When the fire died down and people were beginning to disperse, a girl wheeling a bicycle passed Peter and his family. Tom let out a shout: “Miss Barton!” and she stopped. She had seen Peter several times since he had left hospital; indeed, he said his leg wouldn’t get well unless she continued to take a friendly interest in his case. So she had paid visits, when not on duty, Peter and she sitting in the porch, looking on to the forest, talking and reading.
Peter was saying that the hill was too steep and rough to cycle down at night, and his leg felt well enough for him to walk down if Miss Barton would lend him an arm in case he stumbled. Tom would walk the bicycle down, which he was glad to do, though directly he was out of sight he got on, and nearly came a cropper avoiding some people going home.
So Joan and Peter went down together, taking a little path he knew of, and on the way they saw the dim forms of ponies on either side, all with heads down, browsing. Only one, the nearest, looked up, and snorted as they passed. It was Skewbald, and Peter suddenly found his tongue, for neither he nor Joan had had much to say to one another.
“Why, that’s the beggar that upset my applecart,” he said, and proceeded to narrate for the twentieth time how the call of the three-year-old had caused his accident. Then with a flash of inspiration he continued: “Lucky for me that he called when he did.”
“Yes,” said Joan, though she felt in her bones what was coming; “you mean he got you a long leave.”
“I mean,” declared Peter, though his heart thumped, and he had a strange difficulty in articulating, “that if it hadn’t happened, we might never have met.” And so on, but as this is a tale about ponies and not people, it will suffice to say that before they reached the bottom of the hill, they were Joan and Peter to one another, and that soon after Peter was demobilized the wedding took place.
XIV.—HOW SKEWBALD RANG THE FIREBELL
The summer had been hot and rainless, and the beginning of August found the moorland of the forest drier than the oldest commoner had known it. Boggy places which had formerly to be skirted with care were now firm under foot. The tussock grass was white and sear, the fern orange and brown, while the leaves of the oaks were eaten by myriads of caterpillars into delicate lace-like filigree.