Haki the Shetland Pony Read online

Adam pulled a face but he said nothing. He loved to go down to the shore at Scalloway on a Saturday. The trawlers would have come in with the full tide and be moored at the fish quay. The fishermen stood smoking their pipes and yarning to each other. Down at the King Olaf slipway Ronald Sinclair was painting his boat The Dawn Wind and Adam’s friend Ian would be helping him. Usually Ronald gave them a brush apiece and they got the job of painting the outside of the wheel-house. Even if there was no painting to be done, the motorboat Tirrick usually took the tourists from the hotel a trip round the Island of Trondra. On Saturday there was a chance of a cruise among the sea-voes or firths to see the nesting birds on the cliffs or the seals basking on the rocks. Maybe Mr Smith might take Adam with him as deckhand as he sometimes did. There was always the odd sixpence or shilling to be earned, helping the tourists with their luggage when they arrived on the bus from Lerwick. Oh, there was plenty for a boy to do in Scalloway on a Saturday! If Magnus Cromarty had decided to cut the peats, though, then it was no use objecting. Peat cutting and stacking had to be done in fine weather and too often there were days of swirling mist in Shetland.

  The peat banks lie among the moors. The peat itself is like thick black earth, made by layer upon layer of decayed vegetation. It takes hundreds of years for a peat moss to be formed. It is really the beginning of coal. Like coal, peat will burn, though not so fast and not with a bright flame. It smoulders away for a long time. The islanders use it in place of coal. True, nowadays coal boats bring supplies of coal to Lerwick, and the folk there use electricity too. The crofters in the hills, however, find that coal is dear to buy and that it costs a lot to have it carted from the ports.

  “Anyway, what’s the use of paying good money for coal when we have our own peats almost at our door for the taking?” the thrifty Mrs Cromarty said, and Magnus agreed with her.

  Money was never too plentiful in the Cromarty family. None the less, they did not go hungry. On some days Magnus Cromarty went out with the fishing boats and he always brought herring or haddock back with him. Their small croft provided them with potatoes. Mrs Cromarty kept hens so there was now and again a fowl for boiling and eggs enough. Their field of barley gave them barley meal both for porridge and bursten broonies, the barley meal scones that she baked.

  “Make a lot of bursten broonies, Mother. We’ll be fair hungry when we come back from the peat cutting,” Adam begged.

  “Aye, they’ll be keeping warm in the oven for you,” she promised, “and there’ll be a fish pie, forbye.”

  “Adam’s hungry already,” Magnus laughed. “Come away, laddie! Time we were getting up to the peat banks!”

  Mrs Cromarty’s hands had already taken up her knitting needles. The needles were stuck in a padded leather belt round her waist and her knitting she carried in a bag-like apron. The minute she had finished any household job she rinsed her hands and dried them and straightaway her needles flew in and out with amazing speed. She was making a Shetland cardigan in fine wool with an intricate yoke pattern in several colours. She carried the pattern in her head, although it was complicated. It was a pattern she had learned as a girl at her mother’s knee, handed down from mother to daughter for many generations. Most Shetland women are skilled knitters, their hands never idle, even knitting as they go from one place to another, or while talking to friends. Mrs Cromarty sold her knitting to a shop in Lerwick, which sold it in turn to the tourists. Many Shetland women helped to keep their families by their knitting. In years to come, whenever Adam thought of his mother when he was far from the Shetlands, he saw her always with the flashing needles in her hands.

  Adam and Magnus set off for the peat banks on the Hill of Berry. It was still early morning and the world was wakening in the little town below them. Adam cast a regretful glance at the flagged wharf where the Trondra ferry was already waiting. The Island of Trondra lay green and fresh in the blue waters of the East Voe. White yachts lay at anchor in the tideway. Half-a-dozen small islets starred the bay. The sea creamed round the rocky shores of the Skerries and Green Holm and Merry Holm. Many was the time that Adam had pulled out in a boat to the islands taking holidaymakers to see the haunts of the seabirds, gannets and herring gulls, kittiwakes and shags.

  “Come on, Adam! Forget the sixpences you might have been earning from the tourists. There’ll be plenty more days for that during the school holidays.” Magnus laughed at his son. “The peat cutting’s the thing today if you don’t want to freeze this winter.”

