Black Beauty

Part III

32 A Horse Fair

No doubt a horse fair is a very amus­ing place to those who have noth­ing to lose; at any rate, there is plen­ty to see.

Long strings of young hors­es out of the coun­try, fresh from the marsh­es; and droves of shag­gy lit­tle Welsh ponies, no high­er than Mer­rylegs; and hun­dreds of cart hors­es of all sorts, some of them with their long tails braid­ed up and tied with scar­let cord; and a good many like my­self, hand­some and high-​bred, but fall­en in­to the mid­dle class, through some ac­ci­dent or blem­ish, un­sound­ness of wind, or some oth­er com­plaint. There were some splen­did an­imals quite in their prime, and fit for any­thing; they were throw­ing out their legs and show­ing off their paces in high style, as they were trot­ted out with a lead­ing rein, the groom run­ning by the side. But round in the back­ground there were a num­ber of poor things, sad­ly bro­ken down with hard work, with their knees knuck­ling over and their hind legs swing­ing out at ev­ery step, and there were some very de­ject­ed-​look­ing old hors­es, with the un­der lip hang­ing down and the ears ly­ing back heav­ily, as if there were no more plea­sure in life, and no more hope; there were some so thin you might see all their ribs, and some with old sores on their backs and hips. These were sad sights for a horse to look up­on, who knows not but he may come to the same state.

There was a great deal of bar­gain­ing, of run­ning up and beat­ing down; and if a horse may speak his mind so far as he un­der­stands, I should say there were more lies told and more trick­ery at that horse fair than a clever man could give an ac­count of. I was put with two or three oth­er strong, use­ful-​look­ing hors­es, and a good many peo­ple came to look at us. The gen­tle­men al­ways turned from me when they saw my bro­ken knees; though the man who had me swore it was on­ly a slip in the stall.

The first thing was to pull my mouth open, then to look at my eyes, then feel all the way down my legs, and give me a hard feel of the skin and flesh, and then try my paces. It was won­der­ful what a dif­fer­ence there was in the way these things were done. Some did it in a rough, off­hand way, as if one was on­ly a piece of wood; while oth­ers would take their hands gen­tly over one’s body, with a pat now and then, as much as to say, “By your leave.” Of course I judged a good deal of the buy­ers by their man­ners to my­self.

There was one man, I thought, if he would buy me, I should be hap­py. He was not a gen­tle­man, nor yet one of the loud, flashy sort that call them­selves so. He was rather a small man, but well made, and quick in all his mo­tions. I knew in a mo­ment by the way he han­dled me, that he was used to hors­es; he spoke gen­tly, and his gray eye had a kind­ly, cheery look in it. It may seem strange to say — but it is true all the same — that the clean, fresh smell there was about him made me take to him; no smell of old beer and to­bac­co, which I hat­ed, but a fresh smell as if he had come out of a hayloft. He of­fered twen­ty-​three pounds for me, but that was re­fused, and he walked away. I looked af­ter him, but he was gone, and a very hard-​look­ing, loud-​voiced man came. I was dread­ful­ly afraid he would have me; but he walked off. One or two more came who did not mean busi­ness. Then the hard-​faced man came back again and of­fered twen­ty-​three pounds. A very close bar­gain was be­ing driv­en, for my sales­man be­gan to think he should not get all he asked, and must come down; but just then the gray-​eyed man came back again. I could not help reach­ing out my head to­ward him. He stroked my face kind­ly.

“Well, old chap,” he said, “I think we should suit each oth­er. I’ll give twen­ty-​four for him.”

“Say twen­ty-​five and you shall have him.”

“Twen­ty-​four ten,” said my friend, in a very de­cid­ed tone, “and not an­oth­er six­pence — yes or no?”

“Done,” said the sales­man; “and you may de­pend up­on it there’s a mon­strous deal of qual­ity in that horse, and if you want him for cab work he’s a bar­gain.”

The mon­ey was paid on the spot, and my new mas­ter took my hal­ter, and led me out of the fair to an inn, where he had a sad­dle and bri­dle ready. He gave me a good feed of oats and stood by while I ate it, talk­ing to him­self and talk­ing to me. Half an hour af­ter we were on our way to Lon­don, through pleas­ant lanes and coun­try roads, un­til we came in­to the great Lon­don thor­ough­fare, on which we trav­eled steadi­ly, till in the twi­light we reached the great city. The gas lamps were al­ready light­ed; there were streets to the right, and streets to the left, and streets cross­ing each oth­er, for mile up­on mile. I thought we should nev­er come to the end of them. At last, in pass­ing through one, we came to a long cab stand, when my rid­er called out in a cheery voice, “Good-​night, gov­er­nor!”

“Hal­loo!” cried a voice. “Have you got a good one?”

“I think so,” replied my own­er.

“I wish you luck with him.”

“Thank you, gov­er­nor,” and he rode on. We soon turned up one of the side streets, and about halfway up that we turned in­to a very nar­row street, with rather poor-​look­ing hous­es on one side, and what seemed to be coach-​hous­es and sta­bles on the oth­er.

My own­er pulled up at one of the hous­es and whis­tled. The door flew open, and a young wom­an, fol­lowed by a lit­tle girl and boy, ran out. There was a very live­ly greet­ing as my rid­er dis­mount­ed.

“Now, then, Har­ry, my boy, open the gates, and moth­er will bring us the lantern.”

The next minute they were all stand­ing round me in a small sta­ble-​yard.

“Is he gen­tle, fa­ther?”

“Yes, Dol­ly, as gen­tle as your own kit­ten; come and pat him.”

At once the lit­tle hand was pat­ting about all over my shoul­der with­out fear. How good it felt!

“Let me get him a bran mash while you rub him down,” said the moth­er.

“Do, Pol­ly, it’s just what he wants; and I know you’ve got a beau­ti­ful mash ready for me.”

“Sausage dumpling and ap­ple turnover!” shout­ed the boy, which set them all laugh­ing. I was led in­to a com­fort­able, clean-​smelling stall, with plen­ty of dry straw, and af­ter a cap­ital sup­per I lay down, think­ing I was go­ing to be hap­py.

33 A Lon­don Cab Horse

Jeremi­ah Bark­er was my new mas­ter’s name, but as ev­ery one called him Jer­ry, I shall do the same. Pol­ly, his wife, was just as good a match as a man could have. She was a plump, trim, tidy lit­tle wom­an, with smooth, dark hair, dark eyes, and a mer­ry lit­tle mouth. The boy was twelve years old, a tall, frank, good-​tem­pered lad; and lit­tle Dorothy (Dol­ly they called her) was her moth­er over again, at eight years old. They were all won­der­ful­ly fond of each oth­er; I nev­er knew such a hap­py, mer­ry fam­ily be­fore or since. Jer­ry had a cab of his own, and two hors­es, which he drove and at­tend­ed to him­self. His oth­er horse was a tall, white, rather large-​boned an­imal called “Cap­tain”. He was old now, but when he was young he must have been splen­did; he had still a proud way of hold­ing his head and arch­ing his neck; in fact, he was a high-​bred, fine-​man­nered, no­ble old horse, ev­ery inch of him. He told me that in his ear­ly youth he went to the Crimean War; he be­longed to an of­fi­cer in the cav­al­ry, and used to lead the reg­iment. I will tell more of that here­after.

The next morn­ing, when I was well-​groomed, Pol­ly and Dol­ly came in­to the yard to see me and make friends. Har­ry had been help­ing his fa­ther since the ear­ly morn­ing, and had stat­ed his opin­ion that I should turn out a “reg­ular brick”. Pol­ly brought me a slice of ap­ple, and Dol­ly a piece of bread, and made as much of me as if I had been the “Black Beau­ty” of old­en time. It was a great treat to be pet­ted again and talked to in a gen­tle voice, and I let them see as well as I could that I wished to be friend­ly. Pol­ly thought I was very hand­some, and a great deal too good for a cab, if it was not for the bro­ken knees.

“Of course there’s no one to tell us whose fault that was,” said Jer­ry, “and as long as I don’t know I shall give him the ben­efit of the doubt; for a firmer, neater step­per I nev­er rode. We’ll call him `Jack’, af­ter the old one — shall we, Pol­ly?”

“Do,” she said, “for I like to keep a good name go­ing.”

Cap­tain went out in the cab all the morn­ing. Har­ry came in af­ter school to feed me and give me wa­ter. In the af­ter­noon I was put in­to the cab. Jer­ry took as much pains to see if the col­lar and bri­dle fit­ted com­fort­ably as if he had been John Man­ly over again. When the crup­per was let out a hole or two it all fit­ted well. There was no check-​rein, no curb, noth­ing but a plain ring snaf­fle. What a bless­ing that was!

Af­ter driv­ing through the side street we came to the large cab stand where Jer­ry had said “Good-​night”. On one side of this wide street were high hous­es with won­der­ful shop fronts, and on the oth­er was an old church and church­yard, sur­round­ed by iron pal­isades. Along­side these iron rails a num­ber of cabs were drawn up, wait­ing for pas­sen­gers; bits of hay were ly­ing about on the ground; some of the men were stand­ing to­geth­er talk­ing; some were sit­ting on their box­es read­ing the news­pa­per; and one or two were feed­ing their hors­es with bits of hay, and giv­ing them a drink of wa­ter. We pulled up in the rank at the back of the last cab. Two or three men came round and be­gan to look at me and pass their re­marks.

“Very good for a fu­ner­al,” said one.

“Too smart-​look­ing,” said an­oth­er, shak­ing his head in a very wise way; “you’ll find out some­thing wrong one of these fine morn­ings, or my name isn’t Jones.”

“Well,” said Jer­ry pleas­ant­ly, “I sup­pose I need not find it out till it finds me out, eh? And if so, I’ll keep up my spir­its a lit­tle longer.”

Then there came up a broad-​faced man, dressed in a great gray coat with great gray cape and great white but­tons, a gray hat, and a blue com­forter loose­ly tied round his neck; his hair was gray, too; but he was a jol­ly-​look­ing fel­low, and the oth­er men made way for him. He looked me all over, as if he had been go­ing to buy me; and then straight­en­ing him­self up with a grunt, he said, “He’s the right sort for you, Jer­ry; I don’t care what you gave for him, he’ll be worth it.” Thus my char­ac­ter was es­tab­lished on the stand.

This man’s name was Grant, but he was called “Gray Grant”, or “Gov­er­nor Grant”. He had been the longest on that stand of any of the men, and he took it up­on him­self to set­tle mat­ters and stop dis­putes. He was gen­er­al­ly a good-​hu­mored, sen­si­ble man; but if his tem­per was a lit­tle out, as it was some­times when he had drunk too much, no­body liked to come too near his fist, for he could deal a very heavy blow.

The first week of my life as a cab horse was very try­ing. I had nev­er been used to Lon­don, and the noise, the hur­ry, the crowds of hors­es, carts, and car­riages that I had to make my way through made me feel anx­ious and ha­rassed; but I soon found that I could per­fect­ly trust my driv­er, and then I made my­self easy and got used to it.

Jer­ry was as good a driv­er as I had ev­er known, and what was bet­ter, he took as much thought for his hors­es as he did for him­self. He soon found out that I was will­ing to work and do my best, and he nev­er laid the whip on me un­less it was gen­tly draw­ing the end of it over my back when I was to go on; but gen­er­al­ly I knew this quite well by the way in which he took up the reins, and I be­lieve his whip was more fre­quent­ly stuck up by his side than in his hand.

In a short time I and my mas­ter un­der­stood each oth­er as well as horse and man can do. In the sta­ble, too, he did all that he could for our com­fort. The stalls were the old-​fash­ioned style, too much on the slope; but he had two mov­able bars fixed across the back of our stalls, so that at night, and when we were rest­ing, he just took off our hal­ters and put up the bars, and thus we could turn about and stand whichev­er way we pleased, which is a great com­fort.

