Then, and every night afterwards until it rained and at long last turned the stuff solid, Annabel not only returned from her walk at a gallop, she set out at one as well. Up the lane to the cottage, where we stood helpless in a cloud of cement dust holding her rope while she rolled. Praying nobody would see us, because our tale was how easily we managed her. Praying, too, that when she eventually stopped rolling we could get her home unseen because by this time, proud though she was of the result, she looked more like a dirty old goatskin rug than she did a civilised donkey. Praying quite in vain, of course. People came round the corner like pins to a magnet while Annabel lay there rolling or fanning cement over her rear with her tail. They passed up the lane, it seemed, in hordes when she was on her return journey, with her coat puffing cement dust like a pair of bellows at every step. What with that and Solomon's habit, when she was back in her paddock, of sitting bolt up-right on a stone outside the gate – Guarding his dear little Friend, said Miss Wellington, though if we knew anything of Fatso he was more likely to be shouting Sixpence for a Donkey-ride or playing trainer at a circus... what with one thing and another she was getting quite well known.
Notorious would perhaps be a better description. We were coming now to a week which we'd planned, with the cats safely under lock and key at Halstock, to spend resting from our labours down in Devon. We'd had Annabel in spite of these arrangements because we thought if we left it for a fortnight someone else might snap her up. Some friend or other, we reasoned, would undoubtedly have her in their orchard while we were away – or if not we could board her at a local riding school.
Some friend or other might have done if it weren't for the fact that most of them had young orchards like ourselves, two of them withdrew after hearing Annabel do her AAAAAAW-HOO-FRRRMPH, in case, they said, the neighbours complained, and Annabel nipped the remaining one on the shin. Only in fun, it could hardly have hurt at all, said Charles, and if the Molleys didn't understand donkeys better than that he'd rather they didn't have her.
He needn't have worried. They didn't intend to – which left the riding school as our last resort. We got round to deciding we'd rather leave her there anyway – with people who understood animals, we said, and we could, guess what a fuss they'd make of Annabel – grooming her, training her, taking her out with the riding procession like a little regimental mascot... and Annabel gummed that one up by frightening the horses.
She'd already done it once, it seemed, while we were away in town. The first we knew of it was the following Saturday when we were in the paddock with Annabel; her fringe was looking particularly fetching, the riding school was clopping up the lane towards us, and Charles said this was just the time to ask.
Before I could, the voice of the riding mistress was heard through the trees. 'Coat's too long. Wants clipping,' she commented as she approached. 'Isn't she hot?' she said to me as she passed. 'Mind the donkey!' she called commandingly rearwards in the same breath. At which Annabel bounced joyously forward to greet them, the horses at the end of the procession stood on their hind legs with fright, a shrimp-sized rider sitting adroitly on the top end of a whacking great chestnut said she'd done that on Thursday and Wufus had been tewwibly fwightened, and as the cavalcade moved on up the lane – 'Horses don't like donkeys' came the final verdict of the riding mistress.
Cows don't like them either, apparently, until they are used to them. Annabel spent her holiday eventually on the local farm where the farmer, who fell for the fringe on sight, first of all said she could go in with the cows and the bull and then – in case, he said on second thoughts, the bull should chase her – put her in a little half-field to herself, with a ladder closing the gap into the big main field where the cattle were.
You can guess what happened there. No sooner was his back turned than Annabel, filled with joy at seeing a field full of friends all ready for her to play with, got on her knees, crawled under the ladder, and began to chase the herd.
Nobody remembers noticing the bull. All they saw was a tide of cows surging across the field followed at a gallop by Annabel; the Rector's wife coming unwittingly along the lane; the moment of impasse when the parties met at the farmyard entrance – the Rector's wife staring aghast at the leading cow, which in its alarm had its front feet over the gate, and the leading cow, with its escape blocked, staring equally aghast back at her – and finally the moment of relief when, with the farmer leading Annabel firmly away by the scruff, everybody could relax again.
After that, and a further scare when they found her halfway through the hedge one afternoon – looking, she said, for buttercups – they put her on a tether. After that one might have thought they'd be glad to see the back of her.
There was, we decided as we led her home on our return – unrepentant, kicking her heels blithely as she went, threatening to butt the farm-dog under the milk-chum stand as she passed – no accounting for tastes. They said she could come again.
FIVE
Miss Wellington is Worried
Things settled down quite quietly for a while after that. As quietly as things could settle, that is, with a donkey with a voice like Annabel's.
She rarely cried at night now. She slept peacefully in her house beneath the elder tree until our alarm woke her up at half-past six. It meant, of course, all the neighbours waking up at half-past six as well because the moment she heard it, thinking we were greeting her from our bed, Annabel immediately shouted back at us from hers. But nobody minded that. Either they went to sleep again, thankful that she'd let them stay that long, or else, if they had to go to town themselves, it was a useful aid to getting up.
They didn't even mind the odd occasions when she did shout at night. She did it now only when she was disturbed and it imparted either the interesting knowledge that we'd come home in the early hours and Annabel was greeting us – whereupon they would mention the next day that they'd heard her kicking up at two this morning and we had naturally to admit where we'd been and what we'd been up to – or else it meant that somebody else had come home late and we could all, in the time-honoured way of villages, having a rattling good time working out who that must have been instead.
She shouted during the day, of course, but only by way of talking. To us, when she saw us in the garden. To people (anticipatorily) who came to pet and feed her and to people (reprovingly) who jolly well didn't.
We learned to tell the difference between her calls in no time. A semi-silent AAW-HOO-AAAAW, performed almost to herself with an excited intake of breath and much running up and down the fence, meant we were coming, perhaps to take her out. A louder, more sustained AAW-HOO-AAAAW, like a rusty saw being worked at top speed, meant the Rector was coming down the hill with an apple, or his wife with a biscuit, or somebody else Annabel recognised with a piece of cake.
A raucous, trumpeted AAAW-HOO-AAAAW – ear-splitting and ending in a snorted FRRRRMPH! – meant that Annabel was indignant. Charles, perhaps, had gone into the garage without bringing her a peppermint, or the baker had gone past the paddock without stopping to cluck at her, or worst of all and producing the most reproachful FRRRRMPH of the lot – the riding school had come into view. Not passing her gate as in the old days but crossing at a cautious distance over the side of the hill, with the riding mistress circling the group like a sheep-herder.