Part 1

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_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

=EXMOOR LASS=, and other Pony Stories With frontispiece in colour and about 76 illustrations from drawings by the Author in the text, and with coloured jacket. Large crown 8vo, cloth. Price 3s. 6d. net. (By post, 4s.)

“These are jolly stories of the ponies not only on Exmoor, but in the heaths of the New Forest, on the Moorlands of Wales, and the stony spaces of Shetland. . . . The author’s sketches are delightful.”—_The Times Literary Supplement._

=THE BIRDS OF THE AIR=; or, British Birds in their Haunts Second Edition. With 100 illustrations, including 8 plates in colour. 5s. net. (By post, 5s. 6d.)

“He writes with sympathetic simplicity of the birds he has watched and sketched. His drawings are wonderfully characteristic; in a few lines he catches expression, attitude, ‘jizz’ as the Irishman said, of the living, alert bird.”—_Manchester Guardian._

_BY ANNA SEWELL_

=BLACK BEAUTY=: The Autobiography of a Horse With frontispiece and jacket in colour. Crown 8vo, cloth. Price 2s. 6d. net. (By post, 2s. 10d.)

This is a new edition of the classic of the horse. Today as many readers as ever are enjoying the tale of Black Beauty’s early life and pleasant friends, his fall to the hard lot of a London cab-horse, and the happy ending of his story.

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PUBLISHED BY A. & C. BLACK, LTD., 4, 5 & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. 1

A G E N T S _The United States_ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, NEW YORK _Australia and New Zealand_ THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, MELBOURNE _Canada_ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, TORONTO _South Africa_ THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAPE TOWN _India, Burma, China and F.M.S._ MACMILLAN AND COMPANY, LIMITED BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS

S K E W B A L D

T H E N E W F O R E S T P O N Y

By ALLEN W. SEABY

AUTHOR OF “EXMOOR LASS, AND OTHER PONY STORIES” AND “THE BIRDS OF THE AIR; OR, BRITISH BIRDS IN THEIR HAUNTS”

A. & C. BLACK, LTD. 4, 5 & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. 1

MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN

_First Published in 1923_ _Reprinted in 1927, 1929, 1931 and 1934_

AUTHOR’S NOTE

ALL the characters, human and equine, in this story are fictitious.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I. THE HERD 3 II. THE FOAL 14 III. THE CHASE 22 IV. DEATH ON THE ROAD 29 V. SKEWBALD’S NEIGHBOURS 35 VI. WINTER 48 VII. THE RIVAL LEADERS 52 VIII. SKEWBALD IN TROUBLE 58 IX. THE NEW-COMERS 65 X. THE BRANDING OF SKEWBALD 69 XI. SKEWBALD’S JUMPING 78 XII. CHANGING THE BRAND 86 XIII. THE BROKEN LEG 94 XIV. HOW SKEWBALD RANG THE FIREBELL 107 XV. THE WANDERERS 113 XVI. SKEWBALD THE SWIFT 129 XVII. HOW SKEWBALD ESCAPED THE MINES 141

S K E W B A L D T H E N E W F O R E S T P O N Y

I.—THE HERD

ONE hot June afternoon, a group of ponies with their foals and yearlings stood on the edge of a tableland or “plain” in the New Forest. The ground about them was covered with stunted heather and fern, with here and there patches of moss and bare white gravel showing the poverty of the soil.

Beyond the company was a great expanse of blue sky flecked with pinkish cloudlets, and, on the horizon, blue and violet wooded heights, a crinkly contour denoting oak and beech and an evenly serrated line, plantations of firs. As everyone who has journeyed from Southampton to Bournemouth by road or rail knows, a great part of the forest is open heath or moorland; but, unlike the barren wilds of the Highlands, the New Forest has also extensive woods full of gigantic oaks and beeches, while the open ground in many places is becoming choked with self-sown firs.

Therefore, looking into the distance, the masses of woodland largely concealed the open spaces. Emery Down showed on the horizon, the sun fell on the spire of Lyndhurst Church, and in the middle distance a white curving ribbon showed itself as a forest road, before it was lost among the trees.

