The wanderers straggled with many stoppages over the great open moors and uplands of the Rhinefield Walk. In the forest a “walk” is not a pathway, but a district of several square miles, formerly presided over by a ranger, an office now abolished.
They crossed Black Knowl, forded the pretty stream gurgling over its gravelled bed, and were soon cropping the fine greensward of beautiful Balmer Lawn. Here Skewbald had a tussle with a young iron grey who thought the lawn belonged to him. After a short passage of arms, Skewbald disabused him of this notion, and the youngster retired hurriedly.
The herd wandered through the picturesque drives leading from the lawn, and drank at the little pond on the golf-links, set like a jewel on the breast of the moor.
The young grey stallion had some cause for jealousy, for Skewbald noticed a white mare with a great blotch of jet black on her neck and fore-quarters, and she took his eye, being spotted himself; but she refused to leave her beloved pastures; she was no wanderer, and never had been known to stray more than half a mile from her birthplace, a field by the lawn.
The Naked Man.
The Naked Man.
Then rain came at last, and the mare crossed the river again and led her party into the woods. They wandered through the glade of the Queen Bower, with its great beeches, crossed the Blackwater, and so into the thick woods of Vinney Ridge. Here they had a fright one midday, for the baying of hounds, tootling of horns, and tramping of hoofs dismayed all but the old mare, who had often ridden with the buck-hounds. She led her party, which were inclined to scatter, down a drive away from the noise. Later in the week the rain ceased, and leaving the woods, they crossed the Ober and slowly climbed the hill to Wilverley Post, the young foals even daring to rub themselves against the “Naked Man”—a dead tree reduced to a bare trunk and a couple of armlike branches stretched out imploringly. Here they crossed the black tarred road between Southampton and Bournemouth. It was Sunday afternoon and the cars were almost in procession, so numerous were they, the noisy little sidecar predominating; but the ponies took small account of wheels. Horns might blow and chauffeurs curse, but the mares, and especially the foals, were not to be hurried. As the herd crossed head to tail, so that there was not room for even a motor-cycle to pass, the road looked like Piccadilly at its narrowest part, when the policemen stop the traffic. All sorts of cars were there, from Fords to a Rolls-Royce; great charabancs full of trippers, who threw crumpled paper balls at the ponies to hurry them up, but without avail, and the drivers, remembering the warning signs put up by the R.S.P.C.A., had to curb their impatience until the last foal had crossed.
The ponies spread themselves over Clay Hill, went down into the bottoms and up by the steep road from Holmsley Station into Burley, and drank at the pond fringed with hollies, on the golf-links, where one Christmas the scarlet berries hid the leaves, as the golfers, if they notice such things, can testify.
They cropped the lawn outside the school, until the noise of the children coming out sent them into the woods. They missed Burley, fortunately, for one of the old forest pounds stands close by, crossed the road at Vereley, passed the gipsy encampment, and then reaching another black road leading to Ringwood, spread out over the open ground of Picket Post, one of the finest spots in the forest, because of its altitude and its views towards the sea. Here one can see clearly the flanks of the forest hills rising from the level bottom like hills out of a lake. The ponies munched the sweet grass on the lawn with its beautiful little tumulus crowned with hollies, but unfortunately dwarfed by the great modern house close by.
Then the unsatisfied maternal instincts of the old mare surged up within her, an irresistible impulse to action, and she did what horses, dogs, and other animals will do—set her face towards her birthplace. She had been born at Brook, and old memories of her present surroundings may have suggested to her the route to the village. At any rate, the herd were soon travelling slowly to the north-east. Over Handy Cross Plain they went, through King’s Garden and so to Stoney Cross, where, from the hill leading down to the dell of the Rufus Stone, one gets the fine view across to Brook and beyond.
The mare wandered about several days visiting the haunts of her youth; then again her loss came upon her, and she started off across country, for the spot where last she had seen her foal.
All this time the wanderings of the ponies had not been unnoted. People owning ponies had seen them here and there, and in passing a friend’s house would call and remark, “I saw your chestnut mare over by Castle Malwood the other day,” or the owner of Skewbald might be greeted with, “Your four-year-old seems a bit of a wanderer.” If the herd strayed on to a public road where the agisters might catch them, and involve their owners in expense, a forest man would spend a little time chivying them back into the forest. So they had committed no damage in their fleeting disappearances from the forest proper. They had not been impounded, and apparently they were free as air, yet the owner of any pony there, with a little trouble and inquiry, could ascertain its whereabouts and could get it either personally or by deputy.
