They were covered with mud from head to foot, and regarded each other doubtfully, until the man laughed (a smile would not have been perceived), whereupon the boy exploded in peals of merriment. Their hearts were warm within them, with the pleasure of success, for horseflesh or ponyflesh is dear to the gipsy. Then, picking up the eggs they had collected, which, being gipsies, they had carefully deposited in a tussock, they departed.
But Skewbald carried a long scar on his belly, caused by a sharp pine knot, to the day of his death.
IX.—THE NEW-COMERS
It was full spring. For nearly a month May had flooded the forest with sunlight. The gold of the gorse was blinding to the eye, and almost intoxicating with its strong scent of burnt almonds. The powdery snow of the blackthorn had been followed by the ropy, pinkish bloom of the hawthorn. The foliage of the scraggy oaks was Italian pink (which is a greenish yellow), while the silver birches and the beeches had burst into leaf and emerald tassels had succeeded the crimson buds of the larches. The brambles had two distinct sets of leafage, those of last year, old and tattered, but magnificently blotched with crimson and orange, and edged with sienna, while from their axils sprays of tender green unfolded themselves.
This is the month of song, and everywhere the larks and meadow-pipits rose in the air, the former to go up out of sight still trilling, while the latter ceased singing, and came floating down silently like parachutes of brown paper.
The lapwing chicks peeped from their mother’s wings, or crawled over her back like the young of the domestic hen. If an enemy flew over, the male bird rose in the air in a frenzy of militant defence, while at the parents’ warning call, the chicks crouched and became, to the casual glance, invisible.
As for the pony population of the forest, it seemed to have doubled in numbers all at once, for everywhere the young foals followed the mares, or lay basking among the heather. The early foals were now tall and long-legged, though here and there a late arrival stood unsteadily with bent hind-legs, or trotted a few paces with a stiff-legged gait. It might even essay a gallop, a curiously mechanical action, reminding one of a rocking-horse.