Skewbald, the New Forest Pony

by Allen W. Seaby

The sun, 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.”