Black Beauty

three voices. ‘Stand back, make way!’ My master
didn’t stand back and the fire engines ran over him. James helped him to his
feet but he was covered with muck and dung and embers from his smouldering
trousers. The fireman put the hose on him, and blew him out the door. , There
was a dreadful sound; it was that of the horses I falling from the top floor.
We were taken in and well done by, with firemen playing their hoses on us all
night.
    The next morning, the master
came to see how we f were; we were soaked. James looked very happy after a
visit to his mistress. His mistress was much alarmed in the night with James
climbing into bed with her. Then the under ostler — there was one under ostler
and one on top — said he had asked Dick go up the ladder to put down some hay,
but told him to lay down his pipe first. Dick denied that his pipe had started
the fire.
    Two poor horses that
couldn’t get out were cooked to a nicety, and then exported to some French
restaurants.

17

JOHN MANLY’S TALE
     
    We went to visit a friend.
    Whose life was reaching its end
    Master came to say good-bye
    And advised him to try and not die
    His doctor had said he would live for twenty years
    So he need have no fears
    So he got out of his bed
    And stood on his head
    But the blood burst a vessel in his brain
    And he immediately died yet again.
     
    The rest of our journey was
very easy — we got a lift on a wagon. A little after sunset, we reached the
house of my master’s friend. We were taken into a clean, snug stable and a kind
coachman made us very comfortable. He had put in armchairs and curtains.
    ‘Your horses know who they
can trust.’
    ‘Yes, they could trust
Queen Victoria and her ghillie John Brown who was giving it to her,’ said
James. ‘The hardest thing in the world is to get horses out of the stable when
there is a fire, flood, earthquake, hurricane, thunderstorm, plague, leprosy
and toothache.’
    We stopped two or three
days at this place, and the stable girls gave us a relief massage. Before James
left us for the night he said, ‘I wonder who is coming in my place.’
    ‘Little Joe Green at the
Lodge,’ said John.
    ‘Little Joe Green! Why he’s
a child!’
    ‘He is fourteen and a
half,’ said John, ‘he is small, quick, and willing as well, and you don’t tread
on him. He is kindhearted too, his kidneys are kindhearted, and he has a
kindhearted liver too. We were agreeable to try him for six weeks.’
    ‘Just six weeks?’ said
James. ‘He won’t even grow an inch in that time.’
    ‘I was never afraid of work
yet,’ said John, ‘yet I am afraid of lions.’
    ‘I’m frightened of ducks,’
said James, ‘but I’m not afraid of lions, not as long as they stay in Africa.’
    ‘I’ll just tell you how I
look on these things. I was just as old as Joseph when my father and mother
died of the fever, within ten days of each other. We laid odds on them as to
who would go first. My father did, and I won £5.00. Then I was left with my
crippled sister Nelly. Alone in the world, without a relation; I was a farmer’s
boy not earning enough to keep myself, much less the both of us. But our
mistress (Nelly calls her an angel, and she has good right to do so), went and
hired a room for her with old widow Mallet, and she gave her knitting and
needlework. She taught her plumbing and made her re-plumb the house. The
trouble was, when we turned the gas taps on, we got fountains of water, but out
of the water tap we got gas, so we used to cook on that upside down. The master
took me to the house where I had my food, my bed in the loft, a suit of clothes
and three shillings a week so that I could help Nelly. Nelly couldn’t help me,
so I pushed her over a cliff. Nelly, who had climbed back up the cliff, was as
happy as a bird. So you see, James, I’m not the man that should turn up his
nose at a little boy. If you did, he would be able to see up it.’
    ‘Then,’ said James, ‘you
don’t hold with that saying: “Everybody look after himself?” ’
    ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘fuck
everyone else.’
    James laughed at this, then
he said, ‘You have been my best friend, except for my mother; I hope you won’t
forget me.’
    ‘No, lad, no!’ said John,
‘and if ever I can do you a good turn, I hope you won’t forget me.’
    ‘No, no, no, what’s your
name again?’
    The next day Joe came to
the stables to learn all he could before James left. He learned to sweep the
stable and to bring in the