The White Horse of Zennor: And Other Stories Read online

  Arthur told their story breathlessly. With the evidence of the horse before their eyes and the obvious sincerity in Arthur’s voice, it was difficult for his father or mother to harbour any doubt but that the story was indeed true. Certainly they knew Arthur had a wild and fertile imagination and was impetuous enough at times but with Annie sitting astride the horse in front of him, laughing aloud with delight and adding her own details from time to time, both Farmer and Molly were very soon completely convinced.

  ‘Look in the barn, Father,’ Arthur proclaimed with absolute confidence. ‘The little man said there’d be enough seed corn in there to make a start. We can save the farm, Father, I know we can. The seed will be there, I’m sure of it. Have a look, Father.’

  Farmer Veluna crossed the yard on his own and opened wide the great barn doors. They saw the light go on, bathing the yard in a yellow glow, and they heard a whoop of joy before Farmer Veluna came running out again. He was laughing as he used to laugh.

  ‘Well I’ll eat my hat,’ he said, and stuffed the peak of his flat cap into his mouth. Annie and Arthur knew then they had found their father again. ‘We have a horse and we have the seed,’ Farmer Veluna said. ‘There’s all my father’s old horsedrawn equipment in the old cart shed, and I think I know where I can find his old set of harness. It’s up in the attic, isn’t it Molly?’ But he did not wait for a reply. ‘It may be a bit small for this giant of a horse, but it’ll stretch. It’ll fit – it’s got to fit. ’Course, I’ve never worked a horse, but father did and I watched him years ago and followed him often enough in the fields. I’ll pick it up; it shouldn’t be too difficult. We’ve a chance,’ he said. ‘We’ve a chance, children, a sporting chance.’

  And from that moment on there was no more talk of selling up.

  Ploughing started the following morning just after dawn. The ground was just dry enough, the earth turning cleanly from the shares. The horse proved tireless in the fields. They had sold every bale of hay so he had to pick enough sustenance from the cold wet autumn grass; but that seemed to be enough for him, for the horse ploughed on that day well into the evening, and came back for more the next day and the next and the next.

  It was clear at the outset that the horse had an uncanny instinct for the land. He knew how tight to turn, what speed to go without ever having to be told. When his father tired, Arthur could walk behind the plough and simply follow the horse down the furrows and around the headlands until the job was done. If he stumbled and fell in the furrows, as he often did, the horse would wait for him to regain his feet before leaning again into his harness, taking the strain and plodding off down the field.

  Within three weeks all the corn fields along the valley were ploughed, harrowed and drilled with barley. Word spread quickly around the parish that Farmer Veluna was laughing again and they came visiting once more to stand at the gate with him and admire his miraculous workhorse.

  ‘No diesel, nothing to go wrong; he’ll plough the steepest land on the farm,’ Farmer would say with expansive pride. ‘Built like a tank but gentle as a lamb. See for yourself. Arthur can manage him on his own and he’s only nine you know. Have you ever seen anything like it?’

  ‘Where the devil did you get him from?’ they would ask because they had heard all kinds of rumours.

  And he would tell them the story of the little Knocker man on the moor who had come to their rescue, but no one believed him. The farmers amongst them laughed knowingly at the story and told Farmer Veluna to pull the other one; but they did not press him for they knew well enough that a farmer will never disclose the source of his good fortune. But at home their wives knew better and the story of the amazing white horse of Zennor spread along the coast like thistledown in the wind. But in spite of their scepticism all their friends were delighted to see Farmer Veluna his old self again, and they determined to help him succeed. So one winter’s night in the Tinners’ Arms they got together and worked out how they might help the Farmer back on his feet whether he wanted their help or not. They knew he was proud, as they were, so that any help had to be both anonymous and unreturnable.

  So it was that on Christmas morning when Farmer Veluna and his family returned home after church, they found their yard filled with milling animals, three sows and a boar, half a dozen geese, five cows with suckling calves and at least twenty-five ewes. Puzzled and not a little suspicious, Farmer Veluna phoned all around the parish to find out who owned the wandering animals that had converged on his yard, but no one seemed to know anything about them and no one claimed them. He was about to contact the police in Penzance when Arthur and Annie came running into the kitchen, their voices shrill with excitement.

  ‘The barn,’ Annie shouted. ‘It’s full, full of hay and straw.’

  ‘And there’s feed,’ Arthur said. ‘Sacks and sacks of it, enough to last us through the winter.’

  ‘It’s that Knocker again,’ Farmer Veluna said, and the children believed him; but Molly, with a woman’s intuition, knew better but said nothing.

