Black Beauty

MY EARLY HOME
     
    I will always remember my early stable
    We think of it when we are able
    My mother was a horse
    And, so was I, of course
    I always stayed close to my mother
    Because of horses, there were no other
    I drank my mother’s milk I recall
    Otherwise I would have got bugger all
    Oh yes, I remember when I was young
    Grassy meadows, flowers and dung.
     
    The first place that I can
well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water full of
frog spawn in which I nearly drowned. It would have been the first case of a
horse drowned in frogs’ spawn. Over the hedge on one side we looked on to a
ploughed field where a woman was pulling a plough with a man steering it,
occasionally striking the woman with a whip. It was a typical rural scene mixed
with wife-beating. On the other side, we looked over a gate at my master’s
house. If you stood the other side, you could see us looking at our master’s
house. At the bottom, a steep bank overhung a running brook. Girls with babies
born out of wedlock used to throw the babies in there to drown them.
    Whilst I was young I lived
on my mother’s milk because I could not eat grass. In the daytime I ran by her
side, and at night I lay down close by her side. When it was hot, we used to
stand by the pond in the shade, watching the children fall in and drown. When
it was cold, we had a nice warm shed.
    As soon as I was old enough
to eat grass, my mother used to stuff it down my throat until it kept coming
out the back. I went six times that day. She was a police horse and used to go
to riots and her master would bash people over their heads. I was so proud, I
couldn’t wait for the day when I had a rider who would bash people over the
head.
    I used to run with the
young colts. We would frequently bite and kick.
    One day there was a great
deal of kicking, one or two horses were kicked unconscious. My mother whinnied
to me and, as I had just been kicked unconscious as well, she ran toward me.
    ‘Pay attention to what I am
going to say’; so I paid attention. ‘The colts who live here are cart-horses,
and of course they have no manners. You have been well bred and well born; your
father had a great name in these parts. I hope you will grow up gentle and
good, lift your feet up when you trot, and never bite or kick.’
    I have never forgotten my
mother’s advice; I knew she was a wise old horse, and our master thought a
great deal of her. He thought of her when he was in the garden, he thought of
her when he was in bed, and he thought of her when he was in the kitchen. He
never thought of her when he was in the loo. Strange that. Her name was
Duchess.
    Our master was a good man,
sometimes he was a good woman. Strange that. He went to church every Sunday and
lit candles. Not much happened, except the church burnt down. When she saw him
at the gate, she would neigh with joy, and trot up to him. He would pat and
stroke her and say, ‘How is your little Darkie?’ I was a dull black. He would
give me a piece of dry bread, the mean bugger, and sometimes he brought a
carrot for my mother. Why did she do this grovelling for a bloody carrot? My
mother always took him to the town on market day in a little gig.
    There was a ploughboy
called Dick who sometimes came into our field to pluck blackberries. When he had
eaten all he wanted, he would have ‘fun’ with the colts, throwing stones,
bricks and sticks to make them gallop. We did not much mind him, for we could
gallop off; but sometimes a stone would hit and hurt us.
    One day, he had just thrown
a brick at my head; the master was in the next field watching, and catching
Dick by the arm and his private parts, he gave him such a box on the ear and a
kick up the arse. We never saw Dick any more but we heard that he joined the
French Foreign Legion and was killed by an Arab who threw a brick at him. Old
Daniel, who looked after the horses, was just as gentle as our master, so we
were well-off.

THE HUNT
     
    One day a hunt galloped thru
    That is a thing they used to do
    As the hunt galloped by
    ‘Get the bastard,’ was their cry
    Who the bastard was they did not say
    And we never found out to this very day
    In fact they were chasing a hare
    The trouble was, it wasn’t there
    Frustrated, they chased a rat
    But they didn’t even catch that.
     
    Before I was two years old,
something happened which I have never forgot. It was early in the spring; there
must have been a little frost in the night and a light