Jer­ry kept us very clean, and gave us as much change of food as he could, and al­ways plen­ty of it; and not on­ly that, but he al­ways gave us plen­ty of clean fresh wa­ter, which he al­lowed to stand by us both night and day, ex­cept of course when we came in warm. Some peo­ple say that a horse ought not to drink all he likes; but I know if we are al­lowed to drink when we want it we drink on­ly a lit­tle at a time, and it does us a great deal more good than swal­low­ing down half a buck­et­ful at a time, be­cause we have been left with­out till we are thirsty and mis­er­able. Some grooms will go home to their beer and leave us for hours with our dry hay and oats and noth­ing to moist­en them; then of course we gulp down too much at once, which helps to spoil our breath­ing and some­times chills our stom­achs. But the best thing we had here was our Sun­days for rest; we worked so hard in the week that I do not think we could have kept up to it but for that day; be­sides, we had then time to en­joy each oth­er’s com­pa­ny. It was on these days that I learned my com­pan­ion’s his­to­ry.

34 An Old War Horse

Cap­tain had been bro­ken in and trained for an army horse; his first own­er was an of­fi­cer of cav­al­ry go­ing out to the Crimean war. He said he quite en­joyed the train­ing with all the oth­er hors­es, trot­ting to­geth­er, turn­ing to­geth­er, to the right hand or the left, halt­ing at the word of com­mand, or dash­ing for­ward at full speed at the sound of the trum­pet or sig­nal of the of­fi­cer. He was, when young, a dark, dap­pled iron-​gray, and con­sid­ered very hand­some. His mas­ter, a young, high-​spir­it­ed gen­tle­man, was very fond of him, and treat­ed him from the first with the great­est care and kind­ness. He told me he thought the life of an army horse was very pleas­ant; but when it came to be­ing sent abroad over the sea in a great ship, he al­most changed his mind.

“That part of it,” said he, “was dread­ful! Of course we could not walk off the land in­to the ship; so they were obliged to put strong straps un­der our bod­ies, and then we were lift­ed off our legs in spite of our strug­gles, and were swung through the air over the wa­ter, to the deck of the great ves­sel. There we were placed in small close stalls, and nev­er for a long time saw the sky, or were able to stretch our legs. The ship some­times rolled about in high winds, and we were knocked about, and felt bad enough.

“How­ev­er, at last it came to an end, and we were hauled up, and swung over again to the land; we were very glad, and snort­ed and neighed for joy, when we once more felt firm ground un­der our feet.

“We soon found that the coun­try we had come to was very dif­fer­ent from our own and that we had many hard­ships to en­dure be­sides the fight­ing; but many of the men were so fond of their hors­es that they did ev­ery­thing they could to make them com­fort­able in spite of snow, wet, and all things out of or­der.”

“But what about the fight­ing?” said I, “was not that worse than any­thing else?”

“Well,” said he, “I hard­ly know; we al­ways liked to hear the trum­pet sound, and to be called out, and were im­pa­tient to start off, though some­times we had to stand for hours, wait­ing for the word of com­mand; and when the word was giv­en we used to spring for­ward as gay­ly and ea­ger­ly as if there were no can­non balls, bay­onets, or bul­lets. I be­lieve so long as we felt our rid­er firm in the sad­dle, and his hand steady on the bri­dle, not one of us gave way to fear, not even when the ter­ri­ble bomb-​shells whirled through the air and burst in­to a thou­sand pieces.

“I, with my no­ble mas­ter, went in­to many ac­tions to­geth­er with­out a wound; and though I saw hors­es shot down with bul­lets, pierced through with lances, and gashed with fear­ful saber-​cuts; though we left them dead on the field, or dy­ing in the agony of their wounds, I don’t think I feared for my­self. My mas­ter’s cheery voice, as he en­cour­aged his men, made me feel as if he and I could not be killed. I had such per­fect trust in him that while he was guid­ing me I was ready to charge up to the very can­non’s mouth. I saw many brave men cut down, many fall mor­tal­ly wound­ed from their sad­dles. I had heard the cries and groans of the dy­ing, I had can­tered over ground slip­pery with blood, and fre­quent­ly had to turn aside to avoid tram­pling on wound­ed man or horse, but, un­til one dread­ful day, I had nev­er felt ter­ror; that day I shall nev­er for­get.”

Here old Cap­tain paused for awhile and drew a long breath; I wait­ed, and he went on.

“It was one au­tumn morn­ing, and as usu­al, an hour be­fore day­break our cav­al­ry had turned out, ready ca­parisoned for the day’s work, whether it might be fight­ing or wait­ing. The men stood by their hors­es wait­ing, ready for or­ders. As the light in­creased there seemed to be some ex­cite­ment among the of­fi­cers; and be­fore the day was well be­gun we heard the fir­ing of the en­emy’s guns.

“Then one of the of­fi­cers rode up and gave the word for the men to mount, and in a sec­ond ev­ery man was in his sad­dle, and ev­ery horse stood ex­pect­ing the touch of the rein, or the pres­sure of his rid­er’s heels, all an­imat­ed, all ea­ger; but still we had been trained so well that, ex­cept by the champ­ing of our bits, and the restive toss­ing of our heads from time to time, it could not be said that we stirred.

“My dear mas­ter and I were at the head of the line, and as all sat mo­tion­less and watch­ful, he took a lit­tle stray lock of my mane which had turned over on the wrong side, laid it over on the right, and smoothed it down with his hand; then pat­ting my neck, he said, `We shall have a day of it to-​day, Ba­yard, my beau­ty; but we’ll do our du­ty as we have done.’ He stroked my neck that morn­ing more, I think, than he had ev­er done be­fore; qui­et­ly on and on, as if he were think­ing of some­thing else. I loved to feel his hand on my neck, and arched my crest proud­ly and hap­pi­ly; but I stood very still, for I knew all his moods, and when he liked me to be qui­et, and when gay.

“I can­not tell all that hap­pened on that day, but I will tell of the last charge that we made to­geth­er; it was across a val­ley right in front of the en­emy’s can­non. By this time we were well used to the roar of heavy guns, the rat­tle of mus­ket fire, and the fly­ing of shot near us; but nev­er had I been un­der such a fire as we rode through on that day. From the right, from the left, and from the front, shot and shell poured in up­on us. Many a brave man went down, many a horse fell, fling­ing his rid­er to the earth; many a horse with­out a rid­er ran wild­ly out of the ranks; then ter­ri­fied at be­ing alone, with no hand to guide him, came press­ing in among his old com­pan­ions, to gal­lop with them to the charge.

“Fear­ful as it was, no one stopped, no one turned back. Ev­ery mo­ment the ranks were thinned, but as our com­rades fell, we closed in to keep them to­geth­er; and in­stead of be­ing shak­en or stag­gered in our pace our gal­lop be­came faster and faster as we neared the can­non.

“My mas­ter, my dear mas­ter was cheer­ing on his com­rades with his right arm raised on high, when one of the balls whizzing close to my head struck him. I felt him stag­ger with the shock, though he ut­tered no cry; I tried to check my speed, but the sword dropped from his right hand, the rein fell loose from the left, and sink­ing back­ward from the sad­dle he fell to the earth; the oth­er rid­ers swept past us, and by the force of their charge I was driv­en from the spot.

“I want­ed to keep my place by his side and not leave him un­der that rush of hors­es’ feet, but it was in vain; and now with­out a mas­ter or a friend I was alone on that great slaugh­ter ground; then fear took hold on me, and I trem­bled as I had nev­er trem­bled be­fore; and I too, as I had seen oth­er hors­es do, tried to join in the ranks and gal­lop with them; but I was beat­en off by the swords of the sol­diers. Just then a sol­dier whose horse had been killed un­der him caught at my bri­dle and mount­ed me, and with this new mas­ter I was again go­ing for­ward; but our gal­lant com­pa­ny was cru­el­ly over­pow­ered, and those who re­mained alive af­ter the fierce fight for the guns came gal­lop­ing back over the same ground. Some of the hors­es had been so bad­ly wound­ed that they could scarce­ly move from the loss of blood; oth­er no­ble crea­tures were try­ing on three legs to drag them­selves along, and oth­ers were strug­gling to rise on their fore feet, when their hind legs had been shat­tered by shot. Af­ter the bat­tle the wound­ed men were brought in and the dead were buried.”

“And what about the wound­ed hors­es?” I said; “were they left to die?”

“No, the army far­ri­ers went over the field with their pis­tols and shot all that were ru­ined; some that had on­ly slight wounds were brought back and at­tend­ed to, but the greater part of the no­ble, will­ing crea­tures that went out that morn­ing nev­er came back! In our sta­bles there was on­ly about one in four that re­turned.

“I nev­er saw my dear mas­ter again. I be­lieve he fell dead from the sad­dle. I nev­er loved any oth­er mas­ter so well. I went in­to many oth­er en­gage­ments, but was on­ly once wound­ed, and then not se­ri­ous­ly; and when the war was over I came back again to Eng­land, as sound and strong as when I went out.”

I said, “I have heard peo­ple talk about war as if it was a very fine thing.”

“Ah!” said he, “I should think they nev­er saw it. No doubt it is very fine when there is no en­emy, when it is just ex­er­cise and pa­rade and sham fight. Yes, it is very fine then; but when thou­sands of good brave men and hors­es are killed or crip­pled for life, it has a very dif­fer­ent look.”

“Do you know what they fought about?” said I.

“No,” he said, “that is more than a horse can un­der­stand, but the en­emy must have been aw­ful­ly wicked peo­ple, if it was right to go all that way over the sea on pur­pose to kill them.”

35 Jer­ry Bark­er

I nev­er knew a bet­ter man than my new mas­ter. He was kind and good, and as strong for the right as John Man­ly; and so good-​tem­pered and mer­ry that very few peo­ple could pick a quar­rel with him. He was very fond of mak­ing lit­tle songs, and singing them to him­self. One he was very fond of was this:

“Come, fa­ther and moth­er, And sis­ter and broth­er, Come, all of you, turn to And help one an­oth­er.”

And so they did; Har­ry was as clever at sta­ble-​work as a much old­er boy, and al­ways want­ed to do what he could. Then Pol­ly and Dol­ly used to come in the morn­ing to help with the cab — to brush and beat the cush­ions, and rub the glass, while Jer­ry was giv­ing us a clean­ing in the yard, and Har­ry was rub­bing the har­ness. There used to be a great deal of laugh­ing and fun be­tween them, and it put Cap­tain and me in much bet­ter spir­its than if we had heard scold­ing and hard words. They were al­ways ear­ly in the morn­ing, for Jer­ry would say:

“If you in the morn­ing Throw min­utes away, You can’t pick them up In the course of a day. You may hur­ry and scur­ry, And flur­ry and wor­ry, You’ve lost them for­ev­er, For­ev­er and aye.”

He could not bear any care­less loi­ter­ing and waste of time; and noth­ing was so near mak­ing him an­gry as to find peo­ple, who were al­ways late, want­ing a cab horse to be driv­en hard, to make up for their idle­ness.

One day two wild-​look­ing young men came out of a tav­ern close by the stand, and called Jer­ry.

“Here, cab­by! look sharp, we are rather late; put on the steam, will you, and take us to the Vic­to­ria in time for the one o’clock train? You shall have a shilling ex­tra.”

“I will take you at the reg­ular pace, gen­tle­men; shillings don’t pay for putting on the steam like that.”

Lar­ry’s cab was stand­ing next to ours; he flung open the door, and said, “I’m your man, gen­tle­men! take my cab, my horse will get you there all right;” and as he shut them in, with a wink to­ward Jer­ry, said, “It’s against his con­science to go be­yond a jog-​trot.” Then slash­ing his jad­ed horse, he set off as hard as he could. Jer­ry pat­ted me on the neck: “No, Jack, a shilling would not pay for that sort of thing, would it, old boy?”