The herd came back over Emery Down, the great gaps in its wooded sides showing where the Canadian gangs had cleared the timber during the war. Cleared it in a lazy way, the forest men remarked, for instead of bending to cut the tree at its base, they had left many stumps waist-high. But then, timber is cheap in the West.
Missing Lyndhurst, by devious ways the ponies came out on the golf-links, where a yearling got a smack on the flank from the ball of an impatient golfer. They crossed the road, and tried the sweet grass of Pondhead. It was a bright Saturday afternoon, and a boy with a camera, catching sight of Skewbald, tried for a snapshot. He stalked him backwards and forwards, manœuvring for a good pose and lighting, until the stallion got suspicious and annoyed. Disdaining the bridge, he jumped the streamlet, mounted the hill a few paces, and called loudly. The mares, not unmindful of the intruder with his flashing camera, understood. Without undue haste they gathered their foals, crossed the little bridge and took the path up the hill, Skewbald standing sentinel until he saw they were all on the move, then, pressing forward, he overtook the head of the column, and led the way.
Soon there was a quarter of a mile of ponies of all colours, following the meanderings of the path, the mares with lowered heads, foals trotting to left and right. Last of all went an old white mare with a black sucker silhouetted against her side. It was a pretty picture. Even in the distance the energetic action of Skewbald could be noted; his tossing mane proclaimed him the leader. Itwasa picture, and the boy could not help snapping it, although he knew the distance was too great.
The old mare no longer led the way, for the herd had reached its home pasturage. Indeed, Skewbald’s owner had already noted his return. The ponies crossed the road looking down on Longwater, and passed a night among the lush bottoms. The next day they wandered eastwards over Matley Heath. As they approached the railway embankment to cross under the forest viaduct, they passed an area of a few acres, which would have looked strangely familiar to millions of men of military age. During the war the trench mortar force had used the place as a training-ground, and at every few yards a hole gaped, several feet across and a yard deep.
That afternoon the herd was again at the ford, having completed their circular tour.
The Black and White Mare.
The Black and White Mare.
It wasearly in September, and Skewbald’s owner, who had seen him only once during the summer, but had had reports of his having been found in various parts of the forest from agisters and keepers, decided that he would “catch in” the four-year-old, and get a good price for him as a pit pony. He settled to do the job himself, and, with two neighbours who volunteered to give up a Saturday afternoon, started off in the direction where the herd had been seen last. It was fine and clear (“visibility very good”), and Skewbald was plainly in view more than a mile away. The ponies were scattered along a ridge above a narrow valley, the floor of which was largely occupied by a deep bog.
It was decided to keep out of sight as long as possible, and come at the stallion from over the hill, in the hope that he could be driven down to the bog and surrounded.
But if the horsemen could see Skewbald at a distance, because of his bold colouring, he could detect them by reason of his good sight, and though they had apparently gone right away, he remained uneasy, marching from one mare to another. Presently he heard the muffled beat of hoofs on turf, and called loudly to his companions. When the three hunters reached the crest of the hill and looked down, Skewbald and several mares, with their offspring, were trotting away towards the head of the valley.
There was nothing for the hunters to do but to go for it at their best speed. Skewbald, they knew, like any stallion true to his herd, would not leave the mares, if he could help it. When they tired was the chance to get him. But as the horsemen galloped, the trot of the fugitives changed to the quicker step also, and though the riders gained on the herd, Skewbald was always on the far side, protected, as it were, by the column of mares, foals, and younger ponies.
Some of the foals soon stopped, and, with their mothers, fell out of the chase. The other mares and youngsters carried on, and the pursuit went on along the ridge, until the bog was turned, and Skewbald led the way back on the other side. Then the ponies with him began to slacken, and the pursuers’ hopes ran high, but Skewbald increased his speed, and leaving his fatigued company, galloped on alone. Some little distance ahead, the bog narrowed considerably, and here a causeway of gravel had been constructed. Along this the stallion dashed, and ascended the hill to where the rest of his leaderless herd had collected. They began to move as he approached, and stretching into a gallop, they went with him, this time down the valley, and being untired, began to increase the distance from their pursuers. “Hang it!” cried the owner; “when these are tired, and he gets to the other lot after they’ve breathed, he may keep this up all the evening.”
