Black Beauty

Part IV

46 Jakes and the La­dy

I was sold to a corn deal­er and bak­er, whom Jer­ry knew, and with him he thought I should have good food and fair work. In the first he was quite right, and if my mas­ter had al­ways been on the premis­es I do not think I should have been over­load­ed, but there was a fore­man who was al­ways hur­ry­ing and driv­ing ev­ery one, and fre­quent­ly when I had quite a full load he would or­der some­thing else to be tak­en on. My carter, whose name was Jakes, of­ten said it was more than I ought to take, but the oth­er al­ways over­ruled him. “‘Twas no use go­ing twice when once would do, and he chose to get busi­ness for­ward.”

Jakes, like the oth­er carters, al­ways had the check-​rein up, which pre­vent­ed me from draw­ing eas­ily, and by the time I had been there three or four months I found the work telling very much on my strength.

One day I was load­ed more than usu­al, and part of the road was a steep up­hill. I used all my strength, but I could not get on, and was obliged con­tin­ual­ly to stop. This did not please my driv­er, and he laid his whip on bad­ly. “Get on, you lazy fel­low,” he said, “or I’ll make you.”

Again I start­ed the heavy load, and strug­gled on a few yards; again the whip came down, and again I strug­gled for­ward. The pain of that great cart whip was sharp, but my mind was hurt quite as much as my poor sides. To be pun­ished and abused when I was do­ing my very best was so hard it took the heart out of me. A third time he was flog­ging me cru­el­ly, when a la­dy stepped quick­ly up to him, and said in a sweet, earnest voice:

“Oh! pray do not whip your good horse any more; I am sure he is do­ing all he can, and the road is very steep; I am sure he is do­ing his best.”

“If do­ing his best won’t get this load up he must do some­thing more than his best; that’s all I know, ma’am,” said Jakes.

“But is it not a heavy load?” she said.

“Yes, yes, too heavy,” he said; “but that’s not my fault; the fore­man came just as we were start­ing, and would have three hun­dred­weight more put on to save him trou­ble, and I must get on with it as well as I can.”

He was rais­ing the whip again, when the la­dy said:

“Pray, stop; I think I can help you if you will let me.”

The man laughed.

“You see,” she said, “you do not give him a fair chance; he can­not use all his pow­er with his head held back as it is with that check-​rein; if you would take it off I am sure he would do bet­ter — do try it,” she said per­sua­sive­ly, “I should be very glad if you would.”

“Well, well,” said Jakes, with a short laugh, “any­thing to please a la­dy, of course. How far would you wish it down, ma’am?”

“Quite down, give him his head al­to­geth­er.”

The rein was tak­en off, and in a mo­ment I put my head down to my very knees. What a com­fort it was! Then I tossed it up and down sev­er­al times to get the aching stiff­ness out of my neck.

“Poor fel­low! that is what you want­ed,” said she, pat­ting and stroking me with her gen­tle hand; “and now if you will speak kind­ly to him and lead him on I be­lieve he will be able to do bet­ter.”

Jakes took the rein. “Come on, Black­ie.” I put down my head, and threw my whole weight against the col­lar; I spared no strength; the load moved on, and I pulled it steadi­ly up the hill, and then stopped to take breath.

The la­dy had walked along the foot­path, and now came across in­to the road. She stroked and pat­ted my neck, as I had not been pat­ted for many a long day.

“You see he was quite will­ing when you gave him the chance; I am sure he is a fine-​tem­pered crea­ture, and I dare say has known bet­ter days. You won’t put that rein on again, will you?” for he was just go­ing to hitch it up on the old plan.

“Well, ma’am, I can’t de­ny that hav­ing his head has helped him up the hill, and I’ll re­mem­ber it an­oth­er time, and thank you, ma’am; but if he went with­out a check-​rein I should be the laugh­ing-​stock of all the carters; it is the fash­ion, you see.”

“Is it not bet­ter,” she said, “to lead a good fash­ion than to fol­low a bad one? A great many gen­tle­men do not use check-​reins now; our car­riage hors­es have not worn them for fif­teen years, and work with much less fa­tigue than those who have them; be­sides,” she added in a very se­ri­ous voice, “we have no right to dis­tress any of God’s crea­tures with­out a very good rea­son; we call them dumb an­imals, and so they are, for they can­not tell us how they feel, but they do not suf­fer less be­cause they have no words. But I must not de­tain you now; I thank you for try­ing my plan with your good horse, and I am sure you will find it far bet­ter than the whip. Good-​day,” and with an­oth­er soft pat on my neck she stepped light­ly across the path, and I saw her no more.

