302 A FARMER'S YEAR 



continually upon their green leaves, now flagging no longer, and 

 ran in shining beads down to the neck of the bulbs, then over them 

 to the droughty earth, that sucked up every precious drop of it as 

 greedily as does a sponge parched by the sirocco ! One could 

 almost see their delight— thirsty children new satisfied could not 

 look more glad. 



Leaving the field, I walked down the Bungay road, on which 

 thin pools of water glimmered like March ice ; till presently I 

 met a man in a cart who was looking for Hood. I asked him 

 what was the matter, and he told me that the foal which had been 

 running with its dam — the pony from Bedingham — on the long 

 railway marsh, No. 20, was stretched upon its side dying. Asking 

 my informant to find Hood, I pushed on to the marsh, and there 

 I found the foal — a beautiful Uttle black-pointed and muzzled 

 thing of five months old — not dying, but stone dead. There it 

 lay upon its side, its slender legs stretched out stiffly, its head 

 quite motionless, not asleep — dead, dead — a glance showed it. 

 Over it stood the mare, as still as though she had been cut in 

 stone, her ears sloped back, but not with vice, her under lip pro- 

 jecting, the milk dripping from her distended udder, and in the 

 large eyes and on the patient face a look of woe utter and 

 pathetic. No human mother grieving over her first-born could 

 have shown sorrow more visibly ; yet this creature made no moan, 

 and weep it could not. It knew that its offspring was dead ; and 

 to me, the watcher, it seemed to be trying to understand what 

 this death meant, and why it caused such suffering. 



Perhaps, however, this was fancy ; perhaps horses do not 

 know mental pain, and the impression I received was due partly 

 to the surroundings of the scene. Above, the sky sullen and 

 grey, dropping a thin and failing rain ; below the sodden grass, in 

 which water splashed beneath the foot ; to the west the struggling 

 and smoky sunset, whereof a red ray lit upon the surface of the 

 long, reed-fringed dyke ; and for background a few melancholy 

 willows, round about which stretched the desolate expanse of 

 marsh. Not a soul to be seen, not a sound to be heard save the 