Then things happened. One of the riders essayed to cut off a corner by crossing a marshy bit. His pony hesitated, and when struck, put her feet together and shot her rider into the bog. The others halted, and with shouts of laughter, watched the muddy figure thrashing about, then, as he sank deeper, hastily took measures to help him out. They tossed him a rope and fastened their end to one of the ponies. Then chaffing him about keeping his legs straight, they shouted, “Hold tight, Jim!” and setting the pony going, out came the man with a great squelch. “Well,” said Jim, as he looked at himself ruefully, “my own fault entirely. I ought to have known better than beat a forest pony baulking at boggy ground.”
It was getting late, and Skewbald was out of sight. They decided to abandon the chase and try again another day.
Then the rain came, filling the bogs and flooding the streams, and the ponies, according to their habit, left the open moorlands for the woods, where they were invisible, save to the forest keepers, clad in khaki with brass buttons bearing the crown and stirrup, the latter device derived from the gigantic stirrup hanging in the court hall at Lyndhurst.
Skewbald’s owner made inquiries. A keeper had seen the stallion in a great wood of oaks and beeches. The next Saturday afternoon the three riders again set off. The rain had ceased, and the sun shone, although the going was heavy. In the woods the forest paths were churned into quagmires, but on pony-back it does not matter if the forest be a bit damp. The pony’s legs get the mud.
Skewbald’s company were grazing in the open, but in the shelter of the wood, bordered with groves of silver birches. From afar the hunters thought out a plan of action. “Best go back,” said one, “and come at them from behind. P’raps we can drive them down the moor and away from the woods.” As the riders, after a long detour, were approaching their quarry, having got almost to the confines of the wood, a party of jays set up a clamour. “No use going quietly now,” grumbled the leader; “better push on as fast as we can.” The ponies had heard the raucous noise of the jays, and then the trample of hoofs. When the hunters emerged from the wood, they were in time to see the last of the herd dashing in among the trees, hundreds of yards ahead.
“Come on, lads,” was the cry, and the pursuers did their best to overtake the fugitives, who had chosen their country with skill, for they had fled into a great wood with plenty of undergrowth, and trees so thick that no background of sky gave the ponies away. Hollies grew in dense masses, and clinging honeysuckle and brier impeded progress. Quick going was impossible, and every dense brake had to be examined for a lurking beast. Mares and colts they overtook, and once they thought they had found Skewbald, but it was an old white mare running among the trees. As they got nearer the river, the wood grew wilder and more difficult, while their ponies sunk below the fetlocks in the soft stuff. “Let’s go into the drive and see if we can head them off,” suggested a faint-hearted one. In the sticky drive were more ponies, but no Skewbald. With the old black mare he was sheltering behind a thick clump of hollies, ready, if he heard the riders approaching, to move quietly off.
Night came on and the riders gave up the chase in disgust, vowing that they had had the worst of luck.
After this, the services of the colt-hunter were sought. He listened to the tale of Skewbald’s evasions. “Seems a speedy one, and artful. I’ll get him, never fear.”
The next morning, the colt-hunter, going out to shoot a rabbit for dinner, was delighted to see Skewbald with his mares, placidly wandering on the moor outside his holding. The rabbit must wait, and he returned to collect his two helpers and get the ponies ready. When the three were mounted, he sent the boy and girl by a circuitous route to get behind the herd. He himself rode through the gate which opened on the moor, and went towards the woods, as being the most difficult part of the country.