“That was a re­al la­dy, I’ll be bound for it,” said Jakes to him­self; “she spoke just as po­lite as if I was a gen­tle­man, and I’ll try her plan, up­hill, at any rate;” and I must do him the jus­tice to say that he let my rein out sev­er­al holes, and go­ing up­hill af­ter that, he al­ways gave me my head; but the heavy loads went on. Good feed and fair rest will keep up one’s strength un­der full work, but no horse can stand against over­load­ing; and I was get­ting so thor­ough­ly pulled down from this cause that a younger horse was bought in my place. I may as well men­tion here what I suf­fered at this time from an­oth­er cause. I had heard hors­es speak of it, but had nev­er my­self had ex­pe­ri­ence of the evil; this was a bad­ly-​light­ed sta­ble; there was on­ly one very small win­dow at the end, and the con­se­quence was that the stalls were al­most dark.

Be­sides the de­press­ing ef­fect this had on my spir­its, it very much weak­ened my sight, and when I was sud­den­ly brought out of the dark­ness in­to the glare of day­light it was very painful to my eyes. Sev­er­al times I stum­bled over the thresh­old, and could scarce­ly see where I was go­ing.

I be­lieve, had I stayed there very long, I should have be­come pur­blind, and that would have been a great mis­for­tune, for I have heard men say that a stone-​blind horse was safer to drive than one which had im­per­fect sight, as it gen­er­al­ly makes them very timid. How­ev­er, I es­caped with­out any per­ma­nent in­jury to my sight, and was sold to a large cab own­er.

47 Hard Times

My new mas­ter I shall nev­er for­get; he had black eyes and a hooked nose, his mouth was as full of teeth as a bull-​dog’s, and his voice was as harsh as the grind­ing of cart wheels over grav­eled stones. His name was Nicholas Skin­ner, and I be­lieve he was the man that poor Seedy Sam drove for.

I have heard men say that see­ing is be­liev­ing; but I should say that feel­ing is be­liev­ing; for much as I had seen be­fore, I nev­er knew till now the ut­ter mis­ery of a cab-​horse’s life.

Skin­ner had a low set of cabs and a low set of drivers; he was hard on the men, and the men were hard on the hors­es. In this place we had no Sun­day rest, and it was in the heat of sum­mer.

Some­times on a Sun­day morn­ing a par­ty of fast men would hire the cab for the day; four of them in­side and an­oth­er with the driv­er, and I had to take them ten or fif­teen miles out in­to the coun­try, and back again; nev­er would any of them get down to walk up a hill, let it be ev­er so steep, or the day ev­er so hot — un­less, in­deed, when the driv­er was afraid I should not man­age it, and some­times I was so fevered and worn that I could hard­ly touch my food. How I used to long for the nice bran mash with niter in it that Jer­ry used to give us on Sat­ur­day nights in hot weath­er, that used to cool us down and make us so com­fort­able. Then we had two nights and a whole day for un­bro­ken rest, and on Mon­day morn­ing we were as fresh as young hors­es again; but here there was no rest, and my driv­er was just as hard as his mas­ter. He had a cru­el whip with some­thing so sharp at the end that it some­times drew blood, and he would even whip me un­der the bel­ly, and flip the lash out at my head. In­dig­ni­ties like these took the heart out of me ter­ri­bly, but still I did my best and nev­er hung back; for, as poor Gin­ger said, it was no use; men are the strongest.

My life was now so ut­ter­ly wretched that I wished I might, like Gin­ger, drop down dead at my work and be out of my mis­ery, and one day my wish very near­ly came to pass.

I went on the stand at eight in the morn­ing, and had done a good share of work, when we had to take a fare to the rail­way. A long train was just ex­pect­ed in, so my driv­er pulled up at the back of some of the out­side cabs to take the chance of a re­turn fare. It was a very heavy train, and as all the cabs were soon en­gaged ours was called for. There was a par­ty of four; a noisy, blus­ter­ing man with a la­dy, a lit­tle boy and a young girl, and a great deal of lug­gage. The la­dy and the boy got in­to the cab, and while the man or­dered about the lug­gage the young girl came and looked at me.

