Her attempts at conciliation were not very effective. Starlight stood, scraping the ground with his hoof. Mary felt her way cautiously along the shaft and bent to pick up the pony's foreleg. She could not see, and her groping fingers unexpectedly encountering his knee made him start violently.
Well, there was no help for it. She would have to get a light. That was a nuisance. She went back and reached one of the cart lamps. It clattered as she drew it from its socket, and again the pony jerked forward. She only just caught the reins in time.
It was all rather complicated—like one of those puzzles, Mary decided, where one had to take the geese across the stream without leaving the ducks behind with the fox. There were newly-strewn flints on the road, one of which was obviously in Starlight's hoof; but the wind whirled against her and nearly extinguished the light, and if she put it down she could not see Starlight's foot—besides, he was irritated by pain and would not stand still.
There really seemed to be no way out of the dilemma. She stood, holding the reins, and watching the steam rising from the pony's back in the glow of candlelight. If she were Mrs. Watts, she supposed she would pray about it. Prayer always seemed a rather cowardly shifting of responsibility on to other people, but what was one to do?
"Is anything wrong? Can I help?" A voice spoke out of the darkness.
She started violently, having heard no footsteps. Below her usual appearance of composure, she had always retained a childish terror of the dark.
Starlight was startled too and looked round with a rattle of harness. Mary handed the lamp to a pair of hands that reached for it into the light, and turned to pacify the pony.
"Poor old man! Poor old Starlight! Was the pain bad then?" She turned ungratefully upon the new-comer. "Whatever made you come up so quietly like that, frightening the pony?"
"I'm sorry. I expect the storm stopped you from hearing me. I thought something was wrong. I'll go away if you like."
"No. Hold the lantern, please. There's a stone in the pony's foot I think." Mary spoke haughtily. She was ashamed of her display of nervous irritation, and shame always made her haughty.