Al­though Jer­ry was de­ter­mined­ly set against hard driv­ing, to please care­less peo­ple, he al­ways went a good fair pace, and was not against putting on the steam, as he said, if on­ly he knew why.

I well re­mem­ber one morn­ing, as we were on the stand wait­ing for a fare, that a young man, car­ry­ing a heavy port­man­teau, trod on a piece of or­ange peel which lay on the pave­ment, and fell down with great force.

Jer­ry was the first to run and lift him up. He seemed much stunned, and as they led him in­to a shop he walked as if he were in great pain. Jer­ry of course came back to the stand, but in about ten min­utes one of the shop­men called him, so we drew up to the pave­ment.

“Can you take me to the South-​East­ern Rail­way?” said the young man; “this un­lucky fall has made me late, I fear; but it is of great im­por­tance that I should not lose the twelve o’clock train. I should be most thank­ful if you could get me there in time, and will glad­ly pay you an ex­tra fare.”

“I’ll do my very best,” said Jer­ry hearti­ly, “if you think you are well enough, sir,” for he looked dread­ful­ly white and ill.

“I must go,” he said earnest­ly, “please to open the door, and let us lose no time.”

The next minute Jer­ry was on the box; with a cheery chirrup to me, and a twitch of the rein that I well un­der­stood.

“Now then, Jack, my boy,” said he, “spin along, we’ll show them how we can get over the ground, if we on­ly know why.”

It is al­ways dif­fi­cult to drive fast in the city in the mid­dle of the day, when the streets are full of traf­fic, but we did what could be done; and when a good driv­er and a good horse, who un­der­stand each oth­er, are of one mind, it is won­der­ful what they can do. I had a very good mouth — that is I could be guid­ed by the slight­est touch of the rein; and that is a great thing in Lon­don, among car­riages, om­nibus­es, carts, vans, trucks, cabs, and great wag­ons creep­ing along at a walk­ing pace; some go­ing one way, some an­oth­er, some go­ing slow­ly, oth­ers want­ing to pass them; om­nibus­es stop­ping short ev­ery few min­utes to take up a pas­sen­ger, oblig­ing the horse that is com­ing be­hind to pull up too, or to pass, and get be­fore them; per­haps you try to pass, but just then some­thing else comes dash­ing in through the nar­row open­ing, and you have to keep in be­hind the om­nibus again; present­ly you think you see a chance, and man­age to get to the front, go­ing so near the wheels on each side that half an inch near­er and they would scrape. Well, you get along for a bit, but soon find your­self in a long train of carts and car­riages all obliged to go at a walk; per­haps you come to a reg­ular block-​up, and have to stand still for min­utes to­geth­er, till some­thing clears out in­to a side street, or the po­lice­man in­ter­feres; you have to be ready for any chance — to dash for­ward if there be an open­ing, and be quick as a rat-​dog to see if there be room and if there be time, lest you get your own wheels locked or smashed, or the shaft of some oth­er ve­hi­cle run in­to your chest or shoul­der. All this is what you have to be ready for. If you want to get through Lon­don fast in the mid­dle of the day it wants a deal of prac­tice.

Jer­ry and I were used to it, and no one could beat us at get­ting through when we were set up­on it. I was quick and bold and could al­ways trust my driv­er; Jer­ry was quick and pa­tient at the same time, and could trust his horse, which was a great thing too. He very sel­dom used the whip; I knew by his voice, and his click, click, when he want­ed to get on fast, and by the rein where I was to go; so there was no need for whip­ping; but I must go back to my sto­ry.

The streets were very full that day, but we got on pret­ty well as far as the bot­tom of Cheap­side, where there was a block for three or four min­utes. The young man put his head out and said anx­ious­ly, “I think I had bet­ter get out and walk; I shall nev­er get there if this goes on.”

“I’ll do all that can be done, sir,” said Jer­ry; “I think we shall be in time. This block-​up can­not last much longer, and your lug­gage is very heavy for you to car­ry, sir.”

Just then the cart in front of us be­gan to move on, and then we had a good turn. In and out, in and out we went, as fast as horse­flesh could do it, and for a won­der had a good clear time on Lon­don Bridge, for there was a whole train of cabs and car­riages all go­ing our way at a quick trot, per­haps want­ing to catch that very train. At any rate, we whirled in­to the sta­tion with many more, just as the great clock point­ed to eight min­utes to twelve o’clock.

“Thank God! we are in time,” said the young man, “and thank you, too, my friend, and your good horse. You have saved me more than mon­ey can ev­er pay for. Take this ex­tra half-​crown.”

“No, sir, no, thank you all the same; so glad we hit the time, sir; but don’t stay now, sir, the bell is ring­ing. Here, porter! take this gen­tle­man’s lug­gage — Dover line twelve o’clock train — that’s it,” and with­out wait­ing for an­oth­er word Jer­ry wheeled me round to make room for oth­er cabs that were dash­ing up at the last minute, and drew up on one side till the crush was past.

“`So glad!’ he said, `so glad!’ Poor young fel­low! I won­der what it was that made him so anx­ious!”

Jer­ry of­ten talked to him­self quite loud enough for me to hear when we were not mov­ing.

On Jer­ry’s re­turn to the rank there was a good deal of laugh­ing and chaffing at him for driv­ing hard to the train for an ex­tra fare, as they said, all against his prin­ci­ples, and they want­ed to know how much he had pock­et­ed.

“A good deal more than I gen­er­al­ly get,” said he, nod­ding sly­ly; “what he gave me will keep me in lit­tle com­forts for sev­er­al days.”

“Gam­mon!” said one.

“He’s a hum­bug,” said an­oth­er; “preach­ing to us and then do­ing the same him­self.”

“Look here, mates,” said Jer­ry; “the gen­tle­man of­fered me half a crown ex­tra, but I didn’t take it; ’twas quite pay enough for me to see how glad he was to catch that train; and if Jack and I choose to have a quick run now and then to please our­selves, that’s our busi­ness and not yours.”

“Well,” said Lar­ry, “you’ll nev­er be a rich man.”

“Most like­ly not,” said Jer­ry; “but I don’t know that I shall be the less hap­py for that. I have heard the com­mand­ments read a great many times and I nev­er no­ticed that any of them said, `Thou shalt be rich’; and there are a good many cu­ri­ous things said in the New Tes­ta­ment about rich men that I think would make me feel rather queer if I was one of them.”

“If you ev­er do get rich,” said Gov­er­nor Gray, look­ing over his shoul­der across the top of his cab, “you’ll de­serve it, Jer­ry, and you won’t find a curse come with your wealth. As for you, Lar­ry, you’ll die poor; you spend too much in whip­cord.”

“Well,” said Lar­ry, “what is a fel­low to do if his horse won’t go with­out it?”

“You nev­er take the trou­ble to see if he will go with­out it; your whip is al­ways go­ing as if you had the St. Vi­tus’ dance in your arm, and if it does not wear you out it wears your horse out; you know you are al­ways chang­ing your hors­es; and why? Be­cause you nev­er give them any peace or en­cour­age­ment.”

“Well, I have not had good luck,” said Lar­ry, “that’s where it is.”

“And you nev­er will,” said the gov­er­nor. “Good Luck is rather par­tic­ular who she rides with, and most­ly prefers those who have got com­mon sense and a good heart; at least that is my ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Gov­er­nor Gray turned round again to his news­pa­per, and the oth­er men went to their cabs.

36 The Sun­day Cab

One morn­ing, as Jer­ry had just put me in­to the shafts and was fas­ten­ing the traces, a gen­tle­man walked in­to the yard. “Your ser­vant, sir,” said Jer­ry.

“Good-​morn­ing, Mr. Bark­er,” said the gen­tle­man. “I should be glad to make some ar­range­ments with you for tak­ing Mrs. Brig­gs reg­ular­ly to church on Sun­day morn­ings. We go to the New Church now, and that is rather fur­ther than she can walk.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Jer­ry, “but I have on­ly tak­en out a six-​days’ li­cense,* and there­fore I could not take a fare on a Sun­day; it would not be le­gal.”

– * A few years since the an­nu­al charge for a cab li­cense was very much re­duced, and the dif­fer­ence be­tween the six and sev­en days’ cabs was abol­ished. –

“Oh!” said the oth­er, “I did not know yours was a six-​days’ cab; but of course it would be very easy to al­ter your li­cense. I would see that you did not lose by it; the fact is, Mrs. Brig­gs very much prefers you to drive her.”

“I should be glad to oblige the la­dy, sir, but I had a sev­en-​days’ li­cense once, and the work was too hard for me, and too hard for my hors­es. Year in and year out, not a day’s rest, and nev­er a Sun­day with my wife and chil­dren; and nev­er able to go to a place of wor­ship, which I had al­ways been used to do be­fore I took to the driv­ing box. So for the last five years I have on­ly tak­en a six-​days’ li­cense, and I find it bet­ter all the way round.”

“Well, of course,” replied Mr. Brig­gs, “it is very prop­er that ev­ery per­son should have rest, and be able to go to church on Sun­days, but I should have thought you would not have mind­ed such a short dis­tance for the horse, and on­ly once a day; you would have all the af­ter­noon and evening for your­self, and we are very good cus­tomers, you know.”

“Yes, sir, that is true, and I am grate­ful for all fa­vors, I am sure; and any­thing that I could do to oblige you, or the la­dy, I should be proud and hap­py to do; but I can’t give up my Sun­days, sir, in­deed I can’t. I read that God made man, and he made hors­es and all the oth­er beasts, and as soon as He had made them He made a day of rest, and bade that all should rest one day in sev­en; and I think, sir, He must have known what was good for them, and I am sure it is good for me; I am stronger and health­ier al­to­geth­er, now that I have a day of rest; the hors­es are fresh too, and do not wear up near­ly so fast. The six-​day drivers all tell me the same, and I have laid by more mon­ey in the sav­ings bank than ev­er I did be­fore; and as for the wife and chil­dren, sir, why, heart alive! they would not go back to the sev­en days for all they could see.”

“Oh, very well,” said the gen­tle­man. “Don’t trou­ble your­self, Mr. Bark­er, any fur­ther. I will in­quire some­where else,” and he walked away.

“Well,” says Jer­ry to me, “we can’t help it, Jack, old boy; we must have our Sun­days.”

“Pol­ly!” he shout­ed, “Pol­ly! come here.”

She was there in a minute.

“What is it all about, Jer­ry?”

“Why, my dear, Mr. Brig­gs wants me to take Mrs. Brig­gs to church ev­ery Sun­day morn­ing. I say I have on­ly a six-​days’ li­cense. He says, `Get a sev­en-​days’ li­cense, and I’ll make it worth your while;’ and you know, Pol­ly, they are very good cus­tomers to us. Mrs. Brig­gs of­ten goes out shop­ping for hours, or mak­ing calls, and then she pays down fair and hon­or­able like a la­dy; there’s no beat­ing down or mak­ing three hours in­to two hours and a half, as some folks do; and it is easy work for the hors­es; not like tear­ing along to catch trains for peo­ple that are al­ways a quar­ter of an hour too late; and if I don’t oblige her in this mat­ter it is very like­ly we shall lose them al­to­geth­er. What do you say, lit­tle wom­an?”

“I say, Jer­ry,” says she, speak­ing very slow­ly, “I say, if Mrs. Brig­gs would give you a sovereign ev­ery Sun­day morn­ing, I would not have you a sev­en-​days’ cab­man again. We have known what it was to have no Sun­days, and now we know what it is to call them our own. Thank God, you earn enough to keep us, though it is some­times close work to pay for all the oats and hay, the li­cense, and the rent be­sides; but Har­ry will soon be earn­ing some­thing, and I would rather strug­gle on hard­er than we do than go back to those hor­rid times when you hard­ly had a minute to look at your own chil­dren, and we nev­er could go to a place of wor­ship to­geth­er, or have a hap­py, qui­et day. God for­bid that we should ev­er turn back to those times; that’s what I say, Jer­ry.”

