scared of the dark

Our young lad, Jack, is scared of the dark. Has to sleep with the light on. Every night our two donkeys come into their warm and dry, cosy, stable for the night. The last two weekends the weather has been atrocious and some days we have left them inside. (Donkeys are not waterproof so they need to have decent shelter.)
They pestered us to let them out this weekend even though the rain and sleet blew in from the West. Every night Jack and I had to take the torch and squelch through the mud to bring them in. We have a long narrow field that heads down hill by the side of a deep goit. (When I was a child the word goit meant a ditch but round here it is much bigger - a ravine.) Half way down is a Roman wishing well called a Keld and quite a lot of trees. The donkeys, however, decided the most sheltered place was right at the bottom where the stream comes out of the ravine but the field takes a steep dip.

The mud is so deep in places that Jack's wellies get stuck. Of course your legs keep on walking so he ends up taking a very cold step before he realises. I don't use a torch because I like the dark and the moon but Jack takes the biggest torch he can find. This gives shadows and it has taken him two trips before he realises that its best to walk without ... and that the dark is not as scarey afterall!

When Flossy comes up the hill she wanders in zig-zags and knows exactly where it is driest. We tried to lead her but she was adamant and now she leads us. We are always followed by the kitten, Stix. His white paws show up in the dark and his bell can just be heard through the howling wind.