  They reached the peat bank. The soil had been cut away to a depth of two feet, revealing the black peat.

  “Shall I be getting a turn with the tushkar?” Adam asked his father.

  The tushkar was a spade specially made for cutting peat. It had a wide sharp blade with a rim at the haft which prevented the peat from sliding off when it was lifted.

  “Aye, lad, you shall have a turn if you work hard at the stacking,” Magnus promised.

  He made two sharp cuts about ten inches apart, then cut a slice of peat about four inches thick neatly from between the two cuts. Magnus lifted and flung it to the top of the peat bank. Adam set it on edge. The next peat he set at right angles to the first one, making a kind of herring-bone pattern all along the edge of the peat bank. The wind would blow through the stacked peats and dry them.

  Adam and his father worked in silence. It was a tough job cutting peats and did not leave much breath for talking. Not till the sun was high in the sky did they stop for the bread and cheese and flask of tea that Mrs Cromarty had put up for them. They sat down under the shelter of a heather bank, out of the wind that so often blows in Shetland.

  Just as Adam was finishing the last crumbs of cheese he felt a gentle nuzzling at his neck. He looked round quickly and stood up. “Look who’s here!” he cried. It was Hecla with her foal.

  She tried to push her nose into Adam’s right-hand pocket while Haki nudged with his nose at Adam’s left side.

  “What are they after?” Magnus Cromarty asked, but there was an amused gleam in his eye that showed he had guessed.

  Adam shamefacedly drew a lump of sugar from each pocket and offered them in each hand to Hecla and Haki.

  His father laughed. “So that’s where your mother’s sugar has been going? She said we seemed to be getting through an awful lot. She thought you were the sweet-tooth.”

  “I’ll buy her a pound at the store if I earn any money from the tourists next week,” Adam promised.

  “Och, laddie, your mother’ll no’ grudge you a lump or two of sugar now and again for the ponies.”

  “Well, it’s not just ‘now and again.’ I take sugar to them every day,” Adam admitted honestly. “They each get two lumps. Watch this!” He held up two fingers and cried, “Haki! Two!” At once the colt came to Adam and reached his head up towards his hand. Adam gave him the second lump and rubbed his nose affectionately. The colt did not back away but licked his hand.

  “He seems well acquainted with you,” Magnus Cromarty remarked drily.

  Adam was suddenly encouraged to do a thing he had never attempted before. He slipped his left arm under the neck of the colt and his right arm over his back, holding Haki’s flank with his right hand. Haki was startled and tried to back away but Adam cuddled him more firmly. The colt felt he was imprisoned and flung his head up in the air and tried to buck, to get rid of Adam’s arm. His neck muscles grew taut. Adam held on, talking quietly.

  “Quiet, now, Haki! You’re all right, laddie! Nothing is going to hurt you. Keep still now!”

  Hecla watched warily, looking anxiously at the foal. Haki still tried to break away but Adam would not let him go. It was a contest of wills. He had to come out of it the winner if Haki was to learn obedience and have confidence in him. Then Adam had an inspiration. He hummed the tune he always whistled when he approached Hecla and Haki as he came up the hill. The foal pricked up his ears and ceased to struggle. This sound was something Haki knew, a pleasant sound that usually meant there would soon be the sweet taste
of sugar on his tongue. He struggled again but not so violently as he had done at first. He ceased to buck and curve his back, though he still stretched his neck upwards tensely.

  “Steady now, Haki!” Adam said quietly. With his left hand he stroked the tightened muscles of the little animal’s throat, singing softly to him the tune he knew so well.

  The little colt began to relax but Adam did not let go his hold. Haki began to like the soothing feel of Adam’s hand at his throat. He no longer trembled. His throat muscles slackened. At last he stood still and passive in Adam’s encircling arms. He gave a gently whinny and nosed at Adam’s hands. He had found out that, though Adam held him so he could not break away, no harm had come to him, but rather comfort and love.

  “You’ve mastered him, Adam,” Magnus Cromarty said with approval. “He’s learned a lesson he’ll not forget. He’s yours now.”