“And that is just what I told Mr. Brig­gs, my dear,” said Jer­ry, “and what I mean to stick to. So don’t go and fret your­self, Pol­ly” (for she had be­gun to cry); “I would not go back to the old times if I earned twice as much, so that is set­tled, lit­tle wom­an. Now, cheer up, and I’ll be off to the stand.”

Three weeks had passed away af­ter this con­ver­sa­tion, and no or­der had come from Mrs. Brig­gs; so there was noth­ing but tak­ing jobs from the stand. Jer­ry took it to heart a good deal, for of course the work was hard­er for horse and man. But Pol­ly would al­ways cheer him up, and say, “Nev­er mind, fa­ther, nev­er, mind.

“`Do your best, And leave the rest, ‘Twill all come right Some day or night.’”

It soon be­came known that Jer­ry had lost his best cus­tomer, and for what rea­son. Most of the men said he was a fool, but two or three took his part.

“If work­ing­men don’t stick to their Sun­day,” said Tru­man, “they’ll soon have none left; it is ev­ery man’s right and ev­ery beast’s right. By God’s law we have a day of rest, and by the law of Eng­land we have a day of rest; and I say we ought to hold to the rights these laws give us and keep them for our chil­dren.”

“All very well for you re­li­gious chaps to talk so,” said Lar­ry; “but I’ll turn a shilling when I can. I don’t be­lieve in re­li­gion, for I don’t see that your re­li­gious peo­ple are any bet­ter than the rest.”

“If they are not bet­ter,” put in Jer­ry, “it is be­cause they are not re­li­gious. You might as well say that our coun­try’s laws are not good be­cause some peo­ple break them. If a man gives way to his tem­per, and speaks evil of his neigh­bor, and does not pay his debts, he is not re­li­gious, I don’t care how much he goes to church. If some men are shams and hum­bugs, that does not make re­li­gion un­true. Re­al re­li­gion is the best and truest thing in the world, and the on­ly thing that can make a man re­al­ly hap­py or make the world we live in any bet­ter.”

“If re­li­gion was good for any­thing,” said Jones, “it would pre­vent your re­li­gious peo­ple from mak­ing us work on Sun­days, as you know many of them do, and that’s why I say re­li­gion is noth­ing but a sham; why, if it was not for the church and chapel-​go­ers it would be hard­ly worth while our com­ing out on a Sun­day. But they have their priv­ileges, as they call them, and I go with­out. I shall ex­pect them to an­swer for my soul, if I can’t get a chance of sav­ing it.”

Sev­er­al of the men ap­plaud­ed this, till Jer­ry said:

“That may sound well enough, but it won’t do; ev­ery man must look af­ter his own soul; you can’t lay it down at an­oth­er man’s door like a foundling and ex­pect him to take care of it; and don’t you see, if you are al­ways sit­ting on your box wait­ing for a fare, they will say, `If we don’t take him some one else will, and he does not look for any Sun­day.’ Of course, they don’t go to the bot­tom of it, or they would see if they nev­er came for a cab it would be no use your stand­ing there; but peo­ple don’t al­ways like to go to the bot­tom of things; it may not be con­ve­nient to do it; but if you Sun­day drivers would all strike for a day of rest the thing would be done.”

“And what would all the good peo­ple do if they could not get to their fa­vorite preach­ers?” said Lar­ry.

“‘Tis not for me to lay down plans for oth­er peo­ple,” said Jer­ry, “but if they can’t walk so far they can go to what is near­er; and if it should rain they can put on their mack­in­tosh­es as they do on a week-​day. If a thing is right it can be done, and if it is wrong it can be done with­out; and a good man will find a way. And that is as true for us cab­men as it is for the church-​go­ers.”

37 The Gold­en Rule

Two or three weeks af­ter this, as we came in­to the yard rather late in the evening, Pol­ly came run­ning across the road with the lantern (she al­ways brought it to him if it was not very wet).

“It has all come right, Jer­ry; Mrs. Brig­gs sent her ser­vant this af­ter­noon to ask you to take her out to-​mor­row at eleven o’clock. I said, `Yes, I thought so, but we sup­posed she em­ployed some one else now.’”

“`Well,’ said he, `the re­al fact is, mas­ter was put out be­cause Mr. Bark­er re­fused to come on Sun­days, and he has been try­ing oth­er cabs, but there’s some­thing wrong with them all; some drive too fast, and some too slow, and the mis­tress says there is not one of them so nice and clean as yours, and noth­ing will suit her but Mr. Bark­er’s cab again.’”

Pol­ly was al­most out of breath, and Jer­ry broke out in­to a mer­ry laugh.

“`’Twill all come right some day or night’: you were right, my dear; you gen­er­al­ly are. Run in and get the sup­per, and I’ll have Jack’s har­ness off and make him snug and hap­py in no time.”

Af­ter this Mrs. Brig­gs want­ed Jer­ry’s cab quite as of­ten as be­fore, nev­er, how­ev­er, on a Sun­day; but there came a day when we had Sun­day work, and this was how it hap­pened. We had all come home on the Sat­ur­day night very tired, and very glad to think that the next day would be all rest, but so it was not to be.

On Sun­day morn­ing Jer­ry was clean­ing me in the yard, when Pol­ly stepped up to him, look­ing very full of some­thing.

“What is it?” said Jer­ry.

“Well, my dear,” she said, “poor Di­nah Brown has just had a let­ter brought to say that her moth­er is dan­ger­ous­ly ill, and that she must go di­rect­ly if she wish­es to see her alive. The place is more than ten miles away from here, out in the coun­try, and she says if she takes the train she should still have four miles to walk; and so weak as she is, and the ba­by on­ly four weeks old, of course that would be im­pos­si­ble; and she wants to know if you would take her in your cab, and she promis­es to pay you faith­ful­ly, as she can get the mon­ey.”

“Tut, tut! we’ll see about that. It was not the mon­ey I was think­ing about, but of los­ing our Sun­day; the hors­es are tired, and I am tired, too — that’s where it pinch­es.”

“It pinch­es all round, for that mat­ter,” said Pol­ly, “for it’s on­ly half Sun­day with­out you, but you know we should do to oth­er peo­ple as we should like they should do to us; and I know very well what I should like if my moth­er was dy­ing; and Jer­ry, dear, I am sure it won’t break the Sab­bath; for if pulling a poor beast or don­key out of a pit would not spoil it, I am quite sure tak­ing poor Di­nah would not do it.”

“Why, Pol­ly, you are as good as the min­is­ter, and so, as I’ve had my Sun­day-​morn­ing ser­mon ear­ly to-​day, you may go and tell Di­nah that I’ll be ready for her as the clock strikes ten; but stop — just step round to butch­er Bray­don’s with my com­pli­ments, and ask him if he would lend me his light trap; I know he nev­er us­es it on the Sun­day, and it would make a won­der­ful dif­fer­ence to the horse.”

Away she went, and soon re­turned, say­ing that he could have the trap and wel­come.

“All right,” said he; “now put me up a bit of bread and cheese, and I’ll be back in the af­ter­noon as soon as I can.”

“And I’ll have the meat pie ready for an ear­ly tea in­stead of for din­ner,” said Pol­ly; and away she went, while he made his prepa­ra­tions to the tune of “Pol­ly’s the wom­an and no mis­take”, of which tune he was very fond.

I was se­lect­ed for the jour­ney, and at ten o’clock we start­ed, in a light, high-​wheeled gig, which ran so eas­ily that af­ter the four-​wheeled cab it seemed like noth­ing.

It was a fine May day, and as soon as we were out of the town, the sweet air, the smell of the fresh grass, and the soft coun­try roads were as pleas­ant as they used to be in the old times, and I soon be­gan to feel quite fresh.

Di­nah’s fam­ily lived in a small farm­house, up a green lane, close by a mead­ow with some fine shady trees; there were two cows feed­ing in it. A young man asked Jer­ry to bring his trap in­to the mead­ow, and he would tie me up in the cow­shed; he wished he had a bet­ter sta­ble to of­fer.

“If your cows would not be of­fend­ed,” said Jer­ry, “there is noth­ing my horse would like so well as to have an hour or two in your beau­ti­ful mead­ow; he’s qui­et, and it would be a rare treat for him.”

“Do, and wel­come,” said the young man; “the best we have is at your ser­vice for your kind­ness to my sis­ter; we shall be hav­ing some din­ner in an hour, and I hope you’ll come in, though with moth­er so ill we are all out of sorts in the house.”

Jer­ry thanked him kind­ly, but said as he had some din­ner with him there was noth­ing he should like so well as walk­ing about in the mead­ow.

When my har­ness was tak­en off I did not know what I should do first — whether to eat the grass, or roll over on my back, or lie down and rest, or have a gal­lop across the mead­ow out of sheer spir­its at be­ing free; and I did all by turns. Jer­ry seemed to be quite as hap­py as I was; he sat down by a bank un­der a shady tree, and lis­tened to the birds, then he sang him­self, and read out of the lit­tle brown book he is so fond of, then wan­dered round the mead­ow, and down by a lit­tle brook, where he picked the flow­ers and the hawthorn, and tied them up with long sprays of ivy; then he gave me a good feed of the oats which he had brought with him; but the time seemed all too short — I had not been in a field since I left poor Gin­ger at Earl­shall.

We came home gen­tly, and Jer­ry’s first words were, as we came in­to the yard, “Well, Pol­ly, I have not lost my Sun­day af­ter all, for the birds were singing hymns in ev­ery bush, and I joined in the ser­vice; and as for Jack, he was like a young colt.”

When he hand­ed Dol­ly the flow­ers she jumped about for joy.

38 Dol­ly and a Re­al Gen­tle­man

Win­ter came in ear­ly, with a great deal of cold and wet. There was snow, or sleet, or rain al­most ev­ery day for weeks, chang­ing on­ly for keen driv­ing winds or sharp frosts. The hors­es all felt it very much. When it is a dry cold a cou­ple of good thick rugs will keep the warmth in us; but when it is soak­ing rain they soon get wet through and are no good. Some of the drivers had a wa­ter­proof cov­er to throw over, which was a fine thing; but some of the men were so poor that they could not pro­tect ei­ther them­selves or their hors­es, and many of them suf­fered very much that win­ter. When we hors­es had worked half the day we went to our dry sta­bles, and could rest, while they had to sit on their box­es, some­times stay­ing out as late as one or two o’clock in the morn­ing if they had a par­ty to wait for.

When the streets were slip­pery with frost or snow that was the worst of all for us hors­es. One mile of such trav­el­ing, with a weight to draw and no firm foot­ing, would take more out of us than four on a good road; ev­ery nerve and mus­cle of our bod­ies is on the strain to keep our bal­ance; and, added to this, the fear of falling is more ex­haust­ing than any­thing else. If the roads are very bad in­deed our shoes are roughed, but that makes us feel ner­vous at first.

When the weath­er was very bad many of the men would go and sit in the tav­ern close by, and get some one to watch for them; but they of­ten lost a fare in that way, and could not, as Jer­ry said, be there with­out spend­ing mon­ey. He nev­er went to the Ris­ing Sun; there was a cof­fee-​shop near, where he now and then went, or he bought of an old man, who came to our rank with tins of hot cof­fee and pies. It was his opin­ion that spir­its and beer made a man cold­er af­ter­ward, and that dry clothes, good food, cheer­ful­ness, and a com­fort­able wife at home, were the best things to keep a cab­man warm. Pol­ly al­ways sup­plied him with some­thing to eat when he could not get home, and some­times he would see lit­tle Dol­ly peep­ing from the cor­ner of the street, to make sure if “fa­ther” was on the stand. If she saw him she would run off at full speed and soon come back with some­thing in a tin or bas­ket, some hot soup or pud­ding Pol­ly had ready. It was won­der­ful how such a lit­tle thing could get safe­ly across the street, of­ten thronged with hors­es and car­riages; but she was a brave lit­tle maid, and felt it quite an hon­or to bring “fa­ther’s first course”, as he used to call it. She was a gen­er­al fa­vorite on the stand, and there was not a man who would not have seen her safe­ly across the street, if Jer­ry had not been able to do it.

