Initially he'd worried in case the builder damaged it. After that he'd worried because it was now officially inside the new people's boundary and how, he said, was he going to get in to examine it? In order to be obliging the new people had accordingly fenced off the land under which the tank lay into a sort of little lane so that he could examine it whenever he liked. On reference to the maps it had in any case been discovered that the doctor's predecessor had, twenty years before, unwittingly put the tank under a right of way to a disused quarry, and nobody in their senses would have a right of way through their garden in a village for a moment longer than they could help. And now the doctor was worried about that.
Tradesmen's vans, seeing a convenient turning lane suddenly opened up to them, started to reverse in it. Twice the doctor had gone out at night and found a courting couple parked in a car in it. Supposing they went through the concrete cover, he demanded, and was not one whit comforted by Father Adams' observation that he didn't suppose they'd like it very much either.
The doctor said it ought to be barricaded to protect his tank. The village said he couldn't block a right of way, he couldn't, 'twas against the law, and watched hopefully from its windows to see if he did. The doctor put a couple of boulders pillar-wise in the entrance and, confident on the one hand that the tank was safe while people could still walk the right of way if they wanted to, was now worrying on the other in case a car backed into the boulders, as everybody predicted, and claimed on him for damage. Made life interestin', din' it? commented Sidney.
Down in the valley life was equally interesting. Annabel was growing up. She was, which we very much regretted, beginning to lose her coat. She'd rubbed a good two inches off her fringe on the paddock wire and now we could see her eyes. Beautiful eyes they were. Dark, demure, slanted with a doe-eyed softness that was quite enchanting. Except when she was feeling stubborn about something and showed the whites of them at us.
Charles said she'd probably been doing that under cover of her fringe ever since we'd had her. Maybe she had. All I know is that Annabel rolling her eyes at me incognito was one thing. Annabel rolling her eyes so I could see them, with what remained of her fringe sticking rakishly up on top like the comb of a rebellious cockatoo, was very definitely another. When we went for walks for the next few weeks, even though it was summer and people stared, I wore a duffle coat, gum boots and gardening gloves, kept a weather eye open when she was behind me, and felt a whole lot safer.
Meanwhile Annabel was beginning to evolve at the other end, too. By dint of industriously rubbing her rear on a convenient ash tree she'd worn down her coat until from her woolly brown pantaloons there were beginning to emerge the smooth grey rump and slender legs of a young she-donkey. A little odd-looking when one viewed her from behind. Rather on the lines of a statue appearing inch by inch from a block of somewhat woolly stone. Far more graceful than we would have expected – she was, we told each other with pride, while yet we regretted the passing of her baby Shetland look, going to be a very attractive filly donkey. And at the same time strangely touching.
Touching in that when we walked behind her and watched those sturdy young legs trudging along with the typical forward-leaning stance of the donkey, as though already she was pulling some heavy load, we could see all the donkeys through the ages in her small but powerful gait. Plodding the deserts and the mountain tracks. Young and strong and eager when they started; weary, beaten and defeated when they were old. The donkey, which has been –and in some countries still is – the worst-treated of all animals by man.
That, we said at such poignant moments, hastening to fondle her ears and rub her nose while Annabel stood demurely between us contriving to look Worse Treated than Anybody by reason of the fact that we now put a halter on her when she went out, would never happen to our little donkey. Our little donkey was going to stay with us for ever.
You bet she was. Our little donkey, in a few short weeks, had us where she wanted us as surely as if she was a Siamese cat. She wouldn't even wear her halter the way it was meant to go, which was round her nose and behind her ears. When we put it on like that she stood stock still, closed her eyes, and refused to budge. She didn't, we were given to understand from her coy but firm expression, like things on her nose.
We thought it rather sweet the first time, when we lifted her fringe to reason with her and there underneath was Annabel with her eyes shut. We didn't think it nearly so sweet when we tried it after she lost her fringe and she still closed her eyes the moment we put the halter on. Now her objection was obvious to the world and while we were trying to reason with her invariably somebody would come along and say, Look at that donkey with its eyes shut, and somebody else would say, Poor little thing, fancy treating it like that, and then they'd glare at us and we would sigh and take the halter off and put it on again the way which Annabel approved. Round her neck in a big loose loop, as she'd worn her rope when she came to us. Making her look – seeing that we'd bought her a show halter which was wide and white and noticeable – as if she was to be shot at dawn. And so we would set forth. Annabel trudging meekly between us like a miniature Burgher of Calais, people looking compassionately at her as we passed – and he hoped, Charles informed Annabel grimly, that she was happy.
She was. She was even happier when, unable to stand being looked at as if we were executioners any longer, we decided the time had come to try her without a halter at all.
Annabel following us freely round the countryside was like a dream. True it was offset by intermittent nightmares when we went near traffic roads or through the village and Annabel had to go on her rope for safety. Then – by way of rebellion even at that slight restriction now that for most of the time she ran free – she drooped and wilted on the end of it in a way that turned us hot and cold with embarrassment. Usually outside people's cottages, where we reached a state of complete impasse because the only form of persuasion that worked with Annabel in circumstances like these was to smack her bottom.
If we smacked it by hand a cloud of cement dust rose from her coat, our hands went numb, and Annabel, her nose sunk dreamily in a clump of toadflax on somebody's wall, informed us via the stolid set of her rump that she hadn't felt a thing. If we smacked it with the halter-end Annabel moved at once, but with such a downcast droop of her head and a tucking-in of her tail – in case, we understood, we Beat Her Again – that we hated ourselves on the spot.
Whichever we did we could depend on somebody appearing immediately in a doorway with a look that indicated one finger more on that dear little donkey and they'd call the police. And there, while Annabel Frrrmphed friendlily at them between mouthfuls, lowered her eyes so they could see her eyelashes and generally indicated that this was the first time we'd let her stop for days, we waited. Sometimes for what seemed like days too, until Annabel, with a final sad farewell Frrmph that doubtless meant See them in the Salt Mines if she lasted that long, ambled slowly on down the road. We'd read about Stevenson using a pin on Modestine. We couldn't, under any circumstances, have done it ourselves. But, as Charles remarked many a time and oft as we stood there waiting for our own particular donkey to develop a glimmer of conscience and get a move on, he knew how Stevenson felt.