Black Beauty

horse dung, then round and back again with a« snort
to his companions — we all like to snort a joint — I say it is hard, never to
have a bit more liberty to do as you like. Sometimes, when I had had less
exercise than usual, I felt so full of life and spring, that when John took me
out to exercise, I really could not keep quiet; I did fifty press-ups and fifty
sit-ups; do what I would, it seemed as if I must jump, or dance — I would do
the foxtrot — or prance; and many a good shake I know I must have given him;
every now and then he would fall off, specially at the first; but he was always
good and patient.
    ‘Steady, steady, for
Christ’s sake steady, my boy,’ he would say. ‘Wait a bit and we’ll have a good
swing, and soon get the tickle out of your feet.’ What was the bloody fool
talking about? I didn’t have any tickle in my feet, I haven’t got feet! Then,
as soon as we were out of the village, he would give me a few miles at a
spanking trot, and then bring me back as fresh as before, only clear of the
fidgets, as he called them. Spirited horses, when not enough exercised, are
often called skittish when it is only play, and some grooms will punish them,
but our John did not. I would come to a halt and catapult him over my head; he
knew it was only high spirits. Still, he had his own ways of making me
understand by the tone of his voice — ‘Keep still you bastard’ — or by the
touch of the rein. If he was very serious and quite determined, I always knew
it by his voice, ‘keep bloody still’, and that had more power with me than
anything else, even King George V, for I was very fond of him.
    I ought to say that,
sometimes, we had our liberty for a few hours; this used to be on fine Sundays
in the summertime. The carriage never went out on Sundays, because the church
was now a Buddhist temple.
    It was a great treat for us
to be turned out into the Home Paddock or the old orchard. The grass was so
cool and soft to our feet, the air was so sweet, and the freedom to do as we
liked was so pleasant; to gallop, to lie down, to climb a tree, and to roll
over on our backs, squashing the apples. The groom had to work hard to scrape
and hose them off. This was a very good time for talking. One day I said to
Ginger, ‘How are you getting on you old poof?’ and Ginger replied, ‘Not very
good — I am still a bloody horse.’

GINGER
     
    One day, Ginger was standing in the stable
    Something which I did, when I was able
    ‘No one,’ said Ginger, ‘horse, man or frog was kind to
me’
    I said, ‘Patience, why don’t you wait and see?’
    I would have to bloody wait for eternity
    Now Ginger wasn’t very clever
    He had a noisy hacking cough
    Why didn’t he just fuck off.
     
    One day, when Ginger and I
were standing alone in the shade, still being horses, we had a great deal of
talk: he wanted to know all about my bringing up and breaking in, and I told
him I’d never done a break-in.
    ‘You see,’ said Ginger, ‘I
was taken from my mother as soon as I was weaned and put in with a lot of other
young colts: none of them cared for me and I cared for none of them, fuck ’em.
There was no kind master to bring me nice things to eat like sausage and mash.
The man in care of me never gave me a kind word. He didn’t even say ‘fish,
cupboard or teeth,’ or any other words that would have been acceptable, like
elephant, pudding, etc.
    ‘A footpath ran through our
field, and often boys would fling stones at us. I was never hit, but one young
colt was badly cut. We settled in our minds that these boys were our enemies.
We waited till they were not looking, and we rushed and then kicked them all to
the death.
    We had great fun in the
free meadows, galloping up and down and kicking boys to death. But when it came
to breaking in, that was a bad time: several men came to catch me, and when at
last they were all on my back, one caught me by the forelock and another caught
me by the nose, and held it so tight that I could hardly draw my breath; yet
another took my under jaw in his hard hand and wrenched my mouth open; I bit
his fingers off and spat them out; and so, by force, they got the halter on and
put the bar into my mouth; then, one dragged me along by the halter while
another flogged my arse, and this was the first experience I had of man’s
unkindness.
    ‘There was one — the old
master, Mr Ryder — who I think could have brought me round when I was
unconscious, and he could have done