“Pa­pa,” she said, “I am sure this poor horse can­not take us and all our lug­gage so far, he is so very weak and worn up. Do look at him.”

“Oh! he’s all right, miss,” said my driv­er, “he’s strong enough.”

The porter, who was pulling about some heavy box­es, sug­gest­ed to the gen­tle­man, as there was so much lug­gage, whether he would not take a sec­ond cab.

“Can your horse do it, or can’t he?” said the blus­ter­ing man.

“Oh! he can do it all right, sir; send up the box­es, porter; he could take more than that;” and he helped to haul up a box so heavy that I could feel the springs go down.

“Pa­pa, pa­pa, do take a sec­ond cab,” said the young girl in a be­seech­ing tone. “I am sure we are wrong, I am sure it is very cru­el.”

“Non­sense, Grace, get in at once, and don’t make all this fuss; a pret­ty thing it would be if a man of busi­ness had to ex­am­ine ev­ery cab-​horse be­fore he hired it — the man knows his own busi­ness of course; there, get in and hold your tongue!”

My gen­tle friend had to obey, and box af­ter box was dragged up and lodged on the top of the cab or set­tled by the side of the driv­er. At last all was ready, and with his usu­al jerk at the rein and slash of the whip he drove out of the sta­tion.

The load was very heavy and I had had nei­ther food nor rest since morn­ing; but I did my best, as I al­ways had done, in spite of cru­el­ty and in­jus­tice.

I got along fair­ly till we came to Ludgate Hill; but there the heavy load and my own ex­haus­tion were too much. I was strug­gling to keep on, goad­ed by con­stant chucks of the rein and use of the whip, when in a sin­gle mo­ment — I can­not tell how — my feet slipped from un­der me, and I fell heav­ily to the ground on my side; the sud­den­ness and the force with which I fell seemed to beat all the breath out of my body. I lay per­fect­ly still; in­deed, I had no pow­er to move, and I thought now I was go­ing to die. I heard a sort of con­fu­sion round me, loud, an­gry voic­es, and the get­ting down of the lug­gage, but it was all like a dream. I thought I heard that sweet, piti­ful voice say­ing, “Oh! that poor horse! it is all our fault.” Some one came and loos­ened the throat strap of my bri­dle, and un­did the traces which kept the col­lar so tight up­on me. Some one said, “He’s dead, he’ll nev­er get up again.” Then I could hear a po­lice­man giv­ing or­ders, but I did not even open my eyes; I could on­ly draw a gasp­ing breath now and then. Some cold wa­ter was thrown over my head, and some cor­dial was poured in­to my mouth, and some­thing was cov­ered over me. I can­not tell how long I lay there, but I found my life com­ing back, and a kind-​voiced man was pat­ting me and en­cour­ag­ing me to rise. Af­ter some more cor­dial had been giv­en me, and af­ter one or two at­tempts, I stag­gered to my feet, and was gen­tly led to some sta­bles which were close by. Here I was put in­to a well-​lit­tered stall, and some warm gru­el was brought to me, which I drank thank­ful­ly.

In the evening I was suf­fi­cient­ly re­cov­ered to be led back to Skin­ner’s sta­bles, where I think they did the best for me they could. In the morn­ing Skin­ner came with a far­ri­er to look at me. He ex­am­ined me very close­ly and said:

“This is a case of over­work more than dis­ease, and if you could give him a run off for six months he would be able to work again; but now there is not an ounce of strength left in him.”

“Then he must just go to the dogs,” said Skin­ner. “I have no mead­ows to nurse sick hors­es in — he might get well or he might not; that sort of thing don’t suit my busi­ness; my plan is to work ‘em as long as they’ll go, and then sell ‘em for what they’ll fetch, at the knack­er’s or else­where.”

“If he was bro­ken-​wind­ed,” said the far­ri­er, “you had bet­ter have him killed out of hand, but he is not; there is a sale of hors­es com­ing off in about ten days; if you rest him and feed him up he may pick up, and you may get more than his skin is worth, at any rate.”

