When they returned it was dark, and both were eager to reach the stables, but as they wheeled into the little pasture road which led through the tenant’s land and past Hermann Dietz’ house, a curious scene halted them.
The house was a very old-fashioned small wooden dwelling, with a high stone foundation, built by the past generation of Dietzes twenty-five or thirty years before. The barn, larger than the house, was some twenty yards from the kitchen door, across a squalid cow yard. A dim lamp or two was burning in the house, but this was completely deserted, the doors hanging open and giving it a half-witted grimace. The centre of attraction was a big double barn door. Around this, in a lighted semi-circle stood the Dietz family, consisting of the bony, tall, salmon-faced father, the emaciated, dreadfully stooped mother, and four children of varying ages. A curious murmur arose from the group, and riding closer, Moira and Hal saw that they were weeping. Beyond, they could catch a glimpse of the body of a horse, swaying slightly from side to side in its last agony, and casting monstrous shadows on the high cobwebbed walls behind, thrown by the lantern which stood on the ground at Hermann’s feet.
Moira dismounted and signalled to Hal to follow her.
“They’ve been grieving this way since yesterday,” she whispered, “and to-day the veterinary told them he couldn’t save the horse.”
The sobs arising from the pitiful group, two of the smallest of whom clung to their mother’s skirts and hid their faces, more frightened at the commotion than troubled about the horse, rose and fell with the spasms of suffering that swept over the dying beast. Moira heard Ellen’s reassuring voice and saw her face for the first time in the lantern light at the far end of the group.
“Ah, Mrs. Dietz, let them put the poor animal out of its pain,” she was saying in a loud whisper to the mother. “It can’t live.”
Moira turned to Hal and took his arm. He had been smiling grimly at the scene, but as her hand fell upon his sleeve he covered it with his own. The horse, the drama of primitive sorrow, everything was forgotten, except her features and hair, and gipsy loveliness in the wavering light.
“They’re Ellen’s children, these people,” she said. “She’s wonderful to them. She told me yesterday ‘that horse is like a member of their family, Miss Moira. It’ll be terrible when it dies.’ Isn’t she fine to come down here and comfort them?”
They turned at the sound of foot-steps crossing the hard earth and stubble, and two stocky figures passed them.
“Hullo,” said one, with a grin. It was Rob Blaydon, carrying in his hand something from which they caught a quick gleam as he passed. The veterinary was with him. Both went up to Hermann and held a hurried consultation, and during this the family fell silent. Presently the three men parted. Hermann spoke up in a high, quavering voice.