A Pony for Jean

by Joanna Cannan

  Then I went back to the house and finished the book about the sloppy children. Then I stood about till it was bedtime. The bath water was cold, as it always is at the end of an unsuccessful day.

  I went to bed and I dreamed that Miss Pringle was a horse and she sat at the table and turned the pages of a book with her hoofs and neighed. In the middle of the dream I heard Mummy say, ‘Ssh. Wake up but don’t speak. There’s a burglar downstairs.’

  I woke up thinking that Mummy was part of my dream, and then suddenly I knew that the part about Miss Pringle was a dream but the part about Mummy was true. She was leaning over my bed, quite like the ministering mother in the book about the sloppy children. She hadn’t brought a candle, but I could see her quite plainly, for the moonlight was streaming into the room.

  I whispered, ‘Ooh.’ In my imagination I could see the burglar downstairs, creeping silently from room to room.

  ‘Shall we go down and capture him?’ I suggested.

  ‘No,’ said Mummy. ‘That’s no use. He’s much stronger than we are. I locked the door when I came in, and anyhow, I don’t for a moment suppose that he’ll come up here. Only it does seem silly to let him get away with it. I wonder what we could do? We can’t telephone because he’s downstairs.’

  ‘Can’t we shriek “Thieves! Fire! Murder!” out of the window?’ I suggested.

  ‘There’s no one to hear,’ said Mummy, ‘except the hens.’ She giggled and then she had an inspiration. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘we’ll get out of your window and slide down the roof and run to the farm.’

  ‘Yes!’ I said, and I got out of bed.

  ‘You must put on some clothes,’ said Mummy.

  ‘Why?’ I said. ‘You haven’t got anything on.’

  This wasn’t what Daddy would call an ‘accurate statement’ for she had on a pair of black satin pyjamas, that had come from Paris in the days of our richness. But of course you do not mince your words when there is a burglar downstairs.

  I had blue pyjamas on. They were flannel and much thicker than Mummy’s satin ones. But she seized my sweater, which was on the floor, and pulled it over my head and handed me my shorts and my shoes and stockings, and I tugged them on.

  My room was at the back of the house. It had an attic window and below the window the thatched roof went down nearly to the ground.

  Mummy took my eiderdown off my bed and wrapped it round her. Then she squeezed through the window. She stuck rather, and I could hear her saying words that I am not allowed. While she was sliding down the roof, I looked out. The moon was very bright and I could see Cavalier eating under the trees. Suddenly I had an inspiration. I tip-toed to the door and got down the bridle, which, since the first day, has always hung in my room.

  Then I squeezed through the window quite easily and slid down. It was lovely. I forgot all about the burglar. The thatch was cold and smooth to slide on and it was splendid to be sliding down a roof under the moon.

  Mummy was ready to catch me but I dropped quite gently on the grass.

  I held up the bridle and whispered, ‘Look! It’ll be much faster if I go on Cavalier.’

  ‘But can you catch him?’ whispered Mummy.

  I went over the grass towards him. He threw up his head and looked at me. I went close to him and whispered that he must be good because there was a burglar downstairs. He was good. He put his head down and I bridled him, and Mummy gave me a leg up and then ran to open the gate into the field. She looked very funny with the eiderdown flapping.

  Cavalier and I went through and Mummy whispered, ‘Godspeed.’ She wasn’t being sloppy, but she was being the watchman in ‘How we brought the Good News from Aix to Ghent.’

  Cavalier and I trotted along the well-known track and I dug my heels into his sides and he broke into a canter. Soon I saw the stile in front of me and I pulled him up ready to turn into the gate.

  If you have any imagination, you can understand what I felt like when I saw that, for the first time since we had come to Hedgers Green, the gate was shut.

  I rode up to it. I had never opened a gate from a pony’s back before, but I didn’t want to dismount because of mounting again. People in books can always vault lightly into the saddle, but it is not so easy when your pony is close on fourteen hands and you are small for your age.

  Then, to my horror, I saw that it was no use even dismounting. The gate was padlocked.