Up­on this ad­vice Skin­ner, rather un­will­ing­ly, I think, gave or­ders that I should be well fed and cared for, and the sta­ble man, hap­pi­ly for me, car­ried out the or­ders with a much bet­ter will than his mas­ter had in giv­ing them. Ten days of per­fect rest, plen­ty of good oats, hay, bran mash­es, with boiled lin­seed mixed in them, did more to get up my con­di­tion than any­thing else could have done; those lin­seed mash­es were de­li­cious, and I be­gan to think, af­ter all, it might be bet­ter to live than go to the dogs. When the twelfth day af­ter the ac­ci­dent came, I was tak­en to the sale, a few miles out of Lon­don. I felt that any change from my present place must be an im­prove­ment, so I held up my head, and hoped for the best.

48 Farmer Thor­ough­good and His Grand­son Willie

At this sale, of course I found my­self in com­pa­ny with the old bro­ken-​down hors­es — some lame, some bro­ken-​wind­ed, some old, and some that I am sure it would have been mer­ci­ful to shoot.

The buy­ers and sell­ers, too, many of them, looked not much bet­ter off than the poor beasts they were bar­gain­ing about. There were poor old men, try­ing to get a horse or a pony for a few pounds, that might drag about some lit­tle wood or coal cart. There were poor men try­ing to sell a worn-​out beast for two or three pounds, rather than have the greater loss of killing him. Some of them looked as if pover­ty and hard times had hard­ened them all over; but there were oth­ers that I would have will­ing­ly used the last of my strength in serv­ing; poor and shab­by, but kind and hu­man, with voic­es that I could trust. There was one tot­ter­ing old man who took a great fan­cy to me, and I to him, but I was not strong enough — it was an anx­ious time! Com­ing from the bet­ter part of the fair, I no­ticed a man who looked like a gen­tle­man farmer, with a young boy by his side; he had a broad back and round shoul­ders, a kind, rud­dy face, and he wore a broad-​brimmed hat. When he came up to me and my com­pan­ions he stood still and gave a piti­ful look round up­on us. I saw his eye rest on me; I had still a good mane and tail, which did some­thing for my ap­pear­ance. I pricked my ears and looked at him.

“There’s a horse, Willie, that has known bet­ter days.”

“Poor old fel­low!” said the boy, “do you think, grand­pa­pa, he was ev­er a car­riage horse?”

“Oh, yes! my boy,” said the farmer, com­ing clos­er, “he might have been any­thing when he was young; look at his nos­trils and his ears, the shape of his neck and shoul­der; there’s a deal of breed­ing about that horse.” He put out his hand and gave me a kind pat on the neck. I put out my nose in an­swer to his kind­ness; the boy stroked my face.

“Poor old fel­low! see, grand­pa­pa, how well he un­der­stands kind­ness. Could not you buy him and make him young again as you did with La­dy­bird?”

“My dear boy, I can’t make all old hors­es young; be­sides, La­dy­bird was not so very old, as she was run down and bad­ly used.”

“Well, grand­pa­pa, I don’t be­lieve that this one is old; look at his mane and tail. I wish you would look in­to his mouth, and then you could tell; though he is so very thin, his eyes are not sunk like some old hors­es’.”

The old gen­tle­man laughed. “Bless the boy! he is as horsey as his old grand­fa­ther.”

“But do look at his mouth, grand­pa­pa, and ask the price; I am sure he would grow young in our mead­ows.”

The man who had brought me for sale now put in his word.

“The young gen­tle­man’s a re­al know­ing one, sir. Now the fact is, this ‘ere hoss is just pulled down with over­work in the cabs; he’s not an old one, and I heerd as how the vete­nary should say, that a six months’ run off would set him right up, be­ing as how his wind was not bro­ken. I’ve had the tend­ing of him these ten days past, and a grate­fuller, pleas­an­ter an­imal I nev­er met with, and ‘twould be worth a gen­tle­man’s while to give a five-​pound note for him, and let him have a chance. I’ll be bound he’d be worth twen­ty pounds next spring.”

The old gen­tle­man laughed, and the lit­tle boy looked up ea­ger­ly.

“Oh, grand­pa­pa, did you not say the colt sold for five pounds more than you ex­pect­ed? You would not be poor­er if you did buy this one.”

The farmer slow­ly felt my legs, which were much swelled and strained; then he looked at my mouth. “Thir­teen or four­teen, I should say; just trot him out, will you?”

