Black Beauty

‘Alfred, the stable smells rather strong. I’d say it was shit. Should
not you give that stall a good scrub, and throw down plenty of water?’
    ‘Well, sir,’ he said,
touching his cap, ‘throwing down water in a horse’s box, they are very apt to
take cold, sir.’
    ‘Well,’ said the master, ‘I
should not like him to take cold, but I don’t like the smell of horse shit; do
you think the drains are all right?’
    ‘Well, sir, now you mention
it, the drain does sometimes send back a smell; there may be something wrong,
sir.’
    ‘Then send for a
bricklayer,’ said the master.
    The bricklayer came and
pulled up a great many bricks and found nothing amiss; so he put down some lime
and charged the master five shillings, and the smell in my box was as bad as
ever. Mind you some of the smell was Alfred Smirk. Standing, as I did, on a
quantity of my own crap, my feet grew unhealthy and tender, and the master used
to say:
    ‘I don’t know what is the
matter with this horse, he goes very fumble-footed.’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ said Alfred, ‘I
have noticed the same myself.’ The bastard.
    Now the fact was, he hardly
ever exercised me, except for knee-bends and press-ups. This often disordered
my stomach, and sometimes made me heavy and dull with the shits, but more often
restless and feverish. I had to take horse balls and draughts, which, beside
the nuisance of having them poured down my throat, used to make me feel ill and
uncomfortable, and more shits.
    My master stopped at the
farrier’s and asked him to see what was the matter with me. The man took up my
feet one by one and examined them; then, standing up, he said:
    ‘Your horse has got the
thrush, and badly too.’
    Not only had I got thrush,
but badly, too.
    ‘If you will send him here
tomorrow, I will attend to the hoof.’
    The next day I had my feet
thoroughly cleansed and stuffed with tow soaked in some strong Harpic, and a
very unpleasant business it was.
    With this treatment, I soon
regained my spirits, and threw my master. Mr Barry was so much disgusted at
being twice deceived by his groom that I was therefore sold again. My master
poured petrol on Alfred Smirk’s balls and set fire to them.

32

A HORSE FAIR
     
    I had a ‘Horse for Sale’ ticket tied on me
    A man called Jim said, ‘I’ll give £23 for thee’
    Master said, ‘you will have to up your offer, Jim’
    ‘Up yours,’ replied Jim
    Then he walked away
    And has never been seen again to this day.
     
    No doubt, a horse fair is
an amusing place to those who have nothing to lose; if they do lose something
they just have to go and look for it.
    Long strings of young
horses out of the country, droves of shaggy little Welsh ponies who all played
rugby, and hundreds of cart horses, some of them with their long tails braided
up and tied with scarlet cord. Round in the background there were a number of
poor things, sadly worn down with hard work as if there was no more pleasure in
life for them. They were all, in fact, being sold for dog food. There were some
so thin, you could see inside them.
    There was a great deal of
bargaining; a man pulled open my mouth, and then looked at my eyes. With my
mouth open, they could see straight away through to the coast of France. One
man came to bid for me. He was very quick with his motions, and I never knew
exactly where they were. He had that lovely clean smell of somebody who always
used Sunlight soap, as if he had just come from a laundry. He offered £23
pounds for me; but that was refused, and he walked away. I looked after him. A
very hard-looking man with acne came; I was very afraid that he would have me,
but he walked off. Just then, the grey-eyed man came back again. I could not
help reaching out my head towards him.
    ‘Well, old chap,’ he said,
‘I think we should suit each other. I’ll give twenty-four for him.’
    ‘Say twenty-five and you
shall have him.’
    ‘Twenty-four ten,’ said my
friend, ‘and not another sixpence, yes or no?’
    ‘Done,’ said the salesman,
‘and you may depend upon it: there’s a monstrous deal of quality in that
horse.’
    The money was paid on the
spot; it was a spot of three inches in diameter. He led me to an inn called The
Flat Hedgehog, gave me a good feed of oats, and stood by whilst I ate it,
talking to himself, and to a tree. Half-an-hour after, we were on our way to
London, through pleasant lanes and flooded roads. Half-an-hour later, we came
to the great London thoroughfare on