The Pullein-Thompson Treasury of Horse and Pony Stories

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The Pullein-Thompson Treasury of Horse and Pony Stories Page 18

by Christine Pullein-Thompson


  My mother was fond of saying, “Always darkest before dawn,” and it was this thought which consoled me as I rode down yet another gully, skirting the boulders, hitting angrily at an innocent twig of myrtle with my stick. As I came up the other side, I felt my heart lift again, for there, a few hundred metres away, was another road, black and stretched out across the landscape like a snake reaching to snatch its prey.

  Never have I welcomed a road more ardently. Standing in my stirrups, I could see a few cars passing along it like insects on a curve of black earth, and, now and then, a lorry. I patted Favorita’s firm, freckled neck.

  “You’ll soon be gobbling oats, and thank you for being so good,” I said.

  She wouldn’t wait for me to look at the map, or rather I could have made her, but I didn’t. After all, she had suffered enough already on the long and tedious journey over terrain for which she had not been bred. I would still be late, but probably only an hour or so and I would reach Moffatt well before dark. The ground seemed firmer to my now optimistic eyes, and I pushed Favorita into a trot so that we soon reached the road, which was wide and curving with a white line down the middle. And then my heart went down again, for I saw that my old enemy was there, older than the last one of its kind and rusty here and there, but firm – another barbed-wire fence. And I couldn’t jump Favorita over this one because there was no verge to the road and that meant we would have to land on the slippery tarmac.

  Dismounting, I walked up and down, rocking posts to see if one was loose, but they were all strong and resisted me like rocks. I wished I was a huntsman with clippers attached to a dee on my saddle. I would have to follow the fence until I found a gap or a gate, but would I find one? And which way to go, right or left? And which road was it on the map, this or that? I felt bemused. Had I started to go in circles? Could it be the road I had left just after half past two, or the one I wanted? And which hill was that? All at once my self-confidence had gone. I waved to the motorists in the hope that one would stop and offer help, but although some waved back gaily, others ignored me and none stopped. Favorita dragged at the reins, then rubbed her head against me, nearly knocking me over. My legs began to feel like lead, and my heart scarcely lighter, when suddenly Favorita’s head went up and I heard a welcome sound.

  It was like hearing the bark of a lost dog and knowing that he is still alive, such was my relief. Looking into the brown distance, I saw a two-legged figure coming down a hillside and, on his left, pale dots which were the gathering sheep.

  “Hi, help! Hi, help!”

  The wind was against me, pushing back the sound.

  “Holt, holt,” called the shepherd.

  I turned Favorita round to face those specks in the distance.

  “A grey horse is a wonderful landmark,” I said, as she stood like a statue, watching, her head very high, clean-cut in profile, with a wide cheek and a forehead so broad that a brow band had had to be made specially for her. Her face tapered sharply to a delicate muzzle the colour of the underside of field mushrooms, pinky grey, soft and plushy. Now her nostrils were wide and her breath came quickly as she sniffed the air and listened to the shepherd whistling to his dog.

  I remounted, waved with both arms and gave a loud holloa, for suddenly the shadow of dusk had fallen over the hills, heralding the darkness which was soon to come. Should I ride down and meet the shepherd, or wait for him and rest my horse? Favorita, excited by the new hope she felt in me, the whistling and the moving sheep, decided the matter by breaking into a brisk trot. And that was our undoing for, before I had even picked up the reins, I felt her sinking and heard the ominous squelch of ground sucking us downwards.

  In such moments I die a thousand deaths, and now in my imagination the treacherous peaty substance was in my mouth, the liquid blinding my eyes and stifling my breath, and the sounds of life were dimmed for ever in my ears.

  But instinct always comes to the rescue. Without conscious thought, I flung myself clear, landing on squelchy ground yet out of the bog. But what of Favorita? Her dismayed dark eyes were looking straight into mine and there was no fight in them, only that pained surprise, as though she was saying, “Where have you taken me now? What have you done?”