  The winter was long and hard that year, but with the sounds of the farm all around them again and the winter corn shooting up green in the fields, Farmer and his family were more than content. The white horse wintered out in a sheltered field behind the old granary. He grew a long white shaggy coat so that he seemed even more vast than ever. Whenever he was not needed hauling the dung cart or carrying hay bales out to the cattle on the farm, Annie would ride him out over the moor and down through the fields to the cliffs. He was of course far too big for her to control, but she had no fear of horses and found that no control was needed anyway. A gentle word in his ear, a pat of encouragement on his great arching neck and he would instantly do what she wanted. It was not obedience and Annie recognised that; it was simply that the horse wished to please her. He would go like the wind, jump any ditch or fence he was asked to and seemed as sure-footed on the hills as a goat. But it was on one of these rides that Annie first discovered that he had an inclination to make his way towards the cliffs, and once there he would stand looking out to the open sea, ears pricked to the cry of the wheeling gulls and the thunder of the surf against the cliffs. He was always reluctant to turn away for home, calling out at the last over his shoulder and turning back his ears as if expecting some kind of reply.

  After just such a ride Annie finally decided upon a name for the horse. No name seemed to have suited until now. ‘He’ll be called Pegasus,’ she declared, and no-one argued for she had become vehemently possessive, scolding both Arthur and her father if they worked him too hard on the farm or did not look after him as well as she thought they should have done. She groomed him regularly every morning and picked out his feet. She it was who towelled him down after work and rubbed in the soothing salted water so that the harness would not make him sore. She was passionately proud of him and would ride tall through the village when she rode out with the hunt, soaking in the admiration and envy of both riders and spectators alike. There was not a horse in the parish to touch him and even other horses seemed to sense it, moving nervously away whenever he approached. There were some who doubted that any horse could jump just as well as he could plough, but when they witnessed his performance in the chase any doubts vanished at once. Where others pulled aside to find a lower hedge or a narrower ditch, Pegasus sailed over with apparent ease. He out-paced every horse in the field and Annie used no whip and no spur, for none were needed. He was, she said glowingly when she got back home, as strong as any tractor, as bold as a hunter, and as fast as a racehorse. Pegasus had become a local celebrity and Annie basked in his reflected glory.

  With the spring drying out the land Pegasus turned carthorse once more and was hitched up for the spring ploughing. Farmer Veluna had enough seed for two small fields of oats and Pegasus went to it with a will; but both Arthur and his father now noticed that the horse would pause, ears pricked, at the end of the furrow nearest to the sea; and it was quite apparent that the furrows going down the hill towards the cliffs i
n the distance were sometimes ploughed more quickly and therefore less deeply than the furrows leading back to the farmhouse.

  ‘Most horses speed up on the way back home; that’s what I thought,’ said Farmer Veluna. ‘Can’t understand it, doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘But you can’t expect him to behave like an ordinary horse, father,’ said Arthur, ‘’cos he isn’t an ordinary horse. Just look at him father, he’d plough this field all on his own if you let him. Go on Father, try it, let him do it.’

  Farmer Veluna let go of the plough more to please his son than anything else and allowed the horse to move on alone. As they watched in amazement the plough remained straight as an arrow, and inch perfect in depth. Pegasus turned slowly and came back towards them, his line immaculate and parallel. Arthur and his father picked the stones out of the furrows as evening fell while Pegasus ploughed up and down the field until the last furrow was complete. Then they ran over the field towards him to guide him round the headlands, but Pegasus had already turned and was making the first circuit of the field. At that moment both Arthur and his father finally understood what Annie already knew, that this was a miraculous creature that needed no help from them or from anyone.

  Annie fitted in her rides whenever she thought Pegasus was rested enough after his work, but as the blackthorn withered and the fuchsia began to bud in the early summer, Pegasus was more and more occupied on the farm. At the end of June he cut a fine crop of sweet meadow hay, turned it and baled it. He took cartloads of farmyard manure out into the fields for spreading. He cut thistles and docks and bracken in the steeper fields up near the moor. Hitched up with a great chain he pulled huge granite rocks out of the ground and dragged them into the hedgerows. In the blazing heat of high summer he hauled the water tanks out onto the furthest fields and in August harvested the corn he had drilled the autumn before.

  The barley crop was so rich that summer that Farmer Veluna was able to sell so much to the merchants that he could buy in more suckling cows and calves, as well as his first ten milking cows, the beginnings of his new dairy herd. As autumn began the milking parlour throbbed into life once more, but he had not forgotten to keep back twelve sacks of seed corn that he owed to the little Knocker.

  The sows had farrowed well and there were already fat pigs to sell; and some of the lambs were already big enough to go to market. The hens were laying well, even in the heat and the goslings would be ready for Christmas.

  But in spite of the recovery and all it meant to the family, the mood of the farmhouse was far from happy, for as the summer nights shortened and the blackberries ripened in the hedgerows, they knew that their year with Pegasus was almost over. Annie spent all her time now with him, taking him out every day for long rides down to the cliffs where she knew he loved to be. Until dusk each evening she would sit astride him, gazing with him out to sea, before turning him away and walking slowly up Trevail Valley, through Wicca Farm and back home over the moor.

  When the time came that September evening, a year and a day from the first meeting with the Knocker, Annie and Arthur led the horse by his long white mane up onto the high moors. Arthur wanted to comfort his sister for he could feel the grief she was suffering. He said nothing but put his hand into hers and clasped it tight. As they neared the cheesewring rocks and moved out along the track across the moor towards the ruined count house, Pegasus lifted his head and whinnied excitedly. There was a new spring in his step and his ears twitched back and forth as they approached the count-house. Annie let go of his mane and whispered softly. ‘Off you go, Pegasus,’ she said. Pegasus looked down at her as if reassuring himself that she meant what she said, and then trotted out ahead of them and down into the ruins until he was hidden from their view. The children followed him, clambering laboriously over the walls.