Below the ponies was a wide valley, covered with coarse grass, and dotted with hollies, gorse and stunted firs. The mares had chosen the hill for their afternoon siesta because up there were fewer flies and biting torments than down below in the swampy bottoms, where, earlier in the day, the ponies had been feeding. They stood mostly in pairs, head to tail, so that the swish of the latter drove the flies from their noses and flanks. Once in a while, a yearling—that is, one born the previous year—finding the sun too hot, butted in between the mares.

The foals or “suckers” lay half-hidden in the heather, wandered here and there nibbling at the herbage, or drew nourishment from their mothers. These varied greatly in colour and size. The tallest was a black mare with the graceful lines of the racehorse, as well there might be, seeing she had some of the blood of that breed in her veins. Next her stood an old white mare, bleached with age, for, while the forest ponies exhibit the usual equine diversity of hues, there are none all white. In her prime she had been a grey, perhaps a beautiful pearl grey with a few darker dapplings, like her neighbour, a young mare with her first foal, black of coat except for a white forehead blaze and fore-foot. Close by stood, and dozed, a chestnut mare with a mane and tail of pure gold, or so it seemed in the sunshine. There were also bays, with black manes and tails, but the commonest colour in the group was a dark brown. It was noticeable that most of the foals were darker in colour than their mothers.

Standing by themselves were two dingy brown ponies, a mare and a two-year-old, shorter of leg than the other adults. Their necks showed little of the arch of a well-shaped animal—indeed, both ponies were almost donkey-like in shape, with hollow backs, drooping bellies, and “cow-hocked” hind-legs. The mare had a beard hanging below her chin.

Almost their exact counterpart, even to the beard, had been set down, ages before, in the wall-paintings and drawings scratched on bone of the old Stone Age. These two, one might suppose, were throw-backs to the old forest pony, which was hunted, or possibly domesticated, by the men whose remains were interred in the mounds dotted over the forest. Indeed, close by stood a great tumulus, and some way off was a group of nine mounds, big and little, like parents and children.

Of the other ponies, several showed the attempts at improving the breed practised of late years. One had the short leg of the Exmoor pony, another the tiny ear of the Shetland, others the shapely line of the polo and even of the Arab, for at one time or another all these, and others, have been used as sires. In some cases the importation threatened to improve the race off the forest altogether. It is no land of milk and honey, for the green pastures and lush spots are not in themselves extensive enough to support the stock of ponies, and only those which can exist on the coarse tussock grass, the sweet but prickly shoots of gorse, and the astringent heather tufts, are sure of surviving. Also a good proportion of the ponies stay out in the forest all the winter; and though snow does not fall frequently or lie long in this locality, yet the weather is often colder than in the Shetlands, where the little pony of the far North, his ears buried in his shaggy mane, and a doormat-like thatch on his back, winters without difficulty.

But here, at the other extreme of Britain, if there come a long spell of bleak wet weather, and especially if sharp frosts intervene, the younger ponies are likely to suffer, and a man, seeing his neighbour’s yearling looking “seedy,” will think it his duty to inform the owner, who, unless careless and improvident, will have the creature “caught in,” and give it shelter and food.

Perhaps the most striking in colour of the group on the hill was a chestnut mare, of that rich hue known as “liver” chestnut. In the sun her coat flashed bright orange-red, while by contrast it appeared deep purple in the shade. Her foal at the moment was lying in the heather, out of sight. When at length he arose, one saw why he could lie hidden so completely, for he was so small and evidently had not long been born. Compared with the other foals, which were now well grown, though still leggy, the colt seemed absurdly disproportioned, and with his big head, long ears, and bent hind-legs looked, apart from his colour, more like a fawn than a pony in the making. His body was so meagre that it seemed merely a connecting-link between his fore and hind quarters. As he stood up he swayed to and fro. His little napping tail looked exactly like the strip of goatskin nailed on to form the tail of those wooden steeds which were being made, not so far away from where the ponies stood, in the toy factory at Brockenhurst.

