Black Beauty

to a penny, and looking at us as if we were pickpockets
(cough, gob, cough, cough, cough, gob).’ The men who stood round much approved
his speech and his display of coughing and gobbing.
    My master had taken no part
in this conversation. He was willing to take the part of Joseph of Nazareth,
but nobody had asked him.
    A few mornings after this
talk, a new man came on the stand with Sam’s cab.
    ‘Halloo!’ said one, ‘what’s
up with Seedy Sam?’
    ‘He’s ill in bed,’ said the
man. ‘His wife sent a boy this morning to say his father was in a high fever
and could not get out.’
    The next morning the same
man came again.
    ‘How is Sam?’ enquired the
Governor.
    ‘He’s gone,’ said the man.
    ‘What? He’s gone without
telling us? That’s not fair.’
    ‘He died at four o’clock
this morning, then five, then six; finally, at eight, he snuffed it. All
yesterday he was raving (cough, cough), raving (cough, cough), raving (cough,
cough).’
    The Governor said, ‘I tell
you what, mates, this is a warning for us. If we want to go on working, we must
avoid death.’

40

POOR GINGER
     
    One day, I saw a horse in a state
    I thought I better wait
    It turned out to be Ginger, my friend
    He was coming to a terrible end
    He threw his legs around me and cried
    ‘Oh, I wish I’d died’
    His tears flooded the floor
    I was forced to say, ‘Stop crying, no more
    We’re drowning by the score.’
     
    One day, a shabby old cab
drove up beside ours. The horse was an old worn-out chestnut, with an ill-kept
coat; you could see the lining, and bones that showed plainly through it. The
knees knuckled over, and the forelegs were very unsteady. He was the worst case
of horseitis I had ever seen. I had been eating some hay, and the wind rolled a
little lock of it that way, and the poor creature put out his long thin neck
and picked it up. There was a hopeless look in the dull eye that I could not
help noticing, and then, as I was thinking, he looked full at me and said,
‘Black Beauty, is that you?’
    It was Ginger! But how
changed! The beautifully arched and glossy neck was now straight and lank, and
fallen in; the clean straight legs and delicate fetlocks were swelled; the
joints were grown out of shape with hard work; the face, that was once so full
of spirit and life, was now full of suffering, and I could tell by the heaving
of his sides, and his frequent cough, how bad his breath was. It was the worst
case of horse halitosis I had ever known. It was a sad tale that he had to
tell.
    After twelve months at
Earlshall, he was considered to be fit for work again. In this way he changed
hands several times, but always getting lower down.
    I said, ‘You used to stand
up for yourself if you were ill-used, and kick them in the balls.’
    ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘I did once;
no, wait, I did it fifteen times. I wish the end would come, I wish I was dead.
I wish I may drop down dead at my work.’
    I waited for him to drop
dead, but he didn’t. He said, ‘I don’t feel like dropping dead today.’
    A short time after this, a
cart with a dead horse in it passed. The head hung out of the cart-tail, the
lifeless tongue was slowly dripping with blood; and the sunken eyes! He would
soon be a dinner in some French restaurant. It was a chestnut horse with a long
thin neck. Wait! I saw a white streak down the forehead. It was Ginger;
I hoped it was, for then his troubles would be over. Soon, he would be a tin of
cat food.

41

THE BUTCHER
     
    The butcher was a prompt man
    Delivering meat by horse or van
    His delivery boy rode them very fast
    The butcher said, ‘If you go on like this he won’t last’
    The boy said, ‘I have to deliver on time
    I have to, so the customer can dine
    If only they’d order in advance
    We wouldn’t lead this merry dance’
    So he bought the boy a bike
    ‘I hope,’ said the butcher, ‘this is something he’ll
like.’
     
    We horses do not mind hard
work if we are treated with a dinner at the Savoy, or taken to a music hall. I
am sure that many are driven by quite poor men who have had a happier life.
    It often went to my heart
to see how the little ponies were used, straining along with heavy loads,
wearing a truss over their hernias. We saw one doing his best to pull a heavy
cart back to Africa with ten elephants.
     
    Pulling ten elephants back to Africa
    For a little ruptured horse is much too far
    Try, try, try as they may
    They’ll be lucky to get as far as Herne Bay
    The ruptured