I arched my poor thin neck, raised my tail a lit­tle, and threw out my legs as well as I could, for they were very stiff.

“What is the low­est you will take for him?” said the farmer as I came back.

“Five pounds, sir; that was the low­est price my mas­ter set.”

“‘Tis a spec­ula­tion,” said the old gen­tle­man, shak­ing his head, but at the same time slow­ly draw­ing out his purse, “quite a spec­ula­tion! Have you any more busi­ness here?” he said, count­ing the sovereigns in­to his hand.

“No, sir, I can take him for you to the inn, if you please.”

“Do so, I am now go­ing there.”

They walked for­ward, and I was led be­hind. The boy could hard­ly con­trol his de­light, and the old gen­tle­man seemed to en­joy his plea­sure. I had a good feed at the inn, and was then gen­tly rid­den home by a ser­vant of my new mas­ter’s, and turned in­to a large mead­ow with a shed in one cor­ner of it.

Mr. Thor­ough­good, for that was the name of my bene­fac­tor, gave or­ders that I should have hay and oats ev­ery night and morn­ing, and the run of the mead­ow dur­ing the day, and, “you, Willie,” said he, “must take the over­sight of him; I give him in charge to you.”

The boy was proud of his charge, and un­der­took it in all se­ri­ous­ness. There was not a day when he did not pay me a vis­it; some­times pick­ing me out from among the oth­er hors­es, and giv­ing me a bit of car­rot, or some­thing good, or some­times stand­ing by me while I ate my oats. He al­ways came with kind words and ca­ress­es, and of course I grew very fond of him. He called me Old Crony, as I used to come to him in the field and fol­low him about. Some­times he brought his grand­fa­ther, who al­ways looked close­ly at my legs.

“This is our point, Willie,” he would say; “but he is im­prov­ing so steadi­ly that I think we shall see a change for the bet­ter in the spring.”

The per­fect rest, the good food, the soft turf, and gen­tle ex­er­cise, soon be­gan to tell on my con­di­tion and my spir­its. I had a good con­sti­tu­tion from my moth­er, and I was nev­er strained when I was young, so that I had a bet­ter chance than many hors­es who have been worked be­fore they came to their full strength. Dur­ing the win­ter my legs im­proved so much that I be­gan to feel quite young again. The spring came round, and one day in March Mr. Thor­ough­good de­ter­mined that he would try me in the phaeton. I was well pleased, and he and Willie drove me a few miles. My legs were not stiff now, and I did the work with per­fect ease.

“He’s grow­ing young, Willie; we must give him a lit­tle gen­tle work now, and by mid-​sum­mer he will be as good as La­dy­bird. He has a beau­ti­ful mouth and good paces; they can’t be bet­ter.”

“Oh, grand­pa­pa, how glad I am you bought him!”

“So am I, my boy; but he has to thank you more than me; we must now be look­ing out for a qui­et, gen­teel place for him, where he will be val­ued.”

49 My Last Home

One day dur­ing this sum­mer the groom cleaned and dressed me with such ex­traor­di­nary care that I thought some new change must be at hand; he trimmed my fet­locks and legs, passed the tar­brush over my hoofs, and even part­ed my fore­lock. I think the har­ness had an ex­tra pol­ish. Willie seemed half-​anx­ious, half-​mer­ry, as he got in­to the chaise with his grand­fa­ther.

“If the ladies take to him,” said the old gen­tle­man, “they’ll be suit­ed and he’ll be suit­ed. We can but try.”

At the dis­tance of a mile or two from the vil­lage we came to a pret­ty, low house, with a lawn and shrub­bery at the front and a drive up to the door. Willie rang the bell, and asked if Miss Blome­field or Miss Ellen was at home. Yes, they were. So, while Willie stayed with me, Mr. Thor­ough­good went in­to the house. In about ten min­utes he re­turned, fol­lowed by three ladies; one tall, pale la­dy, wrapped in a white shawl, leaned on a younger la­dy, with dark eyes and a mer­ry face; the oth­er, a very state­ly-​look­ing per­son, was Miss Blome­field. They all came and looked at me and asked ques­tions. The younger la­dy — that was Miss Ellen — took to me very much; she said she was sure she should like me, I had such a good face. The tall, pale la­dy said that she should al­ways be ner­vous in rid­ing be­hind a horse that had once been down, as I might come down again, and if I did she should nev­er get over the fright.

