Black Beauty

children’s sake: there
are many places where good drivers or good grooms are wanted; and if ever you
think you ought to give up this cab work, let me know.’ She put something into
his hand saying, ‘There is five shillings each for the two children; Polly will
know how to spend it.’
    He kissed her shoes, and
seemed much pleased, and, turning out of the station, we at last reached home,
and I, at least, was tired.

44

OLD CAPTAIN AND HIS SUCCESSOR
     
    Oh, terrible crash with a brewer’s dray
    It happened on a clear sunny day
    It had crashed into a cab horse
    And injured it of course
    Old Captain was the victim of the crash
    He came out in a nervous rash
    The brewer had to pay compensation to Captain’s master
    For the brewer, it was a financial disaster.
     
    Captain and Jeremiah Barker
had taken a party to the great railway station over London Bridge; the cab was
full; it was the Labour Party; and, coming back, the Conservative Party mined
the train.
    Somewhere between the
Bridge and the Monument, Jeremiah saw a brewer’s dray coming along, drawn by
two powerful horses. The drayman was lashing his horses with his heavy whip;
they started off at a furious rate, at 100 miles per hour; the man had no
control over them, and the street was full of traffic; they were now travelling
at 102 miles per hour; one young girl was knocked down and run over, and the
next moment they dashed up against our cab; both the wheels were torn off, the
cab was thrown over and the Labour Party were thrown out. Captain was dragged
down, the shafts splintered, and one of them ran into his backside. My master,
too, was thrown, but was only bruised; nobody could tell how he escaped; he
always said ’twas a miracle.
    When poor Captain was got
up, Jerry led him home gently, and a sad sight it was to see the blood soaking
into his white coat; they were catching it in a bucket and pouring it back in
the hole it came out, so they plugged the leak with a cork. The drayman was
proved to be very drunk, and was fined ten pounds and asked for time to pay.
While he was waiting to pay, they hung him, and the brewer had to pay damages
to our master. But there was no one to pay damages to poor Captain.
    The farrier did the best he
could to ease his pain and make him comfortable; they put him up at the Savoy.
The fly had to be mended, and for several days I did not go out, and Jeremiah
earned nothing. The first time we went to the stand after the accident, the
Governor came up to hear how Captain was.
    ‘He’ll never get over it,’
said Jerry, ‘at least not for my work, so the farrier said this morning. He
says he may do for carting and that sort of work. If there’s one devil that I
should like to see in the bottomless pit more than another, it’s the drink
devil.’
    ‘I say,’ said the Governor,
‘I’m not so abstemious as you are, more shame for me.’
    ‘Well,’ said Jeremiah, ‘why
don’t you cut with it, Governor? You are too good a man to be the slave to the
drink.’
    ‘I’m a great fool, Jerry;
but I tried once for two days, and I thought I should have died: to stop me
dying, I drank a bottle of whisky; how did you do it?’
    ‘I had hard work at it for
several weeks; you see, I never did get drunk, but I found that I was not my
own master, and that when the craving came on, I’d take off all my clothes and
run a mile. I had to say over and over to myself, “Give up the drink or lose
your soul.” Then off I’d run another nude mile. But, thanks be to God and my
dear wife, my chains were broken, and now for ten years I have not tasted a
drop. But just in case, I still run a mile in the nude. Now I wish I’d never
given up!’
    ‘I’ve a great mind to try
it,’ said the Governor, ‘for ’tis a poor thing not to be one’s own master.’ So
off he went on a run for a mile in the nude.
    At first, Captain seemed to
do well, but he was a very old horse, and it was only his wonderful
constitution, and his convalescence at the Savoy, that kept him up at the
cab-work so long; now he broke down and had to be towed away. The farrier said
he might mend up enough to sell for a few pounds, but Jeremiah said, ‘no!’ and
he thought the kindest thing he could do for the fine old fellow would be to
put a bullet through his head; he would make jolly good cat food.
    The day after this was
decided, Harry took me to the forge for some new shoes; when I returned Captain
was gone, but on the farrier’s shelf was sixty tins of cat