  “Up, up, Favorita! Come on, up, up.”

  In that wide expanse of land and sky my voice was a sad trickle of sound. “Up, up!”

  As I had flung myself clear I had at least had the sense to bring the reins with me, and now I pulled on these by way of encouragement, my heart hitting my ribs in hammer blows.

  “Come on, up, up!”

  But the sludge was rising higher on her flea-bitten grey sides, over the elbows it went and above her stifles. Was there no bottom? Were bogs without end?

  Here, disappearing before my very eyes, was the horse 1 had bought as an iron-grey four-year-old, a mare sold cheap because she was going to be difficult to break, having an awkward temperament, it was said. And now she was more than a horse to me, because over the years we had shared so many adventures. She was a friend struggling for her life, far from home and those kinder Chilterns where she had spent the greater part of her life.

  I loosened the reins, thinking she might wish to use her neck as a pivot, and said a silent prayer, and she sank further so that the sludge rose to the bottom of the saddle flaps.

  “Up, up, Favorita! Come on, up!”

  I made as though to hit her, and suddenly the light in her eyes changed, the heavy look of dismay vanished and was replaced by one of fear, then terror. She began to kick and to struggle as though she had come out of a dream into terrible reality. She threw her head about. She floundered and heaved and puffed and panted, her nostrils wide, her sides heaving, and somewhere she must have hit firmer ground, for all at once I saw her chest again. She moved forwards as well as upwards; her girth was visible, her elbows, dark with the liquid of the bog; her knees chocolate brown. Never have I been gladder to see knees, tendons, and a pair of fine fetlocks.

  Then she was free. She was out, scrambling to firmer ground, her breath coming like air from a blacksmith’s bellows, her eyes protruding like great marbles, glassy with fear.

  “Oh, Favorita. Oh, Favorita!”

  What does one say on such occasions? I patted her a score of times. I put my arms across her neck and cuddled her. And then I noticed the dark blood like blackcurrant juice oozing from a puncture by a tendon. A punctured vein? How many more trials were to be sent to us? Had I a good strong handkerchief, a pencil or a stick to make a tourniquet? I put my thumb on the wound and pressed, and after a time the bleeding stopped. The puncture was deep, but the vein was uninjured as far as I could see.

  Now the whistling of the shepherd was louder. Looking round, I saw he was a couple of hundred metres away and coming at last in our direction. I waved my arms and shouted. He left the dog looking after the sheep and came striding towards us with that spring in his step which belongs only to men who spend many hours on the hills walking across heather and moss and myrtle. Handsome and aquiline, with a crook in his hand, he stood looking down on me as though I was a freak gone wilfully astray.

  I was beginning to feel a little incoherent.

  “She’s cut her leg. We landed in a bog. Can you help? I want Moffatt. I have a friend to meet in Moffatt.”

  His dark angular face showed no emotion, as though people like me were common and tiresome occurrences that interrupted an honest and hard-working man’s work.

  “Is it far – Moffatt, I mean?”

  “It’s a wee way to be sure, nine miles when you reach the road.”

  “Nine miles!”

  “Och, maybe a little less.”

  “And how can I get on to the road? I mean – the fence… I want to be quick because of my horse’s leg. You see it’s swelling already.”

  “I saw you earlier. I thought you knew the way.”

  “So did I.”

  He wasn’t a horseman. He couldn’t have been, because he didn’t even glance at the wound. He waved
a long arm.

  “Go up that way, and at the top of yon hill there’s a gate which will take you out on the old Edinburgh road.”

  “Like that, diagonally?” I pointed.

  “Yes, and when you get through the gate, follow the fence down to the road, and keep going down all the way to Moffatt.”

  “How do I avoid bogs?”

  “Keep to the sheep paths.”

  “But they wind this way and that.”

  “Och,” He gave a gesture of impatience, a frown lying like a ridge across his weather-tanned Celtic brow. “Keep to the dry land.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Avoid the brown patches,” he added, allowing the smallest of smiles.