“You see, ladies,” said Mr. Thor­ough­good, “many first-​rate hors­es have had their knees bro­ken through the care­less­ness of their drivers with­out any fault of their own, and from what I see of this horse I should say that is his case; but of course I do not wish to in­flu­ence you. If you in­cline you can have him on tri­al, and then your coach­man will see what he thinks of him.”

“You have al­ways been such a good ad­vis­er to us about our hors­es,” said the state­ly la­dy, “that your rec­om­men­da­tion would go a long way with me, and if my sis­ter Lavinia sees no ob­jec­tion we will ac­cept your of­fer of a tri­al, with thanks.”

It was then ar­ranged that I should be sent for the next day.

In the morn­ing a smart-​look­ing young man came for me. At first he looked pleased; but when he saw my knees he said in a dis­ap­point­ed voice:

“I didn’t think, sir, you would have rec­om­mend­ed my ladies a blem­ished horse like that.”

“`Hand­some is that hand­some does’,” said my mas­ter; “you are on­ly tak­ing him on tri­al, and I am sure you will do fair­ly by him, young man. If he is not as safe as any horse you ev­er drove send him back.”

I was led to my new home, placed in a com­fort­able sta­ble, fed, and left to my­self. The next day, when the groom was clean­ing my face, he said:

“That is just like the star that `Black Beau­ty’ had; he is much the same height, too. I won­der where he is now.”

A lit­tle fur­ther on he came to the place in my neck where I was bled and where a lit­tle knot was left in the skin. He al­most start­ed, and be­gan to look me over care­ful­ly, talk­ing to him­self.

“White star in the fore­head, one white foot on the off side, this lit­tle knot just in that place;” then look­ing at the mid­dle of my back — “and, as I am alive, there is that lit­tle patch of white hair that John used to call `Beau­ty’s three-​pen­ny bit’. It must be `Black Beau­ty’! Why, Beau­ty! Beau­ty! do you know me? — lit­tle Joe Green, that al­most killed you?” And he be­gan pat­ting and pat­ting me as if he was quite over­joyed.

I could not say that I re­mem­bered him, for now he was a fine grown young fel­low, with black whiskers and a man’s voice, but I was sure he knew me, and that he was Joe Green, and I was very glad. I put my nose up to him, and tried to say that we were friends. I nev­er saw a man so pleased.

“Give you a fair tri­al! I should think so in­deed! I won­der who the ras­cal was that broke your knees, my old Beau­ty! you must have been bad­ly served out some­where; well, well, it won’t be my fault if you haven’t good times of it now. I wish John Man­ly was here to see you.”

In the af­ter­noon I was put in­to a low park chair and brought to the door. Miss Ellen was go­ing to try me, and Green went with her. I soon found that she was a good driv­er, and she seemed pleased with my paces. I heard Joe telling her about me, and that he was sure I was Squire Gor­don’s old “Black Beau­ty”.

When we re­turned the oth­er sis­ters came out to hear how I had be­haved my­self. She told them what she had just heard, and said:

“I shall cer­tain­ly write to Mrs. Gor­don, and tell her that her fa­vorite horse has come to us. How pleased she will be!”

Af­ter this I was driv­en ev­ery day for a week or so, and as I ap­peared to be quite safe, Miss Lavinia at last ven­tured out in the small close car­riage. Af­ter this it was quite de­cid­ed to keep me and call me by my old name of “Black Beau­ty”.

I have now lived in this hap­py place a whole year. Joe is the best and kind­est of grooms. My work is easy and pleas­ant, and I feel my strength and spir­its all com­ing back again. Mr. Thor­ough­good said to Joe the oth­er day:

“In your place he will last till he is twen­ty years old — per­haps more.”

Willie al­ways speaks to me when he can, and treats me as his spe­cial friend. My ladies have promised that I shall nev­er be sold, and so I have noth­ing to fear; and here my sto­ry ends. My trou­bles are all over, and I am at home; and of­ten be­fore I am quite awake, I fan­cy I am still in the or­chard at Birtwick, stand­ing with my old friends un­der the ap­ple-​trees.

End of this Project Guten­berg Etext of Black Beau­ty