Black Beauty

and fell down, after giving me a severe blow on my
near quarter. There is no knowing what further mischief he might have done, had
not York promptly sat himself down flat on his head.
    ‘Unbuckle the black horse!
Cut the trace here, somebody, if you can’t unhitch it.’
    One of the footmen ran for
the winch, and another brought a knife from the house. The groom soon set me
free from Ginger and the carriage, and led me to my box.
    Ginger, the bugger, was led
away by two grooms, a good deal knocked about and bruised. York went with him
and gave his orders, and then came back to look at me. In a moment, he let down
my head.
    ‘Well, old chap,’ York
said, ‘you have taken a real beating.’
    He felt me all over, and
soon found the place above my hock where I had been kicked. It was swollen and
painful, and he ordered it to be sponged with hot water. A lot of bloody good
that did.
    His lordship was much put
out when he learned what had happened. He blamed York for giving way to his
mistress, to which he replied that in future he would much prefer his lordship
to tell her, but I think nothing came of it because things went on the same as
before, except the mistress split his lordship’s head with an iron bar.
    Ginger was never put in the
carriage again. One of the lordship’s younger sons said he would like to have
him and make him a good hunter. As for me, I was obliged still to go in the
carriage and had a fresh partner called Max; he had always been used to the
tight rein. I asked him how it was he bore it.
    ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I bear it
because I bloody well have to, but it is shortening my life, and it will
shorten yours too, if you have to stick to it.’
    ‘Do you think,’ I asked,
‘that our masters know how bad it is for us?’
    ‘I can’t say,’ he replied,
so he did not say.
    What I suffered with that
rein for four long months in my lady’s carriage! Before that, I never knew what
it was to foam at the mouth, but now people saw it and shouted, ‘rabies!’ We
did have a stable boy who foamed at the mouth; he had rabies and they shot him.

24

THE LADY ANNE
     
    I became the favourite of Lady Anne
    She was built like a brick shit house with a face like a
man
    She got me out, each freezing dawn
    And I wished to Christ I’d never been born
    But now of course
    I was pissed off being a horse
    Why wasn’t I born a cheetah
    Then I could eat her.
     
    The Lady Harriet, who
remained at the Hall, was a great invalid; she became an official invalid and
never went out in the carriage, only on a stretcher. Lady Anne preferred riding
horseback with her brother, or cousins. They were, in fact, all a collection of
louts. She chose me for her brother and cousins, and named me Black Auster. I
enjoyed these rides very much in the clear cold air, sometimes with Ginger,
sometimes with Lizzie. This Lizzie was a bright bay mare, almost thoroughbred,
and a great favourite with the gentlemen on account of her fine action and
lively spirit.
    There was a gentleman by
the name of Blantyre staying at the Hall who always rode Lizzie and fucked Lady
Anne and praised her so much that one day, Lady Anne ordered the side saddle to
be put on and Lord Blantyre mounted, and slid off.
    ‘Let me advise you not to
mount her,’ he said, ‘she is a charming creature, but she’s too nervous for a
lady.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Lady Anne, ‘I
have been a horsewoman ever since I was a baby.’
    ‘No more,’ he said.
    He placed her carefully on
the saddle and gave the reins gently into her hands, then mounted me. Just as
we were moving off, a footman came out with a foot and a slip of paper and a
message from the Lady Harriet — ‘Would they ask this question for her at Dr
Ashley’s and bring the answer?’
    The village was about a
mile off, and the doctor’s house was the last one in it. We went along gaily
till we came to his gate. Blantyre alighted at the gate, and was going to open
it for Lady Anne, but she said, ‘I will wait for you here, and you can hang
Auster’s rein on the gate.’ He hung my rein on one of the iron spikes, and was
soon hidden amongst the trees. My young mistress was sitting easily, humming a
little song:
    ‘I’ve got a lovely bunch of
coconuts, see them all standing in a row, big ones, small ones, someone’s been
in your head.’
    Suddenly, a huntsman in the
field discharged a gun. The horse gave a violent kick and dashed off in a
headlong gallop. Blantyre came running to the gate; in an instant