Presently, as he watched the herd, he saw the stallion raise his head, and a moment later Tom appeared on the ridge beyond the moor, and came down the hill at a trot. Skewbald called to his mares, and set off at a gallop towards the far end of the moor, where it was crossed by the stream. The man saw the herd rapidly dwindling in the distance, and noted with satisfaction that the boy made no attempt to rush the fugitives, but contented himself with trotting along the edge of the moor in the direction they had taken. “Saving his mount,” the father muttered, and then heard faint sounds in the distance, which he knew came from Molly, who had crossed the stream, and with shouts and gestures was stopping the fugitives. The ponies halted; then, as their new pursuer rode at them, they turned, and fled in the opposite direction. Skewbald had an eye to the hill, its summit covered with trees, but Tom on guard saw a suggestion of breaking away, and stopped it with waving arms and fiendish yells. As the ponies, apparently free from strenuous pursuit, slackened to a trot, the colt-hunter met them, and turning them, quietly followed. Tom and his sister closed in, and the ponies, in an invisible net, were shepherded towards the gate, left wide open. Skewbald, restless and suspicious, turned and faced the riders gently trotting towards him at some distance. This left the old “lane haunter” in front, and as she approached the opening, she shied, and broke away, keeping near the hedge, where there was no rider to forestall her. The herd turned also, and prepared to follow, but an unexpected intervention checked them. The two smallest children had been awakened by the bustle of getting the ponies ready, and guessed what was afoot. They had not been asked to help, but thinking there might be some fun, they dressed, slipped out, and hid in the hollies a hundred feet from the gate. As the mare came towards them they darted out, and, brandishing sticks, rushed at the herd, meanwhile letting off blood-curdling shrieks. The old mare, indeed, used to children, brushed past, but the ponies following were brought to a standstill, and as the youngsters jumped into the air, their arms and legs going all ways at once, making of themselves frantic instruments of movement and sound, the nerves of the ponies failed them, Skewbald turning tail with the rest, and the three riders, closing in, had no difficulty in passing their quarry through the gate and into the paddock. “Well done, kids!” called the father. “Close the gate! Let’s ride ’em into the yard before they know where they are.” But Skewbald had turned after passing through the gate, and the herd was now at the far end of the field. The hunters tried all ways to get the ponies into the stable yard, but in vain; they tore past the inviting opening, but enter they would not. Then the mare left outside, hearing the trampling of hoofs, and feeling lonely, gave a loud whinny. Skewbald caught it amid the noise of tumult. He broke from the herd, dashed across the field, through the gravelly ford, then, as he neared the gate, collected himself, cleared it at a bound, and joined his partner.
“My word!” exclaimed the colt-hunter, with a rueful laugh. “Can’t that skewbald jump! One of you open the gate so that the other ponies can get back into the forest again. All our trouble for nothing. Well, we’d better go and have breakfast.”
The colt-hunter began to fear that his old skill was deserting him, for in spite of his efforts, the four-year-old was not yet in the stable yard. At the first opportunity, the man went out again, this time alone. The old mare gave the alarm, on seeing him, and the whole herd was soon trotting away from their pursuer, who, as they were going directly from his open gate, refrained from pressing them too closely, hoping that he might be able to turn them before long. But the mare led the way right across the open ground towards the river where it flowed between densely wooded banks. They entered the wood, and the pursuer increased his pace, for in such country unridden ponies can move much more quickly than a rider. Directly he got into the deep wood, he had to twist, and break back for feasible routes, and go slowly for fear of being wiped off his seat by a branch. He passed several of the ponies, but they were not what he sought, and as he got deeper in the recesses of the wood, he became puzzled. After some tedious wandering, scratched and torn by holly, brier, and bramble, he confessed himself at a loss. “They may have crossed the stream again,” he considered. “This thick stuff is the worst of all to find him in. I wish I had my old dog.” Nell had had to be destroyed, after an accident, but when in her prime had shown a capacity for following the fugitives as they threaded through the woods, and on reaching them, by barking loudly, indicated their position to the pursuers. The man gave up the chase reluctantly, promising himself to try again.
He did so the next evening with his boy and girl. The herd was in sight a mile down the moor. “When we get near them,” said the father, “we must hustle, and head them off from the woods.” But the ponies took the alarm at sight of the riders, and the old mare, without waiting for the chase to become hot, set off at full speed for the woods, followed by Skewbald and a few other ponies. “We shall lose them,” said the colt-hunter, and sure enough, after much wandering and thrashing the woods, darkness set in, and the hunters returned, weary and empty-handed.
Again and again they tried to head off Skewbald from his protector. The mare, from being disturbed, got so nervous that, at the first sight of the hunters, she would dart for the coverts, followed by Skewbald. The colt-hunter cudgelled his brains in vain for a plan to secure the stallion, and began to sigh for the good old days when the forest men, mounted and blowing horns, encircled a wide area, then with outcry and galloping, drove all the ponies grazing therein into a great pound. But, as he said, that would have made an end of his bread and cheese.
September was three parts through, and still Skewbald pastured on his native heath.