  I said one of the words that Mummy had said when she was sticking in the window. It was too sickening having my midnight ride spoilt by a silly padlock. I think Cavalier thought so to. He stood still and hung his head dejectedly.

  I sat for a minute looking back along the path. There was no sign of Mummy. Our flying hoofs had left her far behind. I looked towards the farm. There was nothing to see but the moonlight on the fields, but far away where the farm was, I heard a cock crowing. I was just going to turn round and go back to meet Mummy when I remembered Young Lochinvar.

  I was supposed to know the whole of it, but it was only two lines that I remembered.

  ‘He stayed not for brake and he stopped not for stone,

  He swam the Esk river where ford there was none.’

  ‘Come on!’ I said to Cavalier, and I swung him round and rode at the stile.

  I wasn’t a bit frightened until I saw the stile looming up in front of us. I have jumped many bigger jumps since, but somehow none of them have ever loomed as that stile did then. I clutched at Cavalier’s mane and I heard myself shout, ‘Help!’ which I’m sure Paul Revere didn’t, or young Lochinvar either, and then we were over and Cavalier was galloping up the slope towards the farm.

  I hate to break off where it is exciting, but perhaps you are wondering why a pony that wouldn’t jump a bean-pole propped up on two or three bricks, jumped a stile. Uncle Nigel says that it was because I was excited and I ‘threw my heart over,’ and if you do that, he says, a good horse will have a jolly good try at anything. I know what he means, but I must say it’s much easier to throw your heart over when you are capturing a burglar than when you are just trying to win a cup or a silver spoon.

  Well, we flew along. The dark hedges with their moon-lit tops rushed by and presently I could see the farm looking fast asleep under its three elms. We clattered into the farmyard, and I slipped off and stood on tip-toe to reach the knocker and banged and banged on the door.

  A window was opened above me and a head came out.

  ‘Help!’ I said. ‘We’ve got a burglar.’ It was a relief not to have to whisper, and I simply yelled.

  ‘If it ain’t the young lady from the cottage,’ said Farmer Higgins. ‘Wait a minute, Missy, till I gets my trousies on.’

  It was ages before I heard him clumping downstairs, and he took ages to undo the bolts on the door. But at last he stood there. I said, ‘Oh, quick, quick, or he’ll be gone.’

  Farmer Higgins wasn’t quick. He stood staring at me like his own bullocks do. Then he said, ‘Where’s your Ma?’

  I said, ‘She’s on her way here. We got out of a window and we came.’

  Then at last Farmer Higgins did something. He turned round and shouted, ‘Fred!’ and ‘George!’

  There were answering shouts of ‘Coming, Dad,’ from upstairs, and Farmer Higgins’s two sons came clattering down. They were grown-up, and they were huge and strong. They had put on boots and trousers, and coats over their pyjama tops like me.

  ‘Burglars at the cottage,’ said Farmer Higgins.

  Fred, the eldest son, nodded, and they both came out of the house and went to a shed across the yard. Fred wheeled out a motor bike and pedalled it across the yard, and it started and George jumped on behind. The engine roared and spluttered and they were gone.

  It had all happened without anyone saying anything.

  Farmer Higgins and I listened till the sound of the motor bike died away along the road. Then he said, ‘Ah, they’re good boys.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll catch him?’ I enquired.

  ‘They’re
handy with their fists,’ said Farmer Higgins, and he went on, ‘Now, Miss, we’ll get along and meet your Ma.’

  I said, ‘Why did you lock the gates, Mr Higgins? I had to jump the stile.’

  ‘Jumped the stile, did you?’ said Farmer Higgins. ‘Well, I be blowed. I locked the gates because I’ve got a bull in them fields – brought him home last night. People are funny about bulls and I didn’t want no fuss and bother, not at my age. I’ll get the key.’

  ‘Oh, don’t bother,’ I said. ‘I like jumping the stile.’

  All the same, he got the key and we set off. Just at the stile we met Mummy, walking along very fast under the eiderdown. We explained that Fred and George were speeding on the motor bike along the road, but Mummy said she was afraid that by this time the burglar would be gone.

