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 father 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.
“The time is coming for the colt to be weaned,” Magnus Cromarty decided. “We will wait till the peats have been brought in.”
All summer the work had gone on of stacking and turning the peats for the wind to dry them. By early September it was time to carry the peats to the croft and store them in the lean-to beside the house.
“Bring Hecla down from the hill,” Magnus told Adam. “Take up the halter for her.”
When Hecla saw Adam approaching with the halter in his hand she knew that her spell of liberty was over. She kicked up her heels and disappeared over the heather knoll.
Adam laughed. “All right, my lassie! I know a trick to make you obey.” He paused at the top of the heather knoll and called, not for Hecla, but Haki.
Haki had gone bounding after Hecla but at the sound of Adam’s voice, he faltered and turned.
“Come back, Hecla!” Adam shouted, but Hecla paid no heed.
“Come, Haki!” Adam called next.
Haki looked from one to the other, torn between the instinct to follow his mother and the habit of obedience to Adam. In the end it was Adam who won. Haki turned away from Hecla and trotted down the hillside towards the boy.
“Good lad! Good Haki!” Adam rewarded him with a lump of sugar.
Hecla watched her colt. She saw Adam hold the sugar to Haki’s mouth and she was filled with jealousy. Back she came, plunging down the hill. She made straight for Adam’s pocket and pushed her son out of the way. Quick as lightning Adam had the halter over her head and the halter shank snapped in place. Adam held the halter lead in his right hand and pushed at her withers.
Hecla knew she was beaten. She fell into step beside Adam and Haki followed behind. Adam led them to the farm.
“Was Hecla a bit fresh?” Magnus Cromarty asked.
“Aye. She’s no’ liking the thought of work again,” Adam grinned.
“These beasts are nigh human,” Magnus agreed. “Weel, put the kishies on her and we’ll be off to the peat banks to lift the peats.”
The kishies were two deep pannier baskets that were strapped across Hecla’s back, one hanging on each side. Once Hecla had submitted to the halter, she made no fuss about the kishies. She nodded her head up and down a few times as if to say, “What’s the use of bothering?”
All that day Adam led Hecla up to the peat banks, loaded the kishies and guided Hecla back to the croft. Haki followed his mother, stopping when Adam and Hecla stopped, watching curiously while the peats were loaded into the baskets.
When the day’s work was over Hecla and Haki were turned loose to graze on the hillside again.
For several days the loading of the peats went on. Other crofters came with their ponies to their neighbouring peat banks too. There was a regular procession up and down the hill. At last the evening came when the last of the peats were brought in.
“The foal is big enough to look after himself now,” Magnus Cromarty said. “You take Haki and shut him up in the stable. I’ll drive Hecla back up the hill. Later on, when Haki has settled down a bit, you can give him a mash of oats and bran and a drink of cow’s milk.”
Adam put his arm about Haki and gave the command the pony knew so well, “Come, Haki!” Obediently Haki followed him into the stable. Adam gave him his lump of sugar then bolted the bottom half-door of the stable, leaving the top half open. Haki had been used to coming into the stable with Hecla while the kishies were emptied, so the stable was no new place to him. He looked round, though, to see if Hecla was coming in too. When he found the half-door of the stable shut, he tried to poke his head over the top, but he was still too small to do that. He pranced on his hind legs and caught a glimpse of Adam disappearing into the house. Now the colt knew indeed that he was alone. He whinnied with indignation. He had never been locked in a stable before.
Adam heard Haki’s whinny and he hesitated with his foot on the doorstep. He turned and went back. For a while he leaned over the half-door, talking to the colt. Haki tossed his head questioningly and clattered his hooves.
“It’s all right, Haki! You’ll not be here alone for long. It’s just till you get used to growing up and being away from Hecla. I’ll be bringing you your supper soon.”
Haki quietened down while Adam talked to him and nosed along to sniff at Adam’s hand. When Adam left him the colt soon became restive again. Hecla was shut into the hill field behind the farm, hemmed in by wire fence and gate. She neighed after her colt. Haki heard her and whinnied in return, clattering with his hooves at the half-door.
The neighing and whinnying went on like call and echo. Adam ate his supper in silence, listening and looking unhappy.
“The colt’s not settling down very well,” Magnus Cromarty remarked. “Take him his mash as soon as you’ve eaten your meal, Adam. Maybe he’ll quieten down when his stomach is full. He’ll be missing Hecla’s milk.”