Thesun, breaking through the mist of a September morning, shone on a grassy knoll by a great wood, where a man was cooking his breakfast. He was tall, ruddy, with a clear-cut profile and black hair cut close at the back. He wore a soft shirt, breeches, and stout boots. His wide-brimmed hat, jacket, and a towel hung on a bush close by. As he made his preparations he whistled “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Breakfast in the woods presupposes camping; no tent, however, showed itself, but a few paces off was an erection in the form of a lean-to, of dead branches interlaced with brushwood, and the whole well thatched with heather and bracken. Looking up from within, no peep of sky could be seen; the shack was, in fact, watertight.
The breakfast utensils were placed on a newspaper spread on the turf. A fire of sticks crackled in a hollow. Three aluminium saucepans were on the fire, and the man was stirring porridge in one. “Nearly ready,” he muttered; “now for the bacon.” He opened a package, took out two rashers, placed them in a small frying-pan, took the porridge-pan off the fire, removed the detachable handle and fitted the latter to the frying-pan, which he placed on the fire, now a mass of glowing embers.
Then he found sugar, poured in milk from an aluminium milk-can, and ate his porridge out of the pan while watching the rashers. When these were turned, he took an egg from each of two egg-shaped aluminium cases, broke the shells, and poured the contents on the rashers. When cooked to a turn, he took the frying-pan off the fire, and ate the bacon and eggs out of it. Then one of the remaining saucepans boiled, and he made coffee. The bread and coffee he took out of waterproof bags, butter from a small aluminium box. His first course had been of blackberries picked from a bush near by. Blackberries are not plentiful in the New Forest, but occasionally they are found of a size and lusciousness rarely equalled elsewhere.
After finishing his breakfast, he took out a cigar, and began to smoke. As he mused he talked to himself for company. “Guess this is some quiet spot: not many birds except woodpeckers, jays, stonechats, and meadow-pipits, though I saw a whinchat, a redstart, and two wheatears yesterday. But I expect they were on migration. Nothing much to be heard in English woods after the first week in June. And except for the kingfisher, they can’t hold a candle for colour against our cardinals and bluebirds.
“And no beasts worth mentioning. No bears, wolves, moose, or porcupines, and only rarely one sees a fox or a hedgehog. Of course, the deer show themselves now and then, and there are always the ponies. A viper here and there, perhaps, but no rattlers.
“Well, thank goodness, there are no mosquitoes, and however warm it is, the heat doesn’t amount to much. And the views! Superb! That walk over Emery Down was delightful. I wish Sadie was here. Plenty of room in that shack, and how she would enjoy it. Hard lines, marrying, and having to leave one’s wife almost on the church step.” Here he broke off, and took out a letter, which he read as one does when there is no need to hurry, turning back occasionally to earlier passages, though the letter already seemed well thumbed. Then he replaced the missive—which was a long one, and called forth a smile now and then—in its envelope, and set himself to wash up, grumbling at the tenacity of the remnant of porridge; for once he had forgotten to fill the pan with water. The bacon rinds and crumbs he left for any furred or feathered epicures which might be about; the egg-shells, tea-leaves, and other rubbish he put down a hole.
Then he began to pack. He had no blankets, heavy and not too efficient conservators of heat. His only bed covering was an eiderdown quilt, which went into marvellously small compass. He had no less than three air-pillows—a tiny one for his head, one in the form of a ring for his hip, and a pleated one for his shoulder. These and a pair of plimsolls, with his sleeping suit, went into his ground-sheet, which he rolled into a long bundle round a light fishing-rod, with a strap attached to either end so that he could sling it like a rifle.
The other details of his equipment—bath and bucket, of the thinnest and lightest material, which had been emptied of water and hung up to dry; milk-can, collapsible cup, plates, saucepans, each of which he wrapped in paper before putting one within the other, not forgetting to place the handle inside—went into his waterproof knapsack with food-bag, tins, etc. In a little bag he put comb, brush, and mirror, all of diminutive proportions, from which the greater part of the handles had been removed, in order to reduce weight, for this was a walking tour, where every ounce makes a difference. Even a pocket Primus would have added too much to the burden of the day. And in the forest, firewood is plentiful.
Once he ceased packing and raised a tiny prism glass of the most recent pattern, which was slung round his neck, quickly to his eye, in order to identify a passing bird. “Have learned quite a lot about English birds,” he said to himself. “When I go back I shall be able to tell the Western Reserve Ornithological something about the English warblers. The nightingale’s song is very fine, I’ll admit, especially at night, but give me the blackcap in clear daylight. He beats the band.”