  I felt so disappointed that I dug my heels into Cavalier and we cantered on. Mummy called something after me. I knew that one of the words was ‘wait,’ but I didn’t want to wait, so I was like Nelson, only I shut my ears instead of my eye.

  When I got to the orchard gate I could hear a noise in the cottage. I tied Cavalier to a tree and crept to the back door. It was ajar, and just as I was going into the kitchen, the door between the kitchen and the dining-room was flung open and Fred and George appeared. They had a man between them and they were bundling him along.

  ‘Got him,’ said Fred. ‘Red-handed. We’re going to lock him in the scullery till Dad comes.’

  But all I said was, ‘Look!’ for I’d seen an awful thing.

  Shadow was lying stretched out on the stone floor under the kitchen table. In spite of the noise that Fred and George were making, he was lying quite still.

  Fred looked where I was pointing and suddenly he took the burglar by the shoulder and began to shake him.

  ‘Now then, what did you give him? Speak up or it’ll be the worse for you,’ he roared.

  The burglar could hardly speak for being shaken. But he gasped out, ‘All I give him was a whiff of cloriform.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Fred, still shaking him. ‘I’d nothing against you till I saw that. But now I know what you deserve. The long drop,’ he said, and he shoved the burglar into the scullery and shut and bolted the door.

  In case you don’t know, ‘the long drop’ means hanging.

  Fred picked up Shadow and carried him out into the air. Then he got a jug from the dresser and filled it at the outside tap and splashed handfuls of water over Shadow’s head. That didn’t seem to do any good, so he knelt down beside him and moved his paws.

  ‘Artificial respiration,’ he said to George.

  George said, ‘You ought to press on his ribs like as if he was breathing. That’s what they did to that fellow what fell in the pond.’

  I suppose Fred did it, but I couldn’t see because I was crying and of course I hadn’t got a handkerchief. George said, ‘Now, Missy, don’t upset yourself,’ and handed me his, which was red with white spots. I dried my eyes and George said, ‘Look, he’s coming to.’

  I looked and I said, ‘Shadow,’ and he faintly wagged his tail.

  Fred said, ‘He’ll do now,’ and he got up. ‘I could wring that fellow’s neck,’ he said.

  George said, ‘Ar.’

  At that moment Mummy and Farmer Higgins came through the gate. We called them into the kitchen and Fred explained how he and George had left the motor bike in the hedge and walked to the house and found the burglar trying to open Daddy’s safe, which was in his dressing room. Really there was nothing in the safe but bearer bonds, which are pieces of paper you get to show that you have put money into a company. If you want the money back, you go to the company and show them the bearer bonds, but as a matter of fact these were no use because the company had gone bust. We think that the charwoman, or somebody like that, must have seen that we had a safe and told a friend, and the friend told a friend and that friend told another friend and finally someone told the burglar. Cousin Agnes says that that sort of thing always happens in a village, however nice.

  Well, we talked for a bit, and then Mummy went into the hall and telephoned to the police station. They said they would send a policeman for the burglar, and they asked Mummy what he was like. She called Fred to the telephone, and he told them, and they said that the burglar was well known to them, and not just a man who was poor or hungry. All the same, I should have felt sorry for him if it hadn’t been for Shadow, who was lying with his head in my lap and still looked limp and ill.

  When Mummy came back to the kitchen she brought Sally with her. Sally was still quite a puppy and, because of the carpets, she slept in a big cupboard, that was meant for coats, under the stairs. Sally hadn’t bothered about the burglar; she was fast asleep when Mummy went to look at her; but you must remember that she was still quite young. Now that she is grown-up, she is a very good watch-dog, only she bites first and barks afterwards, as our postman knows.

  Sally ran up to Shadow and tugged at his ears. He got up and wagged his tail at her and then flopped down again near me.

  In the meantime Mummy had lit the primus and put the kettle on to boil. She said that we all felt like a cup of tea. Just as the kettle was boiling we heard the noise of a car, and then there were scrunchy steps on the gravel and a knock on the door. Fred opened it and there stood two policemen. One was an ordinary policeman in a helmet, but the other one had a cap like a chauffeur’s or a railway guard’s.