But the interesting thing about him was his colour, for he was a “skewbald,” patterned boldly in chestnut and white. Nearly all the other foals were dark, and it was as yet almost impossible to foretell their exact adult colour. Alone among the youngsters, the skewbald foal showed what his coat would be like when he was full grown. Although so young, he possessed the agility of young creatures which have no period of sheltered repose, unlike fledglings in the nest, or the young fawn hardly able to stand, and hidden by its mother while it gathers strength. In his way the foal was as nimble and alive as young partridge or lapwing chicks. He trotted to his mother, took nourishment with the curious twisted neck characteristic of the attitude of a foal when feeding, and relapsed from sight among the heather.

Nearly all the mares had shaggy manes and tails, and the hair hung down over their foreheads so as almost to conceal their eyes. The foals had manes standing up along their necks as if they had been “hogged,” and their fore hair rose in a curious tuft between their ears.

The ponies, to all appearance, were as tame as any stable animal, and they would not have retreated if a man had quietly approached them or gone past at a distance of a few yards; unless, of course, he had used a binocular or camera, when the flash of light from glass or metal would have caused them to start and make off. A horseman, however, would be a different matter, and they would have been on the move long before he reached them.

At a nearer view the branding marks on the mares and yearlings could be seen, mostly on the back where a saddle would cover it, but sometimes on the shoulder. These marks indicated the initials or devices of their owners, commoners of the forest, or Crown tenants, who have the right of pasturing their ponies, the Crown demanding a small annual sum for each animal put out in the forest.

These marked ponies had the hair of their tails cut curiously. This had been done by the agisters, forest officers with numerous and complicated duties. The forest is divided into three districts, each served by an agister, and each district has its own way of marking the tails of the ponies registered by him. In one district the lower third of the hair is cut away, leaving a centre tassel; in the other two half the lower third is cut off on the right and left respectively. Thus an agister can tell at a glance whether a pony belongs to his district or not. The cut tail is, in effect, a receipt, testifying that the pony’s owner has registered it and paid the dues.

* * * * *

The lord and master of the herd on the hill, the stallion, was not, for the moment, in sight. He might have been cooling his heels in a stream, dozing among the gnarled, ingrown hollies, which, with their twisted branches, look fully as grotesque as any of Mr. Rackham’s picturing, or have gone off to turn back a mare wandering away down the valley.

Presently a shrill whistling call was heard, and the mares showed signs of animation; ears were pricked up and heads flung round. Up the hill came the stallion with a pounding step. He was a bright bay with a big white blotch on his back. His forelock covered his white forehead blaze, and his eyes also, for all one could see. The black hair of his mane and tail was crimped or waved, unlike the lank locks of the mares. He moved with a vigorous action, lifting his feet high, and with a long stride. He carried his tail with a finer sweep than the mares, while his mane rose and fell with the energetic movement of his neck. His coat was glossy, and the high lights rippling to and fro on the bright sienna surface were golden in the sun and blue in the shade. When he reached the summit he stopped, looking back with twitching ears. He snorted and hurried to the group of ponies, and past them, then stopped, and the herd, understanding, prepared to follow their leader, the mares calling to their recumbent foals, which rose to their feet and stretched before cantering to their mothers. The cavalcade moved off, only the dappled grey remaining motionless. She was wilful or lazy. The stallion took a few quick paces back and touched her with his nose as a hint to move on. She whinnied crossly and tried to strike him with a fore-foot. He lowered his head, bared his teeth and snorted, whereupon she thought better of it, and moved off. The stallion trotted to the head of the column, and looked round to see that all were following.

As they went down the hill, two riders showed on the ridge to the right, a man on a tall white horse and a boy on a forest pony.

“Look, sonny,” said the horseman, “that was the stallion walking before us up the hill. He has warned his mares and set them all going. How fine they look in a bunch with their varying colours! Seems a pity,” he continued, “that these fine creatures should have to go down into the coal-mines.”

“Let’s ride down and stir them up, dad,” suggested the lad.

“Not a bit of it,” his father answered. “We should want a good reason to disturb mares with young foals. The forest people would think us very inconsiderate. Remember,” with a smile, “you may be a verderer yourself some day, and sit in the court hall at Lyndhurst, where the big stirrup hangs on the wall. We’ll make off to the right and watch them as we go.”

As the ponies saw their supposed pursuers getting further from them, they relaxed their pace, stopped, and fell to grazing.

