Silver, himself dismounted now, obeyed.
Boy knelt in the bracken and felt the mare's heart.
The young man stood some distance off and watched her.
"Pretty bad, isn't she?" he said gravely.
"Go and tell mother, please," replied the girl, still on her knees. "And send one of the lads with a rug and a wheelbarrow."
The young man walked away down the hillside, leading the two ponies.
Left alone, Boy brushed away the flies that had settled in black clouds on the mare's face. The foal repeated its ungainly efforts, whimpering in a deep and muffled voice, like the wind in a cave. The urge of hunger was on it, and it did not understand why it was not satisfied. Boy went to it, and thrust her thumbs into its soft and toothless mouth. The foal, entirely unafraid, sucked with quivering tail and such power that the girl thought her thumbs would be drawn off. The old mare whinnied, jealous, perhaps, of her usurped function.
In another moment Mrs. Woodburn's tall and stately form came through the gate and laboured up the hill. She was wearing a white apron and carried a sheet in her hand.
Soon she stood beside her daughter, breathing deeply, and looking down upon the mare.
"Bad job, Boy," she said.