Black Beauty

anything with me; he could have taught me
petit point, chair caning and cooking. His son was called Sampson and he
boasted he never found a horse that could throw him, so I did; I threw him in
the river. I threw him again and again, trampling on his head till it lost its shape.
    'I think he drank a great
deal — he leaked — and I am quite sure that the oftener he drank, the more he
leaked; he flooded the stables. One day, he worked me hard in every way,
digging ditches, chopping trees and mowing the grass. I was tired and miserable
and angry. Next day, he mounted me in a temper. I threw him off and rendered
him unconscious by landing him on his head. He, recovered consciousness,
remounted me and seemed determined to stay in the saddle as he used super glue
on the seat of his trousers; but I threw him, leaving the seat of his trousers
on the saddle.
    ‘At last, as the sun went
down, I saw the old master;, coming out with a sieve in his hand. He was a very
fine-old gentleman with a sieve in his hand. He had white hair, and his voice
had white hair. I should have known him amongst one thousand. Unfortunately he
was not standing in the middle of a thousand people, so I didn’t know him right
away. “Come along, lassie, come along, come along,” but I didn’t come along
lassie. What did he think I was, a dog? And hadn’t he seen the size of my
tackle? No, I let him come along to me. He led me back to the stable; as we
arrived, there was the bastard Sampson. I snapped at him and bit his ear off.
“Stand back,” said the master, “you’ve not learned your trade yet, Sampson.”
His trade was, in fact, a stone mason. Why an apprentice stone mason wanted to
learn to ride a horse seemed pretty pointless to me. In my stall, the old
master, mixed up a brandy and coke for me, which restored me no end. To Sampson
he said, “If you don’t break this horse in by fair means, she will never be
good for anything except a hotel porter.” ’

GINGER’S STORY CONTINUED
     
    The next time Ginger and I were in the paddock
    We had been sharing a six pound haddock
    He had been sold to a cruel man
    A real shit called Sadistic Stan
    To Ginger he was very cruel
    He treated him like a mule
    So Ginger started to try and bray
    Day, after day, after day
    It was a very good impression and eventually
    Ginger kicked him in the face
    And bits of him went all over the place
     
    Ginger was a chestnut horse
and he told me that a dealer had wanted another chestnut horse to match him,
but the only horse they had was white, so they painted it with three coats of
chestnut emulsion.
    ‘I had been driven with a
bearing rein by the dealer, and I hated it. I liked to toss my head about; I
would toss it m the air and catch it as it came down. I hated to stand waiting
by the hour for our mistress at some grand party 0r entertainment; they
wouldn’t let us sit down or lean against a lamp post.’
    ‘Did not your mistress take
any thought for you?’ I asked. ‘I mean, didn’t she send out a drink and
sandwiches?’
    ‘After this, I was sent to
Tattersall’s to be sold; I had a label on me saying “Horse for Sale”. A dealer
tried me in all kinds of ways — sitting on me, standing on me, laying on me. At
last they sold me for £3.00 to a gentleman in the country. His groom was hard
tempered and hard handed. If I did not move in the stall when he wanted me to,
he would hit me with his stable broom or feather duster, whichever came to
hand. He wanted me to be afraid of him, and so he wore a series of devil masks.
I bit a lump out of his arse. I made up my mind: men were natural enemies and I
must defend myself, even if that meant hiring a solicitor.’
    ‘I think it would be a real
shame if you were to bite or kick John or James or the King of England.’
    ‘I don’t mean to,’ he said.
‘I did bite James once pretty sharp — I took three fingers off him — but John
said “try him with kindness”. So, instead of punishing me, James, came to me
with his arm in a sling and served me a whisky and soda with some little cheesy
biscuits on a silver tray. I have never snapped at him since.’
    Master noticed the change
in Ginger — his paint was wearing off. One day, he came to speak to us, as he
often' did, and gave each of us a beautiful glass of Chablis.
    ‘Aye, aye, Jim, ’tis the
Birtwick balls,’ said John. ‘He’ll be as good as Nigger by and by; kindness is
all the physic he wants. All he needs is an occasional glass of