II.—THE FOAL
During July the herd wandered over moor and “plain” or in the woods, keeping to their unmarked, though to them fairly well-defined, territory of several square miles. Outside those limits were other herds, with their leaders ready to take offence at the presence of strange males.
The little skewbald foal kept away from the other youngsters, for they were too big and strong for him to play with; but by good fortune a brown mare with a colt of the same colour, and about the same age as Skewbald, joined the party. What with milk and nibblings of heather and the lush grass of the bottoms, the little foals grew apace and became playmates.
In the late afternoons before the long evening feed, the pair would gambol with all the abandon of youth, while their mothers stood head to tail, jerking manes, waving tails, shaking fore-legs, and ever and anon changing the weight from one hind-leg to another. The colts would race across the meadow where the herd was pasturing, then stop dead, and stand nose to nose, watching for the other’s next move; one would rear up suddenly, startling his playfellow, and race away in glee. Then followed a biting of manes and nibbling of shoulders like any old couple. At times they grew rougher in their play. They ran shoulder to shoulder, trying to bite, or, rearing up on hind-legs like veterans, indulged in an orgy of make-believe biting and kicking.
But, for the greater part of the day, life went quietly with the little foal. His mane, half white and chestnut with a streak of black, was growing fast. His barrel was filling out, and his legs growing straight and strong. His slender muzzle poked about everywhere, and his tail flapped continually.
In the hot July days, the colt and his mother wandered over the hills, and by the little streams meandering along the bottoms except where the gurgling water was checked, and collected to form a bog. Sometimes the stream was bordered with birch and alder, growing in a soggy bed, littered with dead wood, and choked with undergrowth. Tracks ran in and out among the trees, worn by the hoofs of generations of ponies. Here, the deeper water flowed more slowly. One afternoon, as Skewbald paused at the edge to nibble at a bed of watercress, his mother snorted at two curious objects moving on the surface of the water, two bristling cat-like heads with small ears and a swirling of water behind. They were otters, steering themselves with their thick tails.
Once he nearly stepped on a snipe, her head so far immersed in a muddy pool that she was not aware of an intruder until the hoof was almost upon her, and then what a fluttering and zig-zagging and crying of “scape-scape!” Another time, but this was next year, in spring, as he dawdled around the edge of the wood among the dead bracken, he nosed against a brown stem. It moved, and suddenly became part of the barred head and widely opened eyes of a sitting woodcock, her buff, grey and white back matching the dead leaves and bracken, and her long beak indistinguishable from the stalks of the fern.
At one point the stream opened out into a wide shallow with a pebbly bottom where the little trout played. Tracks led into the stream and out on the other side, for this was a forest ford.