  Mummy said, ‘Good evening, Inspector,’ though it was morning really and the cocks were crowing for miles, and she began to explain about the burglar, and Farmer Higgins and Fred and George explained too. The policeman wrote in a notebook and when everyone had finished explaining, he shut it with a snap, and the Inspector said he congratulated us on catching an ugly customer. But I must say I felt rather mean when the burglar was brought out of the scullery and marched away with handcuffs on. We looked so many and he so few.

  While Fred and George had been explaining, Mummy had poured out the tea. Everyone had had some, including the burglar. After the policemen and the burglar had gone the Higginses each had another cup and then they got up and we said thank you, and they said, ‘Don’t name it,’ which means don’t mention it, and they went away.

  I went with George to the orchard gate; Farmer Higgins was going back on the pillion of the motor bike because his legs weren’t as young as they were. I took Cavalier’s bridle off and gave him six lumps of sugar. Then I went back into the house. Mummy was putting the tea things into the sink. Everything seemed very quiet and dull.

  ‘I wish another burglar would come,’ I said to Mummy.

  ‘Oh, Jean, how can you?’ she said.

  We talked for a bit and then we went up to bed. Mummy made me sleep in her room, and Shadow did too, in case he should feel worse in the night or have a nasty dream. It was ages before I went to sleep, but I didn’t wake up till ten next morning, and it was too late then to go to Miss Pringle.

  So ended my midnight ride, but there is one thing more to say. In case this makes any of you feel nervous about a burglar coming to your house, please remember that they hardly ever do come – our house was only one out of the millions and millions of houses in England. You must remember, too, that we had a safe that the burglar had heard of, and that Mummy and I were often alone in the house, and probably he had heard of that, too. Of course you may have a safe, but then probably you are not left alone in the house with your mother; and even if you are, the burglar has still got to hear of it, so it is not at all likely that the same thing will happen to you. I am telling you this in case you are nervous, but if you are not and would like a burglar and a midnight ride, I don’t want to depress you. I do not think it is at all likely that you will have one, but Daddy says that if you want anything badly enough you always get it, so hope on.

  IV

  AFTER I had jumped a stile bare-back in the middle of the night, even Mummy couldn’t say that it was dangerous for me to jump a bean-pole in the orchard inthe middle of the afternoon. I got
her to say that I could, and I made a much more solid looking jump out of a piece of wood from the stable partition. I bought a sixpenny pot of paint and I painted it white like the cousins’ jumps, but Cavalier wouldn’t jump it: whenever he got near it, he slowed down and stood still. Mrs Beazley, who came to scrub the floors on Tuesdays, would come out and try to shoo him over by flicking floor cloths at him and waving her broom, but I felt in my bones that that was a bad way to make a horse jump, besides being undignified. It was rather difficult to say politely to Mrs Beazley that I wished she would leave me alone, so I stopped jumping altogether on Tuesday afternoons.

  MRS BEAZLEY

  Then one day when Cavalier had refused eleven times, I had a new idea. I dismounted and ran along with him and we both jumped together. Then I gave him some oats and patted him. I did this several times and then I mounted and he went over like a bird. I never had to run with him again, but I went on giving oats after he had jumped, and I still do, except of course out hunting, or at gymkhanas, when he gets them at the end of a round.

  I kept the jump very low until I had got used to it and didn’t feel that I could possibly fall off – at first I had just shut my eyes and clung on. Gradually I made it higher and higher. I used to measure it with Mummy’s yard measure and I think it was two feet six when the Christmas holidays came. Mummy said that we must ask the cousins to tea and she suggested asking them early so that I would be able to show them that their despised Toastrack could jump after all. I didn’t want to show them. I thought that they would think that I jumped badly or that the jump wasn’t very high. And I thought that it would be just like my luck if Cavalier wouldn’t jump at all that afternoon. I didn’t say anything because I was afraid that Mummy would think me silly, but I hoped – and I prayed in my prayers, too – that it would rain. And it did. It started at half-past nine and it poured all day.