Highland Pony Trek by Patricia Leitch

Author:Patricia Leitch [Leitch, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Jane Badger Books
Published: 2021-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

10

It Never Rains…

“PHONE, FIONA,” called Mrs. McKean coming to the kitchen door then stopping short in amazement as she saw her daughter standing, white-faced, and two ponies galloping down to the field. “Fiona dear, what’s wrong?”

“Those fools must have let the ponies go,” Fiona said. “They’ve come back over the Colonel’s land. Lord knows what damage they’ve done and there’s no saying where the others are.”

“How could they have been so careless?” said Mrs. McKean angrily. “I’ll put those two into the field and you’d better answer the phone. Whoever it is doesn’t sound as if he should be kept waiting.”

“It’ll be the Colonel,” Fiona said, and as one resigned to her fate she went in to the phone.

It was the Colonel. In a voice cold with fury he told her that four of her ponies had been running wild over his land. They had galloped through a field of oats and broken down a gate. Two of the ponies were in his paddock now. The other two had galloped away before his men had been able to corner them. The Colonel requested in tones of icy politeness that the ponies should be collected before they did any more damage.

“I’ll come at once,” Fiona assured him.

“Very good,” said the Colonel. “You understand of course that I shall expect you to pay for the havoc they have caused.”

“Of course. I’m terribly sorry that this should have happened.”

“And,” continued the Colonel, ignoring Fiona completely, “there will be no more trekking over my land. Good-bye.”

“Oh, but please listen...” The phone went dead. The Colonel had put down his receiver.

Fiona caught Spud. She saddled him and, carrying two spare halters, rode to Grigor. Her mother had hardly understood any of her garbled account of what the Colonel had said and Miss Arnott and Mrs. French, unaware that anything had happened, were sitting in the lounge waiting for their afternoon tea. There was no sign of Morag, Neil or the boys.

Fiona hurried Spud along the road to the Colonel’s. She could hardly believe what had happened. It was a bad dream and surely she must wake to reality. The Colonel would naturally be annoyed about the ponies trampling on his crops, but she would pay for the damage and explain how it had happened and promise that nothing like that would ever, ever happen again, and the Colonel would change his mind and still let them trek over his land.

But when Fiona reached Grigor she found Diamond and Boxer in a small paddock close to the house. They were both madly excited and were trotting round and round snatching at mouthfuls of grass as they went. When they saw Spud they came tearing over to the gate and for a second Fiona thought they were going to try and jump it, but they contented themselves with pushing against it and whinnying wildly. Fiona yelled at them to shut up, and the sound of her voice brought a young man hurrying from one of the outbuildings.

“You come for them ponies?” he asked.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.