, and race away in glee. Then
followed a biting of manes and nibbling of shoulders like any old
couple. At times they grew rougher in their play. They ran shoulder to
shoulder, trying to bite, or, rearing up on hind-legs like veterans,
indulged in an orgy of make-believe biting and kicking.
But, for the greater part of the day, life went quietly with the little
foal. His mane, half white and chestnut with a streak of black, was
growing fast. His barrel was filling out, and his legs growing straight
and strong. His slender muzzle poked about everywhere, and his tail
flapped continually.
In the hot July days, the colt and his mother wandered over the hills,
and by the little streams meandering along the bottoms except where the
gurgling water was checked, and collected to form a bog. Sometimes the
stream was bordered with birch and alder, growing in a soggy bed,
littered with dead wood, and choked with undergrowth. Tracks ran in and
out among the trees, worn by the hoofs of generations of ponies. Here,
the deeper water flowed more slowly. One afternoon, as Skewbald paused
at the edge to nibble at a bed of watercress, his mother snorted at two
curious objects moving on the surface of the water, two bristling
cat-like heads with small ears and a swirling of water behind. They were
otters, steering themselves with their thick tails.
Once he nearly stepped on a snipe, her head so far immersed in a muddy
pool that she was not aware of an intruder until the hoof was almost
upon her, and then what a fluttering and zig-zagging and crying of
“scape-scape!” Another time, but this was next year, in spring, as he
dawdled around the edge of the wood among the dead bracken, he nosed
against a brown stem. It moved, and suddenly became part of the barred
head and widely opened eyes of a sitting woodcock, her buff, grey and
white back matching the dead leaves and bracken, and her long beak
indistinguishable from the stalks of the fern.
At one point the stream opened out into a wide shallow with a pebbly
bottom where the little trout played. Tracks led into the stream and out
on the other side, for this was a forest ford.
How pleasant the colts found the water, enjoying the splashing of their
hoofs as they walked in the stream, the while their elders stood
fetlock-deep! How refreshing to take a deep drink, head and neck
inclined at just the right angle so that the nostrils were clear of the
water, followed by a snort of content!
After whiling away the hotter hours thus, the ponies would take the
tracks towards the hill. As they got higher, the white stones showed in
the thin crust of soil, and the heather grew more sparsely. One August
afternoon, while rounding a gorsebush which shaded a patch of bare
blackish soil, strewn with dead sticks and gravel, the colt almost
touched with his nose what looked like a piece of dead wood covered with
grey lichen and spots of orange fungus, when, on the moment, the thing
came to life. The lichen and fungus became grey-tipped and barred
feathers, the stalk-like projection opened in half, disclosing a great,
rose-pink, frog-like mouth—a mouth so enormous and menacing, that
Skewbald shrunk back. Then the mother nightjar appeared from nowhere,
and croaking and spluttering she fluttered right before the foal’s nose,
so that his attention was distracted from her young one. If he had
looked again he would have found the gaping mouth and widely spread
wings gone, and the young chick again reduced to the semblance of an
unattractive lump.
Sometimes the ponies would take the open moor with its coarse grass,
scanty tufts of heather, and sweet-scented bog myrtle. Much of it was
swamp, and the mare watched her offspring to see that he did not venture
into one of the deep bogs known only to the forest men, and to the
ponies and deer. If he were rash, she called him on to safety, while if
he were obstinate, she butted him with her forehead on to drier ground.
In places the moor was curiously patterned, like a chessboard, a tuft of
heather next a patch of bare soil. This was owing to the peat-cutting, a
right possessed by the commoners, who, however, are required “to cut one
and leave two,” so that the soil should not be deprived altogether of
vegetable growth.
In early September the colt may have seen the forest gentian, a single
blossom of a beautiful violet-blue on an erect stalk, while the
seed-pods of the bog asphodel close by, of a vivid orange-yellow, formed
a perfect colour complementary. But do ponies see colours? They
apparently see well by night, which would seem to show that a large part
of their retina consists of structures adapted for nocturnal vision,
just as the outer part of the human retina only is used at dusk, the
inner being practically blind at this time, and therefore green foliage
and grass turn grey, and red flowers appear black, red and green being
seen only with that part of the retina concerned with diurnal vision.
About this time, too, as he crossed a sandy forest path, he may have
seen the brilliantly green caterpillar of the emperor moth, its sides
spotted with pink, full fed, and wandering about seeking a site for its
cocoon. Was he able to detect the same creature on its natural
resting-place, the heather, practically invisible to human eyes, when
motionless; its green merged into the leafage, and the pink spots
simulating heather buds?
Certainly the heather the year of Skewbald’s birth was of a brilliance
such that the oldest forest man declared he had never seen equalled.
Especially was this the case on the most barren gravelly spots, where
instead of the usual magenta, clumps of the brightest crimson blazed in
the sun.
In the warm September days life passed pleasantly. Through the cold,
clear nights, while Vega blazed above, he paced on with his mother, ever
nibbling, for, like his kind, he did not spend the long nights in sleep,
but towards dawn lay down for an hour or so. His coat, fast thickening,
kept him warm, even when just after sunrise a white frost covered every
blade of grass, heather tuft, and fern frond. As the sun rose higher,
the frost turned to a heavy dew in which the colt wandered, the wet bog
myrtle washing him to the shoulder, while the rays, shining through the
mist, enveloped him with a golden aura.
Later in the day he plodded up the hill on to the “plain,” and while his
mother dozed in the shade of a clump of holly, he would roll in a patch
of brilliantly white or golden sand. Once as he bent his knees to lie
down, a grey-brown thing like a dead furze branch suddenly galvanized
into life with a hiss. As the viper moved, the colt, with a snort of
astonishment, jumped all four feet in the air at once, and the mother
rushed towards him. She saw the reptile gliding along the path, and
turned sharply away, calling the colt to her.
So Skewbald learned to avoid a snake, and incidentally that he could
jump. He practised this on occasion, leaping over fallen stumps, across
streamlets and shallow pits, not knowing how useful an accomplishment it
might prove to him in after-life.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]