All of a sudden they heard a noise like a loud neighing; a horse
galloped towards them, blocked the path and neighed again; its
neighing was answered on the right and the left and from all sides
of the wood; the ground trembled, the branches of the trees cracked,
and the stones were scattered in all directions by the approaching
hoofs. In less than no time the poor, frightened travellers were
surrounded on all sides by a herd of savage horses.

The child hid her face on her mother's shoulder, and her little
heart ticked with fear like a watch.

"I am so frightened!" she whispered.

"Oh! Father in Heaven, help us!" prayed the mother.

At the same moment a blackbird, sitting on a fir tree, began to
sing; the horses scudded away as fast as they could, and there was
once more silence in the wood.

They came to the second gate, walked through and re-fastened the
latch.

They were on fallow ground now, and the sun scorched them even
worse than it had done before. They saw before them rows and rows
of dull clods of earth, but in a steep place the clods suddenly began
to move, and then they knew that what they had taken for clods of
earth were really the backs of a flock of sheep.

Sheep are quite gentle and inoffensive, especially the little lambs,