One cold windy day Dol­ly had brought Jer­ry a basin of some­thing hot, and was stand­ing by him while he ate it. He had scarce­ly be­gun when a gen­tle­man, walk­ing to­ward us very fast, held up his um­brel­la. Jer­ry touched his hat in re­turn, gave the basin to Dol­ly, and was tak­ing off my cloth, when the gen­tle­man, has­ten­ing up, cried out, “No, no, fin­ish your soup, my friend; I have not much time to spare, but I can wait till you have done, and set your lit­tle girl safe on the pave­ment.” So say­ing, he seat­ed him­self in the cab. Jer­ry thanked him kind­ly, and came back to Dol­ly.

“There, Dol­ly, that’s a gen­tle­man; that’s a re­al gen­tle­man, Dol­ly; he has got time and thought for the com­fort of a poor cab­man and a lit­tle girl.”

Jer­ry fin­ished his soup, set the child across, and then took his or­ders to drive to Clapham Rise. Sev­er­al times af­ter that the same gen­tle­man took our cab. I think he was very fond of dogs and hors­es, for when­ev­er we took him to his own door two or three dogs would come bound­ing out to meet him. Some­times he came round and pat­ted me, say­ing in his qui­et, pleas­ant way, “This horse has got a good mas­ter, and he de­serves it.” It was a very rare thing for any one to no­tice the horse that had been work­ing for him. I have known ladies to do it now and then, and this gen­tle­man, and one or two oth­ers have giv­en me a pat and a kind word; but nine­ty-​nine per­sons out of a hun­dred would as soon think of pat­ting the steam en­gine that drew the train.

The gen­tle­man was not young, and there was a for­ward stoop in his shoul­ders as if he was al­ways go­ing at some­thing. His lips were thin and close shut, though they had a very pleas­ant smile; his eye was keen, and there was some­thing in his jaw and the mo­tion of his head that made one think he was very de­ter­mined in any­thing he set about. His voice was pleas­ant and kind; any horse would trust that voice, though it was just as de­cid­ed as ev­ery­thing else about him.

One day he and an­oth­er gen­tle­man took our cab; they stopped at a shop in R—- Street, and while his friend went in he stood at the door. A lit­tle ahead of us on the oth­er side of the street a cart with two very fine hors­es was stand­ing be­fore some wine vaults; the carter was not with them, and I can­not tell how long they had been stand­ing, but they seemed to think they had wait­ed long enough, and be­gan to move off. Be­fore they had gone many paces the carter came run­ning out and caught them. He seemed fu­ri­ous at their hav­ing moved, and with whip and rein pun­ished them bru­tal­ly, even beat­ing them about the head. Our gen­tle­man saw it all, and step­ping quick­ly across the street, said in a de­cid­ed voice:

“If you don’t stop that di­rect­ly, I’ll have you ar­rest­ed for leav­ing your hors­es, and for bru­tal con­duct.”

The man, who had clear­ly been drink­ing, poured forth some abu­sive lan­guage, but he left off knock­ing the hors­es about, and tak­ing the reins, got in­to his cart; mean­time our friend had qui­et­ly tak­en a note-​book from his pock­et, and look­ing at the name and ad­dress paint­ed on the cart, he wrote some­thing down.

“What do you want with that?” growled the carter, as he cracked his whip and was mov­ing on. A nod and a grim smile was the on­ly an­swer he got.

On re­turn­ing to the cab our friend was joined by his com­pan­ion, who said laugh­ing­ly, “I should have thought, Wright, you had enough busi­ness of your own to look af­ter, with­out trou­bling your­self about oth­er peo­ple’s hors­es and ser­vants.”

Our friend stood still for a mo­ment, and throw­ing his head a lit­tle back, “Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?”

“No,” said the oth­er.

“Then I’ll tell you. It is be­cause peo­ple think on­ly about their own busi­ness, and won’t trou­ble them­selves to stand up for the op­pressed, nor bring the wrong­do­er to light. I nev­er see a wicked thing like this with­out do­ing what I can, and many a mas­ter has thanked me for let­ting him know how his hors­es have been used.”

“I wish there were more gen­tle­men like you, sir,” said Jer­ry, “for they are want­ed bad­ly enough in this city.”

Af­ter this we con­tin­ued our jour­ney, and as they got out of the cab our friend was say­ing, “My doc­trine is this, that if we see cru­el­ty or wrong that we have the pow­er to stop, and do noth­ing, we make our­selves shar­ers in the guilt.”

39 Seedy Sam

I should say that for a cab-​horse I was very well off in­deed; my driv­er was my own­er, and it was his in­ter­est to treat me well and not over­work me, even had he not been so good a man as he was; but there were a great many hors­es which be­longed to the large cab-​own­ers, who let them out to their drivers for so much mon­ey a day. As the hors­es did not be­long to these men the on­ly thing they thought of was how to get their mon­ey out of them, first, to pay the mas­ter, and then to pro­vide for their own liv­ing; and a dread­ful time some of these hors­es had of it. Of course, I un­der­stood but lit­tle, but it was of­ten talked over on the stand, and the gov­er­nor, who was a kind-​heart­ed man and fond of hors­es, would some­times speak up if one came in very much jad­ed or ill-​used.

One day a shab­by, mis­er­able-​look­ing driv­er, who went by the name of “Seedy Sam”, brought in his horse look­ing dread­ful­ly beat, and the gov­er­nor said:

“You and your horse look more fit for the po­lice sta­tion than for this rank.”

The man flung his tat­tered rug over the horse, turned full round up­on the Gov­er­nor and said in a voice that sound­ed al­most des­per­ate:

“If the po­lice have any busi­ness with the mat­ter it ought to be with the mas­ters who charge us so much, or with the fares that are fixed so low. If a man has to pay eigh­teen shillings a day for the use of a cab and two hors­es, as many of us have to do in the sea­son, and must make that up be­fore we earn a pen­ny for our­selves I say ’tis more than hard work; nine shillings a day to get out of each horse be­fore you be­gin to get your own liv­ing. You know that’s true, and if the hors­es don’t work we must starve, and I and my chil­dren have known what that is be­fore now. I’ve six of ‘em, and on­ly one earns any­thing; I am on the stand four­teen or six­teen hours a day, and I haven’t had a Sun­day these ten or twelve weeks; you know Skin­ner nev­er gives a day if he can help it, and if I don’t work hard, tell me who does! I want a warm coat and a mack­in­tosh, but with so many to feed how can a man get it? I had to pledge my clock a week ago to pay Skin­ner, and I shall nev­er see it again.”

Some of the oth­er drivers stood round nod­ding their heads and say­ing he was right. The man went on:

“You that have your own hors­es and cabs, or drive for good mas­ters, have a chance of get­ting on and a chance of do­ing right; I haven’t. We can’t charge more than six­pence a mile af­ter the first, with­in the four-​mile ra­dius. This very morn­ing I had to go a clear six miles and on­ly took three shillings. I could not get a re­turn fare, and had to come all the way back; there’s twelve miles for the horse and three shillings for me. Af­ter that I had a three-​mile fare, and there were bags and box­es enough to have brought in a good many twopences if they had been put out­side; but you know how peo­ple do; all that could be piled up in­side on the front seat were put in and three heavy box­es went on the top. That was six­pence, and the fare one and six­pence; then I got a re­turn for a shilling. Now that makes eigh­teen miles for the horse and six shillings for me; there’s three shillings still for that horse to earn and nine shillings for the af­ter­noon horse be­fore I touch a pen­ny. Of course, it is not al­ways so bad as that, but you know it of­ten is, and I say ’tis a mock­ery to tell a man that he must not over­work his horse, for when a beast is down­right tired there’s noth­ing but the whip that will keep his legs a-​go­ing; you can’t help your­self — you must put your wife and chil­dren be­fore the horse; the mas­ters must look to that, we can’t. I don’t ill-​use my horse for the sake of it; none of you can say I do. There’s wrong lays some­where — nev­er a day’s rest, nev­er a qui­et hour with the wife and chil­dren. I of­ten feel like an old man, though I’m on­ly forty-​five. You know how quick some of the gen­try are to sus­pect us of cheat­ing and over­charg­ing; why, they stand with their purs­es in their hands count­ing it over to a pen­ny and look­ing at us as if we were pick­pock­ets. I wish some of ‘em had got to sit on my box six­teen hours a day and get a liv­ing out of it and eigh­teen shillings be­side, and that in all weath­ers; they would not be so un­com­mon par­tic­ular nev­er to give us a six­pence over or to cram all the lug­gage in­side. Of course, some of ‘em tip us pret­ty hand­some now and then, or else we could not live; but you can’t de­pend up­on that.”

The men who stood round much ap­proved this speech, and one of them said, “It is des­per­ate hard, and if a man some­times does what is wrong it is no won­der, and if he gets a dram too much who’s to blow him up?”

Jer­ry had tak­en no part in this con­ver­sa­tion, but I nev­er saw his face look so sad be­fore. The gov­er­nor had stood with both his hands in his pock­ets; now he took his hand­ker­chief out of his hat and wiped his fore­head.

“You’ve beat­en me, Sam,” he said, “for it’s all true, and I won’t cast it up to you any more about the po­lice; it was the look in that horse’s eye that came over me. It is hard lines for man and it is hard lines for beast, and who’s to mend it I don’t know: but any­way you might tell the poor beast that you were sor­ry to take it out of him in that way. Some­times a kind word is all we can give ‘em, poor brutes, and ’tis won­der­ful what they do un­der­stand.”

A few morn­ings af­ter this talk a new man came on the stand with Sam’s cab.

“Hal­loo!” said one, “what’s up with Seedy Sam?”

“He’s ill in bed,” said the man; “he was tak­en last night in the yard, and could scarce­ly crawl home. His wife sent a boy this morn­ing to say his fa­ther was in a high fever and could not get out, so I’m here in­stead.”

The next morn­ing the same man came again.

“How is Sam?” in­quired the gov­er­nor.

“He’s gone,” said the man.

“What, gone? You don’t mean to say he’s dead?”

“Just snuffed out,” said the oth­er; “he died at four o’clock this morn­ing; all yes­ter­day he was rav­ing — rav­ing about Skin­ner, and hav­ing no Sun­days. `I nev­er had a Sun­day’s rest,’ these were his last words.”

No one spoke for a while, and then the gov­er­nor said, “I’ll tell you what, mates, this is a warn­ing for us.”

40 Poor Gin­ger

One day, while our cab and many oth­ers were wait­ing out­side one of the parks where mu­sic was play­ing, a shab­by old cab drove up be­side ours. The horse was an old worn-​out chest­nut, with an ill-​kept coat, and bones that showed plain­ly through it, the knees knuck­led over, and the fore-​legs were very un­steady. I had been eat­ing some hay, and the wind rolled a lit­tle lock of it that way, and the poor crea­ture put out her long thin neck and picked it up, and then turned and looked about for more. There was a hope­less look in the dull eye that I could not help notic­ing, and then, as I was think­ing where I had seen that horse be­fore, she looked full at me and said, “Black Beau­ty, is that you?”

It was Gin­ger! but how changed! The beau­ti­ful­ly arched and glossy neck was now straight, and lank, and fall­en in; the clean straight legs and del­icate fet­locks were swelled; the joints were grown out of shape with hard work; the face, that was once so full of spir­it and life, was now full of suf­fer­ing, and I could tell by the heav­ing of her sides, and her fre­quent cough, how bad her breath was.

