“They tell me that in France there is a palace – a fairy palace; and in that court, long mournful and deserted, there is a Hall of Lost Footsteps, the Salle des Pas Perdus, where ghosts dance at night. But this dance amongst the oak-woods was a dance of joyous memories. If no feet were in the footgear, the shoes but danced more lightly. And what shoes were not there? Shoes of fact and fable! Queen amongst the dancers was a tiny glass slipper – footing it, footing it – in minuet and stately gavotte. She danced with a cavalier boot; a high boot with brown leather top. Step it, step it, high boot! Step it, little glass slipper! The chimes will call you at midnight; ‘Cinderella’s carriage stops the way! Room for the Marquis, the Grand Marquis of Carabas! Make way for Puss-in-Boots!’ These two danced one-and-one; but beside them danced a pair – Goody-two-shoes’ little red slippers. How they did jet it, jet it, jet it in and out! And round about them danced other shoes, other shoes dancing in hundreds. Broad shoes of slashed cloth; and long-toed shoes with bells, that danced the milkmaid’s morris; buckled shoes, and high-heeled shoes; jack-boots, and buskins, and shoes of spanish leather, and pumps and satin sandals that jigged in and out together.

“And round about them – clump, clump, clump! – danced Mistress Heelis’ clog, clog dancing like a good one, with Joshy Campbell’s dinner-box and the tall green gingham umbrella!

“Only those two were different; all the other dancers were shoes; and the main of them were horseshoes – shoes of all the brave horses that ever were shod, in the good old days of the road. There were little shoes of galloways, and light shoes of thoroughbreds, and great shoes of Clydesdales; and the biggest were the wagoners! On they came galloping, Ha halloo! Ha halloo! (Brill, the foxhound, lifted up her voice – Ha halloo, ha halloo!) – galloping, galloping, Black Nag come galloping! Hark to the timber wagons thundering down the drift road!” shouted Mettle, banging on the anvil, “hark the ringing music of the horseshoes – here’s—

“‘Tap, tap, tappitty! trot, trot, trod!

Sing Dolly’s little shoes, on the hard high road!

Sing Quaker Daisey’s sober pace,

Sing high-stepping Peter, for stately grace.

Phoebe and Blossom, sing softly and low, dear dead horses of long ago;

Jerry and Snowdrop; black Jet and brown

Tom and Cassandra, the pride of the town;

Bobby and Billy gray, Gypsy and Nell;

More bonny ponies than I can tell;

Prince and Lady, Mabel and Pet;

Rare old Diamond, and Lofty and Bet.’

“Now for the wagoners! Hark to the trampling of the wagoners!” shouted Mettle, banging on the anvil – “here’s—

“‘Dick, Duke, Sally, and Captain true,

Wisest of horses that ever wore shoe,

Shaking the road from the ditch to the crown,

When the thundering, lumbering larch comes down.’

“Ah, good old days! ah, brave old horses! Sing loud, sing louder, good dogs!” barked Mettle, “sing, Pony Billy; sing up old Queenie, thou last of the nags! Sing the right words, dogs, none of that twaddle! Now sing all together; Keep time to the bellows—

“‘D’ye ken John Peel with his coat so gay?

D’ye ken John Peel at the break of day?

D’ye ken John Peel when he’s far, far away,

With his hounds and his horn in the morning.

“’Twas the sound of his horn call’d me from my bed.

And the cry of his hounds has me oft times led;

For Peel’s view halloa would ’waken the dead,

Or a fox from his lair in the morning.’”

Louder and merrier rose the hunting chorus, floating round the rafters with the eddying smoke from the forge. Till the Big Folk, that slept up above in Anvil Cottage, turned on their feather beds and dreamed that they were fox hunting.

CHAPTER XVIII

The Woods by Moonlight

The moon had risen by the time that Pony Billy – properly shod – trotted away from the village smithy to fetch Mary Ellen. The empty tilt-cart rattled at his heels; jumping forward into the harness like a live thing downhill; trundling gaily along the level. The pebbles on the road sparkled in the dazzling moonlight. Pony Billy blew puffs of white breath from his nostrils, and he stepped high – tap-tap-tappitty! prancing to the tune of the smithy song.

He amused himself with step-dancing over the shadows of the hedgerow trees; black shadows flung across the silver road from hedge-bank to hedge. Down below in the reed beds a wild duck was quacking. A roe-deer barked far off in Gallop Wood. White mist covered the Dub; the woods lay twinkling in the moonlight.

Up hill and down hill, Pony Billy trotted on and on; and the woods stretched mile after mile. The tall, straight tree-trunks gleamed in white ranks; trees in hundreds of thousands. Pony Billy glanced skeerily [45] right and left. Almost he seemed to hear phantom galloping horseshoes, as his own shoes pattered on the road. Almost he seemed to see again the fairy dancers of Mettle’s story by the forge.

Shadows of a shadow! Was that the shadow of a little hooded figure, flitting across a forest ride? and a dark prowling shadow that followed her? Was the trotting shadow on the road beside him the shadow of himself? Or was it the shadow of another pony? A little bay pony in a pony trap, with an old woman and a bob-tailed dog, caught in a snowstorm in the woods?

But this white road was not white with snow; and they were real overtaking footsteps that caused Pony Billy to spring forward with a start of panic. Three roe-deer cantered by. Their little black hoofs scarcely touched the ground, so lightly they bounded along. They made playful grunting noises, and dared Pony Billy to catch them; he arched his neck and trotted his best, while he “hinnied” in answer to the deer. They bore him merry company for longer than a mile; sometimes gambolling alongside; sometimes cantering on before.

ONCE THEY SAW TWO STRANGE DWARFY FIGURES.

On and on they travelled; through many miles of woods. Past the black firs; past the sele bushes [42] in the swamp; past the grove of yew trees on the crags; past the big beech trees; uphill and down. Sometimes a rabbit darted across their path. And once they saw two strange dwarfy figures crossing the road in front of them – stumpy, waddling figures, broad as they were long; running, running. The second trundled a handbarrow; the foremost pulled it with a rope – there go the Oakmen! Are those pissamoor [35] hills in the glade? or are they tiny charcoal settings on the pit-steads? [36] The gambolling roe-deer kick up their heels. They know the weight of Oakman Huddikin’s sledge in winter! But this is spring. The dwarfy red-capped figures, running like two little fat badgers, disappeared in the moonlight behind the Great Oak.

At length the woods grew thinner. There began to be moonlit clearings; small parrocks [33] where the Big Folk last summer had hung white streamers on sticks, to scare the red stags from the potato drills. The friendly roe-deer turned aside and left him, leaping a roadside fence, with a flicker of white scuts.

Pony Billy by himself reached a lonely farm-steading; he was pleasantly warm after his long brisk trot. He turned up a narrow yard between manure heaps and a high stone building, that showed a white-washed front to the moon. He passed the doors of byres. Sleepy cows mooed softly; their warm sweet breath smelled through the door-slats. A ring-widdie [39] clinked, as a cow turned her head to listen to the wheels.