  “There was a brand-new barbed-wire fence across the right-of-way,” I said, encouraged.

  “Put up a month back,” he replied.

  “Well, goodbye then.”

  We set off up the hill, which was steeper than it looked, and as we climbed the land grew firmer, but Favorita was lame so I would not ride. At the top there was no gate, only the same rusty fence.

  I felt near tears. Nine miles to go when we reached the road, and tomorrow sixteen miles to Lockerbie and then Gretna Green, and my horse was lame! The total journey to Land’s End was to be between eight and nine hundred miles in all and we were not even halfway and… and…

  But what was the use of letting my thoughts run in that vein? “Deal with the matter in hand,” I told myself. And then I was lucky, for I spotted a broken strand of wire and saw that a slim verge ran along the road on the other side. The highest remaining strand was only about eighty-five centimetres off the ground, so I draped my mac across it and tried to make Favorita follow me over, but she jibbed. In exasperation I mounted, and then she jumped it at once, lame though she was.

  At last we were on the road. Dusk was far advanced and passing cars had their lights on. My feet were blistered but I wasn’t tired once I knew I was on my way to Moffatt. The sticking-plaster was with Ailsa, but in a saddlebag I had a pair of socks with leather soles which someone had given me, and I quickly exchanged these for my jodhpur boots.

  The air was fresh, the cars were few and, far away down in the valley, I could see lights coming on like the first stars, golden and twinkling. Favorita was limping but cheerful, and occasionally she stopped to snatch some grass. Eight o’clock came and I had a look at the map, to see that I had come from Bog Hill and that on my left was the Devil’s Beef Tub: a black abyss surrounded by four hills where the Annandale loons used to hide their stolen cattle. Here, too, in 1745, a Highlander had escaped capture and almost certain death by wrapping himself in his plaid and rolling like a hedgehog to the bottom of the Tub. I did not envy him the journey down.

  Eight o’clock, nine o’clock, and there was a police car, climbing the hill towards me. It drew to a halt.

  “Miss Ravencroft’s companion?”

  “Yes, I suppose you could call me that.”

  “She said if we met you to say she was settled in at Oakridge Farm. Everything is arranged. You take the right turn the other side of the town.”

  “Thank you. How far?”

  “A mile and a half to the farm.”

  “But to Moffatt?”

  “Four or so.”

  “Four!”

  “Well, maybe a wee bit less, three and a half, perhaps.”

  “I shall need a vet.”

  “The farmer will help you.”

  They drove away, and below me lay the valley, where I could now make out whitewashed cottages and dark firs, with the lights increasing as the curtain of darkness came down from the hills. I let Favorita graze for a time, taking the bit out of her mouth, and then we continued on our way.

  Those last four miles seemed interminable, and my legs began to ache. But at last we were in the sleepy town and, catching sight of myself in a shop window, I realised how ridiculous and bedraggled I looked. Vanity made me put on the boots again, drag a comb through my hair and set my crash-hat straight.

  I took the right turn and passed through kinder, domesticated country with large trees Then I saw an old car approaching and beside the moustached driver, a familiar face.

  “Found at last!”

  Ailsa stepped out, blue-eyed, blonde, with her thick hair plaited into a pigtail. “What happened?”

  “My mother has everything ready for you,” said the man with the moustache. “The beds are made up and tea is on the table.”

  The man’s name was Cameron Rankin, and he had a bull-pen waiting for Favorita to share with None The Wiser, and in no time he was bathing her wound, while she was deep in a bucket of the best Scots oats.

  So the long day ended by a warm fire with high tea at half past ten at night, boiled eggs and scones, baps and cakes, and Cameron Rankin’s father telling us tales of Nottingham where he had been brought up.

  I learned that they had found Ailsa at the gate and offered hospitality, having read about our journey in the newspaper, and would accept no payment. In the morning, the vet came and packed Favorita’s wound with penicillin, and bandaged it, and injected her against tetanus, and by afternoon we were on our way, for I was told that walking would stop her leg stiffening.