Our drivers were stand­ing to­geth­er a lit­tle way off, so I si­dled up to her a step or two, that we might have a lit­tle qui­et talk. It was a sad tale that she had to tell.

Af­ter a twelve­month’s run off at Earl­shall, she was con­sid­ered to be fit for work again, and was sold to a gen­tle­man. For a lit­tle while she got on very well, but af­ter a longer gal­lop than usu­al the old strain re­turned, and af­ter be­ing rest­ed and doc­tored she was again sold. In this way she changed hands sev­er­al times, but al­ways get­ting low­er down.

“And so at last,” said she, “I was bought by a man who keeps a num­ber of cabs and hors­es, and lets them out. You look well off, and I am glad of it, but I could not tell you what my life has been. When they found out my weak­ness they said I was not worth what they gave for me, and that I must go in­to one of the low cabs, and just be used up; that is what they are do­ing, whip­ping and work­ing with nev­er one thought of what I suf­fer — they paid for me, and must get it out of me, they say. The man who hires me now pays a deal of mon­ey to the own­er ev­ery day, and so he has to get it out of me too; and so it’s all the week round and round, with nev­er a Sun­day rest.”

I said, “You used to stand up for your­self if you were ill-​used.”

“Ah!” she said, “I did once, but it’s no use; men are strongest, and if they are cru­el and have no feel­ing, there is noth­ing that we can do, but just bear it — bear it on and on to the end. I wish the end was come, I wish I was dead. I have seen dead hors­es, and I am sure they do not suf­fer pain; I wish I may drop down dead at my work, and not be sent off to the knack­ers.”

I was very much trou­bled, and I put my nose up to hers, but I could say noth­ing to com­fort her. I think she was pleased to see me, for she said, “You are the on­ly friend I ev­er had.”

Just then her driv­er came up, and with a tug at her mouth backed her out of the line and drove off, leav­ing me very sad in­deed.

A short time af­ter this a cart with a dead horse in it passed our cab-​stand. The head hung out of the cart-​tail, the life­less tongue was slow­ly drop­ping with blood; and the sunken eyes! but I can’t speak of them, the sight was too dread­ful. It was a chest­nut horse with a long, thin neck. I saw a white streak down the fore­head. I be­lieve it was Gin­ger; I hoped it was, for then her trou­bles would be over. Oh! if men were more mer­ci­ful they would shoot us be­fore we came to such mis­ery.

41 The Butch­er

I saw a great deal of trou­ble among the hors­es in Lon­don, and much of it might have been pre­vent­ed by a lit­tle com­mon sense. We hors­es do not mind hard work if we are treat­ed rea­son­ably, and I am sure there are many driv­en by quite poor men who have a hap­pi­er life than I had when I used to go in the Count­ess of W—-’s car­riage, with my sil­ver-​mount­ed har­ness and high feed­ing.

It of­ten went to my heart to see how the lit­tle ponies were used, strain­ing along with heavy loads or stag­ger­ing un­der heavy blows from some low, cru­el boy. Once I saw a lit­tle gray pony with a thick mane and a pret­ty head, and so much like Mer­rylegs that if I had not been in har­ness I should have neighed to him. He was do­ing his best to pull a heavy cart, while a strong rough boy was cut­ting him un­der the bel­ly with his whip and chuck­ing cru­el­ly at his lit­tle mouth. Could it be Mer­rylegs? It was just like him; but then Mr. Blome­field was nev­er to sell him, and I think he would not do it; but this might have been quite as good a lit­tle fel­low, and had as hap­py a place when he was young.

I of­ten no­ticed the great speed at which butch­ers’ hors­es were made to go, though I did not know why it was so till one day when we had to wait some time in St. John’s Wood. There was a butch­er’s shop next door, and as we were stand­ing a butch­er’s cart came dash­ing up at a great pace. The horse was hot and much ex­haust­ed; he hung his head down, while his heav­ing sides and trem­bling legs showed how hard he had been driv­en. The lad jumped out of the cart and was get­ting the bas­ket when the mas­ter came out of the shop much dis­pleased. Af­ter look­ing at the horse he turned an­gri­ly to the lad.

“How many times shall I tell you not to drive in this way? You ru­ined the last horse and broke his wind, and you are go­ing to ru­in this in the same way. If you were not my own son I would dis­miss you on the spot; it is a dis­grace to have a horse brought to the shop in a con­di­tion like that; you are li­able to be tak­en up by the po­lice for such driv­ing, and if you are you need not look to me for bail, for I have spo­ken to you till I’m tired; you must look out for your­self.”

Dur­ing this speech the boy had stood by, sullen and dogged, but when his fa­ther ceased he broke out an­gri­ly. It wasn’t his fault, and he wouldn’t take the blame; he was on­ly go­ing by or­ders all the time.

“You al­ways say, `Now be quick; now look sharp!’ and when I go to the hous­es one wants a leg of mut­ton for an ear­ly din­ner and I must be back with it in a quar­ter of an hour; an­oth­er cook has for­got­ten to or­der the beef; I must go and fetch it and be back in no time, or the mis­tress will scold; and the house­keep­er says they have com­pa­ny com­ing un­ex­pect­ed­ly and must have some chops sent up di­rect­ly; and the la­dy at No. 4, in the Cres­cent, nev­er or­ders her din­ner till the meat comes in for lunch, and it’s noth­ing but hur­ry, hur­ry, all the time. If the gen­try would think of what they want, and or­der their meat the day be­fore, there need not be this blow up!”

“I wish to good­ness they would,” said the butch­er; “‘twould save me a won­der­ful deal of ha­rass, and I could suit my cus­tomers much bet­ter if I knew be­fore­hand — But there! what’s the use of talk­ing — who ev­er thinks of a butch­er’s con­ve­nience or a butch­er’s horse! Now, then, take him in and look to him well; mind, he does not go out again to-​day, and if any­thing else is want­ed you must car­ry it your­self in the bas­ket.” With that he went in, and the horse was led away.

But all boys are not cru­el. I have seen some as fond of their pony or don­key as if it had been a fa­vorite dog, and the lit­tle crea­tures have worked away as cheer­ful­ly and will­ing­ly for their young drivers as I work for Jer­ry. It may be hard work some­times, but a friend’s hand and voice make it easy.

There was a young coster-​boy who came up our street with greens and pota­toes; he had an old pony, not very hand­some, but the cheer­fullest and pluck­iest lit­tle thing I ev­er saw, and to see how fond those two were of each oth­er was a treat. The pony fol­lowed his mas­ter like a dog, and when he got in­to his cart would trot off with­out a whip or a word, and rat­tle down the street as mer­ri­ly as if he had come out of the queen’s sta­bles. Jer­ry liked the boy, and called him “Prince Char­lie”, for he said he would make a king of drivers some day.

There was an old man, too, who used to come up our street with a lit­tle coal cart; he wore a coal-​heaver’s hat, and looked rough and black. He and his old horse used to plod to­geth­er along the street, like two good part­ners who un­der­stood each oth­er; the horse would stop of his own ac­cord at the doors where they took coal of him; he used to keep one ear bent to­ward his mas­ter. The old man’s cry could be heard up the street long be­fore he came near. I nev­er knew what he said, but the chil­dren called him “Old Ba-​a-​ar Hoo”, for it sound­ed like that. Pol­ly took her coal of him, and was very friend­ly, and Jer­ry said it was a com­fort to think how hap­py an old horse might be in a poor place.

42 The Elec­tion

As we came in­to the yard one af­ter­noon Pol­ly came out. “Jer­ry! I’ve had Mr. B—- here ask­ing about your vote, and he wants to hire your cab for the elec­tion; he will call for an an­swer.”

“Well, Pol­ly, you may say that my cab will be oth­er­wise en­gaged. I should not like to have it past­ed over with their great bills, and as to mak­ing Jack and Cap­tain race about to the pub­lic-​hous­es to bring up half-​drunk­en vot­ers, why, I think ‘twould be an in­sult to the hors­es. No, I shan’t do it.”

“I sup­pose you’ll vote for the gen­tle­man? He said he was of your pol­itics.”

“So he is in some things, but I shall not vote for him, Pol­ly; you know what his trade is?”

“Yes.”

“Well, a man who gets rich by that trade may be all very well in some ways, but he is blind as to what work­ing­men want; I could not in my con­science send him up to make the laws. I dare say they’ll be an­gry, but ev­ery man must do what he thinks to be the best for his coun­try.”

On the morn­ing be­fore the elec­tion, Jer­ry was putting me in­to the shafts, when Dol­ly came in­to the yard sob­bing and cry­ing, with her lit­tle blue frock and white pinafore spat­tered all over with mud.

“Why, Dol­ly, what is the mat­ter?”

“Those naughty boys,” she sobbed, “have thrown the dirt all over me, and called me a lit­tle ra­ga– ra­ga–“

“They called her a lit­tle `blue’ raga­muf­fin, fa­ther,” said Har­ry, who ran in look­ing very an­gry; “but I have giv­en it to them; they won’t in­sult my sis­ter again. I have giv­en them a thrash­ing they will re­mem­ber; a set of cow­ard­ly, ras­cal­ly `or­ange’ black­guards.”

Jer­ry kissed the child and said, “Run in to moth­er, my pet, and tell her I think you had bet­ter stay at home to-​day and help her.”

Then turn­ing grave­ly to Har­ry:

“My boy, I hope you will al­ways de­fend your sis­ter, and give any­body who in­sults her a good thrash­ing — that is as it should be; but mind, I won’t have any elec­tion black­guard­ing on my premis­es. There are as many `blue’ black­guards as there are `or­ange’, and as many white as there are pur­ple, or any oth­er col­or, and I won’t have any of my fam­ily mixed up with it. Even wom­en and chil­dren are ready to quar­rel for the sake of a col­or, and not one in ten of them knows what it is about.”

“Why, fa­ther, I thought blue was for Lib­er­ty.”

“My boy, Lib­er­ty does not come from col­ors, they on­ly show par­ty, and all the lib­er­ty you can get out of them is, lib­er­ty to get drunk at oth­er peo­ple’s ex­pense, lib­er­ty to ride to the poll in a dirty old cab, lib­er­ty to abuse any one that does not wear your col­or, and to shout your­self hoarse at what you on­ly half-​un­der­stand — that’s your lib­er­ty!”

“Oh, fa­ther, you are laugh­ing.”

“No, Har­ry, I am se­ri­ous, and I am ashamed to see how men go on who ought to know bet­ter. An elec­tion is a very se­ri­ous thing; at least it ought to be, and ev­ery man ought to vote ac­cord­ing to his con­science, and let his neigh­bor do the same.”

43 A Friend in Need

The elec­tion day came at last; there was no lack of work for Jer­ry and me. First came a stout puffy gen­tle­man with a car­pet bag; he want­ed to go to the Bish­ops­gate sta­tion; then we were called by a par­ty who wished to be tak­en to the Re­gent’s Park; and next we were want­ed in a side street where a timid, anx­ious old la­dy was wait­ing to be tak­en to the bank; there we had to stop to take her back again, and just as we had set her down a red-​faced gen­tle­man, with a hand­ful of pa­pers, came run­ning up out of breath, and be­fore Jer­ry could get down he had opened the door, popped him­self in, and called out, “Bow Street Po­lice Sta­tion, quick!” so off we went with him, and when af­ter an­oth­er turn or two we came back, there was no oth­er cab on the stand. Jer­ry put on my nose-​bag, for as he said, “We must eat when we can on such days as these; so munch away, Jack, and make the best of your time, old boy.”