Adam hastened over his last mouthful and left the table. In the back-kitchen he stirred a mash of oats and bran into a soft paste. Then he warmed milk in a pan and poured it into a clean scrubbed pail.
He set down the two pails near the stable door. Haki heard his footsteps and was waiting, poised for flight. As soon as the half-door was opened, he bolted out. Adam was standing in his way. Though he was almost knocked over by the colt’s rush, his arms went out and grabbed Haki round the neck. Haki reared and pranced, but Adam held on.
“Quiet! Quiet now, Haki!” he implored him.
The little animal was driven frantic by his need for Hecla and he lashed out with his small hooves. One of them caught Adam on the knee but luckily he was only slightly cut. Adam held on. Haki whinnied again, a whinny like a whimpering child.
“Oh, Haki! Haki!” Adam almost sobbed, but he would not let go of the struggling colt. At last, rubbing and stroking Haki’s shoulders he went through the movements the colt knew so well. Haki became quieter. Adam scarcely dared to hope the pony would obey him but he turned Haki’s head towards the stables and urged him on.
“Go in, Haki! Go in!”
The habit of obedience was strong in Haki. Of his own accord he turned and walked back into the stable. Adam snatched up the two pails and followed him. He was only barely aware of his victory.
Adam put the bucket of warm milk before Haki. He thrust the colt’s nose into it. Haki lifted his head, looked surprised, but licked his lips. Another second and he had his nose down in the bucket. When Adam thought he had had enough, he took it away and put the pail of bran mash in its place. Haki sniffed at the bran mash. It was new to him but it smelt good. He licked at it with his rough tongue. Strange food, but Adam had set it before him and he trusted Adam! Soon he began to eat.
Adam reached down an armful of straw for bedding. When he fastened the stable door behind him, the colt was already comfortably settled among it.
In the middle of the night Adam awoke with a jerk. There was a plaintive whinnying coming from the stable, a lost child crying for the warmth of his mother. Adam listened a while, then could bear it no longer. He jumped from his bed and threw on his clothes. Adam paused at the top of the narrow steep staircase. From his parents’ room came only the sound of their deep breathing. He tiptoed down the stairs and held his breath as he turned the key in the squeaky lock. Another instant and he had crossed the threshold. He pulled the door shut behind him and crossed through the shaft of moonlight that lay across the open yard of the croft. This time he took care to open the stable door only sufficiently to let him squeeze in, so that Haki could not go charging past him. Once in, he opened the top half-door so he could seen the colt by the moon’s light.
Haki stood there, unhappy, trembling a little. He was like a child who had wakened alone in a strange place. Adam’s arms went round him.
“You poor wee creature! You can’t think what’s happened to you and you want your mother,” Adam whispered to him. “Stop shaking now. I’m staying with you. You’ll always have me.” There was a fierce determination in Adam’s voice.
Haki grew still again and Adam knelt among the straw, drawing the little animal down beside him.
When Magnus Cromarty found them early next morning, they were both asleep. Adam lay with his arms about the colt’s neck and Haki’s muzzle was against Adam’s cheek. Magnus smiled at little: then he shook his head.
“Aye, laddie, you set great store by your pony,” he said under his breath. “But is doesna do. It doesna do to get over fond of a beast. It comes the harder when you have to part.”
He wakened Adam with great gentleness.
In the months that followed, Haki ran in the fields with the other young ponies belonging to other crofts. Hecla joined the mares on the rough hillside pasture. Even when the winter gales swept Shetland the ponies stayed out in the open. They pawed at the ground and freed the heather and grass from a light covering of snow. Only when the frost overlaid the snow like a sheet of iron did Magnus Cromarty bring the animals down to the croft to give them hay.
Little by little the image of his mother faded from Haki’s mind. He loved racing around and the rough-and-tumble with other colts. He learned to stand his ground, too, and to rear on his hind legs and lash out with his forefeet if other ponies seemed aggressive.
Hecla, too, began to forget Haki. In the spring she would have another colt to mother. A quiet life browsing with the other mares suited her well as the winter wore on.
There was never a day went by but Adam visited Haki on the hillside. Even in the winter dark when Haki heard his voice he left the other ponies and came bounding to Adam. Adam always stroked and patted him, turning his head this way and that and lifting one foot after another. Adam invented new games for them. He would lift the right forefoot and call out “One!” Then he numbered off each foot in turn like a drill sergeant. The time came when Haki found fun in the game for himself. When Adam cried “Three!” up would come his right leg from the ground.
Adam taught him “Right!” and “Left!” too and when he rapped out these commands Haki would turn of his own accord.
