"Isn't he perfect, Chris?" he exclaimed as he came up to the group in front of the porch. "Mayn't I gallop him, papa, this afternoon when we go out? Round by Mellway there's beautiful grass, you know."
"All right," Mr. Ross replied. "We shall see how you get on outside on the road. I don't know that he has any tricks, but every pony has some fad, so for a few days we must just be a little cautious. Now trot back to the gates once more, and then I think you had better dismount for the present. You may go round to the stable with him. It's always a good thing for your horse to know you in the stable as well as outside."
Off Ferdy went again, a little bit faster this time.
Off Ferdy went again, a little bit faster this time, his spirits rising higher and higher. Then he turned to come back to the house, and his mother was just stepping indoors, her face still lighted up with pleasure, when there came a sudden cry,—a curious hoarse cry,—but for a moment she was not startled.
"It is the peacocks," she thought, for there were a couple of beautiful peacocks at the Watch House. "I hope they won't frighten the pony."
For the peacocks were allowed to stalk all about the grounds, and they were well-behaved on the whole; though, as is always the case with these birds, their harsh cry was not pleasant, and even startling to those not accustomed to it.
Was it the cry, or was it the sudden sight of them as they came all at once into view on a side-path which met the drive just where Ferdy was passing?
Nobody ever knew,—probably pony himself could not have told which it was,—but as Mrs. Ross instinctively stopped a moment on her way into the house, another sound seemed to mingle with the peacock's scream, or rather to grow out from it—a sort of stifled shriek of terror and rushing alarm. Then came voices, trampling feet, a kind of wail from Chrissie, and in an instant—an instant that seemed a lifetime—Ferdy's mother saw what it was. He had been thrown, and one foot had caught in the stirrup, and the startled pony was dragging him along. A moment or two of sickening horror, then a sort of silence. One of the men was holding the pony, Mr. Ross and the coachman were stooping over something that lay on the ground a little way up the drive—something—what was it? It did not move. Was it only a heap of clothes that had dropped there somehow? It couldn't, oh no, it couldn't be Ferdy! Ferdy was alive and well. He had just been laughing and shouting in his exceeding happiness. Where had he run to?