I found I had a good feed of crushed oats wet­ted up with a lit­tle bran; this would be a treat any day, but very re­fresh­ing then. Jer­ry was so thought­ful and kind — what horse would not do his best for such a mas­ter? Then he took out one of Pol­ly’s meat pies, and stand­ing near me, he be­gan to eat it. The streets were very full, and the cabs, with the can­di­dates’ col­ors on them, were dash­ing about through the crowd as if life and limb were of no con­se­quence; we saw two peo­ple knocked down that day, and one was a wom­an. The hors­es were hav­ing a bad time of it, poor things! but the vot­ers in­side thought noth­ing of that; many of them were half-​drunk, hur­rahing out of the cab win­dows if their own par­ty came by. It was the first elec­tion I had seen, and I don’t want to be in an­oth­er, though I have heard things are bet­ter now.

Jer­ry and I had not eat­en many mouth­fuls be­fore a poor young wom­an, car­ry­ing a heavy child, came along the street. She was look­ing this way and that way, and seemed quite be­wil­dered. Present­ly she made her way up to Jer­ry and asked if he could tell her the way to St. Thomas’ Hos­pi­tal, and how far it was to get there. She had come from the coun­try that morn­ing, she said, in a mar­ket cart; she did not know about the elec­tion, and was quite a stranger in Lon­don. She had got an or­der for the hos­pi­tal for her lit­tle boy. The child was cry­ing with a fee­ble, pin­ing cry.

“Poor lit­tle fel­low!” she said, “he suf­fers a deal of pain; he is four years old and can’t walk any more than a ba­by; but the doc­tor said if I could get him in­to the hos­pi­tal he might get well; pray, sir, how far is it; and which way is it?”

“Why, mis­sis,” said Jer­ry, “you can’t get there walk­ing through crowds like this! why, it is three miles away, and that child is heavy.”

“Yes, bless him, he is; but I am strong, thank God, and if I knew the way I think I should get on some­how; please tell me the way.”

“You can’t do it,” said Jer­ry, “you might be knocked down and the child be run over. Now look here, just get in­to this cab, and I’ll drive you safe to the hos­pi­tal. Don’t you see the rain is com­ing on?”

“No, sir, no; I can’t do that, thank you, I have on­ly just mon­ey enough to get back with. Please tell me the way.”

“Look you here, mis­sis,” said Jer­ry, “I’ve got a wife and dear chil­dren at home, and I know a fa­ther’s feel­ings; now get you in­to that cab, and I’ll take you there for noth­ing. I’d be ashamed of my­self to let a wom­an and a sick child run a risk like that.”

“Heav­en bless you!” said the wom­an, and burst in­to tears.

“There, there, cheer up, my dear, I’ll soon take you there; come, let me put you in­side.”

As Jer­ry went to open the door two men, with col­ors in their hats and but­ton­holes, ran up call­ing out, “Cab!”

“En­gaged,” cried Jer­ry; but one of the men, push­ing past the wom­an, sprang in­to the cab, fol­lowed by the oth­er. Jer­ry looked as stern as a po­lice­man. “This cab is al­ready en­gaged, gen­tle­men, by that la­dy.”

“La­dy!” said one of them; “oh! she can wait; our busi­ness is very im­por­tant, be­sides we were in first, it is our right, and we shall stay in.”

A droll smile came over Jer­ry’s face as he shut the door up­on them. “All right, gen­tle­men, pray stay in as long as it suits you; I can wait while you rest your­selves.” And turn­ing his back up­on them he walked up to the young wom­an, who was stand­ing near me. “They’ll soon be gone,” he said, laugh­ing; “don’t trou­ble your­self, my dear.”

And they soon were gone, for when they un­der­stood Jer­ry’s dodge they got out, call­ing him all sorts of bad names and blus­ter­ing about his num­ber and get­ting a sum­mons. Af­ter this lit­tle stop­page we were soon on our way to the hos­pi­tal, go­ing as much as pos­si­ble through by-​streets. Jer­ry rung the great bell and helped the young wom­an out.

“Thank you a thou­sand times,” she said; “I could nev­er have got here alone.”

“You’re kind­ly wel­come, and I hope the dear child will soon be bet­ter.”

He watched her go in at the door, and gen­tly he said to him­self, “Inas­much as ye have done it to one of the least of these.” Then he pat­ted my neck, which was al­ways his way when any­thing pleased him.

The rain was now com­ing down fast, and just as we were leav­ing the hos­pi­tal the door opened again, and the porter called out, “Cab!” We stopped, and a la­dy came down the steps. Jer­ry seemed to know her at once; she put back her veil and said, “Bark­er! Jeremi­ah Bark­er, is it you? I am very glad to find you here; you are just the friend I want, for it is very dif­fi­cult to get a cab in this part of Lon­don to-​day.”

“I shall be proud to serve you, ma’am; I am right glad I hap­pened to be here. Where may I take you to, ma’am?”

“To the Padding­ton Sta­tion, and then if we are in good time, as I think we shall be, you shall tell me all about Mary and the chil­dren.”

We got to the sta­tion in good time, and be­ing un­der shel­ter the la­dy stood a good while talk­ing to Jer­ry. I found she had been Pol­ly’s mis­tress, and af­ter many in­quiries about her she said:

“How do you find the cab work suit you in win­ter? I know Mary was rather anx­ious about you last year.”

“Yes, ma’am, she was; I had a bad cough that fol­lowed me up quite in­to the warm weath­er, and when I am kept out late she does wor­ry her­self a good deal. You see, ma’am, it is all hours and all weath­ers, and that does try a man’s con­sti­tu­tion; but I am get­ting on pret­ty well, and I should feel quite lost if I had not hors­es to look af­ter. I was brought up to it, and I am afraid I should not do so well at any­thing else.”

“Well, Bark­er,” she said, “it would be a great pity that you should se­ri­ous­ly risk your health in this work, not on­ly for your own but for Mary’s and the chil­dren’s sake; there are many places where good drivers or good grooms are want­ed, and if ev­er you think you ought to give up this cab work let me know.”

Then send­ing some kind mes­sages to Mary she put some­thing in­to his hand, say­ing, “There is five shillings each for the two chil­dren; Mary will know how to spend it.”

Jer­ry thanked her and seemed much pleased, and turn­ing out of the sta­tion we at last reached home, and I, at least, was tired.

44 Old Cap­tain and His Suc­ces­sor

Cap­tain and I were great friends. He was a no­ble old fel­low, and he was very good com­pa­ny. I nev­er thought that he would have to leave his home and go down the hill; but his turn came, and this was how it hap­pened. I was not there, but I heard all about it.

He and Jer­ry had tak­en a par­ty to the great rail­way sta­tion over Lon­don Bridge, and were com­ing back, some­where be­tween the bridge and the mon­ument, when Jer­ry saw a brew­er’s emp­ty dray com­ing along, drawn by two pow­er­ful hors­es. The dray­man was lash­ing his hors­es with his heavy whip; the dray was light, and they start­ed off at a fu­ri­ous rate; the man had no con­trol over them, and the street was full of traf­fic.

One young girl was knocked down and run over, and the next mo­ment they dashed up against our cab; both the wheels were torn off and the cab was thrown over. Cap­tain was dragged down, the shafts splin­tered, and one of them ran in­to his side. Jer­ry, too, was thrown, but was on­ly bruised; no­body could tell how he es­caped; he al­ways said ’twas a mir­acle. When poor Cap­tain was got up he was found to be very much cut and knocked about. Jer­ry led him home gen­tly, and a sad sight it was to see the blood soak­ing in­to his white coat and drop­ping from his side and shoul­der. The dray­man was proved to be very drunk, and was fined, and the brew­er had to pay dam­ages to our mas­ter; but there was no one to pay dam­ages to poor Cap­tain.

The far­ri­er and Jer­ry did the best they could to ease his pain and make him com­fort­able. The fly had to be mend­ed, and for sev­er­al days I did not go out, and Jer­ry earned noth­ing. The first time we went to the stand af­ter the ac­ci­dent the gov­er­nor came up to hear how Cap­tain was.

“He’ll nev­er get over it,” said Jer­ry, “at least not for my work, so the far­ri­er said this morn­ing. He says he may do for cart­ing, and that sort of work. It has put me out very much. Cart­ing, in­deed! I’ve seen what hors­es come to at that work round Lon­don. I on­ly wish all the drunk­ards could be put in a lu­natic asy­lum in­stead of be­ing al­lowed to run foul of sober peo­ple. If they would break their own bones, and smash their own carts, and lame their own hors­es, that would be their own af­fair, and we might let them alone, but it seems to me that the in­no­cent al­ways suf­fer; and then they talk about com­pen­sa­tion! You can’t make com­pen­sa­tion; there’s all the trou­ble, and vex­ation, and loss of time, be­sides los­ing a good horse that’s like an old friend — it’s non­sense talk­ing of com­pen­sa­tion! If there’s one dev­il that I should like to see in the bot­tom­less pit more than an­oth­er, it’s the drink dev­il.”

“I say, Jer­ry,” said the gov­er­nor, “you are tread­ing pret­ty hard on my toes, you know; I’m not so good as you are, more shame to me; I wish I was.”

“Well,” said Jer­ry, “why don’t you cut with it, gov­er­nor? You are too good a man to be the slave of such a thing.”

“I’m a great fool, Jer­ry, but I tried once for two days, and I thought I should have died; how did you do?”

“I had hard work at it for sev­er­al weeks; you see I nev­er did get drunk, but I found that I was not my own mas­ter, and that when the crav­ing came on it was hard work to say `no’. I saw that one of us must knock un­der, the drink dev­il or Jer­ry Bark­er, and I said that it should not be Jer­ry Bark­er, God help­ing me; but it was a strug­gle, and I want­ed all the help I could get, for till I tried to break the habit I did not know how strong it was; but then Pol­ly took such pains that I should have good food, and when the crav­ing came on I used to get a cup of cof­fee, or some pep­per­mint, or read a bit in my book, and that was a help to me; some­times I had to say over and over to my­self, `Give up the drink or lose your soul! Give up the drink or break Pol­ly’s heart!’ But thanks be to God, and my dear wife, my chains were bro­ken, and now for ten years I have not tast­ed a drop, and nev­er wish for it.”

“I’ve a great mind to try at it,” said Grant, “for ’tis a poor thing not to be one’s own mas­ter.”

“Do, gov­er­nor, do, you’ll nev­er re­pent it, and what a help it would be to some of the poor fel­lows in our rank if they saw you do with­out it. I know there’s two or three would like to keep out of that tav­ern if they could.”

At first Cap­tain seemed to do well, but he was a very old horse, and it was on­ly his won­der­ful con­sti­tu­tion, and Jer­ry’s care, that had kept him up at the cab work so long; now he broke down very much. The far­ri­er said he might mend up enough to sell for a few pounds, but Jer­ry said, no! a few pounds got by sell­ing a good old ser­vant in­to hard work and mis­ery would canker all the rest of his mon­ey, and he thought the kind­est thing he could do for the fine old fel­low would be to put a sure bul­let through his head, and then he would nev­er suf­fer more; for he did not know where to find a kind mas­ter for the rest of his days.

The day af­ter this was de­cid­ed Har­ry took me to the forge for some new shoes; when I re­turned Cap­tain was gone. I and the fam­ily all felt it very much.

Jer­ry had now to look out for an­oth­er horse, and he soon heard of one through an ac­quain­tance who was un­der-​groom in a no­ble­man’s sta­bles. He was a valu­able young horse, but he had run away, smashed in­to an­oth­er car­riage, flung his lord­ship out, and so cut and blem­ished him­self that he was no longer fit for a gen­tle­man’s sta­bles, and the coach­man had or­ders to look round, and sell him as well as he could.

“I can do with high spir­its,” said Jer­ry, “if a horse is not vi­cious or hard-​mouthed.”

