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pippin-round wife Phoebe, and was steward, horseman, and friend to the Careys. It was his proudest boast that so long as there had been a Carey at Lovacott, there had been a Honeychurch to serve him. And indeed, to look at him, one might have though that it had been the same Honey-church all that time, for he was as gnarled as any thorn root, and skin, hair and clothes alike were the colour of drought-parched earth. Chancing to look up into the orchard at that moment, he caught sight of the two boys and waved, shouting something.
    Simon cupped his hands and shouted back, ‘Can’t hear!’
    ‘Rizpah!’ bellowed Diggory, also making a trumpet of his hands. ‘Foal!’
    ‘It’s
come
?’ yelled Simon.
    ‘Yiss!’
    Simon was afoot in an instant and racing down the hill. ‘It’s Rizpah’s foal!’ he shouted over his shoulder to Amias, who came hurtling after him. ‘It’s come, after all!’ and he flung himself down through the russets and mazard cherry trees of the lower orchard, and through the wicket gate into the garden close.
    Rizpah was his father’s sorrel mare, and his father had promised him the expected foal to replace the odd-job pony for which he would soon be getting too big. It would be the first horse of his own that he had ever possessed; and he had hoped, and prayed and wished on the new moon that it might arrive before he had to go away to school. He had almost given up hope; and now Rizpah had done it for him, after all. With a triumphant shout he hurtled in at the open kitchen door, across the hall and out into the courtyard, with Amias racing at his winged heels; and the startled doves exploded upward in a flurry as he swerved stableward, skidding on the cobbles.
    Diggory was there before them and holding the half-door shut, having scuttled back from the farmyard for the purpose. ‘Softly now!’ he scolded, as they came to a panting halt before him. ‘Do ’ee want to startle the poor li’l toad from here to Kingdom Come?’
    ‘Is it a filly or a colt?’ demanded Simon, edging round him.
    ‘Proper fine li’l colt. Yiss, ’ee can go in now—like Christians, mind!’ and the old man let go of the half-door. The two boys went in like Christians. ‘There!’ said Diggory. ‘You won’t see a finer foal nor that in a month of Sundays! Will ’em, Rizpah, my maid?’
    Rizpah stood where the last rays of the westering sun, slanting into her stall through the doorway, fell full on her satiny rust-red flank: not for nothing had she been named Rizpah, which means a hot coal. Her long neck was curved as she nuzzled at the newborn foal standing on tottering legs beside her, and her eyes were huge and soft.
    ‘’Oppin’ about and suckin’ already!’ said Diggory, with a satisfied chuckle, as the foal butted against his mother, tail awag like a brown feather behind his narrow little rump.
    ‘Rizpah,’ said Simon, ‘he’s a beauty!’
    The mare swung her gentle head towards him, nickering softly with pleasure as he drew his hand down her nose; then she turned her attention to her son once more.
    Simon did the same, surveying the little creature with the warm pride of ownership. Only one thing disappointed him. ‘I hoped he’d be really red, like Rizpah.’
    Diggory snorted. ‘Now did ’ee ever see a foal borned the colour ’twas going to be when ’twas growed?’ He put his old gnarled hands on either side of the little thing as it drew back from its mother, and turned it into the light, while the two boys crowded closer and the mare looked on anxiously. ‘Look at the red glint in his coat. He’m be so red as his dam in a few months—redder. He’m be so red as any fox that ever stole a goose, by the time he’m growed, sure ’nough. Look close—there where the light ketches ’un.’
    Simon and Amias looked, and saw that sure enough there was a red glint in the soft apricot-buff of the foal’s coat. His muzzlewas like dark velvet, white-flecked just now with his mother’s milk;