  Adam let go his hold on the colt and plunged his hand into his pocket and brought out the rewarding lump of sugar and held it out to Haki. “Three!” he said. “Three, Haki!”

  “Mercy me, lad! You’ll have the animal counting next!”

  “I mean to!” Adam replied quite seriously. “Already he knows he gets two lumps of sugar when I visit them on the hill. Soon he’ll learn he gets a third lump when he’s quiet and obedient when I handle him.”

  “It’s not a pound of sugar but a sackful you’ll need to buy for your mother,” Magnus chuckled. “You’d better get a job for the holidays on Mr Smith’s boat.”

  For another couple of hours they continued cutting the peats. Hecla and Haki still hung around and watched them. Mr Cromarty stopped wielding his tushkar for a minute.

  “You know, Adam, it might be a good idea to let Haki see his mother being led down the hill to the croft. It would get him used to seeing her in a halter with a leading rein. Then when the time comes for him to wear a halter, it will not seem a strange thing. Animals have more intelligence than folk think. Away with you down to the croft and fetch a halter up.”

  Adam went fleeing down the hill as fast as his legs would carry him while his father carried on cutting the peats. Adam soon returned carrying the halter and leading rein. Hecla and Haki were still grazing beside the peat bank. Adam whistled his tune and both the mare and the foal lifted their heads at once. They came to him at his call. Hecla seemed rather surprised when Adam strapped the halter on to her head and attached the leading rein to the swivel ring but she made no resistance. Haki watched with great eyes and gave an uncertain whinny and dived under his mother.

  “The colt’s a bit nervous of what you’re doing,” Magnus said, “but it’s time Hecla got used to working again too. Her holiday has lasted long enough. Lead her down the hill, Adam.”

  “Come away, Hecla!” Adam gave a tug at the rein and Hecla shook off Haki impatiently and followed Adam. Haki stood still for a minute, then rushed to fall in at Hecla’s heels.

  Magnus Cromarty shouldered his tushkar. “You can come back after your supper and stack what’s left of the peats,” he told Adam. “Take Hecla right down to the stable and into it.”

  “Will you be keeping her there the night?” Adam asked in surprise. The mare was rarely kept in the stable. She usually roamed the hill.

  “No. You can drive her up the hill again after supper. We shall have to fasten Haki in the stable for a while when it comes to the weaning of him.”

  “But that will not be for three months at least yet,” Adam pointed out.

  “True! It is a good thing, though, to let him be seeing the stable and getting used to being in it now and again. Then, when the time comes for him to leave his mother, he will not be so scared of the place and try to kick his way out of it.”

  The colt followed the little procession down the Hill of Berry. More than once he stopped and whinnied as though to say that he wished to be fed. Adam led Hecla on firmly and Haki caught up with her in a rush of his long thin legs.

  At last they reached the stable. Hecla hesitated a moment as if she, too, felt that she was losing her freedom. A sharp tug at her halter brought her into the stable. The foal nickered with fear at the thought of entering the narrow place, so different from the wide hillside. He was even more fearful of losing the comfort of his mother, however, so he plunged after her out of the sunlight. Adam tied up Hecla so she was quite comfortable and rubbed her nose and patted her shoulder. Haki dashed at once to feed from his mother, not so much because he was hungry as for the comfort of the warm feel of her milk in his mouth.

  “Give Hecla a small feed of oats and leave them in the stable while you have your supper,” Magnus told Adam. “Away in, lad! I can smell your mother’s good baking out here.”

  Mrs Cromarty lifted the bursten broonies from the flat “girdle,” like a frying pan without a rim, which swung by a chain over the fire. Then she took the fish pie, rich with cheese, from the fireside oven, while Adam and his father washed away the peat grime from hands and faces at the kitchen sink. They sat down at the deal table with the white linen cloth to eat their simple supper that was fit for a king.

  3. Haki Leaves his Mother

  The summer slipped by quickly for both Adam and Haki. Adam watched Haki thrive and grow from a tiny pony not much bigger than a dog till he was more than half the size of Hecla. Every day Adam visited them on the hillside where they roamed freely. Haki soon came bounding down the hill to meet him, often in advance of Hecla.