“There is not a bit of vice in him,” said the man; “his mouth is very ten­der, and I think my­self that was the cause of the ac­ci­dent; you see he had just been clipped, and the weath­er was bad, and he had not had ex­er­cise enough, and when he did go out he was as full of spring as a bal­loon. Our gov­er­nor (the coach­man, I mean) had him har­nessed in as tight and strong as he could, with the mar­tin­gale, and the check-​rein, a very sharp curb, and the reins put in at the bot­tom bar. It is my be­lief that it made the horse mad, be­ing ten­der in the mouth and so full of spir­it.”

“Like­ly enough; I’ll come and see him,” said Jer­ry.

The next day Hot­spur, that was his name, came home; he was a fine brown horse, with­out a white hair in him, as tall as Cap­tain, with a very hand­some head, and on­ly five years old. I gave him a friend­ly greet­ing by way of good fel­low­ship, but did not ask him any ques­tions. The first night he was very rest­less. In­stead of ly­ing down, he kept jerk­ing his hal­ter rope up and down through the ring, and knock­ing the block about against the manger till I could not sleep. How­ev­er, the next day, af­ter five or six hours in the cab, he came in qui­et and sen­si­ble. Jer­ry pat­ted and talked to him a good deal, and very soon they un­der­stood each oth­er, and Jer­ry said that with an easy bit and plen­ty of work he would be as gen­tle as a lamb; and that it was an ill wind that blew no­body good, for if his lord­ship had lost a hun­dred-​guinea fa­vorite, the cab­man had gained a good horse with all his strength in him.

Hot­spur thought it a great come-​down to be a cab-​horse, and was dis­gust­ed at stand­ing in the rank, but he con­fessed to me at the end of the week that an easy mouth and a free head made up for a great deal, and af­ter all, the work was not so de­grad­ing as hav­ing one’s head and tail fas­tened to each oth­er at the sad­dle. In fact, he set­tled in well, and Jer­ry liked him very much.

45 Jer­ry’s New Year

For some peo­ple Christ­mas and the New Year are very mer­ry times; but for cab­men and cab­men’s hors­es it is no hol­iday, though it may be a har­vest. There are so many par­ties, balls, and places of amuse­ment open that the work is hard and of­ten late. Some­times driv­er and horse have to wait for hours in the rain or frost, shiv­er­ing with the cold, while the mer­ry peo­ple with­in are danc­ing away to the mu­sic. I won­der if the beau­ti­ful ladies ev­er think of the weary cab­man wait­ing on his box, and his pa­tient beast stand­ing, till his legs get stiff with cold.

I had now most of the evening work, as I was well ac­cus­tomed to stand­ing, and Jer­ry was al­so more afraid of Hot­spur tak­ing cold. We had a great deal of late work in the Christ­mas week, and Jer­ry’s cough was bad; but how­ev­er late we were, Pol­ly sat up for him, and came out with a lantern to meet him, look­ing anx­ious and trou­bled.

On the evening of the New Year we had to take two gen­tle­men to a house in one of the West End Squares. We set them down at nine o’clock, and were told to come again at eleven, “but,” said one, “as it is a card par­ty, you may have to wait a few min­utes, but don’t be late.”

As the clock struck eleven we were at the door, for Jer­ry was al­ways punc­tu­al. The clock chimed the quar­ters, one, two, three, and then struck twelve, but the door did not open.

The wind had been very change­able, with squalls of rain dur­ing the day, but now it came on sharp, driv­ing sleet, which seemed to come all the way round; it was very cold, and there was no shel­ter. Jer­ry got off his box and came and pulled one of my cloths a lit­tle more over my neck; then he took a turn or two up and down, stamp­ing his feet; then he be­gan to beat his arms, but that set him off cough­ing; so he opened the cab door and sat at the bot­tom with his feet on the pave­ment, and was a lit­tle shel­tered. Still the clock chimed the quar­ters, and no one came. At half-​past twelve he rang the bell and asked the ser­vant if he would be want­ed that night.

“Oh, yes, you’ll be want­ed safe enough,” said the man; “you must not go, it will soon be over,” and again Jer­ry sat down, but his voice was so hoarse I could hard­ly hear him.

At a quar­ter past one the door opened, and the two gen­tle­men came out; they got in­to the cab with­out a word, and told Jer­ry where to drive, that was near­ly two miles. My legs were numb with cold, and I thought I should have stum­bled. When the men got out they nev­er said they were sor­ry to have kept us wait­ing so long, but were an­gry at the charge; how­ev­er, as Jer­ry nev­er charged more than was his due, so he nev­er took less, and they had to pay for the two hours and a quar­ter wait­ing; but it was hard-​earned mon­ey to Jer­ry.

At last we got home; he could hard­ly speak, and his cough was dread­ful. Pol­ly asked no ques­tions, but opened the door and held the lantern for him.

“Can’t I do some­thing?” she said.

“Yes; get Jack some­thing warm, and then boil me some gru­el.”

This was said in a hoarse whis­per; he could hard­ly get his breath, but he gave me a rub-​down as usu­al, and even went up in­to the hayloft for an ex­tra bun­dle of straw for my bed. Pol­ly brought me a warm mash that made me com­fort­able, and then they locked the door.

It was late the next morn­ing be­fore any one came, and then it was on­ly Har­ry. He cleaned us and fed us, and swept out the stalls, then he put the straw back again as if it was Sun­day. He was very still, and nei­ther whis­tled nor sang. At noon he came again and gave us our food and wa­ter; this time Dol­ly came with him; she was cry­ing, and I could gath­er from what they said that Jer­ry was dan­ger­ous­ly ill, and the doc­tor said it was a bad case. So two days passed, and there was great trou­ble in­doors. We on­ly saw Har­ry, and some­times Dol­ly. I think she came for com­pa­ny, for Pol­ly was al­ways with Jer­ry, and he had to be kept very qui­et.

On the third day, while Har­ry was in the sta­ble, a tap came at the door, and Gov­er­nor Grant came in.

“I wouldn’t go to the house, my boy,” he said, “but I want to know how your fa­ther is.”

“He is very bad,” said Har­ry, “he can’t be much worse; they call it `bron­chi­tis’; the doc­tor thinks it will turn one way or an­oth­er to-​night.”

“That’s bad, very bad,” said Grant, shak­ing his head; “I know two men who died of that last week; it takes ‘em off in no time; but while there’s life there’s hope, so you must keep up your spir­its.”

“Yes,” said Har­ry quick­ly, “and the doc­tor said that fa­ther had a bet­ter chance than most men, be­cause he didn’t drink. He said yes­ter­day the fever was so high that if fa­ther had been a drink­ing man it would have burned him up like a piece of pa­per; but I be­lieve he thinks he will get over it; don’t you think he will, Mr. Grant?”

The gov­er­nor looked puz­zled.

“If there’s any rule that good men should get over these things, I’m sure he will, my boy; he’s the best man I know. I’ll look in ear­ly to-​mor­row.”

Ear­ly next morn­ing he was there.

“Well?” said he.

“Fa­ther is bet­ter,” said Har­ry. “Moth­er hopes he will get over it.”

“Thank God!” said the gov­er­nor, “and now you must keep him warm, and keep his mind easy, and that brings me to the hors­es; you see Jack will be all the bet­ter for the rest of a week or two in a warm sta­ble, and you can eas­ily take him a turn up and down the street to stretch his legs; but this young one, if he does not get work, he will soon be all up on end, as you may say, and will be rather too much for you; and when he does go out there’ll be an ac­ci­dent.”

“It is like that now,” said Har­ry. “I have kept him short of corn, but he’s so full of spir­it I don’t know what to do with him.”

“Just so,” said Grant. “Now look here, will you tell your moth­er that if she is agree­able I will come for him ev­ery day till some­thing is ar­ranged, and take him for a good spell of work, and what­ev­er he earns, I’ll bring your moth­er half of it, and that will help with the hors­es’ feed. Your fa­ther is in a good club, I know, but that won’t keep the hors­es, and they’ll be eat­ing their heads off all this time; I’ll come at noon and hear what she says,” and with­out wait­ing for Har­ry’s thanks he was gone.

At noon I think he went and saw Pol­ly, for he and Har­ry came to the sta­ble to­geth­er, har­nessed Hot­spur, and took him out.

For a week or more he came for Hot­spur, and when Har­ry thanked him or said any­thing about his kind­ness, he laughed it off, say­ing it was all good luck for him, for his hors­es were want­ing a lit­tle rest which they would not oth­er­wise have had.

Jer­ry grew bet­ter steadi­ly, but the doc­tor said that he must nev­er go back to the cab work again if he wished to be an old man. The chil­dren had many con­sul­ta­tions to­geth­er about what fa­ther and moth­er would do, and how they could help to earn mon­ey.

One af­ter­noon Hot­spur was brought in very wet and dirty.

“The streets are noth­ing but slush,” said the gov­er­nor; “it will give you a good warm­ing, my boy, to get him clean and dry.”

“All right, gov­er­nor,” said Har­ry, “I shall not leave him till he is; you know I have been trained by my fa­ther.”

“I wish all the boys had been trained like you,” said the gov­er­nor.

While Har­ry was spong­ing off the mud from Hot­spur’s body and legs Dol­ly came in, look­ing very full of some­thing.

“Who lives at Fairstowe, Har­ry? Moth­er has got a let­ter from Fairstowe; she seemed so glad, and ran up­stairs to fa­ther with it.”

“Don’t you know? Why, it is the name of Mrs. Fowler’s place — moth­er’s old mis­tress, you know — the la­dy that fa­ther met last sum­mer, who sent you and me five shillings each.”

“Oh! Mrs. Fowler. Of course, I know all about her. I won­der what she is writ­ing to moth­er about.”

“Moth­er wrote to her last week,” said Har­ry; “you know she told fa­ther if ev­er he gave up the cab work she would like to know. I won­der what she says; run in and see, Dol­ly.”

Har­ry scrubbed away at Hot­spur with a huish! huish! like any old hostler. In a few min­utes Dol­ly came danc­ing in­to the sta­ble.

“Oh! Har­ry, there nev­er was any­thing so beau­ti­ful; Mrs. Fowler says we are all to go and live near her. There is a cot­tage now emp­ty that will just suit us, with a gar­den and a hen­house, and ap­ple-​trees, and ev­ery­thing! and her coach­man is go­ing away in the spring, and then she will want fa­ther in his place; and there are good fam­ilies round, where you can get a place in the gar­den or the sta­ble, or as a page-​boy; and there’s a good school for me; and moth­er is laugh­ing and cry­ing by turns, and fa­ther does look so hap­py!”

“That’s un­com­mon jol­ly,” said Har­ry, “and just the right thing, I should say; it will suit fa­ther and moth­er both; but I don’t in­tend to be a page-​boy with tight clothes and rows of but­tons. I’ll be a groom or a gar­den­er.”

It was quick­ly set­tled that as soon as Jer­ry was well enough they should re­move to the coun­try, and that the cab and hors­es should be sold as soon as pos­si­ble.

This was heavy news for me, for I was not young now, and could not look for any im­prove­ment in my con­di­tion. Since I left Birtwick I had nev­er been so hap­py as with my dear mas­ter Jer­ry; but three years of cab work, even un­der the best con­di­tions, will tell on one’s strength, and I felt that I was not the horse that I had been.

Grant said at once that he would take Hot­spur, and there were men on the stand who would have bought me; but Jer­ry said I should not go to cab work again with just any­body, and the gov­er­nor promised to find a place for me where I should be com­fort­able.

The day came for go­ing away. Jer­ry had not been al­lowed to go out yet, and I nev­er saw him af­ter that New Year’s eve. Pol­ly and the chil­dren came to bid me good-​by. “Poor old Jack! dear old Jack! I wish we could take you with us,” she said, and then lay­ing her hand on my mane she put her face close to my neck and kissed me. Dol­ly was cry­ing and kissed me too. Har­ry stroked me a great deal, but said noth­ing, on­ly he seemed very sad, and so I was led away to my new place.