“How is the baby going to ride a pony?” asked Nora. “Won’t she fall off?”
“Oh, no,” said Pilescu. “You will see what happens to the little ones.”
After about an hour, all the cars slowed down and stopped. The children looked out in excitement, for there was quite a gathering in front of them. Men with ponies stood there, saluting the cars. It was time to mount and ride, instead of sitting in a car!
It took a long time to get everyone on to the sturdy, shaggy little ponies. Nora soon saw how the little children were taken! The bigger ponies had a big, comfortable basket strapped each side of them — and into these the younger children were put! Then with a man leading each pony, the small ones were quite safe, and could not possibly fall!
“I’m not going in a basket,” said Nora, half afraid she might be told to. But all the other children could ride and were expected to do so. Each child sprang on to the pony brought beside him or her and held the reins. The ponies were stout and steady, very easy to ride, though Nora complained that hers bumped her.
“Ah no, Nora — it is you who are bumping the pony!” said Pilescu, with a laugh.
The little company set off. The nurses, who had all been country girls, thought nothing of taking their children on ponies to the castle. The smaller boys and girls chattered in high voices and laughed in delight at the excitement.
The men leading the ponies that carried baskets or panniers leapt on to ponies also, and all the little sturdy animals trotted away up the rough mountain path that led to the new castle. The people who had come to watch the royal family’s arrival waved goodbye and shouted good wishes after them. Their cottages were here and there in the distance.
The little company turned a bend in the path, and then the children saw the towering mountains very clearly, steep and forbidding, but very grand. Up and up they had to go, climbing higher little by little towards the castle Paul’s father had built the year before. No houses, no cottages were to be seen. It was very desolate indeed.
“Look at those goats!” said Peggy, pointing to a flock of goats leaping up the rocky slopes. “What a lot of them! Where’s the goatherd?”