Only the stallion, still suspicious, kept his head up, and trotted a little way towards the receding figures, watching the intruders until they disappeared behind a rise.

Then he turned and walked to the little stream in which some of the ponies were standing, fetlock-deep, or drinking.

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.

How pleasant the colts found the water, enjoying the splashing of their hoofs as they walked in the stream, the while their elders stood fetlock-deep! How refreshing to take a deep drink, head and neck inclined at just the right angle so that the nostrils were clear of the water, followed by a snort of content!

After whiling away the hotter hours thus, the ponies would take the tracks towards the hill. As they got higher, the white stones showed in the thin crust of soil, and the heather grew more sparsely. One August afternoon, while rounding a gorsebush which shaded a patch of bare blackish soil, strewn with dead sticks and gravel, the colt almost touched with his nose what looked like a piece of dead wood covered with grey lichen and spots of orange fungus, when, on the moment, the thing came to life. The lichen and fungus became grey-tipped and barred feathers, the stalk-like projection opened in half, disclosing a great, rose-pink, frog-like mouth—a mouth so enormous and menacing, that Skewbald shrunk back. Then the mother nightjar appeared from nowhere, and croaking and spluttering she fluttered right before the foal’s nose, so that his attention was distracted from her young one. If he had looked again he would have found the gaping mouth and widely spread wings gone, and the young chick again reduced to the semblance of an unattractive lump.

Sometimes the ponies would take the open moor with its coarse grass, scanty tufts of heather, and sweet-scented bog myrtle. Much of it was swamp, and the mare watched her offspring to see that he did not venture into one of the deep bogs known only to the forest men, and to the ponies and deer. If he were rash, she called him on to safety, while if he were obstinate, she butted him with her forehead on to drier ground.

In places the moor was curiously patterned, like a chessboard, a tuft of heather next a patch of bare soil. This was owing to the peat-cutting, a right possessed by the commoners, who, however, are required “to cut one and leave two,” so that the soil should not be deprived altogether of vegetable growth.

In early September the colt may have seen the forest gentian, a single blossom of a beautiful violet-blue on an erect stalk, while the seed-pods of the bog asphodel close by, of a vivid orange-yellow, formed a perfect colour complementary. But do ponies see colours? They apparently see well by night, which would seem to show that a large part of their retina consists of structures adapted for nocturnal vision, just as the outer part of the human retina only is used at dusk, the inner being practically blind at this time, and therefore green foliage and grass turn grey, and red flowers appear black, red and green being seen only with that part of the retina concerned with diurnal vision.

About this time, too, as he crossed a sandy forest path, he may have seen the brilliantly green caterpillar of the emperor moth, its sides spotted with pink, full fed, and wandering about seeking a site for its cocoon. Was he able to detect the same creature on its natural resting-place, the heather, practically invisible to human eyes, when motionless; its green merged into the leafage, and the pink spots simulating heather buds?

Certainly the heather the year of Skewbald’s birth was of a brilliance such that the oldest forest man declared he had never seen equalled. Especially was this the case on the most barren gravelly spots, where instead of the usual magenta, clumps of the brightest crimson blazed in the sun.

In the warm September days life passed pleasantly. Through the cold, clear nights, while Vega blazed above, he paced on with his mother, ever nibbling, for, like his kind, he did not spend the long nights in sleep, but towards dawn lay down for an hour or so. His coat, fast thickening, kept him warm, even when just after sunrise a white frost covered every blade of grass, heather tuft, and fern frond. As the sun rose higher, the frost turned to a heavy dew in which the colt wandered, the wet bog myrtle washing him to the shoulder, while the rays, shining through the mist, enveloped him with a golden aura.

Later in the day he plodded up the hill on to the “plain,” and while his mother dozed in the shade of a clump of holly, he would roll in a patch of brilliantly white or golden sand. Once as he bent his knees to lie down, a grey-brown thing like a dead furze branch suddenly galvanized into life with a hiss. As the viper moved, the colt, with a snort of astonishment, jumped all four feet in the air at once, and the mother rushed towards him. She saw the reptile gliding along the path, and turned sharply away, calling the colt to her.