When everything was packed, he turned towards the shack. “Better leave it as it is,” he muttered; “I might come back this way and put in another night.”
As he turned into the woodland path, the bushes parted and a man dressed in tattered khaki emerged. He carried a coil of rope over his shoulder and in his hand a stout cudgel. “Got the time on ye, sir?” he asked. The camper took out a gold watch. “I make it nine o’clock. But I should have thought that you forest men were in no need of watches with the sun shining.” “Oh, ay!” muttered the man in khaki evasively. “Ah, what’s this?” he exclaimed, pointing to the shack. “Sleeping rough? Why, that’s punishable at the magistrates’ court,” he added with a grin. “Not at all,” said the other. “I have my permission, duly signed from Lyndhurst, to camp in the forest, also a licence to fish in the streams, although up to the present I’ve caught nothing but minnows. This is how we camp out West. Saves lugging a tent about.” “Oh,” said the man in khaki, “you be an Amurrican; I thought so, by your twang. What puzzles me,” he continued, “is why you should be tramping about here. Most of the Yankees at Winchester never set foot in the forest. They see it all from the car. But,” with a sneer, “p’raps you can’t afford it?” The American noticed, but answered with a smile: “Why, friend, I could afford it very well, but all my life I have loved open spaces and fresh air, and I like to do things for myself. I am what you might call a cattle-farmer, and have a ranch in the West.”
“Indeed,” said the other, “and how many cattle might ye own?” “Well, I am not sure, anyway,” answered the American, “but I suppose, if things are going all right, that my men have charge of 10,000 head of stock.” “Well, I’m ——,” exclaimed his questioner. “And to think, if you’re worth all that money, you care to sleep on damp ground with a bit of brushwood overhead.”
“I said just now,” laughed the other, “that I’m used to outdoor life. When I came over with my regiment, we were sent to the camp at Winchester. You know that city?” and the other nodded. He did not deem it necessary to say that the last stay he put in there was in the city gaol. “Well, I got interested in this locality, because there seemed room to move in it, as there is at home; and in my spare time I used to come down here and look about me. Then one afternoon when I was sitting in the cathedral, while hundreds of our men, from all over the States, were being taken round in parties to see the sights, I had some talk with a man and a boy who looked in. They were cycling with camping luggage, and were to spend a holiday in the forest. I guess they were some novices, for I went outside to see them off. Never saw such poor, ill-used, overladen bicycles before or since. Afterwards I got my knock in the big push, and they sent me to the hospital at Brockenhurst, where I saw more of the forest. Just now family business is keeping me in London, so I thought I would spend a few days down here, in my own way.”
The man in khaki became effusive. He thrust out a dirty tattered sleeve. “We ought to be pals, mister. See my wound stripes? Wipers, Loos. Been through the lot and glad to be back for good. I suppose you can’t raise a drink for a pore comrade? You gentlemen generally have a whisky-flask on you.”
“No, my friend,” replied the American. “You’ll find no intoxicating liquor in this outfit. I’m a prohibitionist, what you call a teetotaller.” Then, as waves of incredulity, derision, and horror crossed the other’s face, he added: “You’ll find a lot more of us across the Pond. And now, friend,” he continued, “I’ve told you as much about myself as if you were an agister, as I think you call him. Why do you appear, like a jack-in-the-box, and so anxious to know the time?”
“Not much of an agister,” grumbled the man. “Miserable cusses, I calls ’em, interfering with a pore man’s living. I comes from Romsey way, but settled down here since the war. A suspicious lot,” he added surlily. “I drives cattle, carts wood, breaks in horses, and that’s what I’m going to do this morning,” and he held out the rope. “Ah,” said the American, “that reminds me of home. None of my cowboys ride anywhere without a coil hanging to their saddles. They never know when they may want to rope a steer or a mustang.” “Well,” said the man in khaki, “I’ve heer’d tell that the forest people used ropes in the old days, but they never do now.”
While talking, they had reached the edge of the wood, and the road, thick with dust, lay before them. “Well, friend,” said the American, “you’ll be taking the road; I wish you good-day. I am keeping to the forest paths.”
