Black Beauty (3 page)

I was quite happy in my new place, and if there was one thing
that I missed it must not be thought I was discontented; all who
had to do with me were good and I had a light airy stable and the
best of food. What more could I want? Why, liberty! For three years
and a half of my life I had had all the liberty I could wish for;
but now, week after week, month after month, and no doubt year
after year, I must stand up in a stable night and day except when I
am wanted, and then I must be just as steady and quiet as any old
horse who has worked twenty years. Straps here and straps there, a
bit in my mouth, and blinkers over my eyes. Now, I am not
complaining, for I know it must be so. I only mean to say that for
a young horse full of strength and spirits, who has been used to
some large field or plain where he can fling up his head and toss
up his tail and gallop away at full speed, then round and back
again with a snort to his companions—I say it is hard never to have
a bit more liberty to do as you like. Sometimes, when I have had
less exercise than usual, I have felt so full of life and spring
that when John has taken me out to exercise I really could not keep
quiet; do what I would, it seemed as if I must jump, or dance, or
prance, and many a good shake I know I must have given him,
especially at the first; but he was always good and patient.

"Steady, steady, my boy," he would say; "wait a bit, and we will
have a good swing, and soon get the tickle out of your feet." Then
as soon as we were out of the village, he would give me a few miles
at a spanking trot, and then bring me back as fresh as before, only
clear of the fidgets, as he called them. Spirited horses, when not
enough exercised, are often called skittish, when it is only play;
and some grooms will punish them, but our John did not; he knew it
was only high spirits. Still, he had his own ways of making me
understand by the tone of his voice or the touch of the rein. If he
was very serious and quite determined, I always knew it by his
voice, and that had more power with me than anything else, for I
was very fond of him.

I ought to say that sometimes we had our liberty for a few
hours; this used to be on fine Sundays in the summer-time. The
carriage never went out on Sundays, because the church was not far
off.

It was a great treat to us to be turned out into the home
paddock or the old orchard; the grass was so cool and soft to our
feet, the air so sweet, and the freedom to do as we liked was so
pleasant—to gallop, to lie down, and roll over on our backs, or to
nibble the sweet grass. Then it was a very good time for talking,
as we stood together under the shade of the large chestnut
tree.

One day when Ginger and I were standing alone in the shade, we
had a great deal of talk; she wanted to know all about my bringing
up and breaking in, and I told her.

"Well," said she, "if I had had your bringing up I might have
had as good a temper as you, but now I don't believe I ever
shall."

"Why not?" I said.

"Because it has been all so different with me," she replied. "I
never had any one, horse or man, that was kind to me, or that I
cared to please, for in the first place I was taken from my mother
as soon as I was weaned, and put with a lot of other young colts;
none of them cared for me, and I cared for none of them. There was
no kind master like yours to look after me, and talk to me, and
bring me nice things to eat. The man that had the care of us never
gave me a kind word in my life. I do not mean that he ill-used me,
but he did not care for us one bit further than to see that we had
plenty to eat, and shelter in the winter. A footpath ran through
our field, and very often the great boys passing through would
fling stones to make us gallop. I was never hit, but one fine young
colt was badly cut in the face, and I should think it would be a
scar for life. We did not care for them, but of course it made us
more wild, and we settled it in our minds that boys were our
enemies. We had very good fun in the free meadows, galloping up and
down and chasing each other round and round the field; then
standing still under the shade of the trees. But when it came to
breaking in, that was a bad time for me; several men came to catch
me, and when at last they closed me in at one corner of the field,
one caught me by the forelock, another caught me by the nose and
held it so tight I could hardly draw my breath; then another took
my under jaw in his hard hand and wrenched my mouth open, and so by
force they got on the halter and the bar into my mouth; then one
dragged me along by the halter, another flogging behind, and this
was the first experience I had of men's kindness; it was all force.
They did not give me a chance to know what they wanted. I was high
bred and had a great deal of spirit, and was very wild, no doubt,
and gave them, I dare say, plenty of trouble, but then it was
dreadful to be shut up in a stall day after day instead of having
my liberty, and I fretted and pined and wanted to get loose. You
know yourself it's bad enough when you have a kind master and
plenty of coaxing, but there was nothing of that sort for me.

