Three times she, with infinite labour, drove them up to the slip-rack, and each time the same mare and foal broke away, leading off the others.

The third time, when she saw them all run whinnying down to the further end of the paddock, after half an hour or so of weary work driving them up, when she had run herself off her poor tottering legs, and saw that all her toil was in vain, then she sank down on the cold hard gravel in the yard, with her long black hair streaming loose along the ground, and prayed that she might die.

Down at full length, in front of her own door, like a dead woman, moaning and crying, from time to time, "Oh, my boy, my boy." How long she lay there she knew not.

She heard a horse's feet, but only stopped her ears from the news she thought was coming.

Then she heard a steady heavy footstep close to her, and some one touched her, and tried to raise her.
She sat up, shook the hair from her eyes, and looked at the man who stood beside her.