  Adam handled the colt every day. After a while he ceased to struggle at all and seemed to welcome the feel of Adam’s arms about him and liked to hear Adam’s soothing gentle voice.

  Adam tried a new exercise with Haki. With his hand resting on Haki’s cheek and the other hand on his neck, he gently turned the colt’s head from right to left. Next he shifted his hands and moved the head from left to right. At first Haki’s muscles stiffened with nervousness and he snorted and shook his head. Adam tried again. He repeated the movements several times, talking quietly all the time.

  “Haki, you silly colt! Don’t you know I’m trying to help you? Some day you’ll have to submit to a halter and bridle. This will make it easier for you when the time comes. You will have learned to turn your head where I want you to go and we shall understand each other better. Quiet, now, Haki!” He stroked the little pony’s muzzle.

  Before long Haki permitted Adam to handle him without any signs of fear. When Haki stayed quiet and happy under his hands Adam was ready to try another kind of handling.

  “When you are frightened, Haki, you strike out with your legs and hooves. You must learn to let me touch these too without striking at me,” Adam told him.

  Adam started rubbing at Haki’s shoulder, moving his hand in a widening circle. Haki liked this petting. He stood still. Adam massaged Haki lightly from the shoulder to the knee. Still Haki did not move. Pressing gently, Adam moved his hand downwards from the knee to the fetlock, cupping the bone there in his hand. This time Haki picked up his foot rather sharply but Adam had been expecting this and he held on. Haki looked rather helplessly at him, not knowing what to do. He could not kick when Adam held on so firmly and he needed the other foot to stand on. He fidgeted a little and tried to move backwards but Adam retained his grip. He talked kindly to the pony. All at once Haki knew he did not want to kick Adam; that he liked Adam to talk to him and handle him. Confidence grew between them.

  One day Adam put his arm over Haki’s back and tapped him gently on the flank.

  “Come with me, Haki!” he said and pulled on the animal’s neck. At first Haki stood stock-still, not knowing what was required of him. The slight pull on his neck urged him forwards.

  “Come!” Adam’s voice was insistent. Haki took a step or two forward with Adam’s arm about his neck.

  “That’s the way of it, Haki! That’s the way!” Adam was delighted. “When you are ready for a halter you will have little fear of it. Now you must learn to stop, too, when I tell you.”

  Adam was carrying a short stick. It was one his fath
er used to urge along the sheep and ponies, but Adam would never dream of striking Haki with it. Instead he held it in front of the little animal and said “Stop!” At the same time he held Haki back by the arm around his neck.

  Haki backed, reared a little and clattered his hooves.

  “Quiet now, lad! You did as I told you. Good, Haki! Good! We’ll try it again soon, and next time you’ll not be so startled.”

  Down the hill they went together, Adam’s arm still about Haki. The little colt did not attempt to break loose. This time Adam swung the stick so that Haki could see it and get used to it. Once again he brought it up like a bar before Haki and called, “Stop!” This time, though Haki clattered his hooves, he did not try to rear. He stopped with chest against the stick and snorted and shook his head, impatient at the restraint.

  Again and again they moved forward and Adam halted the animal by the stick as a bar. Always he gave the word, “Stop, Haki!” at the same time. Soon Haki had grown to know both the stick and the word of command.

  For several days Adam practised this exercise with Haki. The colt learned to stop obediently and not to fidget too much. Then, one day Adam did not hold the stick in front of him but called “Stop, Haki!” and Haki did as he was told.

  “Yes, boy, you’ll take kindly to the halter,” Adam said. But it was not the time for the halter yet. Haki had first to be weaned. He still plunged to Hecla for comfort and warm milk, though every day he grew more independent. He cropped the sparse grass and the heather shoots alongside Hecla. He followed her down to the shore. Together they munched at the moss-like seaweed which grew on the rocks and which every Shetland pony likes to eat. They browsed along the fringe of seaweed washed up by the tide. Haki gambolled over the sand in wider and wider circles round his mother, no longer afraid to leave her side. Hecla still kept a wary eye on him and went after him when she thought he was becoming too venturesome. She was growing a little impatient of him, though, and of his continual demands for her milk. When she thought he had had enough she shook him aside and moved on to another patch of grass.