"There was one—the old master, Mr. Ryder—who, I think, could
soon have brought me round, and could have done anything with me;
but he had given up all the hard part of the trade to his son and
to another experienced man, and he only came at times to oversee.
His son was a strong, tall, bold man; they called him Samson, and
he used to boast that he had never found a horse that could throw
him. There was no gentleness in him, as there was in his father,
but only hardness, a hard voice, a hard eye, a hard hand; and I
felt from the first that what he wanted was to wear all the spirit
out of me, and just make me into a quiet, humble, obedient piece of
horseflesh. 'Horseflesh'! Yes, that is all that he thought about,"
and Ginger stamped her foot as if the very thought of him made her
angry. Then she went on:

"If I did not do exactly what he wanted he would get put out,
and make me run round with that long rein in the training field
till he had tired me out. I think he drank a good deal, and I am
quite sure that the oftener he drank the worse it was for me. One
day he had worked me hard in every way he could, and when I lay
down I was tired, and miserable, and angry; it all seemed so hard.
The next morning he came for me early, and ran me round again for a
long time. I had scarcely had an hour's rest, when he came again
for me with a saddle and bridle and a new kind of bit. I could
never quite tell how it came about; he had only just mounted me on
the training ground, when something I did put him out of temper,
and he chucked me hard with the rein. The new bit was very painful,
and I reared up suddenly, which angered him still more, and he
began to flog me. I felt my whole spirit set against him, and I
began to kick, and plunge, and rear as I had never done before, and
we had a regular fight; for a long time he stuck to the saddle and
punished me cruelly with his whip and spurs, but my blood was
thoroughly up, and I cared for nothing he could do if only I could
get him off. At last after a terrible struggle I threw him off
backward. I heard him fall heavily on the turf, and without looking
behind me, I galloped off to the other end of the field; there I
turned round and saw my persecutor slowly rising from the ground
and going into the stable. I stood under an oak tree and watched,
but no one came to catch me. The time went on, and the sun was very
hot; the flies swarmed round me and settled on my bleeding flanks
where the spurs had dug in. I felt hungry, for I had not eaten
since the early morning, but there was not enough grass in that
meadow for a goose to live on. I wanted to lie down and rest, but
with the saddle strapped tightly on there was no comfort, and there
was not a drop of water to drink. The afternoon wore on, and the
sun got low. I saw the other colts led in, and I knew they were
having a good feed.

"At last, just as the sun went down, I saw the old master come
out with a sieve in his hand. He was a very fine old gentleman with
quite white hair, but his voice was what I should know him by among
a thousand. It was not high, nor yet low, but full, and clear, and
kind, and when he gave orders it was so steady and decided that
every one knew, both horses and men, that he expected to be obeyed.
He came quietly along, now and then shaking the oats about that he
had in the sieve, and speaking cheerfully and gently to me: 'Come
along, lassie, come along, lassie; come along, come along.' I stood
still and let him come up; he held the oats to me, and I began to
eat without fear; his voice took all my fear away. He stood by,
patting and stroking me while I was eating, and seeing the clots of
blood on my side he seemed very vexed. 'Poor lassie! it was a bad
business, a bad business;' then he quietly took the rein and led me
to the stable; just at the door stood Samson. I laid my ears back
and snapped at him. 'Stand back,' said the master, 'and keep out of
her way; you've done a bad day's work for this filly.' He growled
out something about a vicious brute. 'Hark ye,' said the father, 'a
bad-tempered man will never make a good-tempered horse. You've not
learned your trade yet, Samson.' Then he led me into my box, took
off the saddle and bridle with his own hands, and tied me up; then
he called for a pail of warm water and a sponge, took off his coat,
and while the stable-man held the pail, he sponged my sides a good
while, so tenderly that I was sure he knew how sore and bruised
they were. 'Whoa! my pretty one,' he said, 'stand still, stand
still.' His very voice did me good, and the bathing was very
comfortable. The skin was so broken at the corners of my mouth that
I could not eat the hay, the stalks hurt me. He looked closely at
it, shook his head, and told the man to fetch a good bran mash and
put some meal into it. How good that mash was! and so soft and
healing to my mouth. He stood by all the time I was eating,
stroking me and talking to the man. 'If a high-mettled creature
like this,' said he, 'can't be broken by fair means, she will never
be good for anything.'

"After that he often came to see me, and when my mouth was
healed the other breaker, Job, they called him, went on training
me; he was steady and thoughtful, and I soon learned what he
wanted."

The next time that Ginger and I were together in the paddock she
told me about her first place.

"After my breaking in," she said, "I was bought by a dealer to
match another chestnut horse. For some weeks he drove us together,
and then we were sold to a fashionable gentleman, and were sent up
to London. I had been driven with a check-rein by the dealer, and I
hated it worse than anything else; but in this place we were reined
far tighter, the coachman and his master thinking we looked more
stylish so. We were often driven about in the park and other
fashionable places. You who never had a check-rein on don't know
what it is, but I can tell you it is dreadful.

