Дорин Тови - The Coming Of Saska

Kestrel bucking in protest because for Mrs H.’s sake Keith wouldn’t let him pass Barbary, Mio right on Kestrel’s heels, jumping sideways in mid-gallop to avoid the bucks... then, finding he was on the grass verge and that the way was clear ahead, deciding now was the time to show the pair of them.

‘Come on! Let’s go!’ he would snort, sticking his head out.

And I’d be practically flat on my back in the saddle trying to stop him.

Once we lost Mrs Hutchings in a hill fog. That was actually rather frightening. I can see her now taking off up the track, the mist closing in behind her, and hear the staccato sound of Barbary’s hooves fading gradually away 31

The Coming Of Saska_INSIDES.indd31 31

13/06/2007 17:35:59

The Coming of Saska in the distance. We waited longer than usual before going after her, so that we wouldn’t come on her unawares in the mist and run the risk of collision. For once we were holding the horses without any trouble: they were standing there quietly grazing. Probably the fog had muffled Barbary’s hoofbeats even for them, though they hadn’t forgotten he was somewhere up in front. The moment we decided to go and touched our heels to their sides, they were away up the track like greyhounds.

We let them go flat out, knowing that Barbary was well ahead. We expected to find him waiting where the track we were on joined another one. We slowed as we approached the spot – but Barbary wasn’t there. Probably Mrs Hutchings couldn’t stop him and had gone on to the next one, we thought. So we gathered speed again and swept on. Only Barbary wasn’t at the next crossing either and the track led on from there straight for the moors. The gate was a quarter of a mile ahead of us, but she wouldn’t have gone out through that...

‘Not unless he took her over it,’ said someone, and we sat there imagining the worst. Barbary damaging himself out on the moors. Mrs Hutchings lying unconscious, our being unable to find her because of the mist... which was so thick now we could hardly see each other, let alone somebody lying on the ground.

‘I’m going back,’ said Tina. ‘I bet she never went beyond that first crossing.’ ‘I’ll go on up to the gate,’ said Keith.

‘She might be waiting up there.’

Off they cantered. Penny and I stayed where we were and shouted. Our voices echoed back as if to mock us. Tina returned. ‘No sign of her,’ she said. So we sat in the silent fog and waited for Keith... and he didn’t come back either.

32

The Coming Of Saska_INSIDES.indd32 32

13/06/2007 17:36:00

Doreen Tovey

Eventually the three of us set off towards the gate, wondering what he might have found... or whether he’d met up with misfortune, too, and in turn hadn’t been able to stop Kestrel. We intended to trot. We couldn’t see a thing in the fog and any moment Kestrel might be coming back towards us. But Mio wasn’t going to be left out of all this dashing about: this was one of the times when I was still unable to hold him.

Off up the track he roared. Nutty and Kelly in pursuit, and sure enough suddenly, out of the fog, came Kestrel.

We reined like troopers: we were getting pretty good at it: we certainly got enough practice. ‘She isn’t up at the gate,’

reported Keith. ‘I’ve been looking round for tracks, but there’s just no sign of her anywhere.’

We started back for the stables. Obviously there’d have to be a search party and the sooner it got started the better.

Lynn Hutchings, for instance, knew every inch of the moors, and as an expert rider would cover it faster than any of us. We’d have to call the police, too. Probably they’d bring in tracker dogs. Where was the nearest point to the road, to get a stretcher? We looked at the various sidetracks as we rode back the way we’d come, but decided against trying any of them. There were so many. We could so easily miss her in the fog. Better to get straight back and get an organised search started.

Which was how we came to meet up with her. Sitting patiently on Barbary, in the fog, at the crossing where we’d first expected to see her. She’d waited for us, she said

– Barbary had been perfectly under control – then she’d heard us thundering up the track, so she’d taken him up a side-path so he wouldn’t be set off again by our coming.

And there she’d sat like a Sioux scout while the four of us 33

The Coming Of Saska_INSIDES.indd33 33

13/06/2007 17:36:00

The Coming of Saska shot past... hidden from us by a swirl of mist, no doubt: certainly we hadn’t seen her. She’d gone on then, intending to take a short cut and catch us up, which must have been how Tina missed her... but the fog had thickened so she had turned back, reckoning that we would, too, when we couldn’t find her.

We rode back silently for a while, limp with relief, then I began to laugh. ‘What’s so funny?’ asked Tina. ‘Only that Mrs Hutchings is supposed to be looking after us ,’ I said.

‘You’d think we were teaching her !’

34

The Coming Of Saska_INSIDES.indd34 34

13/06/2007 17:36:00

Four

NOTHING EVER HAPPENS IN our village without somebody being around to see it. Fred Ferry, for instance, had been in the forest that day in the mist. Don’t ask me why, except that he always seems to be up there, just as Father Adams appears to live perpetually in ambush over our garden wall.

‘He says,’ said Father Adams, coming in to tell us what Fred had been broadcasting up in the Rose and Crown...

‘he says thee wust careerin’ about up there like a buzz-fly under a meat-cover ’n he wondered whatever was goin’ on.

’N then he seed thic bloke come tearin’ out of the fog and the rest of thee stop dead with thee in front, and he realised what tothers was doin’ was tryin’ to stiffen thee nerve.’

It was no use trying to put him right. There is an amazing echo in the valley. Often I’ve stood in the cottage garden and heard the sound of horses galloping up on one of the forest tracks. So clearly that I could tell how many there 35

The Coming Of Saska_INSIDES.indd35 35

13/06/2007 17:36:00

The Coming of Saska were, where they started cantering and when they stopped again, and hear the riders’ voices calling to each other. In the same way, so many people had heard our carryings-on during the time of the trials with Barbary... the sounds of frenzied galloping, the yells to ‘Look out!’ and ‘For heaven’s sake hold him!’... they had no difficulty in believing Fred Ferry’s version and the story went round like wildfire.

‘You’ve got yourselves insured for this trip, have you?’

asked one of our neighbours – looking at me, I noticed, not at Charles – while Miss Wellington, when it got to her ears, came scurrying down immediately; the first time we’d seen her in weeks.

She was so worried, she said. If only she’d spared more time for us she might have persuaded us not to be so rash as to think of going. As we knew, though, she’d had other things on her mind... though thank goodness that was all settled now.

We were glad to hear it. When Miss Wellington gets intense about something the oddest situations are likely to ensue. One result of the arrival of the Bannetts, for instance, had been that when the Rector went to call on her one day he couldn’t find anywhere to put his hat. All eight pegs of Miss Wellington’s hallstand, usually chastely garnished with her gardening hat, her shopping hat and her sou-wester, were festooned with men’s headgear. Trilbies, cloth caps, a dented bowler... the Rector was quite startled, wondering what had happened until out bustled Miss Wellington, whipping off the hats like a pile of pancakes, exhorting him to please hang his up anywhere , these were only there to scare off strangers.