  As they dropped down into the count house they saw that the horse was gone and in his place was the little old Knocker, who waved to them cheerily. ‘Good as your word,’ he said.

  ‘So were you,’ Arthur said. ‘Father is a happy man again and it won’t be long before we’ll be milking fifty cows like we were before. Father says we’ll be able to afford a tractor soon.’

  ‘Where’s he gone?’ Annie asked in a voice as composed as her tears would allow. ‘Where’s Pegasus gone?’

  ‘Out there,’ said the Knocker pointing out to sea. ‘Look out there. Can you see the white horses playing, d’you see their waving manes? Can you hear them calling? Don’t be sad, Annie,’ he said kindly. ‘He loves it out there with his friends. A year on the land was a year of exile for him. But you were so good to him, Annie, and for that reason he’ll come back to you this one night in every year. That’s a promise. Be here up on the moor and he’ll come every year for as long as you want him to.’

  And he does come, one autumn night in every year as the old Knocker promised. So if you happen to be walking up towards Zennor Quoit one moon-bright autumn night with the mists hovering over the valley and the sea shining below the Eagle’s Nest, and if you hear the pounding of hoof beats and see a white horse come out of the moon and thunder over the moor, you will know that it is Annie, Annie and the white horse of Zennor.

  * a highly contagious disease that kills calves before they are born.

  ‘GONE TO SEA’

  WILLIAM TREGERTHEN HAD THE LOOK OF A child who carried all the pain of the world on his hunched shoulders. But he had not always been like this. He is remembered by his mother as the happy, chortling child of his infancy, content to bask in his mother’s warmth and secure in the knowledge that the world was made just for him. But with the ability to walk came the slow understanding that he walked differently from others and that this was to set him apart from everyone he loved. He found he could not run with his brothers through the high hay fields, chasing after rabbits; that he could not clamber with them down the rocks to the sea but had to wait at the top of the cliffs and watch them hop-scotching over the boulders and leaping in and out of the rock pools below.

  He was the youngest of four brothers born onto a farm that hung precariously along the rugged cliffs below the Eagle’s Nest. The few small square fields that made up the farm were spread, like a green patchwork between the granite farmhouse and the grey-grim sea, merging into gorse and bracken as they neared the cliff top. For a whole child it was a paradise of adventure and mystery, for the land was riddled with deserted tin miners’ cottages and empty, ivy-clad chapels that had once been filled with boisterous hymns and sonorous prayer. There were deserted wheel houses that loomed out of the mist, and dark, dank caves that must surely have been used by wreckers and smugglers. Perhaps they still were.

  But William was not a whole child; his left foot was turned inwards and twisted. He shuffled along behind his older brothers in a desperate attempt to stay with them and to be part of their world. His brothers were not hard-souled children, but were merely wrapped in their own fantasies. They were pirates and smugglers and revenue men, and the shadowing presence of William was beginning already to encroach on their freedom of movement. As he grew older he was left further and further behind and they began to ignore him, and then to treat him as if he were not there. Finally, when William was just about school age, they rejected him outright for the first time. ‘Go home to Mother,’ they said. ‘She’ll look after you.’

  William did not cry, for by now it came as no shock to him. He had already been accustomed to the aside remarks, the accusing fingers in the village and the assiduously averted eyes. Even his own father, with whom he had romped and gambolled as an infant, was becoming estranged and would leave him behind more and more when he went out on the farm. There were fewer rides on the tractor these days, fewer invitations to ride up in front of him on his great shining horse. William knew that he had become a nuisance. What he could not know was that an inevitable guilt had soured his father who found he could no longer even look on his son’s stumbling gait without a shudder of shame. He was not a cruel man by nature, but he did not want to ha
ve to be reminded continually of his own inadequacy as a father and as a man.

  Only his mother stood by him and William loved her for it. With her he could forget his hideous foot that would never straighten and that caused him to lurch whenever he moved. They talked of the countries over the sea’s end, beyond where the sky fell like a curtain on the horizon. From her he learned about the wild birds and the flowers. Together they would lie hidden in the bracken watching the foxes at play and counting the seals as they bobbed up and down at sea. It was rare enough for his mother to leave her kitchen but whenever she could she would take William out through the fields and clamber up onto a granite rock that rose from the soil below like an iceberg. From here they could look up to Zennor Quoit above them and across the fields towards the sea. Here she would tell him all the stories of Zennor. Sitting beside her, his knees drawn up under his chin, he would bury himself in the mysteries of this wild place. He heard of mermaids, of witches, of legends as old as the rock itself and just as enduring. The bond between mother and son grew strong during these years; she would be there by his side wherever he went. She became the sole prop of William’s life, his last link with happiness; and for his mother her last little son kept her soul singing in the midst of an endless drudgery.