There was another exercise that Haki loved. Adam had learned as a small boy to play the bagpipes. Magnus Cromarty was a powerful piper himself and had taught Adam to play as soon as he was old enough to handle a chanter. Adam had a natural gift for music and he often took the pipes up the hillside to practise. Haki learned to associate the sound of the bagpipes with Adam. He came cantering to Adam whenever he heard them. Often, as Adam marched up and down playing, Haki followed at his heels, turning when Adam turned. This gave Adam another idea.
“It seems you like music too, Haki. Could I not be teaching you to march?”
Adam began by whistling ‘Scotland the Brave’ and taking Haki’s forefeet in his hands and drumming them up and down to the beat of the tune. Soon Haki began to paw and drum whenever he heard the same tune. Before long, when Adam picked up the pipes and played and marched, Haki moved his little hooves to the beat of the music and marched too.
“Adam’s playing that tune a mighty lot,” Mrs Cromarty remarked one day when the skirl of Adam’s music came to her from the hillside.
“He has a reason,” Magnus Cromarty grinned. “Come you to the door, and you will see for yourself.”
Mrs Cromarty stood at the door and shielded her eyes from the glare of the setting sun. Along the ridge of the hill marched Adam, playing his pipes, and after him, his feet keeping time with Adam’s and with the rhythm of the music, pranced Haki!
“I would never have believed it possible. The lad’s bewitched the wee beast,” she exclaimed. “It’s an uncannylike thing, that!”
“Uncanny it may be but the lad has a wonderful power over the colt. He’s trained him to do other things too and never a halter nor rope near the animal,” Magnus declared.
“I’m not so sure that I like Adam to be so wrapped up in that pony. He is not as much with other lads in Scalloway on Saturdays now. Ian Sinclair comes up here, it’s true, but Adam does not go and work on The Dawn Wind as he used to do,” Mrs Cromarty remarked.
“Fegs! There’s not much doing down at the shipyard in the winter months. Wait till the geese start flying north and Ian’s brother begins the painting again on the ship. You’ll find Adam will be down with them and forgetting the colt.”
“Maybe you’re right, but I have a queer feeling here about it.” She touched her heart. “There is something tells me that Adam will never be parted from Haki, come what may!”
In the spring Magnus Cromarty was busy with the lambing. He brought the ewes down from the cold hillside so that they could give birth to their lambs in the comfort of the shed near to the croft. For days the farm echoed to the plaintive bleating of lambs.
Sometimes, when the wind from the Arctic blew like a knife over Shetland, the newborn lambs had to be brought into the warm kitchen if they were to survive. Many a day Adam returned from school to find his mother feeding a lamb from a baby’s feeding bottle. Up on the hillside, though, the Shetland ponies scraped away snow to find the new springing heather shoots. Hecla was coming near the time when she would have another foal.
One day, when Adam was sitting at his homework, he heard his parents talking in the back-kitchen.
“There will soon be too many ponies for them all to find food on the hillside,” Magnus Cromarty remarked. “Some of them will have to go to Lerwick to the pony sales. There will likely be buyers from Scotland and England too.”
“Will you be taking the boy’s pony?” Mrs Cromarty sounded anxious.
“Not yet. We can wait another year or so till he is bigger. He is a good colt, though. He would bring in a lot of money.”
“But you gave him to Adam,” Mrs Cromarty reminded her husband.
“Aye, aye, so I did, but maybe the boy could be using the money to help him on in the world. It will not be long now before he leaves the school. Then he must find a job. It might be that he will go into the office of a shipping company in Lerwick, now, or into a bank. That means he will need a good decent suit of dark cloth and where is the money to come from to provide that? It’s little enough that I make off the farm nowadays.”
“Would you not want Adam to help you on the croft?” his wife asked.
“Och, woman, what future is there in that? Adam may want to marry when he grows older. There is little enough from the farm to keep one family, let alone two. No, it is out into the world Adam must go.”
“I cannot see Adam sitting in an office or a bank. He has always been a lad for the animals and the outdoor work. Maybe, though, you could get a job for him on the trawlers, fishing?”
“Maybe. I will be speaking with Ronald Sinclair, though he was saying they will not be able to take on more than one or two lads.”
Adam flew out of the door and up the hillside. He had hardly breath left to whistle and call Haki. When the pony came to him his arms went round it in a fierce protective hug.
“They shall never take you away from me, Haki! Never! And I will not go to Lerwick or in a fishing boat where I shall be parted from you and you will forget me! I will not!”