A Donkey in the Meadow Read Online Free PDF Page B

fight.’
    ‘There was only an endless screaming.’
    ‘That confirms your conclusion was correct and the trapper was wrong.’
    ‘What happened then?’
    ‘Foxes fight on their hind legs like horses. They box each other. I reckon the young fox was quick enough to seize the old one’s paws as they fought, and that’s why they were mangled. That’s what happened.’
    I now turned the Land Rover off the main road and drew up in the Turnpike car park.
    There was no one else in the bar.
    ‘Jack,’ I said, coming straight to the point that was still bothering me, ‘are donkeys difficult to keep?’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘Are they the asses they’re supposed to be?’
    He lit a cigarette and smiled.
    ‘I’ve known some intelligent donkeys in the past. Like everyone else some are clever, some are not.’
    ‘Can they be a nuisance?’
    ‘They’re certainly very affectionate.’
    ‘Which means?’
    ‘They need a lot of attention . . . but what’s all this about?’
    At this moment there was a wail outside like that of a banshee. A gargling noise on a high note.
    ‘Heavens,’ I said, ‘she’s calling me!’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘The donkey.’
    ‘God bless my soul!’
    ‘We’ve just bought one from Roy Teague.’
    ‘What about Mrs Tangye . . . where’s she?’
    ‘She’s out there too.’
    ‘Mrs Tangye guarding the donkey? . . . Look, I’m taking her a drink straight away.’
    We went outside and up to the Land Rover; and as Jack walked forward, glass in hand, a face was thrust through the driver’s window. It had a large white nose.
    ‘I sign the pledge!’ cried Jack.
    Penny pushed her head forward as if she were making to bite the glass. She looked quite fierce. I did not realise until later that she was only thirsty.
    But at the same time an unpleasant thought crossed my mind. She was showing restlessness. She might, for all I knew, be vicious. Dusk would be falling when we reached Minack, and Penny in a strange place without an expert to handle her might not be so placid at her journey’s end as she had been at the beginning.
    How were we to remove her from the Land Rover on our own?

6
    Rain began to spatter the windscreen as we turned from the main road into the bumpy lane which led a mile away to Minack. Clouds, low and lugubrious, swirling in from the sea and the south, were hastening the dusk to fall before its time.
    ‘I feel very pleased with myself,’ said Jeannie suddenly.
    ‘Why’s that?’
    ‘Well,’ she said, ‘before we left and when you were out of sight, I got hold of Jack Baker and asked him a favour.’
    ‘And what was this favour?’
    ‘It was his idea really.’
    ‘Come on, tell me what it was.’
    I felt irked that I had not been previously informed.
    ‘You know that big iron bar which is used for levering rocks?’
    ‘Of course I do.’
    ‘Jack Baker suggested it would make an ideal tethering post for a donkey.’
    ‘Reasonable enough.’
    ‘And so before we set off, just in case we
did
buy a donkey, I asked him to fix it.’
    ‘You seemed very certain in that case that we
would
buy a donkey.’
    ‘The only trouble is,’ she said, ignoring me, ‘that he couldn’t put it upright as the soil was too shallow. He therefore planned to anchor it into the ground horizontally, helped by a couple of big rocks at either end of the bar.’
    A journey into detail was unlike her. She was hiding something.
    ‘The bar,’ she went on, ‘is all in the ground except where the rope is tied. The other end of the rope we join to the halter we’ve brought with us. It means that Penny can’t run away.’
    We passed the jumble of farm buildings which stood at the top of the valley, then began to descend the last stretch to the cottage. And all the time Penny’s head rested firmly on my shoulder.
    ‘Whereabouts,’ I asked, ‘am I going to find this contraption?’
    ‘On the lawn.’
    I calmed myself. I kept my hands on the wheel. I said nothing.
    ‘I know what you’re