"I like to toss my head about and hold it as high as any horse;
but fancy now yourself, if you tossed your head up high and were
obliged to hold it there, and that for hours together, not able to
move it at all, except with a jerk still higher, your neck aching
till you did not know how to bear it. Besides that, to have two
bits instead of one—and mine was a sharp one, it hurt my tongue and
my jaw, and the blood from my tongue colored the froth that kept
flying from my lips as I chafed and fretted at the bits and rein.
It was worst when we had to stand by the hour waiting for our
mistress at some grand party or entertainment, and if I fretted or
stamped with impatience the whip was laid on. It was enough to
drive one mad."

"Did not your master take any thought for you?" I said.

"No," said she, "he only cared to have a stylish turnout, as
they call it; I think he knew very little about horses; he left
that to his coachman, who told him I had an irritable temper! that
I had not been well broken to the check-rein, but I should soon get
used to it; but he was not the man to do it, for when I was in the
stable, miserable and angry, instead of being smoothed and quieted
by kindness, I got only a surly word or a blow. If he had been
civil I would have tried to bear it. I was willing to work, and
ready to work hard too; but to be tormented for nothing but their
fancies angered me. What right had they to make me suffer like
that? Besides the soreness in my mouth, and the pain in my neck, it
always made my windpipe feel bad, and if I had stopped there long I
know it would have spoiled my breathing; but I grew more and more
restless and irritable, I could not help it; and I began to snap
and kick when any one came to harness me; for this the groom beat
me, and one day, as they had just buckled us into the carriage, and
were straining my head up with that rein, I began to plunge and
kick with all my might. I soon broke a lot of harness, and kicked
myself clear; so that was an end of that place.

"After this I was sent to Tattersall's to be sold; of course I
could not be warranted free from vice, so nothing was said about
that. My handsome appearance and good paces soon brought a
gentleman to bid for me, and I was bought by another dealer; he
tried me in all kinds of ways and with different bits, and he soon
found out what I could not bear. At last he drove me quite without
a check-rein, and then sold me as a perfectly quiet horse to a
gentleman in the country; he was a good master, and I was getting
on very well, but his old groom left him and a new one came. This
man was as hard-tempered and hard-handed as Samson; he always spoke
in a rough, impatient voice, and if I did not move in the stall the
moment he wanted me, he would hit me above the hocks with his
stable broom or the fork, whichever he might have in his hand.
Everything he did was rough, and I began to hate him; he wanted to
make me afraid of him, but I was too high-mettled for that, and one
day when he had aggravated me more than usual I bit him, which of
course put him in a great rage, and he began to hit me about the
head with a riding whip. After that he never dared to come into my
stall again; either my heels or my teeth were ready for him, and he
knew it. I was quite quiet with my master, but of course he
listened to what the man said, and so I was sold again.

"The same dealer heard of me, and said he thought he knew one
place where I should do well. ''Twas a pity,' he said, 'that such a
fine horse should go to the bad, for want of a real good chance,'
and the end of it was that I came here not long before you did; but
I had then made up my mind that men were my natural enemies and
that I must defend myself. Of course it is very different here, but
who knows how long it will last? I wish I could think about things
as you do; but I can't, after all I have gone through."

"Well," I said, "I think it would be a real shame if you were to
bite or kick John or James."

"I don't mean to," she said, "while they are good to me. I did
bite James once pretty sharp, but John said, 'Try her with
kindness,' and instead of punishing me as I expected, James came to
me with his arm bound up, and brought me a bran mash and stroked
me; and I have never snapped at him since, and I won't either."

I was sorry for Ginger, but of course I knew very little then,
and I thought most likely she made the worst of it; however, I
found that as the weeks went on she grew much more gentle and
cheerful, and had lost the watchful, defiant look that she used to
turn on any strange person who came near her; and one day James
said, "I do believe that mare is getting fond of me, she quite
whinnied after me this morning when I had been rubbing her
forehead."

"Ay, ay, Jim, 'tis 'the Birtwick balls'," said John, "she'll be
as good as Black Beauty by and by; kindness is all the physic she
wants, poor thing!" Master noticed the change, too, and one day
when he got out of the carriage and came to speak to us, as he
often did, he stroked her beautiful neck. "Well, my pretty one,
well, how do things go with you now? You are a good bit happier
than when you came to us, I think."

She put her nose up to him in a friendly, trustful way, while he
rubbed it gently.

"We shall make a cure of her, John," he said.

"Yes, sir, she's wonderfully improved; she's not the same
creature that she was; it's 'the Birtwick balls', sir," said John,
laughing.

This was a little joke of John's; he used to say that a regular
course of "the Birtwick horseballs" would cure almost any vicious
horse; these balls, he said, were made up of patience and
gentleness, firmness and petting, one pound of each to be mixed up
with half a pint of common sense, and given to the horse every
day.