“Why, mister,” said the man with the rope, “you’ll lose yourself.” “Not with a good English ordnance map,” answered the other, taking from his breast pocket a folded map. As he did so, a bulky pocket-book fell to the ground. “Thanks, don’t trouble,” as the man in khaki made a movement, and bending down himself, picked up and restored his property to his pocket.
But the man with the cudgel was not to be shaken off. In spite of the American’s obvious reluctance to have his company, he declared that he had plenty of time and that he would see him a piece of the way. Once started, the intruder on the visitor’s privacy became boastful of his prowess and that of his companions in arms, and began to decry the American forces, but his hearer good-humouredly parried his clumsy onslaughts.
As they passed over the moor they came upon a group of ponies. It was Skewbald’s herd. He was grazing, and as the two men passed within a short distance, he raised his head and looked at them. But, as they were on foot, and seemed to have no ill designs on ponies, he turned again to his own business.
“Now, mister,” said the man with the rope, “you Amurricans talk very big about lassooing wild steers and hosses. What about giving us a show of your skill? Let’s see you catch one of these ponies.”
“No, friend,” replied the American, putting aside the proffered coil; “I don’t rope other people’s beasts without their permission, nor do I wish to show off.” “All right, mister, don’t be huffy about it,” said the man; “but that there stallion”—indicating Skewbald—“is worth five bob to me, if you can rope him. Joe Smith has been wild to get him for weeks past, but the skewbald has gone away every time. Only a rope will get him. You might help a pore man,” he urged with garrulous earnestness.
“Well,” hesitated the other, “the ground is soft, and I am not likely to hurt him, but this rope is all wrong and may put me off. However, I can try.” They walked on a little and the American stopped and deposited his luggage at the foot of a holly. He tied the noose and re-coiled the rope to his liking. Then they walked back so as to pass within a few yards of the stallion. The man in khaki walked a pace or so behind the other, gripping his cudgel. He breathed heavily, looked around him and seemed excited. The stallion raised his head suspiciously, turned, and at the same moment the rope shot out and encircled his neck. Before the pony knew what was happening to him, the American, bending down, was taking several turns of the rope round a stump.
Then two things happened. The stallion, making off, was brought up short and fell on his side, half-choked by the tightening of the rope, and at the same moment, the cudgel fell with a thud on the head of the man bending at the rope. He fell forward on his face without a cry. His assailant looked around hurriedly, then took the gold watch, pocket-book and loose cash, and having picked up his stick, was making off without a second glance at his victim.
But Skewbald struggling on the ground caught his eye. “Why,” he muttered, “I nearly forgot the rope. Good job I didn’t quite. Might have give me away.” He dropped the cudgel, unwound the rope from the stump, and approached the stallion.
Directly the pressure of the noose was removed from the pony’s windpipe, he revived, and rose to his feet breathing hard. Then as the man reached him and took hold of the noose, he reared, pulling his liberator off his feet, to fall beneath the plunging hoofs. The stallion, seeing a persecutor lying prostrate, and being full of anger at his treatment, with a scream of fury, flew at him, kicking and biting. Then he seized an arm in his teeth and savaged it. Launching a final kick, he galloped to his herd, the rope trailing on the ground.
* * * * *
The American groaned. He thought himself again in the trenches, with the enemy “putting some hot stuff over.” He was sure he had received a wound at the back of his head, and was lying face down in mud and blood, dying, yet no one came to his aid. Then his nose tickled, he sneezed, and sat up. He felt the back of his head and looked at the blood on his fingers. He remembered roping the pony, but rope and stallion were both gone. What was that lying in a trampled bush of bog myrtle? He got up and walked unsteadily to the prostrate form. The face was marked with cuts and bruises, while one sleeve was torn, the arm bleeding and hanging oddly. The American turned him over carefully, and as he did so, his gold watch fell out of a pocket, its glass smashed, and here was his pocket-book lying on the ground. Then he began to understand somewhat of what had happened to himself and to the man, for the hoof-marks around told their own tale. His face set hard, but this ruffian was in a bad way, perhaps dying. He would do what he could for him. He went to his knapsack and took out a first-aid outfit. He bandaged the torn and broken arm, using sticks for splints. The pain roused the patient and he began to groan and curse disjointedly, the phrase “—— skewbald” recurring like a refrain.