  I led her the sixteen miles to Lockerbie, and we put up at a large hotel, a once-only extravagance, with a park in which the horses spent the next morning.

  The following day Favorita was sound, and we rode on to Gretna Green – where not one of the famous blacksmiths knew how to shoe a horse.

  It was summer when we reached Land’s End on schedule, forty-two days after we left John O’Groats. While we admired the great white-crested waves of the Atlantic, an uninvited RSPCA Inspector looked at the horses and declared them very fit.

  There had been many fearful, happy and moving experiences on the journey. But the most frightening still exists for me in those moments, when a dismayed Favorita sank down in the bog and I stood by utterly helpless, holding the reins.

  The Night Coach Comes In

  Christine Pullein-Thompson

  Luke crouched in a corner of the yard, his back covered with a rough hemp sack, for rain was falling in torrents on to the rough cobbles.

  Thirteen years old, thin and undernourished with a greasy cap on his louse-ridden head, Luke was a middle child in a family with thirteen children. He had been working at the King’s Head for almost two years as the ostler’s servant and errand boy, and the picker-up of dung dropped by the countless horses which came in and out of the yard all hours of the day and night, for the King’s Head was an important staging post for both the mailcoaches and stagecoaches.

  Presently Luke could hear a coachman’s horn, followed by the sound of hoofs. Almost at once lanterns appeared from all directions as though by magic, while a fresh team of horses champed their bits and pawed the cobbles, anxiously awaiting the changeover.

  It was a dark night and the night team was always a sad one, the wheelers usually unsound, the leaders with broken winds or knees. For most of them it was the end of the road – a few more weeks and they would be going for the dogs. In the meantime, because of the darkness, no one could see their sad condition.

  With a final triumphant blast on the horn, the stagecoach entered the yard. The passengers who had sat outside were only too glad to get down and stamp their frozen feet, and go inside for a quick toddy.

  “Take the grey mare, boy, and hurry,” the head ostler told Luke. “We haven’t got all night.”

  Luke knew the grey mare. Almost blind, she was gentle and had to be coaxed to eat. Now she was wet through as he led her to the water trough, then, when she had drunk her fill, into the warmth of the stable, talking to her all the time as his mother talked to the baby at home which had arrived just three weeks ago.

  The mare had no name, but Luke called her Princess and the ostlers mocked him for it. “If she’s a princess, I’m a duke,” said one.

  “And I’m the King of England,” said another.

  But Luke d
id not care what they said. He loved the mare.

  Soon there was a clatter of hoofs as the new team sprang into action, then the night coach was gone, its lamps shining in the dark.

  “Steady there. Eat up, Princess. You won’t get any more,” Luke coaxed. But the mare was restless. Unable to see clearly she turned her head and snorted, and at the least sound whinnied nervously to the other members of her team, afraid to be left alone, always in semi darkness. Luke’s heart ached for her. He knew his voice soothed her. She felt safe with him. They were friends, and Luke had no other friends.

  “Eat up, you’ll be going out again tomorrow night,” he told her, rubbing warmth into her ears with chapped hands.

  But the head ostler was shutting the heavy doors for the night. “Have done, Luke. She’ll do. It’s time you hit the sack,” he said.

  Luke slept in a chair in a room beyond the kitchen. Now he covered himself with a blanket and lay back fully clothed, missing his home where he had shared a bed with six brothers and sisters, all clinging together for warmth. He had no idea of time for his life was governed by a rough shake in the morning and an order to go to bed when the day’s work was done. Only Sunday was quieter. Luke’s meals were taken with a stable boy called Harry in the public bar when the customers were gone; mostly it was leftovers, sometimes only bread and cheese.

  Tonight Luke could not sleep; he was missing his family and could not bear to be alone, so presently he went to the grey mare, opening the big doors and slipping unseen into her stall. She was awake and whickered softly to him. The stable was warm and there was a comforting sound of munching. Luke sat down in the straw beside Princess and she put down her head and blew softly into his face.

 

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