The American carried the man to the shade of a tree. He heard the chink of coin, which he divined to be his own property, especially when he found his pockets empty. Then he waited. The man opened his eyes, and looked at his preserver. “What?” he spluttered, having lost some front teeth. “Yes, my friend,” said the other, “I am still here, and a good job for you. I might have left you to bleed to death, and serve you right. I think you took rather more risk than you knew,” producing a revolver from a hip pocket and replacing it. “Well, your legs and back seem all right, and after a rest you should be able to make the road and get help. You don’t deserve it, but I think I had better see you there. No, don’t worry,” as the man’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not going to give you up. You seem to have been well beaten about, without my trying to get you more punishment.”
The man sat motionless; the double shock of the stallion’s attack, and being confronted by the victim of his brutal violence, for the moment bereft him of speech and power to stir.
After a while, he attempted to rise, stammering that it was time he made a move. His rescuer helped him up, and the man tried to feel in his pockets. “All right, friend,” said the American, “I have got my own back.”
As the injured man proceeded, his strength failed and he began to stumble. The other had to support him, to prevent further injury to the shattered arm. The road reached, the man sank by the wayside, exhausted.
A cart drawn by a forest pony came along. The driver stopped. “Why, who be this? Not Bill Nokes again? What’s he been up to this time?” he asked with emphasis. The American hastily explained that he had found the man lying injured in the forest. “Put him in. I’ll soon have him in the hospital at Lyndhurst.”
They laid the man on the floor and made him as comfortable as possible. “You coming, sir?”—to the American. “No,” he replied. “I cannot be of any further use, and I have to return for my property.”
He walked back with a splitting headache, a sore head, and a wonder in his heart that among the kindly forest folk he should have encountered an alien, and a black sheep at that. He found his goods where he had left them, and seeing the cudgel lying near, added it to his burden as a memento. He spied also a lock of chestnut and white hair, sawn from the skewbald’s mane by the rope, and put it into an envelope. Then he said to himself: “Better get out of this. My scalp wants seeing to, and the people may wonder how I came by a broken head.”
He consulted a time-table and estimated (there were no hands to his watch) that he could catch a train by walking across country, to Southampton. “I’ll hunt up that doctor who treated me before, and get my head patched up.”
When the American went to the surgery two days later for a final inspection the doctor held out a local paper, saying, “Here are some items which may interest you.” A pencil mark stood against a paragraph entitled, “Strange Death of a Forest Pony,” which related how Skewbald had been found by a keeper. The rope had caught in a snag near a deep pit, and in his efforts to free himself, the pony had fallen down, and broken his neck. “Well, doc.,” said the patient, “I did more mischief than I expected, when I fooled around with that rope, but I will put it right when I get to town.”
“Look at the next page,” said the other. This item was headed, “Forest Man injured by a Pony?” and narrated that a man picked up grievously injured, was doing well in hospital and pronounced out of danger. It went on to say: “He is a somewhat notorious character and well known to the police. Curiously, after his injuries had been seen to, and while in a state of delirium, he frequently muttered imprecations on ‘that —— skewbald.’ Elsewhere we detail particulars of the mysterious death of a fine skewbald forest stallion belonging to a well-known forest commoner, Mr. J. Smith. It is conjectured that the man may have lassooed the pony (though it is not known that he possessed any such skill with a rope), and in some way was taken at a disadvantage by the animal, which attacked him, and escaped, only to meet its death shortly afterwards. The man’s injuries are such as might have been caused by a stallion’s teeth and hoofs. Such aggressive behaviour on the part of a forest pony is of the rarest.”
A few days later, Skewbald’s owner received a letter with a London postmark. “Dang me!” he said, turning it over; “who be this from?” and getting no answer from the envelope, opened it, when out came a draft for £40, and a letter in business terminology from a firm of solicitors intimating that a client of theirs, having heard through the Press of the death of his pony, hoped that the owner would accept the enclosed sum as indemnity for his loss. “Well, well!” exclaimed the delighted but bewildered man, “this beats all. The thing gets stranger and stranger. I’m sure that varmint Bill Nokes never roped the poor beast. Now, these people write as if someone owed me the money. I’d better harness the pony and get this in the bank before anything else happens.” And not until he had got the draft safely to the bank, and had seen the clerk initial it, did he really believe that the skewbald’s loss had been made good.
OTHER NATURE STUDY BOOKS
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.
Some illustrations were moved to facilitate page layout.